The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (4 page)

I slept. Sleep was freedom, sleep passed the time, and sleep conserved energy. That was the pattern of my months—sleep, forage, explore. In that order. Until sleep began to present its own difficulties in the form of dreams.

At first they were innocent enough. I would dream of silly things: a birthday with honeyed oatcakes, an inn I once stayed at in Elam that served barley-stuffed mushrooms in wine sauce. I dreamed of food: leg of lamb, roast hare, boiled cloudroot smothered in butter and garlic, fried bankfish . . . I feasted in my dreams and starved all day.

Slowly my dreams turned to something different.

Murmuring, muttering, whispering, sharp cries, and long silences intruded on my dreams. I knew even in the midst of them that these things did not originate in any part of my mind or spirit. I crouched, and trembled, and woke sweating and cold despite the sweltering summer heat. Something was moving through my mind as I slept. I could feel its enormous power, and its agony.

Was it Holgren, somehow reaching out to me? Did it have something to do with this place, the Tabernacle, or the death lands? I didn’t know. I just wanted it to stop. After these dreams started, I began to stave off sleep for as long as I could.

I suppose that contributed to my going a little mad, the final straw. I’d been rambling round the edges of the city, never too close to the Tabernacle of course, exploring. Poking around out of boredom, finding mostly stone. Except, people of any age think alike; they tend to hide their valuables in much the same spots—under loose hearth stones and tiles, behind thin plaster, buried in gardens. Eventually I gathered enough to buy a fine manse just off the Promenade in Lucernis three or four times over. Unfortunately you can’t eat gold or jewels. You can’t bribe magic-mad monsters. No amount of wealth was going to buy me out of this trap.

One day I started flinging all that wealth out into the jungle, handful after handful of coins, gems, jewelry. I know I was screaming something, but I have no idea what. It might not even have been words.

When the last coin was gone, I just dropped down on the cobbles and cried, letting loose great honking sobs of despair. There was nobody to see or hear me except those malevolent, ever-present eyes in the jungle.

The seasons changed and changed again before I saw another human being. A certain type of bitter nut had come into season and I was high up in a tree, shaking one of the nut-laden branches fiercely when a glint caught my eye from the jungle across the square. The habit of years took over and I went still. I felt exposed up there, though I was above the normal line of sight. I stayed in the tree. Most of my body was concealed by leaves and branches. I lay still along the branch and watched the wall of jungle, straining my hearing.

Faintly I heard cursing in the Gosland dialect. That vile death land foliage trembled, twisted. Through it broke the head and neck of a mule, ears laid flat. It lunged and stumbled onto the loose cobbles of the square, a huge pack on its back, trailing a sweating man in chain mail.

“
Stupid beast!” he shouted at the mule. Then he stopped abruptly, looked around, and called back over his shoulder, “Here! We are here! Tell the Duke, Iorn!” I heard a muffled reply, and the man in chain mail cursed the mule further into the square. Behind him came shouts and laughter, and a troop of soldiers.

Chapter 2

In all, some twenty men and twice as many mules emerged from the death lands. They looked tired and travel worn. They were also remarkably alive. That fact was far less interesting to me then than the rations I knew some of those mules were carrying. Just thinking about salt pork and trail bread made my mouth water. I was afraid they’d hear my stomach rumble from across the square. I swallowed my saliva, pressed my free hand against the hollow of my stomach, and held still.

One man stood out from the rest. Where the others led mules, he rode a beautiful bay gelding. Where the others wore chain mail, he had on gold-washed half-plate. Everything about him screamed nobility. The Duke of Viborg, I presumed. He sat there astride his horse and took a long, lingering look at his surroundings. The back of my neck went cold, and I held absolutely still: not breathing, not blinking. His eyes slid past me. For the first time in months I forgot my hunger.

He dismounted, and I saw he wasn’t a tall man. He wore his thinning blond hair shoulder length, loose, and where the others of his party were dirty and deeply tanned, he was pale, his clothing and armor spotless. I disliked him immediately.

The party began to spread out around the square, pulling packs from mules, drinking water from skins, pulling off boots, taking a cursory look at their surroundings. Almost immediately the Duke spoke quietly to one of the men, presumably the officer in charge, and the man began shouting orders.

“
No time to gawk and lollygag, you bastards! Keep ’em moving. We’ll camp in front of the temple, and that not a moment before the city has been reconnoitered. Move!”

The soldiers complied hastily, if not happily. As they made their way further into the city, they passed me by without a single glance up. When they’d gone a safe distance on, I slipped out of my tree, gathered up a few nuts in the tattered tails of my shirt, and slunk off to a secure, out-of-the-way spot on the opposite side of the city.

Six months I’d gone without seeing another soul. Here was my first and probably my only chance to escape Thagoth. I should have been thinking about these things, about how they could have made their way through the death lands—about securing some of their food, at the very least. Instead I thought about the Duke. What I’d sensed from him across the square.

I’d felt power rolling off him in waves, power I’d only felt from Holgren when he was actively working magic. I felt another sensation gnawing at my gut as I slunk away that afternoon: Fear.

Several pairs of hate-filled eyes followed me as I paced a few yards away from the border of the death lands. They were intent, and malignant, and patient. I had no doubt that if I were to stick a hand or a foot past that invisible boundary, it would be bitten off, or worse. The Duke and his men had to have some sort of protection that allowed them to pass safely through to the city. What was it? I beat my palm against my forehead, willing myself to think. What could it be? Magical, almost certainly. A spell laid on them? Where would they find anyone powerful or skilled enough to cast it? The Duke himself? Unlikely. Something to counter the death lands would be beyond even him.

I continued to pace, ignoring the now-familiar monsters who tracked my every move. Not a spell, then. Some sort of artifact? If so, it could be almost anything, take virtually any form. Whatever it was, it was small enough to carry on a person or in baggage—I’d noticed nothing unusual. Something as important as that would almost certainly not be left on the back of a mule. They’d want it safe, defensible.

The Duke would want it near to hand, a reassurance.

The Duke who feared death would never let it out of his possession, traveling through the death lands.

I stopped pacing, sat down and finished my dinner of nuts and grubs. I usually feel better when I know who I have to rob. Not this time. I was out of my depth, and knew it.

I crept through the camp toward where the Duke slept—he was ensconced in a silk tent while his men, those not on watch, lay wrapped in blankets on the ground. After the death lands, Thagoth must have seemed like an oasis of peace and sanity to them. They weren’t particularly watchful, which suited me.

The approaching storm also suited me. Great gray-walled clouds with lightning in their hearts already blotted out the eastern sky and were advancing rapidly on the city. With any luck I would be able to use the breaking storm to cover my retreat if things got dicey. I just needed to get in and get the talisman before the storm woke his grace.

On my belly, I inched my way across the cobbled square in front of the Tabernacle gates to the back wall of the tent. I pulled the knife from my forearm sheath, covering the motion to prevent any stray glint of light.

Slowly, carefully, and most of all quietly, I parted the silk of the tent just enough to allow access. In the distance, thunder rumbled, and I heard an answering groan inside the tent. I cursed silently. Of course the Duke had to be a light sleeper.

I slipped into the tent. I didn’t know where the talisman was, or what it looked like. I did know human nature, and I knew where people tended to secure their valuables.

Working quickly and by touch in the darkness, I went through the contents of the tent. A cursory inspection of the Duke’s packs yielded nothing. There was little else that suggested itself as a hiding place. As stealthily as possible I crept over to the man himself, where he slept on a low, fur-draped cot.

I didn’t bother trying to search him—I’d have needed both hands, leaving one hand uncomfortably empty of a weapon. So I just pressed my knife into the skin above his carotid artery and said, “Don’t move or speak.”

He woke immediately; no fog of sleep in those mad eyes.

“
You’ll be gutted for this,” he said mildly.

“
What, no ‘who are you, what’s the meaning of this?’ Not even a ‘do you know who I am?’”

He stared at me, perfectly still. His eyes were a pale blue or gray. In the darkness, they looked the color of spit. They spoke volumes, those eyes. None of it good.

“
Tell you what. Give me the talisman that allowed you through the death lands and I won’t punch this knife through your neck.”

He looked at me and even in the darkness I found it hard to meet those strange, pale eyes.

“
I can die now with one thrust,” he said, “or I can die slowly of starvation, as you apparently are doing. I know which I choose, girl.”

“
I really don’t want to kill you, Duke, but I will. Where’s the talisman?”

“
Put down the knife and we’ll discuss the matter.” His tone was suddenly soothing, reasonable. I was immediately suspicious.

“
Shut up.”

“
Really, there’s no need for this. I shall feed you, and when my business is done here you can accompany us out of Thagoth. Put the knife down. It’s getting terribly heavy, you know. Why, you hardly have the strength to keep a grip on it, much less threaten me with it.”

“
Shut up.” But he was right, somehow. My forearm trembled with the effort of holding the knife. I brought my other hand up to steady it, and pain exploded in my head. Suddenly I was on my hands and knees on the ground, and the pain was so awful I wanted to vomit. The Duke was standing over me, shaking his hand.

“
I believe I broke a knuckle on that thick skull of yours, my dear.”

“
I should have just killed you and taken it,” I rasped.

He pulled a simple necklace out from under his shirt and looked at it, as if considering. “Yes, you should have. That’s what I would have done.” And he smiled. The next blow came from his foot. It knocked me mercifully out of consciousness.

Voices. Murmuring, threatening, screaming. Shrieks and sobs. The groan of someone in awful, terrible pain. The kind of pain no one could endure. A man’s death rattle accompanied me up out of the well of oblivion. Or passed me on its way down.

I was wet, and cold. Shivering uncontrollably. I couldn’t feel my hands. They were off somewhere behind my back, far away. My feet were tethered to my hands, more loosely. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I opened them anyway, and stared into the face of a dead man. His skull had been cleaved open, and rain and blood ran down his face to pool in his open mouth.

I knew I shouldn’t have opened my eyes.

I looked around, anywhere but at the corpse next to me. I was lying on the cobbles of the square, midway between the gates to the Tabernacle and the Duke’s tent. One of the soldiers noticed my movement and called out. The officer came over and squatted down next to me. His face was hard, all angles and planes, and it gave nothing away.

“
You got one of my men killed, you stupid, thieving bitch.”

“
You’ve got the wrong stupid, thieving bitch. I haven’t had anybody killed in months.”

“
Shut up. Vik was a good man, a good soldier. You sneaked into camp during his watch and for that the Duke killed him.”

“
What do you want me to say? I’m sorry old Vik worked for a murderous madman?”

The man stood up and kicked me in the side.

After I got my breath back, I said, “Who needs logic when you’ve got a hobnailed boot, eh?”

He spat at me. “Logic? You want logic? You were going to steal the talisman and leave us all here to die. That’s logic for you, you filthy thief.”

“
Not true. After I was out, I would have hired someone to get you all.” And I might have, too.

“
Right,” he said.

“
Believe it or not, I would have. More than your Duke would have done for me.” I struggled to a kneeling position. “Look, I could have killed the Duke and taken the necklace. I’m good enough. If I’d meant for you all to die, why didn’t I do that? Why did I take the chance?”

He was silent for a while. “Mayhap you’re squeamish,” he finally grated out.

“
Believing that would be a serious mistake on your part, Captain.”

“
Lieutenant.”

“
Whatever. Look, do you even know why you’re here?”