The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (22 page)

“
It's not too late to change your mind.”

She looked at me and just shook her head, that small smile still playing on her lips.

I got up and crept over to Holgren, who had taken his station two steps away behind the left-hand gate. I looked at her and wondered what she might have become, had the Shadow King not netted her. I didn't really like her, maybe because she was too much like me, in a way. But I had begun to respect her. What a waste.

She took one deep breath, then gestured with the first two fingers of her right hand. The right-hand gate responded by flying open, slamming against the wall and shivering to pieces. The booming crash that accompanied it would have woken the dead. I was certain it had gotten Athagos's attention.

In an abnormally loud, commanding voice, Ruiqi cried out “Athagos! Come to me!”

Holgren touched my forehead with one suddenly glowing fingertip. The world went silent. I kept one hand on the necklace and my eyes on Ruiqi, waiting for some sign of Athagos's approach. I measured time by my speeding heartbeats.

It was somewhere around thirty beats that I noticed Ruiqi's eyes grow wide. At thirty-five, she had begun to writhe and shriek—in silent agony. I couldn't hear her screams, but I could imagine them all too well. I hated it. I felt the necklace twitch under my fingers. At forty heartbeats, she had collapsed. At fifty she was crawling across the threshold of the Tabernacle, pulling herself along through the snow, hand over hand. The necklace was squirming on my neck like a snake. I was glad I couldn't see what would happen next. I'd seen that grisly trick far too many times already. I began to believe we might survive.

Too soon. At about fifty-five heartbeats I was preparing to take a peek around the remaining gate when my hearing returned. I was in sudden agony. Beside me, Holgren fell twitching to the snow-covered ground with a scream forcing its way past lips thinned in pain. I pitted my will against the force that was suddenly rushing through my body, ripping from me all control to my limbs, but it was impossible. I fell to the ground beside Holgren and felt my consciousness pushed back to some far, dusty corner. I was reduced to a spectator in my own body.

Athagos's magic had taken control. I no longer even had the power to scream. My body rose with the jerking, puppet-like movements I'd seen in the Duke and his men. I walked into the Tabernacle behind Holgren.

I couldn't direct my eyes, but I could make out Ruiqi’s truncated form deflating in Athagos's embrace just fine with my peripheral vision. I waited and prayed for her last blow, her
argilleh
to kick in as the storm intensified.

When Athagos tossed Ruiqi's hide away and licked her lips, I knew despair.

Athagos looked at me. She was beautiful. Her eyes were the same as her brothers, now; stars ripped from the night sky, rather than that unearthly blue I remembered. Her skin was the same flawless bronze. Her long black hair floated loose around her shoulders, drifting on unseen currents of power. And her generous pink mouth was curled into a smile.

So good to see you again,
she said to me without speaking
. I enjoyed our last meeting. You bring such lovely gifts.

“
Go to hell, you crazy bitch.” I tried to say it, but of course I couldn't speak. Apparently the thought was enough.

My madness passes. I suppose I have you to thank for that. The mind heals more slowly than the body, however, and the process is more taxing. I require further sustenance. These magelings are much more ... satisfying.

Holgren was next. I couldn't even close my eyes. After everything that had happened, we were both going to die in Thagoth after all.

Athagos stretched her arms out and Holgren jerked and twitched his way into her embrace. The rage and despair I felt defied words. She snaked her arm around his waist, cradled his head—

Then it happened. Athagos's eyes grew wide and she flung Holgren away and started clawing at her chest. I felt her grasp on me slip the tiniest fraction.

I poured all my will into driving her out. Slowly, painstakingly, I began to re-exert control over my body, one digit at a time. Athagos fell to the snow-covered ground, still clawing at her chest. She had dug great red furrows in her flesh now, though they healed as I watched. Her limbs began to twitch and she screamed—not with any magical element, but a scream of rage and agony.

And then in mid-thrash she fell utterly still.

I rushed all the way back into my body the way the tide races in to shore. I stumbled my way over to Athagos's beautiful, frightening form, ripping at the necklace on my way. It came off immediately. I threw it at her head.

It caught her on the jaw and fell down to the hollow of her throat. From there each end snaked its way around the back of her neck; after a moment I heard the faint snick of the clasp closing.

“
It was made for you, you bitch. Hope you like it.” I would have kicked her, but I didn't have the coordination yet.

“
No time for that,” gasped Holgren. “She'll wake any moment. Hurry.”

We staggered off toward Tha-Agoth's dome, stumbling like drunks through the storm and deepening snow. Holgren was right. I didn't want to be around when she woke up. She'd rip us to shreds.

It was easier to find my way this time, despite the storm. I knew where I was going, and the dense foliage had thinned out with the onset of winter. I had just spied the doors to the Tabernacle itself when Tha-Agoth's voice sounded in my ears.

She wakes, Amra, and she is displeased.
Eagerness mixed with a strange reluctance filled Tha-Agoth's mental voice.

“
Holgren—”

“
I heard. Run!”

We ran, neither of us daring to look back. Ours was a headlong rush to the dubious safety of Tha-Agoth's prison. Bare branches whipped at our faces, snow-hidden roots sought to trip us up. The storm was intensifying. An already bitter wind had become a howling monster intent on driving us to the ground and burying us, one white flake at a time. And behind us, death was shaking off a dead mage's final spell. It was a sad state of affairs that I had become at least somewhat accustomed to such situations. It didn't lessen my fear in any way, mind you, but I no longer found it incredible.

The granite bulk of the Tabernacle proper came into view, and I led Holgren toward the entrance of Tha-Agoth's gold-topped dome through the wind-whipped, driving snow.

I located the doors quickly enough. It was the massive snowdrift blocking them that slowed us.

The entrance was situated in the cleft between the two domes, partly sheltered from the wind. Snow blew in, but didn't get blown back out. If the doors had opened inward it wouldn't have been a problem.

Such is life. We clawed at the drift with numbed hands until we'd cleared enough away to try and open one of the doors. Together we pulled on one of the massive carved handles. Slowly, too slowly the door began to inch outward.

It opened a couple of hand spans, and then she was on us.

What have we here? Two mice seeking shelter from the storm?

I looked back out at the grounds. I didn't see her anywhere. I looked back and saw that Holgren had got the door open just enough for one to slip in.

“
GO!” I screamed, and shoved him through the opening over his protests. Then a cold hand had me by the nape of the neck and I was suddenly cartwheeling through the air.

I tried to tuck into some sort of roll, but instead of the ground my body connected with the trunk of a massive oak. I fell to a heap at its base. I didn't move for a long while. I couldn't even think about moving. The only reason I knew I was still alive was because of all the pain.

I heard Holgren scream my name, and then the thunderous boom of the door slamming shut, only slightly muffled by the storm. I wanted to look up and see what was going on, but I couldn't seem to move my head.

I am saving him for later, little one. He will keep. You and I have matters to discuss, first. First matters. Matters of discussion, you see. You do, don't you?

“
I don't know what you're talking about.” It hurt to speak. It hurt to breathe. Slowly I willed my hands under me. Tremblingly, they responded. I wasn't paralyzed. I would be dead soon, but I wasn't paralyzed. It's the little things that keep you going.

I pushed myself up to a kneeling position, steadying myself with one hand on the oak's ice-crusted trunk.

You know. Do you know you know? Yes. I think so.
In an eye blink she appeared before me. Her backhand sent me skidding through the snow, face first. When I came to a stop, I spat blood and rolled over again, trying to gain my feet.

“
How can we have a discussion if you keep pummeling me?” I groaned.

Discussion. Yes. We were having a discussion. Sometimes I find it difficult to concentrate. Please forgive me.
She yanked me off the ground by my collar and held me at arm's length. My feet dangled inches from the ground. She studied me, turning me this way and that.

This is it, I thought. She's going to do it. I fumbled for my knife. Hopeless, but I wasn't going to just give in. I'd try to get her in the throat, maybe cut her vocal cords—

She gave me a tooth-loosening, lip-splitting slap and shook me till all thoughts of going for my knife were jarred loose. It reminded me of growing up. The bad old days.

How can we have a discussion
if you insist on trying to harm me?

“
You always play with your food, or do you have a point you're getting to?” A slow, stupid, doomed sort of anger was starting to well up in me.

Ah, the mouse bares its teeth. The harvest comes home, the owl is in the orchard. The Shadow leashed the earth, you know, but couldn't teach it to sing.

“
You're raving mad, you know that?”

She threw me down to the ground and sat down before me. She smiled again, a sunny, carefree smile that revealed perfect teeth and sent shivers down my spine.

Oh. Yes. I know. It comes and goes. I don't want to kill you, actually, but I probably will. I would like to apologize to you in advance for that.

“
Apology not accepted, you crazy bitch.”

She brought her hand up to her neck and toyed with the necklace I'd put on her. Well, at least if I died, she wasn't going to fare much better.

Tell me about the chain.

“
Just a pretty trinket. Don’t you like it?”

I never saw her move. She just had me by the throat all of a sudden. I felt my windpipe begin to collapse under the pressure of her grip.

No lies, now. It makes my thoughts whirl, skirl, float away. And then all that's left is the hunger. Understand?

I tried to gag out a yes, settled for a nod.

Good.

She released me and I drew in a tortured breath of frigid air.

“
Slave chain,” I choked out, “made for you. Shadow King. Go—to him.”

I don't know what kind of reaction I would have expected from her. The insane are, almost by definition, hard to predict. I can say without reservation that I did not expect the reaction my gasped words caused.

Her face lit up like a child presented with a new toy or an unexpected treat. She actually clapped her hands together, and laughed exultantly. She dragged me to her. One hand cradled the back of my head, her other arm snaked around my waist. It was going to happen—she was going to suck me dry.

And then she was hugging me tightly, so tightly my spine creaked. She buried my face in the hollow of her neck. I drew a breath and caught a whiff of lilacs. Death smelled like lilacs.

You are joy's messenger, little mouse. I will not harm you, oh no. How could I?

She kissed the top of my head, then pushed me away into the snow and ran fleet-footed toward the gates. I watched her go, the realization that I was still somehow alive and apparently would remain so for the time being slowly sinking in.

Just before the falling snow obscured her completely, she stopped and turned to look back at me.

Gnaw through the bar of my brother's cage, mouse. Set him free to follow me. But take your time.

And then she was gone. “Kerf's lice-ridden beard,” I muttered, and staggered to my feet. I had to find Holgren.

I found him just inside the Tabernacle. He was slumped against the wall, head lolling at an unnatural angle. He was breathing in short gasps, like a dying fish. The wall behind him was daubed with one long streak of blood, where his head had been bashed against it and he'd slid to the floor. Athagos must have hurled him against the wall and then come after me.

I pulled his head to a more natural angle, hoping to help his breathing, and began to realize just how massive his injury was. The back of his head was a sticky, bloody mess. I examined it more carefully by touch, as gently as I could. I resisted the panic welling up in me. It wouldn't help. The back of his skull was crushed. It was more than crushed, actually. It was pulverized.

I'd watched him die once. 1 wasn't about to go through that again. Not after what we'd shared. He needed Tha-Agoth's blood, immediately. I put my shoulder against his abdomen and levered him up using the wall until I got to a standing position. I wouldn't be able to carry him far, but I didn't have to. I just had to make it to Tha-Agoth's chamber.