 
# Product Description

It is a dangerous time to be a freelance thief in Thedra, the Obsidian City. Corin Quick-fingers challenges the rule of the Lord of Law, powerful master of the Courts of Law, Thedra's guild of thieves. Stealing should be fun, after all, not just another boring trade with extortionate taxes and killjoy rules. Soon, however, the young thief will find himself drawn into events both fateful and fantastic. The time of the Cusp nears, when even the immortals might fall and men become as gods. And deep within the capital of the kingdom of corruption an ancient evil grows.

## BLOODSPATE

## By

## FRANCES MASON

# Copyright Frances Mason 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

# Chapter 1: Lord of Law

The air stank. The mud always stank down here, from the homes and shops along the bridge which carelessly emptied their chamber pots from their windows into the caldera lake, but there was something more to this stench and stifling atmosphere, which had descended over the whole city in the last few weeks. Even the stagnant heat of midsummer and the corpse floating under the bridge couldn't explain it.

Corin watched from the shadow of a pylon as the body was hooked and pulled from the water onto the refuse barge several yards from him. A bargeman held a lantern close. The corpse was bloated, like an overfull skin of sack. As water poured out of its throat in the flickering light of the lantern, the flesh seemed to crawl like feasting worms onto its limp, soggy ruff. Its puffy white complexion was blotched purple and black. Though the disfigurement made the face unrecognisable, Corin remembered the unique cut of the multi-coloured doublet. Reynaldo the Locksmith. A freelance thief, like himself. Both of Reynaldo's hands had been cut off and tied by their thumbs to the ends of a garrotte of thin hempen cord. The garrotte, having served its primary function, now created a grotesque necklace that did little to flatter the looks of the dead man. The Lord of Law, master of the Thedran guild of thieves, was sending a message to all unaffiliated "low lawyers." Without the protection of the guild you were as good as strangled by your own hands.

Corin slid further into the shadows under the bridge. He had not been seen by any of the bargemen. Few thieves could blend so well into the shadows. Even without shadows he had an uncanny knack for not standing out. Not that he had any special need for anonymity here. But habit bred caution, and this warning to freelance thieves concerned him more than the usual bashing by the guild's enforcers. Though he was young enough to be forgiven transgressions with a only a gentle kick in the guts as a warning he was old enough that they were pressuring him to join. He made his way from pylon to pylon until he reached and blended into the crowd, which was gathering at the waterline to watch the free entertainment. Further out, prentices jumped from the spaces between buildings on the bridge into the water. Gondoliers rowed tourists close enough to be entertained by the spectacle. Murder wasn't exactly a remarkable event in Thedra, the Obsidian City. The beating black heart of Ropeua. "Capital of the kingdom of corruption," as he liked to say. He thanked the gods daily for that corruption, which had made his fortune or saved his skin more than once.

Corin climbed to the rim of the caldera, the glassy black battlements of the city's outer ring looming in the dusk behind him on its high pylons, the spires of the central ring, the palace ring, climbing even higher into the rapidly darkening sky. And higher again spiralled a strange staircase, which Corin knew rose from the South Tower, one of the great towers of the Outer Ring that stood at each point of the compass. No one he had asked knew where the stairway went. Even on the brightest days its furthest reaches couldn't be spied, its solid stones attenuated to an infinitesimal thinness that the eyes followed vainly beyond their ability to perceive, mountain eagles shrinking from horse size to man size to dove size to a diminishing dot that vanished as they tested their wings against that air of improbable heights.

Corin Beggar's-son to some, Corin Quick-fingers to himself and his friends, was sixteen years old, at least if his father had remembered his age right and told him the truth of it. He was small for his age, less than five and a half feet tall, but strong for his size, with wiry, supple muscle that could propel him up a wall quicker than a cat with a row of lit firecrackers tied to its tail. His movements were small and efficient, matching his muscles and ensuring that success always came with the least possible effort, something of which he preferred never to expend more than diligent dishonesty demanded. He had brown hair, cropped short to keep tavern lice from too affectionate an acquaintance, dark brown eyes, usually alert under beetling bushy brown brows and unusually sharp in discerning shapes and movement in darkness, strong chin and wryly twisted lips asserting a nonchalance about the dangers of his profession, and aquiline nose and dusky skin more like a southerner than a native commoner of these parts, and sure to provoke a combination of infatuation in girls despite his size, and distrust in their fathers, ever mindful of the reputed lechery of the warm blooded Kemetese and Navrelese. He wore brown doublet over brown tunic, brown breeches and hose, and supple brown leather boots with soft soles, scraped and dirtied to dull the polish, which might otherwise reflect light at an inconvenient moment. Most of this was hidden beneath the brown cloak he now wore, with its conveniently loose sleeves and spacious hood, which gave him the appearance of a mendicant monk of Ilsa. The resemblance was apposite, since Ilsa was the god not only of beggars but also thieves.

Despite Corin's age, and though he was not a member of the thieves' guild, he was already a master thief, or "master at law" as was said in thieves' cant. Corin could pick a pocket hidden beneath several layers of clothing, even from one of those special "pickpocket proof" belts that held the money sacks right against the rich man's skin. He could cut a purse and replace its weight so that the most sensitive target wouldn't feel a thing. He could filch with a sleight of hand bordering on sorcery an item from a merchant's stand even as the merchant suspiciously watched him. He could pick a lock with the ease of a master locksmith, and never asked payment for the favour, though he was sure to take it. He could sneak up behind a paranoiac. He could blend into shadows like a bad smell into the tanner's village. If there was any way to relieve a man of the golden burden of success, Corin was its master, and would not hesitate to take what was rightfully someone else's. His only weakness as a thief was his smugness; he would occasionally become complacent because he knew how good he was.

As he reached the rim of the caldera he turned east and crossed North Bank Bridge. Here the waters of Caldera Lake flowed down to the mills that ground the grain of the city for its daily bread. Beyond the bridge the cobbled road continued down to North Bank, suburb of actors, bards, minstrels, clowns, jugglers, whores, beggars and assorted other scoundrels. Corin's kind of people. The wood-frame buildings crowded together in squalid intimacy, many seeming only to be held up by leaning against equally dilapidated neighbours. Shutters were flung open to breathe in the stench of the summer-hot streets, some cobbled, some of dirt, all rank with shit and piss daily thrown out of windows, smearing the wattle and daub walls. Cantilevered second stories projected across most streets, making of them dank, repulsive tunnels in which a body would be sooner tripped over than disposed of. Rats glared with red eyes in the light of a bracketed torch outside a smoky tavern with a rotting unreadable sign. They would happily eat what men wouldn't move. It would be easy for an outsider to get lost in this maze, but Corin knew every twist and turn. Here he was surrounded by the familiar sounds of domestic disputes and sentimental drunks and raucous prentices. A woman screamed in anger, and a crashing of crockery followed. A man roared in response and a door slammed, followed by the heavy stomp of boots. Occasionally the streets would open out into a square, where flea infested taverns or boarding houses would hang their signs: the Carters Arms, Hawk and Hollow, Banner and Spear, Traveller's Rest, and many others. Here visitors to the capital, if unable to afford the more savoury establishments of the city, would pay a few coppers for bed and stabling. At the well in one square two men threw dice and wagered. Corin avoided them, knowing they were spies and enforcers of the thieves' guild.

He climbed to the rooftops. Up here he was in his element, and moved more quickly than in the streets. Rounding the square and its sentries, he dropped to the ground near where two streets met beneath a series of projecting second stories. A lamp shed dim illumination against the wattle and daub of the wood-frame houses, cracked and crumbling into the refuse of the intersection. A rat the size of a cat raised its nose and sniffed, bared its teeth, and glared with glinting red eyes, then ran off, disappearing into a hole in a wall. Right beside the lamp hung a decrepit looking sign on which the painted shape of a crowned lion snarled, the words that once said "King's Rest" having faded beyond legibility. A king he was not, but it was a familiar haunt at which he frequently rested before a late night's thieving. He adjusted his cowl to completely hide his face and pushed open the door.

Inside the air was thick with tobacco smoke and the sweeter scent of opium and more acrid drugs. He crossed to the bar. The tavern keeper's daughter, Adele, smiled familiarly, but before she could speak her father, Brengar, growled for her to fetch a plate of bread and cheese. She groaned and departed, winking at Corin as she turned. Before Corin could say anything Brengar said under his breath, "You shouldn't be here," and motioned with his eyes to the dark corner furthest from the door. Corin took the hint and threw a coin on the bench without a word. Brengar filled a mug somewhat cleaner than an un-rinsed chamber pot with a liquid that might have come from the same.

Corin took the mug to a dark table. Two men diced amidst the swirling smoke. Ordinarily Corin would have taken part, discreetly introducing and removing loaded dice at the right times to guarantee he won more than he lost, or maybe picking the pocket of one or even both of the men when they became too engrossed in their game. From here he cast his eyes across the smoky tavern to where Brengar had discreetly indicated, and his heart almost stopped. There, in a circle, sat several members of the thieves' guild. But not any old members. They were, to a man, vassals of the Lord of Law, his closest allies, counsellors and bodyguards; the only master thieves in the guild he trusted not to murder and supplant him. That wasn't all. Amidst them sat a slim man, dressed like a dandy, with handsome pale face framed by long, raven black hair, and set with albino pink eyes, in which the fire of the lanterns danced. The Lord of Law himself!

The Lord of Law was rarely seen outside of Ilsa's Inn, the tavern attached to the theatre and brothel and, so it was said, via secret passages, to the thieves' guild hall, known to the Thedran underworld as the Courts of Law. For a moment Corin thought he had been betrayed to the thieves' guild by an unseen beggar. But it was a foolish thought. If the guild had got wind of this being a favourite haunt, they would have sent lowly thieves, "clerks of the court," and manglers; at worst they would send an ordinary master at law. The vassals wouldn't bother themselves with the trivial task of disciplining a freelance thief, the Lord of Law even less. Still, it took superhuman restraint to not give in to the urge to flee. They were dangerous men, especially to a freelance thief like him, but leaving too quickly would draw their attention. Besides that he wanted to know what the Lord of Law was doing here. Corin settled into the shadows and pretended intense interest in the game at the table, watching the Lord of Law obliquely enough that he wouldn't feel eyes on him.

The Lord of Law grimaced and his body tensed. His vassals respectfully ignored this. He reached into his jerkin and took out a silver phial, elaborately engraved and inlaid with gold. Taking a draught from it, his face and body relaxed.

Shortly afterwards he stood up and went up the stairs to the rooms above. This intrigued Corin even more. While the beds in Brengar's tavern had fewer fleas than most in North Bank they were hardly rooms fit for a wealthy guild master possessed of his own tavern and probably lavish private apartments. Corin emptied his mug and got up, not looking to the stairway. As he did so he felt the eyes of all of the vassals on him. He burped ostentatiously, wiped his lips with his sleeve and stumbled towards the door. Their eyes slid off of him as he stumbled out into the night, quickly regaining his sobriety and cat like balance the moment the door had swung to behind him.

Corin slid away from the lantern light near the door, merging with the shadows. He hesitated. What was the Lord of Law doing here? He had to know. If you can't find your way in by the front door, go through a window instead, he liked to say. He climbed towards the roof, and froze. Someone was prowling on the roof just above the eave from which he hung. He waited, breathing slowly, steadily, silently. Footsteps approached. Normal ears wouldn't have heard them, and perhaps Corin's ears didn't either. But he sensed their approach. He held his breath. There was a swish of air. Someone leaping across the gap between one side of the alley and the other. But there was no sound of landing. Quickly, Corin dragged himself up and turned to look. A shadow was flitting across the rooftop. Pulling himself up to the roof he saw the window of the tavern room, shutters ajar. He knew who the thief was. He also knew how dangerous it would be to be caught shadowing the Lord of Law. But he couldn't resist the temptation. To prove he was greater than the Lord of Law! There was no time for hesitation. Already the Lord of Law was disappearing beyond the peak of the opposite roof. He followed. Several times the Lord of Law looked back, but every time Corin sensed the movement before it came and slid into deeper shadow. The Lord of Law was good, but, Corin congratulated himself, not as good as Corin Quick-fingers.

The roofs here were not as consistently tiled as those in the circles of the city. On some tiles were missing, others slid when he placed a foot; many roofs were simple thatch. But given his quarry's speed he couldn't take care in his route or check before placing each foot. He had to rely on awareness and speed of reflexes. More than once he dislodged a tile that fell into the attic below. But he reacted quickly, adjusted his balance and, with some luck, kept his feet. While the Lord of Law wasn't as sneaky as Corin would have expected, he was fast. He must have been negotiating these roofs for decades, and seemed to know in advance the worst patches. Corin took note of his path and tried to follow it more exactly. Doing so he soon found not a single loose tile slipping away. Then the Lord of Law vanished.

Corin moved swiftly to the last point he had seen him. It wasn't over an alley. He couldn't have dropped to the cobblestones. Corin searched the rooftop. Was there a secret passage? But there was no indication of any unusual joins, or of any switches. Corin circled the exact position where he thought he had last seen him. There was a hole there. But it wasn't a secret door. He stepped towards it. Kneeled next to it. Examined it. It was just a hole. But there was something strange about it. The moon was full in the sky above, its prismatic rays illuminating the rooftops in weird and shifting shapes that would challenge the eyes of those who didn't love the night. But no shapes could be seen in the hole. It was just black. Not even black. Corin couldn't decide what, if any colour it was. It didn't move, it didn't radiate, he couldn't define it. It seemed to swallow all light that struck it. Not somewhere in its depths, beneath the level of the tiles, but right at the roof. Corin stood up, arms akimbo. Looked up at the moon. Looked across the roofs.

What should he do?

Cautiously he probed the hole with a toe. There was a flash, then darkness. Corin blinked and swayed. He closed his eyes. It made no difference. He could see nothing either way. Without reference to his eyes though he could sense more clearly his situation. He was still on his feet. Had the Lord of Law thrown a flashing cracker at him to blind him? But he smelled no smoke. And he was still alive. And conscious. He wasn't being bound or bashed by manglers. The Lord of Law didn't laugh at his predicament. He was simply in darkness. Complete, utter, darkness.

He opened his eyes. The darkness was deep. But not complete. There was a thin line of light. It was horizontal and slightly above his head. There was a small circle of light too. No, not a circle. A keyhole. It was a door. His eyes adjusted quickly. A door at the top of a short stairway, under which the light from the next room streamed. Here the smell was musty, mouldy. He looked around. There was a solid wooden column behind him and rafters overhead. There were shapes of barrels. Crates large and small. And there were racks. Rows of racks. Diamond shaped apertures. And round shapes in them. He touched one. A bottle. He was in a cellar. How had he got from the rooftops to a cellar?

He walked back to the column. Once again there was a flash, but this time he had sensed something the moment before. He had closed his eyes. He opened them again. As he had sensed from the slope beneath his feet, he was on the rooftops. He was standing near the hole. He closed his eyes again as he probed the hole with his toe. He felt disoriented for a moment, but he could smell the cellar. He stepped forward, and turned, opening his eyes. He examined the floor. There was a patch of darkness near the column. Like the one on the rooftop. Some kind of magical portal.

Corin turned back to the stairs. Careful to not cause a squeak, he climbed them and looked under the door. He could see a light beyond and feet further down a corridor. Men's voices. They were too close for him to leave the cellar. He descended the stairs and took out a flint, tinder and taper. As good as his eyes were in the dark they were not good enough for exploring this area in detail. The light by the door would obscure any slight light coming from below the door if anyone looked this way.

He lit the taper and looked around. It was much as he had thought. A cellar, but also a general storeroom. If the Lord of Law had come through here the storeroom might not be as ordinary as it seemed though. He lit a small candle with the fading taper and searched more carefully. There was a lot of wine and crates of desiccated meat and dried fruit. No fresh food.

There were also a lot of chests. Elaborately carved with bas reliefs and scrolling. Carefully checking for traps he opened several of them. Expensive cloth and clothes. Rolled tapestries. Richly coloured silk tunics and flowing dresses. Woollen hose and linen breeches, some in new styles, some that only aged gentlemen and ladies would wear. All too expensive for commoners. No easily movable wealth though. Nothing easy for an honest thief to carry.

This stuff had probably fallen off a cart when being brought up to the city from the port, a common "accident" for traders in the city. The thieves' guild didn't rely so much on the individual thieving skills of its members, but rather on the coordination of corruption and distribution of its benefits. Corin snorted in disgust. It was another reason for him not to want to join the guild. They reduced it to a boring business, with little risk, and little excitement. For him it was an adventure, and an art. He closed the chest he had been examining.

Then his eye fell on another chest. This one was unusual. It wasn't more elaborately carved than the rest. It wasn't carved at all. But the wood was a deeply varnished mahogany. Its surface was flawless. When he examined it closely he saw that unlike the others it actually was trapped. The trap was sophisticated too, part of the lock mechanism. It would shoot out at exactly the angle a lock picker would hold his tools as he shifted the last cylinder of the lock. It would get most thieves, who would be excited at nearly having picked the lock. There would be no key that could be safely used. Only a locksmith or thief could open it. And the locksmith would die of the poison on the needle. Most thieves too.

He placed the candle on an elaborately carved chest near the plain mahogany chest.

He used an unconventional tool to adjust the angle of attack. The needle shot out, then the lock clicked. Before lifting the lid he checked again. Then slowly he lifted the lid a small way and checked again. There was another trap. Before he finally opened the lid all the way he found two more trap mechanisms, each released at a certain elevation of the lid. Someone really didn't want this chest opened and expected thieves to try.

But what was inside? Another chest.

This one was elaborately carved, with a set of scenes from myth. The battles of the gods. Corin went through the same process with the second chest as the first but found no traps on the inner chest. Inside the inner chest was another. This one was small, of beaten silver with gold tracery. He was tempted to take it out, but checked and found another trap. What was inside that would cause someone to layer so many traps? Perhaps a more thuggish approach would be more effective. A large man with a hammer could pulverise the outer chests and avoid the traps, although he might damage the inmost chest.

Carefully he lifted it, finding yet another trap, a string trigger connecting its underside to the chest it sat in. He cut the cat gut string. Gingerly lifting it out he placed the small silver chest, which was no larger than a large man's fist, on to one of those other chests in which clothes were stored. He wondered whether it might be better to take it with him, through the portal, back to a private room at an inn to examine at his leisure. But he couldn't contain his excitement. Was this a treasure of the Lord of Law? Maybe it was just a treasure of one of the guild master's business associates; but maybe, just maybe.... He checked it for more traps, found none. It wasn't even locked.

He opened it.

Inside was a huge ruby. While it was an impressive ruby he had seen similar before and the number of traps seemed excessive. Then the ruby flashed. It was only for a moment. It must have been the candlelight. Corin moved the flame below the lip of the chest so that it couldn't directly reflect. But the light within the ruby only intensified, as though a flame danced within it. Not at its centre, but in every flawless facet. In fact, now that he looked more closely the facets seemed less sharply defined. They shifted with the flame. But no matter how the edges of each facet shifted the whole seemed to be a perfectly symmetrical arrangement. It defied reason, and Corin felt he was going insane contemplating the impossibility of what his eyes saw.

A searing pain shot up his arm and he realised he had, without being conscious of it, reached out to touch the ruby, if ruby it was. He jerked his hand away, but the pain didn't stop. It spread, to his shoulder, through his chest, into his heart, across his face, into his gut and groin and legs and feet. His whole body was on fire. And then his brain.

He was in a blacksmith's forge. He saw a huge blacksmith hammering at a blade, and the blade flowed. Fire flowed along the smith's arm, along his great hammer, which seemed an extension of his clenched fist. The flame wrapped around the blade. The water and flame fought and hissed in rising snakes of steam. The smith raised his hammer-fist again. Corin saw his eyes. His eyes were fire. His arms and chest were fire. His heart was fire. And he beat at the blade and the blade coiled its watery tentacles around his hammer-fist, but he kept beating at the blade. And fire and water hissed and filled the forge with steam. Everywhere was steam. Nothing could be seen.

Then all was blackness. He drifted, as on a sea. A warm dark sea.

Corin opened his eyes. He was in darkness. He was on his back. He couldn't move. But he could feel no bonds. Fire burned in his veins and made him gasp. As he breathed in he smelled the by now familiar mustiness of the cellar, or storeroom. He tried to sit up. His muscles were stiff, as if he had been lying there on the hard cold floor for hours. He tried tensing his muscles and slowly they came to life. He sat up. He reached around and found the extinguished candle beside him on the floor. Finding his flint and tinder he relit it.

The flickering flame revealed everything as it had been before he had passed out. The mahogany chest and the other within it were open, one inside the other. The small silver chest was open on the top of the clothes chest. Inside of it the facets of the fiery gem still shifted and burned with an eerie inner light. Quickly he closed the lid. This was one treasure he would rather leave behind. He was sure there must be gold somewhere here. He replaced the small chest in the larger, resetting what traps he could as he closed the outer chests. Occasionally he felt a fiery pain streak up his arm and constrict his chest. Gradually the pain faded though.

He returned to the position of the portal, then thought he would snoop around some more. Surely there would be gold somewhere in this place. There had to be. He blew out the candle and returned it to the small pack of tools he always carried with him when working.

The door opened, flooding light into the dark cellar. Corin's instinct was to escape but all he could do was slink into the shadows. The light fell on the place where the unnatural darkness of the portal lay in front of the column. At the top of the stairs the Lord of Law stood, the light spilling around his slim form into the cellar, his albino eyes seeming lit with an inner fire. Corin slid behind a large barrel. The Lord of Law closed the door behind him and locked it, then descended the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs he hesitated. He tilted his head slightly, sniffed. Corin cursed himself. While the light of the candle would not penetrate far it would leave a distinct smell behind. Then the Lord of Law stepped into the portal and vanished. Even if he wanted to flee that way now the risk would be too great. The Lord of Law might be waiting on the other side to see who would come through. Holding a dagger to stick in Corin's back. Corin waited for a count of a hundred in case the Lord of Law returned. Then he ascended the stairs. He checked under the door.

He could hear voices, but they were muted, distant. He tried the door. It was locked. He took out his tools and picked the lock. Then he opened the door and slid into the hall beyond, closing the door carefully behind him and relocking it.

Corin carefully made his way through a labyrinth of corridors, checking for traps as he went. He avoided the corridors down which he heard voices or footsteps. The spherical glass lamps, glowing with strange, steady, will-o'-the-wisp radiance, were at distant, irregular intervals, as if the place had been designed for those who preferred the darkness. Eventually he came to a dead end. He examined the wall. There was no obvious trigger. But then it occurred to him that if it was a secret door, he was on the secret side of it. He pushed gently, and it swung slowly open. He slipped through and it closed behind him with a click. The trigger to open it clearly resetting.

He was standing behind a tapestry. The sound of voices was a loud buzz here. He peered past the edge of the tapestry into a bedroom. Its bedstead with columns ornately carved with the shapes of flying fish and rutting gods and beasts and castles with conic roofs and elegant maids and visored knights was draped with fantastically colourful tapestries, and rich furniture stood about the room. Between the bed and armoires and cupboards and shelves and divans were thick plush rugs with fantastic shapes of beasts mythical and legendary; lions and unicorns, elephants and giraffes, hippogriffs and centaurs and whales. The ceiling was painted with all the constellations of the zodiac: the boar, the mermaid, and all the rest that astrologers used in their prognostications.

Corin didn't step out into the room though. From where he stood, holding aside a tapestry he could see that a woman slept on the bed, facing in his direction. She snored softly. He watched her face. It was pale and beautiful. It was flawless. He could see, even in the soft glow of light emanating from the opposite door, that it was like finest porcelain. Her beauty was odd, inhuman. It didn't shift as she snored. In fact her mouth was closed. He edged his way along the wall behind the tapestry towards the bed.

From here he could see that her beauty wasn't only flawless, it was humanly impossible. Her skin wasn't merely like porcelain. It was porcelain. He examined her more closely. She was a human sized doll. Putting his ear close to her he could hear the whir of clockwork gears. The snoring sound, like the rest of her, was too regular. She was put here to deter any potential discovery of the secret door.

Beyond the bedroom was a corridor extending to a smokiness at a slatted door from beyond which came much of the buzz. Another long corridor extended to the left. This one, unlike the one he had left, was well lit, though not brightly.

He could hear voices clearly here. There were many of them. He smelled cooking food. Peering through a crack between a door and its frame he saw a kitchen, cooks and scullions rushing back and forth; and beyond it a smoky room beyond a long bar at which scarred, disreputable looking men surreptitiously sipped at their ale, as if wary of being in any way observed. Thieves.

As the cellar suggested, he was in a tavern. But what had happened to the Lord of Law? Voices shouted at each other in the kitchen, and from and to the tavern common room beyond. He was in a long corridor. There were several doors along it. Like all taverns in North Bank, its back parts were the home of the keeper and his family, and probably many of his scullions and cooks too. If it let rooms, in an establishment large enough for that big a kitchen, there would be maids to take care of them, as well as the needs of the proprietor.

Corin went along the corridor. There was no mustiness here. It was unusually clean for a North Bank residence. The walls were freshly painted. Pictures were hung along it, as well as apophthegms, embroidered and framed. Plush, patterned rugs were laid along the floorboards, which were not buckled at all by age. Instead of torches or candles, the walls were all lined, like the labyrinth beyond, with lamps of spherical glass, in which light glowed evenly, softly, as though will-o'-the-wisps had been imprisoned within. Corin knew where he was. There was only one tavern in North Bank with such lighting. It was used in the theatre and bear pits above too, to reduce the chance of fire in the thatch. He was in Ilsa's Inn, front of the thieves' guild, beneath the theatre and brothel. He had never ventured into this part before. Only the Lord of Law's vassals and trusted servants would be invited into these private apartments. He checked at the next door beyond the kitchen, on the opposite side of the corridor.

He smiled. Not only was he in Ilsa's Inn. The labyrinth beyond was the way into the guild hall of the thieves, the semi-mythical Courts of Law. So there was more than one way in. And now he knew it. He returned to the bedroom and checked for traps around the secret door. He quickly found it. He guessed it would be triggered only from this side, and would reset whenever the door closed. He deactivated it, found the slight indentation where the hidden switch resided, and pressed it. He stepped through. Voices were approaching along the labyrinthine corridors of the thieves' guild. He stepped back, allowing the door to click back into place before the thieves reached it.

He moved swiftly across the room and into the corridor. Voices came from the kitchen as he passed it, looking for an open door. In one was a stairway. He took one step up and peered around the corner. He became aware of a presence behind him. He would have to move quickly to avoid both the approaching threat from the stairs above him and avoid being seen by the thieves emerging into the corridor from the labyrinths of the guild. There was a partly open door across from the stairs. Whatever was inside it was unlit.

As his muscles made to project him quickly across the intervening space the fiery pain he had first felt when touching the huge ruby shot up his arm again. He reached out for the wall to catch himself. He knew that whoever was behind him was much closer now and he tried to turn, hoping to swiftly strike while he had the element of surprise. Something struck him hard across the face as he turned, then again as his head was turned by the force, across the back of his head. He fell into darkness.

# Chapter 2: King of Cripples

He awoke bleary headed. Someone was peering into his face. The face looked familiar, but in this state he couldn't think who it was. He was well dressed, like a dandy. He wore a scarlet cape over a shining black jerkin over a mauve silk tunic, puffed slit breeches of blue velvet, and tight green hose. He was handsome, not tall, but thin, with pale skin, as if it had never seen sunlight, and albino pink eyes in which a flame seemed to flicker. A trick of the lantern light? Despite the eyes and complexion, his hair, which hung straight to his shoulders, was raven black, with only a few strands of grey at the temples. Now Corin recognised him.

The Lord of Law squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Body and face contorted in pain. Usually dextrous hands fumbled at his jerkin, one hand desperately reaching within and drawing out a silver phial, elaborately engraved and inlaid with gold. He unstoppered and drank from it and a sublime peacefulness came over that handsome face. His body relaxed. Corin wondered whether the Lord of Law was an addict.

He returned the phial to his jerkin then reached out and touched Corin's face, caressed it, gently, even tenderly, but with the firmness of a disciplining mother gripped his chin and held it as he held the boy's gaze.

He released Corin's chin and addressed him in a gentle voice, affected like a noble's. "Come to join us, little Corin? Good. Please excuse the manners of Randy."

Randy, one of the guild's most vicious enforcers, or manglers as they were called, stood behind the Lord of Law's shoulder, thumping a small wooden club into his hand, grinning through rotten teeth. Corin tried to move, but found he was tightly bound to a chair. Beyond Randy was a stairway down.

Corin looked around. The room was empty of furniture except for a large table and benches and some chairs. Around the table sat several thieves and manglers, and all the vassals, some drinking, all eyes smiling at Corin's predicament. The Lord of Law spoke again, this time as if to an erring child, but not like an authoritarian father, more like a kindly father, concerned at his child's hurting himself: "You see, there are all sorts of advantages to joining. You don't want to be all alone in this big dangerous world. And life can be painful..." Randy grinned, thwacking the club in his hand. "...but you know that. You've lost so much. You have no family." The Lord of Law smiled kindly, paternally. "But with us you will always have a family. With us you will never be alone. With us you will always be safe." His gaze and his tone became injured. "But you throw yourself upon the dangers of the world. Without protection. Without family. Without our special care." His gaze hardened. "You are a wayward child. And wayward children are..." "To be punished?" Randy grunted with a leer. The Lord of Law frowned at the interruption. "...to be pitied. But...the prodigal son returns."

There was a commotion down the stairs. The thieves turned their eyes in that direction. The Lord of Law, narrowed his albino eyes, but didn't turn to face the man who huffed his way up the stairs, bringing with him a stench that overpowered all smells of sweat and stale beer and tobacco in the room.

The huge beggar hobbled into the room, his great shoulders hunched like the branches of a twisted ancient oak. Pustules on his nose-less face oozed; scabs, scratched by his clawed hands, tore and bled. From his mouth, opened to reveal black stumps of teeth, came a reek more foul than any decaying corpse. His bloodshot eyes glared, an accusation against the world of wealth. As the son of a beggar, Corin knew that the beggars had their own cruel guild, and that this man, the King of Cripples, ruled over them with terror.

Despite his attempted self-control the Lord of Law recoiled from the smell and shuddered when the King of Cripples grabbed his arm. Randy backed away, screwing up his nose. The vassals rose as one and drew their blades, advancing on the King of Cripples with threatening looks. The King of Cripples glared back at them, and coughed loudly. It was a sound of bubbling, rancid liquid such as only a dying man should make. There were screams and gasps of revulsion from the inn's kitchen beyond the bottom of the stairs. A pounding of feet like an advancing army approached, and with it all the smells of the sewer came. And with the pounding of feet came a slithering sound, as if bodies were being dragged behind that army. All the thieves in the room, from the lowliest mangler, to the journeyman thief, to the masters at law to the vassals to even the Lord of Law himself turned revolted eyes towards the stairs and held their breaths.

Soon the room was filled with the ragged, tattered, piss and shit and rancid sweat perfumed bodies of so many beggars that the vassals could not move. Corin's eyes stung with the acridity of the air. The beggars pressed their foul unwashed bodies against their adversaries and breathed in their faces, farted and burped and moaned and limped. The legless dragged themselves across the floor and grasped the ankles and feet of the thieves as if for want of food they would eat them.

"You may not take what is mine," the King of Cripples said, glaring at the Lord of Law, and breathing repulsively on him.

The Lord of Law gagged, but held his ground. "He is a thief, not a beggar; by the laws of the three Courts his life is mine. Only I can grant dispensation from obligation to my court. You have no power here. The treaties are clear."

The King of Cripples coughed again and with the sound came the smells of a thousand crawling things, and more things that would never crawl again other than with maggots. And with his cough the beggars pressed in towards the Lord of Law, groaning, coughing, snuffling, snorting, grunting; closing in like an irresistibly spreading decay. And the King of Cripples spoke again. "His father was a beggar, and the Court of Cripples takes all its sons into its halls."

"What his father was is irrelevant. The boy doesn't beg; he steals. And he has great talent." He looked at Corin, with affection or envy Corin couldn't be sure. "And we have always let those with talent choose their guild."

"There is precedent," the King of Cripples agreed, "but is this of his choosing?" He fingered the ropes with which Corin was bound.

"Whatever his choices, only the guild can grant him the right to do thieves' work in the city. Those who steal without licence are subject to our law."

"He is a wayward son," the King of Cripples agreed, then turned to Corin. "Do you wish to join the Courts of Law, Corin?"

Corin shook his head.

"You see?"

Some thieves behind Corin were succumbing, retching or vomiting and struggling to force their way out, but trapped behind an impenetrable wall of putrescent, broken, noisome bodies. Although the Lord of Law clearly wished to argue more the smell in the room was overwhelming him as it was all the other thieves. He plucked a scented silk handkerchief from within his tunic and held it to his nose. The King of Cripples smiled evilly. With this simple act the Lord of Law had shown the extent of his adversary's power and the limits of his own.

"Very well," he mumbled reluctantly through the handkerchief, "but he will not steal in my city. As long as he begs he is yours. If he takes the work of honest thieves again he will either join us or pay with his life."

Arthritic fingers scraped at the ropes until they came loose. Corin was lifted to his feet and found himself dragged along by the tide of beggars as they flowed down the stairs, through the kitchen, through the tavern, up the stairs to the foyer of the brothel and out into the dark streets. Knowing where they were taking him he tried to edge his way out of the crowd, but despite his dexterity found himself irresistibly forced back to the heart of the mass of rotting, stinking flesh and along dark muddy alleys. Their path led ever down.

He saw it now. Surrounded by a pile of rotting meat, its stench ripe almost beyond bearing from the summer heat, the gaping maw of the sewer. While the city itself relied on carts and barges to carry away whatever waste they didn't throw into the streets or the caldera lake, the suburb of North Bank had once had a functioning sewer system. It was said that the city too had once had pipelines across the lake, that had emptied into these sewers. Though North Bank's residents, like those of the city and bridge simply threw most of their waste into the streets, these sewers remained as evidence of a more hygienic age. This opening was one of several through which the runoff of the suburb flushed when it rained. But deep within Corin knew there were passages that could be shut off against flooding, where life could survive. He also knew that the beggars guild knew how to open certain passages and flood the tunnels at will. No one could survive here against the will of the King of Cripples.

He was drawn forward, with seemingly never a shove or dragging hand. He could not escape as he was drawn into and along the sewer tunnels. As a beggar's son he knew these tunnels well, though he had avoided them for years now. From one side to the other were ragged clothes, hung to dry, and absorb what stench they could not take from the pores of the beggars who wore them. Even washing here was but another way of becoming more dirty. A beggar woman, with wrinkles that hung from her like layers of fat, scrubbed a bowl in the foul water that trickled along a side tunnel. They passed a row of shutters in the stonework of the tunnel out of which looked the dirty faces of beggars hawking their broken and tattered wares or half eaten or decaying food. They turned through this side tunnel and that, a confusing labyrinth that only the beggars wouldn't get lost in. Reed torches guttered in places, their smoke like impotent incense against the stench of the beggars. At each turning, a pile of stinking shit and refuse and dead animal bodies was piled, to guide any who might penetrate so far away from the path the beggars took.

The tunnel they were in suddenly widened and they were in a vast cavern. It was walled with stone, like the tunnels. Perhaps once it had been a giant cesspit. Perhaps it had been made by the beggars from the leavings of others. Though there were no visible openings the air was clearer here. Most of the beggars stopped. Corin was shoved forward. The sturdiest of the beggars followed their king into his court. Though Corin was no longer surrounded, behind him at the opening into the cavern the beggars crowded. He allowed himself to be roughly shoved all the way to the foot of the dais.

The dais was like a strange sculpture fashioned from the refuse of the city. Bricks, stones, a cart, a market stall, a trestle table leg and a thousand other things had been jumbled together in a heap, up which led precarious steps, of iron or copper or brass or wood or stone to a remarkably flat, finished surface, on which stood a huge, velvet covered chair. The velvet was worn, the colours faded, and food stains had re-coloured it in places. Its legs were elaborately carved, though the images had been chipped in many places and worn down in others. One arm was missing, and crates had been piled on that side to provide a makeshift armrest.

The King of Cripples, having shuffled and limped and groaned his way this far, suddenly found extraordinary dexterity as he shot up the steps of his dais, his feet sure on every precarious lodging, his movement swift and as balanced as a raven on a gravestone. He sat on his throne as his closest advisors climbed by more circuitous routes to stand at his side. The king picked up his crown from the arm of his throne, a ring of beaten brass, fashioned by a tinker from an old pot with its bottom cut out, and adorned with cracked and misshapen gemstones, and placed it on his own head. Two beggar men-at-arms, one with yellow, jaundiced skin, the other with one eye and a matching scar on the other side of his nose; both with fragments of leather armour patched on their rags, and clubs carved roughly from rotted tree branches; shambled to either side of Corin.

The King of Cripples, his crippled and befouled courtiers assembled about him, now spoke. Gone was the bubbling cough. He spoke with authority, and he glared. "Corin," he shook his head sadly, "Corin, Corin, Corin. We have seen little of you in our court these several years past." He waited as if for an answer, but none came, so he continued, "You were always a talented little beggar, and yet you waste yourself on these...criminal activities, this picking of pockets and hiding in shadows and climbing in windows at midnight. It is not honest."

"Like your injuries."

The King of Cripples coughed like a dying man, more liquid despair than air in his voice as he gasped as if at his last breath. "We show what we must to the world so they might see what they will not otherwise see. Our ailments are as real as any. Our needs are real enough. And we ask so little. Don't you agree? Only enough to live." He swept his arm in an arc as if to demonstrate how little he and his hordes had taken from the world. "Only enough to care for our people and their needs.

Corin knew that the King of Cripples was not given to providing for beggars. He took from them by strong arm what they couldn't refuse him. So he said nothing, waiting for the inevitable demands.

"But you make the world less forgiving with your ways. It is beggars like you who..."

"I'm a thief," Corin said proudly. One of the beggar soldiers stepped threateningly towards him, and as Corin expected the attack from that direction he didn't see the other swing his club until it was too late. He tried to twist away at the last moment, but the first shouldered him into the other's club and it caught him in the gut. He collapsed to the floor, gasping for air.

The King of Cripples coughed again, another foul, strangled gasp, but his eyes glared at the interruption. "...who make the world think beggars nothing but thieves."

"I am a thief," Corin reasserted when he regained his breath. But the burning sensation he had first felt when touching the strange gem now surged through his body and he gasped.

"No," the king roared, all sickness of his lungs forgotten, "you are a beggar. Your father was a beggar. I am your king."

"I care nothing for kings."

"But kings care for you." The king smiled cruelly. "The king of thieves..."

"Lord of Law."

"We all have our titles it is true, and much is said by a man's titles. But whatever he is called he demands your fealty. We cannot allow that, can we, little Corin?"

Corin said nothing, didn't even shake his head. He wasn't going to play into the king's hands so easily as that.

"He demands what you have no right to give, unless you would be a traitor."

"I own nothing to you." He winced as the fire in his flesh intensified.

"Oh, but, little Corin you owe everything to us. Without us you would not live. Without us you would never have reached this age. Who do you think let you take so much at so little cost to yourself, when we could have taken it all?"

"I earned nothing through begging. I learned to steal long before my father died."

"Ah...such a beggar Felix was. Such talent. The wealthiest ladies took pity on him. That such a handsome man should have fallen on such hard times."

"He had many ways of getting their money from them," Corin agreed, thinking of the many seductions by which his father had made his way, "But then he washed himself." He wrinkled his nose. "Unlike you."

The guards attacked again, but this time Corin was ready for them. He timed his movement perfectly, and they collided with each other, falling to the floor. But his triumph was short lived. A moment later the burning sensation grew even stronger and he collapsed to his knees. The king smiled, mistaking the collapse for an obeisance.

But his words were defiant. "I'm no beggar. Only beggars owe you, and that only because you take what they earn, and bash them if they refuse you."

"You may not be a beggar..." The king slammed his huge fists down. The arm of the throne cracked, and the top crate on the other side shattered. He stood up and roared. "...but you are subject to our laws. You will pay us our due."

Corin was tight lipped, but he glared back at the king. He refused to be stood over. Despite the burning pain he got to his feet again. He would pay this man nothing of what he earned with good honest thieving.

"Will you pay?"

Corin said nothing.

"We consider you an errant child, but do not press us. We will deal with traitors to our rule. In our kindness we will only ask a little."

Corin's own anger was mounting. "I'll give you nothing," he screamed.

The king frowned. "We only ask..."

"Nothing!"

The king's eyes blazed and the very pustules on his face seemed to blaze with them. "Very well. You have chosen. Let it be known..." His voice boomed and echoed about the chamber. "...that this beggar defies his rightful king."

"I have no rightful king but gold," Corin muttered to himself. He sucked in air as another wave of fire spread from his fingertips up his arm and across his chest.

"He is a traitor to our realm."

"So banish me," Corin sneered.

"No. You wish to be a thief. You will die the death of thieves."

"What?" said one of the king's counsellors, "Your majesty, there's no precedent. It isn't our way."

The king turned his eyes to his counsellor. "We are king, are we not?"

"Why yes, your Grand Repulsiveness."

"And do not kings set precedents?"

"Kings make laws, to which even they are bound."

"And when they must they change those laws. Our word is law. Is it not?" He was glowering at the counsellor now, and his eyes carried a threat the other dared not defy.

"It is, Most Foul Majesty."

"Then this is my word. Corin is to be taken to the lake, there to be tied to a heavy stone. There to die the death of a traitor to the guild he has allied himself to."

"I never..."

Suddenly hundreds of beggars surged forward from a multitude of tunnels, converging on Corin's position. He looked every way, but saw no break in the wall of putrescent or crippled or scarred or burned flesh. Rags barely covered the skin of anyone, man, woman or child. Many of the men and women had been so starved since childhood that their bodies were little larger than a child's. But whatever their size and strength, there were too many of them. And they pressed forward inexorably. Festering wounds oozed on every side. Mouths opened and closed silently, or with pitiable moans as disgusting emanations oozed from eyes and ears like diseased tears, hands reached forward as if with begging bowls, then turned to dirty claws that grasped him, broken dirty nails hiding blood and mould and foulness. He looked up but the ceiling was too high to propel a grappling hook, and there was no purchase up there anyway, and where would he go from there even if there was? He struggled against them, but soon couldn't move at all. The stench of the diseased, unwashed bodies was overwhelming. Another wave of fire washed over him, blinding him for a moment. Then he was struck hard from behind in the head and mercifully lost consciousness.

# Chapter 3: Kiss of Life

He awoke when he hit the water.

He was bound tightly, and something was weighing him down. He recognized the piers of the bridge and the buildings on it. Only that evening he had seen another man dragged from this place. Now this was to be his fate. It was dark and lamps burned inside the buildings of the bridge. He could see the rectangles of light through the water, their outlines blurred, flowing as the water rippled above. Perhaps he had stolen from one of those shops once, or picked the pocket of its owner. But he was sinking rapidly. The light was fading. The underside of the boat the beggars had used to row out into the depths moved silently above him, back to the shore. Only the dull thud of its oars could be heard along with muffled voices.

Since he had been unconscious he had not been able to take a deep breath before he was thrown in. The shock of hitting the water had made him reflexively suck in, but only half of it was air and as his lungs tried desperately to fill, they only filled with water. Soon he would be dead. There was no escaping this. He fought against the ropes, but they were too tight. He tried to wriggle his hands into a position where he could scrape at the knots, but without time he couldn't find them. The burning sensation crippled him again. He relaxed. He had known he was going to die like this one day. Why fight it? Every man dies. The water was warm because of the midsummer heat. It seemed to wrap around him like gentle arms.

He thought he saw a face there; a woman, more beautiful than any he had ever encountered. Was this what it was like to die? Was death the embrace of a beautiful woman? It wasn't so bad. She looked at him, and he thought he saw tears of pity, but he knew no tears could form underwater. Then she kissed him. The fire in his flesh faded. More strangely he found he could breathe. Perhaps he was only breathing in water. He was still sinking. The lights from the bridge were more distant now. The woman's face disappeared, if it had ever been there. The water was cooler down here than near the surface. He felt buoyant. He thought this must be the euphoria of death. But he was floating up.

He was no longer bound. And a woman was beside him, his hand held in hers. She dragged him along just beneath the surface. She swam through the lake, away from the bridge, past the pylons of the outer and inner ring. Then she was lifting him out of the water onto a tiny grassy sward beside a verdant grove. She kissed him again and the water flowed out of his lungs and he collapsed to the grass coughing and spluttering. He lay back on the grass and stared at the stars. The full moon cast its spectral beams across the trees behind him. The woman sat down beside him. They were still at the water's edge, and her feet trailed in the water.

Now that he saw her clearly he knew he had been right. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her eyes were green. Her skin seemed almost transparent, and he thought he could see the light of the moon passing through her. He pressed his eyes tightly closed. He must be hallucinating. Or dead.

"What kind of spirit are you?" he asked, opening his eyes again.

She made no answer. Her hair, fine, translucent seemed to be flowing down over her shoulders. Other than her hair she was completely naked and her body was perfectly formed. Her hips curved gently like a river, her breasts swelled with every breath.

"Am I dead?"

She shook her head.

"You saved me."

She smiled, and a feeling of refreshment washed over him. Then he remembered. "You were crying."

Her smile faded, and he felt a deep sadness wash over him. He sat up, reached out. She didn't stop him. She didn't recoil. His fingertips touched her face. It felt like touching a running stream.

"Who are you?"

She raised one of her own hands and held his to her face. It felt as though he had plunged his hand into fresh water. He drew closer to her. She kissed him again. He had never felt so euphoric a sensation. Then she placed her hands on his cheeks and pressed her forehead to his. He felt the flowing across his forehead. He looked into her eyes, and they were deep pools of crystalline, emerald hued water. The water sparkled and winked. She whispered in his ear and the sound was like a burbling brook in springtime. But he could understand the burbling. He didn't know how.

"My sister is missing."

"Your sister?"

"Yes. My father grieves. My sisters and I mourn her. We cannot find her. I fear some great evil has befallen her."

"Who is your father?"

"The river."

"Your father is the river? How can a river be a father?"

"I am one of his daughters."

A possibility occurred to Corin now, but it was so absurd he could barely believe it. It couldn't be true. It was a myth. Yet who was this beautiful creature? What was she? She scarcely seemed possible herself. And how had she freed him from his bonds? And she had swum under the lake from the bridge to this grove. He drew his face away from hers and looked towards the city. He was at the edge of the caldera lake. They must have swum more than a mile to get here. Under the water.

She grasped his face again and pressed it to her own.

"You're a nymph?"

"Some call us that."

"A Nymph of the Fountain."

"The girls who come to our lake or here to our shrine seeking purification call us that."

"So you're a goddess."

He felt her smile against his face and then she kissed him again. "Will you help me find my sister?"

"But you're a goddess. You're powerful. I'm only..."

"My power is blocked. I don't know how. I cannot enter the city. I suspect she is there...somewhere. But I have no power there."

"I'm only a thief."

"A thief can find what other men will miss. But that is not why I chose you."

"Why did you?"

"The heart of fire."

"The what?"

"The heart of fire has touched you. I heard its call in your pain. It rules Blood-spate. Together..."

"Blood-spate?"

"The sword of kings."

"Ah!" Corin said, still not understanding.

"Fire without water will burn. My sister will feel your pain also. Perhaps she will come to you. Her compassion will draw her heart to yours. Or perhaps you must find her. I do not know."

"I feel no pain."

"I have healed you as much as I can, but that will not last. Seek out my sister."

"And she will heal me permanently?"

"She cannot. The heart of fire is too strong. Only Blood-spate can undo the harm. Find the sword. But find my sister first. I fear my father grows angry. He only withholds his benediction from the city now. If he cannot find her...if he suspects the city of complicity..."

"What?"

"He may destroy it."

"The city is protected against flood. Its aqueducts are controlled by engineers. Most of the river is diverted around the caldera."

"He can overcome the inventions of man if he chooses. He has never done so before. The city has always worshiped him, and us, and respected the rituals. The city has always loved us. But if it has abducted my sister...his rage...it will know no bounds. You must help me. Help me find her."

"What if she isn't in the city?"

"I sense that she is."

"But not where?"

She shook her head. "Powerful magic is being used to hide her."

A thought occurred to him then, though she shook her head, as if she read it before he could speak it. "What if she hides herself."

"I have many sisters, but she is the closest to me. We were born together. She would not hide from me. She could not, any more than I could hide from her. Someone else has done this."

"But who could have the power to...who could overpower a goddess?"

"I do not know. It should not be possible. No mortal could. At least not in the natural order of things. But the time of change is nearly upon us. The planets are nearly aligned. The cusp will soon be here."

Corin didn't understand any of this, but he suggested what seemed most sensible. "Another god? The myths I've heard the bards singing say a lot of that happens among gods and goddesses."

"I wouldn't sense her presence in the city if she had been abducted by a god. Will you help me?"

"You saved my life. How could I not help you?"

She kissed him again.

"But where will I find her?"

"Follow your heart. It is touched by fire now."

"That's not much to go on."

"Seek out power."

"The king?"

She shook her head. "Sorcerous power. Great magic."

"So I need to find a powerful mage and piss him off. Sounds like a suicide mission."

"I will be eternally grateful."

"And I suppose you're one of the few women who can honestly say that."

She smiled and kissed him again.

He heard dragging footsteps behind him and turned. An old woman shuffled out of the grove, leaning against a tall, gnarled staff that looked like it had been carved from a branch of the grove. Around her neck was a necklace of smooth pebbles, sinking into her sagging, wrinkled cleavage. Her hair was white and wild and her eyes had a hint of madness. They seemed to be all pupil and stared at him as if both seeing him and looking through him.

"You can't be here," she said querulously, "no man can be here. The shrines must not be polluted." She raised her staff, seeming almost to collapse without its support. Thinking better of striking him and risking falling she planted it on the ground again, catching herself just as she was about to topple. She glared at him, as if he was responsible for the infirmities of her old age. "The goddesses will punish you," she said, "they will answer my prayers."

"Like this goddess?" he said, turning to look at the nymph. She was gone. He looked back at the aged priestess. She looked at him strangely. Then her eyes opened wide.

"One of the sisters was here?"

He nodded and touched his lips.

"But why would she...why are you doing that?"

"Doing what?"

She touched her lips. "She spoke to you?"

"She whispered in my ear."

"Why? Why would she bless a man?" She seemed about to collapse. "Why?" Her eyes watered, then her gaze hardened. "You lie. The goddesses drown men."

"Or save them."

She lifted her staff and shook it at him, quickly planting it again to support herself. "Leave. You can't be here. It's not right. This is a sacred place. It is forbidden."

"She brought me here."

"No." She shook her head, vigorously, angrily. The spectral light of the moon reflected off her eyes, making them seem more mad. "Leave."

He saw no point in arguing further with her so he slipped into the lake and swam for the northern shore. He felt as though he swam with more than usual ease, as if he was borne up from beneath, and a friendly current drew him along.

As he pulled himself up onto the shore he saw from the position of the moon that the night was still young. But where would he start his search? He knew nothing of sorcerers. He did know someone who might though.

# Chapter 4: Theatre of Lowlife

Three circular buildings dominated the moonlit skyline of North Bank. Tallest of all, at six stories, the Pit was a former baiting pit and theatre. Long since adapted by the Obsidian City's lawmakers into North Bank's prison, its grimy brick walls tottered perilously to one side in a corrugated curve, propped on makeshift buttresses fashioned from roughly sawn tree stumps, like an age bent geriatric who couldn't decide which walking stick to lean on. A hundred yards away, side by side, forming a figure eight, the baiting pit and the theatre both rose four stories high, two to three stories higher than most of the surrounding buildings. Both were wood, plaster and thatch constructions, walls splattered with many years of bird shit, thatch infested with rats and pigeons. Against the south side of the theatre, built in an arc to match the curve of the greater building's walls, leaned the House of Delights, Thedra's most famous brothel. A flag with a harlequin dressed joker fluttered above the main entrance to the theatre, on the east side. The Fool's Flag was the heraldic sign for the Court of Misrule and the theatre and baiting pit were the domain of the Guild of Misrule, whose members were actors, jugglers, bards, and other disreputable types.

But there was another guild with influence here, at least where some activities were concerned. Though the thieves' guild hall was under the theatre, the pickings in the theatre galleries were the richest in North Bank, and were viciously protected from freelancers, especially if they were foreigners. Just outside the main entrance to the theatre, under the aptly titled "Hanging Tree," several guild manglers were bashing a smallish cloaked man. They snarled and stomped as he curled up and covered his head with his arm, screaming. Only members of the Guild of Misrule were immune from this harsh justice of the Courts of Law, not only here but around the city, since their entertainments provided so much convenient distraction for thieves of the guild.

Even if the manglers hadn't been so preoccupied with the pleasures of thuggery, they wouldn't have noticed the slight hooded figure of Corin slipping past. He had a sixth sense for shadows and their unpredictable movements, as they played against the flickering light of guttering torches, that made him seem at most a momentary trick of the light. Once inside the Court of Misrule, he slipped through the crowds in the area beneath the theatre-stage known as The Yard. The stench of unwashed bodies pressed together in high summer didn't bother him, having grown up on the rougher streets of the city. Anyway, by comparison with the recent stench of the lake mud it almost smelt as sweet as roses. Foreign aristocrats in the galleries above pressed nosegays to their more sensitive noses. Some of the groundlings roared in laughter at two actors fighting slapstick on the stage in front. Others booed and threw peanut shells at the performers. Later, when they were properly drunk, these disagreements about the quality of the performance might break into open fighting, but for now the crowd was only moderately raucous. Here, among the loud, unwashed, ale swilling crowd only child thieves and foreign thieves worked, licenced either by the Courts of Law or the Courts of Misrule. Since the groundlings were usually too poor to pay for a gallery seat, the pickings were slim. Visiting thieves, for a fee, would be allowed to try their luck down here alongside the quick-fingered children of the streets. If they targeted the aristocrats who occasionally slummed it in The Yard they would have to hand over most of their takings or have them taken by force, as perhaps had happened to the thief outside the theatre. If they were talented, and obeyed these rules, they might be invited to enter the lower galleries, and eventually, having proven themselves worthy of guild membership, the middle and upper galleries. Guild manglers stood at the stairs from The Yard up to the lower galleries, watching for any of these foreign thieves who might try to sneak past to the greater profits that could be stolen above. By a careful combination of theatrical nonchalance and perfectly timed coordination with the movement of some theatre-goers to and from The Yard, the slight hooded figure of Corin eluded their hawk eyes. Though the King of Cripples had challenged the Lord of Law's right to rule him, he was sure the manglers would take any chance to give him a friendly warning bash.

Without being noticed Corin reached a whore who was receiving a cut purse from a man in the row in front of her. She moved slightly to hand the purse back to another whore in the row behind. Corin squeezed past her, brushing her passing hand on his way. She recognized him and winked. He had been largely raised by the whores of the House of Delights, so most of them knew him. Corin handed the purse back to the second whore and continued along the row. The first whore, inconspicuously tapping her partner in crime, Rubbery Roberto, on the shoulder to indicate she was moving, casually got up and followed Corin past a dandy, who reached for her on her way, unaware, as she bent to give him a free grope of her mostly exposed breasts, that she used the opportunity to pick his breeches pocket. A little later a young boy in harlequin colourful doublet and hose, selling peanuts, reached the man who had had his purse cut.

By this time Corin and the whore, a faded middle aged beauty named Sandy, had seated themselves in the shadow of a column next to which leaned a massive, sheathed, two handed sword, just beyond a tall auburn haired man, and watched the drama unfolding away from the stage. Roberto, a member of the Guild of Misrule, with as much theatrical as thieving talent, had seen the peanut boy coming and, rather than removing himself from suspicion, stayed for the opportunity to act. The victim, reaching for his purse, found it gone, and next to him on that side saw Roberto.

He rose to his feet and indignantly cried out, "Thief!" pointing an accusing finger.

Some turned to look curiously. Others looked with lazy eyes, recognized Roberto, and lazily swivelled their eyes back to the stage. Most didn't bother to look. For those who did, Roberto now performed.

"My dear sir..."

"You're a thief. My purse was here." The man patted his side. He smiled with smug certainty. "Only you could have taken it."

Roberto placed hand on supposed heart, and presented a sorely aggrieved expression. "But sir, you can't possibly think..."

"Thief!" the man screeched.

Now more eyes turned to watch the scene, ignoring the indifferent drama on the stage.

Roberto rose to his feet. He was much taller than the victim, but he didn't threaten. His voice trembled, his eyes watered. "But sir, I swear, by all the gods." He began to cry. Corin and Sandy laughed quietly in the shadows.

The man stepped back and drew a dagger.

Roberto feigned almost fainting at the sight. A rapier hung by his side, unused. "Please, sir. Please don't murder me." He raised his voice. "Murder is the most foul of crimes."

The man looked about him and saw all the eyes on him. "But you stole my purse, villain."

"I swear I did not. I would not. I could not. I never. Ever. I could never even conceive of such a thing. I am a simple man. I have no disguises to hide behind. I offer you whatever satisfaction is necessary to your honour. Search me. See if I am not an honourable man." Roberto raised his arms, inviting the other to search him.

The man advanced.

Roberto's face showed abject terror. "Oh, please don't murder me. Honourable sir, please."

The man sheathed his dagger and searched Roberto. He found the many throwing knives sheathed about Roberto's body under his cloak, and the performer's own purse, but nothing else. He held it, opened it.

Roberto, his expression subtly changing, said, "Will you rob me, sir?"

The man looked up, looked around at the faces in the gallery, and some in The Yard, watching him, waiting. "I'm not...I'm not a..."

"A thief?" Roberto asked innocently.

The crowd roared in laughter. The man blushed. Some of the faces had turned back to the clowning on the stage.

Roberto, seeing this, raised his voice, with an indignation true enough. What actor isn't offended by an unappreciative audience. "And yet you accuse me. And yet you smear my good name." A name Roberto didn't mention. Some of the faces turned back. Roberto slapped the man and drew his rapier. The tears were now replaced with blazing anger. "You steal from me and accuse me. You doubt my word. You slander my forefathers, sir. Defend yourself."

The man's blush faded. He turned white. He dropped the purse and backed away. "But...but...but...."

"I'll teach you to defame my father," Roberto said, "to call my mother a whore..."

"I never..."

"To assign me the name of bastard..."

"I didn't..."

"Oh, cunning cruelty. Such is the shame of the gods. Such is the way of the world. To come to this. To this!"

Corin and Sandy could hardly keep their seats for laughing. Indeed this was the way of this world. And Roberto was the face of it. Roberto waggled the tip of his rapier under his victim's nose. "Villain. Slanderer. Thief!" Roberto waited theatrically, as if this was just a part in another revenge tragedy, then added, "thief of my good name. Thief of my sweet mother's good name. Thief of my father's good name. Thief. Thief. Thief!"

Sheepishly the man dropped Roberto's purse and scuttled down the stairs into The Yard to hide his face among the nameless groundlings.

As Roberto sat down in the row in front of Corin and Sandy, Corin said, "I'm pretty sure your mother actually was a whore."

Sandy giggled. "She was, and a damn good whore too."

The other whore who Sandy, via the quick fingers of Corin, had handed the purse to now sat down behind her. She counted the takings and shared them with Sandy and Roberto.

Rob was a tall, slim, freckled, man in his late twenties, with straight sandy hair tied back in a short ponytail, and grey eyes which always seemed to be laughing. He was immensely talented, if truth be told, as well as in his own entertaining lies. As a contortionist he liked to title himself Rubbery Roberto, but his knife throwing skills were legendary and Corin always thought of him as Rob Smart, because that was precisely what he did. He was not a member of the Courts of Law but of the Guild of Misrule, which was mostly entertainers: sword swallowers, fire breathers, contortionists, acrobats, jugglers, knife throwers, actors and poets. Then there were the multitalented: writers of blank verse drama with the occasional sideline in forgery, actors convincing enough to pass for a missing heir to a great fortune, jugglers with hands quick enough for pickpocketing or cutting purses, knife throwers who dabbled in assassination, acrobats agile enough to cat burgle, contortionists lithe enough to squeeze through any space if there was treasure at the other end. Rob was most of these, though he didn't write blank verse. The thieves' guild wouldn't touch him though, since performances like his drew the large distracted crowds a pickpocket craves, especially in the crowded great market across the bridge. More importantly, in the lucrative galleries of the baiting pit and theatre the thieves of the Courts of Law only operated by leave of the Guild of Misrule.

"So," Roberto said to Corin, "what did you think?"

The tall man next to Corin stood momentarily, stretching his long legs, and said, "A bit overacted." At six and a half feet tall, Agmar made even the tall Roberto seem short. Long auburn hair flowed down over his wide, leanly muscled shoulders. He raised a hand with long elegant fingers to his freckled face, rubbing the stubble on his chin as his deep blue eyes, speckled with silver motes, literally sparkled, then sat down again, picking up the small harp between his feet which he carried everywhere and strumming a few chords. Agmar was a bard from Seltica. Next to the column rested his great two handed sword, for the bards of that island in the west were renowned as much for their martial vigour as their poetic and musical gifts.

Roberto huffed at Agmar's description of his performance. "Overacted!"

"But effective," Agmar placated him.

"I am a professional," Roberto said, straightening his spine and putting on his most patrician expression. "Such plebeians as yourself could not possibly understand." Corin was reduced to fits of laughter again. Roberto slouched in his seat, and grinned. "Ah, the crowds are so jaded nothing else will work anymore. It really is a sign of our times."

"So why are you here, Corin?" Agmar asked.

"Can't a man seek out the company of friends?"

"A thief usually finds his friends when he needs them."

"So cynical." Corin acted wounded. "But you're right."

Agmar watched him expectantly.

"I'm looking for an evil sorcerer." The moment he said it he knew it sounded silly.

Agmar raised an eyebrow. "What kind of lunatic seeks out death?"

Corin wondered how much he should tell Agmar, and how much Agmar would believe. "Would you believe if I said a goddess wanted me to?"

"She must be a pretty special girl for you to be suicidal. Tell me, what girl has put you up to this. I'll go and spank her, maybe something more if she likes the treatment."

"No, seriously. A goddess."

Agmar smiled indulgently, the motes in his eyes literally glittering.

Corin ignored the condescension, "I don't mean it poetically. You know I'm not the romantic type."

"Rose might disagree," Sandy said, smiling at the young whore who now sat down behind Corin.

"That's not love."

"Not love?" Rose said with mock offence as she leaned forward and rested her chin on his shoulder, brushing her exposed nipples against his back. "I'll never sell myself to you again."

Rose's long, wavy, honey blonde hair which, even when dry and curling up reached all the way down her back, now fell over his shoulder into his lap. He found the perfumed smell of it irresistible and wondered for a moment whether she too was a goddess, disguised as a Thedran whore. She was slim but shapely, with narrow shoulders and waist, firm, not overlarge breasts, exposed in the usual fashion of Thedran whores, with light coloured, large nipples, becoming erect from rubbing against his back, wide hips, and a flawless, milky complexion. She smiled, not only with her mouth, but also with her eyes. Those eyes were large and hazel hued, tending more towards green than brown, though the balance of hues changed from day to day and, she believed, with her moods. They were intelligent eyes, aware and quick and ready with laughter, but in unguarded moments deeply sad. They were overhung by artificially long lashes, which when lowered seemed like tiny lacquered fans behind which she hid a shyness none of her customers could imagine, let alone understand; and lengthened by eyeliner at their edges. Her brows were carefully plucked and their outlines made precise with a touch of charcoal. Her small, sensual lips, lightly glossed with a rosy food dye, were slightly drawn back by her smile from small, unusually straight, perfectly white teeth, and her breath, like her hair, was scented. Corin didn't believe any other Thedran could possibly have such perfect teeth, or smell, or complexion. She suffered from none of the pock-marks that most North Bank whores had to carefully conceal beneath layers of foundation and powder. Altogether, her face had the quickness of an experienced actress's, though her eyes could not always hide a hard earned stoicism, which in turn overlay the desperate, ineradicable sadness of a girl sold as a child into sexual slavery by her widowed mother.

He took her chin and gently kissed her lips. "I'll always love..." He paused with a lovelorn look on his face. "...what you have to sell." The tiny fans of her eyelashes closed for a moment, but she betrayed no emotion. He turned back to Agmar. He spoke more insistently now, "You're the one always telling the old tales of heroes and gods. You do think they're real, don't you?"

"I think I don't know. I've seen some strange things in my time, but never a god...or goddess, more's the pity."

"Well, take my word for it." Then Corin told him everything that had happened, from when he had been dumped in the lake to the nymph's request.

Agmar strummed his harp:

"Quick-fingers one night took a swim

In the lake under Thedra Bridge,

Saved by the kiss of a pretty nymph

He died thirsting for her sweet wet lips."

"So you don't believe me?"

Agmar put down his harp. "I didn't say that. But if this nymph was more than just a wet dream you had while you were washed up by the grove, she's asked a lot for the price of a kiss. Better to stick to whores Corin. Give them what they want and they'll always show you your heart's desire." As if to prove Agmar's point, Rose nibbled Corin's ear. Agmar continued, "This sounds like a fool's errand. If you can find what this nymph wants you'll die as likely as not. So you end up in a hole. There are much nicer holes to end up in."

"Like Rose's," Sandy chipped in.

"Like mine," Rose agreed, "and the price of admission is only a single golden sovereign." A price that only aristocrats, merchants and extraordinarily skilful thieves could afford.

"You said you loved me," Corin acted affronted.

Rose's eyes hardened, whether in calculation or irritation he couldn't tell, and she said harshly. "I only love gold. I'm only a whore." He reached back and rubbed one of her nipples. She nibbled his ear again, but this time bit harder, drawing blood. When he exclaimed in pain she merely glared at him.

To escape her hazel eyed glare he returned his eyes to Agmar, and said, "Well, assume for a moment that I'm not making this up...."

Agmar said, "And if you are you should become a bard. You definitely have talent."

"...and assume I'm not mad...."

"Certainly a possibility. Or at least you might have dreamed it and then taken the dream for waking."

"...then the fact remains, I have to find a sorcerer. Preferably an evil sorcerer." Corin realised the last comment really did sound mad.

"Well, I've never had anything much to do with evil sorcerers. It's said they can be killed, but as likely as not they'll disintegrate you or turn you into an overcooked roast, or use you in some evil experiment. They are evil, after all. Good sorcerers, though..."

Corin's ears pricked up. "Yes?"

"Well those two wouldn't call themselves that. They'd say they're scholars, or scientists. But their knowledge is certainly arcane. I know a thing or two about what some call magic. I've dabbled. It's necessary to my art. I can affect the minds of men with song in ways that'd surprise you. But Jared and Javid have much deeper knowledge than that. And they've been in and around this city their whole lives. I've only been here a short while. If anyone knows where an evil sorcerer would be it's the twins. If you're crazy enough to want to take on an evil sorcerer, they might just be wise enough to not tell you where you might find him. More likely they'll point the way to your death just to prove how smart they are. Then you can have as much fun as you like getting yourself killed."

"So where are they?"

"You already know."

"What do you mean?"

"You see their handiwork, or at least Javid's handiwork, every day. That crazy staircase in the air. I'll introduce you. You'll need me to get up there."

"I'm a thief, remember. I can climb a wall."

"If you want to take all night you might. And then you'll have to get the twins to talk. Then again, the archers of The Duke might pick you off on the way up. He's their patron."

# Chapter 5: Men of Science

"Then she kissed me, again," Corin said. He had drifted from his story several times, fascinated by the scene inside the observatory. Agmar understood; it had had the same effect on him the first time he had seen it.

"An interesting tale," Javid Pentafax said, "it would explain much."

His brother, Jared, only showed them his snow white tonsure, matched by the one Javid had retained, though neither was any longer a Brother of the Leaves. His eye was pressed against the lens. The matters of this earth seemed to matter less to him than the swirling spectra and coronae of the moon. It was a world which obsessed both twins, though Javid had said they sought it in different ways.

Corin still gaped at the observatory. It was littered with half completed experiments: an armillary sphere with a delicate clockwork; retorts and alembics, spirals of glass, flasks and trays. There were tiny mechanical birds with clockwork innards in various stages of construction. But what captured the young thief's imagination most were the crystals and precious gems everywhere about the observatory; sapphires and diamonds and rubies and emeralds, quarts and amber and jade. They were all suspended in the air, Corin supposed by magic, and all marked with runes that pulsed with their own light – dividing further or recombining the rays emanating from the giant crystal embedded in the mechanisms of the dome above. They reminded him of the gem in the cellar of the thieves' guild, and as he thought that the fiery pain returned for the first time since the nymph had kissed him. It was less intense than before, but he guessed it would get worse over time.

"What's it for?" Corin asked.

"Ah," said Jared, lifting his eye from the lens now, "All these rays of light, by my skilful calculations," He gestured to the rays extending along lines that ran back and forth, through and beyond the stones, passing through sequences of inscribed runes, "pass through runes which spell out, in the first language, the names of clarity."

"As the gods might write them," Javid added.

"They converge again at the centre of the observatory, in this polished silver dish."

Jared now lowered his eye to another crystal, a lens no larger than his eye, balanced over the centre of the dish on a tripod, though not directly above it, since dish and tripod were rotated to face the astronomer.

"The great crystal above," he continued, pointing, though still looking into his lens, at the huge gem set in the semi-spherical surface of the observatory's dome, "is set to run along rails in the dome, and made to face, through my beautiful clockwork..."

"...our...," Javid corrected.

"...our mechanism, the moon."

"It is a work of genius," Javid said, "which we designed and built together."

Impelled to a sense of urgency by the returning pain, Corin asked Javid, "What did you mean by, 'it would explain much.'?"

"Follow me."

Agmar and Corin followed Javid out and across the top of the giant tower to the battlements where they overlooked the lake.

"Notice the stink?"

"The city always stinks," Agmar said.

"Not like this," Corin said. He knew the city better than the bard, being a native, and he knew it had never been as bad as this.

"No," Javid agreed, "it's not the usual stench of city life, of piss and shit emptied lazily into streets from chamber pots when the refuse carts are late, or of rotting food and human waste on the carts or near the collection points. It's a stagnant smell. No mountain breeze will lift it, of that I'm sure, since I feel the breezes clearly up here, and they've been frequent enough recently. I doubt a summer rain would wash it away either. I went down to the lake a few days ago, and it smells putrescent. It's as if the river is punishing the city for some terrible sacrilege. The power of cleansing is gone from his waters. Look." He pointed to the aqueducts which brought water back to the lake and city from the streams diverted around Mount Thedra. Some extended all the way to the city, while others filled the lake. The waters flowed out of them sluggishly, oozing from their edges like molasses poured from a barrel. "There is no joy in their movement. I couldn't understand why. I tried scrying, descending to the caldera lake and drawing many runes of showing, but the waters resisted. The usually placid surface rose in waves, as if angry at my meddling. I asked the Sisters of the Labyrinth what they knew, but for all their prophetic skills they couldn't find the cause either. The abbess only told me, 'The river laments, but will not speak his loss.' Now the cause is clear. You must follow the nymph's quest. The fate of the city may depend upon it."

"But where do I find this evil sorcerer?"

Javid pointed to a tower in the distance. "The air and the waters are not the only things to concern me recently. There is the tower of Phisphul."

"Phisphul?" Corin asked.

"I've heard of him," Agmar nodded, "and none of it good."

Javid said, "An almost legendary necromancer. I thought him long dead, until recently, when that began."

The tower was taller than even the huge gatehouse towers that divided the city into its four quarters, but was much thinner. It rose crookedly from the rooftops of the south east quarter, like an arthritic finger scratching the sky, and was topped by a misshapen conical roof. Even now a strange light emanated from a lone window near the roof. The light wasn't bright and joyful, like the fireworks calling back the goddess Dawn to chase away the longest, darkest night at midwinter. It pulsed like a sick heart, bleeding crimson streams into the darkness. A light that would pollute healthy shadows. Corin shuddered now despite the summer warmth.

"I'm supposed to fight someone who can do that?" Corin looked doubtful.

"Maybe not fight," Agmar said.

"What then?"

"Steal. Perhaps your special skills are more important than anything a warrior like me could bring to bear against such a sorcerer."

"Or a mage like me."

"But you're a powerful mage. You can fight him."

Javid shook his head. "Though my knowledge only grasps at the faintest traces of divine wisdom I like to flatter myself that I know more than many mortal men, but..."

Agmar nodded, "But Phisphul, if he lives is no mere mortal."

"To still live he must have used his necromantic arts against the natural day of his own death, delaying it. It's a foul practice, usually accomplished at the expense of many other lives. He may be many centuries old. In the Labyrinth of Leaves there are texts at least five hundred years old referring to him, though whether it is the same sorcerer who now haunts his tower I couldn't say with certainty. It is said that he never showed any signs of age. If the legends are true, if Phisphul lives, if this is his work, I am no match for his power. Perhaps together with my brother we could challenge him, but my brother becomes obsessed to the point of madness with his researches."

"So you expect me to take on a necromancer even you wouldn't?"

"No, Corin; Agmar is right; you're a thief, not a warrior. And clearly the nymph chose you for the task. There is something significant about this pain that you suffer. It drew her to you. But more than that, perhaps you'll find a devious way where a bolder approach would fail. I don't know. But I do know that this is important."

"What do I care about important? I'm a thief, like you said."

"If the city is destroyed, who will you steal from?"

"I'll find someone. I always do. This sounds like suicide."

"I'll go with you," Agmar said, "or perhaps I should go in your place."

"No. It's my quest." Agmar's offer made him irrationally protective of his prerogative, even if it was a death wish.

Agmar smiled at the effectiveness of his reverse psychology on the young thief.

"No," Javid agreed, "the goddess asked it of him. Deities are wise in ways that mortals can't easily understand. This is a task he must face alone."

"So, any words of wisdom before I become an exhibit over a necromancer's fireplace?"

"Don't get caught," Agmar said with a grin, the motes in his eyes sparkling.

"Thanks." Corin said dryly.

# Chapter 6: The Dark Tower

Corin had always occupied himself with the healthy, honest occupations of a "low lawyer," a thief in the local thieves' cant. A week ago sorcery had had no place in his world. Though he had seen many strange things in this city, he had rarely seen anything magical, unless you counted the entertainers and charlatans with their sleight of hand and hypnotic words. Those he saw through easily, given his own knowledge of sleight of hand and bullshit. But now he was obliged to search out the real thing. He thought of turning back, ignoring the nymph's plea. But he remembered her kiss, sweeter than the freshest water in the parching summer heat. Would he ever see her again? And she had saved his life. As amoral as he tried to be he felt he owed her. And then, who knew what riches a great necromancer might have. Riches that a skilful thief could steal. A thief like Corin Quick-fingers. Greatest thief in the Obsidian City.

The burning sensation came in waves now. He wondered if it caused a madness that produced the voice he now heard in his head. As he came closer to Wizard's Way the voice became clearer. And it called him, begged him to hurry. It was full of pain, and was too much like his own voice screaming in his head for him to be sure it wasn't madness. But, whatever it truly was, he felt drawn by it. It was drawing him towards the tower.

He reached Wizard's Way. He had expected brightly lit wizard's residences to line the street, displaying wonders to would be patrons, or warnings of the dire consequences of trespassing. But there was only one, or at least only one tower. Along either side of the street, between where Corin slunk in shadow and the tower, stretched a row of dilapidated houses, clearly not lived in for many years, perhaps centuries. The tower rose at the end of the street, above a formidable surrounding wall, beyond which flourished a tangle of unkempt vegetation that somehow was not lit by the full moon, and seemed from a distance to be composed of shadows not wood. The tower itself soared higher than the battlements that ringed the city. And those battlements were high. From the tower window the strange light oozed, polluting further an already notoriously corrupt and filthy city.

Corin anxiously observed that high window and its unnatural light. In his brain and in his gut he knew he should turn back, but the voice called to him, and its urgency was such that he could no longer resist. Set in the walls was an iron gate beneath an arch from which gargoyles leered. Though the walls were high, they would stop no serious thief, but what thief would be so foolhardy to dare the wrath of a great necromancer? And this necromancer was great, if Javid was to be believed.

As Corin quickly scaled the wall, his fingers unerringly finding the best toe and finger holds, he felt the hair on the nape of his neck prickle. He was sure that was no charlatan's trick. Whoever lived within was dangerous. Better safe than too dead to be sorry, he thought. He vacillated. He was going to turn back.

But the voice was becoming more insistent, like a pulsing in his head. It pleaded with him. He tried to ignore it. It tore at him. It threatened to leave him, and he wanted to scream, "then leave me." Was it his voice that screamed? Could you leave yourself? He clutched his head and the fire in his veins surged from his heart along his arms and up his neck into his head, almost making him pass out. Into his legs, so that they seemed about to collapse beneath him. He almost fell. Then the voice whispered, more calmly this time, and washed away the pain.

Despite his misgivings he resolved to enter the necromancer's lair. He sat on the ledge for a moment, while scanning the grounds within. The place was completely overgrown, the path that must lead from the gate to the tower barely visible, trees and bushes and creeping vines growing together; a thick undifferentiated tangle of wood and leaves and ivy and weeds and fallen, rotting leaves and twigs and branches. Usually that kind of riotous vegetation would be alive with the sounds of wildlife, owls and possums and nocturnal insects, but it seemed devoid of sentient life, and even the plants were stone-like, without a rustle, merely the ingredients for a creeping decay. Part of him knew he should have turned back, but another part could not; the fear of the fire inside him and the hope of a goddess's healing kiss drove him on. He searched for a way down through the bracken. The growth was all the way to the wall, so that he could not simply climb down the wall or drop. He saw a thick branch from an olive tree, extending over the path from the gate to the tower, tested it with his foot, and it snapped, rotten. He tried another with the same result.

The top of the wall was more than a foot wide, so for someone with his balance it could easily be walked along. He walked away from the gate, peering into the tangled vegetation, but it only grew thicker the further he moved from the path. The shadows seemed deepest wherever he looked and he wondered whether they were real. But real or not they obscured the way down. He wouldn't jump without knowing the ground. He went back to the gate arch. He took out a rope and grappling hook and fastened the hook to the highest crossbar on the gate from outside, fed the rope over the top, through the imperfect join between the arch's keystone and the stone next to it, and dropped the rope into the darkness inside the gate.

He climbed down. There were more branches closer to the gate than he had noticed when looking in from outside. They seemed to close in on him as he descended. At first they were gentle, like the fingers of the diseased trying to touch a holy man, but as he climbed lower they seemed more like the hangman's hands, touching his neck as if to check that the noose was tight enough. He struck out and branches broke off, kicked and others followed. He would have liked to have a sword to cut them all away. It was darker down here than he had expected too, and as he looked through the grille of the gate his vision seemed to blur and darken, the houses lining Wizard's Way losing shape and shifting like shadows in firelight, as if any light from the street was strangled by the bars of the gate. When he reached the ground he could see nothing at all. He looked up the way he had come but couldn't see the stars.

"That can't be a good sign," he said to himself, "but," he tried to cheer himself, "at least it can't be a bad sign if there's no sign."

More strangely, he couldn't even see the contours of the gate or lines of greater darkness where the bars of the gate should have been. He felt around but couldn't find it that way. "You've got yourself into worse fixes than this before, Corin, if only you could remember when." He usually had an excellent sense of direction, but here he was totally lost. He reached out in random directions and was surprised that no branches blocked his way. He decided he would just have to trust to the vegetation being thicker away from the path. He took one step in a direction he thought was away from the gate, reaching in front of himself. Another. And so by careful single steps he made his way, whether along the path to the tower or in an arc into the depths of the sinister garden he didn't know.

The darkness seemed to become substantial as he progressed, at first like a stifling air, soon like liquid, and it became more viscous with every step. It didn't choke his lungs, but he tasted a terrible despair in the air. Why had he come here? He was sure to die. He was dying now. He knew it. He knew there was no hope. Why did he go on? He had forgotten why he was here. Why not lie down here and die? The darkness closed about him, holding him immobile, pressing into his flesh. Fingers of it brushed his face, reached for his eyes, scratched like branches at his cheeks. Ivy reached out in thick fingers, which extended from all directions, knotted about his waist and dragged him down, but more forceful than this was the despair, which urged him to give up and to lie down and die.

Then the voice he had heard before called to him, washed over him, washing away the despair. It was a voice of power. He didn't know whose voice it was, but it almost seemed his own, reassuring him. And he had always been more amused by the probability of death than terrified. He was a thief, born to a beggar and a whore, fostered by whores, befriended by scoundrels. It was a cruel but entertaining world. Laugh at it. Laugh all the way to the hanging tree, then dance. He laughed now, and every guffaw drove more of the fear away. The pressure around his waist grew less, the tendrils of ivy loosening. The darkness seemed to shift and shudder too, colours shimmering at the edge of vision, constantly shifting, like moonlight when the moon was full and its swirling colours most vivid. On nights like this. He knew why he was here. He was going to steal from a powerful necromancer. He would become a legend among thieves. The thief who stole from a necromancer and lived to tell the tale. That necromancer didn't know what was coming and by the time he did it would be gone, along with everything of value in his tower, forsaken by all the gods, except Ilsa, god of thieves, who waited at the door to invite in his favourite son, the greatest thief in the Obsidian City, Corin Quick-fingers.

But the darkness closed in again, and the branches reached for him and held him back. Soon they would close about his neck. Here there would be no hanging tree dance. Here he would choke and no one would see. Here there was no laughing, not even a crowd to jeer at him as he drove away their own fear of death with his own, making light entertainment of that most terrifying of mysteries that all men great and small would one day face. And wasn't that the point of a hanging? It wouldn't be him laughing. He would be laughed at as he died. But even that would be better than this, dying here alone. No one would know. Rose and Sandy wouldn't know. Rob wouldn't know. Agmar...why did he think of Agmar? Who was Agmar? Who was Rob? Who was Sandy? Rose? Why did he think of a flower at a time like this? He must have friends, but did he? Who would be a friend to a rogue like him? Even if he did have friends they would probably just think the thieves of the Courts of Law had finally caught up with him, stuck a knife in his back, tied a stone to a rope and the rope about his ankles and chucked him in the lake, or maybe thrown his corpse on the refuse plateau to rot and have his eyes pecked out by hungry kites. He dropped to his hands and knees, but he couldn't go on, not like this.

And again the voice came, as bright as the despair was dark, washing it away, speaking with a power greater than any he had known. This was greater than any necromancer. A necromancer was but an insect to this. And somehow it was Corin's own voice, and yet it was not; and it lifted him from his hands and knees to his knees, from his knees to his feet. Corin knew where he was going now. The voice told him what he couldn't see. It reassured him. It was himself. Who else could it be? He always talked to himself. That was what it was, he was sure. "You're a great talker, when no one's about." And he had talked his way out of trickier situations than this. After all, here he only had to convince himself, and that was easy.

But it wasn't as easy as it sounded, and he collapsed again, this time to his belly, the darkness wrapping itself around him, suffocating him. There was no life here. No animal, no insect. He strained his ears listening but could hear nothing. Though much of the city was asleep, always there was some sound in the Obsidian City, dirty jewel of Ropeua, where the king ruled and merchants traded and guild masters paraded down streets with their overdressed wives to their guild halls, and manglers and thieves made threats against freelancers, while chandlers slept and snored and dogs barked to one another and howled at the prismatic moon. But here not even a whisper of those sounds reached. Here there was nothing but silence. And it was not a peaceful silence. There was nothing relaxing or reassuring about it. It was a disturbed silence, a fearful silence, a silence that told of darkness and despair, of the pointlessness of all life, of the falsehood of all vitality. No such falsehood could survive here. He was dying of a lie and the lie was life, that disease with the most certain end.

"Truth is not so simple," said the familiar voice then, and he knew in that moment that he agreed. Yes life was a road to death, but what a road, what views, what passions and pleasures, what adventures, what hopes, and not all were pointless. Yes there were times when the way seemed hard and steep, but the view at the end of the climb was the more satisfying for it. Yes there were frustrations but disappointment was the most certain evidence of passion. Yes there was pain, but didn't that make the pleasures all the more exquisite? Yes there was dullness, so much dullness, so many boring rules and interfering guilds and laws designed to make a thief's life more dangerous, but you didn't sit still and moan, you got up and went out and looked for adventure. You didn't avoid trouble you invited it. You made your own way. You broke every rule you could get away with and robbed blind every man you could outsmart. There was always hope, and it burned brightest in the darkest places. And now, in Corin's breast, it blazed with incredible brilliance, a light within that fought the darkness without.

He could see the door. He crawled like a snake, on his belly. It was all he had strength for, but it was enough. Nothing would stop him. Nothing could. He was Corin Quick-fingers. He reached into his pocket and with his quick fingers felt the tiny statuette of his long dead father, next to that of his adoptive mother, the beggar and the whore. He carried them everywhere with him, as every common Thedran without hearth and home to place them carried their ancestral statuettes, carved from the bones of those who had gone before them, fathers and mothers and their fathers and mothers, as many as could be held onto and remembered. His own father only spoke to him in dreams, but he would often speak to his father in times of need. He gripped the tiny figurine now and spoke to him.

"Father, I'm not going to try to trick you. I'm not going to use any of the beggar's tricks you taught me. You taught me everything I know that I didn't steal from someone else's brain. You know all the tricks of the beggars trade, so I couldn't trick you out of anything. I'm just a simple thief, with simple needs, like living. If I do beg you for anything I know you'll respect me the more for it, but I wouldn't want you to think I thought I could beg better than you. I understand professional pride. No better thief in the whole of this city, except maybe the Lord of Law, and maybe...well, you understand."

He felt a sudden surge of strength. Perhaps, he thought, the voice had been of his father. He had thought it was female but he couldn't be sure. He still could see clearly his father's face, though he had died six years before. It was carved with great precision into the bimateya statuette in his pocket. His thumb was pressed against it, and was familiar with its every contour. But try as he might he couldn't remember his father's voice. He remembered being told to beg for both of them. "They're kinder to children," his father had said. And they had been. But that was long ago. He was not a child anymore. He was sixteen.

He was not far from the door now. He got to his hands and knees, then to his feet. He looked up. At this end of the garden there was a gap in the vegetation. Through it he could see the stars, and the tower, iridescent in the spectral light of the moon.

A short stairway of slate led up to the door. Now he had to pick the door's lock. He examined it, then checked all the edges of the iron bound oaken door. He couldn't find any hidden triggers, and it didn't seem to be locked. He checked again, this time for traps. Nothing. He turned the handle. As he did his thief sharp senses tingled. He stepped sideways instinctively, more quickly than he could think, and there was a flash, and an impact as if someone huge had shoved him hard. He landed in something prickly. He was blind.

It was only momentary. His vision cleared, and he was looking up at the same stars, reassuring in their twinkling normality, and the wall of the tower, with its crookedly mortared stones, rising towards the conical cap of its roof far above. He climbed out of the prickly bush he had landed on, something like a blackberry bush but without any fruit, as if nothing good could live in this place.

He cautiously went up to the door again. Looking to where he had stood a moment before he saw the slate of the top stair had been cracked, as if a giant hammer had struck there. He had discovered no trap with his examination of the door. It had to have been a magical trap. Sneaky of a necromancer to use magic, he thought. There had been no sound, despite the damage done. Perhaps the necromancer didn't want his meditations disturbed by the killing of pesky intruders. And Corin didn't want his life finished by the nasty spells of a vindictive necromancer. He would have to be more careful.

More interesting than the damage of the trap was that the door had disappeared. He peered into the space where it had been. He could see nothing there. Perhaps, he thought, it was like the darkness behind him. Enter, the familiar voice said, softly, seductively. It was definitely a female voice. But he would be careful about what voices he trusted now, even if they were in his own head. He looked back towards the gate, but he saw no path, and it occurred to him that going back would now be harder than reaching this point. He decided he must go forward. He took a deep breath, and stepped across the threshold.

The unnatural darkness dissolved. He was in a stairwell, with only natural shadows. Natural shadows were a thief's friends. They were a comforting presence after the horror of the garden path and the uncertainty of the doorway. He stepped into the deepest of them for a moment, wrapping himself in darkness, natural darkness in an unnatural place.

The stairwell spiralled up around a central column of stone, like a tower within the tower. The stone of both of the inner walls and the steps between them was as smooth as marble, with no joins or mortar, unlike the outside of the tower, as if the whole edifice had been sculpted from a single piece of marble then polished. It seemed, further up, where a lantern glowed, to be the colour of sun bleached bone. Only that lantern, on the outer wall, opposite the point where the curve cut off sight, interrupted the monotony of the surface. The light didn't flicker like a flame, but glowed evenly, softly, similar to the lamps in the Courts of Law. He strained his ears, hoping to hear the familiar voice, but the tower was completely silent, and so was his head. No sound of life of even the smallest kind was here, not a pattering of rat's feet, nor a scratching of scuttling cockroaches. There were no cobwebs in the stairwell, though the ceiling, being the next turn of the stairs, was too far above for any broom to reach, at least if human hands were doing the sweeping.

He moved carefully up the stairs, scanning each step and the wall to either side in case of traps. But he wasn't sure he would be able to spot a magical trap. The one outside, on the door, had been the first he had ever encountered. He hoped that trap was the last, but a thief's natural caution made him wary. He hadn't spotted that trap though he had evaded most of its damage. He didn't like to think what would have happened if he hadn't moved, since that might be the result of the next trap he missed. As he reached the lamp set in the wall he saw another lamp up above, just within sight at edge of the tower's curvature. Examining the lamp he couldn't see what fuelled it. Its light didn't dance, even when he blew through vents in the bottom. Not the tiniest flicker. The necromancer must save a lot on candles and torches, he thought. If Corin had had some magic of his own he would probably have made the shadows deeper, or made himself invisible. An invisible thief with quick light fingers and a quick light step, he thought; he would be a legend in his own time, if he wasn't already. He continued up, each breath carefully controlled to silence it, each step carefully placed, lighter than a cat, yet what to most ears would usually be imperceptible, in this place, to Corin's own ears at least, sounded loud. His breath seemed to rasp in his throat, his feet seemed to thump on the stone.

He felt the trap before triggering it this time. As he stopped he noticed a barely visible rune that he was sure had not been there a moment before. He barely dared to move his eyes or to breathe, then he carefully stepped back, prepared to leap away if necessary. There was no mechanism to observe or disable as with a mechanical trap, only a slight difference in the air. Corin could feel that difference, and suspected that if he disturbed that air above the rune it would disturb the organization of the organs in his body, perhaps by splattering them all over the walls. That would be a shame, he thought; they were such pretty marble walls. He decided he had to test the trap, despite the danger involved. The only other option would be to return the way he had come, and he dreaded stepping again on that garden path. He tried to put out of his mind that he would have to traverse it again, somehow, when he had finished his thieving. He moved carefully closer to and further from the threatening air of the trap, delicately probing its limits. He tried to find space enough to squeeze past it, but saw the rune begin to glow and quickly backed away. The rune pulsed slowly then faded to its earlier imperceptible form.

He thought at first he couldn't simply go back down the stairwell and throw something at it; the sound of the trap going off might alert the necromancer. But he remembered the trap at the door. It had been silent. The necromancer did not want to be disturbed by anything as trivial as the sound of a thief's body exploding into bloody little chunks of flesh and bone and brain. Still, he didn't want to do it. Professional pride made him hesitate. Set off a trap rather than avoid or disarm it? That just was not something a great thief did. And Corin was a great thief. He knew it; the world would one day agree. But how many thieves could disarm a magical trap? Only a sorcerer could do that, maybe. Was it cheating to admit to what you couldn't do? No! It was practical. Anyway, he liked cheating. Why should a thief care about cheating? At the end of the day, or more usually night, what mattered was the size of the sack of loot you carried away. But still, it would be an inelegant solution to the problem. As an artist, or scoundrel, which is much the same thing, he hated inelegant solutions.

He went back to the door and stepped outside, looking up. He had left the rope and grappling hook hanging at the gate. He had his claws, for more challenging surfaces. If the wall could be scaled, and what wall could not? then he could get in through a window higher up. But the only window he could see was the one at the top. Come to think of it, he had never seen any window but that one, no matter where he had seen the tower from, no matter from what angle. And from that window even now oozed the same threatening sorcerous light. There was no way he was going to go through that. All he wanted to do was break into the lower levels of the tower, find some loot, and get out of there before the necromancer could discover him and redecorate by making a mural of his gizzards. There was something else he had to do, but he couldn't remember now. Some of the haze of the dark path stayed with him.

He shrugged, stepped back inside, and took the pack off his back. He couldn't use anything too heavy, or when it hit the stair it would make a noise itself, whatever the trap did. He took out a pair of ladies' gloves he had filched from a glove maker's stall. Soft doeskin leather. He had thought Rose might like them, but business comes first. Even if he told her, as a pragmatic whore she would understand. He rolled the gloves together and twisted the fingers around the whole to tie the bundle into a neat compact mass, then he walked back up to the first lantern. He was now a bit further from the trap in the stairwell than the brambles he had landed in earlier had been from the trap at the door. He threw the gloves so they landed right on the rune.

Even shielded by the curvature of the stairwell the blast launched him back down the stairwell, deafening him with the roar of sudden fire. His reflexes kicked in as he hit the stone and he rolled, awkwardly because he was travelling sideways and stairs are not a good surface to roll down. He ended up on his feet but was on fire and dropped back down to the stairs to roll about some more, putting it out. He had been wrong expecting it to be the same trap. It hadn't been silent. It had not been friendly. He didn't generally get personal with his unsuspecting patrons, but he would like to thump this necromancer. Maybe when he was asleep, then run away before he could wake up and throw a fireball at his arse. That had not been a pleasant experience. Still, he was alive, which was always a special pleasure to discover. A little bit singed, a little bit battered, like a fish fried in oil by a talentless cook. But this fish wasn't going to be anybody's meal. This fish was pissed off.

He breathed until he calmed down. Anger was not professional. It marred your judgement, made you do something stupid, though what could be more stupid than breaking into a necromancer's tower and deliberately setting off his fiery trap-of-thief-death was hard to say. Corin ears were ringing, but that soon subsided, and the tower was silent. He waited for footsteps, but none came. Probably the necromancer thought that whoever set off the trap was dead. Anyone but Corin probably would be. Or maybe he was so busy with his dark magic that he hadn't noticed the sound. Or maybe there was nobody here, and the necromancer was long dead, leaving nothing but rumours to scare little children and traps to squash, or roast or disembowel or whatever else, any thief who didn't respect the power of the place. But if the necromancer was dead, where did that oozing darkness come from?

He continued up the stairs when he was sure the fireball trap wasn't still alive. The rune had completely vanished and didn't reappear as he approached. Knowing what to look for now he could move more quickly, though he cautioned himself not to become too complacent. There were doorways without doors leading off into the central well of the tower, and he checked each of these. The first room was empty except for a broken crate and barrel hoops without a barrel to hold together. No rats, no mice, no cockroaches, not even a spider. The second was a storeroom with sacks of grain, barrels of beer, amphorae of wine or olive oil, rolled up rugs and tapestries, a broom and mop and bucket, and a chest.

He examined the chest for traps. Even if it was owned by a necromancer, people bought chests with mechanical traps built into their locks. This had none that Corin could find. He searched carefully for any runes which might indicate a magical trap, but could find none. He didn't feel anything strange as he had approaching the last trap, or before the one at the door had struck. The lock was relatively easy to pick. He opened it, and found inside a velvet cover, underneath which were a number of small phials. He picked up one, and took it back to the stairwell, where another lantern glowed with its magical light. The phial was green glass, no bigger than his thumb, with a tiny cork. A little label had been scrawled on, but the writing was illegible. You'd think necromancer would write neatly, he thought. Perhaps they only cared about the neatness of their runes, like the ones they wrote to murder innocent thieves. He went back to the chest. Should he take some of the phials? He wasn't sure whether he would be able to sell them. Rose was a pretty good fence, but who would buy something without even knowing what it was? He noticed that the flasks were too elevated in the chest, so he started removing them. One wouldn't budge. He pushed it forward, sideways, pressed down, and heard a click. He removed the rest of the phials and opened the secret compartment.

Inside was a large transparent phial. Its contents sparkled. It was much larger than any of the others. Inside the room was dark though; Corin's shadow blocked the light from the stairwell; what light could be causing that? He picked up the phial and took it out to the mage-light. There was no label on the outside. It was clear glass, or equally transparent crystal. Inside was a clear liquid, or seemed to be. When he shook it gently it felt no different than had it been empty, the contents as light as air, but he could see the liquid splashing about, and when he returned to the dark storeroom it still sparkled, like sunlight on a waterfall. He slid it into his pack.

He continued up the tower and came to another doorway, but this one had a door. It wasn't locked or trapped, and when he opened it a light in the ceiling cast the scene within into sharp, unnatural relief. In the room was a small bed, with chains extending in from each of the posts to a partly fleshed and still bloody skeleton. There was blood on the floor, brown, almost black, and congealed in patches like curdled milk, and runes scrawled in blood on the walls. The skull was not attached to the chained skeleton; eyeless it stared at him from the nearest bedpost, its mouth hanging open, bloody flesh still dangling, rotting, from the bone.

Who had died here? So many people disappeared in Thedra that it was hard to know what happened to most of them. If a necromancer wanted to murder someone in a bloody ritual there were plenty of willing thugs in North Bank, and not a few elsewhere in the city, to kidnap and sell the victim. No one asked questions about the missing in North Bank, and few cared about the denizens of the southern quarters. Perhaps it was different for the children of rich merchants or guild masters in north east Thedra, or of the lords in the north western quarter, though money could more easily buy death than life anywhere in the Obsidian City. As far as Corin could tell, this city was sick to the core. Corrupt and violent, with sufficient order for the powerful and rich in their palaces and guildhalls, and the reality of desperation for the many others, the tinkers, itinerant journeymen and day labourers, actors, thieves, beggars and whores. Were it not for his skills and the whores who had taught him to pick the pockets of naked customers when he was a boy he would not have survived long after his father had died, fighting over the whore who called herself his wife but not Corin her son. Despite Corin's skills he would probably die sooner rather than later, his body mouldering on the refuse heap, remembered with satisfaction only by the kites who fed on his flesh. So he had seen too much death to be easily disturbed by it.

And yet. This was different. The hairs prickled on the nape of his neck, but he didn't dodge out of the way. There was no trap here. He felt rage and horror, but he couldn't tell whether the rage was another's or his own. It rose like a tide of blood and like blood it clung to him. He tried to shake it off but couldn't. He felt rather than heard the scream. The eyeless sockets glared darkly into his heart, seeing into the places he dared not look himself. The jawbone hung open and the scream had the force of a fist, striking him at the centre of his being, threatening to freeze and shatter his bones.

He was not sure afterwards if it was terror or a physical force that drove him out, but the door slammed behind him without his touching it. He had encroached on an angry spirit's domain, the place where their mortal form had died, sacrificed in ritual offering to one of the crueller gods or lords of the demonic planes. He felt a sickening revulsion. He had watched men die on the hanging tree, some never to be revived by cunning criminal friends. He had seen the bodies of whores who had been bashed and raped to death then thrown in the gutter with no more respect than a you gave the contents of a chamber pot. When he was ten he had held his own father as the life bled out of the knife wound in his gut and the light faded from those drink addled eyes. He had learned to shrug off the brevity and horror of life with a joke and a laugh. But he couldn't shrug off this. This had to stop.

But what could he do? He was only a thief. The greatest thief in Thedra, he reminded himself. And the voice in his head agreed. And what would be the greatest thing a thief could do in this city? Steal what this necromancer valued most from right under his nose. He could do it. He was Corin Quick-fingers. He would do it. He ignored the door into a comfortably furnished room with a bed, a table, crystal balls, magnificent tapestries hanging from the walls, plush Kemetese rugs on the flagstones, and several chests. There would be many valuables in there. He knew it and ignored it, driven on by a sudden anger, climbing higher and higher. He no longer searched for traps. There were worse fates than death. He had seen one below. Did another wait for him above?

And up he climbed, it seemed for an eternity. He had known the tower was high, but it seemed to him it couldn't be this high. He must have climbed for hours, days, months. And still he climbed. His legs ached, his eyes blurred. He was tired. How much further could the stairs extend? Then they ended. There was no door, only a blank wall. He sat down to rest, defeated. It didn't seem possible, but it didn't seem possible that the tower was so high. Though it soared higher than the city's gatehouse towers, could any tower take days to ascend? Should he go back down? Was this all an illusion, created by the necromancer to frustrate thieves? Did the tower even exist at all? Was he in a dream? It seemed dreamlike, with the inevitability of failure despite all striving. As he looked down the stairwell it seemed he could see around the curve in the wall, and down, and down; an endless stairwell unwinding, descending into nothingness. He couldn't even be sure that it went down. Perhaps that was it. He had mistaken up for down. He should go down and that would be up. But none of this made sense. And would he see such things if he wasn't dreaming?

Perhaps if he lay down and slept he would wake up. Perhaps he would wake up holding Rose, her blonde hair flowing across him like honey, her eyes changing from green to brown and back again. Rose Red-lips, or queen Rose, as he sometimes called her, because that was also the young queen's name. Red-lips had always liked that. "If I'm a queen you have to do what I tell you," she had said to him once. "I'm willing to do anything for a price," he had replied. "That's my line. And you have to kneel and kiss my hand." "What, like this...or should I kiss you here?" "You're a naughty courtier." "Only obeying my queen." He smiled. He would rest. He would kiss Rose the way she liked, on her flawless, milky white skin, down along her wide hips and along the inside of her thighs where she was ticklish, the flesh twitching in anticipation of him rising higher. She would be gracious and grant him entry to her rosy chambers.

"Aren't you the greatest thief in Thedra?" the familiar voice asked. It startled him awake. He was lying down on the stairs, just above the door he had passed, that led into the furnished room. He turned to look up the stairwell, but the stairs still ended there, with nothing but a wall beyond. He thought of going back down to the necromancer's comfortable looking living quarters, but he hesitated. There was something more than stairs between that room and the top stair. Some kind of illusion, affecting his brain, as had the darkness of the path from the gate to the tower. It made a few steps look like an eternity of climbing. How did it do that? If he went back down he might not make it all the way back up, though it was only a few steps. As to how he would make it out of the tower and its environs when he had finished stealing all he could carry he didn't like to think.

He examined the wall, and there was no trigger to open a secret door. His hand went straight through where his eyes told him the wall was. It was set back further. Another illusion. Was it magic or just clever construction? He looked at it from several angles but couldn't decide.

He stepped forward, into the passage. There was only one way to go, unless he was looking at yet another illusion, and given how many he had encountered to this point he couldn't dismiss the possibility. He turned, stepped forward, then turned again. The passage opened out and curved around the central well of the tower like the stairwell, but without rising. The outer and inner wall of the passage came together in a high arch. When he had walked nearly a full circuit he saw a light ahead, coming from the inner side of the passage, where there was a large open doorway, or rather a large archway through the stone with no door attached. The light oozing through it had the same characteristics as the light he had seen coming from the tower window when looking from outside. He still felt anger at what he had seen below. He also felt dread, guessing that what would lie beyond that doorway would be even worse, but knowing he couldn't go back. He was too curious. Or foolish, he corrected himself. He peered around the corner of the archway.

The room was circular, and larger than any of the others he had encountered, encompassing the entirety of the central well circumscribed by the outer circular passage, but in a funnel shape due to the arching of the passage wall. Where the funnel terminated with the arch the wall continued straight up, and roof beams arched across from the walls to support the conical roof, several ordinary house stories above the floor. Impractically high up, beyond the arching of the wall, was a shutter-less, small single window, too small and high to allow much light of sun or moon into the room. A ladder extended up the wall to a small wooden platform a few feet below the window.

A huge crystal hung suspended by, apparently, nothing more than the air in the centre of the chamber, pulsing with that unnatural, terrifying light. On the walls, from manacles, hung men and women and skeletons of indeterminate gender, in various stages of decay; some were only bones, though whole, held together by whatever ligaments and joints remained; others had the withered gaunt look of starvation, the way the peasants looked in the worst years of famine, dark sunken eyes, concave cheeks, ribs thrusting forward through skin that seemed to cling to them, but without the flies buzzing about their lips, or maggots polluting their flesh, for this was a place of death not life, however lowly or repulsive the life; yet others had the skin flayed from them, blood pooled and congealed at their feet, black, dead blood, the threads of exposed muscle on their limbs visible enough to count. He didn't dare to look into the eyes of the victims. He felt their pain, as if their murders were happening now and he was of their number, hanging from the walls alongside them, horrified at his fate. He felt their rage also, like that of the spirit in the room below, only subdued, as if that had only been an experiment, in which the victim's spirit had not been fully subordinated to the necromancer's will. The necromancer murdering and using the life force of his victims in some way Corin couldn't comprehend. Corin felt the same revulsion he had down below in the raging spirit's room. He knew without knowing how that if he did look into the eyes of these victims he would be lost, trapped in the world of their torment, an accidental slave to the dark arts here practiced.

Instead of their eyes his eyes saw what they saw, or rather what their dead eyes were turned towards, for he knew without seeing that they all turned those eyes towards the crystal. Energy flowed from their eyes, their bodies twisted in their manacles, terrified, powerless to escape, even by death. The life that had been torn from them, that was somehow still being torn from them, by torture and this sick necromancy, flowed towards the crystal, making it pulse as if with the heartbeat of a cruel god. Corin understood without knowing how that the foul magic was fuelled by their death, by the suspension of their souls between this world and the next, trapped in a space between spaces, tortured in spirit as they had been in body, subjected to worse than indignity, worse than death, made to serve..., who? what terrible purpose? The lines of energy flowed, sickly, like light but shedding no radiance beyond those streams, crossed and recrossed in a tangled web, some loose strands of which flowed to the walls, flowed up them and across them and around them, and at the window flowed out. But most of the strands of that grotesque web flowed towards the huge suspended crystal, seeping into its heart. And from the base of the crystal, more strands emerged and flowed down.

Below the crystal, also suspended in air, was a sword. The streams of energy flowed to its pommel, which was missing a stone. The energy glowed and pulsed where that stone should be, like an illusory ruby, red as blood, blazing like fire. The red energy flowed from there through and along the hilt and further, in tendrils that tightly held the blade, and branched off into shifting, changing runes, which licked the air like fire. It was clearly not an ordinary sword; it was not made of iron or steel, nor even of the bronze Corin had seen some Pectish traders wearing in the great market; but of a bone white substance. It was the size and shape of a normal long-sword. And it trembled where it hung in the air, seeming to struggle against the constraint of that false ruby's power. The tip was pointing between the breasts of a young woman who lay beneath.

Unlike the victims on the walls, the woman beneath the blade lived. She was naked, and shackled to an altar like stone on which she was stretched spreadeagle by transparent manacles. Lines of some substance as transparent as water flowed from the tip of the sword to the manacles, which were made of the same substance. The woman's translucent skin was moist, and her long hair, which cascaded over the edge of the altar stone, all the way to the floor, was almost transparently fair. Corin had grown up surrounded by whores and actresses and was not easily impressed by female beauty, but this woman was more beautiful than any he had ever seen, more beautiful than Rose Red-lips of the House of Delights, more beautiful even than the princess Sophie, daughter of queen Rose, who he had seen on state occasions. Only once had he seen a being as beautiful as this. And as he recalled this he remembered why he had come here. This woman's face was turned towards where he stood in the archway, as if she had waited for him.

Her irises were emerald green. She looked right into his eyes, and now he heard the voice more clearly than ever before. The voice that had drawn him in to the tower despite his reluctance. The voice that had drawn him towards this terrifying tower, through the darkness, through the despair, past traps, and horror, and illusion, to this place. "Are you the greatest thief in Thedra?" he heard in his head, and the woman's eyes mocked him. The question provoked him. "Yes," he thought. "Prove it," the voice replied. The mockery in her eyes was replaced suddenly with pain as she screamed and the scream seemed to be his own. He put a hand to his mouth, but it was closed.

For the first time Corin noticed the necromancer, and the runes which circled the altar on the flagstones of the floor, pulsing with sick light like the crystal above. The man was dressed in the clothes of an aristocrat. Hose and doublet and tunic and ruff, but a smaller ruff than most nobles he had seen in the city. Given that ruffs seemed to get larger year by year, Corin deduced the necromancer must be either very old or indifferent to fashion, though his age was not clear in his face. The necromancer's face was lined with a frown of concentration and his body swayed, his arms flying out at strange angles, fingers tied for brief moments in patterns that seemed so impossible that Rubbery Roberto would have been amazed. And he muttered, and whispered, and growled, and screamed, and snarled; a language of threat, and cruelty, discordant and harsh, as if a thousand minstrels were being murdered every moment; and each, with no regard for the others, desperately tried to sing one final note.

As if in reply to these utterances, in the translucent flesh of the woman a wound opened. Within her seemed to be no blood or organs, but only water, and the water bled, splashing on the altar and flowing down the side, mingling indistinguishably with her transparent hair. The woman screamed. She shed a single tear. As the tear formed at the edge of her eye and began to roll down her cheek the necromancer ceased his spells, and quickly moved forward, extracting it with a pipette. He raised the pipette to his eye, and sighed with deep satisfaction. He took it over to a small table, and squeezed the contents into a small glass tube. "Soon we will know, my lord. Soon we will know."

Then he collapsed as if exhausted into a large, comfortable looking chair. His head hung down, and his breathing became slow and shallow. Corin waited, watching for any sign of danger. The necromancer didn't move for several minutes. Corin crept across the floor towards the altar stone on which the woman was stretched. As he crossed the outmost circle of runes he lost heart. Dread overcame him and he tried to step back, but he couldn't move. But then he knew he could. He could fall to his knees, so he did. A terrible weight dragged him down. I can't do this, he thought. A foul taste was in his mouth, as if all the rottenness of the Obsidian City had been condensed into an essence and poured onto his tongue.

"But you can do it," the voice said.

He looked up, and into the nymph's eyes, and the taste was washed away, as if he had drunk from the sweetest mountain spring. And he knew that he could do what had to be done. And he knew what had to be done. He looked up, to the sword. He dropped to his hands, and focussed his eyes back on hers, and he crawled. He lost all sense of time. How many hours passed as he crossed that terrible space? How many years? How many centuries? How many millennia? But he knew millennia were as nothing. This woman looked no older than him. But her eyes carried the wisdom of ages, of the water that washes patiently at stone, wearing away strong castles, turning great stones to pebbles, pebbles to sand, and sand to nothing, and her gaze washed away his doubts, again, and again, and again. She showed him how short a thousand years could be. In time as she knew it great mountains were worn down to become plains or valleys. To climb those mountains was nothing when they had been washed away by the patient, inexorable aeons, and the gentle caress of flowing water, so tender, so loving. And he was climbing to his feet, climbing onto the stone, reaching up and over her, reaching up towards....

"NO!" he heard the scream distantly as his hand closed on the hilt. He almost fell, dragging the sword down. The threads of power that had extended from the crystal to the empty pommel were broken. The transparent threads that extended from the tip of the sword to the manacles evaporated and the manacles splashed away. The woman sat up. She smiled at the now standing necromancer with vindictive sweetness, and from his mouth and nostrils water gushed, first as though he were coughing up a mouthful of water that had gone down the wrong way, then like the gush of a fountain, soon like a waterfall. It seemed impossible that his body could have held so much water or released it so quickly. He had stood up from his chair, but now dropped, to his knees, to his hands, to his belly. The woman climbed off of the altar stone, and walked to the edge of the innermost runic circle and halted. And the water poured out of the necromancer's mouth and nose. He turned over on his back and desperately tried to inscribe a magical rune on his chest with his finger, but the water from his own lungs washed over its fire, erasing the shape before he could complete it. The water flowed across the flagstones, washing the runic circles away, and when it reached the inner circle the woman stepped forward, walking over to where the necromancer choked and squirmed on the floor in front of his seat, water still gushing from his mouth and nose. She looked down at him with mild curiosity as he flipped about on the floor like a fish out of water. Then, with a final twitch, he was still.

The woman went to the table where the necromancer had squirted her tears into a tube. Lifting the tube she went to the first of the hanging victims. She unstoppered the tube and blew gently across the mouth, then she poured a single drop onto what remained of the man. As she did, all the tension and anguish went out of him. The corpse seemed to sigh, then all hint of unnatural un-living life was gone from it. Though Corin did not understand exactly what had happened he knew the man's soul was at rest. She walked the entire circuit of the room, doing the same with each of the prisoners. Corin now understood what the flask he had discovered earlier was. He took it out of his pack and handed it to her. She took it, unstoppered it, and blew gently over its mouth. Then she stoppered it again and handed it back to him.

"Your sister sent me," he said, hesitating to take the phial back now that he understood how its contents had been extracted.

"What is given freely will not pollute," she reassured him. He looked down at the sword, and offered that to her, sensing that somehow it belonged to her, but she shook her head. "Not yet. The change is soon upon us, and I may not linger." She smiled again, took his face gently in her hands and tenderly kissed him. He had kissed many girls before, and done many other things besides, but only once before had it felt like this. His heart lifted, and he didn't have a smart word to say or a cynical thought to think. In that one moment all his cares were washed away, and the fire in his heart and his limbs and his head faded and the confusion that had plagued him in this place cleared.

As she drew back he looked around the room. He had wanted to rob the place, but there didn't seem to be much of value up here. Except perhaps the crystal. It still floated up there above the stone altar despite the necromancer's death. He was wary of it though. He could feel it as much as see its light, pulsing, as though it were the heart of the tower. The light was no longer threatening, but it felt obscured, like the sun behind clouds. He decided to leave it there, though the thief in him wondered at its value to a fence.

He looked back to where the woman stood, asking, "What do you mean, not yet?" She was not there though. He looked around. She was nowhere in the room.

He shrugged. He had seen so much strange magic this night, illusions and necromantic horror and he couldn't say what else, that a goddess disappearing was hardly a surprising event. How many mortals ever get to see any goddess at all? And he had seen two. He wondered for a moment whether they had been real, but he knew he had been thrown bound into the lake and survived and when he looked down he saw he still held the large transparent phial, its contents weightless and sparkling with an inner light. As fantastic as it seemed he had been twice blessed.

He went back down the stairwell, entering the furnished room. In one of the chests was a jewelled necklace. Rose would enjoy that for a while, he thought. Something to complement the perfection of her complexion when she exposed herself for business. The jewels would scintillate like stars hanging between her firm, perfectly formed breasts. A smaller chest was full of gold coins. He took as many as he could carry in his pack. Against the wall was a battered scabbard, and the strange sword slid into it easily. He decided he could leave the rest here. No one but him would be foolish enough to break into this place. He could come back when he needed more.

Descending the stairs he stopped by the door where the angry spirit had earlier forced him out. There was something he knew he had to do. Cautiously he opened the door. Still the skull glared. He steeled himself, took out the flask, and stepped into the room. The spirit raged, and Corin's hair stood on end, but he knew he had to do this. He felt the air shift, trying to force him out, but he fought against it. He grasped the hilt of the sword, though he was not sure it would do anything to a spirit, and he didn't want to harm it anyway. But the moment his fingers wrapped around the hilt he felt a surge of strength. In his head he heard one word, "blood," like a shriek. Every hair on his body rose, and the strength was also something to fear. But the spirit in the room cowered more than he did at this power, which was as threatening as the raging river when the summer thaw pours down the mountain ice in flooding torrents to the plain. He quickly crossed to the skull. He had to release the sword to unstopper the flask, and when he did the raging spirit renewed its assault. He lifted the flask. His every movement seemed slowed, as if his arms were gripped, even his wrists, and his fingers. He would not be stopped though. He tipped the flask a little way. One drop slowly formed at the lip; slowly formed, stretched, hung; a thread of connecting moisture stretched, thinned, and snapped. Slowly the drop fell, and all around the air of the room assaulted him, burned his lungs, filled his nostrils with the smell of decay, his mouth with the taste of blood, made his eyes sting and his ears ring. It became too bright to bear, every line too sharply drawn, every colour too clear, and unnaturally alive. The drop fell, and fell, and fell. Still it was falling. He lived many lives and died many deaths as it fell. Then it struck the skull. The glare faded from the sockets, and the twisted skeleton on the bed seemed to sigh. The threat faded from the room. It was done. The spirit was at rest. He stoppered the flask.

As he left the tower he felt no threat in the garden. Whatever spells had twisted that place were lifted, perhaps dispelled by the caster's death. The despair was gone, and the shadows were now natural. The sky was greying as the sun rose in the east. There was a small well off the main path to the gate, and a glade beyond, which he had not been able to see in the night, or rather because of the dark magic, since the moon was full. There was a vegetable patch and an orchard, and barrows and spades and hoes and rakes and sickles and scythes in a small shed beside a great oak tree. Who used these? Surely not the necromancer. And no human gardener would willingly come to the necromancer's tower. Perhaps, Corin thought, he had made the tools work for him with magic. Corin breathed in the air. Rich and natural, soil and fallen fruit and freshly scythed grass. He looked up at the tower. It carried no threat now.

He had seen from the glade that he could easily climb from the great oak tree to the top of the wall, and left that way, only stopping by the gate to collect his rope and grapple.

# Chapter 7: The First Language

In the baiting pit the bear roared, chained to its stake at the centre. Around it the pack of dogs circled, careful to keep out of reach of the bear's claws. It was a smallish, brown mountain bear, and its coat was bald in places and matted elsewhere. In the bald places the scars of countless fights could be seen, and its nose was split unnaturally from an old wound. Though it was small for a bear and looked half-starved it was much larger than the mastiffs which circled it, and those of its claws which were unbroken could quickly disembowel any that came too close.

Rob finalised his bet with a man sitting on his right. Agmar sat on his left. Corin took a seat on Agmar's left.

Rob cut the purse of the cobbler's son, or whatever he was, sitting in front of him, dressed up, not very convincingly, as an aristocrat. Rob passed the purse back to Sandy, who was sitting behind him, who passed it back to Rose, who sat behind Sandy. Noticing Corin for the first time Agmar started, then padded himself, as though checking for missing items.

"I would never," Corin said with affected indignation.

"Get caught," Agmar said with a sly smile. "Your ethics are laudable, you little rascal."

"Hey, I'm not little where it counts."

"Not if Rose is any evidence. So, you survived. Or haven't you been to the tower yet?"

"I've been. And found this."

He drew the sword part way out of its scabbard to let Agmar see.

Rob looked sidelong past Agmar at the sword. Agmar said, "A bone sword?"

"I can see that. You're always going on about how much esoteric lore you know. You're a bard. Can you tell me something I don't know?"

"Well, bone swords aren't much use as weapons. It'd probably break the first time it hit anything hard. This sort of thing is usually a ritual object, not a weapon, though I suppose you might cut a tasty steak with it."

"I think it's more than that." Corin told Agmar what had happened in the necromancer's tower.

"Clearly an artefact of power then. May I?" He reached for the sword. Corin let him slide it all the way out of its sheath. Agmar turned it over and over, examining its length. He rapped it with a knuckle and it rang with a sweet sound, like a bell. "It doesn't look remarkable. But no ordinary bone or ivory would make that sound. It sounds like metal, yet I've never seen any metal like it." He stood and hefted it, swinging it, cutting the air. "It's virtually weightless, as though it really was made of bone." He balanced it a small way down its blade, across his index finger. "Its balance is perfect." He stepped across to a wooden pillar and slashed. His eyes widened as it sliced straight through without resistance, then examined the cut. "I've never seen a blade cut so cleanly. It's clearly no ordinary blade." He sat down, and peered more closely at the surface, again turning it over and over, but bringing his eyes closer to the surface. "There are no visible runes. Most powerful swords are carved with runes."

Corin reminded him of the runes he had seen in the necromancer's tower. "The red energy formed runes along the blade, fiery runes."

"Yes, that's right. You did say. But was that the sword, or the necromancer's power?"

Agmar pondered for a while, looking out across the baiting pit. Two dogs were down, one licking at its guts as they poured out on the dirt, the other dragging its now useless legs behind it, its spine broken above the tail.

"Damn!" Rob said. "Two or more. He's stronger than he looks, scrawny, but still with a fire in his belly."

The man next to him held out a hand and Rob flipped him a silver coin. Rob sighed as he looked back to Corin. "It's just not my day." Even if he had stolen more than he had lost.

Agmar said, "There is a legendary blade, but it was said to be covered in runes. Runes of fire and water. The chaos of the cosmos's beginning written into a weapon of great power. This has no runes, of any kind. It's missing its pommel stone."

"That's how I found it."

Agmar held the blade in front of him, and sang a song in a language Corin couldn't clearly understand, but the sound made his hair rise on the nape of his neck and at the edge of consciousness meanings flitted. He strained grasp them but they changed as quickly as they formed, flowing away like a handful of water. Rob turned his head towards the bard, as did many of the baiting pit's other patrons. The blade seemed to hum in concert with the melody, Its outline slightly blurring, but nothing else happened. Then he stopped, the blade shimmered for a moment, then its outlines clarified. The audience turned their attention back to the arena of the baiting pit.

"No, it's beyond me."

"What's that song?"

"It's a song in the first language. The language used by mages and bards. The language of the gods."

"The language of the gods? But the sister nymphs both spoke to me, and I understood them."

"Of course. They wanted you to understand. If they want to the gods can speak to mortals in mortal tongues. But they have a language that they speak among themselves. That permeates the very texture of the cosmos. The language of creation. And destruction. The language of the beginning, and the end of all things. It's all languages, and none."

"And you know this language?"

"Only fragments. Even the greatest mortal sorcerers only know fragments. I know even less. Just enough to effect the imaginations of my audiences. To make them see more clearly. Sometimes to make the soldiers I fight alongside brave, when their hearts begin to fail them on the battlefield. And sometimes, in small ways, to affect the substance of things. But this is beyond me. It's definitely an artefact of great power. It wants to alter, but something more powerful than my song is necessary to bring about the transformation."

"Wants to alter? You mean..."

"The sword is sentient. It has a mind, however primitive or elemental. Some sentient swords have even been known to speak to their wielders. Has it spoken to you?"

"Screamed. Of blood." Corin shuddered.

"A cursed sword perhaps. That would make sense. A necromancer might possess such an artefact."

"Do you think?"

"I recommend you throw it into the deepest darkest hole you can find."

"Are you sure it's cursed?"

"Probably. Or maybe just thirsty."

"For blood?"

"Well, it is a sword; what else is it going to be thirsty for?"

"You don't really know what it is then."

"Only more or less, more of less really. Anyway, it might not be cursed. From what you said about the goddess in the tower she wanted you to keep it. Goddesses can be cruel, but would she be cruel to the boy...man who saved her? I don't think that's very likely. She must want you to do something with it."

"But what?"

Agmar shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe talk to the twins. They got you into this. Maybe they'll help you out."

Corin dropped a gold coin in Agmar's hand as he stood to leave.

"What's this for?"

"I wouldn't steal from a friend, not even from those pouch belts wrapped so tightly under his tunic he thinks no one can get to them...except to prove I can."

"Cheeky little bastard." He feigned trying to kick Corin, and the young thief easily dodged away.

# Chapter 8: Bard-song

Corin slunk through the warrens of the South East Quarter. Here the buildings were in worse shape than North Bank. The streets stank, when they could be called streets. Most were nothing more than tunnels of shit and animal corpse covered cobblestones beneath collapsing cantilevered upper stories and between walls that bulged and crumbled so that refuse and buildings frequently couldn't be distinguished. While there was a broad main avenue as in all the quarters of the city, only the brave or foolish trod those paths alone, for bandits as savage as any in the wastes of the northern forests prowled there. Occasionally Corin climbed to the roofs to escape notice, but their thatch or tiles, or even roof beams, were as likely to collapse under his weight as aid flight from danger, so he was more than usually wary up there, and returned as quickly as he could to the rancid air in the claustrophobic tunnels below.

One advantage Corin had over others passing this way was his ability to hide, and his sharp sixth sense for danger. He anticipated the ruffians at the end of the alleyway he was traversing and jumped to grab a gable. He would be gone before they realised he was there.

The gable collapsed, bringing down a foul burden of refuse on him, and the shadows at the end of the dark alley shouted and ran towards him. Their faces were obscured by the darkness, but their eyes glowed as if with the inner light of evil. Perhaps they were some of the mutants he had heard of. The disease and squalor of this quarter were so extreme that many were born with strange malformations of body. Those who were not were often twisted in mind in more frightening ways. Though the alleyway stank he could smell their approach and struggled to lift a beam that had fallen on him, trapping his legs beneath. The men, or barely human animals, snuffled and grunted as they approached, limping, scuffling, scampering through the darkness. Their eyes were like sparks from a fire, floating and jumping in unpredictable ways. They were almost upon him. He strained against the beam as they closed in, though he knew now there was no escape, even if he had been free.

They stopped. Or rather, their forward progress stopped. He wondered at this and gave one last heave. The beam lifted, and he slipped his legs out. He tried to stand. As far as he could tell he had broken no bones. He wondered why they had stopped, then saw that they had jammed themselves too tightly in the space. They struggled against each other. Here the light of the moon could reach and he was shocked by what he saw. The faces seemed to have been pushed in, or bloated as multiple cysts pressed through from underneath. Some had noses more reminiscent of pigs, others of dogs. Some were without ears, others had only one eye. The deformations were too multiform for him to take it all in. Then he realised he was mistaken. As those at the front fought against each other, a mask fell away. Beneath it was a face terrifying enough in its snarling rage, but more clearly human. Another mask fell, and the scarred, hate filled face beneath was exposed.

Corin looked up. He couldn't get up on the side he had tried but the other seemed intact. He jumped and grabbed the gable, preparing himself in advance for its collapse so that he wouldn't be taken off guard a second time. It held and he hauled himself up as they broke free of their scrum and shouting ran at him. One of the men who had lost his mask grabbed his ankle. He was nearly dragged down. Speedily he kicked the bandit's face, but the bandit held on. Then, he didn't know how, the bone sword was in his hand and plunging down into the mouth of the bandit. The man's grip loosened and his face slid bloodily off the blade as Corin dragged himself up by his one free hand. The bandits howled up at him, but he lightly skipped across the rooftops until their voices were lost in the distance. Though it didn't speak, he sensed the sword in his hand was satisfied. He looked down its length, but it was entirely clean despite the blood and brains it had just spilled. Corin re-sheathed it.

Corin saw an alley between the roofs and turned towards it. The tiles beneath his feet gave way. He instinctively sprang from the best supported foot, but it wasn't merely a loose tile. The whole roof seemed to be giving way, and the force of his springing only made it worse. He scrambled, looking for anything solid to grab, but the roof seemed to be folding into a bowl beneath him. His feet were quick and he was running up the side of the bowl, but its curvature increased as he ran, until it completely fell away. He flung his hands towards the edge of the bowl, grasping at disintegrating tiles and rotting rafters as the whole roof sagged. Everything that he grabbed came away in his hands. As he fell through the air he twisted, trying to retain his balance, and hoping that he landed on a regular surface. His feet hit floorboards. They cracked beneath his feet, and he extended his arms to either side, anticipating a further fall, but the floorboards held.

Eyes stared at him from the darkness. His first instinct was to run, but then he recognised it was a clowder of cats. They shot off in all directions, their glowing eyes turned towards him suspiciously, their mouths hissing, but somehow less animalistic than the humans he had encountered in the alley. The cats looked better fed than those bandits. He supposed there must be an abundance of rats and other vermin in this quarter for them to feed on.

Climbing to what was left of the roof he made his way more cautiously to the next alley, choosing one a little closer to the main street so that the roofs were less fragile. This was not a part of the city he knew well. Few people here had anything worth stealing, and those that did steal, mostly only took lives. The poverty here made that of North Bank seem mild by comparison and he wondered what it would be like to grow up here. Only a few hundred yards away the elegant spires of the inner circle of the city, the palace ring, rose into the sky, and yet here was nothing but despair and death.

As he approached the southern gatehouse that separated the south west from the south east quarter the houses became less ramshackle, and here and there businesses sprang up, a tavern here, a farrier there, a tailor and an armourer. There was a ring of affluence around the gatehouse, for the wealth and power of The Duke, as duke Augustyn of Relyan was known, had attracted commerce and protected it with soldiers. Corin slid from the rooftops to a cobbled ally. It was as dark as any in the decrepit area, but the animal corpses were cleared away daily, and shit and piss formed only a slight patina on the cobblestones instead of an immovable sludge. He passed a tavern, its sign almost welcoming, though somewhat faded, with the symbol of a unicorn beside the peeled name of the same, and stepped into a broad square. The air was clean here, by Thedran standards. Only in the country or by the lake when the mountain breeze blew coolly down the valley would you breathe better.

Corin relaxed and strolled across the square, heading for the gatehouse, which towered above the houses and even the temples with their soaring spires, though not as high as the spires of the palace, unless you counted the strange spiral stairway.

He sensed something wasn't right and turned to pick up a worthless stone from the cobblestones, pretending examining it while noticing that at the alley furthest from the gatehouse shadows were gathering. He threw the stone aside and stood again. Despite his unease he sauntered insouciantly in a slightly changed direction. The shapes he had seen would have seemed nothing but shadows to the uninitiated. Corin knew better. He slightly adjusted his pace and direction, but another alley had been cut off, and the one he had entered the square by was the same. He kept his head facing the cobblestones, as if looking for something and unaware of the danger. Then he suddenly broke into a run at an acute angle from his original direction. The gables were low there and he would almost be able to sprint onto the rooftops. He reached the edge of the square.

A cloaked shape dropped to the stones in front of him. He could hear the rush of the others. This was no motley band of deformed, dirty bandits. This was hundreds of low lawyers, and many were masters at law. The Lord of Law had clearly not been impressed by the claims of the King of Cripples. The Courts of Law had ruled against Corin, against his life. They closed in on all sides, manglers and low lawyers, enforcers and thieves, some only prentices, some journeymen, surprisingly many clearly masters; and at the edge of the shadows he thought he saw a vassal.

Inwardly Corin smiled; it was a form of flattery; the Lord of Law thought him so good that many masters at law and even a vassal were necessary to capture him. But despite his smug satisfaction, he knew he was in mortal danger. And while he would have stood a chance against a single master, being at least as sneaky and skilled, against so many he had failed.

Still he wondered: how did they find me? And why here? Why not in the theatre or baiting pit? Of course the answer to the last was simple: the King of Misrule would brook no interference in his realm. The treaties between the guild masters would forbid so open an invasion of his dominion. The low lawyers would be denied the lucrative access to theatre patrons' purses. But still, how had they tracked him here, given the paths he had taken, unless they had known his destination. Who could have told them?

He drew the strange sword and waited for death. Perhaps if he fought this way they would kill him quickly, since it would be too risky to take him alive. The sword was warm in his hand, like a living creature. In his head rose a murmuring voice. The voice demanded blood. Its murmur rose to a shout, its shout to a scream, and crimson washed over Corin's vision. As if at the sword's behest he charged at a tangle of manglers, the thuggish enforcers of the guild. They were surprised by his response and all but one leapt back. That one smiled cruelly, then fell screaming. Corin swung around himself methodically as they closed back in. He didn't know how long he would last, but it was clear that he fought with more than his own skill. He heard the scream in his head, not quite articulate, lusting for blood, and like blood it flowed through his veins, made his arms vibrate with the demand. It was a battle cry of kings, but he was not a king, only a boy and a thief. He had trained with false swords against his actor friends, and had even used real daggers to save his life, but this was the first time he had fought real combat with a real sword.

The ranks of the guild fell back at his sudden fury, more like a warrior's than a thief's, as surprising to himself as it was to his foes. But they advanced again, and they had the advantage of numbers against which even a heavily armoured knight would have been wary. Their ranks closed in. He swung and turned and thrust and turned, always keeping them at bay on all sides. And he felt the sword draw him to its next victim instead of him thrusting it, and the slicing at the next, and parrying the next. The will of the sword had become indistinguishable from his own, and he wondered at this and feared it and knew despite his fear it was the only reason he still lived. But despite the sword's power, despite the bloodlust that had become his own and unerringly guided his hand, he was tiring. He didn't know how many of the thieves had fallen, or how many there were, but their ranks didn't seem to be thinning and their circle closed more tightly around him. Tightened like a noose.

Above the sound of rushing blood in his ears, above the scream of the voice in his head, Corin heard a loud cry of rage. It was cried in the Seltic tongue. It was a battle cry and a song. It was like many voices in chorus. And the thieves fell back from it. Through their midst like a dragon boat's prow through foaming waves came a tall figure, swinging a massive two handed sword, sweeping it around as he whirled in a deadly circle, stars sparkling in his blue eyes, auburn hair streaming around him. The sound of the song was uplifting to Corin though it filled his enemies with terror. And Agmar came through them, like a farmer with a scythe, cutting them down like the tall summer grass. The thieves tried to surround him, to backstab him, but he swung in mad circles, a dance of death, his great two handed sword a glinting circle in the spectral moonlight into which none could enter and live. And as he danced he sang, a song of heroes, of beasts and armies overcome, of last stands at the gates of the underworld, of mortals defying gods and demons fleeing in fear. And these tales were in a language Corin didn't know, yet now he somehow understood it. The sword thrilled in his hand, and each time it struck it rung with tones like those of Agmar's voice. And the tones of the bard's song harmonised in ways no human vocal chords should have been able to produce, as if Agmar sang in many voices. And to the euphoria of the song that both bard and sword were singing Corin blocked and slashed and thrust with more confidence, his fatigue forgotten, every stroke only making him stronger. And then he and the bard stood alone in the square, the remaining thieves having fled, down alleyways, over roofs, even through open doors and windows; anywhere to escape the terrifying song and its accompaniment of slaughter.

Agmar laughed and wiped his great two handed sword on the cape of a decapitated master thief. "Remember thief, the greatest asset of a warrior is the ground he chooses to fight on. Your enemies chose the ground on which you couldn't fight them, but unwittingly chose the ground on which they couldn't hold me back."

"There were so many of them."

"Yes, but they're sneaking thieves, give them an open battlefield and their courage soon fails them." He gazed ironically at the thief. "And yet, you, Corin, boy thief, rascal, more than held your own."

"It wasn't me."

Agmar looked around theatrically. "Hmm, where did the fighter flee?"

"It was the sword."

Agmar raised an eyebrow. "So it drew your arm? It's as I thought. A sentient sword. It is a gift, or a curse."

"Why a curse?"

"Well, such swords are not common, not even among relics of power, but I've heard tell that a sentient sword might choose its victims against its wielder's wishes. It might just as easily strike down friend as foe."

"Maybe I should ditch it then."

"No, at least find out what exactly it is first. It may be a blessing. If it's truly a curse, then get rid of it. But start with knowledge, not ignorance. Speaking of which, let's visit the old twins. I gather that's where you were heading before you were so rudely interrupted by the thieves."

"Speaking of which, how did you happen upon us?"

"It occurred to me that without me you wouldn't be able to pass through the palace precincts, so you were likely to do something foolish."

"I grew up on this city's streets. It's not like I've never passed through this quarter."

"No, but as you left the baiting pit I saw a thief following. I guessed from what happened to you recently that they weren't friendly. I followed at a distance, and he was joined by others. A regular party of scoundrels. Not that I have anything against scoundrels. You, for instance...."

"But I took so many back streets."

"Yes, but I guess someone overheard us. They knew where you were heading. As I did, of course. I guess that this square is the conjunction of many of the back ways. They must have known about where you'd likely appear. I simply followed them. If there had only been one I'd probably have lost his trail or he'd have sensed me, but there were so many of them that it wasn't too hard."

Corin looked around at the bodies, at least a score were scattered around them. "You're pretty dangerous with that bloody ridiculously big sword."

Agmar mock bowed. "And you, master thief, are dangerous enough with that blade that I don't think you'll need to worry too much about the thieves' guild for now."

"Until they send proper assassins to deal with me silently, sneakily."

Agmar winked, "But you're sneakier than them, right?"

Corin grinned, sheathing the bone sword.

# Chapter 9: Thief of Knowledge

Jared looked away from the lens, blinked and rubbed his eyes. He went outside his observatory. No one was around. His brother's stairway to the moon, a ridiculous project in Jared's estimation, rose into the greying sky. His brother was nowhere to be seen. Probably at work high up in the sky, getting closer to nowhere. The moon was setting in the west, its prismatic illumination replaced by the grey of dawn. Whatever Jared might think of the stairway as a utilitarian object, he had to admire his brother's skill and determination. If only he could get him to help more with the observatory, the secrets of the moon's interior would be sooner revealed, and with it the wisdom of the gods. Jared walked over to the southern edge of the tower. It took a few minutes, since the tower, like those of all four quartering gates of the city, had a diameter of four hundred yards. He peered over the battlements. Why did they have battlements here? Who would be foolish enough to try to take this city? It would be easy enough to take the inner ring, with its palace buildings close to the water, and access under the outer ring, but the outer ring was so far above the water you would have to extend enormous scaling towers from a ship's deck. And how would you get a ship up to the caldera lake? Unless you built it up here. It amazed him how impractical these so called men of the world sometimes were. And they called him a dreamer. He looked southwards across the lake to the great arc of the Labyrinth of Leaves.

He and his twin brother had both been monks there once, many years ago. Still some nights he dreamed of it, of being lost in its mazes. He would hold up his lantern at each archway to read the runes, but they were incomprehensible. He would open a book and its letters were meaningless scrawls. After a life devoted to learning he knew so little, such a tiny fraction of the sum of all human knowledge. And because of his ignorance he couldn't find his way in the dark. So he must search further, going forth into the darkness, not to discover something new, but to find a trace of what he had once known. But it was nowhere to be found, and in the Labyrinth of Leaves he knew it was a vanishingly small part of the whole, a part he might spend a lifetime not finding. And yet he must try. And then he would wake, and know his knowledge was not enough, and never could be.

That the new abbot was, unlike his predecessor, reluctant lending books and scrolls from the labyrinth to the twins, made the search for knowledge more difficult. Whenever they asked he would hum and haw. That volume could not be found. That part of the library had been catalogued but the catalogue had not been catalogued. And so on, and so on. Jared wondered if he saw resentment in the abbot's face, envy of these two who had escaped. Yet, for all Jared's love of practical science, he suspected some of the envy was his own. He could no longer walk freely in the labyrinth. So much had been lost to gain so little. So little knowledge! But, he quickly corrected himself, what lifetime can yield more? Soon enough he would find himself in a darkness deeper than any in the great library, in a place where all turnings led only to oblivion, led away from what little he had known. The old abbot had died. He been a friend, and the old abbess also. But she was the Oracle now, and the one who replaced her in the library, though her heart was kind, had not yet the wisdom not to pass requests through the obfuscating new abbot, who was more politician than philosopher. Nor had she the learning to find a tome herself. He might try to explain in detail how to find what he sought, but he didn't want her to realize how well this outsider knew the labyrinth. The Orders of the Leaves guarded their mysteries jealously.

A rush of air announced the descent of Javid, standing on one of the stone slabs with which he was constructing his stairway. The slab reached the tower and Javid inscribed a rune of dispelling in the air, then stepped off and joined Jared at the battlement. Javid breathed in deeply, and said, "The air has cleared."

"I hadn't noticed," Jared said, looking into his brother's face. Since it was like looking into a mirror he saw his own aging there but, perhaps because of the air, which Jared did notice now that it had been mentioned, Javid's mood was brighter.

"Lost in your work?"

"Finding myself in my work." Jared looked at his brother ironically.

"I could do with some help," Javid replied hopefully.

"So could I."

"You know my work is the more important."

"What, building a stairway to nowhere?" As soon as he said it he knew he should not have.

Javid's face clouded over. "The moon isn't nowhere."

"And yet," Jared said, pointedly looking to the horizon where the moon was setting while pointing straight up, that's where your stairway ends."

"Star-way. It's a work in progress."

Jared relented. "Like life," he sighed, and the same doubts that had previously assailed him struck again.

"Until it ends," Javid's sigh echoed Jared's own.

"Or all things end. When the lost are found..."

"...the old age will end. I don't think the prophecy refers to our mortality."

"Why not? With each man a whole world dies."

"But with each man's end life continues. New children are born. Likewise, with the end of all things a new world might be born."

"Whether or not a new age will begin is not said in the prophecy."

"Well, let's hope the lost are not found."

"Who even knows what the lost are?"

The brothers turned as two figures approached. The thief, Corin, and the bard, Agmar.

"How fare the wise?" Agmar said.

The flattery worked quickly. "Never wise enough," said one, smiling with a mix of modesty both true and false. Corin thought it might be Jared, by observing the length of one protruding white hair of his left eyebrow, but couldn't be sure; they looked so similar, "but we are but the servants of learning."

"And in learning is knowledge, Jared," said his brother, "the treasure of the wise."

"Yes, Javid, and what could be more divine?"

The mirror image nodded sagely at itself.

Corin could think of several things – the glimmer of stolen gold, Rose's caresses, a talking donkey – but he kept his thoughts to himself. At least he thought he could tell one from the other now, as long as they didn't change places. "Could you tell me about this?" he said. He unstrapped the sheath and partly drew the sword.

Jared examined the blade while Javid looked on. Jared took a large, flat, transparent gem out of his purse. The gem was shaped like a lens but with facets which seemed to shift when Corin looked at them, folding into and out of each other. Jared held it an inch above the blade and looked through it. He moved the gem along the blade, his face a study in concentration. Then he nodded.

"Certainly a magical blade," Jared said, looking up at Corin, "that much is clear. Look at this."

Corin looked through the gem. The facets shifted and he felt disoriented but couldn't drag his eyes away. As the facets shifted images started to appear in them, and as the images appeared they shifted with the facets, folding in and out of each other, forming and reforming, dissolving and coalescing. He saw a river flowing and two bull headed beings, their giant humanoid bodies towering above the currents, their horns locked, the water churned to foam about their massive thighs.

"Do you see them?" Jared asked.

Corin nodded dumbly, still staring at the image in the lens. "Yes."

"The runes are..."

"Runes?"

"You said you saw them."

"Them, huh?" As Corin looked the figures in the stream dissolved, the colour of their forms flowing beyond their outlines, which twisted together, and knotted then unravelled then knotted again. He understood that the outlines were runes, and they flowed along the blade. The runes pulsed to a rhythm, and he could feel the rhythm in his hands before he heard it in his head without the aid of his ears. It grew in intensity, like the thrumming of some mad minstrel on the sounding board of his lute. But this thrumming had meaning, not the emotional meaning of music, but the meaning of a language that was taking form in new ways in every moment. It coalesced into words, and he knew the voice. And the voice had power. What it spoke was. And its silence was the end of things.

Corin tried to form the words with his mouth, but they weren't made for any human tongue. Only by contorting his vocal organs into unnatural shapes would he begin to express what he knew, but between the knowledge and the word the meaning dissolved, leaving nothing but ordinary human sounds, "It talks." He wasn't sure whether he screamed or whispered or merely calmly spoke.

"Talks?"

"In my head." He tried to shake off the impression, to drag his mind away from meanings beyond human comprehension, meanings that threatened to tear the very fabric of the world apart.

"Or you talk to yourself and mistake madness for magic."

Corin felt a cold sweat roll down his brow, and panic overtook him. Can't you see, he wanted to scream, don't you hear? But all he said was, "You said yourself it's magic."

"Yes, but...a talking sword. It's unheard of...except. How did you come by this?"

Then the vision and the voice faded, and he found the strength to drag his eyes away. Agmar was peering at him curiously. Corin looked up into Jared's eyes. The old man didn't seem to have noticed his panic, and his brow was dry. He shook his head vigorously, blinking and flexing his jaw to chase away any residue of the hallucination. Jared observed him with a scholar monk's curiosity. He waited patiently for Corin to answer.

Corin explained as well as he could everything that had happened at the top of the necromancer's tower.

"A woman like water, who vanished. Obviously the sister of the goddess you spoke of before. And the air has cleared."

"What has air clearing got to do with a sword talking?" Corin asked.

"Nothing. But you released the nymph. The god's benediction returns. She swims with her sisters again. Look to yonder aqueduct. See how it flows freely now? But this sword sounds fascinating."

"Allow me, brother," Javid said, then to Corin, "unsheathe it and lay it on the stones."

Corin was reluctant. "You don't want me to draw it."

"Why ever...?"

"It may be cursed," Agmar said.

"Ah! Of course. Brother, let's stand back a moment."

The twins backed away and Corin carefully drew the sword and lay it on the stones. Javid stepped forward and knelt by the blade. He inscribed a rune above it with his finger tip. The rune hung like fire in the air. At first nothing else happened, then the stones trembled, water beaded in the gaps between them, and rolled, as if dripping down a wall, though from all different directions, towards the blade. The opaque blade became transparent, and began to flow in a circuit, hilt to tip back to hilt.

"It can't be," Javid breathed in amazement.

"It can't be what?" Corin asked.

"No, no. I can't be sure. I need more information. I can't decide, but if it is...one of the divine artefacts...relics of the gods..."

"Of which there are many," Jared said.

"When the lost are found...," Javid said.

"...the old age will end," Jared completed.

"What are the lost?" Corin asked.

Agmar said, "At the time of creation, when gods contended with gods, many relics were crafted of their substance. Some say it was a way for gods to gain power over other gods, others that they were trophies of their victories. Whatever the gods intended the relics had great power, and many were gifted to mortals. But the old heroes died, as all mortals must, and the relics were lost. Some were passed down through the lines of kings, but all are now gone."

"At least from the knowledge of men," said Jared.

"And the knowledge of men is so limited," Javid added regretfully.

"But what do you think this sword is?"

"I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions. I need access to the Codex of Metma. Within are the runes I need for my research."

"To tell what the sword is?"

"Uh...yes. That's right."

"You hesitated. You really want this codex. You're making a deal."

"You're a smart lad."

"You don't grow up on the streets without knowing a hustle when you hear it."

"Well...?"

"And then you'll tell me?"

"You'll find your answers there." Both of the twins smiled mysteriously.

"Where?"

"In the Labyrinth."

"How?"

"We can tell you no more."

"But you want me to fetch this book for you."

"Yes."

"For nothing?"

"For guidance."

"What guidance?"

"You'll discover."

"Why don't you just tell me?"

"You wouldn't understand if we did."

Corin looked at Agmar. Agmar shrugged. "I told you they're wise. Whether you want to listen to them is up to you."

"So you think I should do this for them?"

"I didn't say that. You'll have to decide for yourself. Personally, I wish I could go with you." His eyes glowed with almost childlike wonder. "To wander the Labyrinth of Leaves! What wonders of poetry and imagination must be lost in the many miles of its shelves: songs unsung in a thousand years, plays last performed when the dust of our world strode the globe as conquering kings." He sighed. "But only the Brothers and Sisters of the Leaves can enter there. I don't have your sneaking skills, and I'm not going to go in swinging my sword at innocent monks and nuns to get at their books, no matter how frustrating the rules of their orders."

Corin looked at the twins askance. "And what makes you think I can get this codex for you?"

"Well, you are a thief."

"I...I'm as honest as any man in Thedra."

"That's not saying a lot."

"Ok, ok. I'll...uh..."

"You'll...borrow...the codex for me."

"You're pretty shifty yourself, old man."

"With age comes wisdom."

"You mean cunning. I don't know though. I hear they flay thieves. They say they use their skins as parchment."

"Lies."

"What makes you so sure? I don't want to become someone's psalter, even if they do illustrate my bum with pretty pictures and gold leaf."

"They're rumours that have been spread over generations to keep thieves away. I researched the history of the Labyrinth, among other things, when I was a Brother of the Leaves."

"We both were," Jared said, "but they're too caught up in empty disputation there. We're more practical men. Well, I am, anyway."

"My Star-way rises higher day by day."

"And if it goes far enough you'll fall on your head on the moon."

"At least I'll have gotten somewhere if that happens. You, on the other hand, will never reach the stars."

"But I'll know them, and knowledge is the greatest of goods."

Corin interrupted the sibling rivalry. "If you're both practical men you'll understand my practical needs."

"Practical needs? Oh, you want to be paid in gold?"

"If I wanted your gold...," Corin left the rest to their imagination.

"Yes, I believe you would. What do you want then?"

"Directions."

"Ah!" Javid slapped his forehead. "Of course. I'll have to give you detailed instructions."

"A map would be helpful."

"I think I can help," Jared said. He took out another gem. It was circular, almost flat and black as darkest night, nearly large enough to cover his palm, and faceted on both faces with a symmetrical precision that seemed beyond human craft. "I haven't used this in a long time," he sighed in a nostalgic tone, "it's a gem of far seeing which I modified when we were still monks. Made it into a map of the labyrinth. It'll guide you. I'll target it to where the codex lies. Be sure to bring it back. I can see the library from the walls here, but we have none of the privileges of the order anymore. This is one of the few reminders I have of its interior. And in case you're thinking of stealing away with it," He narrowed his eyes with comical suspicion, "if you don't bring it back I'll turn you into a frog."

"You can do that?"

"I've never tried. The spell could go terribly wrong. Especially at a distance. Who knows what might happen to you."

"You'll have to be careful in there," Javid cautioned, "in case they've laid traps."

"You said they don't flay thieves."

"They don't, but they don't invite them either. And they could lock you away in one of the oblates' cells."

"For how long?"

"Oh, until you can't tell anyone that the story about flaying is false. Maybe until you submit to becoming a novice of the order."

Corin's face twisted in distaste, and he snorted, "You mean until I'm dead. This is sounding more and more like a raw deal."

"But you love a challenge," Javid said slyly.

That struck a nerve. The old man was right. He did love a challenge, as long as it didn't involve an honest day's work.

"And if they lock you up in an oblate's cell, a boy with your skills wouldn't remain there for long, would he? Even if they could catch you in the first place. And you made your way to the top of the tower. And stole the sword from the necromancer. An amazing feat in itself. How difficult could navigating the Labyrinth be for a thief as talented as yourself?"

"You're too cunning for an old librarian. Sure you weren't a thief in your youth?"

"Quite sure, unless you call me a thief of knowledge. To that I'll confess my guilt every day."

# Chapter 10: Labyrinth of Leaves

A light drizzle fell as Corin rowed the small boat towards the Labyrinth from the southern end of the Caldera Lake. He had borrowed it from the line of pleasure boats in which tourists rowed around the lake. He would return it before anyone noticed it was missing. After all, it wasn't like he could hide it in his stash. He would steal the world if he could stash it, but a thief needs to think about practicalities. The boat was well designed, with the oars having a swivel mechanism that reversed their direction at the water, so that he could look forward as he pulled back. In front of him, the Labyrinth extended about two hundred yards in breadth, and a mile and a half from end to end, as the crow flies, curving in an arc nearly parallel to the southern wall of the circular city on its high pylons and about five hundred yards south of it, but bulging towards Corin at the centre. It was raised on massive pylons like the city, but was closer to the water than the city's outer ring, though not right at water level like the Inner Ring, the ring that contained the palace and its inner pleasure lake.

All Thedrans knew the Labyrinth accommodated a veritable army of monks and nuns. The twins, Jared and Javid, had told Corin it was as much monastery and convent as library; with the brothers of the order of Pulmthra, god of learning, and sisters of the order of Kemthi, goddess of wisdom – Brothers and Sisters of the Leaves as they were known – living as well as working among its collections and scriptoria. In fact, the scriptoria and collections were considered by the orders as shrines to the knowledge which those deities loved, and working in them the most sublime of devotional rituals.

What few Thedrans knew was that the Labyrinth was better appointed than many a noble's palace. The dormitories had adjoining garderobes. Cloisters surrounded well-tended gardens, open to the sun and stars. A herbarium extended over several floors. One massive infirmary cared for the ill, and another for monks and nuns who had been robbed of their wits or mobility by the passing of years. There was even an observatory, which Jared remembered fondly, though he claimed it was nothing compared to the one he had built on the southern tower of South Gate.

Other than all this there were the ubiquitous storehouses; stacked with sacks of milled grain, baskets of fresh fruit and vegetables, amphorae of olive oil. There were barrels of wine large enough for a grown man to swim in; others only as large as a fat ox, filled daily with milk or cream; jars of honey shaped like a rotund monk, and not much smaller; huge blocks of cheese, as large as cart wheels; priceless spices and healing herbs in such abundance that their piles filled and overflowed from the vaults dedicated to their storage. There were even piles of salted meat, stored as insurance against times of famine, when the supplies of fresh meat could no longer be daily renewed. These and many other things most city urchins would only ever see in hungry dreams were abundant for the devotees of knowledge over bodily pleasure.

With undisguised disgust the twins had explained to Corin that, though the orders were sworn to individual poverty of the body so that they might instead enrich the mind, in truth they did not live an acetic life, being provided with many kitchens, bakeries and refectories; and lay brothers and sisters kept the ovens baking, the fires burning, the spits turning and the feasts feeding for the too frequently fat monks and nuns all hours of the day and night. The twins had spoken with less disapproval of rooms full of bales of scraped animal hides for parchment, bundles of goose quills, sheets of gold leaf, and huge vats filled with dyes and paint and ink.

All of the labyrinth's wonders and excesses were paid for by its extensive estates in the Thedran plains and beyond – it was a greater landowner than many great princes of the realm – and wealthy benefactors, most especially the crown. The library was indisputably one of the wonders of the known world, and the greatest repository of learning from all its quarters. Scholars travelled from all over the known world in the hope of seeing just a few of its treasures, and its greatest treasures were of knowledge. Many, frustrated by the slow and difficult access to its books and scrolls guaranteed by the bureaucratic mindset of the orders, converted to the worship of Pulmthra or Kemthi, and disappeared into the Labyrinth, never to be seen again. Others traded access to their own rare tomes, if the Labyrinth possessed no copy, allowing the scribes to copy them, in exchange for the thoughts or styles or beautiful artwork of an obscure chronicle or philosophical or scientific treatise, or the poetry of a long dead language. By tradition none could enter the Labyrinth of Leaves but its brothers and sisters, and even kings respected its privileges. This meant that Augustyn, duke Relyan, despite his power, couldn't help Javid obtain more quickly the codex he wanted. That only left one option, thievery. Corin had always said it was better to have friends in low places than high places.

For lawful entrance, or delivery of supplies; the monks and nuns, and the merchants who delivered to them, would approach from the eastern or western end, from which long piers extended. For more creative entry, such as an artist of Corin's fine sensibilities might attempt, it was better to keep clear of the ends. There, the massive iron bound oak doors within giant pointed arches were guarded by monks. Unfairly, Corin thought, they used scrying magic that even a skilful thief like him couldn't avoid.

When he was younger and not much more innocent he had tried entering that way, climbing to the end of the western pier. A monk-sentry had come down the stairs from the door, raised his hand, and light had rolled out like an expanding ripple on the lake from a glowing ball that formed in his hand. When Corin had hidden beneath the pier he had seen the unnatural light wrap around underneath it. As the tentacles of light extended from the northern and southern edges of the broad pier he had dived to escape them, and swum out until he could no longer hold his breath. When he had surfaced he had seen two monks searching the pier, among the crates and barrels, around which the light flowed, leaving no shadows in which to hide. After he had related this incident to another thief they had told him the rumour that thieves were skinned alive inside the Labyrinth to supply parchment for the scriptoria. He had never tried again.

He was older now and wise enough to know that everything that sounded like a lie might be the truth, and every truth was just a cleverer kind of deceit. Which was to say, you never knew where the truth was, so sometimes you just had to take a chance and hope for the best. The twins had scoffed at the legend of the monks and nuns flaying thieves, and if you couldn't trust a cunning, self-interested ex-monk well, at least you knew you hadn't lost all your wits. He was taking a chance, but not too much of a chance; he was not going to enter the labyrinth by the piers, he was a sneaky little bugger, as his father would have fondly said and, if worse came to worst, he had this deadly sword at his side. He might not like murder, but he would sooner be guilty of one more thing in his life of many crimes than let a sadistic monk or nun take his skin, make a scroll of it and, worst of all, there inscribe a treatise on the evils of thieving.

He rowed towards the centre of the Labyrinth. There, where the twins had said it would be, he found a section of the Labyrinth which had collapsed into the water. It was halfway between two of the Labyrinth's refuse collection points, each about a hundred yards away. The damage was not visible from the tower of the twins, or from the shore of the lake, though the barge-men would surely see it during the day, when light reflected off the water to sparkle amongst the pylons of the city and the library. In the night, because of the way the barge-men weaved in and out among the pylons, the light of their lanterns wouldn't reach it. The floor of the lake was shallow at this point, so that floors and walls and stairways jutted out of the water, though nothing substantial enough to lead all the way to the jagged tear in the floor high above. At the edge of the tear extra pylons had been inserted to prevent any further collapse. No one had made any effort to repair the collapse properly though. Corin supposed the monks and nuns considered filling their stomachs a more urgent priority. From the rooms beyond, a dim light filtered through into the exposed area, which was nearly fifty yards across and twenty wide. The floor-beams and floorboards of a higher level were intact, perhaps three stories above the original lowest level.

It would be easy enough getting up to the lowest level. He moored the small boat against some of the wreckage. Taking climbing claws out of his satchel he climbed out, onto a rotting staircase projecting diagonally from the water and leaning against a pylon. Attaching the claws to his hands and knees he edged up the wooden pylon toward the tear in the floor. When he reached the edge and hauled himself over he was surprised to find the air unusually dry, given the proximity of the lake. Perhaps the orders of the Labyrinth used magic to preserve their collections of books and scrolls. The dim light he had noticed from below filtered through from several exits on different levels and both sides of the tear. Shelves without books lined the walls of the rooms that had been rent by the collapse.

He took out the circular, flat black gem Jared had given him, and peered into its depths. As he looked it began to glow with a fierce white light. He was afraid that it would reveal him, if anyone should be nearby, and shoved it into the folds of his doublet. Then he recalled that Jared had told him the light was only an illusion. He took it out and it was dark. He peered into its depths again. This time he kept watching. The white light soon divided into all the colours of the rainbow. The rainbow swirled and drew out into strands of each colour, then the strands wove together, forming a recognisable pattern. He saw a map of the Labyrinth, in three dimensions, and his attention was drawn to a point brighter than the rest. He searched through a few nearby doors, checking each time against the plan the gem projected into his mind's eye, until he was sure it was as the old man had said. The bright point was his own location. There was another point that drew his attention in the gem, though it was a long way through the twisting labyrinth of zigzagging, looping, turning back and around passages, and stairways and ramps between levels, in a dizzying array that seemed to challenge logic, as if stairs that led up sometimes emerged on lower levels, or passages entered from one direction could not be exited except by another. The very strangeness of the map made him wonder whether it could possibly be the real labyrinth that he saw in the gem, but after passing through several such impossible places, and finding they behaved exactly as he saw in the gem's map, he came to accept that the impossible must be real. He gave up trying to understand the map, and simply followed it through the Labyrinth.

Some areas were dimly lit by lamps, though the lamps did not flicker with flame. He had seen this before. These lights were the same as those in the necromancer's tower. He hoped the monks and nuns were not so addicted to human sacrifice. As he approached some rooms the intensity of light in their lanterns seemed to increase, so he carefully avoided them, relying on the map in the gem to lead him around them. He quickly lost count of the corners he had turned, of the stairways he had climbed or descended, the ramps he had walked up or down, the passages he had traversed. He tried to keep a sense of direction, but with the illogic of the Labyrinth it was impossible. He wondered if he was going to emerge through the very door by which he had left the collapsed room, so little sense did he have of his location. This was a strange experience for someone who usually had such an excellent sense of direction. Blindfold him and drop him in the middle of a strange part of the city, and he would find his way out in short order. But here, every turn, every step, only increased his disorientation. He tried to focus on the gem, and the walls seemed different when he looked up. Had he walked without knowing while looking into those depths, or had the Labyrinth actually changed around him? He couldn't tell. He would shake his head, look into the gem again, get his bearings, and move towards his goal. Occasionally he would hear voices, and he could not be sure whether monks or nuns were nearby, or whether he was hearing ancient echoes. Was that a crack of timbers easing, or a floor collapsing into the lake, or just an idea in his head? Sometimes he would stray closer to the voices, against his thieving instincts, but the voices seemed to move away from him as he walked towards them. Other times he would try to avoid them, and they would come closer with every step he took away. He was sure he was going mad, and wondered whether he would ever get out of there.

He heard voices again, and in despair he turned away from them. As he fled they came closer, then he stepped into a darkened room, and beyond he could see figures around a lantern. Doubtful of his senses he stepped towards them, but this time they didn't recede. Space behaved reasonably. He snuck up close to the open door, keeping to the shadows, desperate for human contact, but wary of the urge to run in and greet them. The Labyrinth was certainly enchanted, and its fey magic made this thief want to reveal himself. He repressed the urge but edged closer. The room was octagonal, with three doors, and shelves on the blind sides. A ladder rested against one of the shelves. All of the shelves were filled with books and scrolls, and in the centre of the room was a table, on which were piled more books and scrolls. On the floors beside the shelves were more piles of books, some of which reached all the way to the ceiling, which was unusually high. There were some lower piles too, which in the distance he had mistaken for human figures.

Around the central table books lay open and a lone monk in the plain white habit of the order of Pulmthra went from one to another, peering in their pages and muttering to himself, "No, not here, no, not that. But where?" Corin realised he could see through the monk's body to the far shelves. Just as strangely, the books themselves were translucent. The monk muttered to himself and walked across the room towards a shelf. "It must be here, it must be. The catalogue cannot be mistaken." The monk reached for a shelf, and vanished. Then he appeared again, perusing the ghostly books in the same order, making the same comments, walking towards the same shelf, and again vanishing. Again and again the monk searched and vanished, clearly the ghost of some monk whose search for knowledge had not ended with his life. Corin thanked the gods he didn't care about books.

He stared into the gem again, and realised that he was outside the very room which the map indicated. He shuddered. He would have to enter the ghost's lair. He considered turning back, but he had come so far, and it hadn't been easy. He had to complete this job. He saw one of the books was not translucent. Only one. It had fallen over on the shelf without other physical books to hold it up. The shelf was at about shoulder height to Corin. He stepped into the room. The ghost ignored him. Perhaps it didn't see him. The book lay on the shelf that the ghost always went to before vanishing. He waited until it did so again, then quickly went to that shelf and picked up the book. On its gold ornamented cover he saw the symbols that Jared had shown him.

"There it is," the ghost shrieked, and the sound was like the scream of a soldier slowly dying, forgotten among the corpses of a fallen army, and the caw of the crow feeding on his corpse, and the air smelled of rotting flesh and blood and faeces. Corin span around to face the dead monk. The ghost rushed at him and terror washed over him like a viscous fluid from which he knew he couldn't escape. The ghost shrieked as it came, "there it is. Finally it is found. Finally its secrets will be known." It reached out, as if to close its fingers around Corin's neck, and his free hand went to the hilt of his sword. But the sword didn't scream of blood, and he realised this ghost had no blood for it to drink, and knowing that felt the onrush of his doom.

Then the ghost passed through him, raising goose bumps on his skin. Corin span about. The ghost continued towards the bookcase, reaching out to where the book had lain. Then, as its hand touched that now empty space, it vanished. Corin span back around, waiting for it to appear again where it had before. Would it play the same terrifying part until the end of time? Had Corin somehow increased the spirit's torment by removing the volume? But it didn't appear again. Corin wanted to flee but his curiosity held him rooted to the spot. He stared at the place by the table where the ghost had appeared before, and waited.

After several minutes he was sure the ghost wouldn't return. He looked around. All of the ghostly books had vanished also, from the shelves, from the piles, and from the table at the centre. The only book in the room was the one in his hand. He slid it into his pack.

Even though the ghost was gone, along with the room's insubstantial books, the whole place exuded a weird presence, as if someone was about to breathe in his ear. Though it was warm on the lake, in here there was a distinct chill, and he doubted its origin was natural. He looked once more into the gem, hoping to quickly find his way out of the Labyrinth's unnatural maze. Only then did he realise the fatal flaw in the gem. Though it could show his current location and his final destination, it didn't show the way back to the point where he had entered. He would have to find his way back without assistance. He cursed himself for his lack of wisdom, then cursed the old man for his equal lack of foresight. If he had known he would have paid closer attention to his path in getting here. His sense of direction was good if he bothered to pay attention, though he wasn't sure it would have helped in this enchanted labyrinth.

He headed in what he thought was the direction from which he had come, and hoped he wasn't going deeper into the Labyrinth. He passed through several rooms that seemed familiar, then he reached one which he thought he had already passed through, though he was sure he had travelled a straight line since then.

"You may not pass." a voice growled in the darkness, and Corin froze. "I taste you, thief."

That, thought Corin, is the oddest warning I have ever heard. He tastes me?

Corin couldn't locate the source of the sound. It seemed to come from all sides, as well as above and below. He edged back towards the door through which he had entered.

"I feel you, thief." The floor thrummed with the deep, resonant voice, and the hairs on Corin's nape stood on end. He darted towards the empty doorway. He rebounded from it, though it had been empty air when he had entered. The force was so great it threw him into the air in an awkward somersault. Catlike, he landed on his feet.

"I have you, thief."

Corin's hand went to the hilt of his sword, but he heard no voice calling for blood, and wondered if this was another tortured ghost. Despite this, he hissed, "you won't skin me, monk."

Then the voice laughed. "Why would I skin a thief?"

"For parchment?" Corin said, but it was more a question than a statement, and he felt embarrassed, suspecting he had stated an absurdity.

The laughter boomed. "You would make a poor parchment, thief. Too soft."

"I am not soft. I have muscles like iron, speed like a mountain lion, the quickness of an alley cat."

"Yes, cat burglar, thief. You are as quick as a cat, but I have you all the same."

"Show yourself." Corin waved the sword around.

"Oh, you are brave, thief."

"Let's see how brave you are. Show yourself."

"Oh, master of shadows," the voice mocked, "see you me not?"

"Well, obviously."

"Then you are a fool or you are blind."

"I admit I was foolish coming to this place," Corin said then, puffing himself up, added, "but I see everything. I have the eyes of a hawk."

"Yes, thief, you have the eyes of a hooded hawk."

"Are you going to show yourself?"

"So that you can kill me with your mighty magic sword?"

"Well, if it comes to that. Of course you could just let me go."

"Or keep you here until you starve, until your bones lie beneath dust beside that legendary sword."

Corin thought for a moment, then said, "You said, magic sword."

"It seems I see more than the hooded hawk."

"But, you know this sword is magic."

"I know this sword. I know the river. Who better?"

"So, you know things."

"I know many things. I have lived among these shelves for so many years, so many centuries. So much knowledge. So many things I know."

"Then you can tell me what I need to know, and then I'll be on my way."

"Will I? Will you?"

"You don't really want to kill a scrawny boy like me, do you? What are you?"

"Hah! At last the thief thinks. I am all around you, and yet you do not see me. Where am I? Who am I? What am I?"

"A riddle? Hmm. You are the air?"

The voice boomed its laughter.

"Do you have to be so loud?" Corin asked.

"Should I speak like this, thief?" the voice whispered, and it came from all directions.

"You're not in my ear when you whisper."

"No, indeed."

"So, you can't be the air."

"I like you, thief. You reason well. I think I'll keep you."

"So if I were more stupid you'd let me go?"

Again the voice laughed, but quietly. "Oh, thief, I do like you. You will keep me company."

"And will you feed me?"

"I cannot."

"Then I'll die. Will you like me so much then?"

"No, indeed. You will amuse me less then."

"If you let me go I could come back and visit."

"Blind you may be, but so clever. Oh, delicious. Yes, I taste you. Yes I have you, and I will not let you go. In here you will learn, all that I know."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"So, if I asked you anything you'd answer?"

"Yes."

"Answer honestly?"

"Yes."

"Do I have your word?"

"Words are all I have."

"Do you swear?"

"Fuck!"

"That's not what I meant. Do you swear you will tell me anything I wish to know, if you know it?"

"If? If? I know..."

"You know all," Corin droned, "yes, everything, except what I want to know."

"There is nothing I do not know. I know all. Ask me."

"It's not important. If you don't know, then you don't know."

The voice rumbled its disapproval. "There is nothing you could ask that I do not know. Nothing that is, nothing that has been. No thought ever known of man."

"I don't believe you. You say you know all, yet you won't swear to tell me what I want to know. I don't think you know."

"Try me?"

"Why waste my time? No, I'm just going to sit down here."

"Ask, and I will answer."

"Do you swear?"

"I swear."

"You swear you will answer any question that I ask?"

"I do."

"Then how do I escape you?"

For a moment there was silence, then the voice laughed again, and the sound seemed to caress Corin's face kindly. "Oh, I do like you. Will you not stay?"

"I have things to do."

"Indeed you do, he who hears the voice. The voice of blood."

Corin shuddered. "Is that all this sword speaks of?"

"Only while it is polluted by foul necromancy. In its natural state it has an...interesting personality."

"Polluted?"

"You are clever but sometimes foolish. It is ever so with men, even small men."

"So will you tell me how to cleanse the sword?"

"You know already."

"I do?"

"You know but do not know that you know."

"You love your riddles."

"You must solve this one. You are clever, for all your blindness. Think."

Corin made a show of thinking. "Hmm."

"Frowning will not show you the truth."

"Let me think." The voice was silent. "Cleansing." Corin struck himself in the forehead. "How could I be so stupid?"

"It is the fault of many men who think themselves wise. Only I know all."

"The tears of the goddess tortured by the necromancer."

"The nymph, yes. You see, I did not have to tell you. The daughter of the river left you a gift. Cleanse the sword. Then it will never be quiet. It will babble, like the brook. Or do not cleanse it, if you prefer."

Corin took the phial with the nymph's tears out of his pack and, unsheathing the sword, poured a drop on its blade. As he watched the moisture seemed to be absorbed into the blade, as he had seen blood being absorbed before.

"Is that all?" he asked his invisible interlocutor.

"That is enough, but it is not all that you seek, is it, thief?"

"I seek...," Corin considered for a moment, but he knew it was true, "I seek knowledge."

"As do all the wise."

"I want to know what this sword is. Is it cursed?"

"It can be a curse, but a curse to one man may be a blessing to his enemies."

"You like talking in riddles. Can you be more specific."

"The necromancer's curse is lifted. The sword has a more complex destiny. It has many names. It is Seltien. It is the sword of kings. It is Blood-spate. It is the Horn of the River God."

"Horn of the River God?"

"Indeed. Step away from the blade."

Corin stepped back, leaving the unsheathed sword on the floor. As he did so dust swirled in the room, at first sluggishly, then more energetically. It gathered into a dust devil above the sword, and the point at the base of the dust devil's cone touched the blade and moved along it, inscribing runes as it went, and the runes burned with inner fire.

At first the runes burned brightly, then they evaporated in a puff of steam, obscuring the blade. But the steam cleared. Beneath it the sword was transparent, like water, flowing in a circuit, from hilt to tip down one side and back along the other. Along its length runes of fire formed in the water and fought against its flow to retain their form and the flow tugged at and deformed the fiery runes into a glowing steaming stream as the water in turn wrote transparent runes that evaporated in the fire. The only constant in the runes was change, so that it could never be seen clearly whether fire wrote on water or water on fire. Two elements eternally at odds, impossibly bound together.

"Thus we see the sword's true nature," murmured the voice. "Here you read the First Language. The language of creation, full and complete. Men only know fragments and faded marks of the beginning, but here you see it whole and clear, as the gods wrote them, as the gods read them, as they were at the time of creation, and ever will be as long as the gods live."

"So what is it?" Corin asked.

"It's the horn of the river god, or rather, was fashioned from it. Seltathra has ever been a fractious vassal of his lord, Sedthra, god of the seas. At the beginning of things the river locked horns in his estuary with the sea. Sedthra defeated his vassal, breaking one of his horns. Sedthra gave the horn to Fulkthra, so that Seltathra might be tamed at his source, in these mountains, which is beyond the sea's reach. The smith god forged the sword in the fires of his own heart, for of all the gods he is most akin to fire. In the pommel of Seltien Fulkthra set a piece of his own heart, so that fire might rule water. Even without the Heart of Fulkthra it is a powerful sword. With it, it can command the river himself. You have seen some of that power in the tower of the necromancer. As you know Blood-spate can command the daughters of the river god even without his pommel stone, at least with the aid of powerful magic to command the sword."

The runes on the sword began to fade. The brightness of fire and the vigorous tides of water became less distinct.

"The twins...two old men you don't know..."

"Jared and Javid. I know them well. I wish them well. They are my old friends."

"How did you know...?"

"Know that they sent you? How did I know of the nymphs and the necromancer?"

"I didn't think of that. Let me guess. You know all."

"And I know what the twins fear. 'When the lost are found the old age will end.' It is an ancient prophecy. Blood-spate had been lost for many an age, at least in mortal terms."

"And you aren't mortal?"

"Not as you would understand it."

"So will the old age end?"

"An age is always ending and another always beginning, just as every moment men die and babes are born. Change has no calendar. But an alignment of the heavens does approach. At such times the old gods are weakened. New gods may arise. Mortals become immortal and even gods may die. It is a time of great forces contending, and none may know the outcome in advance. It is what those with a shorter perspective would call 'the time of change.'"

"The goddess who saved me from the lake said the time of change is at hand."

The runes on the blade had faded to nothing now.

"Yes. And Blood-spate is now found, even if it was only one of the lost. There are many other lost relics of the gods. Perhaps even as many as there are gods, and the number of the gods is unknowable."

"Something you don't know?" Corin mocked the voice.

"Something that is beyond knowing, even to gods."

"Like you?"

"I am a servant only. The greatest servant of knowledge."

Corin picked up the sword. It murmured in his hand, and in his head he thought he heard a voice, though it was faint, like a conversation heard through a wall. He felt the burning in his heart once again, but a coolness flowed from the hilt of the sword, up his arm. Just as the runes of water had battled those of fire in the blade, the coolness seemed to battle the fire in his heart.

"If you know all, do you know what I feel?"

"I have spoken to the nymphs. I know what ails you. I know the fire that burns in your heart."

"The nymph told me that only Blood-spate could undo the harm."

"Only when it is complete. Find the Heart of Fire. Complete the sword of kings."

"And what is the Heart of Fire?"

"You have touched it. You know it in your heart. It burns you, does it not?"

"The ruby?"

"It may seem such, but it is no ordinary gem. It is a fragment of the heart of Fulkthra. In the beginning the god of fire and the god of sky fought. Fulkthra roared in fiery fury, and his lashing arms of lava seared the sky, tearing out the eye of the god of sky. In stricken rage Saruthra shouted thunder and cast his lightning bolt at his brother, shattering Fulkthra's heart. Dalthi, great fecund mother of gods, gathered the pieces of his heart and put it back together. But her tears for the harm her sons had done each other blinded her, and she missed a piece. When Fulkthra had recovered from his injuries he searched across the earth. He found the missing fragment and fashioned a beautiful gem from it, the Heart of Fire. Within shines the fire of the Primal Dragon, who raped the earth, fathering Fulkthra. He who possesses it is said to be immune to the injurious effects of fire. When Fulkthra forged Blood-spate he cast the gem as the blade's pommel stone, so that fire might rule river ever after. Within it resides the balm to soothe your pain."

"But the ruby caused the pain."

"Because you touched it without the blade. The two elements of fire and water are balanced in the sword made whole. The blade is of the river. The stone is of the mountain. Water and fire; fire and water. Endless conflict, but balanced. The runes I inscribed on the blade substitute an ephemeral fire and waken the river, as does the fire in your heart. That is why you feel less pain when you hold the sword. The river fights his adversary within you. But the fire must be drawn from your heart if you are to be truly healed, and that can only be done if blade and stone are brought together."

Corin was getting bored with the mythology lesson. He preferred the honest skill of thievery to this strange magic and talk of gods. He said, "I think I know enough now."

"No knowledge can ever be enough. You will come to understand this."

"Will you honour your word and release me?"

"Knowledge will set you free."

"And you are knowledge."

"Why, yes. But how?"

An idea had been slowly dawning on Corin, and now he stated it, "You're the Labyrinth?"

"I am. Oh, I do like you, thief. Remember, only borrow what you have taken. Return it later."

"That was my intention. You have no treasures here worth stealing."

"Hmph! Knowledge is treasure, the greatest of treasures. Empires rise and fall, but as long as knowledge remains the light will never fade."

"I meant no offence. But I prefer gold."

"Ah, though the world grows old the young do not change."

"We can't be born with wisdom, now, can we? except maybe if we're a library."

"Oh, delicious flattery. You must visit again. Take my greetings to Jared and Javid. It has been too many seasons since those men of science have walked my halls, too many moons since they have browsed my shelves. Such men know the value of my treasures."

"You do know everything," Corin flattered.

"Go, thief, before I change my mind."

"One more thing."

"Ask."

"Why didn't you trap me sooner?"

"My knowledge is without bounds, but my power is limited. I have this power here, but not everywhere in my halls."

"I am privileged to pass this way then."

"You are, thief. And I to meet you. I will guide you. But before I lead you back to your boat I want you to see something."

"More musty tomes? I mean, treasures."

"Something that you must understand, wielder of Blood-spate. One of the lost is found, perhaps more. Even here, in this oasis of ideas amidst the unthinking world, the troubles that world will face begin to manifest. Even the gods may not understand these changes, yet you and other mortals like you must, or the light may fail in that darkness which approaches."

"You speak cryptically."

"It cannot be otherwise. Even I do not see all."

"I thought you knew everything."

"Everything that has been I know. Everything that is I know. Everything that can be known I know."

"So you don't know what may be in the future."

"The future is always uncertain. Many paths lead from the present, but only some will be taken. Directions pile on misdirections. If the future were more direct so would I be. Follow."

All the lights suddenly went out. Then through one doorway a lamp flared into life. Corin walked towards the light. As he reached it, it dimmed, and through another door another light flared into life. He followed the lights through the labyrinth up and down stairways and ramps beside which handcarts piled with books and scrolls rested, through corridors, across rooms with stuffed shelves, and floors connected to ceilings by precarious towers of books, walls hidden by barrels stuffed with scrolls, past storerooms and around silent cloisters and skirting dormitories where monks or nuns dozed. After a while the lights that led him went out, but he could see a faint small glow in the distance.

"Make your way quietly, thief," the Labyrinth whispered, "you may have my leave, but the Orders of the Leaves are proud of their privileges, and may not be so understanding."

"You mean they'll skin me alive and make a book out of me?"

The Labyrinth chuckled. "Ah, to have you in my shelves, forever mine."

"You have a disturbing sense of humour, Labyrinth."

"Quiet now."

Corin approached the glow, which was another lit room, but without other lights leading the way. As he neared the room he saw lecterns in neat lines dimly lit by a distant source, some with closed books on them, some with two open books, and small pots and quills. "It is a scriptorium," the Labyrinth whispered in answer to Corin's unspoken question, "here the copyists and illuminators work to stock my shelves with the treasures of many cultures." At the far end of the room, in a circle of light created by one of the Labyrinth's magical lanterns, several figures clustered in a small ring, their heads bent down towards another.

Coming closer, up to the doorway, he saw there were five people, three monks and two nuns or, at least, two monks, two nuns, and another man, who was sitting between them on the floor, cross legged and naked. In the hands of the sitting man was a book, and he stared at it as if uncomprehending. The others spoke quietly to each other, stopping to listen occasionally when the sitting man looked up and spoke. Then they would speak haltingly with him, until he became frustrated by something they were saying, and looked down at the book again, again puzzled. Corin saw that the book was upside down. But the seated man didn't seem to comprehend that. Corin didn't understand what they were saying. He moved closer, silently, wrapped in shadow. Still he couldn't quite make out what they were saying. He moved closer, edging through the doorway, and from the shadow of one lectern to the next.

Soon he could hear, though still not understand. The naked man spoke in a foreign tongue. The library was famous across the kingdom of Ropeua, indeed across the whole known world of Thudalth, so it was not unusual for scholars from distant parts to join the Orders of the Leaves. Corin thought the language sounded familiar. The two monks and the two nuns alternately spoke haltingly with the naked man, apparently questioning him in his own tongue. There was a vaguely musical quality to it; as with some languages of traders from the Silk Sea, but richer, more varied in its tones, and with those tones layered with each other in a harmony that he would have thought impossible for human vocal chords to produce. Agmar's fighting song was somewhat like it, only less complex. The questioning monks and nuns now spoke to each other in Low Ropeuan.

"There is no doubting the language," said the elder of the monks, "but what it means I cannot guess. I wouldn't have thought it possible."

The younger monk nodded. "It is remarkable that any man should speak it so fluently, Reverend Father."

"But not unprecedented, brother," said the elder of the nuns.

"No, Reverend Mother," agreed the younger nun.

Apparently the two elders were the abbot and abbess.

"What do you mean?" the abbot asked.

"A woman appeared near the cells of the sisters a week ago. She was naked and confused also. When she was brought to me she was distressed, and said she couldn't see tomorrow. She said it in this language, and yet the world did not change. But she vanished before I could question her further. It does not bode well."

"This one says that what was clear is now obscure, yet he doesn't have the knowledge of what was clear. It makes little sense in itself, but with the language, and the woman you saw, I fear it makes too much sense."

"Only they could speak so clearly in that language."

"And yet it aids them little. And there is something wrong in that."

"But perhaps inevitable. Kemthi guide us."

"If She can. And Pulmthra teach us."

"If He may."

"I fear neither may be possible at this time."

"Yet the sands of the hourglass fall. This time will pass like any other."

"Let us hope; for ignorance is the darkness no light but knowledge can dispel, and if the light of knowledge fails...."

No one dared say what might follow, perhaps fearful that nothing might.

Corin backed away from the room, and followed the lights that led the way back through the Labyrinth to the boat. When he moored the boat back at the edge of the caldera lake the sky was already greying with the approaching dawn, and the birds were chirping in the trees nearby, oblivious to the darkness spoken of in the Labyrinth of Leaves.

# Chapter 11: Heart of Fire

The night was overcast. Though the moon was only just past full its prismatic light didn't disturb the shadows on the rooftops of North Bank.

Corin had given the Codex of Metma and Jared's magical gem to Agmar to deliver to the twins. Roberto had seemed amused by his tale of the talking labyrinth, but his laughing grey eyes had grown serious when Corin mentioned Blood-spate and the Heart of Fire.

Now Corin retraced his steps of the night he had shadowed the Lord of Law to the portal by which he had entered the cellar in the Courts of Law. It would be a simple enough matter to disarm the traps on the chest again, since he was the one who had rearmed them. Then he would have the ruby. He hoped the Labyrinth was right, that it would heal his pain. He occasionally felt the burning return, but found that touching the hilt of the sword lessened its intensity, washing a sense of relief through his body. The river god's benediction, he supposed.

Touching the hilt of the sword also had another effect now, more disconcerting. Before he had cleansed the sword with the nymph's tears it had only screamed of blood. After he had cleansed it he had heard a low murmur, like a voice heard through a wall. Now, instead of a low murmur, he heard that voice clearly. It had an intelligence very different from the primal scream for blood. He couldn't quite believe that it was real, but he had seen so much outlandish magic in the last few days that he had begun to suspend his disbelief.

He touched the hilt of the sword. In his head he called, "Blood-spate?"

"Seltien."

"Is that your name?"

"It is a name. But I am incomplete. Only the heart can make the horn complete. Only the sword of kings can rule the river."

"And who rules the sword?" he wondered.

The voice heard his thought though it hadn't been addressed to it. It said, "Only a king."

"Not me, then."

"Only a king."

"Can you be a bit more specific? If you tell me, maybe I can find this king for you. Is it the old king, a future king like prince Arthur, some other king in a distant land?"

"Only a king."

"Only a king, only a king, only a king. Only a stupid sword."

The sword's tone became petulant. "Only a stupid thief."

"Not just any stupid thief. The greatest stupid thief in Thedra."

"Only a king. Find the heart. Make us whole. Find the king, and rule the river."

"Don't be impatient. I'm going to get the heart. But why would I want to rule the river?"

"Rule the river."

"You said I can't."

"Only a king."

"I give up."

The sword groaned its disapproval. Understanding its words would have to wait. He had more important things to do than riddle away the night with a voice in his own head. There were thieves to rob and a guild to defy. There was one huge ruby to fetch. A heart to find and a heart to heal.

He had reached the place where he had entered the portal the other night. Soon he could satisfy one of the blade's desires. Soon it would heal his own heart.

But the black void wasn't there. The portal was gone. He probed the tiles with his toes. They were solid. No hole in the roof. The tile-work didn't seem recent. The tiles were all of the same age. He wondered whether he had come to the wrong place. He looked up, surveyed the rooftops. He had been disoriented in the Labyrinth by magic, but here he was in his element. Here he knew exactly where he was. There was no chance that he was in the wrong place. Perhaps the portal had been moved. It made sense. If it had been his portal, if he knew how to create such things, he wouldn't have it sitting in the one place indefinitely where it could be easily discovered. So he searched the rooftops nearby. But he found nothing, other than a few ordinary holes in roofs.

He would have to get into the thieves' guild by the front door, so to speak. But, while he loved a challenge, he had never been suicidal. After all, you don't fight desperately to survive on the streets only to give up on life. If society wanted you dead, that was all the more reason to live, if only to defy the world that had trodden you down, to thumb your nose at their authority, to laugh at their rules, to dishonour their willing daughters and filch their hidden riches.

He crept across the rooftops towards the tall cylindrical shapes of the theatre and the baiting pit. There against the theatre's southern wall was the House of Delights, where Rose and the other whores worked and lived. He would have to go through its entrance to get to the stairway leading down to Ilsa's Inn. He had to get into the tavern without being spotted, which would require some creative climbing indoors, since there was only a single narrow stairway down from the entrance hall to tavern and brothel. It had only been under duress that the Lord of Law and his vassals had let the King of Cripples and his stinking minions take Corin away the other night. They had failed to kill him in South East Quarter, and would likely be more careful in the future. But with so many of them killed by him and Agmar, if he entered their domain and was discovered they would likely throw all their considerable forces against him. And if they could they would likely capture him and make his death slow and painful.

When he arrived opposite the entrance there was something unusual going on in the square. There were hundreds of men with torches. It was unusual for the city watch to interfere with the guild. There were too many corrupt magistrates too easily bribed. Anyway, this lot were heavily armed and armoured. They looked like a professional fighting force rather than the amateurs of the city watch. This must be something else. Corin approached by rooftops as close as he could to the disturbance.

A herald stood in the middle of the square that faced the brothel and tavern entrance. His livery was that of a minor lord from the east and Corin saw now that the soldiers were liveried in the same colours. The herald held out an unrolled scroll and proclaimed in a loud voice that carried clear across the square and echoed in the streets beyond, "In the name of the king, these dens of iniquity are forever closed. The perversity of actors and poets and the disorder they provoke will not be tolerated any longer. Forthwith, all who do not leave the lives of depravity they have favoured are subject to arrest and imprisonment. As the gods wish so His Majesty, Richard IV, in his wisdom and piety knows and commands, this thirty fifth year of his noble reign and the three thousand seven hundred and third of the era of our kings – may they rule in the distant planes long after they depart this mortal realm." A liveried soldier unrolled another copy of the scroll and hammered the parchment to the door.

Observing more carefully, Corin noted that the soldiers were not only at the entrance to the brothel and tavern, but also were moving to the entrances of the theatre and the baiting pit. Patrons poured out of all these places, along with thieves and whores and actors. It wasn't unusual for the entertainment precinct to be shut down. Depending on the behaviour of these soldiers it might complicate matters, but it might also simplify them. Corin noticed one disturbing fact and cursed the soldiers silently. The brothel building was now brightly lit. The soldiers were affixing torches to brackets along the wall which were usually left empty. He crept along the rooftops in both directions, but saw the guards had even brought tradesmen to attach further brackets to each end of the building. Apparently they anticipated thieves trying to enter.

He might enter by the theatre, which was connected via its galleries to the brothel, thence by stairs to the blockaded entrance hall and stairway down to the tavern, if they weren't also blocking the entrance to the theatre. But he could try to climb from the opposite side of the theatre. When he checked he found however that they had set up a perimeter of soldiers all around the walls of the theatre. Even the baiting pit was completely surrounded. He returned to the roofs opposite the brothel to consider his options.

The denizens of the brothel and the tavern, those that were not elsewhere breaking and entering, came out of the door, more soldiers behind them. Corin recognised many of their faces, apprentice thieves, journeyman thieves, masters at law and many manglers, some fractious with the guards, though most intelligent enough to know when they were beaten. Standing over a shopkeeper or a child thief wasn't the same as fighting a professional soldier. He saw Sandy and Rose and other whores, many pulling on more clothes than they liked to wear. Only the Lord of Law and his vassals were nowhere to be seen. Corin assumed they were within the hidden tunnels of the guild. Maybe other thieves were too. The ones being led out must have been caught drinking in the tavern front to the guild tunnels.

He saw Agmar coming out of the theatre. Some of the men-at-arms tried to arrest the bard, but he roared at them and took his giant two handed sword from his back and they backed off. Corin climbed down from the roofs in a dark spot and fell in with the bard. Agmar looked at him askance after a while. "How long have you been there?"

"Oh, a while. Do you want your purse back?"

"Scoundrel!" He playfully backhanded him and Corin dodged under the swipe, placing the purse in his hand.

"So, what's going on?"

"With the playhouse?"

Corin nodded.

"Some anonymous poet," Agmar said, smiling wryly, "implied that the wife of a certain minor noble was more than generous with her favours. The noble petitioned the king. The queen is now a follower of the puritan sect and urged her husband to close down the theatre. The king decided to close down everything. Never mind, so many nobles frequent the brothel's lovely ladies that an opposing faction will quickly form and persuade the king that the poem originated at court and the whores are innocent of debauchery and the thieves are upstanding citizens and the actors only lie late in bed."

"Do you know who wrote the poem?"

Agmar grinned more broadly. "Only that he has great talent and taste, in women as well as verse."

"A lot of guards stand around the theatre and pit."

"Five hundred, I hear."

"A minor noble has an armed retinue of five hundred?"

"No. He only has two hundred, the ones in that red and bronze livery out front of the brothel. The queen lends him men, as well as some puritan lords."

"Damn!"

"Yes. I'd just finished penning a brilliant revenge tragedy. It would have drawn the crowds. The actors had been rehearsing it. But never mind, you'll get to see it soon. Roberto says he knows another playhouse. More intimate. My lines might work better in such a setting. He's very secretive about its location though."

"I wasn't talking about the play."

Agmar put on his most injured look. "Ah, struck to the heart by my friend. I will return to the west and die fighting in heroic battle."

"Or tell tales about your bravery until in legend you become a god. But I wasn't saying I don't want to see your play. I'll see it without paying soon enough."

"Thief!"

Corin bowed. "My problem is, I need to get in there." He pointed across the square. "I can't get in with all those men-at-arms about."

"Why attend an empty theatre?"

"Not the theatre. Ilsa's Inn."

"The tavern? I thought you were avoiding the thieves' guild."

"Not now."

"Joining up?"

"Not likely. They have something of theirs. I want to make it mine."

"Ah, business not pleasure then."

"Precisely. How am I going to get in there?"

"This 'something of theirs' is in the tavern?"

"No, in the tunnels of the guild hall."

"The secret tunnels? I've heard of them, but I don't know anyone who's ever seen them."

"Now you know one."

"Well done. Tell me more."

Corin told him of following the Lord of Law and passing through the portal and finding where the tunnels led. "They have the pommel stone of this sword." He patted the sheath of Blood-spate. "The Labyrinth says I have to find the stone..."

"The Labyrinth says?"

"Um, you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Are you saying the Labyrinth is sentient?"

"You see? Ridiculous, isn't it?"

"No more ridiculous than a sentient sword." He pointed to the sword at Corin's side. "Or a bard whose song is magic." He pointed a finger at himself. "I know a thing or two about sorcerous matters. You'll have to tell me all about this talkative library some time."

"I will, but in the meantime, the Labyrinth tells me I have to find the stone. The Heart of Fire he called it."

"The Heart of Fire?" the bard whistled and his eyes grew wide.

"It's the pommel stone of this sword."

Agmar's eyes opened even wider. "Then the sword is Blood-spate. The sword of kings. I would have thought the sword of kings would be bigger. It hardly looks like a longsword."

"It's long enough for me."

"Well, yes, but then, you're such a little fellow."

"Not where it counts."

"So Rose tells me. Can I have another look at it."

Corin made as if to undo his codpiece.

"Not that, you little pervert. The sword."

Corin grinned and unsheathed the sword. Agmar examined it again. Then, to his amazement, he said, "Look!"

"What?"

"It's size." He turned it over and over, and swung and thrust and parried the air. "It's now the perfect length for me. If I preferred a longsword." It was true. The sword had now grown to be a longsword for its holder. "But I prefer a true sword," Agmar said mockingly. The sword murmured, and without any transition being observed it was the length of Agmar's own two handed sword. "Now that's a sword. He fenced with it in broad strokes and long thrusts. It makes you think," he said, handing it back to Corin.

In Corin's hand it was once again a longsword, but slightly shorter, as if perfectly forged for a man of his height. "What?"

"Well, if you gave it to a tiny gnome, would it shrink even further? If you could find a two inch warrior, would it shrink to little more than an inch? An amusing conundrum, no?"

Corin shrugged. "None of this solves my problem."

"How to get into the tavern? Well, I could create a distraction for you. But you wouldn't find it easy to sneak past with all that light."

"What if I dressed in the same livery."

Agmar looked him up and down and raised an eyebrow. "You're a bit small for a man-at-arms."

"There must be some small men-at-arms."

"True, but you'd be a rarity. They'll look at you more carefully than they would otherwise. Even if they weren't alerted by that, they're the men of a minor noble. They all know each other."

"But you said there are other soldiers there."

"True. But the queen's men are all big burly lads. No chance of your being mistaken for one of them. If only I had some help, someone theatrical."

"Like Roberto?" Corin pointed to the wall against which Roberto was leaning, listening to their conversation. "You know, Roberto, if I didn't know you better I'd think you were spying on us."

Grey laughing eyes glittered in the darkness. "Of course I'm spying on you. On Agmar anyway. I'm thinking of turning him in for a massive reward." Roberto stepped out of the shadows and joined them. Rose and Sandy were also returning down the street to watch what the men-at-arms were going to do.

"And it's been such a roaring trade recently," Sandy said, "now I'll have to turn tricks in the city till this nonsense is over. I do wish anonymous poets would have the sense not to name the noble ladies they fuck." She looked with mock sternness at the bard.

"Ah, Sandy, high born ladies deserve some infamy too, do they not?"

"That's right, Sandy," Rose quipped, her eyes flashing green, "we can't keep all dishonour to ourselves."

"But what else do we whores have? It's so unjust for virtuous ladies to steal our impropriety."

"Now," said Agmar with an appraising eye, "with two such talented actresses and a ham actor like Roberto..."

"Ham actor! Ham actor! You impugn my honour. Defend yourself, Sir." Roberto's hand went to his side; the opposite side to where he wore his sword. He made to draw, looked at his empty hand, and looked about as if confused, then "discovered" his sword and put his hand to the hilt, lifting his chin proudly.

"Good Sir." Agmar raised his hands in supplication. "Your fearsome reputation precedes you. Allow me to withdraw my false asseveration."

"False what?" Corin asked.

"Solemn declaration," Rose said.

"Ah! Well, are you bunch of scoundrels going to help this lonely rogue?" Corin pointed to himself.

"Help my small dark and handsome steal from the guild that takes more than half my earnings? What sort of whore do you take me for?" Rose said, putting a hand to his codpiece and kissing him lasciviously. Her long artificial lashes fluttered as the kiss turned sincere and he breathed in the scent of her hair and tasted the ripe cherry gloss on her lips.

"We'll require some costumes," Sandy said.

"I think I see what you intend," Agmar said, "but even with a distraction, Corin will have to get past the guards, and with all that light..."

"Hmm," Corin said, and placed his hand on the hilt of Blood-spate. His expression became distant, as if listening to a voice. "I think that's a problem I can solve. But where are you going to get costumes with the theatre closed?"

"That should be obvious," Roberto said.

"Of course," Corin said, slapping his head, and the whores nodded their agreement.

Agmar raised a querying eyebrow.

Roberto signalled them to follow. They climbed through the streets of North Bank, crossed North Bank Bridge, reaching Upper Plateau, and approached the outer gatehouse of Thedra Bridge.

"Halt, citizen," said a guard holding up a hand.

Roberto bowed with a flourish. "We are part of a special performance for His Grace, the duke Relyan. Without us the play can't proceed."

The guard eyed them with disapproval. "You should've entered before sundown. The gates are closed for a reason."

"Well, we could wait until sunup. His Grace might wait that long. Perhaps he'll patiently sleep, until we turn up. Or perhaps the company will perform without us. It would be a travesty of the thespian art to so impoverish a play written expressly for The Duke's delectation, with our own parts so central to the action. But...," he sighed theatrically, "I suppose you know best. I suppose you know His Grace's will and only seek to ensure his greater satisfaction."

The guard answered querulously, "I answer to the king."

"Ah, yes. The king. And His Grace does not have His Majesty's ear. You're right. You do not serve The Duke."

The guard shifted uncomfortably, then turned and unlocked the small postern door and let them through, yelling after them to another guard at the far end of the passage, "Servants of The Duke on urgent business to the Abbey."

Roberto turned back before the postern door closed, and said, "Good man. I'll be sure to pass on to His Grace word of your service."

When they had passed through the far postern he turned to Agmar. "Ham actor?"

"Well, you can fool a foolish guard. Could you fool me?"

"Ah! Let's find out."

"Maybe some other time."

"You won't see it coming."

Corin interrupted them, "Regardless, it would have been easy enough to bribe him with a few coppers."

"Ah, little Corin," the contortionist knife throwing actor remarked, "No style. You have yet to learn the rewards of art. The beauty of the thespian arts is a treasure in itself."

"If I can't steal it, I'm not interested."

Rose jabbed him in the ribs, her eyes flashing green beneath her trimmed, charcoal lined brows.

"Unless," he amended, "it's warm and sweet smelling and entirely without morals."

"Oh, I do love the way you flatter."

Sandy said, "Stop titillating her, Corin, or she'll make you pay for it."

"She always does."

Rose linked her arm with his, her eyes amused while her painted lips were prim and serious. Then they twitched and smiled as she said, "And you're such a good provider."

"For your embraces I'd steal the world."

She nibbled his earlobe affectionately.

Halfway along the bridge they came to a house. It was unusually long, extending lengthwise along the bridge, but narrow the other way, to allow traffic to pass. No windows faced the bridge street. They stepped into a short alley between the house and a neighbouring guild hall, and entered. Inside was a small vestibule, and beyond it a spacious area with rows of comfortable seats with cushions. An aging man dressed in women's clothes, with heavy makeup, looked up from behind a short counter on which were piled playbills and behind which was a large ceramic bowl filled with silver pieces. "No show until late...ah, Roberto. Corin. Ladies, what a pleasure. Still stealing the thief's heart, my dear? And who is this handsome giant?"

"This is Agmar, of Seltica."

"The Agmar of Seltica?" His eyes grew round. "Not the poet of the comedy, Cheaters of Hearts?"

"The same," Roberto said.

"What is this place?" Agmar asked.

The usher swept his arm proudly towards the stage at the far end, licking his painted lips and looking Agmar up and down as if he would have him served up to eat. Open windows lined the wall away from the street, overlooking the caldera lake. "This is the Abbey of Anarchy."

Roberto added, "It's still the domain of the King of Misrule, but the company of actors here have the patronage of The Duke. They may have closed the main theatre, but The Duke's influence is too great for them to dare close this. During the day they mostly perform plays with child actors. It goes down very well with the more affluent merchants and their wives. Looking for a bit of culture to dress up their grubby reputations as grasping traders."

"And who doesn't need to dress up on occasion?" the usher remarked, smiling so broadly that the paint on his lips could be seen to have stained his teeth.

"Which is precisely why we're here, Maria."

Maria clapped his hands, and rubbed them together eagerly. "And you need my help?"

"Who else could so perfectly attire such poor wandering souls as proud aristocrats?"

"Follow me." He led them along the aisle between seats and up a short stairway at the side of the stage, to a narrow stairway behind. At the top was the company of actors, some lazing about, others trying to memorise their parts, a pair alternately fencing and throwing bombast at each other. Maria said to a lady with heavily rouged cheeks, "Head downstairs, Alcuin, and watch the door. We shouldn't have any customers while I'm up here, but some customers are so enthusiastic they can be unpredictable. And why not, with such worlds to imagine, such lords and ladies, ambushes and battles? Such comic errors seen of knights in their lords' beds? Such ladies satisfied with thick lances on the battlefields of love? So many pictures of life arrayed on a single small stage that all the wide world could not surpass it?"

The lady rushed towards the stairs they had come up, but not before Agmar noticed she was actually a young boy made up. As Alcuin passed him Roberto grabbed him by the groin, halting his progress, and whispered something in his ear. Alcuin winced at the too tight grip, stopped to listen, and accepted the gold coin pressed into his palm, nodded and hurried on. "The pleasures of boys are the dreams of men," Roberto said by way of explanation to an incurious Corin. Corin had seen too much of the world to be shocked, though he was surprised, since Roberto had never groped him, and many of the pederasts in the Guild of Misrule had at least tried, even if their hands had never been quick enough to catch the nimble thief.

Maria led them further in, to a huge storeroom, filled with props and costumes. Within half an hour two lords and their ladies stepped into the street. Maria had almost wept at not being allowed to dress up and make up Corin as well, commenting with approval on the slim musculature of his body, so suitable for elegant dresses, and the fine lines and dusky complexion of his face that only a true mistress of the art of makeup could properly emphasise. But the plan required of Corin his stealth, not a performance, so he resisted Maria's blandishments and welling eyes. Maria responded to his refusals with histrionic petulance, but eventually sighed, accepting defeat, and turned his attention fully and admiringly to Agmar.

Alcuin wasn't at his post downstairs, drawing curses from Maria. Outside they passed him, hurrying back along the bridge street to the Abbey of Anarchy. As the door of the theatre opened they heard Maria screeching angrily at the boy. The screeching faded as the door closed. Within another half hour they were approaching the square in front of the House of Delights.

"So," said Agmar, "what's your plan for the lights, Corin."

Corin touched the hilt of his sword, then said, "Start with your performance."

Agmar shrugged. "Ready ladies?"

Agmar and Roberto accompanied the ladies into the square. Several guards rushed forward to stop them, but Roberto and Agmar played their parts so well that soon the guards were apologising for the closure of the precinct. The group moved away from the tavern and brothel entrance, with the guards following them, and other guards approaching to see what was going on.

Corin pulled out Blood-spate.

"Now," said Seltien, "drive me into the stones."

"Just as well the earth's no blushing maiden," Corin whispered as he drove the blade down into the stones. It slid in without resistance, without making a sound. "You'd better hurry. They won't be able to sustain the act all night long."

"Patience."

Corin looked down to the ground, and noticing nothing, asked, "What, for the cock's crow? For the end of the world?"

"Patience, little thief."

Corin strained his eyes. "I don't see anything."

The sword was silent. And then Corin heard it. A drip. He looked at the bone hued sword blade, and along its length moisture was beading. It ran down the blade, pooling between the cobblestones. It wasn't a large amount of water, but it trickled through the spaces between cobblestones like a slender dark thread. Still the sword dripped, and the thread of water extended out into the square that fronted the House of Delights. It flowed towards the centre of the long wall. When it reached the wall it flowed up, directly beneath a torch. Halfway to the torch bracket the thread branched into three. One thread of water continued up, the others extended left and right. Below each torch the water branched again. The water reached the bottom of the first torch bracket. It twined in a spiral along the torch and flowed into the flame. The flame hissed, then went out. Along the wall several more torches hissed and went out.

"There," Blood-spate said in a smug tone.

"Well, I won't deny it was useful, but I could piss out that much water, after drinking a few mugs of sack and holding on to it for a bit. Didn't you say you could rule the river?"

"I am the river. I can be the fiery earth's flaming fury."

"You're a little bit of the river god, if I recall the legend right. A little bit of his horn, or his pointy dick, or something."

"I am not whole," Blood-spate agreed sadly.

"That's what I was saying."

"No. You don't understand. Find the heart. Make me whole. I am the raging river. I am the fiery fury of the shaking mountain. I am the power of one god bound by another. You do not know my power."

Already the guards, noticing the torches going out, went to them with their own carried brands and tried to light them. Others searched about in the shadows, expecting foul play from the thieves of Ilsa's Inn.

"What happens when I pull you out of the ground?"

"The river will still hear me. The water will still flow, for a time."

"Let's find that heart...and, thanks for the help."

"You're welcome, little thief."

Corin pulled the sword out.

The guards were discovering that no matter how many torches they put to those on the walls they wouldn't light again. Worse, any torch they held to a doused torch itself was doused.

Corin crept forward as the shadows deepened. As he approached the doorway he alerted Roberto with a ventriloquised bird call. Roberto acted taking offence and drew his rapier. Agmar threw off his cloak, revealing his two handed sword. Rosy and Sandy backed into shadow and Rose screamed out in panicked tones, "Rape!" while Sandy screamed, "Help! Help!."

The doors of the houses facing the brothel were flung open. While the side of the square closest the brothel was now completely dark, some light poured out of the opposite doors. Husbands were bravely pushed out into the street by their wives to fight the rapists, armed occasionally with swords or halberds or pikes, more often with kitchen knives or axes. The husbands, hesitant to advance against armed soldiers, yelled out the hue and cry, and other men poured out of nearby streets. A few wives followed, armed with saucepans or kitchen knives, and cursing whores for attracting lechers to the district. Soon the guards at the brothel doorway were rushing off to involve themselves with the various fights starting up around the square, and Corin eased open the door to which the proclamation had been hammered, crept through, and closed it quietly behind himself.

He went to the stairway for Ilsa's Inn. He moved slowly and cautiously. This was no time to be complacent. There was no telling who might be about. Given that this was the thieves' guild, there were bound to be secret alcoves and passages that thieves could hide in. But as he descended to the tavern all was silent and dark. No secret doors opened. No thieves emerged in front or behind. It was almost too easy.

He went into the quarters behind the common room. At the end of the passage was the room in which the mechanical woman slept. He saw her in the bed, heard her gentle snore. There was something not quite right, but he couldn't place his finger on it. Then he realised the soldiers had come through here to clear out the thieves. If the thieves had left her there the soldiers would have tried to waken her since they were emptying out the tavern. They would have discovered what she was, and perhaps have figured out why she was there. That would have led them to the secret door. So the thieves would have removed her. The Lord of Law and his vassals were still within, at least Corin hadn't seen them being led out. So they could have easily taken her into their secret passages. Why was she here? It didn't feel right.

Then Corin sensed the human presence. He couldn't see him. His adversary was well trained in the arts of stealth, probably one of the Lord of Law's vassals. He stood at a point just behind where two tapestries joined. He also sensed something. Corin, moved dextrously backwards and slightly to the right as the vassal stepped through the join and into the room. From here Corin couldn't move back to his left without revealing himself in the doorway, so he couldn't escape back down the passage by which he had approached. But the next door along this passage was further from him than the distance between him and the approaching vassal. If he ran along the passage it would be too noisy, especially given how dangerously perceptive his adversary was. He had no choice but to shrink into the shadows along the wall and make as little noise as possible. Since most of the lights were out the shadows were deep. He sensed the vassal approaching. His skill was phenomenal. Not a single sound. Not a footstep. Not a breath. He stopped moving. Waited. Corin knew the vassal was straining his every sense, combining them, as Corin did, into a kind of sixth sense. Any subtle change in the environment would be picked up.

Corin's hand strayed to the hilt of his sword. But he didn't touch it. Despite this the sword seemed to murmur. Corin couldn't be sure whether it was in his imagination, or the voice of the sword in his head, or whether the sword now spoke aloud. The vassal made a sound. He sniffed. Like a bloodhound, Corin thought. Corin restrained his breath, not holding it, but controlling it so that it made no sound. He was ready to spring. The vassal stepped through the door. He sniffed again and Corin's hand went to his sword hilt. The vassal advanced along the passage towards the tavern.

At that moment pain flared in Corin's heart, so intense he gasped. The vassal span around, a blur of quicksilver all that Corin saw of the dagger as the shadow moved towards him, like a shadow beyond a flickering fire in an instant crossing a room. The dagger plunged towards his heart, too quick for him to step back or aside, as the pain in his heart spread to his whole body. In the looming shadow of the face the whites were the only part of the man exposed by a fugitive hint of light. Then the teeth, a row of grinning white. But the grin was a grimace and the eyes were blank, and they fell away into darkness, the vassal's heart sliding off bone inscribed with runes of blood.

The runes flowed to the edge of Blood-spate, down the edge to the tip, but never reached it, as if the sword drank the blood. In his head Corin heard the voice, not speaking, but sighing with satisfaction. And Blood-spate was in his hand. He didn't know how. But he was alive. And the fire in his heart faded, as if washed away by an icy cool stream.

He checked himself, and found he was unhurt. Checked the vassal. Dead on the floor. Corin reflexively flicked the blade, though there was now no blood on it, and sheathed it.

He entered the room, moving slowly, cautiously. There was an almost invisible twine extending across the room from one wall to the bed. A trip wire. He stepped over it.

As his foot touched the floor beyond the tripwire a shadow loomed in his periphery. The mechanical woman rose from the bed. But her movement was not the jerking of an automaton. She moved swiftly and smoothly. This time Corin felt no pain in his heart. He didn't hesitate. Blood-spate leapt into his hand. The vassal, not automaton, crossed the room, his short blade shining eerily from the slight light coming from beyond the doorway. Corin threw Blood-spate. The vassal moved to slap it aside with his dagger. He was quick and as he did that he drew another dagger from the folds of his dark cloak. Blood-spate sliced through the blocking blade and the vassal's eyes widened as the horn of the river god sliced into his throat, severing his spine. But not before he had thrown his dagger. And Corin had no blade to block the throw. He dodged, but the blade nicked his cheek, then tore through the tapestry behind him.

Corin felt the trickle of blood. He touched his face and felt the warm, sticky moisture on his fingertips. He took out a flint and tinder and quickly lit a taper, then examined the blade. It bore a tell-tale stain. Poison. It wasn't unusual for a thief to poison his blades. Already Corin was feeling the warmth, an almost pleasurable feeling. But he knew that would soon intensify, until he was wracked with pain. Perhaps it would paralyse him. He cursed his luck.

He searched the body and found a small phial. Many thieves who used poison also carried the antidote, in case they accidentally poisoned themselves. But Corin had no way of knowing whether what was in the phial was antidote or more poison. He had to decide. He unstoppered the phial and lifted it to his lips. He hesitated.

He searched in his pack and found another phial, larger than the one with dark liquid. He stoppered the vassal's phial. The other had liquid in it which sparkled, even in the darkness. He unstoppered it. The warm pleasure had become hot pain, and with it the flame in his heart was lit, only more intensely than before. The pain shot up his arm and he dropped the phial. Desperately he shot out his other hand. His coordination was out and the phial spun in the air, voiding its contents. He dropped face first to the floor and licked at the nymph's tears. Instantly they touched his tongue the pain was gone.

He picked up the phial. It wasn't empty, though half of it had spilled out. He stoppered it and put it away in his pack, alongside the other phial of poison or antidote. He would discover later which. He hefted the thrown dagger and found it was well balanced for throwing. Finding the sheath belted beneath the folds of the vassal's cloak he slid the blade home and transferred the belt to himself.

Stepping behind the tapestry he ran his hand around what he knew to be the secret door, disarmed the trap he had found the other night when he had followed the Lord of Law, then depressed the release catch. He heard a click and cautiously pushed. Expecting a trap on the other side he examined the space beyond carefully as he inched it open. Occasionally he would stop and wait, listening intently. Was there any hint of anyone waiting beyond it? When it was open enough he peered through. It was pitch black. He realised that if anyone was waiting beyond they would be at an advantage. They would be able to see him, but he wouldn't be able to see them. He unsheathed Blood-spate and probed forward with it trying to find any trap mechanism before he stepped through, but also ensuring he would be armed if a human foe waited. When the secret door was far enough ajar he slid through and let it close with a click behind him.

He waited in the pitch darkness, letting his eyes adjust, but relying on his other senses while he waited. He hardly breathed. He thought he could hear a slight breath in the tunnel. It was only the echo of his own. He hadn't noticed the other day, but the tunnel seemed to have been designed to magnify tiny sounds. He held his breath and the echo continued. Softly. But not diminishing. He let himself breathe again. He knew he wasn't alone. But where the enemy was he didn't know. His hand strayed to the sheathed throwing dirk. He waited. They breathed. A diffuse, impossible to locate sound that seemed to come from the walls and ceiling. He breathed more softly. The echo diminished.

He heard a crack, and thrust up at the ceiling above him, stepping forwards as he did so and turning. There was a thump and a clatter where he had stood a moment before. Vertical and horizontal beams lined the tunnel, and the third vassal had been clinging to one of the ceiling beams. Corin checked the body, though he knew by now that Blood-spate usually struck true. The vassal was dead. To his forearms and shins were tied grappling claws, which had helped him hang from the ceiling and wait, but even a master thief is human; one of his joints had cracked in the very movement that was intended to kill Corin. Fortunately the blade which the vassal had dropped hadn't struck Corin. He suspected it would be poisoned like the other.

Already Corin had killed three of the Lord of Law's vassals. He didn't know how many were left and he wondered why they didn't confront him en masse. Perhaps it was just their way, sneaking and ambushing their prey. Perhaps they feared what he could do in open combat, having seen or heard of his handiwork in the South East Quarter when he had fought off hordes of thieves with the aid of Agmar. Little did they know that very little of that skill was his own. While Agmar was a true warrior poet, hardened by a hundred skirmishes and a score of battles, Corin was only a thief. The skill with which he fought was all Blood-spate's.

He went down the tunnel until he reached the side tunnel which he knew led to the storeroom. There he would find the Heart of Fire. A voice spoke in his head. Blood-spate. "Not that way." "But that's where the Heart of Fire is stored." "I am joined by my forging with that gem. It is not there." "Where then?"

Blood-spate led him through the labyrinth of tunnels that made up the Courts of Law. At every turn Corin's anxiety rose. Why had they not accosted him? Why had they not assassinated him? It was too easy. He was sure there were more vassals, but none of them struck at him. Even stranger, he encountered no traps. In the heart of the guild of thieves! It seemed hardly possible. As he went further he noticed that, though the lights were all out he could see clearly. It wasn't that his eyes had adjusted. With no lights anywhere it should have been pitch black. But there was a faint phosphorescence in the walls. They were streaked with a slimy substance, and when he touched it and put it to his nose it smelled like mould.

The tunnels seemed to be inclined slightly downward. Now at every turn that Blood-spate indicated Corin waited and listened. His eyes strayed up and down, side to side, searching the floors for traps, the ceiling for traps and murderers. There were none. After a while, when the air had become quite close, he found some traps. But they were small and inexpertly set, or too easily disarmed. It was almost as if the Lord of Law was inviting him in to a much larger, more subtle trap. But no thief confronted him. No ambush was sprung.

"Here," the sword said in his head.

He turned once more and went along a tunnel that was almost bright with phosphorescent mould. At the end was a closed, plain wooden door. He examined it. No traps. Turned its handle, ready to step aside. No trap was released. The door wasn't locked. It swung open.

Within was a soaring cavern even brighter than the tunnel and all Corin's caution was lost in a moment of awe. The radiance seemed to flow from the cavern into the tunnel, and roll along it, so that the phosphorescence of the mould was replenished. But the wonders of the glowing mould behind him were forgotten because of what was before him.

From his feet to the far walls was treasure. Chests out of which poured gold and jewels. Piles of coins that sloped up into hills, hills that met mountains. Armour carved elaborately or inlaid with precious metals and gems. Swords of strange shape with hilts that flashed and sparkled with amethysts and diamonds. Sheaths embroidered with pearls and amber, or sparkling with inlaid grains of diamond dust. Tapestries that might fill a king's majestic halls, rolled up, piled on each other like tree-trunks on a lumberjack's cart. How had it all got here? This was thievery on a scale that he could hardly comprehend. He picked up a coin and found it was of alien make. There were mechanical beasts, with handles to wind them up. Some where the size of children's toys, others were as large as a man, like the automaton which had guarded the entrance to the guild tunnels. Some were even larger, like the four silver stallions, with gemstones for eyes and reins of woven gold strands as fine as human hair, leading back to a golden chariot, embossed with patterns of silver and platinum and engraved with deep, intricate swirls, through which seemed to flow glittering light, as prismatic as a rainbow or the swirling radiance of the moon, cast from the multitude of tiny inlaid gems, individually barely larger than grains of sand. All these things seemed to tremble, their outlines to shimmer, as if the whole hoard was alive, or an earthquake shook beneath.

And there was a sound both deep and distant, yet which seemed to be all around, like a huge smithy's bellows, coming from somewhere deep within the cavern. A breath behind which thudded the beating of some great inhuman heart.

He climbed the hills of coins and gold and silver. Platinum and copper, bronze and iron rolled down behind him or flowed down in waves of wealth beyond imagining. Gems in such profusion that the great river Selta might be emptied and its banks filled with inestimable value intermingled with the coins, all cast together with the carelessness of a city disposing of its rubbish. He passed chests fashioned of ivory, intricately wrought, with scenes of battle or images of gods and goddesses known and unknown to Corin. A mahogany armoire disgorged its plates and bowls, of porcelain so fine that the light reflected off of the gold coins beneath passed through it; as light as parchment, as delicate as the petals of white roses.

Beyond a ridge of golden, triangular coins and gemstones as large as men's fists fashioned with inhuman craft into mythical-animal shapes was some source of radiance, brighter than any other light in the cavern. Its rays shot like straight spears of light to the distant ceiling and were reflected from there in a thousand different directions, suffusing the whole cavern, making the gold glitter with almost blinding brilliance. Gaping, hardly able to see through the intense radiance he passed over the golden ridge.

He shielded his eyes. Then he saw. Shocked, he scrambled back in a vain attempt to hide beyond the ridge he had just crossed. A giant beast rested amidst the rolling hills of gold and precious gems. Its hide was covered with scales seemingly fashioned of those very things: sparkling golden and silver, scintillating with jade and emeralds and rubies, agate, jasper and lapis lazuli; milky pearls and rainbow opals that changed their colour from moment to moment like the swirling spectral moon. And across the beast's peaked back, ridged with sharp bony protrusions, were folded great wings, like those of a bat, only as like to a bat's in size as a child's toy boat is to a great war galley. A tail extended over the further hill of gold. The beast's rear legs, massively muscled where they met the body, extending like a lizard's in shape, but with long claws, folded against its side; its forelegs, with huge claws also, each as long as Agmar's great sword, folded under the jaw of the head, which was shaped like a horse's only broader. A fiery radiance pulsed around its maw, and as it pulsed, so too did the scales of its body, sending forth a brilliant refulgence. And the eyes were faced to where he had stood. Both were like giant snake's eyes, only they glittered, as if with gold and silver dust. They stared. And the ridged back beneath the great wings rose and fell, and the sound of bellows he had heard when he entered was the sound of its lungs as it breathed. And the thudding was the beating of its heart, a thunderous sound, with which the whole cavern slightly shook. The eyes stared at him as he crouched and peered over the ridge of coins and gems and he wondered why it didn't move. Surely it had seen him. Perhaps it thought him little more than a rodent. He had heard of dragons, but had thought them only legends, but here was a dragon before him, sitting on its hoard.

But something wasn't quite right.

He couldn't shake a certain feeling, and he climbed back over the ridge and slid down the slope, coins and gems flowing around him. The dragon made no move. Corin sprinted across its line of vision. The eyes didn't move. Only his reflection moved in them. He moved closer, approaching in a zigzag path. The eyes continued staring resolutely ahead. He had heard that some creatures slept with their eyes open, but he was sure there was something different here. The eyes were dead. He went right up to the dragon. Still its ridged back rose and fell. Still the bellows of its lungs sounded. Still the thunderous heartbeat quaked the cavern and its hoard. He tapped the eye with a knuckle. It rang with a musical sound, like a crystal. He checked the great teeth, each like a short sword. There were no yellow stains or decay. They were perfect. Like ivory. And like ivory they were carved with intricate patterns, swirls and vines and geometric shapes. He examined the wings and they were made of woven textile. It was another automaton. And what better guard? Most thieves would run at the first sight of the dragon, not suspecting that it was only a simulacrum of terrifying life.

He went back to the mechanical dragon's head. He examined the teeth again and he saw a glint inside its mouth. The jaw was slightly ajar. A bloody glow emanated, from the tongue. Ruby bright. It pulsed like a heartbeat, and glowed like a dying sun. He reached for it.

"No!"

The voice was in his head.

"Why not?"

"You who have touched the Heart of Fire ask me that?"

"What then?"

"Extend my pommel towards it."

Corin extended Blood-spate's empty pommel towards the ruby, which lay at the centre of the dragon's tongue. The stone slid into the empty socket, and the previously loose fittings writhed and stretched about it, closing to form a sphere of spectral filigree about the ruby, its colours flowing in hypnotic patterns like the swirls of the moon as he pulled the sword back out of the dragon's maw.

The fire in his heart burned hotter and more painful for a moment, like a barb being drawn from a wound, and he fell to his knees, only catching himself with the sword point down, leaning his weight on it as if it was a crutch. The pain rushed from his heart along his arm towards his hand. It made his hand grip the hilt more tightly. Flames flickered along the length of his arm. As they reached his hand the flames were drawn off in glowing threads, weaving an elaborate pattern about the ruby. In that pattern runes glowed and flickered and faded, burned fiercely with almost blinding light, searing their shapes into Corin's vision, where they vibrated, shook apart, reformed and flowed. He closed his eyes and saw them clearly, opened his eyes and they were gone.

The great mechanical dragon no longer breathed. Its clockwork clearly had been fuelled by the ruby's power. Its scales now seemed dull and unreflective, and the cavern was plunged into darkness.

The glowing of the ruby itself faded, first at its surface, then deeper and deeper within, as if the fire was being drawn from it, and below it, beyond the hilt and elaborately wrought guard, the surface of the blade flowed with fire and water. The elements fought each other and runes of each formed and flowed, continually changing, creating patterns and destroying them. Corin dragged his eyes away from the elemental display.

But the whole cavern was now lit with the shifting shapes of the runes, brighter than the previous illumination, brighter than the sparkling gold. Corin gaped at the ceiling, where runes flowed and fought, fire bright and ice cold. He turned the hilt right way round and gripped it, raising the blade towards the ceiling triumphantly. "Now I am the greatest thief," he said, "Greater than the Lord of Law. Now I am the king of thieves."

And Blood-spate spoke. "Only a king."

Finally he understood the sword's cryptic pronouncements. "And the sword rules the river and a king rules the sword."

"Now the sword is complete. Now I am complete. The Horn of the River God and the Heart of the God of Fire. I am Blood-spate, and I rule the river. And what will the king ask?"

"How do I get out of here?"

"I am the great sword of kings. Many are the princes who have fallen to me. Great are the empires that have crumbled in my wake. My rising is as the mountain piercing the clouds. When I strike stones themselves part. When I cut the air itself sings my glory. The great tremble when they hear of my coming. My words are as the making of the world. And you ask me, 'How do I get out of here?'"

Corin flattered, "Well, you're not going to defeat any armies down here, are you?"

"The little thief is right. Very well."

# Chapter 12: Sword of Kings

The return journey through the tunnels was uneventful, and with the sword in his hand Corin felt more than usually confident. None of the vassals appeared. The Lord of Law was nowhere to be seen. Corin began to wonder whether he had been down here at all. Then he thought of the vassals who had tried to assassinate him, and, despite the powerful relic in his hands, trod more cautiously. Soon he stepped out through the secret door. He crossed the room, the corridor, the tavern. All was quiet. He sheathed Blood-spate and climbed the stairs from Ilsa's Inn.

As he came out of the stairwell into the entrance hall for the House of Delights and Ilsa's Inn, he heard a scream. "Corin, run. It's a trap." There was a thwack like a side of beef being struck, then a dull thump. He dodged sideways in case a crossbow bolt was coming, crouching down into a deeper shadow.

A figure was outlined against the night in the doorway out of the entrance hall. Through a gap in the clouds a sliver of moon was shining, casting a dim spectral glow across the square. Corin couldn't immediately tell whether the figure in the doorway faced towards or away from him. Then he saw the outline of its hands, holding something. It was facing inwards at the door. Behind it was another man shaped shadow, and a crumpled form on the ground. Behind these figures were no other men. All the soldiers had gone.

That something in the hands of the one in the doorway began to glow. It was a giant gem, and within it was an inner fire, like that within the Heart of Fire, only fainter. It reminded Corin more of the gem of seeing that Jared had lent him to navigate the Labyrinth of Leaves. The man was looking into its depths. The light in the gem revealed him to be dressed like a dandy, with scarlet cape and shining black jerkin and puffed slit breeches of blue velvet and tight green hose. His eyes glowed albino pink with a hint of flickering fire and his raven black hair hung straight to his shoulders. The Lord of Law looked up.

"Ah!" he said in his deceptively gentle voice, "The Heart of Fire. Thank you for bringing me the sword, Cor...rgh...in." The voice choked on the name and he gasped. A grimace twisted the handsome face, and the slim body contorted with it. He reached into his jerkin and took out a silver phial, elaborately engraved and inlaid with gold, unstoppered it and took a draught. The grimace faded, replaced by an expression of relief. Now Corin understood that strange habit of his. He wondered if the pain caused by the Heart of Fire was the cause of those albino eyes. The fire within them faded now.

Corin heard the manglers coming down from the staircase that led up to the brothel and upper galleries of the theatre. Behind him he could hear the click of a secret door opening to disgorge other thieves. Soon they would come up the stairs behind him and he would be trapped.

"And I knew you would come for the Heart, Corin. Actually, I planned it. A rumour here, a false friend there."

Corin saw the other shadow behind the Lord of Law more clearly now. Tall, slim, with laughing grey eyes. Roberto! The crumpled shape on the ground had throwing knives sticking out of it like a porcupine's spines. Roberto's knives. Agmar! Corin's heart fell.

Roberto said, "You are predictable, Corin. You can't resist any chance to show how good you are. And wanting to rob the Lord of Law? Hubris, Corin. You'd steal from a god if you thought you could get away with it."

Corin shrugged and grinned at that accusation. It was true. He would steal from a god if he could get away with it. Even from Ilsa, god of thieves. Ilsa would understand, and steal it back. "The Lord of Law isn't a god, not even a real priest, however much he likes to call himself Ilsa's Arkon. Anyway, since when does a member of the Guild of Misrule submit to the rule of the Courts of Law?"

"Submit? No, when a heap of gold as big as a room is the pay I'll play any part. You know that."

"Ham act it."

"I fooled you, didn't I?" He looked down at Agmar's corpse. "And him."

Corin couldn't deny that. "An honest traitor then. You did say you'd sell him out for the right price." Corin thought he saw a smile flicker across the shadowed lips.

"Why lie when the truth is so unconvincing?"

"And I suppose Alcuin was your messenger. You never did have a taste for young boys. Maria will chop his balls off and sell him to a perverted sadistic aristocrat when he discovers Agmar's fate. Maybe you too. Then again, maybe the King of Misrule will deal with you himself. I hope you die a messy, painful death."

The Lord of Law interrupted, "You are good, I'll give you that, Corin. You remind me a lot of myself when I was your age. I stole the Heart of Fire from a great sorcerer when I wasn't much older than you. I had wanted you to join the guild. Your talents are wasted with picking pockets in the market."

"Why rob merchants when you can rob kings? You must have robbed a few kingdoms to build up that hoard."

The albino eyes smiled. "It's a long forgotten royal hoard far beneath the palace."

"Why bother stealing then? With that much gold you could buy a kingdom of your own, or the armies to win one."

"You know why, Corin."

He did know. "For the fun of it."

"Thievery isn't a career, Corin, it's a vocation. And ruling the guild has its advantages. I wield more power in this city than the richest merchants. Maybe even more than the king. And you could be part of this. You could be my protégé. You have so much talent. Won't you join?"

Corin looked sadly at Agmar and angrily at Roberto. "No thanks."

"I thought you'd say that," he said sighing, then his tone grew harsh, "but that's not important anymore. The Heart of Fire is mine."

"Stealers keepers."

"Steal? Did you really think you would've reached my treasures with so little trouble if I hadn't planned it."

"Little trouble? I dealt with your vassals. I'll admit they were very good. Very quiet. They didn't even scream as they died."

The albino eyes narrowed. "Yes, it would have been so much easier if you had just died at their hands. But then, I suspected you might win through if it came to that, so I made certain other arrangements."

Corin said with false bravado, "I can kill a lot more of you if you like."

The Lord of Law smiled. "Like you did the other night in South East Quarter? It's just as well the sword's enchantments aided you so well then. If my minions had succeeded I would never have discovered what you had. The sword would probably have been thrown away with your corpse. I would never have known you had the legendary Blood-spate if it wasn't for Roberto here, and he only found out tonight. It's the only cure for my...condition."

"The fire inside."

"Yes. I thought you were the one who had disturbed it. You didn't rearm all of the traps. You cut the final string and couldn't replace it. So I knew someone had touched the Heart of Fire, as I did, foolishly, many years ago." He looked at Corin desperately then. "The blade has healed you, now that it's made whole, hasn't it?" He pleaded, "Would you deny me that balm? I've suffered so many years. You can't imagine how I've suffered. Lend me the sword."

"You expect me to believe you'll give it back?"

The Lord of Law sighed. "No, I suppose not." His gaze hardened. "I'll take it anyway. All I needed was to catch you. And I have. The difficulty after discovering that you had the blade was, how to catch a master thief with a dangerous enchanted sword?"

"King of thieves."

The Lord of Law scowled and the fire flickered in his albino eyes. He squeezed them shut and bit his lip. Then his eyes sprang open. They burned with anger now. "There's only one king of thieves in this city."

Corin said cockily, "And yet another could steal from you. Who's the better thief?"

"You haven't got out yet. A thief who dies in a trap isn't so great a thief."

"So you're going to kill me?" He was stalling for time, his thoughts rushing down a hundred paths in search of a solution. Though he had fought off many thieves and manglers the other night, he had had the aid of Agmar, and Agmar's song. And he was sure there must be at least as many thieves and manglers here tonight, probably many more. And what skills did the Lord of Law himself have? It took a lot of murder and betrayal to rule the Courts of Law.

"No. We're going to trade."

"Trade what? You have nothing I want."

"Rose."

"What, a whore?" He said it with his usual nonchalance, but inside he was torn. He wouldn't admit, even to himself, that he loved her, but if her life was at stake, what would he do?

The manglers who had descended from the brothel stairs laughed as they closed in. The thieves from below were now on the stairs behind him. He could tell from the sound of their feet that there were scores, perhaps hundreds. Ilsa's Inn, underground, was probably riddled with secret doors to rooms in which members of the guild could hide. The thieves he had seen escorted out were only a fraction of the whole. And those who had come out were probably back in the square, since the Lord of Law had obviously bribed the soldiers to leave. He was surrounded. There was no way out.

With the manglers from the brothel above came Charlotte, grand procuress, madam of the House of Delight, lover of the Lord of Law. She carried a lamp that shed a feeble light on the scene. Randy the mangler came behind her, and he dragged something along the floor. It was Sandy. So she was the one who had screamed to warn him. But where was Rose? In the light Corin saw Sandy's beautiful face was now a bloody bruised mess. That wasn't the work of a single punch. Randy was dragging her by her hair. He lifted her now, by her hair, to her feet, all the time grinning at Corin. If there was one whore who had been more of a mother to the orphan with quick fingers than Sandy he couldn't recall. He gripped the sheath of Blood-spate tightly with his left hand, just below the hilt. Blood-spate murmured.

The mangler mocked, "Oh, little Corin, talented Corin, master at law, lover of whores."

The Lord of Law said, "Give me the sword and I'll guarantee the safety of that pretty young whore you love. Or else..."

He nodded to Charlotte. She stepped next to Sandy, drew a knife, and slit her throat. Randy let go of her hair and she slumped to the floor, blood pooling about her. She hadn't made a sound as she had died. The Lord of Law turned back to Corin. Corin fought back tears. Sandy had been a whore, used with contempt by the men of the city, despised by the wives who married for money, but she had always been kind to Corin, son of a beggar, street urchin, thief. He glared at the Lord of Law, hate filling him, telling him to forget his own safety, his life, to kill this man, to avenge her. And how many others lives he had destroyed? How much vengeance would be enough? But he couldn't see Rose. She could be anywhere in the city.

The Lord of Law continued, "You do love whores. I understand. I approve." Charlotte, his lover, leered. "Don't try to deny it. Your heart aches for this one." He pointed to Sandy's corpse. "How much more would it ache for pretty young Rose? Those sweet lips. Those perfect breasts. The shape of an hourglass. The skin of a goddess. And such a heart! A whore and yet, such a heart! To love a thief, a miserable, worthless little thief. I would love to discover its mysteries. How to discover its mysteries?" He paused as if pondering a profound question, then an evil smile spread across his face. "Perhaps I should cut it out."

"Where is she?"

"In a safe place. But a safe place can so easily become dangerous."

"So you don't have her."

The Lord of Law narrowed his eyes, and in that moment Corin knew it was true. That was why she wasn't here. If the Lord of Law had captured her he would have displayed her with a knife to her throat. She had been part of his plan, but somehow she had escaped. The thieves behind Corin were almost within reach. Only a moment more and they would stab him in the back, or he would turn to face them and the Lord of Law would stab him in the back.

Corin grasped the hilt of Blood-spate and it sprang out of its sheath. As it did the darkness fell back. The runic flames blazed and the manglers shielded their eyes, backing away. The blade vibrated and the vibrations changed and multiplied and the room was full of a weird music. The ground rumbled beneath his feet. Behind him the thieves hesitated, unsure of their footing. But the Lord of Law approached, the runes writ across his face and the tapestries on the walls. In his eyes was not just greed, but pain. And madness. He had touched the Heart of Fire half a lifetime ago. He had felt what Corin had suffered for a few days, but had lived with it for decades.

"I'll have the sword. I've waited a lifetime. I won't be denied. Give me the sword. Give me the sword and I'll let the whore live."

That weird music sounded inside Corin's head as well as outside it, but in his head the music was a voice and the voice was his own. He heard countless languages, dead and living, and every one of them was but a line in the harmony of a language that was them all and yet was none. And he understood the language, not part of it, but all of it. It was the language of creation, the language of destruction. It created and destroyed him in every moment, it flowed through him but was him. And in his eyes the runes that flowed along the sword were seen truly, and they wrote within his flesh and upon the world its beginning and its end, and the end was in its beginning and was an ever new beginning. The runes flowed like water, but were as bright as burning fire, and they scorched and soothed in the same moment. And the moment was eternity. The voice of Blood-spate no more spoke in his head, for he was Blood-spate and Corin together, their substance flowing one into the other and back, in an endless circuit like the runes on the blade. He knew what Blood-spate knew, he saw what Blood-spate saw. He felt the river flowing beneath them and around them, and he was the river. The trickles through the cracks, deep within the earth, the torrents rushing over stones, above and below the city, the silting in the bends, the flooding in the plains, the rains and the ice from which he came, the life that he gave, and the destruction he had wrought. The destruction he could bring.

And he gathered himself. And Corin that was Blood-spate that was Seltien, fashioned from the horn of the river god, Selta, that was fire and water, mountain and river, volcanic depth and snow-capped height, raised Blood-spate that was Corin and struck them down as one into the flagstone at their feet. He called to his waters, felt them running through the earth like blood through his veins. And his veins pulsed with fire and steam, and his blood cooled the heat of the earth, condensed the steam that rode the lava stream, drew drops into trickles and trickles into runnels and runnels into snaking silvery life, and the streams grew and joined with others, and ever larger they grew, and again and again they joined, until the very ocean streams might wonder at the volume of their brother.

And the Lord of Law saw Blood-spate turn in Corin's grasp and strike down into the flagstones. An aperture opened, first only a crack, then it spread, shooting across the room to where the manglers now cowered. The crack became a chasm beneath their feet and they fell screaming into it. Still the Lord of Law advanced, his features horribly lit by the shape of the fiery runes, and twisted by their changes and his own growing madness. For he heard the music of the language of the gods, and he knew its power, but its harmonies tore at his mind. He had reached, hoping to understand, but he had only seen a shattered image of himself, all his life's ambitions, all the petty fragments being washed away by the stream of time before they could coalesce into recognizable forms. And with those forms went the last of his sanity, washed away like topsoil in a flood. Only an arrogant lust for power remained, rooted in his flesh, striving against the destructive power of two gods. Behind Corin the thieves screamed as the walls shook and the roof fell. The Lord of Law reached out for the sword. And from the chasm a roaring sounded. On Corin's forearm droplets spattered, then a spray wet his face.

Blood-spate sang in the tones of that language known fully only to gods. And in Corin's voice, which was changed yet somehow recognizable, like the young thief's voice but roaring with the power of the river in spate, the Lord of Law heard, "I am here."

And water roared out of the chasm, a torrent like a thousand geysers shooting up, tearing the roof apart, tearing through the storeys of the House of Delight, shattering all in its path, and at the centre of this Corin stood, standing on an ever shrinking, precariously balanced column of stone. On another such column the Lord of Law stood. He seemed oblivious to the ruin of all that he had ruled, intent only on possessing the sword. Then the column on which he stood shuddered and collapsed and he fell shrieking into the abyss. The rumbling of the ground faded and the waters stopped their upward flow, and began to fall in a gentle rain. The runes still flickered across the blade of Blood-spate, but the sound of its voice softened slowly into silence. Corin was standing on a tall column in the middle of a deep abyss.

Roberto stood at the edge of the crevice and he reached for the sheathes about his body. This time he didn't fake fumbling. His hands dextrously found his remaining throwing knives. But before he could throw them Corin had thrown the poisoned knife he had taken from the vassal. Instead of throwing his own knives Roberto used them to swat away the dagger as a shadow rose behind him. Corin's gaze was drawn to the dark shape there and the contortionist saw and spun around, his arms rising to throw the knives. But Agmar's great sword thrust through his heart, and the knives flew off ineffectually. Agmar swiftly drew the sword out and with a horizontal cut, severed Rob's head. The head rolled towards the chasm, stopping at the edge, staring at Corin as if in surprise, no hint of the amusement that had ruled the grey eyes in life.

Corin said, "I thought you were dead."

Agmar grinned and said, "I'm not entirely talentless as an actor myself. I'm wearing padded leather armour, so the knives didn't penetrate that far. When I felt them I realised this rubbery character," He kicked Rubbery Roberto's head into the chasm. "was a backstabbing bastard, so I played dead. To find out exactly what he was up to. I'm sorry I couldn't save your real friend, the whore. May the gods make her tormentors her slaves in the land of endless dreams. I would've struck earlier, saved you the trouble of killing the other bastard, but these knives in my back make for a hell of an itch. When I tried to get up I just fell back down again."

At that the bard fell to his knees. "I think I'm going to sleep for a bit." He lay down, face first by the chasm.

A mob of North Bank residents were crossing the square now, gaping at the huge hole in the ground. The brothel was almost completely gone. The tavern below ground was flooded. At least the theatre was still intact. The actors would appreciate that.

"Ok, sword. How are you going to get me out of this mess? Nothing to say?"

"Some tasks are too trivial for the great, little thief," he heard in his head.

Corin chuckled and sheathed Blood-spate. "King of thieves. Remember? Just as well I brought this." He reached into his satchel and took out a grappling hook and cord.
