A Thief in the Night

CHAPTER NINE

There was no word Malden knew that could get Croy’s attention better than “demon”.

The world had its share of monsters. Up in the Northern Kingdoms there were still bands of goblins on the loose, and the occasional troll for a knight to test his steel on. Malden himself had met an ogre, and knew stories of everything from the dread Longlegs of the Rifnlatt to the dragons of the Old Empire. All such creatures could be felled by good swords or by magic, it was said. Demons were different.

They were not of the world. They did not belong there. Instead they were creatures of the Bloodgod, and they abided in his Pit of Souls, that place where all men were eventually judged and punished for their sins. Demons were normally trapped down there with eight-armed Sadu, but they could be summoned to the mundane realm by sorcerers who sought to tap their incredible power. Such a pact was illegal and utterly forbidden, and with good reason. Demons did not hail from the world of living men, and in that world were unnatural things, unbound by natural law. They were enormously powerful and almost impossible to kill. The sorcerer Hazoth had called up two of them before he died, and either one of them might have destroyed all of Ness if they had not been stopped.

Luckily for Malden and his fellow citizens, Croy had been there to slay them. Ghostcutter had prevailed against them, just as it had been made to do. The Ancient Blades had been forged for just that purpose.

And over the last eight hundred years they’d been quite successful at it. The men who wielded them often died in the process, but the swords had all but eliminated demonkind from the world. Now the existence of a single demon anywhere on the continent was a rare—but utterly fearful—occurrence. If the barbarian had encountered one, Croy had no choice but to go and slay it.

“You must tell me everything,” Croy said.

The barbarian nodded. “And so I shall. Two years ago I was hunting in the mountains at the western end of our land,” the barbarian said, squatting down on the tiles. “I was after a wild cat that had already tasted human blood, and found it to be good. I went into the hills with only a knife and three days’ food in a sack. Just having a bit of fun, you know.”

“Yes, of course,” Malden said. “Fun.”

Mörget squinted at the sky. “I followed the cat’s trail until I ran out of food, and then for five days more. Its spoor took me ever higher, up to a place where the trees grew no taller than saplings, and then to where they thinned out until there was nothing but lichens to eat, and spring water to quench my thirst. From time to time I found the remains of some creature the cat had killed—or so I thought. The carrion was broken open, crushed and sucked dry.

“On the sixth day I found the cat itself, and all its bones ground to dust. There was not much left of it save the head and one paw. The rest had been … dissolved, yes, I think that is the word I mean. Eaten away as if by acid. It was then I knew I hunted bigger prey than I thought.

“I made a hunting blind in the cave of a raven, and sat me down to wait. It was another seven days before I caught my first good sight of the thing I tracked. It came to me at twilight, moving along the bare rock face of a cliff. It was about fifteen feet long, though it was hard to measure. It did not climb, you understand, for it had no legs. It crawled—no, it flowed like water along the rock, living water.” Mörget clenched his fists in frustration. “I describe it poorly. I have not the honeyed words of a westerner, forgive me.”

“It’s alright,” Croy said. “Go on.”

“Its skin glistened like autumn moonlight on a brackish pond. The skin had no regular form, but flowed and oozed as it moved. There were shapes under that skin, shapes like hearts and livers and even human faces, that pressed up against the skin from inside, mouths open in soundless screaming. I decided then this was no natural beast.”

“A fairly safe conclusion, it sounds like,” Malden agreed.

“I made myself still, and did not so much as breathe as it came ever closer. I did not wish to scare it away. It came up to the mouth of my cave, and still I held myself in readiness, my knife in my hand. It came inside, into the darkness, and I could barely see it. It flowed up over my bare feet and my flesh screamed at its alien touch, but still, I made myself like a statue. It climbed up my body, faster now, as if it had become excited, as if it hungered for me. It was only then I struck.

“Yet how to slay a beast with no muscles, no bones? I stabbed at the shapes like hearts and livers and faces, but my knife could not puncture its slimy skin. It flowed over my chest and part of its substance oozed up to my face. It tried to fill my mouth and nose so that I could not breathe. I stabbed and pulled at it, to no avail. I wrestled with the beast, rolling on the floor of my cave, tearing at it with my fingers. I was so close to death I could feel her hands upon my shoulders.”

“Her hands?” Malden asked.

“Death is my mother,” Mörget said. It sounded like a litany, something the barbarian had said so many times it would spring to his lips without bidding. “When I die, she will be there to bring me home. But not that day! With all my strength I fought against this demon, aye, for demon it had to be—I fought for long hours as it wrapped around me like a cloak, smothering me. Would it absorb me, I thought, until mine was one of those screaming faces I’d seen under its skin?

“Strength did not matter to the beast. It yielded every time I grasped it, stretched like dough in my hands. Always it covered more of me, always it sucked hungrily at my more solid form. Then, of a sudden, I was inside the beast. It had swallowed me whole. My lungs cried for breath, my skin burned as if I’d been doused in acid. I could just see by the light that streamed in through its translucent hide. Before me were the livers and hearts and faces—faces attached to no skulls, faces with no eyes, like living masks. There was another shape inside there, one I had not seen before, just as a man will not see a piece of glass that is under dark water. This was the biggest of the shapes, a thing like a clear egg full of worms. With the last of my strength I grasped it with my hands and started pulling it apart. It was more solid than the rest of the beast, and when I broke it open, it bled. Could I breathe then, I would have laughed, for I knew death favored me still. The beast trembled and shook and spat me out all at once, dripping from my skin to the floor of the cave. It raced away from me, for it knew I was going to slay it. I tracked it all that night, though it moved far faster than a man on that rough terrain. I tracked it up the mountain side, until it came to another cave, which I thought must be its lair.

“This new cave was far deeper than I expected, however. It proved to be the mouth of a tunnel that led deep into the heart of the mountain. Nor was it any natural cavern. Had I not been so hot for the thing’s destruction, I would have noticed how regular the floor was, how the walls had been carved out of the rock by metal tools. The tunnel went down and down until it came to what looked like a blank wall. There was no light down there, so at the time I could not see that a solid block of stone filled the tunnel, a block cut almost to the exact dimensions of the shaft. I was just in time to watch the thing flow around that block, to ooze through the hair-thin gap between the block and the wall. It nearly got away from me. I managed at the last only to stab at it one more time, and to pin one of its hearts to the floor. It tore itself in half to get away from me, so desperate was it to escape.

“I had not killed it, I am sure of that—the part that got away still lives. What remained behind shriveled rapidly, parts of it drying out and turning to dust, other parts melting and soaking into the floor of the tunnel. I put the heart in a sack and brought it down the mountain, to my father, who is called Mörg the Wise. He is a man of great learning, they say, and it was he who told me of demons, for I had never heard the word before. He told me how they are hauled up out of the pit, and how they take forms unseemly to man. He said that if such a thing was haunting the steppes, all of our clan were in great danger. I said I would take a band of men back up to the mountain and slay it but he shook his head. He had something else in mind.

“In the eastern land of my birth, no boy becomes a man, not truly, until he hunts and kills an animal of his father’s choosing. I had thought this cat, the poor creature I originally tracked, would be the prey that made me a man. Yet my father laughed at the prospect. After all, I had not killed the cat myself, but only seen what did it. He demanded that I track and kill the demon properly—with a tool that was made for such work. And that was when he gave to me Dawnbringer, and made me swear all the vows of an Ancient Blade. I will not be allowed to marry, or sire children, or lead men to battle, until this demon is destroyed.

“I do not think my father knew how hard that would prove. Or perhaps he did, and wanted me to show that I had not just manhood within me, but greatness.”

CHAPTER TEN

“I returned to the shaft many times, trying to plumb its secrets,” Mörget went on. “It was very deep, running almost three hundred feet down into the mountain. Its walls were perfectly square, cut with precision. The block of stone at its end was cut to almost exactly the dimensions of the shaft. I brought men up there to break through the block, thinking to find my demon waiting just beyond where I could challenge it to single combat. It was not so easy as that. I soon discovered there was not one block, but four of them. They were plugs, you see. When the shaft was finished, its makers brought these four giant stones up the cliff face and slid them down the shaft to seal it forever.

“I could not rest, though, until my demon was destroyed. The blocks were broken one by one, shattered with iron picks, their pieces dragged back up the shaft with the strength of our backs. When we reached the fourth block, we were surprised to find a dwarven rune carved into its face. The thorn rune, which every man knows.”

“The rune of death and destruction,” Croy said. It was true that everyone learned that rune early on. When a dwarf decided something was too dangerous to meddle with, it was wise to take heed.

Mörget nodded. “When we broke through that block, we found it was all a trap. A great underground river was being held back by the stone. The water burst through, filling the shaft and nearly drowning me.

“The demon’s lair could not be breeched that way. I needed another route in.

“For months I searched, looking for another shaft. There was none. I traveled far and wide seeking out wizards who could see inside the mountain, to tell me how I could find my path. The effort I spent was wasted. Yes, they told me, there is a demon in there, which I already knew. Yes, they said, there were tunnels and even whole caverns inside that mountain where the demon could hide. Bah! Useless. At last one told me something I could use. He said to go to the library at Redweir. There I would find my answers.”

“That must have been daunting,” Croy said.

“Oh?” Malden asked.

“Redweir is a city of Skrae,” Croy said.

“Even I know that,” Malden replied.

“It lies on the far side of the Whitewall mountains from Mörget’s home.”

“How was that a problem?” Malden asked.

Croy shook his head. “Forgive me, Mörget, if I say anything that offends. But the … clans of the eastern steppes have been enemies with the land of Skrae since … well, for hundreds of years. It’s only an accident of geography that keeps us from total war.” He looked at Malden the way a teacher will look at a recalcitrant pupil. “You don’t know any of this?”

“I’ve spent my entire life in Ness,” Malden explained. “I never needed to know anything about maps or mountains.”

Croy nodded sagely. “This continent is split in half by a range of snow-capped mountains, called the Whitewall. The mountains are impassible, save in two places, both narrow defiles that are open only in the summer. The passes are well guarded on both sides, on the Skrae side by our soldiers, on the other side by the clans, so that no army can pass. If Mörget wanted to travel from his own land to Redweir, the easiest way would be through those passes, but we would never allow even one clansman through—for fear an army would be right behind him.”

Mörget laughed with excitement. “Give us one chance only, and we’ll do it, too! You’re right, the men at the passes would not let me through, even when I told them I was on a sacred quest. Just as we would not permit one of your warriors to travel east and live, no matter what flatteries and pretty turns of speech he offered,” Mörget said. “Yet come to the western lands—and Redweir—I must. So I took the long way around. I traveled halfway around the continent, on ships that sank and by trade routes beset by bandits. Along the way I taught myself how to fight against magic.”

“How?” Malden asked.

“By finding sorcerers and slaying them, of course. Many times death whispered in my ear, but never did she claim me.” He shrugged. “It was a long journey, and I needed something to do to pass the time.

“At last I came to Redweir, and the library there, which contains more than one thousand books. The customs of the place were strange to me. I could not read your languages. I had to teach myself even the shapes of your letters, and then I had to do many labors for the librarians before they would allow me to even see their books. But eventually I learned what I sought. The shaft I had found, the mountain I wished to enter, was known well to the sages on this side of it. The entire mountain was hollow on the inside, carved out by ancient hands. I learned that no one knew of the shaft I had found, but that on the western side there was a grand entrance to the mountain. I took this as a sign. I could not return to my homeland, not yet. I must enter the mountain here, from this side, if I were to slay my demon.”

“This mountain,” Croy said, “I fear I know its name.”

“I think you might,” Mörget said. “It is called Cloudblade, for the way it splits the storm clouds with its sharp peak. I think perhaps you also know the name of what lies underneath it. Yes, my friend. I learned that the place I sought was the Vincularium.”

Malden frowned. He had never heard the name before. It had to be a very old name, though, because it sounded like a word from the language of the Old Empire—a language no longer spoken in Skrae, and used now only by the church and by scholars. He knew only a few words of that language, but perhaps enough to know what the name meant. “The … Chained Place, no—the House of Chains?” he asked.

“Yes,” Croy and Mörget said together.

“What’s a House of Chains?” Malden asked.

Mörget glanced at Croy. “He knows little of maps, aye, but nothing of his own history.”

“Again, I’ve lived in Ness my entire life. What do I care about the rest of the world? But come, indulge me. What, I ask once more, is a House of Chains?”

“It’s … a tomb,” Croy said. From the look on his face it was a lot more than that. “A very … old tomb. It was built by the dwarves, a long time ago. They say it fills half of the interior of Cloudblade, and that it is a great labyrinth of traps and pitfalls. They also say it is haunted.”

Malden touched his eyes with his thumb, an old gesture for warding off ghosts. He was not a superstitious man by nature, but no good ever came of disturbing the dead.

He shivered as he imagined the place. He’d heard far too many frightening stories about the underground lairs of the dwarves. In his day the dwarven kingdom was a small land just north of Skrae, a place of silent forests and cold, deep lakes. The dwarves themselves never went to the surface because they preferred to live underground. They had a handful of small cities up there built into old mineshafts where they worked tirelessly at their labors and only ever emerged to trade their wares for Skraeling gold. Once, though, their borders had extended much farther. Before mankind had come to this continent the dwarves had been of much greater numbers and power. Most of their underground works had been forsaken as their population dwindled. There were old abandoned dwarven cities left behind all over the continent—they were found as far away as the Northern Kingdoms and even on the Islands of Blue Mist, far to the east. No one ever went into those forgotten places, though, and for good reason. There was no telling what was down there—what hazards a grave robber might encounter, what terrible traps they might set off. The dwarves held many secrets, but everyone knew how clever they were with their hands, and how utterly deadly their safeguards were. Such places were not meant to be violated.

“Sounds terrifying,” he said, without a trace of flippancy.

“It is my destiny,” Mörget insisted.

“Well, that explains what you’re doing in the west,” Croy said. “But not why you came to the Free City. The mountains of the Whitewall are a hundred miles from here.”

“I knew I could not storm the mountain on my own,” Mörget said. “I learned many lessons on my travels. I learned when I could rely on the strength of my own back, which is almost always. And I learned that there are some few occasions when I must find help. This demon is stronger and more dangerous than any creature I’ve fought before. Even with Dawnbringer in my hand it will be a challenge. I came for others who might help me defeat it—others sworn to that cause, in fact. I came looking for you, Croy. To ask for your assistance.”

Croy leapt to his feet—and nearly slipped and fell on the slate tiles of the roof. “Of course,” he said, “of course I will help! I am honor bound.” He drew Ghostcutter and pointed it at the sun. “How could I refuse? Truth be told, I’m grateful for the chance. We had some trouble with demons here in Ness a while back, but since then I’ve heard nothing of them. I’d thought they were killed off, every last one, and all the sorcerers who might summon them.”

“There is at least one more,” Mörget said. “Perhaps we will have the honor of slaying the last one in the world.”

“That would be a tale to tell,” Croy agreed. “I am at your service, brother. Ghostcutter and Dawnbringer will drink demon ichor once more. I wonder—should we summon the others? Sir Orne, Sir Hew and Sir Rory are all here in Skrae—the bearers of Crowsbill, Chillbrand, and Bloodquaffer. They would rally to our cause on the instant.”

Mörget looked sheepish. “If it’s all the same, brother … it is hard enough for me to admit I need the aid of one fellow Ancient Blade. Glory shared amongst two is glory halved. Split five ways …”

“I understand,” Croy said. “But two of the swords are kept by your people. What of Fangbreaker? I’d have thought you would go to its wielder, first.”

“The one who bears Fangbreaker is not my brother,” Mörget said, in a tone that suggested he would not explain further.

Croy looked almost relieved—maybe he didn’t want to share the glory, either. “Very well. The two of us will leave as soon as possible. Ah—and there will be traps.”

“Aye. The Vincularium is full of ’em,” Mörget said. “Or so say the books at Redweir.”

“Well, then, your luck is with you today. When it comes to traps, and defeating them, there’s none more skilled than Malden.”

The barbarian turned a suddenly interested eye on the thief. His red mouth split open in a wide grin and he started to laugh.

“I beg your pardon?” Malden asked, looking up at Croy.

“It’ll be good sport,” Croy told him, with a wink. “You’d be doing a work of great worth. And of course, the Vincularium is rumored to be stuffed full of treasure.” He looked down at the thief as if that final word was the goad that would move him to acts of unrivaled heroism.