BeneathCeaselessSkies Issue001 Read online

  The Teller seemed to scowl. The thief perceived skittering, many-legged eyebrows. “You dread this bane so much? You would destroy it, not sell it? You, a thief?”

  He’d asked himself this before. “We like to sleep well at night,” he said, though he added silently that he slept best beside Gaunt, and craved her continued affection. “We deprive others of wealth. Not, as a rule, of life.”

  “You would rent a security comb?” The Teller’s tone remained incredulous. “The standard fee is ten ambrosians a month.”

  Bone revealed a single gold coin, stamped with the arms of the Empress of the Eldshore, bearing a single drop of dried ambrosia at its punctured center. “We have only one available. Why do you suppose we broke in?” One ambrosian was standard yearly pay for a soldier. It could be traded for numerous lesser coins, and slipped beneath the tongue it had an even chance of reviving a man from a mortal wound. To Gaunt and Bone the coin, a gift from the pirate captain Dawnglass, represented one last long step before destitution. They’d lived on scraps and odd jobs to avoid trading it.

  “Bone?” Gaunt whispered. “Self-preservation? Eh?”

  The Teller smiled, a grin composed of tiny black feet stained with cream-white pollen. “One? We store crown jewels, dragon-hunters’ hoards, sorcerers’ hearts, mummies and vampires, papyri of the Blind Poet, rings of power, soul-stealing swords, and a cat in an indeterminate state between life and death. The mighty of the West entrust their treasures to us. And you have but one coin?”

  Bone licked his lips at this inventory, but he composed himself. “A down payment?”

  Gaunt put in, “You know the reputation of Imago Bone. We offer a down payment of one ambrosian, plus the master thief’s services in the acquisition of your choice.”

  “We do?” Bone murmured.

  “Hush.”

  “We must confer.”

  The cloaks of the Pluribus dropped to the floor. The divine bees converged upon a nearby window and formed a writhing tapestry of gold-knifed darkness.

  “Flee?” Gaunt whispered, with little conviction.

  “Our only real option’s a plunge to the street,” Bone replied. “Though we could hide in the open security comb.”

  “With the book we’ve struggled to destroy! Oh good!”

  “If anything could harm the Pluribus....”

  At that moment the swarms dispersed and dressed themselves, with two blocking the path toward the book, and the Teller once again overhead. Gaunt and Bone would never know if the Pluribus had reacted to their words.

  The Teller spread wiggling gold-black hands in a magnanimous gesture.

  “Congratulations, new customers! We are flexible beings, and offer a special arrangement. There is a service you might do. For this, and your deposit, we will waive the cost of our damaged window and offer forty-nine weeks’ use of a security comb.”

  “Ask,” Bone said with widening eyes, “and we’ll steal the spots off the sun.”

  “An interesting proposal. But we have no theft in mind. Indeed, you will do as you did here, delivering an item of value.”

  “Speak on.”

  “We guard many wondrous things. There is one such whose renter has defaulted. We would have you dispose of it. Do you agree?”

  “What are the details...?” Gaunt began.

  “Of course!” Bone said.

  “Very well,” said the Teller. “You shall convey the world’s most perilous weapon to the city of pain.”

  The Teller escorted them to the gap in the window of Allos the Smith, Gaunt glaring at Bone the whole while.

  To forestall her speech, Bone mused aloud, “Most perilous weapon, eh? The sword Crypttongue, that speaks in its victims’ voices?”

  “No,” said the Teller. Gaunt’s scowl intensified.

  “The Schismglass of Baelscaer, then, that entraps souls in its reflective blade?”

  “No.”

  The Teller stopped beside the door Gaunt and Bone had first encountered, the one named for a pirate prince.

  “All who possess this weapon have regretted it, even the fiercest of killers, mad Lord Runestock, say, or bloody Sir Fairbeast, or Captain Slaughterdark who abandoned it here.”

  At the word Slaughterdark the door swung open, revealing a glowing nimbus of a pinkish hue, festooned with sparkles and rainbows.

  “Behold the Sword of Loving Kindness.”

  Far to the east a girl heard words upon the wind: I am coming. The voice was dulcet and dainty, and seemed ready to burst into song.

  The girl shivered there, in her desert.

  On the eighteenth day of their journey from Archaeopolis to Maratrace, called the city of pain, Gaunt grew certain something was amiss.

  The initial signs had been small. Imago Bone’s normal grumbling irritation at rocks and bumps in the royal road was replaced with a cheery, cloying whistle. The whistle did not cease when the road did, and it echoed maddeningly through the precipitous mountain path. Bone’s usual haphazard way of pitching camp gave way to a tidy pattern of tent, fire, and packs, all arranged according to ancient Palmarian geomantic principles. His habitual lustful manner surrendered to a chaste, schoolboy friendliness. Even this last transformation was not so alarming at first, as it gave Gaunt more time to attack her latest work, The Next-To-Last-Winter:

  ‘Tis the loveliest of seasons (she wrote on the seventeenth day)

  A winter bright, my friend.

  Not least among the reasons:

  The next will have no end.

  Yet on the eighteenth day, Gaunt, breathing in sharp cold mountain air and trying to scoop up the delicious thrill of that penultimate snow and melt it into words, was interrupted by Bone’s latest musing.

  “I am not so good a thief, you know.”

  Gaunt’s writing hand froze, pleasant ice-scapes forgotten. She stared at him.

  “Most of my escapades,” he continued, chewing a blade of snow-crusted alpine grass, “were lucky escapes.”

  Was this some filchform, Gaunt wondered, who had eaten her beloved? Or a sorcerer who’d spirited Bone away and left a fragment of the Brazen Mirror?

  “Ah, think of it, Gaunt. I grow old, and never have I tended a garden, raised a child, run for civic office.”

  Here he absently patted the weapon from which he never wandered far. It was a rapier with a hilt sculpted like a rose blossom, its whole length an unearthly pink crystal which sparkled and flashed prismatic reflections at the merest hint of sunlight. Delicate and sharp, even its rose petals drew blood.

  “Why,” Bone continued, “what must people think? What sort of image do I present? I’ve never dwelled long in one spot, you know, Gaunt, never had a house I could show off to the neighbors.”

  “Bone,” Gaunt said, “you are frightening me.”

  “I frighten myself,” Bone said agreeably. “To think, I could have spent my life so much better! I might have been a fine physician, student of law—a courtier even! A man of substance!”

  “Have you been drinking, Imago Bone?”

  “No!” The thief stood, the Sword of Loving Kindness in hand. “Would that I had! A little drink is a social necessity. Instead, I went through long dry spells and sporadic mad binges. Better to raise the occasional stiff drink in the company of peers and patrons. I....” Bone’s brow furrowed. “What... what is wrong with me?”

  “Bone,” she said, coming closer, relieved at this change. “Are you yourself?”

  “It... it is like dreaming another’s dream. I... what a foolish sentence. A pathetic attempt at poetry. Which reminds me, Gaunt,” Bone continued, all confusion leaving his voice, “I’ve been thinking you should give up verse.”

  “What?”

  “It is well enough for wise ancients to practice the art, but today’s women should know better. If you must write, perhaps then an etiquette primer for young girls—what are you doing?”

  Stooping, Gaunt said, “I am forming a bird out of snow. If I whisper a wish into its ear it will fly awa
y when my back is turned, and bring happiness and prosperity to my friends.”

  “Well... a bit whimsical, but all in all a good, kind sentiment. I should think—ow!”

  Having packed the snowball hard, Gaunt had hurled it into Bone’s earnest face.

  The thief dropped the weapon. Gaunt kicked it downslope, where it lay against a leafless tree, shining as if reflecting an unseen, glorious sunset.

  Bone dropped to his knees. “Thank you,” he gasped.

  “It was more for me than you.”

  “I hope I haven’t lost this eye.” Bone checked. “No. I can see. But more important. I canthink—of pride and greed, for example. Of me. Remind me what the Pluribus said about the Sword?”

  Gaunt said, “They were rather cryptic. Especially as you’d already agreed to their errand.” She shot him a fresh glare, then added, “I’ve given this a little thought. This may be the whispered final work of the Forge God. A weapon fashioned after most of the gods perished... even his beloved Nettileer Kinbinder.”

  “The goddess of love?”

  “My bardic teachers suggested I not think of her office as love per se. That is too multifaceted a thing to be embodied in a single entity. Nettileer’s function was kinbinding. She presided over courtship and marriage, childrearing and housekeeping, personal grooming and blood feuds.”

  “Blood feuds?”

  Gaunt studied the sword as she spoke. “She was not a force for good, necessarily, Bone. Her priestesses did not help the poor and sick, but rather dressed up in fanciful pastel outfits with tiaras. They held lavish balls. They bestowed wishes upon their friends and poison upon their enemies. Kin, cleanliness, status, appearance, chaste affection—that was Nettileer’s realm, and woe to those who angered her. Her husband Allos the Smith suffered much at her hands.”

  “Ah,” Bone said. “He must have dallied with another, as gods often did.”

  “No. He failed to keep his forge clean, embarrassing her in front of the other divinities.”

  “Oh.”

  “For this she shoved his face into the coals and cast him away, taking up with the war god Erethor.”

  “I see.” Bone straightened his clothing.

  “But that wasn’t the end of their story,” Gaunt said, “for one day the Pluribus rebelled and killed almost all the gods. There’s a song, a fragment from the Bladed Isles—

  Gold was the godswarm

  And red the halls of Surmount

  And black the blade of Erethor

  As Nettileer he sought.

  And swarm-spattered was his sword

  When goddess’ hand he got

  And led her to the ramparts

  And the chariot of the god.

  But “Would you flee to other worlds?”

  Said she, “To draw a coward’s breath?”

  Berserk she goaded Erethor.

  He charged foaming to his death.

  Then red rose the mane of Nettileer

  As to stones leapt she of hearth.

  Red ran her blood, that Allos took,

  To quench a thing of wrath.

  “It is said,” Gaunt said, “that Allos flung this final work into the sea before the Pluribus found him. Taletellers long wondered what it was. I think I have a guess. I think it was this sword, which so perfectly matches the goddess’ nature.”

  She stared down the slope. “Think of it, Bone. The final vengeance of the gods is not a thing of thunderbolts or gore, but something forged with the essence of the kinbinder. Something that bludgeons mind and spirit... until one obeys Nettileer’s notions of a clean, shiny life.”

  “A cosmic spanking rod,” Bone said. “Why couldn’t we have gotten something that ate souls?”

  Again the girl felt something cold and delicate kiss her neck and whisper Skath. Again she turned and saw nothing but the proud expanse of Maratrace beneath the desert sun.

  But the voice on the wind was stronger now, as were her nightly dreams of a dainty pink sword. Almost she clawed herself in the manner of her people, but limited herself to biting her lip.

  Bone and Gaunt resolved to carry the sword in a pack, and handle it only with cloth. Even so, their journey was marked by incidents of a most disturbing wholesomeness.

  In the Homunculus Mountains, they found themselves lecturing the Mandrake Marauders on manners and hygiene. Their subsequent dash into the Vale of Webness led to a debate with Poisonfroth Huskmaker, matriarch of the Oldspinners, in which Gaunt accused her of haphazard webmaking, and Bone chided her unfinished meals.

  This exchange degenerated into the unfortunate scene of two humans fleeing a be-webbed and burning forest. As the blaze spread onto the Wheelgreen, Gaunt and Bone argued with the Wagonlords, who disputed the notion that the grassfire might inspire their founding agricultural communities with pretty gardens.

  When at last the pair reached the reed-marked, quietly churning river that flowed south and east to Maratrace, and the threat of being bound and blood-smeared and left for the ants had faded into anecdote, Gaunt and Bone held a conference.

  “Damn this sword,” Bone spat.

  “Language,” Gaunt objected. Then she caught herself, and swore.

  “You see?” Bone said. “The thing’s influence is growing. We will be lucky to arrive as anything but pedants of good behavior.”

  “Look, Bone. Look at the verse I wrote yesterday.”

  He looked.

  Oh, happy children at their song

  Frolicking the winter long,

  For in their joyous hearts they know

  They lie, who warn of endless snow.

  “You think this is a disaster?” Bone asked. “I’ve discarded my gear. My daggers and lockpicks, my camouflage dyes and knockout herbs, my ironsilk lines and sticky resins. Years to assemble, all gone—abandoned on the plains or tossed into the river! Each time, I thought, ‘Farewell, wicked tool.’ Only when it’s too late do I weep.”

  Gaunt patted herself and cursed (“Bless it all!”) to discover she too had disarmed herself. She embraced Bone, leaning in closer when she found the initial result too chaste. “Well, fear not. Adventuring is done for now. We must merely deliver this artifact to Maratrace. There is no designated recipient, no specified act or ritual to perform. We may walk through the gates, drop the thing on the street, and leave.”

  “You are right. We could even approach by night and hurl it over the wall.”

  “And flee at once for Amberhorn on the Midnight Sea, where sin is state-supported, where thieves’ markets come thick as the harbor’s billowing sails.”

  “Yes. Yes! You are a healing draught, Persimmon Gaunt.”

  Bone kissed her. She responded eagerly, and his breathing grew labored. How long, she wondered, since they had behaved so? Too long indeed—since the fifteenth day out of Archaeopolis.

  They clutched at one another, pulled each other to the ground, unfastened, tugged, tore, and lay naked in the tall grass. The scent of mud and sweat was rich. Their hands sought their unchaperoned flesh....

  And they paused, regarding one another in vexation.

  “I am finding myself mortified,” Gaunt said slowly, “to be so exposed, before the hawks, the field mice, and whatever astronomers might exist on other heavenly discs.”

  “I find myself thinking,” Bone murmured, “that this cavorting is rather brutish, and far beneath the dignity of a great poet and a thief whose name is at least known to high society.”

  The pair turned their heads and looked upon the Sword of Loving Kindness. It had tumbled from its pack, and now shimmered pleasantly beside them.

  They still lay that way when a trading boat arrived, making its way from cold Starkinggrad downriver. The hoots and whistles of the crew sent them diving for their clothes, and they barely mustered the audacity to beg a ride to Maratrace.

  It was no city for sightseers.

  First, grotesque dark towers, resembling broken-boned monstrosities covered with pustules, rose on the horizon. These were followe
d by smaller, angular pyramidal buildings like wide knives, then a conglomeration of adobe houses low by the river. Trails of smoke testified to activity, farmland stretched up and down the river, and watercraft bobbed beside piers; but there was a hush about the place that Gaunt did not like.

  As the riverboat creaked cityward, sliding above the sunken rubble of older settlements, its captain said, “All mad they are, indeed,” as if reading her thoughts. “But honest dealers nonetheless. Too honest, in a way.” He was a Palmarian namedFlea, with two fingers missing from his right hand, testament to avarice or clumsiness. (Gaunt was oddly proud Bone’s hands were intact even after a long career in Palmary.)

  “What do you mean?” Bone said with a flaring of the fingers that implied reward for information (and emphasized, Gaunt knew, that he had all ten.)

  Flea cupped his own maimed hand, accepting with a grunt a minor coin. “They’re fanatics, friend. They believe pain’s the great truth of the world, and they labor to provide their own evidence.” Flea pocketed the coin, lifted his hand. “Palmary’s proudest had to shackle me to do this. But Maratrace’s mighty do the same to themselves, or worse. And outsiders who linger become pain-lovers too. I know a few old river-hands who are short a hand or two, these days. Me, I’ll be leaving in one—down to Mirabad. Best you come along. If you can’t afford it, you can work for passage.”

  A glance at the morose faces of Flea’s oarsmen, chained by wrist and nose, convinced Gaunt she’d rather walk.

  A tsking Flea deposited them at Maratrace’s modest port district. Unusually for a city of tall towers, Maratrace’s harbor did not throb, but rather snored. Activity was faint. Where other docklands would echo with the cries of drunks, lechers, and brawlers, this one clicked with the lackadaisical sounds of dice upon the piers. It seemed the traders clung to the water’s edge.