The Republic of Thieves

heart.

“F-fuck,” he tried to say, so profoundly disquieted that no air moved past his lips. Then the thing inside him surged, frothed, ate—like tar heated instantly to a boil, scalding the surface of every organ and cavity between his nose and his groin. All of those never-thought-of crevices of the body, suddenly alive in his mind, and suddenly limned in pure volcanic agony.

Stop oh please oh please stop just let the pain end, he thought, so far gone that his previous resolution was forgotten beneath sheer animal pleading. Stop the pain stop the pain—

“You are him … and not him!” The thought-voice was a weak echo above the cresting tide of internal fire. Coldmarrow? Patience? Locke could no longer tell. His arms and legs were numb, dissolving into meaningless sensory fog beyond the hot core of his agony. The Bondsmagi and everything beyond them faded into haze. The table seemed to fall away beneath him; blackness rose like the coming of sleep. His eyelids fluttered shut, and at last the blessed numbness spread to his stomach and chest and arms, smothering the hell that had erupted there.

Let that be it. I don’t want to die, but gods, just let that be the last of the pain.

The outside world had gone silent, but there was still some noise in the darkness—his own noise. The faint throb of a heartbeat. The dry shudder of breath. Surely, if he were dead, all that business would have ended. There was a pressure on his chest. A sensation of weight—someone was pushing down on his heart, and the touch felt cold. Surprised at the amount of will it required, Locke forced his eyes partly open.

The hand above his heart was Bug’s, and the eyes staring down from the dead boy’s face were solid black.

“There is no last of the pain,” said Bug. “It always hurts. Always.”

Locke opened his mouth to scream, but no sound moved past his lips—just a barely perceptible dry hissing. He strained to move, but his limbs were lead. Even his neck refused to obey his commands.

This can’t be real, Locke tried to say, and the unspoken words echoed in his head.

“What’s real?” Bug’s skin was pale and strangely loose, as though the flesh behind it had collapsed inward. The curls had come out of his hair, and it hung limp and lifeless above his dead black eyes. A crossbow quarrel, crusted with dry blood, was still buried in his throat. The cabin was dark and empty; Bug seemed to be crouching above him, but the only weight Locke could feel was the cold pressure of the hand above his heart.

You’re not really here!

“We’re both here.” Bug fiddled with the quarrel as though it were an annoying neck-cloth. “You know why I’m still around? When you die, your sins are engraved on your eyes. Look closely.”

Unable to help himself, Locke stared up into the awful dark spheres, and saw that their blackness was not quite unbroken. It had a rough and layered quality, as though made up of a countless number of tiny black lines of script, all running together into a solid mass.

“I can’t see the way out of this place,” said Bug softly. “Can’t find the way to what’s next.”

You were twelve fucking years old. How many sins could you have—

“Sins of omission. Sins of my teachers and my friends.” The chilling weight above Locke’s heart pressed down harder.

That’s bullshit, I know better, I’m a divine of the Crooked Warden!

“How’s that working out for you?” Bug wiped at the trails of blood running down his neck, and the blood came away on his pale fingertips as a brown powder. “Doesn’t seem to have done either of us much good.”

I’m a priest, I’d know how this works, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be! I’m a priest of the Unnamed Thirteenth!

“Well … I could tell you how far you’ll get trusting people when you don’t even know their real name.” Again the pressure on Locke’s chest grew.

I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming. It’s just a dream.

“You’re dreaming. You’re dying. Maybe they’re the same thing.” The corners of Bug’s mouth twitched up briefly in a weak attempt at a smile. The sort of smile, thought Locke, that you give someone when you can see they’re in deep shit.

“Well, you’ve made all your decisions. Nothing left for you to do but see which one of us is right.”

Wait, wait, don’t—

The pain in Locke’s chest flared again, spreading sharply outward from his heart, and this time it was cold, deathly cold, an unbearable icy pressure that squeezed him like a vise. Darkness swept in behind it, and Locke’s awareness broke against it like a ship heaved onto rocks.

INTERLUDE: ORPHAN’S MOON

1

THEY LET HIM out of the darkness at last, and cool air touched his skin after an hour of stuffy helplessness.

It had been a rough trip to the site of the ritual, wherever it was. The men carrying him hadn’t had much difficulty with his relatively slight weight, but it seemed they’d gone down many stairs and through narrow, curving passages. Around and around in the dark he’d been hauled, listening to the grunts and whispers of the adults, and to the sound of his own breathing inside the scratchy wool sack that covered his head.

At last that hood was drawn away. Locke blinked in the dimness of a high barrel-vaulted room, faintly lit by pale globes tucked away in sconces. The walls and pillars were stone, and here and there Locke could see decorative paintings flaking with age. Water trickled somewhere nearby, but that was hardly unusual for a structure in lower Camorr. What was significant was that this was a human place, all blocks and mortar, without a shred of visible Elderglass.

Locke was on his back in the middle of the vaulted room, on a low slab. His hands and feet weren’t tied, but his freedom of movement was sharply curtailed when a man knelt and put a knife to his throat. Locke could feel the edge of the blade against his skin, and knew instantly that it was the not-fooling-around sort of edge.

“You are bound and compelled to silence in all ways, at all times, from now until the weighing of your soul, concerning what we do here this night,” said the man.

“I am bound and compelled,” said Locke.

“Who binds and compels you?”

“I bind and compel myself,” said Locke.

“To break this binding is to be condemned to die.”

“I would gladly be condemned for my failure.”

“Who would condemn you?”

“I would condemn myself.” Locke reached up with his right hand and placed it over the man’s knuckles. The stranger withdrew his hand, leaving Locke holding the knife at his own throat.

“Rise, little brother,” said the man.

Locke obeyed, and passed the knife back to the man, a long-haired, muscular garrista Locke knew by sight but not by name. The world Capa Barsavi ruled was a big place.

“Why have you come here tonight?”

“To be a thief among thieves,” said Locke.

“Then learn our sign.” The man held up his left hand, fingers slightly spread, and Locke mirrored the gesture, pressing his palm firmly against the garrista’s. “Left hand to left hand, skin to