Page 89 of The Thrice-Bound Fool

“What hand is on your cheek? A slave-brand?”

“Yah, of a sort. But to other masters, from whom I am a fugitive.”

“Was it good commerce, trading human chains for those of Erydon?”

I shrugged. I meant to say something clever but found myself overcome with emotion. I was a slave, an actual fucking slave, and so, so far from home.

“No,” I said, a little choked.

He wiped his hands with a cloth and stepped from behind his forge, laying one great hand on my head. In other circumstances I might have felt condescended to by such a gesture, but I knew it to be heartfelt. So I awkwardly patted that hand, which smelled of charcoal and smoke and metals, and under it all some ancient, leathery strangeness which must have just been him.

“Thanks for that,” I said. “I’m Kinch.”

“I am Zherit-Nassk. But I was born beneath the sun, so if you see me by day, I am only Zherit.”

And so I learned nassk, the cyclops word for night.

And so I had my first hint about the dual nature of these fascinating creatures.

“I venture to say that I can find a book and bring it here. If I do, might I have a boon from you?”

“If it lies within my gift.”

“I’ll need the making of a key.”

I passed to him the wax carving I had made, sliding it across his worktable, aware in that moment of just how small the skeleton key I wanted would be to his hand.

He palmed the waxen carving as expertly as a Prank of the Guild might have.

He would have no trouble doing fine work.

I liked Zherit-Nassk.

Zherit, however, would prove to be another matter.

I spent the next few hours taking the lay of the palace in earnest. I crept the kitchen and larders like a mouse in a house of lazy old cats; I found the palace library; I took the measure of dining halls of various sizes for guests of different ranks; I found the arsenal, the baths, and the altar to Thumos, where he stood ten feet tall and black-skinned, with citrine eyes that seemed to have been enchanted to glow with their own light—beside him sat the dog Magmas with a tongue of gold.

I also found the altar to Medrena, and that bears speaking about.

Medrena is the western goddess of the sea, and I’ve heard her called Mithrenor’s sister. I can almost hear you asking, “But what sea is in the west?” There are two seas at least, and one is a sea to the south, miles away, though I’ve not yet seen it. It is there that the other cities of Beltian seed sprung up, and I have seen bracelets and platters from these cities picturing Medrena as a two-tailed fish-woman, with a spear she uses to pierce hulls, and a net she drags men under with. She is fierce in those southern coastal cities. But here, on the dry steppes, she is portrayed as a chained woman carrying an amphora. The sea is in bondage here, tamed by Thumos, as all the other gods have been. Geryat, goddess of the air, howls in the high places of the earth, for Thumos has reached up to catch her even there; in older reliefs and statues, she is an eagle or a griffin. The last hundred years or so, she’s a winged woman with, as I’ve said, a chain around her ankle. They have Sath the sun god here, though they call him Sef. Sef is elderly and beats on the rocks asking for his daughter back. But Thara, goddess of fire, was wed and consumed by Umos, god of the earth. And I mean he straight fucking ate her. As you’d guess, this union brought no children, but combined them into one, and that’s that mad kark, Thumos, the God Under the Mountain, who holds both earth and flame in his fist.

That first night prowling, out within the walled garden, I looked up at Medrena, with her nautilus shell helmet cracked, and her foot chained, and a too-heavy amphora on her shoulder, and I said, “Sorry, ould girleen. They’ve not treated you well here, and neither me. Show me a mousehole out of here, and I’ll keep you in my heart even in the east.”

You’ll say I’m lying, and maybe I am, but I’m saying I saw a tear curl from her eye to the tip of her nose. It fell, and I looked for the droplet on her stone feet, and on her plinth, but it was all dry as bone.

It was later, as I skulked along the corridor near the throne room, taking to the shadows whenever I heard a guard or late-night wanderer, that I felt it. A drop of water fell on my cheek. I wiped at it with my fingers and sniffed. I put my tongue to a fingertip and tasted salt.

As from the sea.

Or from a tear.

I looked up to see where it might have come from and saw a bit of moisture. And I believe Medrena meant me to, for I think she’s real, and that fucker Thumos certainly is. It was near the ceiling that I saw the door. It was flush with the stone of the fall, and covered in sheet-stone to hide it, but spotting doors you’re not supposed to see is a talent they teach at the Low School, and one I learned well.

So up the wall I went and, flat as a spider, my feet and the fingers of one hand gripping the barest of holds, I felt the edges of the door. Finding no latch, I gave a lower corner a push, and, as I suspected, the door clicked and let out enough for me to open it. I scuttled in, unmindful of the darkness, and pulled the door behind me. Now I was in a sort of small tunnel, and I’m telling you there was just enough room for me and a long copper pipe, of the sort I had seen feeding the breath of the mountain to the lamps here. I felt this pipe, and it was cool to the touch. A fair draft went through this tunnel as well, and it was fresh, fed from the night air outside somehow. I squirreled that observation away for later study. I longed to go farther along the tunnel just now, but I’d do myself few favors getting lost. I thought about trying to tease a thread out of my pants, but I’d no wish to go unraveling them. Next I wished for a match, but then I thought about the nature of the lamps, and reasoned that a match in here might make a very warm, bright end of me.

But how was I to see?

An idea came to me, and it stank of holy mischief, so of course I had to see it done.