The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye Read Free

exist, I didn’t want to get there only to find it plundered.
    At the baths I paid my penny and soaked for an hour, ignoring the comments muttered behind milk-white hands about my scarred hide. It was a little knitting circle of five women. Whenever I looked at them directly, their eyes would slide away, and the whispering would die down, for a time. Then it would slowly pick back up again.
    “ . . . figure like a boy.”
    “ Such short hair, and all those scars. Perhaps she’s just come from prison.”
    I was very good. What did they know of the world beyond their familial villas or their fathers’ shops, beyond spinning, weaving, and making babies? I knew as little of their life as they knew of mine—I understood that. It’s just that I didn’t think their difference gave me a right to talk about them, whereas they obviously did. But of course it’s always that way when you have the numbers. Men don’t hold exclusive rights to bullying.
    The idea of being physically ejected from the public baths for brawling wasn’t appealing, so I decided to settle for flattening their purses when I left.
    I put a washcloth over my eyes and turned my thoughts to Thagoth, and whether Holgren had actually located it.
     
    Holgren arrived a few minutes late, a bundle of parchments and scrolls under one arm and a look of grim determination on his face. He cleared off the delicate Helstrum-made table I used for dining and spread out a map he had sketched and inked himself.
    “ Here we are,” he said, stabbing the east coast of Lucernia with a forefinger. “Thagoth is almost certainly here.” He moved his finger a huge distance west—about two feet on the map, which worked out to roughly two thousand miles.
    “ Well, that’s it,” I said. “We can’t go after it, not if it truly is that far. If you’re wrong about the location or if there’s nothing left of it, we’ll have wasted almost a year, maybe more, getting there and back. Be reasonable, Holgren.”
    “ I am. I agree, the distance is daunting. Which is why I am going to attempt to gate us there.”
    “ What?”
    “ According to the Bosk texts you acquired for me, Thagoth was built at the nexus of several powerful ley lines. I will transport us to that nexus. The process should be instantaneous.”
    “ Whenever you say things like ‘attempt’ and ‘should be,’ my blood runs cold.”
    “ Your worries are baseless. If I fail, the magics will dissipate and the gate will not open. There is no possibility of you suffering any ill effects, I’ll make certain of that.”
    “ And what about you?”
    “ I’ll be fine.”
    “ Spoken like a true liar. Tell me.”
    “ Honestly? I don’t know. There’s a chance nothing will happen. There’s also a chance for a whole range of effects, from the merely uncomfortable to the wholly unpleasant.”
    “ The worst of which would be . . . ?”
    “ The worst of which would be my being blasted to cinders. It’s a very outside chance.”
    “ Wouldn’t that sort of be missing the point of trying to find immortality?”
    “ Amra, if I spent my entire life avoiding danger, I would have no life at all. If I risk nothing, death and retribution will still come. Given the choice, I would rather die trying to alter my situation. I assure you, I have taken and will take every precaution I can think of to ensure my safety and your own.”
    I sighed and shook my head. “When do we go?”
    “ We could leave tomorrow, but I think I might better do a bit more research. There are indications from what I’ve read so far that the city is . . . contained, I suppose, is the best word.”
    “ Eh?”
    He leaned back, spread his hands. “When Thagoth fell, it was to a powerful sorcerer-king, perhaps the most powerful mortal the world has ever seen. He laid death magic on the environs around the city. According to the accounts of Mumtaz El Rathi, that magic was still potent a century ago when he lead an expedition there.”
    I began to