Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (2 page)

Rat lost the fat purse momentarily, then
caught sight of it again where it had stopped to watch a juggling
act. The jugglers were good, and a dense crowd had gathered. Rat
considered the situation carefully, decided that his moment had
come.

He stayed close in among the stalls, picking
his shadows with care, choosing each so that it brought him
carefully closer to his intended prey. He was in his element,
executing a skill he’d learned through a short lifetime of
practice, dancing in a world of shadows that he loved dearly.

He paused in the last shadow to withdraw a
wicked little knife from his rags, and with his confidence
sustained by the
gesh
he made his move. He broke from his
shadow, sprinted the short distance through daylight to the fat
purse, gripped it deftly and sliced out with the knife. But the cut
was not smooth. Fatpurse felt a slight tug as the blade bit into
the purse strings, and as Rat turned to flee, purse in hand, he
slipped in the mud, landed in a puddle with a splash.

“Stop,” Fatpurse screamed. “Thief.”

Rat jumped to his feet and ran.

“What?” someone shouted.

“That scum, there,” Fatpurse bellowed,
pointing with a fat finger. “He stole my purse. A reward to the man
that catches him.”

“It’s Rat,” someone screamed. “Get him.”

Rat had miscalculated. The mud was too thick
and the crowd not enough so. Everyone could see him easily and many
reached out for him as he shot past. A hand caught hold of his
shoulder. He turned on it, bit it hard and it let go.

“Ahhh! I’ll get you, you little shit.”

With fear as his guide, dodging in and out
of shadow, Rat barely made it out of the market square. But the
crowd quickly coalesced into a mob to give chase, and leading it
were the three boys who had hunted him earlier, as knowledgeable as
he in the ways of the streets.

“Cut off the thief’s hand,” someone
shouted.

Rat ran, heedless of direction, fear his
only guide, the mob close on his heels. He ran without stealth or
cunning, giving in wholly to the panic that consumed him. He made
turns blindly and without thinking; down a street, up an alley,
down another street, conscious only of the mud beneath his feet and
the mob behind him. He turned into another alley, raced down its
length, skidded madly through a hard turn to the right, and there
found featureless stone walls on all sides, no windows, no
doorways, a blind alley with no escape. He was trapped, and with
that realization the fear overwhelmed him, forced him to his knees
in the mud, where, without tears, without sound, unable to move, he
collapsed in a heap.

The mob rounded the turn in the alley only
an instant behind him, a wave of angry people that washed over him
and past him, slamming hard into the wall that marked the limit of
the alley. Those in the lead found themselves smashed senselessly
between the hard stone ahead and their companions following close
behind. Many were slow to rise.

“Where is he?” someone screamed.

Rat, still lying in the mud, was trampled
some, but basically unhurt, while the mob stood all about him,
surrounding him, milling about and paying him not the least bit of
attention. Some scratched their heads in confusion and
bewilderment, and looked directly at him as if he weren’t there, as
if they looked right through him.

Fatpurse came lumbering up the alley, slow
and ponderous. He stopped not two paces from Rat, put his fat hands
on his hips and said, “Well. Where is he? Where is the little
bastard? I can smell his stench, and he has my purse. Fifty
coppers—No, a hundred coppers to whoever catches him.”

The mob went wild, overturning anything that
might hide a small thief: garbage, refuse, litter that lined the
edges of the alley. Rat stood in the center, unhidden and yet
ignored by all. He looked at his hands and arms; they were still
there, stained with dirt and grime. He looked at his legs and they
too remained visible and unchanged. It was all very confusing, but
Rat decided not to question his good fortune. This kind of thing
had happened before, and if these maniacs wished to let him go when
he was there for the taking, then so be it.

Most of the mob was searching the refuse
that lined the edges of the alley, so Rat chose a path down the
middle. He moved slowly, careful lest he tempt fate by bumping
someone, and at first it was simple. But as he neared the end of
the alley he noticed a tall man standing there unmoving, legs
spread, his fists on his hips, elbows out. His clothes were of a
cut far better than the norm: a hip length leather jerkin over a
fine linen shirt, loose fitting breaches tucked into knee-high
black boots, and for all intents and purposes he blocked Rat’s
path.

“Well, well!” the man said, smiling
appreciatively and looking directly at Rat. “That’s an impressive
trick, young fellow.”

Rat edged experimentally to one side, hoping
that, like the others, the man was looking through him and not at
him. But the man’s eyes followed him unwaveringly, and Rat knew
then that his end had come.

The mob had turned suddenly quiet. Fatpurse
approached the tall stranger and bowed uneasily from the waist.
“Lord Roland,” Fatpurse said reverently. “You do us honor.”

Lord!
Rat thought. This stranger was
a clan witch, a witchman come to carry Rat away to the hell pits of
Kathbeyanne.

“What goes here?” the witchman demanded.

Fatpurse bowed again. “We seek a cutpurse,
your lordship. A disgusting, filthy, little thing.”

The witchman took two steps and towered over
Rat, who froze into stillness, his heart pounding uncontrollably.
The witchman stuck out his hand, palm up. “Give me the purse,
boy.”

Fear flooded through Rat’s soul, growing
within him like a cancer, threatening to consume him. He could not
move to hand the witchman the purse, though he lost control of his
bladder and urine streamed down his leg.

“Stop that,” the witchman snarled.

Rat tried desperately to control his
bladder.

“Stop that, I said,” the witchman shouted.
He grimaced, put a hand to his temple. “Too much fear!” he groaned,
and with his other hand he struck out. Rat didn’t see the blow
coming, ended up sitting in the mud with a fiery red welt on his
cheek and his head spinning madly.

“Stop that or I’ll slap you again even
harder.”

Rat prayed to the
gods
to help him
control his bladder.

“I see him,” someone shouted. “He was
invisible.” The crowd came suddenly alive, turned again into a
mob.

The witchman leaned over, retrieved the
purse from the mud where it had fallen. He handed it to Fatpurse.
“Here’s your purse, Raffin. Now clear this mob out of here.”

“But, my lord,” the fat merchant pleaded. “I
have no control over these people.”

“Chop off the thief’s hand,” someone
shouted.

“Take off his head,” someone else
screamed.

The witchman calmly raised both hands above
his head and cried, “Silence.”

All became still in an instant.

“There’ll be no chopping of hands or heads
this day,” the witchman said. “At least not here and now. Now be
gone. Clear this alley, or face my wrath.”

The mob obeyed without question. They
shuffled out of the alley passively, subdued, grumbling some, but
without a thought of defiance. They left behind Fatpurse, Rat, and
the witchman, and their instantaneous compliance with the
witchman’s orders bode ill for poor Rat.

“Lord Roland,” Fatpurse squealed, pointing
at Rat. “Look. He’s disappearing again.”

The witchman’s head snapped around to look
at Rat with those terrible eyes of his. “Just remember you this,
boy. I can see you. I can always see you.”

He turned back to Fatpurse. “You’ve got your
purse now, Raffin. Your presence is no longer required.”

“But Lord. What about punishment for the
thief?”

The witchman smiled evilly. “I’ll see to
that personally, Raffin. And you, thief,” he said, turning upon
Rat. “You’re coming with me.”

Rat neither replied, nor moved, nor tried to
run. He simply fainted.

~~~

As the witchman stepped out of the alley,
followed by a servant carrying the unconscious, young thief, a rat
scurried out of the nearby rubbish, a small finger-length bone in
its mouth. It lay the bone down carefully in the mud, and as it
returned to the rubbish another rat scurried past it carrying
another bone. The second rat lay the second bone down carefully
next to the first. More rats appeared one after the other, each
carrying a small bone and laying it down next to the others.
Slowly, as the rats continued retrieving small bones the pattern
they formed in the mud began to take on the shape of a man, though,
since few, if any, of the bones were actually human, the man-shape
was an undersized, twisted and deformed skeleton of bird, cat, dog
and rat bones. The last bones that the rats placed were clearly in
the shape of a crown about the little skeleton-man’s head. Then the
rats all retreated to the rubbish and disappeared beneath it.

The air about the skeleton-king shimmered,
and the bones of one hand moved. Then suddenly the skeleton-king’s
chest heaved a sigh and he sat up. He climbed carefully to his
feet, stood no taller than the small thief had stood. And while
deformed and misshapen, he walked to the mouth of the alley with
the bearing of a true king.

He was just in time to catch a last,
fleeting glimpse of the wizard, accompanied by a servant carrying
the young thief. He stayed hidden in the shadows of the alley and
watched as they disappeared among the crowds in the street. He
sighed sorrowfully, and with his not-eyes focused on the young
thief, he whispered, “Now it begins, my child, and there’s no
turning back. I do hope you can forgive me for setting you on this
course.”

The skeleton king lowered his head, and
without warning all of the bones tumbled to the ground in the alley
and lay in a shapeless heap. The rats reappeared and quickly
scattered the bones.

~~~

Rat awoke in someone’s arms; whose arms, he
could not guess. He kept his eyes closed and remained motionless,
feigning sleep. And he listened.

“Forgive me for saying so, my lord, but the
stench is terrible.” That voice belonged to the one carrying
him.

“You’re quite right, Avis,” the witchman
laughed. “He does stink, doesn’t he? Place him on the table
here.”

“On the table, my lord? Might the Lady
Olivia object?”

The witchman hesitated. “Yes. I believe
you’re right. Best place him on the floor then.”

The arms laid Rat gently on a stone floor.
He took care not to move, and he continued to listen.

“Will that be all, my lord?”

“Yes. Thank you, Avis. You may go. But
summon the Lady AnnaRail, please.”

“Certainly, my lord.”

Rat heard feet walk across the floor, then a
door closed and all was silent. He waited for several seconds, and
when he heard no further sounds he opened his good eye just the
slightest bit. The witchman sat across the room at a table looking
directly at him. Rat snapped his eye shut instantly.

“Come, child. I know you’re awake. Open your
eyes and stand up.”

Rat kept his eye shut, not understanding
most of the words. There was a pause, he heard more footsteps, then
the toe of a boot nudged him gently in the ribs. “Do as I say, boy.
I don’t have the time or the patience to put up with your games.
Now stand up.”

The boot nudged him a little less gently.
Rat still didn’t understand, but he realized he could no longer
play dead. As the boot approached for another nudge, he bit it with
all his might, discovering it was made of soft, supple leather,
beneath which he could feel the witchman’s toes.

“Owe! Damn you,” the witchman bellowed,
twisting his foot free. “That’s a new pair of boots you’ve bitten.
You’d better not have marked the leather.” The witchman examined
the boot carefully.

Rat squirmed to his feet, hissed and spit at
the witchman, put his back to the wall, slid along its length to
the nearest corner. The witchman stood near the only door.

The witchman finished examining his boot,
apparently satisfied that no damage had been done. He returned to
the table calmly, sat down. “I’m not going to hurt you, boy, so
calm down.”

Rat’s eyes darted about the room
suspiciously, though the witchman seemed to bear him no malice. But
at that moment Rat became suddenly conscious of another presence
nearby, a presence felt but not seen, sensed but not heard. This
presence was not in the room with him and the witchman, but it was
conscious of him, and it was coming for him. It was angry at him—he
could sense that—angry with an evil, terrible hatred, and it was
going to punish him. He began to sob openly, lowered himself slowly
to the floor. He crammed several fingers in his mouth to silence
the sobs, curled into a fetal position and couldn’t take his eyes
from that single closed door through which he knew the evil would
come.

The witchman stood from the table, his brows
narrowed with concern, and in that moment the door burst open to
reveal a wrinkled, old, demon witchwoman in long, flowing, black
robes with the fires of magic burning about her. Her face was a
mask of wrinkled fury as she pointed at Rat with a shaking finger
and demanded, “And what, in the name of the Unnamed King, is that
filth?”

In that instant Rat simultaneously fainted,
winked into invisibility, and lost control of his bowels.

~~~

Still standing in the doorway the old woman’s
finger stopped shaking and she paused in amazement. “Well now!” she
said. “What do we have here?” She crossed the room to stand over
Rat’s motionless form and answered her own question. “A young
magician it seems. Now I understand. I sensed his power—raw and
uncontrolled, but power nevertheless—and I assumed something had
invaded our household. Are you responsible for this, Roland?”