The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids by Michael McClung Page B

another swig. “Tell me, how is it that everybody in Lucernis seems to know where I live, when I haven’t told anybody?”
    He shrugged, paused. “Ah, Amra?”
    “Yes?”
    “What in Gorm’s name have you done to your hair?”
    “It’s the latest fashion. You don’t like it?’
    “I’d always assumed hair was an integral part of any hairstyle.”
    “Sure, insult my home, my wine and my looks, why don’t you.”
    “What are friends for?”
    That took me aback a little. Holgren was likeable enough for a mage, and I trusted him to a certain degree, but friends? I don’t make friends easily.
    “What did you want, anyway?”
    “It’s about that toad you left with me. Actually, it’s about what’s inside the toad.”
    “I’ll bite. What’s inside the toad?”
    “I’m not exactly sure.”
    The thing about Holgren, he doesn’t realize when he’s being frustratingly cryptic. Probably doesn’t.
    “There’s a vein that throbs in your forehead. I’ve never noticed that before. Your hair must have hidden it.”
    “Will you tell me what’s so important about the unspecified thing in the toad?”
    “Oh. Well, that’s just it. I want to melt it down. To find out.”
    “I might need the toad. As a bargaining chip.” Actually I was surprised he’d thought to wait for my permission. 
    “Whatever is inside, it’s ancient. Definitely pre-Diaspora. And it’s powerful, Amra. The most powerful artefact I’ve ever personally run across.”
    Pre-Diaspora meant that whatever it was, it was more than a thousand years old. Possibly much, much more. From the Age of Gods. From humanity’s first cultures, before the Cataclysm that killed millions and saw the survivors fleeing for their lives. The time of the Diaspora, when the gods went mad and the race of man ran screaming in every direction, abandoning an entire continent. An age of myth and legend. And powerful and deadly artefacts.
    “How powerful are we talking, Holgren?”
    “I believe the thing inside the statuette is, in some way, self-aware. Probably intelligent, possibly even alive.”
    “Magical, then.”
    “Yes. But not human magic. I suspect that whatever it is, it was god-forged.”
    “And you want to let it out of the toad? Doesn’t that strike you as a tad dangerous? I seem to recall you saying something like it being ‘dangerous and distasteful.’”
    He shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve always been the curious sort.”
    “You mages are all mad.”
    “Don’t oversimplify, Amra. So?”
    “So what?”
    “Do I have your permission?”
    I sighed. “Why not?”
    “Good. I’d tell you to pack your things, but I suspect there’s nothing to pack.”
    The first faint stirrings of suspicion started to claw their way through my guts. “Why should I want to pack?”
    “Well you can’t stay here, can you? Not with the contract and all.”
    My blood went cold. Suspicion blossomed into dread. “What contract?” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster.
    “I didn’t tell you? Someone’s put a thousand mark bounty out on you. Or your corpse, rather, but only if it’s intact.”
    “What? When?”
    “Two days ago, I think. Yes, two. Must have slipped my mind.”
    “How does something like that slip your Kerf-damned mind?”
    He seemed slightly affronted. “Well they aren’t after me, now are they? Don’t worry. You’ll come stay with me. It’s the safest place for you. That I guarantee.”
    “Do you have any idea what people will do for that kind of money, Holgren?”
    “Oh yes. Almost anything. But attacking a mage in his own sanctum is unlikely to be one of them.”
    “Why my whole corpse?” I wondered. But I already had an idea.
    “I can only assume they’re able to use necromantic measures to extract information. Such measures require the body to be intact to a great degree.”
    “They want the toad.”
    “They want the toad,” he agreed.
    I put my head in my hands. I was tired. I had sworn to kill Corbin’s