Thief Eyes

Chapter 4

I dreamed of a tower of gray blocks, stacked beside a rushing waterfall. Too high—a child’s arm reached out and knocked the wobbling tower down.

I dreamed of a bow strung with fire. An arrow was loosed from the bow, and it caught fire as it flew, tracing a burning arc through the air. Where the arrow landed, I knew the world would burn, down to its very roots. I would burn, too, down to my very soul—but I didn’t fear fire.

I dreamed of a gray-eyed girl who solemnly held out her fist to the man who knelt before her. “Promise me, Father. Promise I will determine my fate.” She opened her hand. A ring lay there, woven of her own silken hair.

The man chucked her under the chin. “I’d promise anything for my beautiful girl,” he said. The child beamed up at him, but even in my dream I knew the man was lying. All fathers lied, one way or another.

The dream faded, leaving me alone in the dark. I tried to open my eyes. My lids were too heavy. Something had happened—there’d been wind, water, falling. There’d been pain, too, or would be once—

“You need not remember.” The words held the rhythm of wingbeats, steady and lulling. I’d never heard that voice before. “You need only sleep.”

I slept.

When I woke, I could open my eyes, but the darkness remained as thick as before. The air was cold and damp. Hard stone lay beneath my back. I tried to sit up.

Pain arced through my spine. It burned through my arms and legs and skull, my every shattered bone. I bit my lip to keep from screaming, remembering dimly that I must never cry out, however terrible my dreams. A gasp escaped my lips as I fell back to the stone.

“Not a good idea,” said a squeaky voice. “You need rest. You need healing. You need time.” I heard claws tapping stone. Something—the air around me?—lifted my head. Someone pressed a cup to my lips.

Warm, sweet liquid filled my mouth. I swallowed, and even that small movement hurt. Sweetness flowed down my throat, into my spine, along my arms and legs and skull, down to the smallest bones of my fingers and toes.

“Who are you?” My voice sounded strange and thick.

I heard a bark—or maybe a laugh. “Only a scrap of lingering lore some choose to remember. Nothing you need worry about.”

I thought about sitting up again, but moving had hurt the last time I’d tried it. I struggled to remember what had happened, but thinking took too much work. I slept once more.

In my sleep, I heard voices.

A woman’s voice: “Haley! Where are you, Haley? The fire I called burns on—in my hair, in my thoughts, in the coin you yet hold. You took that coin of your own will. Do you refuse the bargain that goes with it? For three days I have returned to this cave, hidden from my father’s view, to seek you out. Are you a coward after all?”

A boy’s voice: “You are breathing. At least you are still breathing. I do not know where we are, but—I will find a way out of this place. I promise I’ll be back.”

I tried to recall why I wanted a way out, but I saw only burning things: a bow, an arrow, a woman’s hair, cracks within the earth.

A squeaky voice: “Here. Drink this.” Sweetness filled me again.

A voice that held the beating of wings: “You need not remember. You need only sleep.”

When I woke again, the pain was gone. I sat up slowly, afraid, but nothing hurt. I began trembling, with shock or relief or maybe both. The air was still dark. I couldn’t see my own fingers, held up in front of my face. Just then, that didn’t matter. “I’m all right,” I whispered, and the trembling eased.

Small feet clicked against the stone and stopped beside me. I felt a cup pressed to my lips. The liquid within smelled sweet and alcoholic. I pushed it away.

“It would be better if you drank.” The squeaky voice again. I reached out and felt soft fur. So soft—more like a plush toy than anything real.

“I’m not thirsty.” Whatever was in the cup would make me sleep, and I didn’t want to sleep anymore. I heard movement in the dark as the furred creature left my side. Something scraped the floor.

I felt around me. I was sitting on a hard low platform, like a stone bed. The air smelled heavy with water. I swung my feet over the edge—still no pain. “Is there light?” I asked my—captor? Rescuer? Had I needed rescuing?

“I will get light.” Claws tapped rock, leaving me alone.

I squinted into the dark, but my eyes didn’t adjust. I knew I’d been able to see before—where? I couldn’t remember. My thoughts felt fuzzy and strange. I stood—the floor was stone, too—and walked forward, stretching my arms out in front of me. After a few steps I came to a rough stone wall.

My shoes squeaked as I returned to the platform. I’d been running. I remembered that much. I’d been running, and someone had been calling my name.

Haley—somehow, I pulled that name from the back of my mind. It was like pulling something out of thick, sucking mud. My name was Haley. I held on to the thought, afraid that if I let go, I would lose it.

I sank to my knees, fighting nausea. I was in more trouble than I could imagine if I had to work to remember my own name.

I rubbed my arms. They were covered in nylon—jacket sleeves. My long hair was loose, and it fell into my face. Think, Haley. Where did I live? I couldn’t remember. Family? Nothing, just sludgy darkness where my memories should have been. My teeth chattered. It was cold in this stone room.

Yellow light flared at the edges of my sight. Too bright—I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them. More light bloomed in front of me, behind me, as if by magic. The light cast faint shadows.

I blinked and stood. I was in a small stone room, maybe ten feet across, wearing jeans and a blue hooded jacket. The light came from small bowls of oil with burning wicks in them, set in shoulder-high niches in the walls. Smoke drifted from the bowls, carrying an oily animal scent. Aside from the bed and the lamps, the room was almost empty, with just an ivory-colored drinking horn filled with amber liquid, set in a wooden stand beside the bed, and some shelves and ledges in the walls, which disappeared into the darkness above me. To my left, a broad doorway led out into a dark tunnel.

A small white fox padded out of the tunnel and crossed the room to sit at my feet. An arctic fox with small ears and a long fluffy tail—not a red fox or a fennec fox or any of the other species names that tumbled into my awareness. Why could I remember twelve kinds of foxes when I couldn’t remember my family or home?

“Light,” the fox said.

Never mind what species he was—I sank abruptly down on the stone bed. “You can talk.” None of those dozen species could talk.

“So can you.” The fox scratched behind his ear with one paw. I couldn’t help it—I reached out to pet him. The fox leaned into my hand. His woolly fur really was that soft.

Was I someone who liked animals? I stared into the darkness above. My name was Haley. What else? Mother and father? Sisters or brothers? My thoughts slid away when I tried to focus them, as if they, too, were beyond the light. I clenched my other hand into a fist, released it when my nails—sharp nails—dug into my palms. “Ouch!” I jammed both hands into my pockets.

My fingers brushed soft cloth in one pocket, warm metal in the other. A memory of gray eyes and hot wind shook loose from the dark, and another of losing my grip and falling—

I jerked my trembling hands out of my pockets. Maybe there was a reason I’d forgotten. I stared down at my palms. They were crossed with faint half-moon scars.

In the distance, I heard wings beat the air. A huge black raven flew out of the tunnel and into the room, wings outstretched. A half dozen small black-capped birds—arctic terns—followed in its wake.

I scrambled to my feet. The raven swooped up onto one of the ledges, perched there, and looked down at me through bright black eyes. Dizziness washed over me. Somehow I knew those eyes remembered all I’d forgotten. The smaller birds arrayed themselves on lower shelves while the fox tapped my ankle once—a friendly gesture—then curled up on the floor, wrapping his bushy tail around his paws.

The raven flapped its wings—slowly, rhythmically—and somehow those wingbeats shaped themselves into words. “So. You have chosen to wake.” He flexed his black claws. His glossy wings shone in the lamplight.

“Who are you?” Speaking—thinking—took too much work while staring into those eyes. I looked down. My sneakers were gray with gravelly dust. “Why did you bring me here? What do you want?”

The raven’s wings kept beating the air. I swayed in time to that beat. “I saved your life.”

Even without looking at the bird, speaking took effort. “Why did my life need saving?”

“It didn’t,” the raven said matter-of-factly. “But the other one, by whose spell you were caught—the fire she called on could tear the land asunder, should it be set free. Perhaps your dying while bound to her magic would not be enough to release that fire. Perhaps it would. I prefer not to take chances. The other one was young when she cast her spell. She thought it a game, a matter of her own human life, yet the earth still trembles with the memory of how she called upon the realm of fire.”

I had no idea what the raven was talking about, and my murky memories yielded nothing. “What other one?”

“I’ll not name her, lest I give her more power—for though she died a thousand years before you were born, time is a fragile human thing and can be altered to bring the land’s ending. All things must end, as my master foretold long ago. Even so I would hold off their end awhile longer. I would remember for a small time more.”

“Wait, you’re saying the world could end if I die?” Yeah right, the earth really does revolve around me. I laughed uneasily. I didn’t need my memories to know how unlikely that was.

The raven didn’t laugh. He just kept flapping his wings. A chill breeze blew through the room. “This island, certainly, which is all of the world I can see. You are not as strongly tied to the spell as the other one. You have only touched the fire—you have not offered gifts to the giants who wield it, and they have not left their power burning within you in turn. If they had, you would be as far beyond my reach as the other one. As it is, the danger is smaller, but still real. Just ask the first victim of the spell.”

“What first victim?” My throat caught on the words. There was pain in that question’s answer, pain sharp as shattered bone.

“Ah.” The raven’s wingbeats slowed to a whisper. “Even were I willing to return that memory to you, you would not want it.”

Yet now that I knew the memory—the pain—was there, I couldn’t help searching my thoughts for it, like digging at an old scab.

The memory remained out of reach. I looked up again. It was easier now than before. I focused on the glossy wings and avoided the bright eyes. “Who are you?” My words echoed in the stone chamber.

“I have many names. Most of them humans have forgotten. Muninn is one a few yet remember. Memory is another. Not human memory—human memories are short. That is no matter. All any mortal beings once knew, I remember for them. Once I held those memories for my master, but he walks less and less often in this world. Yet though the old gods retreat to their own places, Memory remains in this land to the end of days.”

I kept scratching at that scab. Pain shot behind my eyes, but I didn’t cry out. I remembered how I’d woken, swallowing screams. Apparently I was someone who could handle pain. “I can hold my own memories,” I said.

Muninn threw back his head and krawked—it sounded like a warning. “Your memories were small enough payment for the life I saved. What gift can you offer me to have them back again?”

I barely knew my name. What could I possibly have to give? Why should it take a gift just to get my own memories back? “You had no right to take them.”

“Nor did I have any right to save your life. Yet save it I did, and that life is the one thing I’ll not take back again.” Muninn ducked his head and began grooming his sleek feathers.

The fox opened his tiny brown eyes. “It is easier to forget.” The small terns bobbed their heads in agreement.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and felt warm metal once more. I pulled out a small silver coin, engraved with circles and lines. I heard—or maybe remembered—a woman’s voice calling my name.

Muninn’s head jerked up. His wings moved. “What is that? I remember that.”

I held the coin out. “Would you like it?”

The raven blinked, his eyes flashing gray. “Now that is an interesting offer. Destroying the coin might make the earth safe from the spell—or it could release the spell’s power into the world. Best, perhaps, if I simply keep watch over it to prevent you from drawing on its power.”

“Take it, then.” Even as I spoke, I knew I’d be glad to be rid of the thing. “Take it and give me my memories.”

“I must think on this. I will return when I reach a decision.” Muninn launched himself from his perch, circled me once, and flew from the chamber. The little black-capped birds flew after him. Only the white fox remained. He uncurled himself and stretched his front legs.

I sighed and sat down on the bed. “Do you have a name, too?”

The fox climbed up beside me. “You may call me Freki, if you like.”

“I’m Haley.”

“I know,” the fox said, which seemed an unfair advantage. Why did everyone know who I was but me? Freki rested a paw on my leg and looked up. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah.” Starving, actually, though I hadn’t realized it until then.

“I’ll get food.” The fox walked over to the drinking horn. “Are you going to finish this?”

I shook my head, though my throat was dry. “It’s drugged, isn’t it?”

Freki’s ears flicked back. “It is not drugged.” He sounded offended. “But it is, perhaps, stronger than mortals are accustomed to—strong enough to mend broken bones and torn flesh. My master sustained himself on such mead. Will you finish it?”

I shook my head. I was glad to be mended, but I didn’t want to sleep again. “No. You can have it, if you want.”

The fox looked at up me, small brown eyes bright in the lamplight. “Are you certain? Even my master never allowed me a sip of his sacred mead.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Enjoy.”

Freki lowered his nose into the horn, making quiet lapping sounds as he drank. He was surprisingly tidy. He didn’t spill a single drop. He licked the last bits out with his long pink tongue, and I laughed.

Freki didn’t seem to mind. He nudged my hands with his warm nose. His breath smelled faintly of alcohol. “A most excellent gift. I will not forget it.” He turned and walked from the room, the tip of his bushy tail brushing the floor behind him. He didn’t seem sleepy, just a bit more careful in his steps than before.

I lay back on the stone bed, staring up into the shadows. “My name is Haley,” I whispered. How could everything I knew end there?

Freki padded back in a short time later, a small drinking skin hanging on a string from his neck. Behind him, two small birds flew in together, a plate piled with food hovering in the air between them. They flew to the bed, and the plate gently set itself down beside me. The terns made squeaky clicking sounds as they left the room, and their long tail feathers fanned out behind them.

The smell of cooked meat made my stomach rumble. Freki bowed his neck so I could take the skin. It hovered above the ground a little, too. “For later,” Freki said. “In case you change your mind.”

“I won’t change my mind.” I set the skin down beside the bed. “You don’t have any water, do you?”

Freki’s white whiskers twitched. “What adult drinks water?”

“This one.” When you lived in the desert, water tasted better than coffee, better than soda.

The desert. I wrenched that thought free from the mud of my thoughts. I live in a desert.

“I would not offend a guest with watered-down wine, let alone water itself. Do you require anything else?”

I shook my head and took the plate in my lap. Freki curled up beside me. I reached out to stroke his fur. The fox made a small contented sound and rolled over so that I could get his belly. The white fur there was just as soft.

Only after my hand was covered with fox fur did I realize Freki hadn’t brought a fork. I wiped my fingers on my jeans as best I could, took a slice of meat in my hands, and bit into it. It tasted like lamb, only sweeter. As I chewed, the sweetness grew stronger, making my whole body tingle.

Shit. “You drugged the meat, too.” Already my voice sounded thick. I threw the plate across the room—too late. The cave blurred around me. I tried to stand but felt myself falling, toward stones that suddenly seemed soft as feathers.

“Can I have your meat, too?” a voice squeaked. I was asleep before I could answer.