Lhind the Thief (20 page)

Tir stretched its black-tipped wings and croaked a welcome.
“Come! Come! Today!” And with the words came a vivid mental picture of a
red-sailed ship being readied for departure.

“We’ve got to ride fast,” I said to Kee.

She gave a short nod. “I’ll get the ponies.”

We were soon on the road. The hill ponies are strong and
sturdy for mountain trails, but they don’t run fast or for long. We kept them
at a steady pace, and I scanned mentally back and forth until at last I found
some running horses. They were curious and willing, so I yelled for Kee to
stop.

She was considerably startled by the sight of a herd of
horses pounding toward us from across a long field, but I didn’t explain. As
usual I had to fight the dizziness that comes whenever I do mental-travel at
the same time as I’m moving. “These horses’ll run us to the harbor,” I said,
husky as I fought the nausea caused by vertigo. “We can send the ponies
homeward.”

Overhead, Tir screeched exhortations to hurry.

Kee silently worked with me to exchange the saddles, but I
noticed a frown between her straight brows. We soon cantered over the low
hills, grasses and flowers of spring flashing by underfoot.

It wasn’t until we’d begun to pass occasional villages and
farmhouses that we slowed somewhat. Fences crossing the countryside forced us
to seek a road, which soon brought us into traffic. When we saw riders we
slowed to a sedate pace, waiting until they were well past to resume our
headlong flight.

During one of these times Kee turned that frown in my
direction. “You can bring animals under your will, is that it?”

I shrugged. “Sort of.”

“Have you forced creatures into thievery?”

I blinked. “Have I what?”

“Animals don’t
steal
,
except to eat,” she said, still with that watchful frown. “I suppose it must be
easier to use them—”

“Here. Let’s understand one another,” I interrupted. “When I
call to animals, they come if they want to. And if they don’t, I don’t make
them. I don’t even know if I could.” I snorted. “And I never used animals to
get stuff, except maybe a few times when I was little, and wasn’t too good yet.
But that, too, was just for eating. Birds to knock down nuts and fruit. That
kind of thing. All my stealing I do on my own. No help from anyone.”

“Morals?” she asked, her mouth curving in irony.

“Sport,” I said, matching tone for tone.

Her mouth thinned as an angry flush darkened her cheeks,
then her eyes widened. “I guess I deserved that,” she said reluctantly, if no
more friendly. “I apologize for passing judgment.”

I was sorely tempted to say
Right, you shouldn’t
, but I was aware that I pass judgments all the
time. You have to, to size up whether someone is an enemy or not. The
difference is that I usually don’t mouth it out, expecting the world either to
concur or to change to fit my ideals.

Still, I could see that it had cost her some effort to make
this admission, so I just shrugged again and said, “Come on, we’ve got a
scribe-mage to rescue.”

Tir gave a long, ear-scraping shriek. Our horses sidled, and
began once more to gallop.

o0o

Fara Bay made Stormborn Harbor in Thesreve look
prosperous, peaceful and orderly. The better part of the city sat along the
outskirts, around the rim of the natural valley. We passed by small, formidably
built-up castles, most of them flying an array of flags.

“They boast their allies,” Kee said, pointing up at the gate
of one castle. We counted twelve different devices hanging on the wall over the
gate. Between these were rotting heads stuck on poles. “The large number of
allies is supposed to serve as a warning to any attackers,” she said.

“Those heads would work for me,” I said, looking away from a
fairly fresh one with thousands of black flies circling about. My stomach
clenched inside me.

“That’s what they do to criminals,” Kee said, looking angry.
“A criminal being someone who has committed such crimes as stealing bread, or
not getting a fully-laden cart out of the way of a galloping lord. To enemies,
they—”

“I don’t think I want to know,” I said. “Seeing as we’re
about to attack one of their haunts in the port.”

Kee laughed and shook her head. “In truth, I have no taste
for the ways of this land. But I think it better to be warned.”

“I don’t know about that,” I muttered.

We passed down the road, the steel-helmeted warriors
watching us. They were everywhere now, wearing different House badges but much
the same sort of gear. Like the unfortunates who lived in this land, we drew
aside and let them pass. Several times we were appraised from head to toe by
unfriendly glances, but we were not stopped.

I figured we were too dusty and mud-spattered and
uninteresting to bother searching. Kee’d braided her hair and stuffed it down
the back of her plain homespun tunic, so she looked like neither boy nor girl,
her age impossible to guess—and as for me, I’d bound the mud-streaked sash
securely round my head when I woke up, and I’d also turned my trousers around
and hid my tail once again.

The poor folk we saw were ragged and thin. The local
citizens who stopped their work and stared at us seemed think us something
exotic, as if they saw travelers outside their area only seldom.

Not surprising, I thought grimly as I looked around. Anyone
coming through here would have to be on business—probably something sinister.

The houses built up close by the fortresses were scarcely
more than hovels. No one but the lords owned land. The people worked land in exchange
for protection, Kee told me in a low voice as we passed between villages. Not
that they were much protected, because the most frequent pastime of the great
lords was to make war on one another, wars that often involved burning one
another’s towns and crops.

We knew we’d reached Fara Bay at last when the villages gave
way to narrow, winding streets between rows of crowded buildings. The houses
were poor and filthy, the ragged locals even more pitiful. Quite a contrast to
brightly dressed bullies belonging to the various ships who swaggered about
looking for entertainment. The smells were nearly overpowering. It was obvious
local taxes were not wasted on the guild that wands away animal droppings.

Tir’s crest ruffled, and the bird made stressful murmling
noises from time to time, but it never left my shoulder. Not even when a
drunken sailor made a snatch at it, roaring something about “Worth a few
coppers.”

When we reached the streets adjacent to the docks the locals
eyed us, and our horses, with a kind of speculation I immediately recognized. I
gave them back stare for stare, and usually the glances sidled away. Kee sat
silently, her hand on the hilt of her knife, her expression stony.

Then Tir flapped and danced on my shoulder.
Hlanan near, Hlanan near!
The frantic
stream of images while I was moving made me so dizzy I nearly fell off the
horse; I clapped my hands over my eyes, barely aware of Kee catching the reins
of my horse and bringing us to a halt.

I closed the inner eyelid so I could regain my balance, then
cautiously opened my eyes. We’d stopped in a small courtyard surrounded by tiny
hovels thrown up every which way, mostly of broken and weathered wood, mud, old
sail and other oil-slimed detritus fished up from the waters. No one was in
view, but I felt unfriendly eyes scanning us, which made me twitchy.

I tried a shimmer: on the street where we’d just come, I
made a squad of those steel-topped warriors appear. From behind the dilapidated
walls came the sounds of sudden scrabblings as the watchers made a fast
retreat.

“There,” I said. “Maybe we’ve got a bit of time.”

“What was that?” Kee asked slowly.

“Shim—ah, illusion magic,” I said. “Nothing real. You’ll
have to get used to it, because we’ll probably have to count on it to get
Hlanan free.”

She flushed right up to her dirty hairline.

I turned my eyes to the aidlar.
Where’s Hlanan?

Inside human-building.

Tir projected an image. Seen from above, I identified the
kind of house toughest to break into. It was a few streets over, well-guarded.
Built around a central square with solid walls on the outside, it only allowed
one in through the single door—or via the roof.

Hlanan here,
Tir
sent. I saw a corner room, with a tiny window looking onto the inner court. The
next image was a distorted view inside, with Hlanan lying on the ground, bound
with chains.

Can you send him
thoughts like you and I do?
I asked.

No
, Tir answered,
its distress clear.

Go find out what’s
happening. Come right back.

Tir soared upward and disappeared over the rotting roof of
an inn.

“That pothouse,” I said, pointing at a building across the
street from our courtyard. “Let’s go in and get something. Better than staying
out here, inviting someone to jump us.”

“We’ll be poisoned,” Kee muttered.

“So we order but don’t eat. Let’s free the horses.”

Kee dismounted, pulling her gear with her. Since it was
likely the horses would be stolen anyway if we tied them to the post, it was
time to let them go. We’d find our way on foot from this point on.

Inside the inn, the smells of bad punch, old garbage, and
unwashed humans made the place seem smaller than it was. A tall, strong-looking
innkeeper with an elaborate hairdo of braids snarled pleasantly, “Let’s see yer
coin, bumpkins.”

I flipped a Thesrevan copper at her, knowing from experience
that port cities usually take foreign money—usually attaching an exorbitant
“change fee.” That copper was probably four times the going rate for the punch
which we wouldn’t drink, but I hoped it would buy us some time unmolested. The
innkeeper stomped to the other end of the counter.

Kee sat down at a table overlaid with a greasy film that
gleamed redly in the murky light of a smoky fire. “I didn’t know you speak
Faran,” she murmured. “I know some, but—”

“Never mind that,” I said, casting a quick look around before
I sat down next to her. She’d been well trained; the table she’d picked placed
us with our backs to a wall, and with a window conveniently close at hand just
in case. “Don’t keep looking around like something stinks—”

“But it does stink,” she protested in a whisper.

“So pretend it doesn’t. We don’t need them to think us
slumming toffs.” I leaned my elbows in the grease.

Kee tried to copy me, but when her arms skidded she
shuddered, yanked them back and put her hands in her lap.

“Now here’s the plan,” I said. “Details to be worked out
when the aidlar returns. I’m going to make an almighty diversion at the door.
When they get out to look, you slip in. I’ll go over the roof.”

“How will you climb—so what ship will you try for this
time?” Her tone did not alter as two thick mugs crashed down in front of us. I
had to admire her quick wit. That big innkeeper had come up as silently as a
cat just back of my right shoulder.

“Sailors, huh?” the innkeep growled in heavily slurred
Allendi. “Hah.” She snorted and stomped away. Her steps now shook the house.

Kee glanced down into her mug, and grimaced when she spotted
brown crusties floating in the dark liquid.

“We’ll do it again,” I said, hoisting my glass and
pretending to drink. I’d had half a mind not to waste good punch, but the sight
of a many-legged insect floating belly up in my mug inspired me to reconsider.
I’d have felt more confident about the punch had the creature been swimming
happily. “I create a diversion, you get across to the corner room—here.” I sketched
the general layout of the house in the table’s grime, and when she nodded, I
smeared it out with a shove of my mug.

“How do we get him away?” Kee murmured.

“Maybe he’ll have an idea,” I said, shrugging. “If not, the
same plan. The place will be in an uproar, I can guarantee you that,” I assured
her.

Tide low, humans
saying—
Tir’s thought speared into my mind.

“Let’s go,” I said.

The open door darkened just as we reached it, and we found
ourselves staring into the faces of five or six big, overgrown louts. “Hey.”
The foremost one, whose potato nose and hanging brow-ridge closely resembled
the innkeep’s, sneered. “You forgot to pay your visitors tax.”

Kee’s eyes met mine, and we moved together. A kick in a
knee, a punch in a soft belly, a shove so that one fell and tangled himself in
the legs of his cronies, and we were out the door. They didn’t chase us.

“Not bad,” I said, grinning.

Kee grinned back, the first I’d seen. Then her head jerked
up as Tir fluttered down nearby.
Hurry,
hurry. They take the prisoners out soon.

“We must act now,” I said. “Much rather wait for dark, but
looks like we don’t have that much time.”

Kee hefted her knife. “With the two of us fighting, maybe
we’ll have a chance,” she said.

“Don’t count on me,” I warned. “When I do magic, I can’t do
anything else. Maybe real sorcerers can, but I can’t. I’ll help as I’m able.”

“Right.” She gave me her characteristic short nod. Before,
accusing, now just accepting of the facts.

We made our way through a narrow alley to the street our
building was on. When I saw the guards standing before the doorway, I motioned
Kee back. She came without a word. I couldn’t explain it, but instinct urged me
to ready any aid I had to hand. Something was wrong—more wrong than the fact
that two undersized rescuers were about to attack a storehouse full of armed
guards.

Crouching behind a crumbling fence, I fished around in my
clothing and retrieved my two caged magicians. The whistle I shoved into one of
the sash-folds, just above my ear. I was careful to keep it from touching my
flesh; I didn’t want Dhes-Andis to know what was going on unless I had to. I
slipped the necklace around my neck and shoved the stones down the front of my
tunic. As I fixed the clasp, I concentrated on “closing” my inner eyelid. Kee
faced outward watchfully.