Lhind the Thief (6 page)

“No, that he’s not. Have you forgotten his illusion when the
Brotherhood attacked us?”

“His one trick. And it is a good one, I’ll admit. But of
what use to us? The sooner you give up this foolish plan of yours, the sooner
we can get back to matters of real import, such as Dhes-Andis’s prospective
fleet—”

“Or what to do with Kressanthe,” Hlanan replied calmly.

“You invited her aboard, you entertain her. You have no
title, so you’re safe enough from her designs.”

“Ilyan, we couldn’t have left her stranded in Tu Jhan.”

Ilyan? Had to be a private or inner-family name. Nobles had
them, and others who had public faces, I’d discovered. Ilyan for intimates,
Rajanas his family name, and that nasty princess had addressed him by a
territorial name, as if his importance was measured by what he owned.

For a delicious moment I imagined binding magic onto all
three of his names while he was present, so that, oh, every time he tried to
speak, snakes would fall from his lips, or he’d fold his arms and cluck like a
chicken, but he’d probably find the snakes funny, and Hlanan would give me one
of those looks, partly question, partly puzzlement, maybe a little sad. I
hated
that . . . that expectation
that I had a better nature.

“Why not?” Rajanas said, blithely unaware of my
fulminations. “Kressanthe has plenty of money, a powerful father to keep those
thieving City Magisters from touching her, and I still maintain she only came
to the regatta to nose around. The question is, for whom? We really should have
left her on the dock. She could have bought her own ship.”

“But she appealed so directly,” Hlanan replied with a sigh.
“I could not turn her down, not in any way that would not register as offensive
when the reasons were conveyed back to her father. It is beyond necessary that
no more attention be called to your activities than would normally accrue to a
nobleman on a pleasure cruise. It’s bad enough we’re forced to carry Geric
Lendan with us, but at least he’ll find nothing of interest aboard the yacht.
And carrying her ought to kill any rumors about our being on secret missions.”

“Perhaps. But she’ll repeat everything that my dear ‘cousin’
Geric gets these lackwits to say over drink.” He gave the word
cousin
some extra drawl. “And she’ll even carry
back tales of this accursed mudball of a thief you’ve thrust on us. What a
pleasant cruise we’re having!”

Hlanan laughed, sounding free and boyish. “But Kressanthe’s
gossip is all to the good,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

Rajanas replied ironically, “Yes, I’d momentarily forgotten
how valuable it will be to have us laughed out of the Imperial Court once the
tale of our cat-and-mouse game with one undersized thief gets around. How
better to keep up the appearance of a couple of bumbling wastrels?”

Hlanan laughed again, then said, “Come. Halt your gloomy
mood with the midday meal. Let’s find Thianra. Maybe she can sing you into
smiles again. I heard her picking out some new pieces.”

Quick as thought I hopped up the stairs to the deck.

The problem with eavesdropping, I thought aggrievedly as I
massaged my throbbing toes, is that you can’t take revenge for insults that you
were not supposed to hear.

Limping swiftly back to my own cabin, I thought over what
the two had said. What did it mean? And how could I use it against that
Rat-Spawned Rajanas?

I felt the sun warm on the back of my cowl, and fought the
urge to lift the hair that lay squashed against my spine. Scratching crossly, I
reflected that the only bad thing about taking a bath every year or so is the
itching in the warm weather. Each year I forget how much I hate summer until it
threatens to come again. The sense of being smothered in all the thicknesses of
my disguise nearly overwhelmed me.

Nasty as it was, it was also safe.

Fighting against a mood worse than any Rajanas could be
suffering, I jammed my hand inside my trousers to shift my gear around more
comfortably, and my fingers closed on Yellow Smock’s money bag. Why, I’d almost
forgotten it!

I thought angrily that this just
showed
how unsettling this adventure had
been—imagine letting a take go this long before being explored!

First I went back to the cabin door and threw the bar, then
I opened the bag onto my bunk. The wealth of glittering coins improved my mood
with a bounce. Counting carefully, I came up with half a twelve of silvers and
three-twelve and four lecca. More money than I’d seen at one time for quite a
while.

Raising my eyes to the window, I saw a startling sight.

The horizon was no longer a flat blue, water dissolving into
firmament. A line of dark mountains now stitched sea to the sky.

I moved toward the scuttle, as if pulled by an invisible
thread. Mountains! It had been several years since I’d seen any. The sight
inspired both fear and longing. In my earliest memories the fear had driven me
to run away from mountains and hide. Those were my earliest distinct memories.

Restlessness itched at me, worse than that on my skin. I
scratched irritably at my hood, wishing I could tear off my cumbersome clothing
and loosen hair and tail. The itch subsumed the fear, freeing a desire to break
through the fog of half-memory and puzzlement that surrounded my early years,
and figure out who I truly was, and wherefrom I had come.

I glanced back at my wealth on the bunk. Whatever I’d said
to Hlanan, I knew I was done with Thesreve. It was time to run again.

A knock at my door caused me to sweep the coins back into
the bag. I got the bag stashed in my trousers again before I unbolted the door.

To my surprise it was Hlanan, bearing a tray of food.

“I thought you might like a noon meal,” he said, coming
inside.

“Doesn’t it bother anyone, your waiting on me like this?” I
asked.

“I have not asked. Does it disturb you?” he replied.

“Well, yes,” I admitted. “A few scraps thrown my way would
be more in keeping with what I’m used to. This makes me feel something bad is
about to happen.”

“I cannot ask Rajanas’s servants to wait on you, and I am
not the sort of person who flings scraps. You’ll have to do with me. I noticed
yesterday that you do not eat either chicken or fish.” He looked at me
questioningly as he set the tray down on the little table.

I shrugged, uncomfortable with any kind of personal
questions. “Disagrees with my innards,” I muttered, and filled my mouth with
food so I wouldn’t have to talk.

“And,” he said, when he saw I was not going to amplify, “I
wanted to have a chance to talk to you alone. I have a proposition for you.”

“Prop—” I coughed on a wad of bread.

“—osition,” he finished encouragingly. “Business. For which
you’ll be paid. Well, I might add.” His voice changed to question, his gaze
narrow and watchful. Whatever was about to come out was clearly important to
him.

I scowled at him. “What.”

“There is an ancient book of spells I would like more than
anything to have in my possession. I need someone who knows a bit about magic
as well as about the, ah, mechanics of stealing.”

Relief whooshed through me. Now, at last, he made some kind
of sense. “So you nobbled me because you need a thief,” I said.

He smiled a little. “Well, yes. In part. The main part,” he
hastened to add.

“But a book? Books don’t bring any kind of price.”

“A book of spells,” he repeated. “Very powerful ones. And I
would reward you with six crowns. Uh, empire-struck gold crowns, not the
silver-mixed ones used in the islands.”

I calculated rapidly. “Six? But I can’t read. What if I find
the wrong one? I never go back to a house, especially some magician. I don’t
want to end up as a footstool.”

“Ah yes, I’d forgotten that you can’t read.” His eyes
narrowed slightly. “Then I will teach you.”

I frowned, aware that he’d offered those golden crowns
mightily easily. Whole houses were bought and sold in Thesreve for about that
price, and to look at him there in his plain clothes one would have assumed he
hadn’t ever seen two together.

Setting aside this incongruity for later mulling, I went
into bargaining mode. “Six . . .” I said, letting the word
stretch out doubtfully. “That’s not much when you add in all that sweat-work
and time wasted learning a thing I won’t have any use for in the
future . . .”

“Double, then,” he said promptly. “To cover the time you
waste learning to read.”

“Done,” I said, before he could back out, and I actually
felt a brief twinge of remorse. He was too honest to be a good bargainer, and I
figured he’d regret this bargain when he’d had time to think it out.
Well, let him learn a lesson now. Maybe it’ll save him
some real grief later
.

“Good,” he said, dropping his hands to his knees, and
looking well pleased with himself. “We will be sailing into Letarj in the
morning. We will leave from there straight for Imbradi, where we will form our
plot. Our lessons shall begin on the way. Right now I’ll tell Rajanas that
you’ll be accompanying us to his capital.”

I snorted a laugh. “Better you than me,” I said. Irritating
as the thought of more of Rajanas’s company was, it was cheery to reflect that
his disgust on hearing the news would be at least as strong as mine. And in his
capital, I would feel no compunction whatever about embarking on a strenuous
quest to increase my wealth.

Hlanan left. I wandered back to the scuttle, pleased—and
somewhat relieved—to have a plan of action. The sight of the mountains woke up
that old yearning, and daydreams? Memories? Images flooded my mind, strong
currents of air over deep, shadow-hidden valleys. Snow gleaming on rocky peaks
in pale light. Gliding, high and wide . . .

That bird-voice sheared into my thoughts.
Hrethan, hear me! I would rather die than
harm you. Hrethan spared our kind again and again in the past. They alone of
your kind share the skies with us. Any aid I can give you I will, now and until
breath is still, and all time stands before the Maker-of-Life. Command, and I
hear.

What’s Hrethan?
I
cried back.

You
, the bird
returned.

Are there others?
I asked cautiously.

Yes. Far and far.
And then, to my surprise, the bird caused me to see again those mountain peaks
and valleys.

I turned away, my heart hammering with fear, wonder, and
questions, the foremost being: if these were memories, when, where, and how did
I end up where I was?

You are like, and yet
different
, Tir amended.

And so I was forced
out, is that it? To wander about on my own, to guard my own life or lose it,
and no one to watch or care? Is that it?

The bird had no answer.

Old grief lay right under the memory-stirrings. I squashed
it down again, and busied myself with rearranging my stash, and recounting my
coins. Those, at least, were solid. Understandable. Real.

That night they had a party. The quiet, efficient servants
strung lanterns along the standing rigging. The night being balmy, food was
brought forth and laid on folding tables on the deck. Musicians gathered around
the binnacle, Thianra in their midst, wearing her bard’s robes of blue, her
hair shining with coppery highlights in the lantern-light.

About twelve people comprised Rajanas’s company, not
counting servants. (And they wouldn’t count the servants.) Most of them were
male, and all of them were young. Four young ladies, including that obnoxious
Princess Kressanthe, vied with laughter and flirty fans for the notice of one
of the young lords. All had dressed in their best finery, floaty panels and
velvets, with ribbons and lace and jewels glittering and gleaming in the
candlelight. I caught the random, blood-glow flickers of two rubies braided
into Rajanas’s long black hair.

The one who was the focus of the most attention was tall and
slender, slightly older than the others, and marvelously dressed with
moon-sapphires shining in his apricot locks. He was exactly the type to arouse
admiration and desire; once even mine, but I rejected the impulse to linger,
and I looked only to despise.

They laughed and talked, switching back and forth between
two or three languages. I could understand all the words, of course, but I sure
didn’t catch many of the references, and the laughter sounded more heartless
than humorous. I noticed Hlanan, plainly dressed as always, standing on the
perimeter looking pensive.

Taking my cue from him, I stayed up on the masthead, out of
sight. Battles and chases I could handle with little thought, but there was a
cruel edge to that laughter, especially when Kressanthe led it, that I deeply
misliked, especially since what they said rarely made sense. I knew I could
think up insults as quickly as any, but that was defense. Little as I wished to
find attraction in Prince Copper or his smooth-faced, glittering friends, still
less did I wish to serve as target for their wit.

So I stayed only to nab some of the eats, and when the music
started, stirring up old emotions and half-buried memories without much sense,
I retreated to skulk in my cabin.

Not that I could entirely escape. Over the next watch
occasional breezes wafted scraps of music into my cabin—which, I discovered,
actually belonged to the yacht’s first mate, who was now housed down below
where the toffs stayed. The music played on and on, often blending with the sweet,
silvery rise and fall of Thianra’s voice.

I had worked hard to build a stone wall around my heart, but
music always seemed to put cracks between the stones, through which useless
emotions leaked out. I resented this weapon. I wanted hurtful emotions locked
safely away so they couldn’t, well, hurt.

I stayed high up until one by one the instruments and voices
fell silent, and all I heard were the occasional calls of the night watch, the
creak of rope and wood, and the endless wash-slap of the sea against the hull.