Skate the Thief

by Jeff Ayers

  “If we were ever outmaneuvered and found ourselves retreating, I’d lay a very particular trap along our path that invariably caught any pursuers unawares. It—” A punch into—literally into, Skate realized—Belamy’s chest cut him off, but only momentarily. The damage had not prevented him from speaking, somehow. “It was a very simple spell that only took a few words and a single object. I could set the trap to detonate for any time I chose, as long as I knew about how far away my enemies were—and I always knew, you understand; I made sure, every time. When it went off, they’d suffer losses and eventually give up the chase. Do you know what the object was the spell called for?”

  Hugo picked him up by the collar of his robe, and shook a stray hair out of his own face. “I bet you’re gonna tell me.”

  “A ruby.”

  Hugo cocked his head to the side in curiosity. Then his narrowed eyes widened in understanding as he looked at the robe in his hands and saw those strange, glinting gemstones. With a hiss, he threw the old man back to the ground and began to claw at the sphere. It withstood every blow and scratch. The bodyguards tried to help from the other side with an identical lack of results.

  “Go find a wizard, you idiots!” Hugo continued to pummel the prison, and the two bodyguards bolted into the street, each one charging off in a different direction. Belamy, meanwhile, had pulled himself up to a reclining position.

  Kite had finally caught his breath and was staring in horror at what was happening. He struggled to his feet and leaned back, still needing the support of the tree trunk. Everyone ignored him.

  “My apology earlier was not a lie, Hugo,” Belamy said. “I’m responsible for the thing you are. You did not deserve to die for your desertion; and compounded on that, you turned into this to avoid that injustice. My gift to you is the reversal of this last crime, at least.” The vampire did not react to the words, but continued bashing against the unyielding barrier. Belamy turned toward Skate and Twitch. “Run.”

  Hugo heaved a scream of terror, and his body contorted and folded into itself until he was the size of a fist. He sprouted leather wings and began bumping against the barrier, a bat unable to find a hole in unbreakable glass. Belamy smiled up at him, the unharmed side of his face almost matching the garish grin of his exposed skull on the other.

  “Be at peace.”

  The gems all along his robe flashed again, almost all in perfect unison, and retained their glow for three ticks of a clock.

  Flames exploded from Belamy, and there was nothing visible within the sphere but red and orange. A shockwave rippled beneath Skate and Twitch’s feet as they fled, Rattle close behind.

  Chapter 28

  In which magic is discovered, an adventure undertaken, and a heading chosen.

  They had gone three blocks before either of them dared to stop. She didn’t know whether she or Twitch had halted first, but they were both panting and leaning against the wall for support. There was moisture in her eyes, and not all of it was from the sting of cold air as she’d run. He’s gone. He’s really gone.

  No, not really, she reminded herself. The thing in her pocket was supposed to make sure of that. Still, the horrific way he’d been destroyed combined with his absence made it feel like he was gone for good, all planning to the contrary.

  Twitch was the first to speak. “The Big B-Boss was a vampire?”

  “Yeah.” Skate leaned her head back against the wall and sucked several deep breaths through her nose to get her lungs back under control. “Seems that way. I think his bodyguards were, too.”

  “We’ve been working f-f-for a vampire.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh. Weird.” Twitch collapsed against the wall, letting his fatigue get the better of him. His nose had stopped bleeding, at least; the blood sat dried and dark on his upper lip, and he wiped at it with his ragged sleeve. “How w-was he standing out in the day, then? I thought that those th-things couldn’t stay in sunlight. That’s w-what all the stories say. Ow.” He had twitched at the end of his sentence and knocked his head against the stone.

  “Dunno. Him and his bodyguards both weren’t bothered, though. He said he’d figured out a way around it. Some magic or other, I guess.”

  Twitch nodded and blinked hard, trying to regain all of his sense. “What’ll happen t-to Kite?”

  “Who cares.” Skate started laughing, then. She wasn’t feeling happy. It was just exhaustion. Twitch joined in, and the two leaned against an unknown building, shouting with laughter that had come from nowhere. Rattle floated nearby, looking at each of them in turn, not understanding what was going on.

  The laughter departed as abruptly as it had come. They took a few minutes to regain their breath, the familiar empty chuckles that usually followed such outbursts strangely absent. When she had calmed back down, Skate muttered to herself, “Rattle will show the way.”

  “What’s that?” Twitch turned to look at her and frowned.

  “Belamy told me that before his robes exploded. He said, ‘Rattle will show the way.’ I thought at the time that he was saying it aloud for everyone to hear, but if you didn’t hear it, I guess he used magic to get only me to hear it.” Skate closed her eyes and frowned. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Skate. Petre was calling to her from her pocket. She pulled him out.

  “What is th-that?” Twitch’s mouth was slightly agape as he watched the smoky blue glass. “Is it more magic?”

  Skate shushed him. “Yes, it’s magic. What is it, Petre?”

  His eyes came into view through the smoke in the glass. “I thought you might want to know that the gemstone in that statue in your pocket is glowing, off and on. It was very bright in there and was hurting my eyes.”

  Skate set Petre on a chunk of icy snow, where Twitch immediately dropped down to see within. She pulled the figurine out of her pocket. Sure enough, the blue gemstone at the end of Alphetta’s short staff was pulsing intermittently with noticeable light, almost the same way that the rubies had on Belamy’s robe. The blue glow illuminated Alphetta’s features in a sad way, though it was impossible to say why that should be so; she looked confident and graceful in this frozen artwork, not melancholy in any way.

  “What are you?”

  Skate turned to see Twitch holding Petre and spinning his prison around to try to look at him from a different angle.

  “Stop that,” Petre said, glaring at the boy. “If you drop me, the glass will break, and I’ll die.”

  Petre turned to look at Skate. “Why’s it doing that?”

  “How’m I supposed to know? It’s not like it’s mine.” Skate turned the statue, trying to see if there was anything else that was odd or had changed about it, but other than the light it shone every few seconds, it seemed as it always had.

  She felt someone looking at her, and stopped her inspection. Rattle was standing completely still on its rigid legs, staring with rapt attention at the gem on the statue. It did not move at all; even its wings remained totally still. She moved the statue off to the side, and Rattle moved its body to follow it, with that unceasing, unwavering focus. “Rattle?”

  It flapped a wing in response, but made no other acknowledgement that it had heard anything.

  “Petre, what is this?”

  “I’m afraid I have no idea. Rattle has never done anything like this in my many years around it. It looks like it wants the gemstone, though.”

  “Is that right? Do you want this thing, Rattle? Is it because Belamy is in here?”

  Rattle did not respond, even with a flap, but continued to stare.

  Skate moved the figurine closer to the thing, and Rattle moved forward a little in response.

  Skate hesitated. Rattle was a creature of magic, and this statue clearly had magic within it; doing something unknown with it was dangerous and probably stupid. Nevertheless, she tapped Rattle with the blue stone. There was a flash, and Rattle stood rigid, straight up to its full height. The blue glow remained, but not in the gemst
one. Instead, it seemed to issue from deep within Rattle’s pupil, the black pit glowing azure every few seconds, exactly as it had when it had been coming from within the gemstone.

  The magical creature turned and began flapping away from them with an urgency that was upsetting. It was almost out into the street when Skate had the sense to call out for it to stop.

  It turned toward her and shook its body, a shiver not unlike what she’d seen dogs do after finding shelter from rain. The light stopped shining in its eye; the glow had returned to the gemstone.

  Rattle flapped happily back toward them, seemingly unaware or else undisturbed by its sudden dash away from them all. Skate hid the statuette back in her pocket, not wanting a repetition of the episode.

  “Rattle,” Skate said, turning it toward her to look her in the eye, “I need to know something: Do you know what Mr. Belamy’s soul tether is?”

  It paused, then clicked once, which she had been taking to mean “yes.”

  “Okay. Is the statue of Alphetta the thing he tied his soul to?” Another stretch of silence, this one much longer. “Rattle, please. If it’s not the tether, he could be in a lot of trouble. You saw what happened back there. We need to make sure it’s safe. Is the little statue his tether?”

  Still with hesitation, Rattle clicked twice. No.

  “Maybe it’s l-lying,” Twitch offered, eyeing the thing with no small amount of distrust.

  “No,” Skate said, searching the eye for any insecurity, “no, I don’t think so. The figurine isn’t the tether.” Rattle seemed sure of its assessment—and if it did know what the tether was, it had no real reason to lie about the figurine and every reason to tell the truth. But this glowing thing happened only after Belamy was destroyed, she argued with herself. That can’t be a coincidence. Well, it could be, but it’s probably not. “Rattle,” she said again, “do you know where the tether is?”

  This was the first question that didn’t get a direct answer in response. The eyeball bat looked about, as if expecting to see either the tether or a sign pointing to it in large letters nearby. Its legs clacked indiscriminately, like heavy wind chimes she’d seen outside some bars in the docks. After several confused moments, it purposefully clicked once. Then twice. Yes, then no.

  “You do know, but you don’t know?”

  Rattle clicked a yes again, then flapped expectantly, as if she only needed to ask more questions to get to the bottom of this whole mess.

  “I get it,” Skate said, turning toward the others. “The statue shows Rattle where to go. Belamy hid his tether somewhere, and we’ve got to go find it and find him. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing now.”

  Petre and Twitch looked at each other, then back to Skate. Petre spoke first. “Okay, you may be onto something there, Skate. But why? Why do we need to go find him? The magic of what he is ought to bring him back just fine without our help.”

  “Maybe. But didn’t he say he became what he was in a way that wasn’t normal for liches? That he found a ‘different’ way to make it work? Maybe this is part of the difference. Maybe somebody has to do something to bring him back to life. Unlife, whatever.” The more she spoke, the surer she was that she was on the right track. “We have to go bring him back.”

  “I dunno, Skate,” Twitch said, rubbing the back of his head and jerking slightly as he spoke. “That’s kind of a r-reach, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t he just tell you what to do instead of all this s-s-secrecy?”

  “He didn’t have a reason before today to tell me anything, and when he did, he had to do it right under Hugo’s nose.” Speak up, Barry. “So he had to get the most important information to me, and he had to do it fast. ‘Rattle will show the way.’ That’s gotta be it.”

  “Aw, no, the Ink!” Twitch brought a hand to his forehead. He looked worried enough to be sick. “What’s gonna happen w-with the Ink now that the B-Big Boss is gone? The rest of the Bosses’re gonna fight for control. This city’s g-gonna go crazy.” He slumped back as the reality of it hit him. “I’m in big trouble. They’re g-gonna know I went against the Big Boss. I’ll have a t-target on my b-back, for sure.”

  “So come with us.”

  Twitch looked at Skate, on the verge of tears. “You mean it?”

  “Of course, dummy.” Skate poked his nose, and he swatted her hand away. “Doesn’t make sense for you to stick around here. We’ve got somewhere we’ve gotta be, and you’ve got anywhere else to be. Who else’d take you, anyway?” She smiled, and he smiled back.

  “All right. L-let’s go find your dead guy.”

  The sun was setting, and Skate had a backpack on. It felt weird, because behind her stood Caribol, the city she had spent her entire life learning how to survive. The gates were almost a mile behind them now, and hoofbeats rang out around them. Skate tried adjusting the strap until she decided to just take it off and hold the bag in front of her.

  There was a clinking noise as a statue knocked against a glass ball and a stoppered pitcher within. Skate opened the pack, but only long enough to make sure nothing was damaged and that the padding was in place; the blue light shining out would reveal more to any passersby than she would have liked.

  The wagon driver seemed not to notice; they’d paid him enough not to, and that was worth the extra helm. “No questions asked,” had been his exact phrase, and he was intent on honoring that. He hadn’t made eye contact or said a word to either of them once he’d gotten on the road.

  Skate turned to Twitch and nudged him. “How you doing?”

  “Good. Real g-good.” He looked it, surprisingly enough. They had gathered up, with Petre’s help, as much stuff as they could find and sell of Belamy’s to get them out of town safely, and taken the goods to one of the Ink fences. Their betrayal hadn’t percolated through all the rank and file of the organization yet, so they were able to make a substantial fortune from Belamy’s goods.

  “People are going to rob this place when we’re gone anyway,” Skate had explained, and even Petre had to admit that the goods within were likely forfeit within a week. So they had left the gates of Caribol with hundreds of scepts to their names. “He can make more money when we all come back.”

  Twitch had shrugged at that pronouncement, taking it as an axiom that wasn’t worth debating.

  The boy beside her was, for the first time she had ever seen, not wearing filthy rags. They had taken the time to stop and purchase traveling gear and a new set of comfortable and functional clothes for them both. Skate still had her dress, packed tightly away in her bag, but it made more sense to find a pair of trousers; they had no idea where they were going or what they would run into, but movement was probably going to be more important than fanciness of dress. Twitch was keeping a watchful eye on the road ahead. He had told her before embarking that he was concerned about the stories he’d heard of highwaymen who would accost travelers, demanding their money or their lives. “That’s how th-they say it, too. ‘Your m-money, or your life.’ We g-gotta be careful.” What being careful would do to help them if they did happen to get caught by someone after money, Skate did not know, but she did not press the matter. It gave him something to do on what might be a very long journey.

  Skate looked to the sky, which was clear and vibrant orange in the sunset for the first time in weeks. The snow was thick on the ground, but the traffic had helped to melt it along the paved road. Above them, unseen, Rattle kept pace with their progress. They had agreed it was best for the creature not to be seen unless absolutely necessary, given its upsetting appearance.

  It was thanks to its strange connection to the gem in the statue that they knew where they should go; as a test, they had tried touching it with the gemstone again, and Rattle had gone south. They shook it out of its strange trance and tried two more times with identical results. Wherever Belamy was, it was somewhere to the south of the city of Caribol. Skate had only a dim idea of the geography of the surrounding lands, but she was fairly sure there was some great untamed forest to the sou
th. Did he put his soul tether there, away from everyone? It seemed dangerous, since wild animals roamed the woods, but it was possible he’d protected it with magic. It was equally possible that the tether wasn’t in the woods at all, and lay somewhere farther south, or that the woods functioned as a waypoint for the direction-giving magic in the statue (and by extension, Rattle), and they’d take off in an entirely new direction soon.

  Skate wasn’t worried. They’d get to their destination in the end. And in the meantime, she would learn something precious, even more precious than words written plainly on a page. In her bag, she held a particular yellow book that Petre had suggested she take.

  She smiled at the setting sun, relishing the cold wind that blew around her. It did not feel like an attack or an irritation. It felt like the promise of an adventure.

  In Belamy’s absence, Petre had promised to teach her magic.

  Epilogue

  In which a mess is cleaned up, and a mess is made.

  The sun, of course, was setting inside the city as well. A pair of Guardsmen was standing watch over a gaggle of Keepers cleaning up the shops and grounds around the small blasted courtyard in the Baron’s district. The fires started by the lightning barrage had not spread; the treated wood had done its work properly. Near the center of the courtyard, leaning against a sturdy tree, one of the Guardsmen, a portly fellow named Harald, was badgering his fellow about details of the events that had so scandalized the district earlier in the day.

  “Come on, you were ’ere,” he said, with a languorous wave at nothing in particular. “Just about th’ only one, I’d wager.” He guffawed and slapped the other man on the back with a customary overabundance of enthusiasm.

  The other man, a stringy chap named Aigel (Egg, to his friends), winced and shrugged off the hand. “Oy, watch it.” Egg winced again, and brought a hand up to his swollen jaw, purple from the blow he’d received earlier. “I already told you, there weren’t nothing to tell. I got knocked out before most anything happened, and I weren’t looking when the fires broke out. I was keeping people back from it all.”