Thief's Curse

by C. Greenwood

  I noticed he was holding something back, a brooch he had removed from his fine coat, before giving the garment over to be put on the corpse. “We’ll need to put that on him too,” I said. “It’ll make the deception more convincing.”

  Habon stubbornly refused to give up the item, a round brooch of hammered metal, inlaid with copper- and amber-colored stones. It was large enough to fill my fist and inscribed across the back were the words “fidelity and service.”

  “This belonged to my father and should be passed down to my firstborn one day,” Habon insisted. “I cannot part with it.”

  I gave up persuading him and went to look over the corpse, now dressed like Habon. I was glad to see my memory hadn’t deceived me. The man with the scarred chin had roughly the same height, build, and coloring as the praetor’s son. The rest of the details wouldn’t matter when I was through.

  I told Dradac and Kinsley to set the corpse afire and to watch over the burning. I wanted to make sure the face was ultimately unidentifiable, yet preserve enough of the clothing that it would be recognized as Habon’s. As my thieves kindled the fire, I took Habon’s sword also and added that to the blaze.

  “With any luck, this will accomplish what we need,” I told a doubtful Habon. “When your guards return with reinforcements from the city to rescue you, this is all they will find. It should appear that a band of forest brigands set out to rob you and your company. Upon discovering too late the importance of the man we had murdered—that he was none other than the heir to the praetorship—we panicked and tried to destroy the evidence of our accidental treason.”

  “Your plan won’t succeed,” Habon told me. “My brother will be called upon to identify my body, and he will realize this charred corpse is not me.”

  “I don’t think Tarius will be looking too hard,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means as long as you stay out of the way and never resurface to interfere with his plans, I think Tarius will be content to let you stay dead.”

  “Then it is as I feared,” Habon said as if to himself. He looked at me with a pained expression. “You’re saying the person plotting my death is my own brother.”

  I didn’t spare him the truth. “He asked me to kill you.”

  “I have long suspected he wished to assume my place as our father’s heir. But I can’t believe he would go so far as to arrange my death,” Habon said.

  Despite his words, I could see by the betrayed look in his eyes that he knew it was true.

  “What do I do now?” he asked, seeming lost.

  “That is up to you,” I said. “Most men would return to confront him. But I’ve gone to the trouble of this elaborate ruse because I don’t think that’s what you’ll want. From what I know of you, you’ll not find the position of praetor worth fighting for. I believe it’s a simpler life you desire. And if I’m right, your convenient ‘death’ gives you the opportunity to live it.”

  I could see him struggling to come to grips with all this information.

  “If you don’t take this chance, I can’t guarantee you another,” I prompted. “Sooner or later, your brother will be the death of you, just as he arranged the attempted assassination of your father in Deerwood. That your father survived that day was due to my reluctance to murder him, not to any lack of determination on Tarius’s part.”

  He looked startled. “Tarius ordered my father’s killing?”

  “He told me to make it look like an accident.”

  Habon absorbed this.

  “Then that really was you, the thief my father hanged in the wood?” he asked. “I thought I was imagining your resemblance. How is it possible that you are here now, when I saw you die?”

  “Magic,” I said with a grim smile. “Where you’re going, you’d best get used to it.”

  “You’re taking me to Ada,” he realized.

  “Come on,” I said.

  I bound my lightly injured arm and left a couple of my men watching over the burning corpse. Then the rest of us led Habon off into the trees.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was a day’s travel from the road where the ambush had occurred to the part of the forest where Ada’s family camped outside a little woods village. We arrived to find Ada had followed my instructions, coming to Dimmingwood and staying with her kin to await our arrival. She stood by with provisions and was ready to slip away from the camp immediately, before anyone around could recognize Habon in his rough disguise.

  “You must find someplace secret to settle and never again communicate with any friends or family from your former lives,” I told the couple as they prepared to set out. “Our deception has brought you a chance for the new life you want together. But a complete break with your past selves is the only way you’ll escape detection. You must never give Tarius cause to suspect your survival or to come looking for you.”

  “We understand,” Ada assured me. “I know of a quiet spot here in the province, an isolated community where we can live like common farm folk, unnoticed.”

  I frowned. “Here in the province? Farther away would be safer. Someplace where Tarius couldn’t find you in the future even if he sent his Iron Fists to search.”

  “My brother wouldn’t go that far,” Habon argued. “Even as hungry for power as he is, if we make no trouble, he’ll be willing to count us dead. You said so earlier yourself.”

  I wasn’t sure I really believed that. Who knew how far a cunning young man like Tarius—or Praetor Tarius, as he was soon to become—would go to remove all rivals? I remembered his hatred for natural magickers. If he realized one had stolen off with his brother, how far would his wrath extend?

  * * *

  The thieves and I left Ada and Habon to make their own journey. I wished them well and was surprised to feel a faint tug of sadness as I saw the last of them. I had the satisfaction of knowing I had repaid my debt to Ada for her faithful friendship to Ferran and me. But it was strange to realize that, when we parted for good, I was severing my last link to the past. From here on out, there would be no one in my life who had ever known me as anything other than an outlaw. Going forward, Rideon the Red Hand was my only identity.

  My thieves and I traveled back toward the part of Dimmingwood that would eventually lead us to Red Rock Camp. Shortly after we passed the site of the ambush, the woods began to darken. The day was stretching into night. We would have continued on our way, but we happened upon an abandoned farmhouse and a dilapidated old barn. Wearied, we decided we were a safe enough distance from the road to pass the night in the comfort of shelter.

  Perhaps comfort was too strong a word for what we found. While most of the band chose the house, Dradac, Kinsley, and I decided to sleep in the barn, where it was less crowded. It was a decaying structure with gaps between the boards that let in cold blasts of wind. I climbed up into a loft and lay down in a scattering of moldy-smelling straw. After arranging the Thief’s Blade and my magic bow within easy reach, I went to sleep.

  I wasn’t sure what woke me a few hours later. I lay still in the total blackness of the barn and listened. There were the snores of my companions nearby and the soft sigh of the wind whistling under the doors and through the cracks in the walls. And then from somewhere distant came a shout. The words were indistinct, but it sounded like the raising of an alarm. I cried a warning to Dradac and Kinsley, waking them from their sleep. Groping around in the darkness, my searching fingers found the Thief’s Blade in the straw beside me. I snatched it up and clambered down the ladder from the loft. From outside came more shouts and sounds of commotion.

  I burst out the doors of the barn with Dradac and Kinsley on either side. We emerged into a scene of chaos. My thieves had spilled out of the nearby farmhouse and were fighting for their lives against a hoard of attackers. Armed and on horseback, the enemy had us outnumbered. Already I saw some of my men dead upon the ground. Beneath the faint moonlight, I identified our black-armored foes as Iron Fists, the personal guard
of the praetor. Somehow the soldiers we had attacked the other day must have gotten word to the city and gathered reinforcements faster than we had dreamed possible. Now they were here, determined to avenge their seemingly murdered heir to the praetorship.

  I rushed into the frenzied fray, charging between the enemies’ horses and slashing my way toward my companions. In the darkness, it was difficult to tell friend from foe. Great bulky shapes rose up in the shadows before me. Only the sheen of armor or the flash of a scarlet cloak would warn me at the last moment that I was facing a Fist. Plunging and rearing horses were dangerous obstacles in my path. The cries of men and the ringing of blades mingled with the screams and snorts of the animals.

  Although we fought fiercely, it was immediately obvious the thieves stood no chance in this fight. Our only hope was to escape into the trees and lose the soldiers in the dense forest. As soon as I reached my followers, I gave the order to flee for the cover of the woods. Abandoning the farm and the clearing, we dashed through bushes and trees, into the deeper shadows of the wood.

  Our enemies gave chase but were slowed by the thickness of the forest growth. We could hear them on their mounts crashing clumsily through the underbrush. But we traveled fast and light. We had come to know this part of the wood as well as we had once known the crooked lanes and back alleys of the city. After splitting up to confuse pursuit, we darted through trees, scrambled over little hills, and splashed through shallow streams. Gradually the sounds of the soldiers behind us began to fade in the distance.

  But we didn’t dare slow down. Not until we had put so much distance between us we were confident of safety. Hours later, dawn found me running with Javen and Thorben, the rest of my party having scattered in other directions. That was all right. We knew where we would meet up again. As the three of us scrambled to the top of a steep rise, we finally stopped and risked a look back in the direction we had come. Of the black-armored pursuers there was no longer any sign. We had lost them.

  But a more chilling sight met my eyes as I looked toward the part of the wood we had fled. In the distance, rising to meet the lightening morning sky was an ominous orangey glow. Thick plumes of black smoke spiraled upward and gathered like a haze over the treetops. The acrid smell of burning wood drifted to my nostrils on the breeze.

  “They’ve set the forest ablaze,” Javen said unnecessarily.

  He was right. Whether it had been an accident or an intentional act of vengeance, the Iron Fists had set fire to Dimmingwood.

  In a somber mood, we continued on to Red Rock Camp, where the rest of our companions trickled in over the rest of the day. There, from the safety of our hiding place, we counted our losses, noting who returned and who did not. A number of thieves had fallen during the attack. There was no talk of going back for them. They were either already dead or soon would be, if they had fallen into the hands of the enemy. There had been another loss as well, I realized soon after reaching camp. Somewhere during the commotion of the previous hours, I had lost my magic bow. Maybe it was the exhaustion of all that had happened or maybe it was the usual confusion of my memories lately, but I couldn’t remember the last place I had seen the weapon.

  Gloomily our band set a watch around the camp perimeters. It was no longer an exercise in training. Our lives now depended on how closely we guarded our base. There were enemies searching for us and most likely a price on our heads. We were true forest outlaws now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Over the following days, I reflected that I should never have gotten involved in helping Ada and Habon. The cost to my gang of thieves had been high. This was my last good deed, I promised myself. From now on, I would look after the welfare of my band first.

  Once I felt the immediate threat had passed and the forest was no longer filled with searching soldiers, I went searching for my bow. I ranged far out from Red Rock, retracing my footsteps as best I could remember. I traveled through the blackened area that had been burned by our vengeful pursuers and returned as close as I dared to the site of the attack. But the magical weapon never turned up. I had no choice but to accept it was lost to me forever.

  I did find one thing while I was out poking among the burned and smoking remains of that part of the forest. I hadn’t even realized I had lost my little leather-bound book during that night’s escape. I hadn’t noticed it missing until now, when I found it lying upon the ash-strewn ground. It must have fallen out of the pocket of my cloak as I fled my enemies.

  It was ruined now, its once smooth cover blackened by the flames. The curled pages inside were singed and unreadable. All that remained intact was a single blank page in the back, which I had not yet filled with words. As quickly as that, my past was erased, the events I had so carefully recorded suddenly gone, never to be regained. My years spent with Ferran in the Eyeless Tower had faded to a distant, unhappy dream. As my oldest memories continued to darken, damaged by the magic amulet and my repeated deaths and rebirths, I knew it was only a matter of time until all would be gone. My worst fear had been realized. Soon I would be left with only my present reality and no notion of what had come before it.

  Even while I dealt with this blow, I had more immediate and practical matters to concern me. I still waited to learn whether there would be any further reprisal for Habon’s “death,” coming from the direction of Selbius.

  I suspected it wouldn’t be long before I heard from Tarius. I was right. Only a week after the ambush, a runner arrived in camp, bearing a written message for me. Tarius’s familiar scrawl covered the page. He wrote that his plans proceeded well since “the incident” and that he prepared for a smooth transition into the praetorship. All accepted him without question as the inevitable heir since the tragic death of his brother.

  Despite the apparent success of his scheme and the work I had done for him, the tone of his message was vaguely dissatisfied. He mentioned a curious thing he had discovered during an examination of his late brother’s charred remains. One foot of the corpse remained undamaged, and this foot was conspicuously bare of a particular scar Habon had sustained in childhood. If Tarius didn’t have such great faith in my methods, he said, he would wonder at this unexpected finding.

  It was easy to read the sarcasm in his words. Tarius was many things but never a fool. It had been too much to expect that he would be as deceived as everyone else by the switch I had made. Yet he offered no accusations. He wrote that he was preparing to bury Habon—and that he trusted his brother would remain buried. From this point on, he wished no further dealings with me or my forest thieves. He concluded:

  Henceforward, in my future role as praetor, I must uphold the law. I will be expected to make some show of retribution against the forest brigands who murdered my brother. It will be best if you and your thieving friends hide deep in your woods until time has passed and certain events are forgotten. Otherwise, the next time we meet you may find yourself at the end of a rope.

  I burned the note as soon as I had read it. As the paper curled in the flames and transformed into ash, I knew my association with Tarius was over.

  At least I could now be sure there would be no serious reprisals for Habon’s “murder.” Tarius would make some brief pretense of searching for the infamous Dimmingwood outlaws. But it was ultimately in his interests to let the matter die.

  While I watched the letter burn, the orange glare of the flickering campfire reflected off the jasper-and-silver signet ring on my thumb, reminding me there remained one thing yet to be done before I could close this chapter of my life.

  I went out among the trees and dug a hole, where I buried my father’s ring, along with the pale lock of my mother’s hair contained within its hidden compartment. I was no longer the congrave’s son. If I was honest with myself, I had ceased to be that youth some time ago. Much as Tarius was eager to bury his brother, I was now impatient to bury the past. Nothing of who I had once been now remained. I was ready to be Rideon the Red Hand.

  Later, I returned to Red Rock
Cave, where my remaining followers and I now made our shelter. In an alcove we used for storing provisions, I sat on the stone floor, balancing my fire-damaged, leather-bound book across my knee. I took up a quill and inkpot, and beneath the golden glow of a lantern, I began to write. I made my final record on the only undamaged page of the book.

  * * *

  I don’t know why I feel compelled to finish this last page. With all that has gone before wiped away, my attempt to preserve the past has already failed. I no longer believe it is even worth preserving. As memory fades, there will soon be nothing left.

  Nothing but the magic amulet. I’ve taken it out of its place in the bottom of my old traveling pack and it lies before me now. As the dancing lantern light glints off its purple surface, I think about the immortality it offers and wonder whether it is worth the cost. If I wear it again, it will take away my last recollections of Ferran. Maybe even my memories of Ada, my magic bow, and my earliest days as Rideon. Is this too high a price to pay for the ability to return from death?

  One thing is certain. Wherever I go from here, whatever future lies ahead, there is no longer anything holding me back.

  EPILOGUE

  Twenty years later…

  The crowd in Selbius’s market square is strangely hushed as I pass through their midst. Maybe it’s because I am escorted by an Iron Fist on either side. More likely it’s because this is the first and last opportunity of many to look upon the forest outlaw who has made himself infamous over the past two decades. Even little children stare at me in awe as I pass, as if my storied list of misdeeds is as well-known to them as it is to me.

  The throng parts before the soldiers leading me forward. They grip my arms as if to prevent my running away, but they needn’t bother. I offer no resistance as I am led up the steps to the platform. A confused wisp of memory stirs through my head. Something about having always been meant to die on a scaffold. A person once dear to me—I can’t recall who—died similarly long ago.