Lhind the Thief

by Sherwood Smith

  I looked up. The air was thick with swirling mist, making it hard to see the sails and rigging. Apprehension chilled me: this fog carried the taint of magic. I shivered, looking again along the length of the yacht. Most of the fighting I could see was going on at the front end of the ship, beyond which I could just make out the outline of another ship.

  At the main hatch a few steps from me, a pirate yanked hard on a violently struggling woman half-wrapped in a cloak. He pulled her to the deck, one hand on her arm, one scrabbling at her neck. She flung away the cloak and something gleamed in her hand. The pirate struck at her. She whirled out of his grasp and stabbed him in the side. He stumbled away, howling, then more figures appeared, everyone fighting furiously.

  I crept out. The deck was wet, cold, and slippery beneath my bare feet; forward, all the fighters were having a hard time keeping their footing as high waves splashed down one side of the yacht, foaming over the rails.

  I leaped to the ropes leading upward, and when the yacht rolled away, I slung myself onto the masthead.

  Now I could see more of the deck, through the rigging and the forward storm-sails.

  A cloud of fog thinned momentarily, revealing individuals more clearly. I picked out Hlanan and Rajanas fighting against several pirates wearing scarlet tunics slashed up the side, with black trousers and shirts beneath. My throat dried. Those scarlet tunics were worn only by the Skull Fleet, one of the worst pirate federations plaguing the entire Azure seacoast. I had crossed them twice before—which was two more times than anyone needed to encounter the likes of them.

  Think, I told myself, shaking my head again. I knew these pirates would not stop fighting until everyone was dead, unless someone was worth a great deal of ransom money.

  I could make a shimmer. But how would a mere illusion help?

  Rajanas’s voice came back to me: “The yacht was separated from the other ships . . .”

  A shimmer might help if it’s big enough, I thought, rubbing my clammy hands down my tunic. Well aware of the penalty for trying magic in Thesreve, I hadn’t dared try anything but small shimmers for a long time, ever since I’d crossed the border. Now, with aching head and empty belly, was not the ideal time to try more magic, but I did not seem to have any choice.

  I tucked Rajanas’s heavy-bladed knife into my waistband and raised both my hands, holding them palms out. I concentrated, whispering magic-gathering commands that I seemed to have learned in dreams. I was repeating words I did not understand, I only knew what they were capable of. As I muttered the litany, I pulled all the magic to me until my hands tingled and burned. When they began to pulse, I gathered the internal heat.

  Sound! A horn—

  A sudden, clear, low belling, like a hunting horn, rang out. My head buzzed warningly, but pride surged in me. Sound magic was so difficult, but I’d done it!

  I threw all the rest of the power into the biggest shimmer I had ever tried. Snap! The spell finished, my fingers tingled so hard they were almost numb, but I watched in satisfaction as a black silhouette of a huge three-master slid close and noiseless near the yacht.

  I laughed for joy. It looked real, cutting menacingly directly behind the stern of the yacht. Cries of fear and astonishment rose from the front of the yacht.

  I stretched my fingers out again.

  This time my hands did go numb, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to gather and hold this much magic but once more—if that.

  Fear helped me concentrate. Snap! Weak sunlight glimmered off half a hundred steel helmets, shields and drawn swords along the rail of my ghost-ship. The fog swirled close, masking the lack of detail that I did not have the power left to make.

  But it was enough. My shimmers were aided by the pirates’ own fog.

  The pirates shouted and howled with rage, anger, betrayal.

  My arms were heavy, numbing fast. But something more was needed.

  I aimed my thumbs, and grappling lines snaked through the air toward the yacht’s rails. My head pounded like twenty boulders had fallen on it, but I kept my arms locked and still, my attention focused just beyond my fingers. Then, with the last of my strength, I clapped—and a massive surge of water rose up to give the yacht a single, heavy lurch, as though the lines had snagged us and took hold.

  An angry, raw-voiced command cut through the mist.

  The pirates began to hack their way back toward their vessel. I spotted Rajanas’s black head as he chased after, inviting death until the last moment. I sent my three-master heeling against the wind in the direction of the pirates, hoping the fog would cover the increasingly indistinct lines. The grappling hooks winkled into oblivion.

  A sudden, hoarse cheer rose behind me. The pirates had cast off, and sail after sail billowed aboard their vessel as they began to run.

  I let the shimmer fade into the fog, and as I released control, all the soreness of my head and limbs settled on me. Get back to that cabin! Pretend you were too scared to fight! I climbed back down the rigging.

  When I dropped onto the deck, I was startled by a voice inside my head.

  Hrethan! It was a call of recognition.

  Who is that? I thought in fear, and as the presence entered my mind again, I shouted “Get out!” so loud I thought my skull would split. The voice and the presence disappeared.

  I grabbed at the rail, fighting against the worst headache I’d ever had. Rajanas’s knife clattered down beside me. Long years of never leaving a free weapon lying around made me bend instinctively to retrieve it. When I tried to straighten up, the deck rose to meet my face, and I had to give in to the dark fog that closed in on my thoughts.

  o0o

  When I woke I was stretched out on the bunk again. As I turned my head the sharp twinge of sore muscles ran along my arms, and my fingers twitched under my back. I was tied up again. A sigh of disgust escaped me—then my gaze fell on Hlanan.

  He knelt beside the bunk, watching me intently. Behind him stood Rajanas, looking disheveled and tired, and next to him an unfamiliar, bearded man. I smelled something pungent: mulled wine. At the thought of anything wet and drinkable, I swallowed convulsively, and my tongue, which felt like a long-dried-out stocking, moved thickly in my mouth.

  “Want some?” Hlanan smiled encouragingly. “I hoped the aroma might bring you around.”

  He slid a hand behind my hood and lifted my head, then held a cup to my lips. I tasted spicy hot wine. After a moment, vertigo faded and I felt a little more awake. Unfortunately, I was also very thirsty.

  “Can I have some water?” I croaked.

  “You’re still thirsty?” Hlanan asked.

  “It’s only been three days . . .” I began.

  Hlanan’s dark eyes widened in surprise, and he gave a wince of regret.

  “Maybe four . . . five . . .” I added in a pitiful voice, hoping to make him feel worse.

  Instead his lips tightened. A smile? The quirk of his eyelids gave him away as he turned to the bearded man. “Captain Hucharwe, may I—”

  A gruff voice from the captain: “I’ll attend to it, Scribe.”

  Silence fell, and I shut my eyes, remembering that voice inside my head. Hrethan. I knew that word, but it, like the magic words, were buried in my past, difficult to retrieve except in shards of images, sounds. Once in a while a familiar smell.

  Trying to think made my head feel worse. I opened my eyes as the hand slid behind me again, and this time I tasted water. Ahhh! I sucked it up until I couldn’t breathe.

  “Halt a moment, Lhind,” Hlanan said. “Not too much at once.”

  Behind him I heard a noise of disgust—from a female. I opened my eyes again, to see the cabin crowded with several unfamiliar faces. One of them was a young woman with a beautifully shaped but sulky mouth. Her oval face was framed by a coronet of jewels bound into her curling yellow hair. She was dressed in beribboned peach and green silk, embroidered with gold—a gown more gorgeous than any I had ever seen in Tu Jhan, and her face was rigid with distaste, her chin lift
ed with assured arrogance, as she stared at me. Here was someone used to everyone else getting out of her way.

  At her shoulder stood another young woman, with a pug nose in the middle of a round, smiling face. Her wide-set eyes were grayish-brown, and a coronet of reddish-brown hair framed her face. This was the one I’d seen fighting with a knife. Her air reminded me a little of Hlanan, that steady, intent gaze with the slightest tilt of head, conveying an air of question.

  “Where did this creature come from?” the yellow-haired beauty said in one of the Southern languages. “Is this your idea of a little jape at our expense, Alezand?” She turned a sulky shoulder toward Rajanas.

  He said, “He’s a thief we saw in Tu Jhan. It seems he followed us aboard, and stowed away.”

  Stowed away? Indignant, I tried to rise, but the headache hammered me, and I fell back. The pug nosed woman pressed a gentle but firm hand against my shoulder, as if to stay me. Or protect me.

  The doorway darkened, and a tall figure appeared, handsomer than the statue of King Bessemar the Just in Dunleth’s capital. His long, ruddy-tinged blond hair lay waving on broad shoulders exquisitely molded in his velvet tunic of darkest midnight blue, edged with gold. His thin brows rose as everyone fell back, save Rajanas, and the lazy eyes turned my way.

  Then the slack, bored expression hardened into disgust. He turned to the pouting princess. “Really, Kressanthe? You really want to be in the same breathing space with this noisome creature?”

  “I want to know if that disgusting stowaway somehow got those pirates after us,” Kressanthe demanded.

  “Throw the worthless offal overboard, then you need worry yourselves no further,” Prince Copper-Hair drawled.

  “Since stowaways usually risk their lives to hide from danger, I am going to assume that he would not summon it, even had he the means,” Rajanas said ironically. “You’ll have to seek some other cause, Kressanthe.”

  “I’m already bored to death. Kressanthe?” Prince Beautiful-but-Evil lifted a velvet-molded, perfect shoulder, and left.

  As the golden-haired princess hovered uncertainly, Rajanas said, “Of your courtesy, Kressanthe and Thianra, we would like to question our little thief, and I think it would be best if fewer people were present. The rest of you,” he raised his voice slightly as he looked at the sailors crowding at the door, “have things to do, have you not?”

  With a shuffling of feet and a whispering of skirts, the crowd dispersed. Then Rajanas shut the door and stood with his back to it.

  “Stowaway?” I demanded. “Really? That is such a lie it hurts!”

  “I’m very sorry about the lie. And the ropes, Lhind. These things are a backhanded turn for your saving us as you did, but the method you used has made us very uneasy,” Hlanan said seriously. “Lhind, we need to talk about that magic.”

  “Wasn’t me,” I said the first thing I could think of.

  “It was the pirates, of course,” Rajanas murmured, smiling faintly.

  Hlanan gave him a quick look, and Rajanas half-raised a hand, a gesture meaning he’d stay quiet. Hlanan turned back to study my face, which by now I had squinched into my sourest grimace.

  Hlanan said steadily, “Lhind, magic is exceedingly rare in Thesreve. Any practitioners come from outside the country, and few dare to risk the stake and fires of Thesrevan law by practicing magic openly. Most of them are there for a reason just as deadly—to act as spies, for powers such as Dhes-Andis in the West. I promise I will not give you over to Thesrevan authorities. Indeed, we are past the border now. But I must know who your tutor is. That illusion was too large and complicated for most sorcerers’ prentices. I wasn’t able to construct anything suitable, and you can believe I was trying.”

  It was obvious they would not believe continued denials. So I muttered in my most grudging voice, “Wasn’t any tutor.” That much was the truth. But then, to protect myself, I added a lie, “I stole that spell.”

  “What?” Hlanan exclaimed.

  “A good thief can steal more than just money,” I pointed out.

  Hlanan sat back on his heels, looking at me in silent amazement. Rajanas laughed softly.

  Determined to ignore him henceforth, I gave Hlanan the story I’d concocted before I fell asleep. “I was sitting on a roof over on the Street of Doves. A lot of wealthy merchant folk live there, and the houses are close together and easy to break into. Anyway, I was waiting for a jewelry-maker and his wife to leave for a party. Their house was next to an inn.” I stopped.

  “Yes, go on,” Hlanan urged.

  “Some water first? Those long, dry six days . . . No food for at least a week before that . . . Then being jumped and tied up like a turkey for market . . .” I said pitifully.

  Rajanas rolled his eyes upward, but Hlanan’s brow puckered. “I’m sorry, Lhind. Here’s the water.” He held the glass to my lips, but when I was done drinking, he went right back to the topic. “So you were next to an inn, in the Street of Doves. Please continue.”

  “Was last summer. The attic window of the inn stood slightly ajar. I heard voices. A man, talking about illusions. I didn’t really listen to the side-talk, but I sure liked what the spell could do. So I shifted over, and peeked in. He was talking to a sniveling fellow whose strength went into growing, not brains, because by the time he stumbled through the words and gestures, I had it all by heart. I thought it would be a great aid in getting take for my friends. In the Thieves’ Guild. Who will be looking for me.”

  Hlanan listened with an air of courtesy, but didn’t answer any of these hints.

  So I sighed, and continued my lie. “Anyway, that magic tires you out so—and you have to be careful not to forget your surroundings. But when I stole that spell, the harbormaster, who runs the Thieves’ Guild, you know, was so happy with me I went back to the inn next day, but a family of weavers was staying in the room. So I robbed the jeweler that day, instead.”

  Hlanan listened without interrupting, his brown gaze never wavering. When I stopped, I scowled again, hoping he’d believed me.

  He didn’t look skeptical or even angry, but when he spoke his words froze my gizzard: “I wish we could get you a bath, Lhind. I would like to see what you really look like.”

  “His looks might be just as repulsive as they are now, but it’s bound to cure the smell,” Rajanas said, grinning. “How long have you been wearing that cowl, boy? Since you first learned to walk?”

  I snarled a couple of choice curses, adding heartfelt detail when I saw Hlanan’s eyes narrow as he studied my cowl.

  “We dare not spare the water until we find out where the storm drove us, Lhind,” Hlanan said at last. “But you might enjoy it. Except, we would have to get you some new clothes. I don’t think anything short of burning will do for those you have, and we have no one aboard who’s small enough to provide a rough fit—”

  “Call those a fit?” Rajanas interrupted. “I’ve been wondering why you weren’t able to steal something closer to your size. Those, ah, knickers, look like they were last owned by that yellow-smocked bruiser you robbed.”

  “Easier to hide the take in,” I said disgustedly. “And if you don’t like my smell it’s your problem! I didn’t ask to come on this ship. Since I can’t abide your looks, why don’t you free me and we’ll both be happy?”

  “Manners, boy,” Rajanas drawled, flashing a smile of amusement. Him, I understood. Though neither of us had the least respect for the other, he no longer saw me as a threat, nor did I see him as a threat. Hlanan was far more unsettling because I didn’t understand him at all.

  I snorted explosively.

  “Why were you so reluctant to tell us how you got that spell?” Hlanan asked, gentle but persistent.

  “Because you already grabbed me against my will, for doing nothing,” I said promptly. “I thought if I told you I stole that spell you’d hand me right off to the mage-burners.”

  “Would you like to learn more magic?” Hlanan asked, leaning forward as if proximity would en
able him to see inside my skull.

  “No! One spell’s enough for me,” I said promptly, avoiding that steady gaze. I looked down at the crust of the rotten onion that I had so carefully smeared over my smock to help keep people at a distance. My stench, made up of smears of the stinkiest foods and spices I could find (plus vintage horse sweat when I sneaked into stables to catch some sleep) rubbed into my unwashed clothes, was a work of art. “I just want to get back to the Guild. They’ll be worried about what’s happened to me.”

  “You mean, what’s happened to that purse you stole,” Rajanas put in helpfully. “You still have it on you?”

  I tensed, bringing my knees as close to my stomach as I could.

  “Cease your fret,” Rajanas said, with a lazy wave of one hand. “I haven’t any desire to put my hand near that clothing to find it. The question was inspired by the repellent notion of having to sleep on a bag of coins . . . but you probably have a number of other oddments secreted in those garments as well, don’t you?”

  I worked up another good grimace.

  Rajanas’s smile flashed. “I never imagined housing a thief would be so entertaining. Shall we risk turning him loose among the company, do you think, Hlanan? Half of them have already seen him lying there on the deck by the galley, and I mislike locking up someone who very probably saved our lives.”

  “If he’ll promise not to use the spell against the passengers,” Hlanan said slowly. He frowned up at Rajanas, who met his look with a faint shrug. Turning his gaze back to me, he added, “And Lhind. This is even more important, and we must have your promise. To protect you, not just us. I’ve told the others that it was I who managed that spell. It really would be best if you did not mention you had magic.”

  “Better add that he cannot rob them, either, at least until we reach port. After that they can fend for themselves,” Rajanas said with a dismissive flick of his fingers, and I understood that he didn’t particularly care for all of his guests.

  “I won’t,” I said, inwardly rubbing my hands. While I had no interest in the reasons for Rajanas’s dislike, I wanted to find out who’d earned his ire. These would be my targets. Also my targets. He still owed me for grabbing me in the first place.