Lhind the Thief

by Sherwood Smith

  Did I really have the mighty and feared emperor of Sveran Djur, a land more terrible even than Shinja (which paid him tribute), in this whistle?

  On impulse, I put it back to my head. How do I know you are really Dhes-Andis?

  You don’t, came the reply. When you have need of greater skill, come to me.

  And then I sensed that black wall again. The person—I may as well use the name Dhes-Andis—had used his own inner eyelid, and had shut me out.

  I dropped the whistle into my sash and reached for the necklace. I clasped it around my neck, made a shimmer, and when I saw the faint blue glow within the big stone, I thought: Faryana?

  I am here, Lhind. Her ‘voice’ was cool and silvery and seemed tiny compared to the sense of vastness that had come from the person in the whistle.

  What would you say if I told you that I’ve got Dhes-Andis imprisoned in that other object I showed you before?

  Distress flowed from her mind. Do not use it! Do not even communicate with it!

  It might not even be him, I scoffed. I’ve pretended to be all kinds of people, and I’ve sure seen plenty of fakes.

  Anyone who would even make such a claim is too dangerous to be treated with, except by a member of the Council. You MUST surrender that object to a magician, as soon as possible—

  Annoyed, I shut my inner eyelid, finding this easier to do each time I tried it. Then I yanked the necklace off and stuffed it into my sash. At least whoever was in the whistle had not yelled a lot of unasked-for commands at me. Faryana was a mite bossy for someone who’d gotten herself popped into a stone.

  Arranging the objects carefully inside my clothing, I made sure they didn’t touch, nor did they show. I set my sash on a rock for binding round my hair come morning, and resettled the rest of my take in my clothes. Even though Kuraf had given me that fine pack, old habit made me more comfortable hiding the take in my clothes.

  Then I settled down to rest.

  o0o

  “That’s the harbor,” Kee said late the next afternoon.

  We’d ridden steadily all day, making our way downhill through gentler hills. Our westward path took us in and out of great patches of forest. Kee had her hand on her knife hilt, her eyes scanning continuously, though no one disturbed us.

  We stayed well off the main roads. Kee led us cross-country, and when we heard the sounds of anyone coming, we concealed ourselves behind trees or shrubs until they passed.

  At length we sat aside our tired ponies atop a small rise, looking westward at a great bowl carved out of the coast. Fara Harbor was busy with a forest of masts, dotted here and there with many-colored sails as ships moved in and out.

  “I think we should spend the night up here and ride in tomorrow,” she said. “We will not sleep undisturbed anywhere near that place.”

  I didn’t tell her that I could sleep in peace anywhere, once I’d found a secure hole. It was not the time to remind her that I was a thief well accustomed to crowded, sometimes villainous surroundings. I said only, “I hope Tir will be able to find us.”

  I needn’t have worried.

  We sheltered for the night under a close-growing shrub, and when we crawled out early the next morning, the aidlar was sitting on a mossy boulder nearby, preening itself.

  As I looked at the bird I had a fleeting memory of a white shape drifting, questing, through my dreams. Was that how Tir had found me? The answer caused a sense of disquiet. Until this adventure I’d always felt securely locked inside my own head, but for the first time, that was no longer true. If a bird could locate someone this way, might not a human be able to? A human who the someone might not want to be located by? I shall have to practice closing that inner eyelid before I go to sleep at night, and see if it works.

  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 h
ead. “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.

  “Ready?” Kee asked when I straightened up.

  I nodded and we separated.

  She started walking slowly up the street. I silently congratulated her on her control. She never once glanced back, though she didn’t know what I was going to do.

  I took up a position just below the overhang of the roof, then turned my attention to the other end of the building. Drawing in a deep breath, I raised my hands and readied myself. I whispered my magic-gathering spells, once, twice, thrice, four times, each time my hands heating until they prickled with heat, then I turned them outward, pointing, and—