The Thief's Gamble

by Juliet E. McKenna

  'Come on.' He led us outside and I shivered as the rain struck us with renewed force.

  'Where are you, you old madman?' Shiv scowled, peering through the torrents of water.

  'Ait, this way.' Ryshad started to move further round the lake but before he had got more than a few paces things started to change with frightening speed.

  The cold became intense and the rain changed to snow, then to hail, and a driving wind roared up from nowhere to hurl it stinging into our faces. I cried out as a hailstone the size of an egg thumped into my arm and then covered my head as more came hammering down. We darted for the shelter of the cave but before we reached it the assault stopped and the air became clear again. We stood and looked uncertainly at each other, rain dripping off our hair and noses. A large bruise was growing on Ryshad's cheek.

  My skin began to crawl again, but this time it was the hairs on my exposed arms rising as the air began to crackle with energy. Grey clouds above us deepened to black and billowed menacingly downwards.

  'Run!' Shiv's voice galvanised us to action and we reached the cave just before the first spear of lightning blew a shower of mud and water into the air.

  'Azazir!' Shiv stood in front of us and raised his arms in protest. 'If you want to continue this, show yourself. If you wish to test me, I'll accept a direct challenge - or none. Come and try my magic, if you dare!'

  Ryshad and I exchanged horrified looks. Getting involved with a trial of strength between two wizards seemed like a quick way to a booking with Poldrion.

  There was a pause which seemed to last for half a day, but I suppose it was really only a few breaths before the tension drained out of the air and the clouds drew back to their usual task of dropping rain by the bucketload.

  I looked at Shiv and saw his gaze fixed, fascinated, on the waterfall at the far end of the lake. An eerie delight lit his eyes and his lips curved in an uncanny smile as he slowly shook his head in wonder. He had never looked so far removed from us ordinary folk and it unnerved me more than I can say.

  I licked my suddenly dry lips. 'What is it, Shiv? Is there a cave behind the waterfall? Is he there?'

  'Oh no,' Shiv breathed. 'Can't you see? He is the waterfall!'

  He walked swiftly along the lake shore, leaving the rest of us gaping stupidly as we tried to make sense of what he was saying. Shaking my head, I was the first to move to follow him but none of us got too close as we drew nearer to the cataract.

  I stared into the streaming flow and narrowed my eyes; was there something in there, or was I imagining it? One patch of water in the midst of the torrent seemed somehow stationary, circulating endlessly in on itself rather than racing down to vanish into the lake.

  'Azazir!' Shiv sent a flash of green power into the waterfall and whatever I thought I could see vanished. I was about to turn away when a figure drew itself up on to the surface of the lake and walked across the water towards us. Initially as clear as the crystal waterfall, the man-shape grew more distinct as it approached. By the time it reached the shore, I saw an old man, naked, no more than skin and bone. His hair and beard were colourless rather than simply white, slicked down with the water; his eyes were pale, piercing and to my mind completely insane.

  'Who are you?' The ancient mage's voice echoed with the murmur of the waterfall and he stared at Shiv, unblinking as a fish.

  'I am Shivvalan, initiate of the Seaward Hall, adept of water and air. I serve the Great Council and, on the authority of the Archmage, I am here to ask you questions.' Shiv's tone was calm and assured.

  A faint frown rippled across Azazir's face. 'Who is the Archmage now?'

  'Planir the Black,' Shiv replied steadily.

  Azazir's sudden cackle made us all jump. 'Planir! I remember him! A miner's son from the pits of Gidesta, coaldust in everything he owned, down to the scars on his knees and knuckles. Planir the Black! My oath, it was the other apprentices gave him that title when they saw the state of his linens!'

  He stepped off the water and I was relieved to see contact with the earth granted him more solidity and colour.

  'So what does his eminence want of me?' He fixed Shiv with his fishy stare.

  'Let's go somewhere more comfortable.' Shiv turned towards the cave but Azazir simply squatted down in the mud.

  'I'm comfortable here.'

  I saw his arms and chest were patterned with what I first thought might be scales but I realised they were more of the honeycomb pictures, some tattooed, but most simply scratched into his skin and left to scar over. I shivered, not just because of the cold and the rain.

  'You travelled across the ocean in your youth,' Shiv began hesitantly. 'You found the home of a race of blond men. We need to know anything you can tell us about them.'

  Azazir turned over a few flat stones. 'Why should I tell you my tales? No one believed me then. Why should I help the Council now?'

  He scooped up a handful of snails and popped them into his mouth, crunching them shells and all. Aiten exclaimed in revulsion and turned away.

  'These people are travelling to Tormalin and Dalasor. They are robbing and killing people. We need your help.' Shiv kept his tone level and persuasive.

  'Nothing to do with me.' Azazir rooted about in the dirt and quite suddenly I lost my temper with him.

  'Fine. If you're not interested, after we've come all this way to see you and put up with all your stupid tricks, you can go stuff yourself. Just do me a favour and wrap up this pissing rain long enough for us to light a fire and have something warm to eat. We'll be on our way and you can play mud-castles for as long as you like.'

  Azazir looked up at me and I saw the first faint shading of humanity in his cold, dead eyes. 'I suppose if you weren't stupid enough to let the magic kill you, you might be interesting enough to talk to.'

  He rose and walked towards the remains of his hovel, glowering at the ruined door. He was looking more and more human the further we got from the lake, and by the time we reached the cave he was starting to shiver slightly. Once inside, the walls glowed with cold green light as the house recognised him.

  'Can we light a fire?' Aiten asked hungrily; his face reflected all our relief when Azazir nodded slowly.

  'The chimney's blocked.' I stopped him before he tried to get a spark to some tinder and we went outside to clear it from the top. When we came back inside, Ryshad had started a small blaze and was breaking up the remains of the door and stacking it to dry by the hearth. Azazir was wrapped in Shiv's cloak and they were deep in conversation as Shiv explained the events that had brought us here. We ate a sparse meal but I would have paid all my noble coin for a cup of hot soup by now so I wasn't complaining. Even the mule was looking more cheerful as we tethered her by the door and a pile of grass.

  'So, can you tell us about your journey?' Shiv asked finally. We all looked expectantly at the old wizard.

  He cupped his chin in his hands, elbows on bony knees, and stared into the past. 'I was looking for the lost colony,' he began at last. 'I was born a Tormalin and we don't forget our families, even when magebirth takes us away from our duties to our blood.'

  'What was your family?' Ryshad asked, earning a stern glare from Shiv for interrupting.

  'T'Aleonne.' Azazir smiled at the memory. 'I was Azazir, Esquire T'Aleonne, Scion of the Crystal Tree.'

  I could see this meant something to Ryshad and Aiten but realised I'd have to wait to find out what that was.

  'We were a powerful family in the Old Empire,' Azazir went on. 'We had power, wealth; we were related to half the Emperors of the House of Nemith and descended from the House of Tarl. We could have been the founders of the next dynasty at home but my ancestor was caught up in the search for lands over the ocean. When Den Fellaemion took his ships to Kel Ar'Ayen, we sailed with him and helped build the new cities of the Empire overseas. My ancestors sat at the high table with Nemith the Seafarer and sailed the oceans with him. We were going to rule the new lands. We had the right and the blood claim.'

&nb
sp; Anger and contempt twisted the old man's face. 'Nemith the Reckless, that's what the historians call him. I suppose Nemith the Whorestruck would be too honest for those arse-lickers. When they appeared, these blond men, the Men of the Ice, the colonists sent message after message asking for help, but none ever came. Nemith the last was too busy running the Empire into the fires to satisfy his lusts for gold and whores. He would rather fight the Mountain Men in his mad ambition to conquer Gidesta. I'll wager he was glad to know he need not face a challenge from a house ten times more fit for rule than his own. My ancestors did what they could. They spent every crown they had, but it was too late. The colony was lost and the Empire fell apart and my family sank into penury while lesser houses grew fat scavenging on the ruins of Tormalin's glory.'

  Azazir stared sourly into the fire, brooding on wrongs to his blood, twenty generations past.

  'You knew where to find the colony?' Shiv prompted gently.

  'We had our archive. My family lost much, but we kept our history, not like the scum who came after us, who had no more ancestry than a street dog.'

  Azazir's tone became indignant. 'No one believed us. The other families who had sailed the oceans were long lost and their knowledge was gone. My father was called senile and confused, mocked for his learning. I bided my time while I trained, but I knew that one day I would learn how to cross the open seas like my ancestors and claim what they had bequeathed me.'

  He looked around at us, eyes bright with the conviction of the completely obsessed. 'I was born to do this, to restore my family fortunes. Why else would I be a mage?'

  Grievance soured his tone again. 'I thought wizards would be different, they're supposed to be open-minded but they're as rotten with jealousy as the rest of them. No one would help me, they worked against me, I'm sure of it. No one wanted me to succeed. I could have been the greatest mage of my generation if petty minds had not thwarted me. I should have been Archmage but no one had my vision.'

  'But you crossed the oceans, despite them?' Shiv managed to divert Azazir from his tirade.

  'I did!' His tone was triumphant. 'I spent years learning the currents of the ocean and the secrets of the deep. I spoke to the fish and the beasts of the seas and even to the dragons of the southern waters. They taught me their secrets and I finally found an apprentice with the foresight to join his power to mine and make the crossing.'

  'Who was he?' Shiv asked before he could stop himself.

  Azazir scowled. 'Viltred, he called himself. He came with me but lost his nerve in the end. He was as spineless as the rest when it came down to real magic. None of them have the dedication that noble blood demands of its sons.'

  Shiv gave me a rueful look as we sat and waited for Azazir's spite to run its course.

  'So you made the crossing?' Shiv was able to ask when Azazir finally paused for reflection.

  'I did. They said it could not be done, but I proved I could master the currents and the storms.' The old wizard straightened his shoulders with pride and raised his head high.

  'Kel Ar'Ayen turned out to be a land of islands, separated by channels and sand banks and circled by the deep ocean. Those men, the Ice-dwellers, the Elietimm they were called in the old tongue, they must have bred like rabbits. They were everywhere, they had scoured the land nearly barren. I could find no trace of the Tormalin cities, all was lost. All I found were these savages with their yellow heads and fertile loins.' The sadness in his tone made Azazir sound nearly human.

  'How can you be sure it was Kel Ar'Ayen?' Shiv asked cautiously.

  Azazir looked at him, eyes bright with anger again. 'I found relics of our lost ancestors there even if the cities had fallen. I announced myself to the ruler of the place where we landed and at first he treated us as honoured guests, as was only fitting. The wealth of his house included silver, weapons and other valuables that could only have come from the Old Empire. His ancestors must have despoiled the dead like savages.'

  The old wizard drew the cloak tighter around his shoulders and gazed into the fire again. 'That dog soon showed his true blood. We were detained, forbidden to leave our rooms, if you please, and when we protested, we were threatened with chains. He should not have done that, I am not some peasant to bow to a cock on a dunghill. He had no right to detain me or to hold the property of families ten times more noble. I took those heirlooms that I could find and we left. I was not going to be insulted when I should have been ruling those lands with his kind beneath the lash to till the soil and grateful for their miserable lives.'

  'You brought heirlooms home?' Ryshad's urgent question made no impression on Azazir, who continued his rambling tirade.

  'It's very hard to be sure of Old Empire relics, they're almost certainly just copies,' I said loudly, blending patronising scepticism with just enough pity to annoy.

  Azazir took the bait and sat upright, fixing me with a cold green eye. 'You are an ignorant wench. What do you know of such matters?'

  'Don't upset yourself, Grandad,' I soothed. 'If you want them to be Empire treasures, that's what we'll call them.'

  Azazir got up from his seat with an oath and stalked into the back room.

  'What do you think you're playing at?' Shiv hissed at me. I waved him to silence as Azazir came back with a cloth-wrapped bundle. Wherever he'd been keeping it was well secured, as it was dry and fragrant with preserving spices.

  'If any of you have the skills to examine such valuables, you may look for yourselves,' he said loftily as he unrolled what proved to be a cloak a generation out of fashion.

  I left Shiv to continue the questioning and looked eagerly at the contents. Ryshad joined me, sorting through jewellery, some weapons, a scribe's case and more of the small, personal items so similar to those Geris had disappeared with.

  'What do you think?' I held a set of manicure tools up to the light.

  'They're Tormalin all right, end of the Empire.' Ryshad ran his fingers over the crest on a silver goblet. 'This is D'Alsennin's insignia. That's Den Rannion and I think this must be a collateral line of Tor Priminale.'

  None of that meant much to me. 'What's this about a lost colony?' I asked in an undertone.

  Ryshad frowned. 'That's all a bit odd. There are stories of a colony being set up by Nemith the Seafarer, but all the histories say it was founded in Gidesta, when the House of Nemith were trying to expand the Empire northward. I've read some of the writings; whatever he's saying, it certainly wasn't on any islands. They talk about great forests, new sources for gold and copper, a river with gravel shoals full of gemstones.'

  I whistled soundlessly. 'That would be worth finding again, just to break the Aldabreshin monopoly.'

  'I agree.' Ryshad sat back on his heels with a sword in his hands. 'How could the histories be wrong?'

  'What do they say happened to this colony?'

  'It was overrun by the Mountain Men. They were far more widespread in Gidesta then and drove the Empire back. Nemith the Reckless swore vengeance and sent an army across the Dalas, but they got tied up in a campaign with no clear goals in sight. He got so obsessed with adding Gidesta to the Empire that he let the rest go rotten. The Empire fell, magic was almost lost until Trydek founded Hadrumal, and no one ever got to rule Gidesta.'

  I pondered this story. 'Have you ever met any Mountain Men, Rysh?'

  He shook his head. 'Not to speak of. They don't come south as a rule.'

  'I know a couple of brothers who are old Mountain folk. They're pretty much pure blood, from some valley in the back of beyond, up near the Mandarkin border.'

  'So?'

  'They're shorter than most; the tallest is only about my height. Sorgrad is sort of sandy-haired but Sorgren is much fairer, almost as blond as these mystery men we're chasing. What if those historians of yours were confused, mixed up Nemith's war in the north with the fight for these lands overseas? If these colonies got wiped out like Azazir's saying, there can't have been many people left to put the archive right.'

  Ryshad loo
ked unconvinced. 'That's an ungodly leap in the dark, Livak. Anyway, there's no way these islands could be the colony, the description's just too different.'

  I was about to answer but something in the folds of the cloak caught my eye. It was a long thin dagger, three blades joined to give vicious triangular wounds.

  'What's this?' I turned it over to Ryshad, who shook his head.

  'I've never seen anything like that before.'

  Aiten looked up at this and came to see what we had. 'There's a nasty mind behind that,' he said admiringly.

  'That's not Tormalin and I'd wager it's not Mountain Man work either.' I rummaged among the heap and came up with an oddly curved knife. 'What about this?'

  Ryshad shrugged. 'Two unidentifiable weapons don't mean much.'

  A sudden commotion ended our discussion.

  'So all you came here for was to rob me, is that it?' Azazir sprang to his feet and glared at Shiv.

  'No, what I asked was—'

  'You don't believe me any more than the rest of them. All you want is to plunder the last of my fortune and enrich yourselves. I don't believe there are any strange invaders. You're lying to me, just like all the rest.'

  Shiv winced as Azazir's bony hand slapped across his face. He coughed on a sudden mouthful of blood and swore as he held a hand to his gushing nose.

  'I swear we are honest.' Ryshad fumbled under his shirt and drew out his medallion. 'I am a sworn man of Messire D'Olbriot and I seek vengeance on these foreigners for a grave insult to his blood. Here is his crest and my authority to use my sword in his name.'

  'D'Olbriot? Of Zyoutessela? Have they risen so high?'

  'Messire D'Olbriot is one of the Emperor's most trusted counsellors,' Ryshad said firmly.

  'Who is Emperor now? Did Tadriol manage to hold it for his line? Who was chosen from his sons?' Azazir's anger vanished as rapidly as it had appeared.

  'Tadriol, third son of Tadriol the Prudent, was chosen. There has been no acclamation as yet, so he has no title.'

  I looked at Ryshad with interest. If he had advance knowledge on what the Tormalin patrons might decide to call their ruler, we could win an impressive sum in the gambling houses of places like Relshaz. I would have to discuss it with him further.