Stealing Life

by Antony Johnston

  “Watery saints!” Nicco shouted. He and Clarrum both struggled into the skycar as fast as they could.

  Clarrum fired up the engine, gripped the joystick that controlled the launch thrusters and slowly pulled back. The thinman was almost upon them. “Come on, come on...”

  The thrusters blasted, lifting the skycar off the ground.

  “Where in the fifty-nine hells...?” A hollow clang sounded from the front of the car. Clarrum looked over at Nicco.

  “Was that you?”

  “No! The engine?”

  “I told you, this car’s brand new. If the engine’s gone already, I’ll be having stern words with... do you smell burning?”

  Clang.

  “Oh, no,” said Nicco.

  A flaming hand slapped down on the hood. Paint blistered at its touch. Nicco and Clarrum watched, stunned, as the thinman they thought they’d left on the street clambered up onto the skycar’s hood and roared with fury.

  Nicco reached into his pocket and pulled out the blaster he’d retrieved from Xandus’ basement. He aimed it at the thinman’s head.

  “No, wait!” Clarrum shouted. With a firm hand, he lowered the weapon. “You’re not shooting through my bloody windshield! It’ll cost me a fortune!”

  Nicco gaped. “That thing is going to kill us if we don’t get rid of it! What do you suggest, a stern word?”

  Clarrum jammed the joystick hard to the right. Caught unawares, Nicco smacked his head against the passenger window and yelped in pain. Before he could recover, Clarrum swung back to the left. Nicco almost fell into the bodyguard’s lap.

  “Blast!” Clarrum hissed through clenched teeth.

  Nicco looked up. The thinman was still there, grimly hanging on to the hood. But it was almost over—the golem was literally coming apart, losing flesh and muscle to the relentless fire that burned through it. Surely it couldn’t hang on for much longer.

  It didn’t need to. The thinman pulled back one hand, roared and smashed its fist through the windshield. Clarrum shouted in surprise, struggling to keep control of the skycar as the golem stuck its blazing head through the shattered glass. The skycar’s nose dipped.

  “Shoot it! Shoot it!” Clarrum yelled.

  Nicco still had the blaster in his hand. He held it against the thinman’s burning face. The stench of its false flesh burning made him retch, and the heat from the fire seared his hand, but he held the barrel steady and pulled the trigger.

  The golem’s head snapped back and smacked against the windshield, shattering what glass remained. It had one hand wrapped around the joystick, its fiery skin melting and fusing with the plastic. Clarrum wrestled with it, burning his own skin as he struggled to prise the golem off the controls and stop the skycar’s dive.

  Nicco looked out the windshield and knew it was too late. They were over the Nissal Straits, and losing height much too quickly. Even if Clarrum regained control, he’d never pull up in time. And now there was no time to escape with the fitted grav belts.

  There was barely time for Nicco to take a breath before they hit the water at full speed.

  The skycar ploughed into the ocean, driven deep under the surface by its own momentum. Nicco felt the impact like a hammer to his chest, forcing air out of his lungs. The sudden water pressure made his ears pop, and he clamped his mouth shut reflexively to prevent inhaling any water. He kept his eyes closed, knowing that even if they were open all he would see would be a cloud of escaping bubbles.

  Nicco waited for the water’s inertia to push back against the vehicle’s momentum and slow the skycar, then opened his eyes. The thinman was gone, probably ripped away from the car’s hood on impact. Clarrum was hunched over the joystick, unconscious. Nicco tried pulling on his arm, but the big man didn’t move. He wanted to take him up with him, to drag the bodyguard to the surface, but he was growing more light-headed with every second. Bright lights began to dance in front of his eyes. He needed air.

  Nicco kicked out through the hole where the windshield had been and aimed for the surface. He had no strength left, no air remaining. He had to trust his own buoyancy to get him there.

  He broke the surface with a long gasp, then floundered as the tide covered his head again. He kicked out his legs and pumped his arms to maintain his level, then took another deep breath when the wave subsided. After twenty seconds the lights in front of his eyes had gone out. He took one last breath and dived back under the surface.

  He went straight down, kicking upwards. It took him fifteen seconds to reach the top of the car, now sinking slowly through the water. He grabbed the windshield frame and pulled himself down with one hand, bracing himself to wrench Clarrum free of the wreckage.

  But Clarrum wasn’t there.

  Nicco spun round in the water. There was no sign of the bodyguard.

  He must have woken up and surfaced. Nicco shoved against the car, thrusting himself back up through the water. He broke the surface, gasped for breath and shouted.

  “Clarrum!”

  No answer.

  “Clarrum!”

  But the big man was nowhere to be seen.

  AZBATHANS WEREN’T ESPECIALLY predisposed to calling the police, but gunshots, a burning basement, shrieking thinmen on fire and a skycar crashing into the Straits—all in the space of about five minutes—was probably enough to rouse even a hardened local from his practised nonchalance.

  Nicco couldn’t risk that. He didn’t have the time, energy or inclination even to tell the truth to a cop, much less make up a plausible story. So he swam a mile downcoast, to the mouth of the Nissal River, and dragged himself out of the water there.

  He still had the blaster in his pocket. That was something; if Xandus had bought it himself, even if he paid in cash, there might be a record somewhere. An address, even.

  It was better than nothing. Which was precisely what he had to show Bazhanka for his efforts.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “HOW DID HE die?”

  Nicco shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I can’t be sure he’s actually dead, but it seems pretty likely. It was a trap. Xandus—that’s his name, the wizard who hired me—has moved out of his quarters. I’m not sure he ever really lived there.”

  During his long walk back to Riverside, Nicco had thought a lot about Xandus’ motives. He didn’t like it, but the most likely explanation was that he’d been used as a tool in some kind of political game. The war might be over, but the messy business of Ramus-Bey and Year Zero proved there were still plenty of people vying for some kind of power. He just couldn’t see what the ploy was, and that bugged Nicco as much as not knowing Xandus’ whereabouts. “And he left his thinmen guarding the place. We walked straight into it. We tried to escape in Clarrum’s skycar but... well, turns out golems are pretty hard to kill.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  Bazhanka’s question caught Nicco unawares. He had been expecting the mob boss to be furious at Nicco for losing one of his personal bodyguards, but Bazhanka was taking it all in his stride.

  “I don’t think so, no. Not on the street, anyway. Someone may have seen us ditch the car in the drink. I think you’d tend to notice a burning skycar crashing into the Straits.”

  Mirrla Werrdun was still with Bazhanka, sitting by his side. “Fire and explosives is about all you can do to a thinman,” she said to the mob boss. “If they weren’t prepared, it’s surprising either of them got out alive.”

  Bazhanka snorted. “Nicco is full of surprises, my dear. He has a knack for narrow escapes.”

  “This wizard,” said Mirrla. “‘Xandus,’ you called him? How did you come to know him?”

  Nicco shook his head, wishing there was somewhere for him to sit down. Bazhanka presumably kept this side of his desk clear of seats for precisely this reason. “I didn’t. He came to me and asked me to do the job. Xandus said he was a collector, that he wanted Werrdun’s—your father’s—necklace for his collection.”

  “Do you think he is still in Azbatha?
”

  “No idea. He’s from Shalith, originally, on the other side of the archipelago. He may have gone back there. I can get an airship over there tomorrow morning, try and find him—”

  “You will do no such thing,” Bazhanka interrupted. “You’re in deep trouble, Nicco, such deep trouble. If you so much as book an airship ticket, I’ll be sending my own thinmen to pay you a visit. No, I want you here in Azbatha, looking for this wizard. I have contacts in Shalith who can cover that area.”

  “And how am I supposed to find him now? There are four million people on this island, and I don’t have anything to track him with! What in the fifty-nine hells should I do, put an ad in the free printzines?”

  “How you go about the search is of no consequence whatsoever, dear boy. All that counts in this grave matter is your results, and the consequences if you fail.”

  After his brush with death, Nicco was all but past caring. He sighed. “If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with and start looking yourself. I’m too tired to care.”

  “Dear boy, who said anything about killing you?”

  Nicco breathed a sigh of relief.

  “That whore whose bed I dragged you from, on the other hand... well. She seems such a fragile thing.”

  Nicco glared at Bazhanka. “You wouldn’t dare. She’s under Madame Zentra’s protection, you wouldn’t get within half a mile of the place once I tell her what’s going on.”

  Bazhanka curled his fat lips into a smile. “Don’t underestimate me, dear Nicco. My reach is long. And if you utter a single word to your whore, or the good Madame, I shall have your tongue mounted on my wall. Now get out. Time is short.”

  “REMIND ME WHY we’re here again? This place gives me the creeps.”

  The campus was an oasis of quiet and greenery in the Azbathan desert of steel, concrete and glass. A stone path divided the walled garden in two. On either side, as they walked through the campus, were carefully tended lawns dotted with trees and shrubs. Herbs and flowers brought colour to the swathe of green, but the whole was marred by occasional, random patches of burnt grass.

  Half a dozen students in grey robes walked around the garden, speaking in hushed tones. They stopped and turned to stare at Nicco and Allad as they walked through the stone arch into the college compound.

  “You can’t just hack into a wizard’s college infosite,” Nicco replied.

  “Why not? I know a really good hacker who owes me a favour. We could...”

  “Because they don’t have an infosite, dummy. It’s all paper and ink, here. You know what wizards are like.”

  “I try to stay away from them as much as possible, actually. Can’t you just come back at night and break in?”

  Nicco gestured to one of the burnt patches on the lawn. “And end up like that? Now come on.” They stepped up into a single-sided cloister at the front of the main building. A young man wearing the same grey robes approached and nodded at them in greeting.

  “My name is Darro. Can I help you?”

  “We’re looking for a wizard—” said Nicco.

  “Then you’ve come to the right place,” said Darro with a smile.

  “—called Xandus. I’m not sure if he attended this college, but he lives in Azbatha now, so we were hoping someone here would know him.”

  The young adept stroked his chin. “Doesn’t ring any bells,” he said. “Is he a friend of yours?”

  “Acquaintance. Do you have records we could look at?”

  The adept smiled. “Yes, of course we have records. But I’m afraid you can’t look at them.”

  Nicco knew that look. It was the kind of look that said by the saints, what a pair of non-magical simpletons I have here.

  “It’s very important we find him. We have something of his that must be returned.”

  “Oh, really? And what would that be?”

  Nicco nodded to Allad, who unwrapped a small bundle of cloth he was carrying to reveal a metal box. He opened it slowly, and Darro leant forward to examine the contents.

  The adept gasped. “That... that... um, perhaps I should fetch the chancellor...”

  Nicco smiled. “You do that.”

  Darro hurried inside the building, and Nicco and Allad followed him in. Nicco had never seen the campus before. It all seemed very out of place in Azbatha. It was only a fraction of the size of the main Archmage’s Institute in Turilum, but stepping into it still felt like crossing a boundary. A nation unto itself. The building was remarkable for being only three stories tall—a dwarf in this city of steel titans—and made entirely from sea stone. Nicco guessed they simply couldn’t make it any taller than that without reinforcement of some kind. Or perhaps wizards just preferred rubbish old buildings.

  The reception hall had the same feel: wood and stone that smelled of mould and rot. As Darro scurried away to find the chancellor, Nicco looked up to see a stone tablet embedded in one wall, engraved with the names of the college’s graduates. He nudged Allad.

  “Check it out. Engraved stone.”

  Allad gave a low whistle. “It must be worth a fortune. You’d never sell it, though. Well, maybe to a bunch of Varnian students for a prank, but they’d pay bugger all.”

  Nicco scanned the list. He didn’t see anyone called Xandus on it, but he’d expected that. If Xandus was from Shalith, he would have graduated there. Or, if Shalith didn’t have its own college—Nicco had no idea—then maybe he would have gone to Promith, the next major island. Either way, it had always been unlikely that he’d graduated from Azbatha, if for no other reason than his accent.

  But perhaps someone who had graduated here knew him. Nicco figured that in a place like Turith, where magic was considered impolite at best and insulting at worst, wizards stuck together for security. Even if Xandus didn’t seek out the college himself on arrival, it wouldn’t take long for a visitor to become known to them.

  Allad had read the list as well. “He’s not there. Right, can we go now? I don’t want to start making enemies of—”

  “Gentlemen.”

  An elderly woman approached them, treading softly across the bare wooden floor of the reception hall. She wore a robe of the same style and cut as the adepts but in plain, bright white.

  “I am Sarathin, chancellor of this college. Young Darro tells me you have something with you that I should see... is this it?”

  The woman gestured at Nicco’s chest. He raised his hand to it, confused, then felt his father’s pendant through his shirt and shook his head.

  Allad coughed. “No,” he said. “It’s this.” He opened the metal box again, and Sarathin peered inside with surprise in her eyes.

  She looked up at Allad. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  The chancellor reached into the box and lifted out a small silver brooch. It was a sky whale, fat and smooth like the creatures used to pull ferries back and forth across the Nissal River—and much of Turith—all day long. Its single eye was a tiny crimson jewel. It was exquisitely carved, and beautiful.

  Sarathin didn’t care about any of that. She held it in her thin, pale hands, taking shallow breaths as she turned it around and examined it. It was enchanted. Very heavily enchanted, in fact.

  Slowly, the old woman began to rise into the air. Nicco grabbed her by the arms, gently pulling down to keep her on the ground.

  “Steady, now. Don’t want you floating off into the rafters.”

  The brooch was Allad’s, or rather it had been stolen by someone and sold to Allad. What Allad hadn’t known when he bought it was how much of a burden it would become. The brooch was very powerful, there was no doubt about that. Its natural—or rather magical—state was to be rising into the air. Constantly. After he’d bought it, Allad left it untethered in his store-room and had to pick it down from the ceiling on his return. Shenny had once taken it from the heavily-anchored container Allad stored it in, thinking she might wear it to a society function. Allad had returned home to find his wife lying on the floor in pain, and t
he brooch floating up on the ceiling. Shenny had panicked, let go at ceiling height and sprained her ankle.

  Allad’s problem was that the brooch did nothing else. It just floated. It couldn’t be steered, it couldn’t be used to slow a fall like a grav unit, it didn’t have any kind of speed control. It just kept rising, slow but unstoppable, and took anything up to about a human being’s weight with it.

  None of which made it an easy sell. In fact, he’d been lumbered with it for almost six years now. In truth, he’d stopped trying to sell it after the first two. But still the brooch kept rising. The enchantment didn’t seem to need any kind of topping up.

  That didn’t half impress wizards.

  Sarathin put the brooch back into the box and Allad snapped the lid shut. When Nicco had asked to borrow it, Allad insisted he accompany him to the wizard’s compound. Useless it might be, but deep down Allad still knew it was worth a packet to someone, somewhere. And he didn’t trust anyone else not to mishandle it and end up thousands of feet above the city.

  “It’s a beautiful piece of work,” said Sarathin. “The enchantment is most impressive.”

  “Yeah,” said Nicco, “And it belongs to a friend of ours, a wizard called Xandus. He’s from Shalith originally, but now he lives in Azbatha. Do you know him?”

  Sarathin frowned. “Xandus... I can’t say I do. He’s in Azbatha, you say?”

  “Well, he was until a few days ago. Now we can’t find him, and we want to return this brooch to him.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone of that name, wizard or not. And as far as I know...” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then began humming softly.

  Nicco and Allad looked at one another. What in the fifty-nine hells was she doing?

  Sarathin stopped humming as abruptly as she started and opened her eyes. “No. There are no wizards on this island except my students, and... one other, who is most definitely not your friend.”

  Nicco smiled. “Bindol.” The old wizard was an outcast, thrown out of the Turilum Institute after he was found fencing minor artifacts from the Institute’s library to the highest bidder—who just happened to be Wallus Bazhanka. Bindol’s concerns were more material than spiritual. Since his exile he’d adopted the title ‘magus,’ hired himself out to crooks and gangsters, and rapidly become a rich and powerful man.