Stealing Life

by Antony Johnston

  “Well, that wouldn’t surprise me. He’s a top man in holovids. Tabathianna could do quite well out of him.”

  “Aren’t you concerned?”

  “She’s not an innocent, Nicco. You of all people should know that.” She smiled. “Now, come and have a drink with me.” She led him to the stairs at the other end of the corridor, up two flights and through a door into her office. As Nicco took a seat, the Madame poured two glasses of wine. “So what did those thinmen want with you? I’m concerned I might have caused you some trouble.”

  “You? No, they were Bazhanka’s. I owe him some money, that’s all. They were a day early, mind.”

  She sat down behind the desk and sipped at her wine. “Nicco, I’ve known you since you were born. I watched you grow, and even when your mother had no idea you were off learning your trade, I knew what you were up to. You can’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying, I swear. But why would you think it was your fault?”

  “I thought perhaps the wizard I sent your way was working for Bazhanka. If so, I apologise. I never intended to get you mixed up with that man.” She grimaced, as if she could barely bring herself to talk about him.

  “Wait a minute. What wizard?”

  “The one you were in the Silver Sky Whale with, last week. Didn’t he tell you?”

  Nicco was speechless. What was it Xandus had said? You are recommended to me by an associate... of your skills they speak very highly. “He never mentioned you by name. So it was you who recommended me to him?”

  “Yes, he visited us a couple of weeks ago. Just another client, until he came to see me before he left. First he asked me who in Azbatha he should see to arrange a job, and naturally I put myself forward. Then, when he told me he needed an skilled burglar, someone who could be trusted to do a sensitive job, I told him you were the best. Of course, I took a commission, but I hadn’t seen you since to ask you if he got in touch. He didn’t tell you any of this?”

  “No,” Nicco mumbled. “He... he had my number all along?”

  “Yes. I told him you were in and out of here quite often, but he insisted it was urgent, so I gave him your number. Nicco, you look quite pale. Is something the matter?”

  “Had you ever seen him before? Did you recognise him?”

  “No, I assumed he was from out of town. His accent was quite strong, but of course you’ll have noticed that yourself.”

  “How did he pay? For his girl, I mean?”

  “Cash. Another reason I suspected he was from out of town, though I don’t know what backward part of the country he must be from not to have a Shalumari card.”

  Nicco sank into the chair. For a moment his hopes had been lifted, the hope that maybe, just maybe, Xandus had left a trail or some details. Anything that might give Nicco a clue as to his whereabouts. Now those hopes were dashed.

  “Wait! Which girl did you give him?”

  “Gurinama. Why?”

  “Can I see her?”

  AS THEY WALKED to Gurinama’s room, Nicco told Zentra everything, on the condition that she didn’t repeat it to Tabby. Not quite everything, of course—he didn’t tell her about Bazhanka’s threats against Tabby, or why the holovid producer was really here—but by the time they reached the room on the second floor, she knew everything else.

  At Gurinama’s room, the indicator light next to the door frame was green. She was between clients. Zentra knocked on the door. “Gurinama! Are you there, girl?”

  A muffled shout of “Yes” came from inside the room, followed by the sound of a hasty tidying up session. Zentra smiled and rolled her eyes, but dropped any sign of amusement when Gurinama opened the door.

  “What is it, Madame? Oh... Hello, Nicco.”

  “May we come in, child?”

  “Of course, Madame, of course.” Gurinama stood back to let Nicco and the Madame inside, then closed the door behind them and stroked her thumb across a small plate underneath the light switch. The plate controlled the door locking mechanism; as it read Gurinama’s thumbprint a quiet clicking sounded. The door was locked, and the indicator light outside would now show red.

  “Cast your mind back,” said Zentra. “I need you to remember a client from two weeks ago. He was...” She looked to Nicco.

  He took up the description. “His name was Xandus. Black hair, a neat little black beard. Very strong Eastern accent. He has blue eyes, he’s quite tall and thin...” Nicco racked his brains, trying to remember Xandus’ features. “He probably wore a lot of make-up to give him a very pale face.”

  Gurinama sat on her bed, trying to remember.

  “He paid in cash,” prompted Zentra.

  “Oh!” Gurinama smiled. “Yes, I remember him now. He was a funny one, actually. Wanted me to take the lead, if you know what I mean.” She winked at Nicco.

  Nicco sat down on the bed beside her. “Can you remember anything else about him? Anything at all. I can’t stress how important this is, Guri. It’s literally a matter of life and death.” A muffled shout sounded from the corridor outside. Nicco ignored it, concentrating on Gurinama. The girl held his life in her hands. “Did he mention where he lived? Any family details, perhaps? He might have mentioned a brother, or sister, even his parents? Or which college he attended?”

  She pulled a puzzled face at Nicco. “College?”

  “He was a wizard, remember?”

  “He didn’t look like one. And he didn’t do any bloody magic with me, more’s the pity. An enlargening spell wouldn’t have gone amiss...” The shouts from outside were becoming louder. Gurinama looked up at Madame Zentra. “What’s going on out there? Is it a fight?”

  Nicco tried to contain his frustration. “Please, Guri, concentrate. Try and remember...”

  “I can’t, Nicco, I’m sorry. He didn’t say much at all, really. And I couldn’t understand much of what he did say, with his accent. I’m really sorry.”

  Another yell sounded from outside, even louder this time, and now female voices joined in the shouting match. Madame Zentra ran her thumb across the locking plate—her print was a skeleton key for every door in the building—and pulled the door open. “What in the fifty-nine hells is going on here?” she shouted.

  A dark-skinned man stood in the corridor, his shirt missing and his trousers flapping around his ankles, leaving just his underwear to cover his modesty. He held a small knife in one hand, brandishing it at anyone who came near. His other hand gripped one of the girls by the arm. She screamed in fear as his fingers squeezed hard into her flesh. Nicco recognised the girl. Her name was Lullu; she was a couple of years younger than Tabby.

  “Has anyone called security?” shouted Madame Zentra to the girls. They all nodded. She turned to the man with the knife. “Are you insane? What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

  The man shouted through clenched teeth. “My purse! The whore, she has my purse within her! Will not to me return it!”

  The elevator at the end of the corridor pinged, and two of the brothel’s resident security men stepped out. All of the girls’ rooms had panic buttons by the bed—one press transmitted the room number to all internal security guards. Nicco guessed the client had caught Lullu unawares and grabbed her before she had chance to hit the button.

  One of the guards drew his blaster and took up a covering position halfway down the corridor. The other slowly approached the man and his hostage, calling out to him.

  “Sir!”

  The client spun round, pressing the knife to Lullu’s throat. “Do not step any more, no! My purse will you return, or to the whore is death!”

  The unarmed guard stopped, but Madame Zentra took another step forward. “Whatever the problem is, we can sort it out. Put down your knife, and we’ll find your purse.”

  “The whore she takes it!” the man screamed at Madame Zentra. “Much cash is there, she sees it!”

  Another cash freak, thought Nicco. What the hell was wrong with these people?

  Lullu whimpered. “I didn’t take anyt
hing, Madame, I didn’t. I don’t know where his purse is, he’s turned my room upside-down...”

  “It’s all right, child,” said Madame Zentra. “Just stay calm. Now, sir—where did you put your purse after you paid downstairs? Are you sure you had it when you went into Lullu’s room?”

  Nicco had a sudden thought. He broke into a run, heading for the elevator. “Hold those doors!” he shouted. The armed security guard stared at Nicco as he ran past, and he wasn’t the only one. They all probably thought he’d flipped his lid. The doors were almost closed...

  Nicco leapt the last few feet and jammed his outstretched arm between the doors. The inbuilt safety sensors kept the doors open, and the whole elevator juddered. Nicco stood up and pushed the doors open. He stepped inside and jabbed the EMERGENCY HOLD button, then got down on his hands and knees.

  The elevator carpet was thick, a deep, red, woollen pile, in imitation of the Praali style. Deep enough that you could drop something in it and, in all probability, not even hear it hit the ground. Something like a purse...

  There it was, in the corner. Small, fashioned out of brown, scaled leather. Nicco picked it out of the carpet and shook it. It jingled with the sound of cash. He held the purse above his head and shouted down the corridor. “Found it!”

  He needn’t have shouted. Everyone was watching him anyway, wondering what he was playing at. As he walked back down the corridor, holding the purse above his head, their puzzlement was replaced by groans and tuts.

  Madame Zentra gaped at Nicco. “It was in the elevator?”

  “Must have dropped out of his pocket on the way up. Easy to miss, with that carpet.” He held the purse out to the dark-skinned man. “Is this yours? You’re lucky it was still there,” he said, though he wasn’t all that surprised. A brothel, even a classy joint like Madame Zentra’s, operated under an unspoken social contract between clients—don’t look, don’t acknowledge, don’t talk, eyes front. The mayor himself could walk through the place, and nobody would try to greet him. It just wasn’t the done thing. The odds of someone using the elevator and looking anywhere but straight ahead, so as to avoid eye contact with the person standing next to them, were so slim as to make no odds. That purse could have been there an hour or more.

  The client stuttered and stammered, staring at the purse.

  Lullu scowled over her shoulder at him. “I told you I didn’t take it, you bloody idiot!” She reached up and pulled his arm away from her neck. “Now let me go!”

  “I... I apologies, the purse I thought... Oh, dear.”

  With Lullu free, the security guards rushed the man and restrained him. Nicco opened the purse and whistled. There was a fair amount of cash in there. He snapped it shut and handed it to one of the guards.

  “Somebody pull his trousers up,” said Madame Zentra. “Then get him out of here.”

  “You want him dealt with?” said one of the guards.

  Language barrier or not, the client seemed to understand the tone of the guard’s voice well enough. “No, no! I am make the mistake, exactly!”

  Nicco stared at the man.

  “Hang on,” he said to the guards. “Give me that purse for a minute.”

  The guard shrugged and handed the purse back to Nicco. He looked closely at it. The brown scales... Nicco had assumed it was seasnake skin, or something like it, from the eastern side of Turith. But now he wasn’t so sure.

  “What is this?” he asked the man. “This isn’t seasnake, is it?”

  “Leather,” said the man. “Groak skin, exactly.”

  Nicco stared at him. “Where are you from?”

  “I am of the Hurrunda, from Varn.”

  IT HAD BEEN bugging him since the man first spoke. His accent was stronger, his speech more broken than Xandus’, but similar enough to grab Nicco’s attention. His use of cash instead of a Shalumari payment card. His dark skin... skin that could have been obscured by heavy make-up, had he so wished.

  Sitting in Madame Zentra’s office, Nicco felt like slapping himself. What a fool he’d been! Shalith, indeed.

  “He was from Varn. Probably Hurrunda itself. No wonder nobody around here knew him... even assuming Xandus was his real name.”

  “Do you think that’s how he knew about the governor’s necklace?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know, I suppose any wizard might keep track of magical items and whatnot. I just don’t understand why he did it. Why go to all this trouble? Why use someone he’s never met before? Surely there must be thieves in Hurrunda, they’d know Werrdun and his people better than I do.”

  “And they might also know the thief.”

  “Yeah.” Nicco sighed. “Perhaps that’s why he waited till Werrdun was in Azbatha. He knew the security wouldn’t be as tight as back home, where they have to deal with bombs and fanatics every other week. But why all the secrecy? He basically tricked me into doing this job, but I would have done it anyway. Why would a wizard need to worry about what a thief like me knows? And now he’s gone into hiding, but... yesterday I saw a wizard sniff out every other magic user here in Azbatha in a few seconds. So where in the fifty-nine hells does he think he can hide without another wizard finding him?”

  Madame Zentra leaned back in her chair and pondered the conundrum. “Perhaps he’s more worried about someone else finding him... or perhaps he’s not as powerful as you think. What sort of magic did he do?”

  “Well, he had thinmen...”

  “Nicco, much as it might make me vomit, I could visit Bindol and get myself an army of golems. Even Wallus Bazhanka has thinmen, and he doesn’t have an ounce of magic in his soul. What else did this wizard show you? Anything spectacular or powerful?”

  Nicco blinked. “I didn’t see...”

  “What didn’t you see?”

  Nicco gaped. Like the village beyond a burst dam, his mind drowned in a sudden wave of realisation. “Watery saints. The lying son of a squid!”

  Madame Zentra looked puzzled. “I don’t understand. What?”

  “I didn’t see anything. I never saw him cast any spells or use any magic, apart from his thinmen.” Nicco’s mind raced as he replayed his meetings with Xandus over in his mind. He didn’t cast any enchantments. He wore oddly matched clothing, part wizard and part faux countryman. And outside of his sanctum, he didn’t wear any wizard’s clothes at all. Nicco had thought it was because Xandus feared hostility in a post-Year Zero world, but Nicco was wrong. He didn’t wear wizard’s clothes, because...

  “He wasn’t a wizard at all!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  NICCO HAULED HIS kit bag off the security scanner and made his way through the crowded concourse toward the waiting lounge. Like the city it served, Azbatha International was always crowded with foot traffic vastly disproportionate to its size, and Nicco was glad to get out of the crush into the lounge. He’d spent so little time in the heave-ho of Azbathan street life the past couple of weeks that dodging and weaving his way through people, normally something he barely even noticed doing, was starting to grate on his nerves. It was a sure sign this whole business was stressing him out.

  The lounge was three-quarters full, split roughly evenly between business travellers and holidaymakers. Of the latter, Nicco counted a few dozen with dark skin. That was good. He wouldn’t stand out quite so much if vacation travel was becoming more common.

  He found a seat and began waiting. He’d left Azbatha plenty of times before; financial trips to Shalumar, vacations with Allad to Turilum, hops across the Straits to do a quick job on Rilok or Kesam. If he’d been of a more legal bent, Nicco would have racked up an impressive frequent flyer account by now. But he wasn’t of a legal bent.

  “All aboard! Now boarding for flight 517! Citi-cards and flight passes ready, please!”

  He approached the desk and handed his forged papers to the airline clerk.

  NICCO HAD LEFT Madame Zentra’s through the back door. There was a chance Bazhanka had posted someone to watch the place to look out for Nicco, or j
ust accompanying the holovid producer. Either way, he didn’t want to risk the mob boss following him.

  He contemplated asking Tabby to come with him, but it was too risky. It would be hard enough for Nicco to leave Azbatha incognito, twice as hard if he had to keep her unseen as well. He was already taking a risk just leaving her here. The set-up with the producer had to be Bazhanka’s way of letting Nicco know his threat to Tabby was serious. Madame Zentra could afford her a certain amount of protection, especially now that she knew about Nicco’s predicament, and would keep a watchful eye on the girl. But there was only so much the Madame could do.

  Besides, Tabby didn’t speak any Varnian.

  Nicco’s planned trip to Shalith was a non-starter, of that he was sure. Xandus had lied about everything else, and now Nicco knew he’d lied about where he came from as well. The wizard (not a wizard, Nicco had to stop thinking of him like that—the con man, more like) had probably chosen Shalith because it was so far away, so foreign to Azbathans, that it may as well be a different country—and Nicco had fallen for it. All the mannerisms, the odd syntax, the layers of white make-up to hide his true skin colour... Nicco should have seen through it from the start. His need for money had betrayed his better judgement. To think, he’d almost come to like the son of a squid!

  No, Nicco wouldn’t find Xandus—if that was even his real name—in Shalith. He wouldn’t find him in all of Turith, Nicco was sure of that much. But his bag was already packed. He had to find the con man, for the sake of both himself and Tabby.

  There was only one place left to search that made any sense.

  “HURRUNDA, IS IT, Mr Millurat?” said the desk clerk. He took Nicco’s citi-card and flight pass and slotted them both into a scanpod.

  “Yes,” said Nicco. The pod’s amber light winked as his cards were checked. That citi-card had cost him an arm and a leg, or at least an IOU of his major limbs, from Allad. Nicco needed a forgery for two reasons. The first being the cops were almost certainly watching for him leaving the island, and putting his real name in the airship port system would be like paying for an I’M SKIPPING TOWN holo billboard.