Stealing Sorcery

by Andrew Rowe

  “But my leg – I’m going to die. You promised –”

  Taelien shook his head. “First off, I never promised I’d give you the antidote. But you can relax, anyway. I never even cut you.”

  “…what?”

  Taelien rolled the assassin over, and then pushed him to a seated position. The assassin hesitantly lifted his leg. The pant leg had been split apart and drenched with poison, but the leg beneath was unscathed. “I just put enough pressure on the blade to cut through the cloth. I knew you’d feel that and just assume that I was cutting through flesh, too. It’s often hard to feel a wound when a sword is razor sharp, and the mind plays all sorts of tricks when you can’t actually see what’s happening.”

  The assassin lowered his head, silent for several moments. And then he burst into laughter. “You…you never even…”

  “Nope, never cut you. Wouldn’t risk losing whatever information you have, even if you hurt my friend. I need to know who sent you, and who your ‘real’ target was, if it wasn’t Velas. So, you’re going to come with me.”

  The assassin laughed again, slowly rising to his feet as Taelien pulled on the chain. “You’re serving the wrong masters. That game you played – you should have been one of us.”

  “No,” Taelien shook his head. “But I almost was.”

  ***

  Hours later, Taelien and Velas sat atop Calor’s Vista, a rocky hill on the northern side of the paladin base. It was the highest place they knew of on the grounds, as far from oversight as they could be without violating the rules of their tests. They dangled their feet over the edge of a rocky cleft overlooking the base, watching the shadows spread as the dawnfire retreated below the horizon.

  “So,” Taelien turned his head slightly toward Velas. “How do you think I did?”

  She turned sideways to face him directly, smirking. “I think you should have taken off my pants.”

  Taelien blinked, recoiling slightly. “Um, what?”

  Velas laughed, a sincere laugh that brought an unconscious smile to Taelien’s face. “You’re so easy to bait.” She patted the lower half of her left leg. “You didn’t check me for other wounds. I was supposed to have another wound on my leg. Just from a kick, fortunately – when I had my test, Landen had a ‘cut’ on his leg, which was a lot worse. My neck was also supposed to be injured from the fall, but honestly, I doubt very many people would have checked that.”

  Taelien lowered his head. “Do you think I failed?”

  “Don’t think so, but they’re definitely going to hit you for not checking me carefully enough. Next time, make sure to give me a thorough examination, yeah?”

  He chuckled. “You’re shameless. But thanks for the honest answer, even if it does make me nervous.”

  “Relax. You got the bad guy. I was impressed – I let mine get away. I thought that was the point, picking saving your friend over taking the assassin down. Now I’m not so sure.”

  If they used Landen as the victim for her – and her for me – that might mean that they were trying to compromise our judgment. Or, like she assumed, maybe the opposite – trying to ensure that we “did the right thing” and prioritized our friend. Paladins of Tae’os are supposed to prioritize saving lives over all else, after all.

  “I left you behind.” He turned away from her.

  “Cheer the resh up. You’re so moody sometimes.” She slid closer to him on the rocks, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It was just a test, Sal.”

  He frowned, turning his gaze back toward her. “Sure, but it might have been indicative of our personalities. I think that’s the point. I went straight for the attack. Sure, I faked poisoning the guy, but I still won’t claim that I was thinking clearly. I wanted to hurt him. I knew none of it was real, but my instincts were screaming at me – to hurt him. To break the person who hurt you.”

  “Well, I find that flattering, personally. That means you really wanted to protect me.” She slid her hand down his arm, grabbing his own hand. “And if you feel bad about leaving me behind, just don’t do it again, yeah?”

  Protecting you…is that what it was about?

  I’m not so sure.

  Nevertheless, he nodded. “I’ll... I’ll make sure I won’t make the same mistake twice. I won’t leave you behind again.”

  “Also, be more careful about checking for injuries.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to preach. I got the point the first time.”

  “Did you? I think we might need to practice.”

  Taelien shrugged. “All right, I’ll let you teach me a few tricks sometime.”

  Velas smirked, brushing a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes.

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Chapter XIII – Jonan III – Silk

  The sight sorcerer felt naked in his visibility, but occasionally it proved necessary to go to a public area without concealing his location. As he glanced at the tavern patrons, he felt a weight at the back of his mind, a pressing need to remove himself from the situation. He resisted the urge. He had business to attend to.

  Jonan approached the bar, finding an empty spot and leaning up against it, attempting to look natural. After a pair of painful minutes of waiting, one of the two bartenders approached. He was a younger man – even by Jonan’s standards –more than likely too young to even drink the stock.

  “What can I get ya?” The boy offered a grin. “Rum, maybe? You look like you could use something with a kick.”

  He shook his head fervently. “No, thank you.” Although you might not be wrong. “I’m here to meet someone. A young lady who enjoys the sharp wine.”

  “Oh! I get you. Give me a moment and I’ll show you the way.”

  A moment turned into several more nervous minutes, until the boy finally returned and gave him a wordless gesture to follow. Jonan was more than eager to comply – he had felt the weight of several looks while he had been waiting. The worst of them was from a perpetually grinning man with white hair, who sat seemingly alone at a table, a game board of some kind in front of him.

  The boy bartender led him to a back room, knocked on the door twice, and then turned the knob. The room beyond was no simple storage area – it was a lavishly decorated chamber like one might have expected in a wealthy noble’s home, with embroidered red carpeting and a single table in the center decorated with candles to provide illumination. Several paintings graced the walls, and Jonan realized with discomfort that he was almost certain that most of them depicted the Vae’kes Aayara in varying stages of her life.

  The young woman that sat at one of the two chairs adjacent to the table bore a close enough resemblance to some of the paintings that she might have been mistaken for the subject herself – but Jonan knew Aayara well enough to spot subtler differences. The seated woman was several inches taller than the legendary Lady of Thieves, and although she was relatively slim, her musculature was far better defined than Aayara’s. Her blonde hair showed hints of black at the roots, implying that her hair had been bleached and dyed.

  This was not Symphony herself – but the apprentice made a passable fabrication. Few survived having the level of personal contact with Aayara to be able to account for the minor differences.

  Jonan shut the door behind him and spoke first. “Loyalty is like a crystal sword.”

  “Really? The same one I used last time?” The faux-Symphony sighed theatrically – which echoed around the room in a hint of effortless sound sorcery – and shook her head. “Sharp and beautiful, but easily shattered. You going to sit?”

  He smirked and approached, taking the opposite chair. She had incidentally confirmed not only the code, but her own identity. That phrase is inane, but it did serve a useful purpose. He never used it elsewhere – meaning that the woman was the same person who had met him on the rooftop, or someone who had been privy to their conversation. The latter was significantly less likely, given how severely Aayara would punish giving that kind of information to anyone outside of h
er inner circle.

  Silk. Her resemblance to her master must be intentional. Perhaps it’s an element of Aayara’s narcissism, but I suspect it’s more likely the image is tailored to cultivate a reaction. A reminder of her connection with one of the most dangerous people in the world. Or, for those who aren’t familiar with Aayara’s exact appearance, it might even be sufficient to play at being Symphony herself.

  There was a nagging sense of familiarity about the woman – something that might have gone beyond the resemblance to their mutual contact – but he couldn’t quite place it. The last time he thought he had seen her, she had worn heavy veils like Symphony herself was renowned for. Had he seen her prior to that, or since?

  He took note of the pair of glasses of wine on the table as he approached and sat. “I didn’t think anyone took the ‘sharp wine’ thing literally.”

  Silk plucked her own glass from the table with two fingers – a sign of dexterity that Jonan himself lacked – and sipped from it. “I enjoy occasional indulgences in both puns and drink.” She took another sip. “What about you?”

  He picked up the glass with significantly less elegance than she had demonstrated, took a dubious sniff – it didn’t smell like poison, not that such a test was in any way reliable – and sipped at it. Huh. That is sharp wine.

  The scribe swallowed the drink with a grimace. Silk raised her gloved left hand to her face, chuckling lightly.

  “Not to your taste? I suppose I could offer you something sweeter.” She reached into a pouch on her left hip, drawing Jonan’s attention to her outfit.

  Silk was wearing a long nondescript grey skirt and matching long-sleeved top. Her belt had a large brown pouch on the left side and a simple sheathed dagger on the right. He could faintly make out the outlines of objects inside the sleeves, pressed against her forearms – most likely a thinner variety of daggers. He had tried the same thing himself, but he had a difficult time drawing them quickly enough, even from specially tailored garb with sleeves sewn in for the weaponry. Her gloves were a hint darker than the rest of her outfit, and on the way over to the table he had caught sight of her knee-length black boots, which likely contained more concealed weapons.

  He resisted the urge to flinch when she drew something out of the pouch. It wasn’t another weapon – just a red apple. Which, he realized as she turned it over in her hand, she was peeling with a half-exposed knife that now jutted out of her sleeve. He hadn’t seen her make the gesture necessary to expose the blade, which was somewhat impressive, given his own experience at sleight-of-hand.

  Showoff.

  But he wouldn’t complain. He liked apples. They were fantastic.

  “I’d love some of that, actually. And some information.”

  Her expression briefly twisted into a mock pout, and she flicked her fingers. He caught the apple-quarter in mid-flight, taking a bite from it. That, at least, solicited a grin in response.

  “Next time you invite a girl out to dinner, the least you could do is give her a few minutes of polite banter before you get into business. But I’ll bite.” She bit into another quarter of the apple, balancing the remaining half of the fruit on the table. “What do you need?”

  This part was always awkward. “Well, there’s been a murder.”

  Silk took another bite from her apple, producing an audible crunch. “And this concerns us how?”

  “The victim was Edrick Theas’ son.”

  Crunch.

  “Still not seeing the concern.”

  Jonan took a small bite of his own apple slice. “Did you kill him?”

  The athletic woman tilted her head to the side. “No?”

  He nodded. “He’s a pretty high profile figure. Not many people would have the necessary resources. People will be investigating our end eventually – I figured it better that I check in advance, in case I needed to do some sweeping for you.”

  “Appreciate the concern.” She finished her quarter, picking up the half-apple that was still on the table. “Was that all?”

  Jonan shook his head. “If it wasn’t you, it could still be someone else from the guild.”

  “I doubt it.” She picked up her glass of wine with two fingers of her off-hand, shaking it in the air, causing the liquid to swish around inside. “I might have ordered the sharp wine, but the reality is that the guild rarely takes on that kind of business these days. I never do it personally – risk isn’t worth the reward. You’d be better off looking at your own people, I suspect.”

  My own people? Who does she think I work for, exactly?

  She was probably talking about the Thornguard – the military branch of the Priesthood of Vaelien. That implied that she wasn’t Thornguard, which he found somewhat surprising.

  Silk was definitely the title of Symphony’s personal apprentice – he had heard that name thrown around for years – and Symphony was Velrya’s guild name for the Vae’kes Aayara. Symphony was, at least as far as he was aware, the most famous member of the guild – that was how she had developed her reputation as the “Lady of Thieves”. There were conflicting reports about whether or not she was also the master of the guild, which was consistent with the conflicting reports about just about everything else concerning Aayara.

  Jonan was an “Ess” – meaning he had a guild name starting with the letter “S”, indicating he was in Symphony’s personal employ. He was not, however, a member of any thieves guild, although he had worked with them on several occasions. His assignments typically came from Aayara directly, although he was occasionally loaned out to other senior Vae’kes or high ranking members of the Thornguard.

  He had worked with members of the thieves’ guild before, but he had assumed that Silk was like him – closer to the Thornguard side than the guild side of Aayara’s business. Now, it sounded more like Silk was exclusively a guild agent – in fact, upon reflection, he had never heard Silk refer to Symphony as “Aayara”. Thornguard and other Vae’kes almost always used the personal name, and guild agents generally called her Symphony. Jonan had met some guild members who weren’t even aware that Symphony was the Lady of Thieves - it was nonsensical that her apprentice might be one of them, but he decided to tread carefully in this conversation, just in case.

  Maybe Aayara keeps us working on one side or the other to prevent any one person from getting access to too much information. An apprentice with intimate knowledge of both guild activities and Thornguard resources could be a liability if she was ever captured or persuaded to adjust her loyalties.

  “Yes,” he replied simply after a long pause, “I think I’ll do that.” He scratched at his chin, debating a risk. “Have you heard of a man named Cassius Morn?”

  The young woman turned her head upward for a moment, giving an impression that she was considering, and then shook her head. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Why do you ask?”

  Jonan pressed his lips together, contemplating. Giving her too much information could make her a liability. On the other hand, if there’s a rogue Thornguard agent in the city, she could potentially be a target. “He’s dangerous. Former Thornguard. Weapons expert. I don’t think he’s involved, but he might be. I wouldn’t let him sneak up on you.”

  Silk took another sip of her wine, set it down, and tossed the apple into the air. Before it landed, the fruit had been bisected again, and an apple quarter landed in front of him. Jonan picked it up, inspecting the perfect symmetry of the cut.

  Definitely a show-off.

  “Your concern is touching. But this can’t be all you called me here for,” the young woman pried in a teasing tone.

  Jonan finished the first quarter of the apple he had been offered and took a bite of the second slice, thinking while he chewed. “Assuming I find that no one related to our various organizations was responsible, do you have any guesses as to where else I should look?”

  The apprentice raised a finger to her lips, raising her eyes in a thoughtful expression. “You’ve checked with Hartigan, I assume?”

 
“Ly – someone is looking into that angle.”

  “All right, what about Tarren?” She lifted her remaining quarter of the apple, slashed it again, and took a bite out of one of the resulting eighths.

  Jonan blinked. The third of the so-called immortal sorcerers – famous for finding secret ways of extending their lifespans – Erik Tarren was best known for his texts on history and sorcerous theory. He had been a battle mage many years before, however, and had been instrumental in the war against Xixis along with the other two immortals – Blake Hartigan and Edrick Theas.

  The man had such a mild mannered reputation that Jonan hadn’t even given him serious consideration as a murder suspect, but he clearly had known Edrick for decades. That was plenty of time to accrue a reason for a personal vendetta. And Erik was best known for travel sorcery – the form of sorcery used for both teleportation and summoning. Lydia had found evidence of a planar gateway, which required that exact form of sorcery to be used.

  Resh. I didn’t even think about him.

  “Huh. That’s…a possibility, I suppose.”

  Silk gave him a quizzical look. “I was joking. The man must be two hundred years old.”

  Jonan waved a hand dismissively. “Sure, but he certainly has resources. And Symphony isn’t exactly the only legend with apprentices.”

  “Okay.” She ate the last piece of her side of the apple. “While we’re entertaining the idea of geriatric assassins, have you thought about any of the older Rethri sorcerers? Vorinthal or Ta’thyriel, maybe?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, they’re on my list of people to look into. I’m planning to check Edrick’s own family and guards as well.”

  “Not a bad idea. I hear his daughter is nearly as powerful as he is, and you know how siblings are.”

  I don’t generally associate siblings with murdering each other, but that’s a pretty good lead. I hadn’t heard that the sister – Nakane, I think her name was – had a reputation for being all that powerful herself. Interesting.