Thief of Lives

by Barb Hendee

  The young woman's eyes drifted up.

  "Forget what you now see," he said, voice still steady in the silence of the room. "Forget I was here. And remember only what is in your hands, what you must do. Visit the last house at dusk."

  He stepped from the study and left the barracks, in control once again.

  "You're lucky I got there in time," Leesil growled at Chap. "Or you'd have been scorched bald as a plucked goose."

  Magiere stood in the kitchen doorway watching her partner examine the dog once again. A tuft of his tail and some spots of fur were singed, but Chap was otherwise sound. Now knowing the hound understood language, she had words for him about these stupid, headlong rushes at undeads before help arrived. And Leesil, ready to dive into the dark sewer, wasn't much better. Such a pair these two had become.

  "What are you smirking at?" Leesil asked.

  Magiere hadn't been aware of her expression. He looked ridiculous in the torn-off surcoat, though it had certainly made it easy to follow him in the dark.

  "We need to find you a shirt tomorrow. Maybe something more as well."

  "Oh, not the clothes again," he said. "This will do just fine. But I could use some boots, and hopefully my second blade is finished by now."

  Yes, he'd left his boots in the fire at the Burdock, but had thought enough to grab the chest with his toolbox inside. Magiere wondered about his priorities.

  "Besides such exciting errands," Leesil asked, "what is our plan for tomorrow?"

  "Wynn has a stack of deeds for houses we'll look at. Hopefully one of them will be what we're looking for."

  Chap whined loudly at the mention of more houses.

  "These aren't members of the council," she added.

  He barked and struggled in Leesil's grasp, his voice excited and eager.

  "We'll have a fight soon enough," she added. "We handle it the same as in Miiska. Enter in daylight and take them before they know what's happening—and without burning anything down."

  At that, Leesil shot her a belligerent scowl. "I'm not the one setting fires in Bela."

  "Small miracle," she answered, and crouched down next to him and Chap.

  In spite of her mocking him, Leesil remained serious.

  "I had no choice back in Miiska. You were dying, and I had to cut off all pursuit." He reached out to touch the bone amulet dangling below her throat. "I would have died after the cave-in if you hadn't breathed air back into me, and once we were out, you would have died if I hadn't fed you."

  For once, his words didn't trouble her so much. Extreme actions had been required of them both over this past season of their lives. She understood his intention, even if he still neither comprehended the full meaning of his own words or the consequences of his actions.

  She didn't pull back or take the amulet from his hand. Her concern was that he seemed to live for extreme actions, and she saw them merely as a necessary misfortune.

  "When this is over, Leesil, what do you want?"

  "To go home. What kind of a question is that?"

  The fire from the kitchen hearth burned cheerfully, and under the soft scent of wood smoke was the aroma of dried herbs hanging beside pots and cookware. Beneath that, she could smell Leesil. He needed a bath, but then so did she, and his thick, musty scent wasn't unpleasant.

  "And you'll be happy? Living in Miiska and running the tavern? That will be enough for you?"

  Magiere felt the bone amulet bounce against her shirt. Leesil dropped cross-legged on the floor.

  "Is that what you're worried about? That I'll get restless?"

  "Among other things," she said carefully.

  "Listen to me," he said with equal caution. "We're sitting in a strange kitchen in a sage's guild and sleeping in an old barracks. This is most likely going to be our life. We'll have quiet seasons, possibly years at the Sea Lion if we're lucky, but this won't be the last time we're called."

  She wasn't certain of his meaning.

  "I'm bound to you," he continued, "as you are to this path. If we try to deny or avoid it, it will catch us unaware. Why do you think I was in the woods all those mornings outside of Miiska? To stay sharp. Of course I want a life at the Sea Lion, but it's never going to be that simple."

  She let his words sink in. He was right, though she wished it otherwise.

  Whatever hope she had to live a quiet and secluded life had been taken away, bit by bit. If their exploits in Miiska caused their current call to service in Bela, how much more would she lose of the life she wanted once they were done here?

  Magiere felt a small shame for part of her judgment of Leesil. He'd been willing to settle with her in the tavern but knew they couldn't. Not with the consequences of the path they now traveled. In Miiska, when she'd received the letter from Bela, she'd tried to hide from it, but he had not. He'd already known what was coming, and he was still here with her.

  "The path I walk seems to narrow every day," she whispered, "and so little would matter if you weren't here to share it."

  "It's the same for me," he said.

  Magiere felt her mouth go dry. "But once we're in the hunt, I fear what could happen to you."

  Because of me, and because of you, she thought.

  At first he said nothing. Magiere felt an old, chill fear within the lingering salt memory of his blood in her mouth, his flesh in her teeth, his life seeping away into her.

  "Nothing's going to happen to me," he said. "I'm not that easy to kill."

  They sat in silence a long time by the fire. Chap licked the singed fur on his haunch.

  "I think he's got a little more than scorched fur there," Leesil said.

  The change of subject brought no relief. "Do we still have any of Tilswith's salve?"

  Leesil climbed to his feet. "I should check on Vatz anyway. When I put him to bed, he was still hopping mad at you for ordering him to stay behind."

  "Isn't his uncle worried about him?" Magiere asked. "Have you asked him anything about his family?"

  "I don't think Milous cares where he is. I assumed his parents were dead or otherwise long gone. Vatz is strong. He can take care of himself."

  Magiere wondered, if such were true, then why was Leesil tucking him in and checking on him?

  "I'll be back," he said, and headed out the kitchen door.

  Magiere had become fond of this odd tenderness in him, strange as it was when mixed with the cold-blooded nature of his past. She petted Chap's head and suddenly realized the dog was watching her intently, ears perked up.

  He'd been listening to every word and yipped softly before butting his head against her side.

  Leesil strolled back to their room trying to fathom what had—and had not—just happened. Magiere assumed he was unsatisfied with their life in Miiska. It was true he enjoyed being out and about, but mostly because he wouldn't let her face the future alone. Between the two of them, he better understood the consequences of their actions and the future that lay ahead. In this, at least, now she was perhaps more at ease, but there was more to her distance than the fear that he might want to leave. In fact, knowing he clearly wished to stay seemed to distress her as much as the alternative. The whole thing was worse than a hangover.

  Down the hall came a glimmer of light from the open door of their room. He'd heated up the cold lamp's crystal before leaving Vatz to sleep. The boy acted tough enough, but he was still just a boy in the midst of nightmares come to life.

  A softer light came from a doorway two openings closer than their room, and Leesil slowed his pace, curious as to who was there. It might be just another guild apprentice. He peered inside.

  It was much like the room they'd been given: two sets of bunks on either side, with a small table and stools at the far back, but with no bedding or blankets. Instead of a cold lamp, a single, stubby candle was placed on the table's edge and burned dimly.

  Leesil stepped in. Then he remembered.

  The sages were terrified of open flame anywhere in the building. No sage would
have lit a candle here, let alone without a holder.

  A glinting line flashed down past his eyes and weight slammed against his shoulders.

  Two knees struck his lower back, and he felt feet kick in behind his knees. He crumpled facedown on the wooden floor, and a wire cinched about his throat before he could get one of his hands inside of it.

  As he curled his left hand to release a stiletto, something struck his elbow, and his hand went numb. Before he could try again with his right, the same blow landed again, and both his hands lay limp.

  The wire closed tightly enough to press against his throat without constricting his breath.

  A garrote wire.

  "Cantasij tu aiche so aovarf"

  The voice behind him was muffled. Leesil had heard this rhythm enough to recognize the words if not their meaning.

  "I don't understand," he answered. "I don't speak your language."

  The wire cinched slightly tighter, and a long silence followed.

  "Tell me why you are here… in Bela," the man asked more softly this time.

  Leesil felt knees press down his upper arms just above the elbows, pinning them to his sides. Feet hooked across his thighs, the man's weight evenly distributed. It was a very familiar arrangement, though he'd never fallen prey to it himself. He'd used it only to subdue others. There was a scent about his attacker—a strange mix of wild grass, pine needles, and sea salt. Leesil realized what if not who now held him at this severe disadvantage.

  An elf—and assassin, trained as his mother had taught him.

  Feeling began returning to his hands. As much as Leesil believed he could dislodge his captor with some effort, he couldn't escape the wire around his neck. If he told the truth, would this man even believe him?

  "Hunting undeads," he answered.

  The wire jerked tighter around his throat.

  "You lie!" the elf hissed. "And what would the majay-hi want with the company of a traitor?"

  "What… are you talking about?" Leesil managed to choke out. Traitor? And how did Chap fit into this? "Ask the hound yourself. He's not telling me much."

  A familiar thrum sounded from the wire as it whipped free from Leesil's neck, leaving a hot, burning line. All weight lifted instantly from his back.

  Leesil spun over and reached for the stiletto he'd lost, but it wasn't on the floor. When he scrambled to his feet, a dark figure stood beyond the doorway in the hall.

  From cowl to cloak, hauberk to boots, and shirt and pants beneath, the figure was colored between char and forest green. The cloak's lower corners were tied around his waist, and his cowled face was masked below the eyes with a scarf or wrap. Beneath high, feathery eyebrows of dusty blond, two large and slanted amber eyes stared back at Leesil.

  The elf held Leesil's stiletto in one hand, the handles of the garrote gripped in the other. When Leesil freed his remaining stiletto, the elf didn't even blink.

  "Who taught you our ways?" the elf asked.

  "First, tell me what you mean," Leesil replied. "Whose ways? The elves?"

  For an answer, the elf flicked his wrist, and the stiletto spun through the air.

  Leesil sidestepped and snatched the handle midflight. Before he'd righted the blade in his hand, the cloaked figure leaped through the door at him. He slashed crosswise with both blades to ward off his attacker. But the elf instantly ducked and rose up inside the arcs, palm striking out toward Leesil's face.

  Leesil collapsed to the floor, and his right leg shot along the left of the elf's feet. He swirled his arms over himself, blocking the elf's descending fist, and slashing with the blades. Something lashed sharply across his right hand, tangled around the stiletto, and ripped it from his grasp. Leesil hooked his right foot behind the elf's ankle as his other leg shot up.

  There was no impact.

  Though Leesil's foot connected, it was more a touch than a strike, and the elf merely arced backward into the hallway. He landed, watching Leesil intently. The same stiletto he'd thrown a moment ago was now snared in the garrote wire's loops between his fingers.

  "Who taught you Map am'a Fiar?" he asked flatly.

  On his guard, Leesil stared blankly at him. "What?"

  "Cat-in-the-Grass," he said. "The ground fighting."

  "My mother," Leesil replied cautiously. "And my father. But I don't know what you're talking about."

  The elf slowly pulled Leesil's stiletto from the wire loops.

  "You mother is a traitor. No outsider is taught the ways of an anmaglâhk."

  Leesil stiffened. Before anger came, the word settled in his mind.

  "What does that mean?" he asked. "What is anmaglâhk?"

  The elf's eyes widened, and Leesil saw puzzled suspicion in that gaze. The elf then relaxed upon the realization Leesil truly didn't understand the word.

  "You are no more than a renegade who cannot even speak his own language. Finish your task and leave here."

  "Leesil?"

  Magiere's voice came from down the hallway. And with it was the low, rumbling growl of Chap. Leesil had been gone too long, and they'd come looking for him. He inched forward toward the figure beyond the doorway.

  "Touch them, and I'll gut you right here," he warned. "Whatever it takes."

  With but a side glance, the elf bolted down the hall, and Leesil ducked out the door behind him.

  A flash of metal flew toward his legs.

  Leesil threw himself toward the hallway's far wall as his own stiletto, snatched from him by the elf's garrote, struck home into the doorjamb. Chap lunged forward, snarling. The elf merely leaped over the dog and against the right wall.

  For a blink, the man seemed to cling there like a spider, hands and feet flat against the surface with his head near the ceiling. He pushed off into air and arced to the floor behind Magiere, who whipped around to follow his movement.

  Chap tried to reverse and Leesil grabbed him and held fast, arms slipping around the dog's chest.

  "Shhhh," he said. "Stop it."

  Chap's struggles ceased, but he continued growling. Down the hallway past Magiere, the "visitor" had vanished. Magiere looked back and forth in confusion and then dropped to Leesil's side.

  "What's going on?" she asked. "Was that an elf? Your neck—did he attack you?"

  Leesil instinctively touched his throat, still burning from the wire's slip.

  "The wire in his hand…" Magiere added more calmly. She looked at the blade stuck in the door frame, and recognition that it was Leesil's spread across her face. "And he moved like you."

  Leesil dropped his gaze.

  "He's a hired killer, like you were. Isn't he?" she insisted.

  Leesil hesitated. "Anmaglâhk," he whispered toward Chap.

  The dog looked down the hallway, and his growl became a low rumble. As he looked back to Leesil, he yipped once.

  "That's a ‘yes,'" Magiere said, hard and angry. "Why does a supposed Fay react viciously to an elf, if they're supposed to be related? And what's that word?"

  Leesil felt her eyes upon him now.

  "That word, Leesil," she repeated. "Assassin?"

  When Leesil couldn't even understand the word, the elf had seemed astonished at his ignorance. He had called Leesil a traitor, then the same for his mother. One could only be a traitor to a service, a cause, a nation, or a people. The fact that the elf hadn't killed him because he wasn't acting as part of the man's own people meant that fealty wasn't the issue. That ruled out nation or people. This was about the skills his mother had taught him—for which she'd been marked as a traitor? Skills of an assassin and spy not to be taught except to an anmaglâhk.

  "I think it's a caste," he said quietly. "The anmaglâhk are some caste among the elves. And my mother was a part of it."

  Magiere shifted around in front of him. He saw on her face the pieces coming together, and like everything else in their lives, the revelation brought more questions than answers.

  "Why would elves have a caste of assassins?" she asked. "And even so, why did
one come after you? We have nothing to do with them."

  Leesil had no answer for her.

  His mother had taught him their ways, but nothing of their kind, made him one of them but wholly apart from them. She'd kept all other aspects of her people a secret, down to the very language they spoke. The elf's judgment of her had been a broad statement, condemning her for all time, even though she was now dead.

  But the anmaglâhk had said his mother was a traitor. Not had been, but was.

  Sgaile watched the old barracks from a rooftop across the street. He had let the half-blood live. He had questioned the wisdom of his elders and Aoishenis-Ahare, Most Aged Father. To take the life of one of their own people was forbidden, and a half-blood, though polluted, was still part of them in a twisted way. To break their law meant a grave and serious issue was at stake.

  It was true this one had been trained in their ways, though not as well as most. Still, the half-blood knew nothing of his kind, not even the language of his mother's people. How and why could this be?

  Aoishenis-Ahare foresaw so much, so why had he not spoken of the majay-hi? Did he not know? The Fay so seldom appeared anymore, even to his own people, so why here and now to this misbegotten child of a traitor? It had taken flesh in one of the old forms not seen since ancient times, as told to Sgaile in the tales of his grandmother.

  The majay-hi's presence troubled Sgaile as deeply as his own failure to obey, and he sat upon the roof long into the night, watching.

  Chapter 17

  Any preconceptions Magiere had of how the day would unfold crumbled at breakfast. Wynn was convinced that the day's search held great promise for finding the undeads' lair, and so Leesil insisted they be fully prepared.

  By breakfast's end, several sages had finished boiling garlic. Leesil prepared short torches, wineskins of garlic water and oil, fresh tinder, and one large and one small quiver of quarrels soaked in garlic water. Domin Tilswith donated a light crossbow. Leesil strapped Vatz's larger one across his back, and then stunned Magiere by handing the smaller bow and quiver to the boy.