Chapter 26
“Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!” the boy yelled as he made thimbles spin and fly from one spot to the next under his easy touch. He was a handsome lad of thirteen years with light brown hair and a winning smile. His boyish good looks were capable of disarming even the hardest heart. It was for this reason along with his amazing dexterity that the boy was considered a master of the thimble game among the homeless people that considered him one of their own. Gawkers marveled as the boy’s hands flew with speed and precision creating a mesmerizing movement as he shifted the thimbles around on his mat.
“What is this?” asked a newcomer to the table. She was an attractive woman with hair as black as a raven and piercing blue eyes that seemed to look through the boy and into his soul. She pushed her way into the small group of onlookers watching the lad.
“This boy is playing at thimbles,” laughed a drunken old man well past his limit of ale. His breath left a smell of liquor that could likely set the small group around the table aflame if someone were to put a candle before his lips.
The raven haired beauty looked perplexed by the explanation and the boy knew he found just the person he was looking for. She would be an easy mark. “I move these thimbles around,” he said showing no signs of slowing down as he spoke to her, “and when they stop,” he immediately stopped moving the thimbles and eased his hands away so all could get a good look at the three thimbles sitting in a row, “you pick one and if you choose the one with a pea underneath then you will win double your coin.
“Any takers?” The boy asked the crowd, but kept his eyes on the woman. He regarded her coolly with that honest face that seemed to convince people to do what he wanted.
The old drunken goat said, “Aye, I'll take you at your game,” and he tossed down a silver coin. His wrinkled finger pointed unsteadily to the thimble in the middle and the boy lifted the thimble revealing the pea hidden underneath.
“Two silvers for you,” the young thimble master told him disappointedly returning the old man's silver to him along with one of his own.
“I got your number,” the drunk laughed again.
Ignoring him, the boy started a new game returning the pea to the middle thimble. “Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!” he yelled once more and his small hands danced over and between the thimbles moving them swiftly. He saw the look in the woman's face as she eagerly traced the thimbles’ paths with her eyes.
They stopped once more and she smirked.
“Any takers?” he asked.
Reaching into her brown cloak, the woman pulled a silver coin from her purse and set it on the table. “The left thimble,” she said confidently.
When the boy lifted the left thimble he revealed nothing underneath. “I am sorry, my lady, but perhaps next time you will have better luck.”
“It ain't that hard,” the drunkard told her, “Just watch closer. There is a trick to picking the winner. Trust me,” the man belched, “he ain’t as good as he looks.”
The boy went through his act again and when he stopped he looked the woman square in the eye. “Any takers?”
She hesitated and the old man took the initiative tossing a silver in front of the boy, “Take another try, sweetheart.”
“The right one,” she said.
“No,” the drunk laughed, “it was the left.”
Lifting the right thimble the boy revealed another empty spot. He glared at the man, but revealed the left thimble and the pea. “He is a pig, but he is right, my lady,” the boy told his lovely opponent, “You need to watch more closely if you want to win.”
Clearly angry at the boy’s taunt, she said, “Let us try one more time,” but in the end she lost another silver.
“I have had enough,” she said walking away from the table. “I hope you can eat well on my coin.”
The old man chased after her. “Do not let that kid get to you. I told you he is not as good as he looks. His hands move fast, but they move in the same way each time. All you got to do is see which thimble the pea is under when he starts. When he is done it always ends up one to the left. Make a big bet and you will be the one with all of his coin rather than the other way around.”
Armed with new knowledge, the raven-haired woman returned to the betting table with the old man following after. He brandished a toothy grin at the boy and took his seat, but the lad ignored him.
“Back for more?” he asked smartly, “Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!” the game started for the last time that night. When the thimbles stopped moving, he smirked at the lady and said, “Any takers?”
Reaching into her purse she produced two gold coins and placed them on the table. “Can you match that?”
With a nod he said, “Make your choice, my lady.”
Supremely confident she said, “It is the middle thimble.”
Lifting the middle one he said, “You have lost, my lady,” and scooped up her coins before she had even registered the loss.
With a flick of her wrist the other two thimbles fell over and revealed that the pea was nowhere to be found. “I think I have been cheated,” she said showing no anger or surprise. For a brief moment the young master of thimbles thought that he might have been the lady’s mark and not the other way around.
In the blink of an eye the boy scooped up his thimbles and mat and made a dash for a nearby alleyway. It was odd that there was no cry for guards and there seemed to be no pursuit, but he refused to stop until he reached the back alley he called home quite some distance away.
Fishing through his pockets he pulled out the coins he won from the cloaked woman with the raven hair. Two golds and two silvers could feed him for a week or more. It was a shame that he would have to split his winnings with that old codger, Luthor, who played the role of old drunk so well, but it was still a good haul for a day's work. However, when he looked down at his hand he saw only four coppers. Shoving his hand back in his pocket he fished around for the more valuable coins. Finding nothing he moved onto his other pocket and began patting himself down to no avail.
“Lose something?” asked the raven-haired woman with piercing blue eyes, appearing seemingly from nowhere.
Shoving the coins back in his pocket the boy asked, “How did you find me?” If there was any question before, then it was clear now that this was no ordinary woman standing proudly before him.
The woman waved her hand in front of her and her brown cloak turned black as a moonless night sky. “I have been looking for you for a while now, Tomlin. There are rumors about you, you know. People say you can move those thimbles almost like it is magic,” she walked toward him slowly like a cat playing with a mouse. “They say you never lose... unless you want to.” She was now close enough to touch him. Taking his face in her hand she held him so that they were looking eye to eye. “Tell me how you made the pea vanish?”
Tomlin stammered unable to break her gaze. “H-How do you know my name?”
Ignoring his question she caught his eyes with her own and Tomlin found he could not look away. The intensity of her stare was unnerving, but Tomlin did not fear this woman. He somehow felt compelled to answer her.
“It was just a trick. A sleight of hand my dad taught me. So I could take care of myself after he died.”
Letting go of his chin the woman told him, “That is disappointing. I had hoped that you were a bit more... like me.” To Tomlin's surprise the woman reached into her coin purse and produced a gold piece. Handing it to him she said, “For your trouble. This one is real. Have a good meal on me.”
As she turned to leave Tomlin saw a red skull on the back of her cloak. “Wait!” he called after her, “My lady, wait!” but she kept walking. Tomlin ran past her and stood in front of the woman forcing her to stop. “The red skull on the back of your cloak, what does it mean? When my father came to me after he died he was wearing a cloak with that symbol.”
“It is the symbol of the necromancer. I wear it in honor of my father,” the lady magician told him, “Yo
u said your father came to you after he died?”
“Yes, when he taught me how to run the thimble confidence game. He came to me in a dream not long after he passed. His body was dark and cloudy like a puff of smoke.”
“There may be more to you than you understand,” she said a bit too cryptically for the boy's liking. “When a soul is summoned by a necromancer they appear as you described your father. It is uncommonly rare for one to appear unbidden even in a dream.
“I think you are a magician, Tomlin, and if I am right, then your life right now will seem idyllic compared to what awaits. One day you will be discovered and hauled off to a prison. You will never see the sun or the moon or the sky again. Such is the fate of all of us with magic in our veins, but I want to help you and everyone like you so that does not happen.
“My name is Alia Necros and I can take you from this place. I can give you a roof over your head, food in your belly, and, perhaps more importantly, a purpose.”
“You paint a vivid picture, my lady,” said Tomlin. Years of living as a beggar and a thief made him wary of offers that seemed too good to be true. “What do you ask of me?”
“I need soldiers. People to help make a free place for magicians, like you and I, to live, so that we need no longer fear our lessers. It would be a safe haven for all magicians.” Her eyes sparkled as she spoke of revolution. Tomlin did not know if there was any merit to what Alia told him, but he could tell that she wholeheartedly believed every word of what she was telling him.
Tomlin looked to the alley where he had lived for the last few months. Then he looked to the raven-haired magician offering him a place to live and regular meals. It was a simple choice.
“I am with you, my lady, until I have reason not to be,” Tomlin told her with a bow of genuine regard.
Looking about and seeing no one watching them Alia placed her hand on Tomlin’s shoulder. “That is all I ask,” she said and an instant later Tomlin found himself gripping the woman's cloak for his life as they floated in a bright white void. A moment later Tomlin felt his body being pulled toward another place altogether.
Chapter 27
On his fifth day in Lion's Landing Byrn was working in an inn called The Hasty Rider when he heard the first whisper that might lead him to Xander Necros' wife, Avelice. Byrn had told the innkeeper, a kind portly man with an exceedingly long mane of brown hair by the name of Jack Wolffang, that he was an orphan from the North Lands looking for his distant relative and Wolffang agreed to give him a place to sleep and a few silvers a day to work as the attendant to the stable master while he looked for his “Aunt” Avelice.
“I am telling you this city is infested with wizards,” a particularly smelly man with a thin mustache told his companion as he took a swig of ale. Byrn flinched a little at the use of the word “wizard.” He never thought much about it as a boy, but the word was considered derogatory among magicians. It went back to the days when the most powerful and wise of the magicians ruled over the lesser. Centuries ago a wizard was a magician who ruled the populace through methods similar to a tyrannical king. Now it was a common term meant to remind people that magicians are beings of evil.
“Nonsense,” said his friend, a very short fellow with a big nose and long, thick black beard going down to his belly, “if there were any magicians around here Lion's Landing would be thick with Kenzai hunters looking to bring the bastards in.”
“It is true,” the smelly one declared. Banging his mug on the table he ordered a refill.
“Let me get that for you,” Byrn told Smelly pouring him another mug.
While most of the rogue magician’s time was spent in the stable, he would visit the common room of the inn whenever he could hoping to hear some gossip that might point him in the direction of Avelice. The incident with the bandits taught him that he had little to fear from most men, but this woman might be able to help expand his magical knowledge and get some much needed supplies. There were basic things that he never considered before like how to make a staff or enchant a book to make a decent grimoire. A magician casting a spell without the proper devices was like a carpenter trying to hammer a nail into a wall with his shoe. It might work eventually, but the carpenter would be dog tired by the time he was done.
“If you do not mind my saying I do not think there are any ‘wizards’ within a hundred miles of here,” Byrn offered with a sheepish grin.
“Foolish, kid,” grunted Smelly, “A fat lot of nothing is what you know. My brother seen one when he was hunting some game. She had hair as black as night and wore a black cloak walking through the western part of the forest. My brother tried to move closer to get a better look, but when he got there she was gone.”
“So your story is your brother saw a woman walking in the woods and then lost track of her? Thrilling…” said the short one that looked much like a dwarf although Byrn was unsure having never seen one before, “Your brother is a bigger drunk than you are.”
“And you are as hairy as your mother!” retorted Smelly.
“If only,” laughed the burly little man with a bounce of his whiskers.
The men continued their discussion of the “finer” points of their mothers and facial hair while Byrn pretended to go about his business taking his leave of them. It was not much of a lead, but it was someplace to start.
The magician turned stable boy quietly found his way out of the Hasty Rider and into its stable around back. The stable master was nowhere to be seen, still gone to market to haggle over the price of oats. Byrn saddled his horse; he decided to call her Bess. The animal appeared well rested after the hard ride following the confrontation with the bandits. He climbed into the saddle and headed off at a trot towards the gates of the city and the forest beyond.
As he sat in the saddle moving in time with Bess’ leisurely pace Byrn could not help smiling as he tried to recall the last time he enjoyed such an activity. Painfully he realized it had been a very long time since he felt the simple joy of riding a horse. It was a little more than a year ago the last time that Byrn was able to ride leisurely like this; the morning of the ogres' attack. On that day he went from a young apprentice courier about to be made a journeyman and begin making his own way through the world to becoming an apprentice of a different sort... and more recently a rogue magician.
The thoughts of that day reminded him of his adoptive parents, Tannys and Marian Lightfoot. Tannys died because of his son's stupidity and Marian... he did not know what happened to her. Sane told him that she left Colum and joined his elf friend to find her own path in life, but he knew little else. Byrn did not understand why she left the relative safety of her old life at the time, but given where he was now and what he was doing, Byrn thought he might understand a little bit now. She needed to feel like she was free to make her own decisions and find her own path in life just as Byrn was trying to do now.
The rogue magician nodded to the guardsmen watching the gate on his way out of the city. Unlike Colum, Lion's Landing was a walled city and there were only two points of entry by land. The port here allowed goods to be shipped to and from the North Lands of Aurelia far more quickly than a caravan crossing through the large island nation could make the trip, making the city a prime target for bandits like the ones Byrn had faced.
“Careful out there, lad,” warned one of the guardsmen. “Rumor is that there is a killer magician out in those forests. Be sure to stick to the road.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Byrn told him hoping that he successfully hid the anticipation he felt, “Where was this magician spotted? …So I can stay clear of the area.”
“I can not say with certainty, but he must be out there,” the guardsman said resting his hand on the hilt of his sword in its scabbard. Byrn wondered if it was part of their training that made guardsmen reach for their sword whenever discussing something they feared or faced a confrontation. “A few days ago a caravan or at least what was left of one came into town with stories of a magician named Mag that stowed away
from Ilipse and ended up killing a group of bandits that attacked them before riding off into the forest.
“Then last night these two Kenzai hunters came into town looking for an escaped magician that sounds like it was the one with the caravan.”
“How do you know the two were Kenzai and not say bandits trying to sneak into the city?” Byrn asked attempting to sound skeptical.
The guardsman thought for a moment as if recalling a memory and then said, “Well I did not see them, but another guard told me that one of them wore some fancy armor that glittered in the moonlight. Bandits do not wear such things. If they did they would either sell it or be killed by other bandits for it.”
“Sounds like quite a sight,” said the young magician. “I would like to see such a thing. Do you know where they are staying?”
“Afraid not,” the guardsman scratched his head, “but I doubt they were hurting for coin. They might be in one of the nicer inns like Molotav's or The Traveler's Mistress.”
Byrn thanked the man before leaving. He followed the path for a while until he was sure that he was out of sight before turning west and heading into the forest. The urgency to find Avelice was greater now that Byrn knew Sane and Kellen were so close. To make matters worse the merchants he traveled with were somewhere in the city spreading stories of the escaped magician, “Mag.” Byrn thought to place himself at one of the local inns in order to pick up on this kind of information, but had not thought that he might be exposing himself to a chance encounter with the merchants or worse the sorcerer and the knight-captain. Still he should feel lucky that the pair decided to ride back to Lion's Landing instead of transporting. They probably hoped to find Byrn somewhere along the road between the two cities.
There were not many sorcerers in the world and considering that Sane served as the king's right hand he must be a powerful one as well. The man was somewhat timid or maybe just good-natured, but if he put his mind to it, then Sane would surely be a force to be reckoned with.
Rogue Magician (The Magician Rebellion) Page 15
