"I will call for more volunteers."
"Thank you, Administrator." Dannyl inclined his head.
Lorlen smiled and leaned back in his chair. "I must say, I never thought I'd be happy to learn that our little runaway has started to use her powers."
Rothen frowned. Yes, he thought, but each time she does she comes closer to losing control of them completely.
The parcel was heavy, despite its small size. It made a satisfying thud when Cery dropped it on the table. Faren picked it up and tore off the paper wrapping, revealing a small wooden box. As he opened it, tiny discs of reflected light scattered over the Thief and the wall behind him. Looking down, Cery's chest tightened when he saw the polished coins. Faren drew out a wooden block with four pegs set into it. Cery watched as the Thief began stacking coins onto the pegs. The holes in the coins fit corresponding pegs: gold onto the round peg, silver on the square, and large coppers onto the triangular. The last peg, for the large coppers, which Cery was most familiar with, remained empty. As the stack of gold reached ten coins high, Faren transferred it to a "cap," a single wooden stick with stoppers at both ends, and set it aside.
"I have another job for you, Ceryni."
Dragging his eyes reluctantly from the wealth stacking up in front of him, Cery straightened, then frowned as Faren's words sank in. How many more "jobs" must he do before he would be allowed to see Sonea? It had been over a week since Faren had taken her in. Swallowing his annoyance, he nodded at the Thief.
"What is it?"
Faren leaned back in his chair, his yellow eyes bright with amusement. "This may be more suited to your talents. A couple of thugs have taken to robbing shops around the inner Northside - shops belonging to men I have arrangements with. I want you to find out where this pair live and deliver a message in such a way they will be certain I am watching them closely. Can you do this?"
Cery nodded. "What do they look like?"
"I've had one of my men question the shopkeepers. He will fill you in. Take this." He handed Cery a small, folded piece of paper. "Wait in the room outside."
Cery turned, then hesitated. He looked back at Faren and considered whether it would be an appropriate moment to ask after Sonea.
"Soon," Faren said. "Tomorrow, if all goes well."
Nodding, Cery strode to the door and stepped through. Though the burly guards eyed him suspiciously, Cery smiled back. Never make enemies of someone's lackeys, his father had taught him. Better still, make them like you a lot. This pair looked so similar they had to be brothers, though a distinctive sear across one man's cheek made it easy to tell them apart.
"I'm to wait here," he told them. He gestured to a chair. "Taken?"
The scarred one shrugged. Cery sat down and looked around the room. His eyes were drawn to a strip of bright green cloth hanging from a wall, an incal stitched in gold at the tip.
"Hai! Is that what I think?" he asked, rising again.
The scarred man grinned. "It is."
"A saddle-ribbon from Thunderwind?" Cery breathed. "Where'd you get it?"
"My cousin is stable hand at House Arran," the man replied. "Got it for me." He reached out and caressed the cloth. "Won me twenty gold, that horse."
"Sired good racers, they say."
"Never be one like him again."
"Did you see the race?"
"Nah. You?"
Cery grinned. "Snuck past the feemasters. Was no easy trick. Didn't know it was going to be Thunderwind's day. Just lucky." The guard's eyes misted over as he listened to Cery describe the race.
A knock at the door interrupted them. The silent guard opened the door, admitting a tall, wiry man with a sour expression in a black longcoat.
"Ceryni?"
Cery stepped forward. The man examined him, his brows rising, then gestured for Cery to follow. Nodding to the guards, Cery started down the passage.
"I'm to fill you in," the man said.
Cery nodded. "What do the thugs look like?"
"One's my height, but heavier, the other's smaller and skinny. They've got short black hair - cut it themselves from the sounds of it. The bigger one's got something odd with one of his eyes. One shopkeeper said it was colored funny, another said it looked oddways. Elsewise, they're regular dwells."
"Weapons?"
"Knives."
"Know where they live?"
"No, but one of the shopkeepers seen them in a bolhouse tonight. You're going there now, so you can track them. They're sure to take the long way home, so be sly about it."
"Of course. What's their style?"
The man glanced back, his expression unreadable. "Rough. Beat up the shopkeepers and some family. Didn't stop to play, though. Just got out when they had what they came for."
"What did they take?"
"Coin, mostly. A bit of drink if it was around. We're almost there."
They emerged from the passages into a dark street. The guide extinguished the lamp and led Cery to a larger thoroughfare, then stopped in the shadows of a doorway. The sounds of revelry from across the road drew his attention to a bolhouse.
His companion made a quick gesture, his hands forming a silent query. Following the man's gaze, Cery caught a movement in a nearby alley.
"They're still there. We wait."
Cery leaned against the door. His companion remained silent, watching the bolhouse intently. Rain began to fall, pattering on roofs and forming puddles. While they waited the moon rose above the houses and flooded the street with light, before reaching the gray clouds and becoming a ghostly glow in the sky.
Men and women left the bolhouse in small groups. As a large group of men stepped out into the street, laughing and staggering drunkenly, Cery's companion tensed. Looking closer, Cery saw two figures slip past the revellers. The watcher in the alley made another movement with his hands and Cery's companion nodded.
"That's them."
Nodding, Cery stepped out into the rain. He kept in the shadows as he followed the two men down the street. One was clearly drunk; the other navigated the puddles with confidence. Letting them gain some distance, he listened as the drunk man berated his companion for drinking too little.
"Nothin'll 'appn, Tull'n," he slurred. "We t' smar' fr them."
"Shut it, Nig."
The pair took a circular journey through the slums. From time to time, Tullin stopped and looked about. He never saw Cery standing in the shadows. Finally, exasperated by his friend's chatter, he took a straight route of several hundred paces across the slums, and arrived at an abandoned shop.
Once the pair had disappeared inside, Cery crept closer, examining the building. A sign lay on the ground outside. He recognized the word for raka. Placing a hand on his chest, he considered the message waiting in his pocket.
Faren wanted it delivered in such a way that would frighten the thugs. The pair had to be shown that the Thieves were aware of everything: who they were, where they were hiding, what they had done, and how easily the Thieves could kill them. Cery bit his lip, considering.
He could slip the note under their door, but that was too easy. It wouldn't frighten the thugs as much as discovering that someone had been inside their hideout. He would have to wait until they went out again, then slip inside.
Or would he? Returning home to find a message in their hideout was going to scare them, but not as much as waking up and realizing that someone had been there while they were asleep.
Smiling, Cery considered the hideout. It was part of a row of shops, each sharing a wall with the next. That left only the front and back for entry. Moving to the end of the street, Cery entered the alley which ran behind them. It was filled with empty shipping crates and piles of garbage. He counted doors, and knew he had found the thugs' shop by the stinking bags of rotting raka leaves piled against the wall. Dropping into a crouch, he peered through the keyhole of the shop's back door.
A lamp burned in the room beyond. Nig lay in a bed to one side, snoring softly. Tullin paced about, rubbing
his face. When he turned into the lamplight, Cery could see his twisted eye and deep shadows under it.
The big man hadn't been sleeping well - probably worried about the Thieves dropping in for a visit. As if reading Cery's thoughts, Tullin suddenly strode toward the back door. Cery tensed, ready to slip away, but Tullin didn't reach for the handle. Instead, his fingers closed around something in mid-air and traced its path upward, out of sight. String, Cery guessed. He didn't need to see what was suspended above the door to guess that Tullin had laid a trap for unwanted visitors.
Satisfied, Tullin moved to a second bed. He pulled a knife from his belt and placed it on a nearby table, then topped up the oil in the lamp. Taking one last look around the room, he stretched out on the bed.
Cery considered the door. Raka arrived in Imardin as stalks of beans, wrapped in their own leaves. The beans were stripped off the stalks by the shop owners and roasted. The leaves and stalks were usually dropped into a chute leading to a tub outside and the tubs were collected by boys who then sold their contents to farmers near the city.
Moving along the wall, Cery located the outer flap of the chute. It was locked from the inside with a simple bolt - not difficult to open. He drew a tiny flask from his coat, and a slim, hollow reed. Sucking a little oil into the reed, he carefully oiled the bolt and the hinges of the flap. Putting flask and reed away again, he drew out a few picks and levers, and began manipulating the bolt.
It was slow work, but gave Tullin plenty of time to fall into a deep sleep. When the flap was free, Cery opened it carefully and considered the tiny space within. Pocketing the picks, he drew out a piece of polished metal wrapped in a square of finely woven cloth. Reaching through the chute, he used this to examine Tullin's trap.
He almost laughed aloud at what he saw. A rake was suspended over the door. The end of the handle was tied with string to a hook above the door frame. The iron spikes were balanced on a rafter, probably hooked into place over a nail. A piece of string stretched from the spikes to the door handle.
Too easy, Cery mused. He checked for other traps but found none. Sliding his arm out of the chute, he returned to the door and brought out his oiling tools again. A quick inspection of the lock revealed that it had been broken, probably by the thugs when they first entered the shop.
Taking a tiny box out of his coat, he opened it and selected a thin blade. From another pocket he took a hinged tool, part of the inheritance he had gained from his father. Clamping this tool to the blade, he slipped it through the keyhole and probed for the door handle. Finding it, he worked his way along the neck of it until he felt the slight resistance of the string. He pressed on it firmly.
Moving back to the chute, he saw with the mirror that the string now hung harmlessly down from the rafters. Satisfied, he packed his tools away, wrapped some cloth around his boots, and drew in a deep breath to steady himself.
Cery opened the door silently. Slipping inside, he regarded the sleeping men.
His father had alway said that the best way to sneak up on someone was to not try to sneak up on them. He considered the thugs. Both were asleep, the drunk one snoring softly. Walking across the room, Cery examined the front door. A key protruded from the lock. Turning back, he considered the two men again.
Tullin's knife glinted in the darkness. Pulling out Faren's message, Cery moved to the thug's side. He picked up the knife, and carefully pinned the paper to the table with it.
That should do it. Smiling grimly, he moved back to the door and grasped the key. As he turned it, the lock clicked. Tullin's eyelids fluttered, but his eyes did not open. Cery opened the door and stepped outside, then slammed the door closed.
A shout came from inside. Darting to the shadowed doorway of the next shop, Cery turned back to watch. After a moment the door of the thugs' shop opened and Tullin stared out into the night, his face pale in the muted moonlight. From within the house came a protesting voice, then an exclamation of horror. Tullin scowled and ducked back into the shop.
Smiling, Cery slipped away into the night.
Sonea cursed Faren under her breath.
A short stick lay on the hearth before her. After experimenting with various objects, she had settled on wood as the safest material to work with when experimenting with magic. It wasn't cheap - timber was cut in the northern mountains and floated down the Tarali River - but despite this, it was expendable and there was plenty of it in the room.
She regarded the stick dubiously, then looked around the room to remind herself that the frustration was worth it. Polished tables and cushioned chairs surrounded her. In the adjoining rooms were soft beds, plenty of food stores and a generous supply of liquor. Faren was treating her like an honored guest of one of the great Houses.
But she felt like a prisoner. The hideout had no windows, as it was entirely underground. It could only be reached by the Road, and was guarded day and night. Only Faren's most trusted people, his "kin," knew of it.
Sighing, she let her shoulders slump. Safe from both magicians and enterprising dwells, she now struggled to evade boredom. After six days of looking at the same walls, even the room's luxuries no longer distracted her, and, though Faren stopped by from time to time, she had little to do but experiment with magic.
Perhaps that was Faren's intention. Looking down at the stick, she felt another stab of frustration. Though she had called on her powers several times a day since coming to the hideout, they never worked in the way she intended. When she wanted to burn something, it moved. When she told it to move, it exploded. When she willed it to break, it burned. When she admitted this to Faren, he just smiled and told her to keep practicing.
With a grimace, Sonea turned her attention back to the stick again. Taking a deep breath, she stared intently at the piece of wood. Narrowing her eyes, she willed it to roll across the stones of the hearth.
Nothing happened.
Patience, she told herself. It often took several attempts before magic worked. Drawing all her will together into an imagined force, she commanded the stick to move.
It remained perfectly still.
She sighed and sat back on her heels. Every time the magic had worked she had been angry, whether from frustration or hate for the Guild. While she could draw those emotions up by thinking about something which angered her, doing so was exhausting and depressing.
But the magicians did this all the time, she reminded herself. Did they keep a store of anger and hate inside to draw upon? She shuddered. What kind of people were they?
Staring at the piece of wood, she realized that she was going to have to do just that. She would have to hoard her anger and gather her hate, storing them up for the times she needed to use magic. If she didn't, she would fail and Faren would abandon her to the Guild.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she felt a smothering desperation rush over her. I'm trapped, she thought. I have two choices: either I become one of them, or I let them kill me.
A soft snapping sound reached her ears, a noise like a length of material being thrown into the air and quickly jerked back again. She jumped and turned around.
Bright orange flames curled across the surface of a small table between two of the chairs. She leapt up and away, her heart racing.
Did I do that? she thought. But I wasn't angry.
The fire began to crackle as the flames multiplied. Sonea edged closer, unsure what to do. What would Faren say when he discovered his hideout had been burned? Sonea snorted. He'd be irritated, and a little disappointed that his pet magician had died.
Smoke was pouring upward and curling along the roof. Creeping forward on hands and knees, Sonea grabbed a leg of the table and dragged it forward. The fire flared with the movement. Flinching at the heat, Sonea lifted the table and threw it into the fireplace. It settled against the grate and continued to burn.
Sonea sighed and watched the fire consume the table. She had discovered something new, at least. Tables don't burst into flames on their own. It seemed despera
tion was an emotion that would rouse magic as well.
Anger, hate and desperation, she mused. What fun it is to be a magician.
"Did you sense that?" Rothen asked, his voice tense with excitement.
Dannyl nodded. "Yes. It's not what I was expecting. I always thought that sensing magic was like feeling someone singing. This felt more like a cough."
"A cough of magic." Rothen chuckled. "That's an interesting way of describing it."
"If you don't know how to sing or speak, would you make rough noises instead? Perhaps this is what magic sounds like when it is uncontrolled." Dannyl blinked, then stepped away from the window and rubbed his eyes. "It's late, and I'm getting far too abstract for comfort. We should get some sleep."
Rothen nodded, but didn't move from the window. He gazed out at the last few lights glinting in the city.
"We've been listening for hours. There's nothing to be gained by doing so any longer," Dannyl told Rothen. "We know we can sense her now. Get some sleep, Rothen. We'll need to be alert tomorrow."
"It seems incredible to think she's so close to us, but we haven't been able to find her," Rothen said softly. "I wonder what she tried to do."
"Rothen," Dannyl said sternly.
The older magician sighed and turned from the window. He smiled wanly.
"Very well. I will try to sleep."
"Good." Satisfied, Dannyl walked to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Good night, Dannyl."
Looking back as he closed the door, Dannyl was pleased to see his friend walking toward the bedroom. He knew Rothen's interest in finding the girl had gone past duty. As he started down the corridor, he smiled to himself.
Years before, when Dannyl was a novice, Fergun had circulated rumors about him in revenge for a prank. Dannyl hadn't expected anyone to take Fergun seriously, but when the teachers and novices began treating him differently and he realized he could do nothing to regain their regard, he had lost all respect for his peers. The enthusiasm he'd had for his lessons fled, and he fell further and further behind.
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