Thief of Lives

by J. C.

  "It has to be," Toret muttered. "That damn half-breed… but how did they know I was here?"

  "How did who know?" Chane asked.

  For a moment, Toret seemed not to hear, and then he looked up at Chane.

  "I'll explain," Toret answered. "But right now, get that bird back out there before dawn, and have it find where that half-blood is sleeping."

  Chane opened the window again and settled Tihko on the ledge. The bird cocked its head, watching him with one eye. Chane focused his thoughts into its mind, reinforcing the image of the white-haired man and urging the bird out again to find and, this time, watch until dawn drew near.

  Tihko lifted from the ledge in a black flutter of feathers. Chane barely resecured the window when the clop of pouting footsteps came from the parlor's archway.

  "Well, I'm changed," Sapphire exclaimed. "Now will you take me out of here?"

  She now wore lavender silk of a plainer cut, and though the bodice was not cleaved quite as severely as before, there was still an ample display of elevated flesh. Toret hesitated as if he could not tell whether the change was an improvement.

  "That's better," he finally announced. "But you'll have to wait. Chane and I have work to do, and neither of us can escort you right now."

  Sapphire's mouth dropped open. Before she could screech another word, Chane cut in.

  "Perhaps if I acquire a coach," he suggested, "to take her directly to a chosen place, Mistress Sapphire could take her ease." Chane turned a firm glance toward Sapphire. "Provided she does not leave the establishment until we join her later."

  Toret appeared about to disagree.

  "We must focus on the task at hand," Chane interjected. "And the mistress cannot assist us."

  He raised one eyebrow with intent, hoping his master had enough wits to take the hint.

  Toret looked confused for a moment and then hesitantly nodded. "Yes, I suppose that's all right."

  Sapphire lunged across the room to drape herself around Toret, but she cast Chane a coy glance.

  "The Rowanwood. I want to go to the Rowanwood," she said as she bit gently on Toret's ear, though her gaze never left Chane.

  Chane returned a curt bow of his head. One dull wit at a time was enough to deal with.

  * * * *

  As Toret sat upon the cellar's dirt floor holding the palm-sized brass urn Chane had placed in his hands, a constant, subtle shiver ran through his small frame. It wasn't the cold, nor the large gray wolf that lay muzzled, bound, and chained to the floor in front of him, nor even the impending spell, ritual, or whatever Chane would perform upon him and the animal. Clinging to his own new existence made him quake.

  Somewhere in the city were the half-breed and that pasty-skinned bitch of a dhampir.

  He was certain of this, regardless that Chane's familiar hadn't gotten a clear look at the white-haired man. But what could have possibly led them to Bela to hunt him down? He'd been careful, though Sapphire was sometimes hard to restrain. She was still young in this afterlife and would learn in time. He was sure of it. And Chane was far too exacting and elitist to have done anything to attract attention. Now the hunter and her companion had come to track him down and send him into dust and ashes with Teesha and Rashed.

  He wouldn't run again, as he had from Miiska. He had too much to lose. It'd been over two moons since his last fight with the half-elf, and still he felt the lingering bite of a broken stiletto blade cutting away at his insides.

  One good turn for another.

  Toret remembered the sharp thrust of thin metal at both his sides, as the half-blood's blades jammed up into his chest cavity. He felt and heard the snap of his own ribs, as both weapons were wrenched downward and the right one broke off inside his body.

  "One good turn for another," Toret whispered.

  "What was that?" Chane asked. He was grinding something with a mortar and pestle.

  "Nothing," Toret answered. "Let's finish this. We have more preparations to make."

  After Sapphire's departure, Toret had explained to him the nature of these people for which the raven now searched. Chane listened carefully to every word. Toret tried to impress upon him the dhampir's strength, the dog's savage nature, and the cunning of this half-blood with his hidden blades.

  The cellar was as wide and almost as long as the house above it. To one side were stone steps leading up, and the opposite supported the weapons rack for training. Beside this, they'd removed masonry and excavated a passage directly into the city's sewers. At the cellar's back wall behind him was the door to Chane's private room. Toret's tall servant preferred this lower, dark and dank quarters to either of the free rooms on the second floor.

  Toret had little interest or even liking for the magical arts, though Chane's skills proved useful. He'd seen a few thaumaturges in his time, from an eclectic hedge mage to a blithering old alchemist still chasing after the secret for creating gold. Conjury, however, was a different matter. He knew nothing of it.

  "Time to begin," Chane said, and he crouched before Toret with a bone-handled silver dagger in his hand.

  Toret looked down at the tiny brass urn clutched in his hands. "What do I do?"

  "Exactly what I tell you," Chane answered. He turned toward the wolf, dropping to one knee. "Nothing more or less."

  He grabbed the scruff of the wolf's neck. The animal jerked and thrashed, snarling through the leather thongs binding its muzzle. Chane thrust the dagger point into the furred skin clenched in his hand and withdrew the tip slowly. He held the blade flat and level, careful not to spill the blood pooled on its tip, and turned back to Toret.

  "Give me your wrist," he ordered.

  Toret held out one arm. Without tilting the blade, Chane drew the tip's edge along Toret's wrist, cutting into the skin. Black fluid seeped from the shallow wound to touch the red already on the blade. As the fluids mingled, Chane tilted the tip slightly so the mixture seeped partially back into the cut. Toret felt the tiniest tingle of life creeping up his arm.

  "With the living, this would be enough for the binding ritual," Chane said. "But our existence would merely consume the animal's spirit instead of holding the part of it I will conjure. That is why we must use the urn as container and conduit. Lose the urn, and you will lose the familiar."

  He leveled the blade again, lifting it, and then dipped its point into the mouth of Toret's tiny urn. The mixed fluids dripped from the blade into the vessel.

  Chane stepped back to his crate table and picked up the lit candle there. He carried it to Toret and held it over the urn to let wax drip until it welled to the vessel's top. As he replaced the candle, he retrieved the pestle he'd been working with and a narrow-necked bottle of glass too dark to see through.

  With the silver blade, Chane cut a double-bordered triangle in the dirt floor around Toret. Between its borders he carved tangled strings of symbols and characters, which he filled with a viscous, olive green fluid poured from the bottle. The liquid soaked in, making the marks swell into raised, glistening ebony lines. He stepped back and cut a wide double circle and more markings in the floor around himself and the wolf, and dusted them with the powder mixed in the pestle.

  Chane picked up the candle and settled cross-legged on the floor with the wolf between himself and Toret.

  "Do not move from the space marked around you," he said, and stretched out his arms, resting them upon his knees with palms up. His gaze focused upon Toret's eyes.

  Toret remained still. He felt his own body rigid with the exertion not to move. Chane's eyes were still upon him, unblinking, as Toret saw the barest movement of Chane's lips in a silent but continuous chant.

  Toret began to ache inside, as if half the night had passed, until the tall undead's eyelids drooped closed.

  The wolf began to struggle.

  The animal thrashed, chains rattling as it growled. It wrestled as if to escape some torment beneath its own skin. Saliva leaked through its muzzle onto the floor as its head rolled sideways.

>   Chane's hands slapped together, enveloping and smothering the candle's wick, and the sound hammered through Toret's bones. He clenched the urn.

  Its metal burned hot, but Toret's attention was now on… the wolf's open eyes staring back at him… his own open eyes staring back…

  The room flickered before him. He saw both ends of it at the same time. He felt the still air around him, and the press of chains wrapped tightly across his body. He opened his mouth freely, but felt the press and smell of wet leather binding his jaws.

  "It is done," Chane stated.

  Toret looked down at the wolf. Its eyes looked back at him, and his vision began to spin and flicker. He looked at the wolf and through its eyes—at himself. His head throbbed. Nausea overwhelmed him, until he collapsed.

  Prone upon the floor, he found himself looking up into Chane's wry, smiling face.

  "Never watch yourself watching your familiar through its eyes," he said. "Contact of gaze in such a state is most disorienting. It is the first lesson we all learn the hard way."

  Toret sat up and looked for the urn. Chane handed it to him, and he hung it around his neck. The wax was dried and sealed solid within it.

  "Do not lose the urn," Chane admonished, "or you lose control of the familiar. And if the urn is out of your possession for too long, the familiar may break free permanently. Also be aware that the death of the familiar can be dangerous to its master."

  Nodding in comprehension, Toret climbed to his feet.

  The wolf was already unbound and stood shifting upon its paws as if uncertain of its own actions. Toret tried a brief attempt to will it to sit, but nothing happened. Chane seemed to guess what he was attempting.

  "Exerting control comes with time and practice," he explained. "Think of it more as a suggestion rather than a command, and remember the sensation of being inside the creature's awareness yet not linked to its senses. Do not overcontrol a familiar, or its resistance will grow, making it more, rather than less, difficult to deal with over time."

  "Enough for now," Toret said. "We have other servants to acquire."

  "Not yet; you are already taxed from the bonding. You need to feed."

  "No," Toret answered. He needed to feed, but he must continue to fast for the moment to come. "I must be able to absorb a life quickly enough to drag my victim beyond death."

  "As you wish." Chane collected his equipment from the makeshift table. "Then perhaps we should go to join your lady."

  He headed toward the door to his chamber with his belongings in hand.

  Toret slowly placed a hand on the wolf's head, the first of his new minions yet to come. The animal growled low in its throat but did not resist. When Toret found the half-blood and his white-skinned dhampir, they wouldn't believe what they faced. The final days in Miiska would be a tavern brawl by comparison.

  Chapter 8

  Leesil wasn't easily impressed by grandeur, but as he stepped into the Rowanwood's wide entryway, he slowed his pace.

  Large oil paintings hung on white walls, and all archways, windows, railings, and other fixtures were made of aged and polished wood suitable to the place's name. Carpets depicted patterns of ivy and forest scenes. Men and women in rich dress floated about. To the left was a dining chamber, and to his right was an elaborate gaming room, with tables for cards, dice, a fortune's wheel, and some oddity concerned with sliding marked tiles around a grid of squares. Ahead was a wide hallway of forest-green carpet that flowed up a staircase. Leesil imagined sumptuous rooms above that he could likely never afford.

  Among the patrons were occasional servers and a few tall and solidly built men of moderate but clean dress. The latter moved about the room or stood near archways watching the rooms. They wore no uniforms and carried no visible weapons, but each was similarly dressed in white shirts and colored vestments of fine fabrics.

  Leesil felt painfully underdressed and yet again out of place. Before the nearest guard turned around, he slipped into the gaming room.

  A few patrons cast him curious or disapproving glances, but most were preoccupied with their pursuits. He counted seven at the faro table, and sounds of ecstasy and despair carried to his ears. Most of the players were middle-aged elites, and odds at faro favored the house too much for the few coins that he carried.

  The scent of pipe smoke drifted to his nostrils, and he turned to see a game of Two Kings at a table near the short bar at the room's front. A handsome woman in her mid-forties caught his eye and smiled. He smiled back. There was no need to be impolite. Leesil approached the table, and her expression grew more welcoming.

  Her auburn hair was piled up in elaborate coils, and she wore a rich, mute forest-green gown that made her appear part of the establishment's own decor. The dress was sashed about her torso with a long olive scarf. Something about the gown puzzled Leesil. It had a high collar, rather than the open-topped bodices most of the women wore.

  "Are you searching for a game, sir?" she asked.

  "If you have space at your table, it would be my honor," he answered.

  The other players were mostly well-to-dos and old wealth. The dealer was an ashen-faced man wearing a badly fitted wig, who seemed appalled by the woman's suggestion.

  "My dear madam," he sputtered.

  Leesil knew he'd stepped too far across some social barrier and was about to be escorted briskly into the street. After Lanjov, the council, and the other nose-in-the-air nobles over the last few days, he'd had quite enough snobbery for one lifetime.

  A younger gentleman to the woman's right appeared embarrassed by the dealer's manner. He reached out and pulled over an empty chair from another table. But there were scowls, and a couple of worried glances from other players as Leesil settled cautiously into the offered seat.

  "I am Madame Lenska," the woman said. "My husband and I are in Bela on trade."

  "What trade would that be?" Leesil asked.

  Madame Lenska laughed, whispering in a conspirator's tone, "Snails."

  The young gentleman to her side blinked in surprise. "Snails?"

  "Yes," she went on. "It sounds appalling, but the demand for this delicacy is almost insatiable. We've been settling contracts with the better establishments." She leaned toward Leesil. "Personally, I can't stand the disgusting little things."

  Leesil chatted politely while the cards were dealt. Two Kings was a relatively simple game. Though the odds favored the house, as always, the stakes tended to be low. Winning meant coming as close to twenty points as possible without going over, and anyone dealt two kings in the first round won automatically. With a queen of spades and nine of diamonds on the first pass, Leesil decided to stay the hand and bet everything in his pocket—which amounted to three copper pennies. He won, and the small pile of coins grew.

  Several men looked at him in displeasure, but Madame Lenska laughed again.

  "I've heard beginners are fortunate company, and I'm feeling generous toward the lucky. Would you like a goblet of wine? The burgundy from southern Droevinka is quite excellent."

  Leesil's attention wavered. How long since he'd tasted it? He'd sworn to himself, never again, but the image of Magiere storming up the staircase rose in his mind. She thought him nothing more than a gambling drunk, and a "second-rate" one at that.

  Well, why not have just one goblet? He could live up to her low expectations, and enjoy himself at that.

  "Thank you," he replied. "You are most kind."

  Madame Lenska snapped her fingers, murmured to a serving girl, and moments later, a large pewter goblet brimming with burgundy was placed beside Leesil.

  He forgot to watch the dealer while taking a long, slow sip, and the wine slipped dry and sweet down his throat. He made small bets, lost two hands and won four, and realized his goblet was empty. Studying his amassed coins, he saw there was enough to purchase one refill and still continue playing. He signaled to the serving girl.

  The wine was strong and made him light-headed, but he wasn't drunk. He knew well enough whe
n "drunk" was approaching, and it was a long way off. He made a larger bet on a new hand.

  As he absently stacked his coins, one toppled and rolled off to the floor, and he leaned down to retrieve it. Under the table, Madame Lenska's legs were crossed, exposing a bare ankle and a touch of calf, and he froze. Her boots were weatherworn, and a king of diamonds peeked from the top of one.

  Leesil sat up slowly, fingering his cards with a sidelong glance at the woman.

  Madame Lenska's gown was very traditional. Too much so, now that he thought about it, worn only by women from old houses he remembered from his days in the Warlands in service to Lord Dartmouth. The dress was in a fine state but unlikely to be worn by a lady out for a little leisure. He suddenly realized why she'd been so inviting to him.

  If the players and dealer were watching an underdressed lowborn, no one would pay attention to her as she slipped in a card or two. She'd even bought him a drink to keep him at the table.

  At the draw of the cards, the dealer exceeded twenty, and Leesil won again.

  The house should win Two Kings at least two thirds of the time. If someone became suspicious, who would they point to first—an old-world lady or a half-blood outside his place?

  Leesil stood and gathered his coins. "Well, I'm off to supper."

  Several gentlemen looked openly relieved, and the one who'd offered him a chair gave a polite nod of farewell. Madame Lenska frowned.

  "So soon? But you've only just started. Let me buy you another goblet."

  The server walked over with the wine he'd ordered, and he quickly paid for it himself.

  "You're most kind," he said for the second time. "But I've won a few coins and need to refresh before continuing."

  With a slight bow, Leesil left the room carrying his goblet.

  An entryway guard gave him an appraising look but no more. Entering the dining chamber, Leesil watched lavish trays of seafood and roasted birds sweep by in the servers' hands, and he realized even his winnings might not cover the price of a meal. Several polished stools by the room's bar were empty, so he perched to watch the people as he sipped his wine.