Lhind the Thief (25 page)

No.

“Thief. I will not wait any longer.” Prince Geric turned to
the pirate holding Kee, and raised his hand—

“If he touches her, I’ll fling this thing into the ocean,” I
yelled, holding up the whistle. “And this, too.” I pulled the necklace out.

Dhes-Andis’ laughter flooded my mind.
Use it, child. Strike!

I thought Geric was
supposed to be your pal,
I answered indignantly.
Great ally YOU are. He’s doing this to get you safely back.

The laughter increased.
He
wants what I can teach him, and does not yet know that you have supplanted him
as my apprentice.

Who says I am anyone’s
apprentice?
I shot back.

Too late
, was the
reply, amid stinging mirth.
I await you
with growing impatience.

He wasn’t the only one.

“Try it and they die anyway,” the furious prince snarled,
head thrown back. Distractedly, I couldn’t help noticing that he was handsome
even when in a rage. “But I will take my time.” Handsome but nasty through and
through.

I had to act fast.

Glancing at Kee’s pale face, I remembered our ride through
the rain, and my use of wind—

Of course!

I recalled Kee’s range, and tried something I’d never done
before. I shaped a thought and shoved it at her head:
Hold your breath
.

And I put the whistle to my lips and blew. A fine mist of
powder, almost invisible, floated out. Would my wind-shimmer be strong enough
to spread it? No way to find out but to try. With a wave of my hand I directed
the cloud of liref directly down onto the faces waiting below, making myself
see
it reach them all.

For a long moment nothing happened, then
thud
. One pirate slid to the deck. The
one holding Kee fumbled weakly with his knife, then he too dropped, knocking
Kee off balance. Prince Geric tried to lunge at her, and fell on his face at
her feet. All around her the others toppled.

“Where are the rest?” I called to Kee.

She pointed behind her, her hand over her nose, her face
rapidly turning red.

Two came running, faltered when they entered my cloud, and
gently joined their brethren in slumber.

I hopped down. Kee followed me to the hatch, both of us
sucking in lungfuls of air as the rest of the liref dust drifted out to sea.
Through the opening I heard the sounds of cries and scuffling. I bent down,
carefully blew the rest of my liref dust along the stairway, and used a shimmer
to waft it through the passages below.

Presently we heard thumps and thuds, then silence.

“Oh, thank you,” she exclaimed fervently. “What was that?
Poison?”

“Liref.”

“Then the Scribe will recover.” She sounded thankful.

An interrogative shout from the second pirate ship brought
both our heads around sharply.

“Do you have enough for them?” Kee asked, pointing shakily.

“I don’t think I could control the cloud unless I was on
their ship. Bet they don’t know magic, though,” I said. “Watch this.”

I couldn’t use the fire spell to aim at people, now that I
knew its strength, but I could use it against the masts of a ship.

I braced myself with my back to the rail, then I dropped the
whistle into my bag so I wasn’t touching it. Gathering my strength, I ran
through the fire spell. This time I was prepared for the rush of light and heat
through my mind, and I took what I needed and let the rest slip by.

“There,” I said, aiming my hands.

Fire slashed through the night, hitting the sails and
rigging of the pirate ship. The caravel’s bowsprit caught flame as well, and
broke off with a shower of sparks. “You next.” I flamed the second ship’s
sails.

“And there.” I sent lightning toward the third pirate ship
and soon its sails and upper rigging glowed red against the stars. Cries
erupted from the ships.

Fighting the vertigo of reaction, I turned in triumph to
Kee. “How’s that?” I asked past chattering teeth. “No one hurt. F-fires should
burn upward. B-but the pirates can’t go anywhere, and they’re too busy. To
bother. Us.”

She laughed, a gasping sound very close to tears. “It’s
wonderful,” she said. “But liref won’t have the pirates on our ship asleep
forever. What shall we do? Tie them all up?” She asked doubtfully.

I pushed myself away from the rail, ignoring the ache that
settled into my bones. “How about we drag them below, get their weapons, and
lock ’em in. Then we get away as soon as we can.”

Thunder muttered a distant warning. The sky blackened behind
angry clouds.

“A storm coming,” Kee shouted. “Let’s hurry. Rain might
revive them faster.”

We sprang to the nearest pirate, and found that we could
barely move him even with me tugging on his booted feet and Kee dragging on his
limp arms. I sank down on my knees, breathless from the exertion. It was Kee
who ran away down the deck and reappeared with a thick cape. After rolling the
snoring pirate onto it, we dragged the cape toward the hatch. We repeated this
again, finding it a less difficult method for hauling them.

Your work would be
easier with a shifting spell
, Dhes-Andis’s voice interrupted me suddenly.

Startled, I dropped the end of the cap I was tugging, and
Kee stumbled, casting me a reproachful look.
How did you do that? I’m not touching your whistle.

Do you want a shifting
spell? Or you could make the sleep last as long as you like.

I don’t trust your
spells.

But you just used one,
child. It all gets easier with time.

I closed my inner eyelid. Had it worked? I waited a little,
then cautiously listened.

His laughter at my futile hide-and-seek game scoured my
mind.
You gave me your range when you
memory-shared, my child.

A hideously unpleasant thought occurred to me then:
You’re not a prisoner at all. What is this
whistle thing really for?

A communications
device. Necessary for some, but not for you. I shall teach you how to use that
farsense gift—

Gritting my teeth, I concentrated on slamming my inner
door—and my mind contained only my own thoughts.

I glanced up. Kee’s face in the torchlight was worried. “You
looked like someone in a nightmare,” she said.

Lightning flared overhead, and thunder ripped the air. A
moment later stinging rain slashed down at us.

I shook my head at her. “Let’s finish,” I shouted. “I’ll
explain later.”

She gave a jerky shrug and we went back to work. The wet
deck made it more difficult to drag people about, but as the water became more
choppy, the ship pitched and rolled. We found our task more manageable when we
waited for a wave to slant the ship in our direction. Our pirates rolled easier
then. When it was Geric’s turn I stopped long enough to rob him again. All I
got this time was a ring and a small bag of coins.

The last two pirates muttered and struggled a little, but we
got them below, Kee bumping them down on the cloaks. They’d probably be bruised
up a bit, but after all, as Kee said, “They’re pirates. They deserve some
bruises.”

We shoved them all into the big stern cabin, then I threw
the last of my liref into the cabin with them and shut them in. We piled a
giant barricade of barrels and furniture outside the door.

By this time the storm had broken directly overhead. The
pair of ships bumped together, timbers creaking warningly. On the burning
ships, the pirates were too busy fighting flames to bother with us.

Kee and I staggered up to the deck, exhausted and wondering
we should do next. Passengers wandered around looking dazed; others who’d been
caught in the liref cloud lay here and there, groaning. We found Hlanan sitting
up groggily in the slashing rain. The torches had gone out, but we spotted him
in a flash of lightning. He was looking around, and saw us in the same flash.

“You’re all right,” I shouted in relief. “We got the pirates
locked up. And the others won’t be attacking any time soon.” I pointed at the
red glow of the fires on the other ships.

Hlanan scarcely gave them a glance. He moved with slow,
painful-looking steps to Kee’s and my cabin, which still had candles lit in it.
Kee sank gratefully onto the bunk, but Hlanan stopped me from following her and
grabbed hold of my shoulders. “Lendan traced us here,” he said. “By magic. Who
have you been in contact with?”

By now I was shivering so hard I could hardly get my
burglar’s bag out. I fumbled the whistle from the bag and numbly held it out.
Reaction was setting in fast. “I took it off Geric. In Imbradi.”

Hlanan wiped his streaming hair out of his face and squinted
at the whistle. “What’s this?” he reached for it, but I yanked it away.

“Don’t t-touch it,” I mumbled. “He might hear you.”

“Who?”

“Dhes-Andis.” I braced myself for the angry tirade I
expected and—I gulped—deserved.

Hlanan leaned his head back and shut his eyes. His hands
dropped away from me, then he straightened up and eyed me in anguish. “
Why?
”

“It happened by accident. Here.” I opened the window and
flung the whistle out into the sea. Lightning flared, shining on the pale white
shape spinning end over end toward the water. It disappeared without a splash.
“He can’t get at your mind now.”

Hlanan’s tired brown eyes narrowed at my emphasis on ‘your.’

“We’ve g-got to get away,” I stuttered on. “Dhes-Andis knows
who I am, and he knows w-we’re here.”

“I’ve got to do something,” Hlanan said softly, as if to
himself.

“We gave those pirates more of her liref,” Kee spoke up.
“And we shut them in the big cabin that way.”

“All right,” Hlanan said. “That’s a start.” His face
tightened with purpose. “Kee, watch out,” he said suddenly.

I glanced at Kee, saw her puzzled face, then I tried to look
back at Hlanan to ask what he was talking about.

I say I ‘tried’ because his fingers flickered, stars flashed
across my vision—and it was my turn to crumple to the deck, dazzled by a spell.

Someone shook me.

My head pounded in protest. I mumbled “Go away,” and tried
to dive back down into sleep.

“Lhind. Wake up.”

I opened bleary eyes to find Kee’s face next to mine. “Ow,”
I groaned. “Ache all over. What happened?”

She gave me a brief grin. “A stone spell. He said you’ll
feel heavy at first.”

“Oh.” I tried to stretch. “I remember that.” With the memory
came a flood of sadness, of regret. I swallowed fast a couple of times, then
tried a casual voice: “So I’m back on the villain list, huh?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing like that. ’swhy I’m here,
trying to wake you up.”

“Huh?” I sat up, trying to ignore the clumsiness of my
limbs. Feeling was coming back rapidly.

“They’re up there, talking about what they should do with
you.” She pointed toward the ceiling. “I thought you should hear. So I came.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Thanks, Kee. But what’s happening?”

“Come on. I’ll tell you while we go upstairs.”

I got to my feet, and made two discoveries. The good one: my
tail was free, helping me to stand despite the vertigo making my vision revolve
gently. The bad one: my sash and its contents were gone.

Smacking my tunic pockets, I said, “My stuff?”

“The Scribe had my mom search you,” Kee said, flushing.
“Your things aren’t in here.”

“Hoo,” I sighed. “Why? What happened?”

“Let’s go,” she urged. “You’re supposed to be still asleep.
And if they knew I was here I’d get into trouble.”

I rubbed my aching jaw and followed her into a marble hall
lined with arches decorated with vines and wheat cartouches. I’d seen them
before. “We’re in Imbradi. In Rajanas’s palace, right?”

“That’s right.” She gave a quick nod, and picked up the pace
slightly. “The ship landed off the coast of Liacz, and the Scribe found some
mage who transferred us here.”

“Then why didn’t he take you to the Empress?”

“He told me that he was afraid there might be tracers on
you, and he didn’t have the skill to discover if that was true. I don’t know
what he told the mage, whose loyalties might lie with the King of Liacz more
than with the Council.” She rubbed her eyes, frowning. “I don’t really
understand high politics, and I guess I don’t want to. And I’m glad I only had
to endure one transfer. That hurts worse than a fall off a horse.”

“But why did he put that horrible spell on me?”

“Hurts, does it?” she asked with sympathy. “So you didn’t
escape that, either. The Scribe said he wanted to keep that evil sorcerer from
your mind, and that was the fastest way to do it.”

“So the ship captain didn’t blame us?”

“I guess he never figured out that we were the target, and
the Scribe didn’t tell him. After he put that spell on you, he spent a night
and a day putting healing-spells on the bandages of the pirates’ victims. That
was good to watch.” She gave another of her quick nods. “He’s very deft with
that kind of magic. This way.”

We started up a long, curving staircase. “So we made it here
safely,” I prompted.

Kee frowned down at her feet for a few steps. “Yes. A while
ago, this message came.” She sighed shortly. “I’m not explaining this right.
They’ve been fighting here, trying to hold the Pass.”

“I remember that, from our scrying before the pirates
attacked the ship.”

“I guess there’s a whole army on the Liacz side, an invading
army of hirelings. That Pass is high, and most of the year it gets snowed in.
As of last night, our prince and my grandmother agreed that if we can stall the
army off until the snows start again, then king of Liacz won’t want them
sitting there on his side, and will revoke his grant of passage. Nobody wants
an army squatting at their back door. Especially the Wolf Grays.” She stopped,
then quietly stepped through an archway into a round room decorated with curved
couches in emerald green brocade, with an ivory and green rug on the floor.