Lhind the Thief (28 page)

I did, and fell asleep secure in my mental hut.

o0o

I woke early, as always, and inspected the outfit that Kee
had given me. The tunic was plain, undyed cotton-linen, the trousers egg-shell
blue. Down at the bottom of the pack I found a broad silken sash of a bright,
peachy orange, which I ran through my fingers, wondering if I ought to bind up
my hair to hide it, or put it around my waist.

From the slow sound of his breathing, Hlanan still slept. I
plucked the nice, clean cap from the knapsack. It would serve as a makeshift
basket. The necklace had fallen into it. I was shaking it out when it
coruscated with light that did not reflect from anywhere around me. I gripped
it in my fingers, and cautiously opened the mental door.

Lhind?

Faryana!
I’d
forgotten all about her when I’d told Hlanan I had no more secrets, and
grimaced as I picked up the necklace. I made sure that inner wall was closed
tight around my thoughts, except for a tiny peephole through which I focused on
the diamonds. Then I sent:
Why did you
wait so long to answer?

I slipped out of the barn and began walking, scrutinizing
the hedgerows as I listened on the mental plane.

You have learned how
to focus. By that I mean you have learned to block out individual farsensers,
as well as the universal block you used once on me. I did not have the courage
to communicate with you when Dhes-Andis might be listening, even after I was
fairly sure you were not choosing to cleave to him.

Who says I was
choosing any such thing?
I snorted, scaring a bird hopping nearby into
flapping up into the air, scolding.

It seemed a close run
race there for a time
, she returned with considerable irony.

I was about to sling back a hot answer when I remembered my
delight in chasing Lendan’s warriors about with fire bolts. Then I remembered
how the power I’d played with so happily had nearly consumed me.

Is that what you call
the dark arts?
I asked.

The dark arts twist or
destroy the world and the lives on it in order to achieve the magician’s ends.

That sounds to me like
a judgment on the user,
I thought at her as I walked over a mossy stone
bridge.
Magic is magic, isn’t it?

In some ways, that is
true. But there are practices that are only used by sorcerers of the dark arts.
Some of these practices are known to us, but we choose not to use them because
of the harm they cause.

I can understand that,
I thought.

Further, there are
what we call the Mysteries—agents of magic, difficult to explain simply—who
know the intentions of any user by some arts we cannot fathom and who choose
not to ally with those sorcerers. Dhes-Andis and his colleagues will tell you
that these do not exist, because they interfere so rarely. But that is part of
the larger balance we vow to maintain. We must know when to interfere, and when
not; when action is called for and when not, and always, always, we must
consider the far-reaching consequences of our actions. Our most revered
magicians appear ineffectual to the common world because they so seldom take
perceived action but in reality they are on constant guard to protect and
maintain the world’s balance.

Do they call us
Hrethans one of those Mystery things?
I asked. Then I remembered that I’d
hidden my Hrethan background from her. And then I remembered the other part of
my background.

Sadness permeated her thoughts.
I guessed you are related to the Snow Folk, because I can hear you so
clearly. And because you accessed magic so swiftly.
A whisper of
thought—maybe her private thoughts?—came,
But
you did not trust me enough to tell me.

I was getting dizzy, trying to keep the pinhole tight and
walk at the same time, so I stopped, and perched on an old fence. Then I shut
my eyes.
Can you tell me a little about
the Snow Folk, Faryana?

You know nothing of
the Snow Folk, yet you are related?

When I did not answer, she went on.

We are called one of
the Mysteries by some. But our abilities range, as with the rest of humanity.
You can learn more of these matters from others. One thing I must ask—

I waited cautiously, still holding hard on my little
peephole.

The question, when it came, took me totally by surprise.
Have you shape-shifted yet?
With the
question came a distinct image of a white bird soaring through the skies. Not
an aidlar, but larger, with bright blue eyes.

I straightened up so fast that I almost fell off the fence.
So THAT’s what Tir meant, when it first
named me Hrethan,
I thought to myself. And to her:
Birds? How?

When we reach a
certain age, the ability is just there. One day you stand at a cliff’s edge,
feeling the pull of the winds, the impulse is there, like using your tail for
balance, but inward. Then you take wing. It has saved us time and again from
the likes of the Djurans, or the old-time Shinjan slavers, who tried to capture
us and sell us as pets to the wealthy.

I wanted to ask her if that shape-changing extended to
half-Hrethan, but that seemed a dangerous question. Maybe it’s something that
only happens to full-blooded Hrethan, I thought to myself, because I had
perched on many a rooftop, but never once had I felt an impulse to take flight.
A wish, yes. But I knew the difference.

A wave of dizziness blurred my eyes. The long contact was
tiring me.
I need to eat
, I thought
at her, and I felt her awareness close off as if she shut an inner door on me.

When the vertigo eased, I flipped over the fence to the far
side, where I discovered a tumbledown cottage and an overgrown kitchen garden.

I scavenged food from the garden until the cap was full,
then trod back to the barn. I found Hlanan sitting on the upended bushel, his
head in his hands.

He looked up, his relief smoothing into blandness.

“Breakfast,” I said, setting the cap on a barrel, then, out
of habit, surreptitiously shoving the necklace back into the pack. Oh. Another
secret . . .

Hlanan had been eyeing the snap beans, carrots, three kinds
of sweet berries, and a gleaning of chestnuts and hazelnuts that the local
animals hadn’t found the autumn previous. I halved again the now-stale half
loaf, and the cheese. “Got those from an abandoned garden. There’s a stream not
a hundred paces off, where you can get a drink.”

“And wash the grime from my face,” he said. “Thank you.”

I picked up my dampish clothes that I’d draped over the corn
barrels, feeling oddly off-balance. Of course it would be unsettling, I
reasoned. I was not at all accustomed to going without my protective layers of
disguise.

Before I could eat, I decided to get the worst over. “Um.
Actually, I do have one more thing to confess.” I pulled out the necklace.

Hlanan almost dropped his food. His eyes went round, then
narrowed. “I remember that. Kressanthe’s necklace. You were wearing it when you
rescued me.”

“Yes.” And I told him everything Faryana had said. As I
spoke, I braced for him to scowl, to scold, to try to take it away for my own
good. Since it wasn’t mine, I wasn’t certain why I hated that thought.

He turned his palm up, as if he were about to demand it, or
even plead for me to relinquish it to him, but then his hand dropped to his
knee. He gave me a twisted smile. “One good thing, Faryana is better at
explaining magic than I, and she saved me a lot of effort.” His tone was
apologetic. And a little bitter, maybe with self-judgment.

Since he didn’t say anything personal, I didn’t, either.
“Can you free her?” I asked, leaping to my feet as I packed everything into my
knapsack except the damp tunic and trousers. “I think we should eat as we
walk.” I couldn’t explain my sudden restlessness.

He obliged, picking up the cap and following me out of the
barn. “No. I don’t know nearly enough magic.”

“Then back she goes inside my clothes, where she’s out of
sight,” I said, suiting action to words. I tied the damp clothes by sleeves and
legs to drape over my knapsack so they would dry in the sun as I walked.
Imagine, the riches of
two
outfits!

I ran the silky orange sash through my fingers, fighting the
urge to glory in having my hair and tail free to lift in the breeze. Habit was
strong.

Because no one was on the road, I tied the sash around my
waist, and dared to walk out as I was, my hair and tail snapping around me as
if resenting confinement.

Then I joined Hlanan, who was watching the muddy pathway as
if wisdom of great import lay there. “Will you honor me by repeating your
intention?” he asked at last. “I believe you told me last night, but my wits
seem to have fled.”

“Going east,” I said. “Kee and I talked about it. She thinks
Aranu Crown would listen if I told her about Geric Lendan and Dhes-Andis and
that army.”

“So you are not running away, you are running to someone.”

”I’ve never thought about it that way before. Both, I
guess.”

“Something I learned from Rajanas, back when we first met.”
He lifted his head, his gaze reaching far past the dilapidated barn roof. “We
were a pair of scrawny twigs, full of ideas, captured flat.” He blinked, and
gave me fleeting, whimsical smile as he poked among the beans for the last of
the berries. “While we were chained together on the galley bench, Rajanas
sometimes said that it took some mental twisting, but having a plan instead of
mere escape meant, oh . . .”

“I remember. That if you just keep running, someday you will
have nowhere to go.” I took the cap back, which had a few beans at the bottom,
and three small berries.

“I said that before, didn’t I? Forgive me if I sound
insufferable. And pass me the berries, would you? Unless you’d like to finish
them off.”

“You don’t like beans? The crisp snap, the delightful smell
of fresh green?”

“Not uncooked for breakfast, I must admit. Perhaps
later . . .” He paused as though he was going to say more, but
didn’t.

“Later what?” I asked.

He opened his hands. “You tell me.”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask,” I said. “Did you expect me to
find more, then? I will, of course.”

“Ah, so we will travel together?”

I stared at him in surprise. “Have we not so far?”

His smile was wry. “Until you left. Though the fault for
that was entirely mine,” he added hastily.

“Well, what else were you going to do?”

“I hadn’t planned on anything but finding you, and asking
you to transfer back,” he said. “After which . . . but nothing
I’d thought of doing is the least use now, not with that barrier spell. So, my
next plan was to find the nearest town where there might be a mage connected to
the Council. Try to scry Thianra, and failing that, apprise the Council of what
has occurred.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” I said. “We can go
together, and you can teach me more things. Oh. That reminds me. One more
confession.”

Hlanan looked askance, his brows lifting in a way that
reminded me briefly of Rajanas. He was trying not to laugh.

“Not a secret,” I said hastily. “I overheard it, at the inn.
Before I stole the bag of gold the innkeeper was paid.”

Hlanan coughed, still trying not to laugh. But when I was
done repeating the conversation, all the humor vanished from his face. “So it
was a ‘she’ who sent those hirelings,” he said thoughtfully, before he popped
the last berry into his mouth.

“You think she is Kressanthe?”

Hlanan gave his head a shake. “No. Impossible.” He gazed up
into the clear sky, as the cool, rain-washed breeze tugged at our clothes, then
his expression changed. “I believe I know. And if I’m right, it answers a lot
of questions.”

“Geric Lendan acting through someone else?”

To my surprise, he shook his head again. “Geric might have
sent a message to her before boarding the yacht. It might have been a condition
of his contracting the Wolf Grays. But she would not act on his orders. Not at
all.” As he spoke, he lifted his head. In the distance riders emerged from a
copse of trees and vanished over a hill.

“So who was it?”

We took a dozen steps. I was beginning to wonder if telling
me broke one of those mysterious oaths he’d alluded to. Then he said, “The
Duchess of Thann.”

“Who’s she?” As I said it, I thought, haven’t I heard that
name before?

“She’s the one who contracts out the Wolf Grays. Some say
she’s getting them trained for a major political action, and making a fortune
doing it. I can believe that, having run afoul of her. Twice, actually.”

“You did? How?

“Really want to hear this old history?”

“Sure,” I said. I’d always been interested in his past. “I
like stories, and we’ve nothing else to do.”

“Here’s the most recent one, then. I was traveling on
another matter entirely when I came to the river, and in seeking for a likely
passenger boat, I chose the one on which Thianra was employed as a bard,
thinking she might be able to tell me a little about the captains. I got more
than I expected. She’d discovered evidence that thefts along the river were not
sporadic. We were curious enough to investigate. Discovered that the thieves
were part of a ring.”

“And so she reported them?”

“I did. She wanted to stay with the riverboat, because she
wasn’t satisfied we’d found who was behind the ring, so we decided she should
lie low. We also wondered if the information would be forgotten, or worse. I
made my report, and nothing happened. That was last winter.”

He paused, his head turning. His intent gaze caused me to
turn my head. I made out the silhouettes of horseback riders vanishing over a
distant hill.

Hlanan turned back to me. “Where was I? Oh yes. This spring
Thianra discovered that the theft ring was not only protected, but it was part
of something much larger. Do you know where Thann lies?”