Lhind the Thief (31 page)

As soon as the silhouette of the last house was well behind
us, I said, “I can understand why that duchess wants me unharmed. Dhes-Andis
won’t give anyone a reward for a dead Hrethan. But the things they said about
you make it sound like she is carrying a grudge.”

“I suspect she is.”

“Against you?”

“Against me.”

“You told me what you and Thianra discovered, but you didn’t
tell me about your first encounter with her.”

“It didn’t seem important at the time.”

“Now we have nothing but time. And a long trudge ahead, for
I don’t hear any horses in the vicinity. Not loose ones. How did you first know
this duchess?”

“I was very young. Very callow. Thought I was smarter than
anyone else. Subsequently I found out that the sort of fellow I was is her
favorite prey.”

“Prey?” I asked, sniffing the air. We were passing someone’s
garden.

“I met her by accident. I thought. This was when the Council
assigned me to work my half year as an assistant, when I was almost seventeen.
Harbor mage in Akerik, at Enlee Bay, on the east coat. Beautiful city. When I
think back, it’s embarrassing, how easy I was to beguile . . .
she admired me so much, thought me so learned for my age, so comely. And, oh,
she just wanted help with an old curiosity she’d happened upon. She was a
collector of such, she said. Could I translate it? Sure I could, proud of my
prowess, until I discovered that the scrap of paper she happened upon was a
spell of blood magery.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“You don’t want to know what that is,” Hlanan said grimly.
“But if you did know, you’d understand why Thesreve kills mages.”

My innards tightened with bad memory.

He took a few steps in silence, as if he were thinking, too.
“Anyway, in horror I earnestly told her what it was. She professed to be
astonished, but I could see that she wasn’t.”

“She wanted you to translate evil spells for her?”

“I think she was leading up to that. At first I tried to
make excuses for her, but it didn’t take long to discover that she was wooing a
young scribe at the same time that she had been dazzling me. He told me she
thought him comely, and learned for his age, and he was so
very
clever, could he sneak into a Council archive?”

All I could see of Hlanan was his profile outlined against
the brilliant stars, but I could hear an undertone, almost a roughness, like
hurt. Then he laughed, as if it were no matter, so very long ago. “A salutary
lesson! There are few things more gullible than young boys who enter the world
thinking themselves comely, learned, and more clever than anyone else.”

“Boys or girls,” I said, uncomfortably remembering my
handsome actor.

“To resume. He was young enough to like the risk, and she
offered him a flattering reward. He was supposed to copy a page at a time, as
it was difficult to get at the book for long.”

“Why do they even keep it, if it’s so dangerous?”

Faryana?
I opened
the mental door a pinhole. Are you listening?

I cannot not listen,
as long as you wear my necklace.
Her mental voice was wry.

Do you know what book
he’s talking about?

We are constrained
from talking about that.

Of course she was. I shut the pinhole, as Hlanan went on,
unaware of my quick mental exchange. “The Mage Council got involved in
a . . . let’s say an intense debate. Very intense. Some thought
the book ought to be destroyed. Others that it ought to be studied to develop
antidote spells, for they don’t believe there was just one copy.”

“Like there is never just one cockroach,” I said.

He uttered a brief, soft laugh, then the humor faded. “Those
who practice blood magic earn an instant death in most kingdoms. There were
many in the Council who assumed it had successfully been stamped out a couple
centuries ago, when the kings took the matter into their own hands, and began
executing any accused of using blood magic.”

“Thesreve decided to execute
any
one doing magic, except licensed mages who go around and fix
things, accompanied by armed guards,” I said.

“Exactly. Thesreve was particularly hard hit many years ago,
so they remained vigilant, but most had relaxed their concern. Other kingdoms
permit certain spells, under tightly controlled circumstances, for what they
consider justified legal or political reasons. Alezand is one, though I have
been working on Rajanas to change that law. Anyway, about fifteen years ago,
this book surfaced in the loot from Shinjan slavers who had been preying on
islanders on the other side of the world. The duchess told this young scribe
that the book was her family history, kept from her by some political trouble
in the past.”

“So he didn’t know it was magic?”

“No. He thought he was copying out Ancient Shinjan records.
Few scribes learn that language.”

“He could just sneak in? They didn’t guard it?”

“It was bound with wards. But she’d given him some kind of
magical token that blocked wards, though he probably thought it was a luck
charm. So he wafted right through, without knowing what danger he was in. How
she got that . . .”

“My guess is that there’s some young mage somewhere else who
was bedazzled by a duchess who told him he was clever and comely and all the
rest of it.”

“No doubt. And now I wonder if that was Geric Lendan.
Anyway, while the scribe was out with a party of friends one evening, I burned
his pages, and left her house. I returned to Erev-li-Erval and reported what
she was doing to the Council representative. I don’t know how stiff a fine she
paid, or what lies she told to the Council, but even though this was ten years
ago, she apparently never forgets a grudge.”

“Was this the book you wanted me to steal?”

“Yes.”

“
You
wanted me to
steal it from that Council?”

“No, not at all! I got word not three days before we met you
that the book had gone missing, and the Council sent out warnings to all mages
of a certain level to be on the listen for signs of it. You’ll remember that
Emperor Jardis Dhes-Andis threatened to be able to find you by a tracer spell.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “I haven’t made the smallest
shimmer since I left Rajanas’s city.”

“Well, such a tracer spell was warded on that book, along
with many other protections. Whoever took it transferred the book by magic to
Finn, a small principality in the eastern mountains. It was near enough to
Thann that I thought it might be worth investigating, in case the duchess
possibly had anything to do with it. My thought was, you and I could travel as
scribe and apprentice, and see if we could locate it. By then I hoped to
convince you to go to the Council with me, where you could be safely enrolled
in their training.”

“Do you think Geric Lendan got on that yacht because he had
the book?”

“I do now. And oh, he must have enjoyed gloating.”

“That book is sounding nastier with every mention. And you
wanted
me
to steal it?”

“I wanted you to help me search for it. After meeting you, I
thought, if anyone can find that book, it’s a thief who knows magic.”

“We. You said we, a moment ago.”

“Do you think I would have sent you alone?”

“I think you would not have trusted me alone,” I retorted.

He said in a low, flat voice, “I apologize again for what I
said the other day.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said in haste, and considered,
saying slowly—finding my way toward the truth—“Though I don’t know what I
did
mean. When we were on the yacht, I
didn’t like how you and Thianra were so ready to trust me. It made me
uncomfortable.”

“How?” His voice lightened a bit.

“Because it made me feel I ought to be trustworthy, of
course. I hated that sense of . . . of invisible bonds. But when
I overheard you say you didn’t trust me, it felt even worse. And I know you
explained. I understand everything, and yet here I was just now, trying to get
you to repeat it all, as if making you repeat it would . . .
make me feel more trusted? But that’s not how to make trust, is it?”

“I sensed something of your dilemma by the second day we
were together on the yacht,” he said, the note of constraint gone. “Rajanas
agreed, but—getting back to the book—he thought you would not be able to resist
stealing it and then vanishing, to offer it somewhere else to the highest
bidder. He added that he would have done that, when he was a street urchin,
after his family was murdered in retaliation for some of his grandfather’s
excesses, and he found himself dumped on the streets of Fara Bay, when he was
small.”

“He’s right about what I would have done to anything else,
but he’s wrong about the book.” I shook my head. “That is, if you’d told me
what that book really was, I wouldn’t have been tempted to steal it for myself.
And that wasn’t a matter of trust. I would rather not meet the kind of people
who would pay for such a thing.”

I could hear the humor in his voice. “A practical attitude.
As well as shrewd.”

I had to laugh at myself for the sense of gratification I
got from his words. “Is she beautiful, this Duchess Morith?”

Again he walked in silence for a time, then finally said, “Not
sure how to answer that. Everyone is beautiful. Except when they are angry or
hateful. Anger and hate are not beautiful. Looking back, I realize she didn’t
always hide either, but I was so bedazzled, I made excuses for her. Heh! What a
fool I was!”

“Is it foolish to trust someone’s words?”

“It is foolish to trust flattery.”

“But how does anyone know it’s flattery and not truth?” I
exclaimed. “We all want to believe we’re smart, comely, and deserving
of . . .” I sidestepped naming emotions I still felt ambivalent
about. “I am very sure I would not have talked to Dhes-Andis as long as I did
if he hadn’t almost said that he was my father. He certainly made it clear that
he was family. He must have understood at once that I felt the lack, before I
was aware that I felt it. So I can understand Morith of Thann using her wiles
as the quickest way to get what she wants, though I hate her for it. Those
feelings ought to be . . .” I thought of my cherished dreams of
the Blue Lady. “Those feelings ought to be sacred.” I glared at Hlanan after I
spoke, daring him to laugh at me for sentimentality.

Hlanan walked, head bent, as a night bird cried faintly in
the distance. “Love, or what one thinks is love, makes one vulnerable. Neither
of us was the first to be so used, and won’t be the last. Is that a hill?”

“Yes, and I smell . . .” I sniffed. “Horses!”

Within a short time we were on horseback, riding toward
Keshad. We didn’t slow until the stars glimmered and vanished ahead, the
distant mountains emerging in the diffuse gray-blue of a summery dawn. When the
first pearlescent rays of the new sun slanted down, picking out the roof tops
and towers of Keshad, we set the horses loose. They frisked along the riverside
toward home as Hlanan and I lay behind a hedgerow to snatch a quick rest before
the morning traffic began.

I woke abruptly at the plodding sound of horse hooves and
the creak of wood. Wagon! As I struggled up, panicking, I remembered that the
Gray Wolf courier was to set out in the morning, and couldn’t possibly be here
yet. Sure enough, the first person on the road in the early light was a farmer.

I turned my gaze away, and froze.

Hlanan uttered a soft, happy laugh as, at the same time, we
discovered the white aidlar sitting on a branch above us, ruby eyes glinting as
Tir turned its head from side to side.

“Tir?” Hlanan held out his arm.

A squawk, a flutter of wings—the aidlar perched on his
forearm, uttering little bird cries. I cracked open the pinhole in my mental
shield, to be flooded with shrill mental cries, joyful and exhausted both:
Lhind hear! Lhind hear!

o0o

Tir had undertaken a heroic search for us, flying for
days.

Since I had kept my mental “door” closed, Tir had navigated
by listening for Hlanan. This disturbed me until I remembered that, just as
there is a magical ‘signature’ there is also a mental one. Though Hlanan
obviously didn’t keep his mental door shut all the time, Dhes-Andis didn’t know
him, and so couldn’t find him in the realm of the mind.

Tir made it clear that joining us meant it was time for
activity, not for flying up somewhere to tuck head under wing and snooze. The
aidlar had already rested, probably more than we had.

Hlanan said slowly, “With Tir here, we can get twice as much
done by separating, one to follow the couriers wherever they go, and the other
to listen to rumors around the city. Count how many Gray Wolves are among the
Liacz army. How the local people regard both.”

I said, “I can spot and follow the couriers. I’m good at
that.”

Hlanan got to his feet and dusted himself off. “Yes, much
better than I. Also, though I don’t plume myself on my memorable looks, I can’t
count on who among Morith’s most loyal servants might recognize me at a glance,
even in this locksmith garb. It’s important to be stealthy, silent, and
unseen.”

“Stealthy, silent, and unseen,” I repeated.

“Especially by the duchess,” he added, glancing from me to
Tir. “She is dangerous and vindictive.”

“Unless she lurks in the kitchens, I don’t plan on ever
seeing her,” I assured him. “Kitchens are always where the good gossip is.”

He cast a relieved glance up at the slow-moving sheet of
little puffy clouds that meant rain, then said, “Tir will know where we are if
there’s trouble. Since Tir has joined us, I think I’ll walk into town and ask
for work. At the same time, count how many Gray Wolves are in the streets.
Maybe the locals, or even the Liacz foot soldiers, will be complaining about
them. I can also get us some breakfast, if you’ve any more of your ill-gotten
gains.”