Lhind the Thief (4 page)

“How am I slow, Lhind?” Hlanan asked again. “I’m trying to
learn.”

“Just slow,” I said in my surliest voice.

“I beg pardon,” Hlanan said, inclining his head. “How could
I forget? Six days without food!”

I didn’t like having my lies remembered. Safer not to talk
at all.

So I ignored him and concentrated on the food, which was
delicious. I ate as messily as I could without actually wasting any. That meant
making lots of noise, grunting, slurping, and snorting. When I dared a peek at
Hlanan, the smile was pronounced—he was enjoying my disgustingness! Flames of
Rue, how was I to get rid of this person?

“Go away!” I snapped.

“As soon as you are done,” he said gently, indicating the
tray.

At that point I was thumbing up crumbs. His gaze followed my
hand. Alarm thrilled through me—was my fuzz showing? No. I’d sewn my cuffs
tight to my wrists, and my fuzz was thin and sparse at my wrists. None showed,
especially under the coat of grime.

So I shoved the tray away so it almost fell. He caught it
up, the dishes sliding as the ship rolled the other way. Not a word of
annoyance, or even a flash of anger escaped him as he steadied the tray, one
elbow against the bulkhead. Then, timing his movement to the roll of the ship,
he got out the cabin door, and closed it gently behind him.

I didn’t bother to check and see if it was either locked or
warded. Exhausted, full for the first time in days, I stretched out on the
bunk.

I don’t remember falling into sleep.

The cabin was dark when I woke, starlight glowing in the
little window revealing a stone jug of fresh water. I drank most of it, then
got up and stretched. Now was time to have a look around, without nosy
servants, or mage-students, or scribes. Whatever Hlanan was.

I don’t care
, I thought.
I just want him and his questions out of my life.

I reached for the cabin door with one hand, the other going
to the loop in my waistband where I kept my lock-picking tool, but to my
surprise the door opened. I slid noiselessly out. The night was clear and warm,
the stars pale lights overhead, and one of the moons lay in a golden crescent
just above the horizon.

A couple of sailors noticed me, but went about their
business. I spotted a wide hatch with the honey-hued glow of lantern-light
spilling out, and ghosted near as voices floated through the open space.

Someone strummed fingers along the metal strings of a
tiranthe.

The notes shimmered in the quiet air, high, down to low,
sending an echo to shiver through my bones and sinews, down into my brain to
stir very old memories that I still couldn’t quite reach. Once, surely, I knew
music. Why else would it come so often in my dreams?

A flicker of brightness, no more—the Blue Lady holding out
her arms to me—then the image was gone, like the sparkle of the sun on water.

The images wouldn’t come back, but the feelings lingered. I
slipped down the stairs as if compelled by some spell, knowing it was stupid.
There was no reason for all these useless emotions of sadness and longing.

A thief has no time for music. After all, you can’t steal it
or spend it. I remembered the time, two or three kingdoms away, when I’d stolen
a tiranthe. But when I got it to a place where I could try it, I found out fast
that listening and playing are two vastly different things.

I laughed at the memory—but my feet wouldn’t move on.

A male voice joined the tiranthe’s glissades, a clear, warm
tenor, and I oozed up to the open cabin door and peeked in. Lounging on a bunk,
the center of attention, was that copper-haired fellow in velvet. The soft
firelight made art of his fine cheekbones, the curve of his generous lips, the
cerulean blue of his eyes as he sang a ballad in a tongue I’d never heard
before, but as always the words formed into patterns, and the sense seeped in
after.

Eugh! There I was, doing what I had vowed never to do again,
admiring someone just because nature had been generous with his looks. But not
with
his
nature. His single glance at me had been one of utter disgust, his
humane suggestion that I (being offal) be tossed overboard. And here he was
singing about
love
.

Love! Romance! Poets and bards all claimed love and romance
were all-powerful as well as eternal, but really, what is either but
attraction, as ephemeral as a sleet storm, and about as comfortable? No,
attraction was more like a disease than a storm.

I recalled that contemptuous glance of disgust, the
indifferent suggestion that I be tossed to my death, and turned away, but I
couldn’t scold myself into a comparable indifference.

Somewhere, somehow, I had formed the belief that beauty
ought to be joined to the qualities I thought beautiful: kindness, compassion,
truth. I scrambled up the steps to the deck, but the melody pursued me as
relentlessly as memory. Two inescapables, memory and music, as imperceptible
and yet as powerful as any magical enchantment.

And both as untrustworthy as beauty, love, and romance.

Music, I could not make. Memory, I could not command.

There I stood, unable to recover my own past. The memories I
could call up were mostly the kinds I’d rather forget, like a certain
lantern-chinned player in the ancient city of Piwum, where—for the first and
last time—I’d actually managed to earn an honest living, as a theater mage. My
illusions made those plays look better than they sounded, until I found myself
not watching my cues, but that one fellow, in hopes of gaining another smile in
spite of my cowled, disguised self.

He was handsome, but also loud, arrogant, tight-fisted with
a coin, and disloyal to everyone except his own comfort. But did I see that?
No, all I thought about were his beautiful black eyes, the cleft in his chin,
the rich and sonorous sound of his voice, and I found myself using my powers to
steal little things for him (“Just little things, it hurts no one,” he said
winsomely)—fine slippers and velvet cloth and gold ribbon for his hair—just to
win a smile, to hear those pretty words.

I debated removing my disguise, just so . . .
I never did define what was going to happen after that, except there’d be a
glorious ending like the most romantic songs. Then, late one evening, I
returned backstage to fetch my rain canopy and encountered him murmuring the
exact same pretty words to the girl who sold fruit, before the two went off to be
alone.

I left that city that night, and for the past three years,
my strict rule had been to leave as soon as I learned anyone’s name.

So here was this beautiful blond nobleman warbling this song
about a couple of witless people wasting their time longing for each other and
letting other people and weather and things deal them nasty blows without their
doing much about it, except complain in metered rhyme.

Beauty, pah! Love, faugh! Romance, I spit upon thee!

Glad to be completely disease free, I thought scornfully
that my shimmers had more substance.

I retreated to my cabin to hoard up on sleep.

o0o

I woke up in the early morning when Hlanan entered with
another tray.

My mood was foul.

Hlanan’s wasn’t. He grinned like he’d just heard a rare
joke, and I wondered if that Rat-eyed Rot-Nose Rajanas was above putting some
sort of mouth-frying spice in the food. I’d certainly do it to him, had I the
chance.

“Good morning, Lhind,” Hlanan said.

Ignoring him hadn’t worked, because he studied me with even
more interest than he had the day previous. I didn’t want to be studied any
more than I wanted to be questioned. What to do? Ask the questions, and be as
boring and annoying as possible.

“What are you laughing about,” I snapped. “We
finally
nearing the shore so I can get off this
garbage scow?”

“I’m happy because my aidlar returned this morning.”

“What’s that?” I retorted.

“It’s, well, a talking bird,” he said as if I’d asked
eagerly and politely. “It travels with me. Went off yesterday to find out where
we are, so now we are able to steer in the right direction.”

“The wind picked up,” I said. I could feel it. The ship
rolled as if alive. “It’s making me sick. Where are we, anyway?” I demanded.

“The storm blew us a ways north. The right direction, as it
happens. We just outran the other ships we’d been traveling with. We should
reach port by tonight.” He set the tray down before me, then sat on one of the
trunks with the air of one who intends to have a good, long chat.

So I forestalled his questions. “How’d you and the
Slime-Slurping Night-Crawler happen to be there when I did that spell after the
chase, in Tu Jhan?” I whined, then jammed wheat-cake into my mouth and chewed
as noisily as possible.

“Sli— ? Do you mean Rajanas? We were spending time in the
marketplace, waiting for some of his party to finish shop-visits, when Rajanas
saw you rob that unpleasant man in the yellow dyers’ smock. The man was
bringing quite a bit of attention to himself, calling that apple-woman a
cheat.”

“
He’s
the cheat,” I
snarled.

“So that’s why you provoked a chase? To get him away from
the woman? Is she a relation of yours?”

“She’s my great-auntie. She’ll be desperate, looking for
me,” I moaned pitifully.

“She did not seem unduly concerned when the chase began. No
doubt she had her reasons,” Hlanan said, his head tilted at more of an
interrogative angle.

“Auntie counts on me being home soon’s I can,” I said.

“Home being . . .” He began.

“You don’t need to know where her house is.”

“True. Beg pardon.” Hlanan inclined his head. “Anyway, it was
your taunts that intrigued me at first. You called him a . . .
What was it? A stinking scum of a sweat-sack. I wondered if you were bidding
fair to become the gutter-poet of Tu Jhan.”

“The what?”

“A reference to the Gutter-Poet of Akerik, who made himself
famous in the Shinjan War. It’s a long story. You don’t read or write?”

“No,” I snarled, and then whined with as much affront as I
could muster, “You did all these rotten things to me just because I mouthed
that bullying dyer instead of cutting and running?”

“You sound outraged.” He grinned. “Well, partly that, and
partly because you are so young. It made no sense, sorcerer’s apprentice and
thief. Especially in Thesreve. I wouldn’t dare to do any spell in that
country.” He gave me a quick, lopsided smile, but his gaze remained steady and
observant.

“That’s exactly why I don’t want any more magic than the one
spell I stole,” I said, and crunched into a piece of bread. “Yum!” Crunch,
crunch, slurp, smack!

“Do you like being a thief?”

I shrugged. “It’s an easy enough life, if you’re fast.”

“Your family are thieves as well?”

“Yep,” I said. “Whole family. Both parents. Grams and
gramps. Gotta get back quick.”

“Do you never spare a thought for those you steal from?”

“Ha, ha!” I laughed, proud of the spattering of bread I
sprayed. “It’s always them’t never been hungry, who say that.”

Hlanan’s brow creased thoughtfully. “Who has said it to
you?”

I shrugged again, sharper. “I never saw that anyone was the
happier for being honest. Take Auntie! Honest, but still Yellow Smock cheated
her, saying he’d protect her, but he didn’t. And as often as not she went
hungry. So I decided, why not do something? It would be fun.”

“Fun? Even though you were pursued and your life
threatened?” Hlanan’s eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you want me to think you have
loyalties?”

“Because I don’t have any,” I retorted. “I do what I like. I
go where I like—” I began, then remembered the invisible Grams and Gramps and
family, so I moved on quickly, “Loyalty is weakness, setting yourself up for
another betrayal.” I waved a slice of peach. “Loyalty to freedom, and fun, yes.
Not to
people
. As for Yellow Smock, I
robbed him because he’s a vile bully and a cheat and it was fun to make him
bellow in front of the entire street. The old apple woman, that is,
Apple-Auntie, she isn’t worth cheating because she’s got nothing worth taking.”

Hlanan leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees,
and said again, “Why do you wish to deny you have loyalties?”

I snorted, louder than a den of slumbering drunks. “It’s the
truth, for whatever that’ll getcha in gold.”

He tipped his head the other way. “To return to what you
said earlier. As it happens I have experienced hunger, in a limited sense. I
know someone who went hungry for longer, at much the age you are now. He worked
to reverse the misfortune he’d been dealt.”

I grinned at him. “So he’s rich now, is that what you’re
saying?”

“He has recovered his birthright—”

“Good. Then point him out, and I’ll do one lift without
worrying about how he’ll manage if he goes hungry again.”

Hlanan sighed. “I’ve offended you. I’m sorry,” he said
directly, rising to his feet. “I’ll go.”

“Where’ll I put this tray when I’m done?” I asked,
suspicious at how easily he’d accepted his defeat.

His answering smile was as gentle as always, but his gaze
had gone absent. “Take it down to the galley. Thanks.” He walked out.

As soon as I finished eating, I nipped to the cabin door and
threw the latch. A fast search through the trunks disclosed a small hand mirror
under a load of cloaks. I pulled it out and tilted it desperately, examining as
much of myself as I could see.

I had to make certain it was really the magic spell that had
caused this spate of questions. I didn’t want him finding out any of my
secrets. It was possible he might guess I was really a female. That had
happened a few times, as I couldn’t help my size.

In some kingdoms it didn’t matter, like Thesreve, in spite
of the laws against magic. The secret that I didn’t want anyone to guess was
what
kind
of female. That is, that I wasn’t
like the humans that surrounded me. I’d not yet met anyone like me, and I’d
learned the hard way that letting others see me as I really was brought nothing
but grief.