The Redemption of Althalus (7 page)

“You just managed to get my undivided attention, Ghend.”

“Are you really as good a thief as everyone says you are?” Ghend’s glowing eyes seemed to burn more brightly.

“I’m the best,” Althalus said with a deprecating shrug.

“He’s right about that, stranger,” Nabjor said, bringing Althalus a fresh cup of mead. “Althalus here can steal anything with two ends or with a top and a bottom.”

“That might be a slight exaggeration,” Althalus said. “A river has two ends, and I’ve never stolen one of those; and a lake has a top and a bottom, but I’ve never stolen one of those either. What exactly is it that this man in Nekweros wants badly enough to offer gold for it—some jewel or something like that?”

“No, it’s not a jewel,” Ghend replied with a hungry look. “What he wants—and will pay gold for—is a book.”

“You just said the magic word ‘gold’ again, Ghend. I could sit here all day and listen to you talk about it, but now we come to the hard part. What in blazes is a book?”

Ghend looked sharply at him, and the flickering firelight touched his eyes again, making them glow a burning red. “So
that’s
why you threw all of Druigor’s money on the floor. You didn’t know that it was money because you can’t read.”

“Reading’s for the priests, Ghend, and I don’t have any dealings with priests if I can avoid it. Every priest I’ve ever come across promises me a seat at the table of his God—
if
I’ll just hand over everything I’ve got in my purse. I’m sure the dining halls of the Gods are very nice, but you have to die to get an invitation to have dinner with God, and I’m not really
that
hungry.”

Ghend frowned. “This might complicate things just a bit,” he said. “A book is a collection of pages that people read.”

“I don’t have to be able to read it, Ghend, to be able to steal it. All I have to know is what it looks like and where it is.”

Ghend gave him a speculative look, his deep-sunk eyes glowing. “You may be right,” he said, almost as if to himself. “I just happen to have a book with me. If I show it to you, you’ll know what you’re looking for.”

“Exactly,” Althalus said. “Why don’t you trot your book out, and I’ll have a look. I don’t have to know what it says to be able to steal it, do I?”

“No,” Ghend agreed, “I guess you don’t at that.” He rose to his feet, went over to his horse, reached inside the leather bag tied to his saddle, and took something square and fairly large out of the bag. Then he brought it back to the fire.

“It’s bigger than I thought,” Althalus noted. “It’s just a box, then, isn’t it?”

“It’s what’s inside that’s important,” Ghend said, opening the lid. He took out a crackling sheet of something that looked like dried leather and handed it to Althalus. “That’s what writing looks like,” he said. “When you find a box like this one, you’d better open it to make sure it has sheets like that one inside instead of buttons or tools.”

Althalus held up the sheet and looked at it. “What kind of animal has a hide this thin?” he asked.

“They take a piece of cowhide and split it with a knife to get thin sheets,” Ghend explained. “Then they press them flat with weights and dry them so that they’re stiff. Then they write on them so that other people can read what they’ve put down.”

“Trust a priest to complicate things,” Althalus said. He looked carefully at the neatly spaced lines of writing on the sheet. “It looks sort of like pictures, doesn’t it?” he suggested.

“That’s what writing is,” Ghend explained. He took a stick and drew a curved line in the dirt beside the fire. “This is the picture that means ‘cow,’ ” he said, “since it’s supposed to look like a cow’s horns.”

“I thought learning to read was supposed to be difficult,” Althalus said. “We’ve only been talking about it for a few minutes, and I already know how to read.”

“As long as all you want to read about is cows,” Ghend amended, half under his breath.

“I don’t see anything about cows on this page,” Althalus said.

“You’ve got it upside down,” Ghend told him.

“Oh.” Althalus turned the page and studied it for a little while. Some of the symbols carefully drawn on the parchment chilled him for some reason. “I can’t make any sense of this,” he admitted, “but that’s not important. All I really need to know is that I’m looking for a black box with leather sheets inside.”

“The box we want is white,” Ghend corrected, “and it’s quite a bit bigger than this one.” He held up his book. The cover of the book had red symbols on it, ones that chilled Althalus.

“How much bigger than yours is the book we want?” he asked.

“It’s about as long and as wide as the length of your forearm,” Ghend replied, “and about as thick as the length of your foot. It’s fairly heavy.” He took the sheet of parched leather from Althalus and almost reverently put it back inside the box. “Well?” he said then. “Are you interested in the proposition?”

“I’ll need a few more details,” Althalus replied. “Just exactly where is this book, and how well is it guarded?”

“It’s in the House at the End of the World over in Kagwher.”

“I know where Kagwher is,” Althalus said, “but I didn’t know that the world ended there. Exactly where in Kagwher is this place? What direction?”

“North. It’s up in that part of Kagwher that doesn’t see the sun in the winter and where there isn’t any night in summer.”

“That’s a peculiar place for somebody to live.”

“Truly. The owner of the book hasn’t lived there for many, many years, so there won’t be anybody there to interfere with you when you go inside the house to steal the book.”

“That’s convenient. Can you give me any kind of landmarks? I can move faster if I know where I’m going.”

“Just follow the edge of the world. When you see a house, you’ll know it’s the right place. It’s the only house up there.”

Althalus drank off his mead. “That sounds simple enough,” he said. “Now, then, after I’ve stolen the book, how do I find you to get my pay?”

“I’ll find you, Althalus.” Ghend’s deep-sunk eyes burned even hotter. “Believe me, I’ll find you.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll do it then?”

“I said I’ll think about it. Now, why don’t we have some more of Nabjor’s mead—since you’re the one who’s paying.”

———

Althalus didn’t feel very well the next morning, but a few cups of Nabjor’s mead quieted the shaking in his hands and put out the fire in his belly. “I’ll be gone for a while, Nabjor,” he told his friend. “Tell the wench with the naughty eyes that I said good-bye and that I’ll see her again someday.”

“You’re going to do it then? Go steal that book thing for Ghend?”

“You were listening.”

“Of course I was, Althalus. Are you really sure you want to do this, though? Ghend kept talking about gold, but I don’t remember that he ever showed you any. It’s easy to say ‘gold,’ but actually producing some might be a little more difficult.”

Althalus shrugged. “If he doesn’t pay, he doesn’t get the book.” He looked over to where Ghend lay huddled under his excellent black wool cloak. “When he wakes up, tell him that I’ve left for Kagwher and that I’m going there to steal that book for him.”

“Do you really trust him?”

“Almost as far as I could throw him,” Althalus replied with a cynical laugh. “The price he promised me sort of hints that there’ll be some fellows with long knives nearby when I demand my pay. Besides, if somebody offers to pay me to steal something for him, I’m always certain that the thing’s worth at least ten times what he’s offering me to steal it. I don’t trust Ghend, Nabjor. There were a couple of times last night after the fire had burned down when he looked at me, and his eyes were still on fire. They were glowing bright red, and the glow wasn’t a reflection. Then there was that sheet of parched leather he showed me. Most of those pictures were sort of ordinary, but some of them glowed red the same way Ghend’s eyes did. Those pictures are supposed to mean words, and I don’t think I’d like to have anybody saying those particular words to me.”

“If you feel that way about it, why are you going to take on the job, then?”

Althalus sighed. “Normally I wouldn’t, Nabjor. I don’t trust Ghend, and I don’t think I like him. My luck’s turned sour on me here lately, though, so I sort of have to take what comes along—at least until fortune falls in love with me again. The job Ghend offered me is fairly simple, you know. All I have to do is go to Kagwher, find a certain empty house, and steal a white leather box. Any fool could do this job, but Ghend offered it to me, so I’m going to jump on it. The job’s easy, and the pay’s good. It won’t be hard to do it right, and if I
do
pull it off, fortune might change her mind and go back to adoring me the way she’s supposed to.”

“You’ve got a very strange religion, Althalus.”

Althalus grinned at him. “It works for me, Nabjor, and I don’t even need a priest to intercede for me and then take half my profits for his services.” Althalus looked over at the sleeping Ghend again. “How careless of me,” he said. “I almost forgot to pick up my new cloak.” He walked over to where Ghend lay, gently removed the black wool cloak, and put it around his own shoulders. “What do you think?” he asked Nabjor, striking a pose.

“It looks almost as if it’s been made for you,” Nabjor chuckled.

“Probably it was. Ghend must have stolen it while I was busy.” He walked back, digging several brass coins out of his purse. “Do me a favor, Nabjor,” he said, handing over the coins. “Ghend drank a lot of your mead last night, and I noticed that he doesn’t hold his drink very well. He won’t be feeling too good when he wakes up, so he’s going to need some medicine to make him feel better. Give him as much as he can drink, and if he’s feeling delicate again tomorrow morning, get him well again with the same medicine—and change the subject if he happens to ask what happened to his cloak.”

“Are you going to steal his horse, too? Riding’s easier than walking.”

“When I get so feeble that I can’t do my own walking, I’ll take up begging at the side of the road. A horse would just get in my way. Keep Ghend drunk for a week, if you can manage it. I’d like to be a long ways up into the mountains of Kagwher before he sobers up.”

“He said that he’s afraid to go into Kagwher.”

“I don’t think I believe him on that score either. He knows the way to that house up there, but I think it’s the house he’s afraid of, not the whole of Kagwher. I don’t want him hiding in the bushes when I come out of that house with the book under my arm, so keep him drunk enough not to follow me. Make him feel good when he wakes up.”

“That’s why I’m here, Althalus,” Nabjor said piously. “I’m the friend of all men when they’re thirsty or sick. My good strong mead is the best medicine in the world. It can cure a rainy day, and if I could think of a way to make a dead man swallow it, I could probably even cure him of being dead with it.”

“Nicely put,” Althalus said admiringly.

“Like you always say, I’ve got this way with words.”

“And with your brewing crocks. Be the friend of Ghend then, Nabjor. Cure him of any unwholesome urges to follow me. I don’t like to be followed when I’m working, so make him good and drunk right here so that I don’t have to make him good and dead somewhere up in the mountains.”

C H A P T E R     F O U R

I
t was late summer now in deep-forested Hule, and Althalus could travel more rapidly than he might have in less-pleasant seasons. The vast trees of Hule kept the forest floor in perpetual twilight, and the carpet of needles was very thick, smothering obstructing undergrowth.

Althalus always moved cautiously when traveling through Hule, but this time he went through the forest even more carefully. A man whose luck has gone bad needs to take extra precautions. There were other men moving through the forest, and even though they were kindred outlaws, Althalus avoided them. There weren’t any laws in Hule, but there
were
rules about behavior, and it was very unhealthy to ignore those rules. If an armed man doesn’t want company, it’s best not to intrude upon him.

When Althalus was not too far from the western edge of the land of the Kagwhers, he encountered another of the creatures who lived in the forest of Hule, and things were a little tense for a while. A pack of the hulking forest wolves caught his scent. Althalus didn’t really understand wolves. Most animals don’t bother to waste time on things that aren’t easy to catch and eat. Wolves, however, seem to enjoy challenges, and they’ll chase something for days on end just for the fun of the chase. Althalus could laugh at a good joke with the best of them, but he felt that the wolves of Hule tended to run a joke all the way into the ground.

And so it was with some relief that he moved up into the highlands of Kagwher, where the trees thinned out enough to make the forest wolves howl one final salute and turn back.

There was, as all the world knows, gold in Kagwher, and that made the Kagwhers a little hard to get along with. Gold, Althalus had noticed, does peculiar things to people. A man with nothing in his purse but a few copper coins can be the most good-natured and fun-loving fellow in the world, but give him a little bit of gold and he immediately turns suspicious and unfriendly and spends almost every waking moment worrying about thieves and bandits.

The Kagwhers had devised a charmingly direct means of warning passersby away from their mines and those streams where smooth, round lumps of gold lay scattered among the brown pebbles just under the surface of the water. Any time a traveler in Kagwher happened across a stake driven into the ground with a skull adorning its top, he knew that he was approaching forbidden ground. Some of the skulls were those of animals; most of them, however, were the skulls of men. The message was fairly clear.

So far as Althalus was concerned, the mines of Kagwher were perfectly safe. There was a lot of backbreaking labor involved in wrenching gold out of the mountains, and other men were far better suited for that than he was. Althalus
was
a thief, after all, and he devoutly believed that actually working for a living was unethical.