Skate the Thief

by Jeff Ayers

  He paid for the drinks, and each of them took one of the three and lifted it high above the center of the table. “To the bold!”

  “To the prepared,” Amanda corrected, and when Tillby laughed, the three flagons thudded together. As they drank, the vision began to fade.

  Skate pulled back up to a standing position and rubbed her eyes; she hadn’t been blinking. Belamy sat back and brought a hand up to stroke his beard.

  “You managed to find Kibo the Magnificent,” Skate said as moisture found its way back to her eyeballs. “Was that on purpose or an accident?”

  “Both, oddly enough.” Belamy stood and opened a drawer in his desk. While rummaging through its contents, he said, “I was trying to find the trio of performers you told me about, and decided to start with the least likely to succeed and work my way down to the others. Imagine my surprise when I found our beloved stage magician within a few moments! There was no resistance whatsoever; it was as if I were trying to scry on some yokel peasant.”

  “So he ain’t a proper wizard. It’s just an act. Wait,” Skate said as she thought of what she knew of the strange man, “that can’t be right. The only thing I remember from the show was him doing some magic. And after the show, too, when he tossed me away. So what gives?”

  “You’re right, first off. I don’t think the premise that he is an actual wizard is incorrect; his fellow performers seemed to assume him to be the one knowledgeable about magic, and to be the one responsible for the spell for…whatever it is they’re doing.” Belamy leaned into the drawer he’d pulled open, all the way up to his waist, despite the fact that the drawer could only have been half a foot deep at most. When he spoke again, he sounded like he was speaking from within some small nearby room rather than from within a simple wooden drawer in a desk. “I think the best explanation for the ease of my search with Mr. Kibo is that he’s not exactly a ‘proper wizard’ after all, as you said. He’s self-taught.”

  With some effort, Belamy pulled himself from the drawer, and in his hands were two bright blue gemstones, each as small as her pinky nail. “No wizard with adequate training from a skilled teacher could possibly have failed to have mastered the simplest attempts at blocking clairvoyant eyes of others. I believe our stage magician is an autodidact. He didn’t have his protections in place because he doesn’t have any—because he doesn’t know about them.”

  Skate did not see any particular importance in this new information. She was more focused on the fact that it sounded like the Ink knew of these three and wanted them gone.

  Belamy put down the two gemstones with a soft tic and brought his hand back to his beard in thought. “Self-taught practitioners are dangerous, both to themselves and to others. Trial and error ends all too often in the latter, usually with disastrous consequences. It’s entirely unpredictable who will succeed in learning magic that way, and it’s equally unpredictable what magic they’ll teach themselves in the process. It is not unheard of for amateurs fumbling in the dark to find something new and truly unique. It’s possible Kibo has done something of the like and is now using it toward some dishonest purpose. Of course, I won’t know for sure until I see it for myself tomorrow.”

  “That’s probably not a good idea.” Skate said the words without thinking and immediately wished she’d said nothing at all. Belamy’s confused expression demanded an answer. She improvised. “Aren’t you worried that whatever it is they’re doing will take your senses away like everyone else?”

  Belamy stared a moment before his expression melted into a sloping, wry smile. “I appreciate the concern, but I should be fine. If it is some mind-altering magic, it won’t bother me. The half-dead like myself are unbothered by such attempts.”

  Skate nodded and smiled, hoping that she appeared as relieved as she genuinely was without revealing why. He bought it. In truth, she was hoping he’d stay away from such an event because she planned, at the first available opportunity, to report to Boss Marshall when and where these three were performing their last show before skipping town. The Ink wanted them out, and Skate planned to help make that happen. “What were you searching for those three for, anyway?”

  “To help Jack Gherun. I assumed these three were in league with the criminals who’d tried to extort money out of him. Based on that conversation, though, I’m inclined to think otherwise. Our performing band has come into conflict with these others. Which means,” Belamy finished with a sweeping wave toward his two gemstones, “they might have some information for me about who these thugs are.”

  “You’re gonna trade gems for info on the thieves you’re after?”

  “Not exactly, no. But I plan to get the information just the same.”

  Okay, gotta make time today to get to the Boss. “Good luck, I guess.”

  Rattle opened the kitchen door with a bang, and carried over a plate full of scrambled eggs, jelly, and toast. It set the large plate (Almost a platter, really, she thought) on the floor in front of the fire, and then returned to the kitchen for the inevitable clean-up. Skate went and began her meal, using the toast as a shovel to get the warm yellow fluff down faster. Belamy swept past her toward the hidden door to the basement laboratory. The click of the false book opened the way, and he disappeared through the hole in the wall. Skate finished her meal, leaving the plate on the floor, and went down the stairway after her teacher. The familiar acrid odor stung her nostrils again.

  “What are you doing?” The ever-glowing lamps were illuminating the room, and Belamy was gingerly taking several heavy bottles from the high shelf.

  “I need to make some things for tomorrow. I’m afraid I’ll need to be here all day and night.”

  “What about my lessons?”

  “We’ll pick back up tomorrow. I won’t count today against your room-and-board days.”

  “Well…” Skate couldn’t complain about that; after all, she needed to get away from Belamy to report in to the Ink anyway. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Good. Now, unless you’re ready to spend tedious hours helping me measure things in exact amounts, you should probably get above ground. The fumes won’t do you any favors.”

  “Sure,” Skate said, smiling and crinkling her nose. “Gonna shut the bookcase, too.”

  “Good idea.”

  Skate walked up the stairs and shut the bookcase with a dull click. She picked up her plate and dropped it into the tub in the kitchen, where Rattle was busy banging away at the dirty pots and pans. Then she bounded upstairs two at a time, threw on her dress—which Belamy had cleaned a few days earlier—and ran back down. In the entryway, she pulled on her boots and draped herself in her coat (similarly cleaned). She peeked back into the kitchen and said, “Rattle, I’m going out. I don’t know if I’ll be here for lunch or not.”

  The eyeball did not turn from its work but fluttered two of its legs at her, shooing her away. She obliged, and stepped out into the cold.

  There was a fresh, thin coat of snow over the cobblestones. Winter was still here in full force and would remain for at least four weeks more. As Skate walked, small flurries began to flutter around from the overcast sky.

  The Old Town safe house was north of Belamy’s house. It was north of Ossertine’s, too. She thought of the map of Caribol, and straight lines from each place to the others formed a somewhat lopsided narrow triangle. The warehouse was much less claustrophobic than the docks place, and the thought of not having to be stuffed up underground put an extra spring in her step as she strolled through the fluffy flakes of snow.

  Skate’s steps slowed as she neared the storage building. There were two large, irritable-looking men posted on either side of the front door, both dressed in heavy black coats to ward off the cold and furry ushanka hats to protect their ears. They did not say anything to her when she went inside, but their eyes followed her with suspicion.

  Two more guards stood by the clerk at the front desk. The owner was also behind the counter, examining a set of charts and documents, and occasionally looking
from those charts to the small boxes that lined the wall. The guards here watched Skate, too, but made no move to stop her when she stepped toward the clerk.

  “I need to speak to the owner.”

  “What about, young miss?”

  “My goods. I have three crates of Shivadian tree bulbs stored.”

  The owner of the warehouse pointed to the door to his right, which led into the warehouse and to the Boss. Skate had no idea what Shivadian tree bulbs were, but the password was always easy to remember. On her way back, she caught the owner’s attention. She nodded toward the men in black and said, “Did you decide to hire some more security?”

  The owner, a slightly balding man with a set of spectacles perched on the end of his nose, said nothing, but his mouth tightened. He shook his head and continued his work. She shrugged through the door.

  As she wound her way through the maze of crates and boxes and shelves and barrels, Skate wondered what these grim-looking men were doing here if the warehouse man hadn’t been the one to hire them. Did Boss Marshall think he needed the extra security? She’d ask him, she decided. She came to the end of the maze and knocked on the thin wood door mounted between two shelves.

  When she was told to come in, she did so. Once more she saw unfamiliar faces: two more stony, black-clad guards, and a pallid man dressed in exquisitely sewn clothes in the latest fashion of the aristocracy, including a dark green jacket embroidered with a golden filigree of curls and swoops along the arms and chest, and showcasing a fluffy pouf of cloth at the neck in layers, like a waterfall of white. The effect on the man’s color was to make it seem even more unhealthy; the off-white skin tone contrasted nightmarishly with the actual white of his blanched undershirt, making his skin look bone-like and dead. He was like a skeleton in a black-haired wig given flesh and dressed to impress. He was sitting in Boss Marshall’s chair and looking very, very bored.

  Boss Marshall was seated across from this stranger, a drink in one hand and his pipe in the other. He winked at Skate as she came in. Haman was in here, too, off to the side with a stack of papers set on a barrel. He was examining a sheet at a time and making marks in his ledger book, carefully and expertly ignoring everyone else in the room, hearing and seeing nothing.

  Boss Marshall spoke first, his gravelly voice setting Skate somewhat at ease. “Skate, let me introduce you to the Big Boss,” he said, raising his glass in a toast to the man behind the desk. He took a healthy sip from the glass, and Skate realized with a jolt of embarrassment that this was not the first drink he’d had today; his eyes were bleary and watery, and his voice had the slightest hint of a slur toward the end of the sentence, making “Boss” sound like “Bosh.” The ease his voice had begun to bring her disappeared. He came dangerously close to spilling some of the drink as it sloshed around after leaving his lips. “He’s honoring us with his presence this week as part of a…a tour, of sorts.”

  The Big Boss turned his full attention to Skate. His eyes—dark, wide, and intelligent—roved her face, as if filing details about each individual feature onto a parchment page in his mind. He finally settled on her eyes, and fixed her gaze for so long without blinking that she became uncomfortable. “You are the burglar currently living with Barrison Belamy, the dead wizard in Old Town.” Though they should have had the cadence of a question, his words were a statement of fact. His voice was smooth and calm. He gave an air of being unshakable, as if every trouble in the world were something to be watched, catalogued, and sorted, but never felt or experienced. He was the type of man who would never ask a question, she realized. He knew everything already, and if he did not, he would not ask for missing information, because he knew it would be given to him.

  “Yeah—yes, Big Boss.” She knew he wasn’t asking for confirmation of the facts but didn’t know how else to respond. There was something deeply unsettling about the way he stared without blinking, giving no clues as to what he wanted her to say or do in response to his words. Not getting any help there, she decided to talk some more, if only to break the increasingly uncomfortable silence. “I’m looking for the thing he put his soul into for safekeeping. I thought it may have been a couple things so far, but I don’t think they’re it anymore. He either doesn’t care about them enough, or they’re from after he already did the magic that changed him.”

  Big Boss nodded. “In the time you have been studying your mark, you have made no monetary contributions to the Ink.” Another statement, another question removed of all its thrust.

  “No, Big Boss.”

  “Because taking what the lich has, his soul jar, will give you power over the thing. He will do anything to keep this safe, so the one who has the soul jar controls the lich.”

  Yeah. Not a “questions” guy. “Yes, Big Boss. That’s the idea.”

  The pale man did not move. He did not so much as tap a finger on the armrests of Boss Marshall’s comfortable chair. He just sat, staring. Boss Marshall slipped out a low, silent burp between his teeth and coughed a little. Haman rustled his papers. The Big Boss spoke. “You’ve been stealing from others on Belamy’s behalf as part of this job. You have even stolen from Jack Gherun, who now believes our organization to be responsible for the theft.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But he believes that your would-be employer Belamy will help to extract him from our plans.”

  Skate looked at the side of Boss Marshall’s head. He was busy studying the nearly empty glass in front of him, and did not notice her attention—or if he did, he gave no sign of caring about it. He looked ashamed at the turn the conversation was taking, which was odd, since there were no reasons she could think of that he would not have already filled in the Big Boss, which he had clearly done. It was, after all, his job to report the goings-on to his next higher in command, and that was BB himself.

  “Right. He’s, uh, been looking for you, Big Boss. With magic. But he says he can’t, because of some magic you’re using to shut it down.”

  “He makes astute observations.” A quick movement, quicker than anything she could have seen in a casual glance—indeed, she would not have seen it at all except that she was on edge because of whom she was meeting—and the Big Boss was holding a letter sealed in an envelope with the image of the Ink: a quill pen ending in a vicious point with a drop of dark liquid hanging from the end. “His efforts have been in vain. I need you to deliver this message to Jack Gherun. It makes clear that we are aware of Belamy’s attempts, but that they won’t work. His first payment will be expected within the month.”

  Skate stepped forward and took the letter. “You got it, Big Boss.” She slipped the note into an inner pocket of her coat.

  “Good. I assume you did not come here on a social call.”

  “Oh,” she said when she realized this was his way of asking for her report. “Uh, no, I didn’t.” She explained her outing with Twitch, but the Big Boss interrupted her before she finished.

  “We know of these three. They have already been contacted regarding their activities.”

  “Yes, but that’s what I’m here to report: they’re not planning to stop or offer tribute from their work to the Ink. They’re gonna do whatever it is they’re here to do somewhere in the Baron’s tomorrow, and then leave town.”

  The Big Boss’s eyes twitched and narrowed ever so slightly, the first sign of any emotion from the man. “We will be sure to make sure that does not happen.” He snapped a manicured finger, and one of the black coats moved toward him. The guard bent down to hear the words of the Big Boss, spoken too low for Skate to understand, then nodded and began to leave the room.

  “Wait,” Skate said, holding a hand out toward the guard. He stopped and turned, looking between her and the Big Boss, who lifted a finger to confirm her request. He raised his other hand and motioned for her to continue. “Belamy will be there, too. He thinks he can get information about the Ink from these three, since they’ve been talked to.”

  “Then we will have to be quicker. That is of
no concern.” The Big Boss gestured again to the guard, who nodded and left. “Still, it is good information to have. Your people are very capable, Boss Marshall.” This was obviously a compliment, but it did not feel like one, either to her or, apparently, to the Boss. He grimaced slightly before erupting into rolling laughter and a forced grin.

  “Oh, the best, sir, only the best,” he said through gritted teeth before taking a drink.

  “I should hope not. I make it a point that the best work directly for me.” The pale face upturned the corners of the mouth in what could generously be called a smile, but which looked more like a folding of a sheet…or a burial shroud folding as it draped over the deceased. Skate repressed a shudder at the thought of working for any extended period of time around such a man. “Not to worry, though,” he continued, dropping back into the expressionless face that was his resting mask toward the world. “Your crew has been doing well enough, and I’m not one to interfere with profit when that profit is my own.” The wide eyes left Boss Marshall and returned to Skate, who felt—and suppressed—revulsion in a new wave. “You’ve done well to inform us of these activities. Don’t neglect to take advantage of your host’s preoccupation. His absence from his home will be a golden opportunity to explore for that coveted trinket that binds his soul forever, whatever it may be.”

  Skate nodded, and swallowed hard. The more time she spent around the Big Boss, the more her unease grew. The ghostly pallor of his skin was only an introduction into the ways this man was upsetting. He had a disquieting way of moving the thin gash of his mouth, so that when he spoke, his teeth clicked together with almost every syllable. His eyes saw too much and blinked too seldom. “I also needed to tell you Twitch had been caught up in that show. He wasn’t acting right.”

  “We’ll snap him out of it,” Boss Marshall piped up. “Whatever they’re doing can’t last forever, so he’ll straighten up eventually.”