Lhind the Thief

by Sherwood Smith

  THIRTEEN

  “The Scribe’s aidlar,” Kee cried, struggling to regain control of both ponies.

  I ran to catch the dragging reins of my mount. Tir flapped about my head, cawing in distress. Slavers! Slavers! Tir’s panic stabbed into my mind again and again. Frightened by the bird, the snorting pony reared, and Kee hovered nearby demanding to know what was wrong.

  I dropped the reins and clapped my hands over my ears. “Tir! Kee! Wait a moment,” I yelped.

  Kee clamped her mouth shut and once again got the ponies under control. Tir sailed close by, settling onto a boulder. The ruby eyes jerked back and forth agitatedly. I sat down in the middle of the road, drew a deep breath, then said, “All right.”

  “What—” Kee started.

  I raised a hand. “Tir’s got a message for me. I can’t hear anything else while I’m getting it.”

  Kee blinked, her eyes going round with surprise, but she kept her lips closed.

  At once Tir’s thought speared into my mind, and I saw a distorted, color-drained memory-view of Geric Lendan facing several humans in unfamiliar dress. On the floor lay Hlanan, unconscious, bound by rope.

  The smiling prince spoke. Take him at once. You can get him safely to Fara Bay before he regains his wits, if you keep him dosed with liref.

  The bird’s image ended with the two men reaching for Hlanan’s limp body.

  “Slavers!” the bird squawked.

  Kee said, “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Tir saw something nasty concerning Hlanan.” And I described the bird’s memory-image.

  When I was done, Kee frowned. “Were those men dressed in brown, short jackets, long boots? Pointed steel hats?”

  “That’s it,” I acknowledged, nodding.

  “Then Tir is right.” She scowled. “Those men are agents for Fara’s ruler, who not only sells all their criminals to Shinjans for use in their galleys, but will take—for an enormous fee—criminals from neighboring lands. They require official verification of the crimes, but,” she enunciated with disgust, “that’s somehow always easy to provide.”

  “Does Rajanas get rid of his troublemakers that way?”

  “No,” she said. “Nor does he trade with Fara. His grandfather used to, but that was one promise his highness made to us when Grandmother helped him regain the throne. Not that he wasn’t already against them. Few know it, but he and the Scribe were on one of those galleys,” she finished in a low voice. “I think . . .” She cast a quick glance at the aidlar, then shook her head.

  But Tir shrieked on a high, terrible note. “Slavers! Kill!”

  Kee sighed, her shoulders jerking up and down. “Then Tir already knows.”

  “Knows what?” I demanded.

  “The Shinjans always put a tattoo on their galley-slaves. If any escape, and are later recaptured, that mark earns them an instant death.” She looked very much like her grandmother as she added flatly, “A convenient way for Lendan, accursed be his name, to get the Scribe killed without being directly associated.”

  Tir flew up again, sailing back and forth before me. A barrage of images and words bombarded my mind until I forced that inner-eyelid down, and closed them out. At once the bird went into a frenzy, squawking and cawing.

  “What is wrong?” Kee yelled.

  “Wants us to rescue him,” I cried back.

  “But we can’t,” she said. “We have to get to Letarj, we promised—”

  “WAIT!” I yelled my loudest. “Let me think,” I added more normally, as Tir and Kee both fell silent.

  My first thought was not about the problem at hand, but about Tir. I wondered if the creature had ever rested; it must have flown off directly from seeing me safely in Kuraf’s tree hideout to Imbradi, to find Hlanan, and then from there to find me.

  I remembered the vow the bird had made aboard Rajanas’s ship. A vow of loyalty to my kind. But its feeling for Hlanan was much stronger. This sense came through very clearly.

  This feeling the aidlar had for the Scribe was very close to the very emotions I so despised. Distrusted. Only wasn’t this bird demonstrating the very essence of trust?

  Lhind help, Lhind help!

  I’ll help, I’ll help, I thought to the agitated bird.

  But how? Short of magic—

  “Magic.” I rubbed my eyes. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of it before?”

  “We can’t turn from our mission—”

  “We can if it will speed us,” I said.

  “What?” she replied shortly, not hiding her suspicion.

  “Hlanan is a magician of sorts. He got us from wherever it was we’d been ambushed, to Imbradi, with some kind of spell,” I said, remembering the old woman who’d helped him to shift us from the river all the way to Imbradi. “Transportation magic. Wouldn’t it save us lots of time if we went straight from Fara Bay to Erev-Li-Erval in an instant?”

  Kee chewed a knuckle, her brow creased with thought. “Fara Bay is dangerous,” she said. “Some say that they even allow pirates to trade there.”

  “Tir will find him for us,” I said, “so we won’t have to search. We just get in. Stay hidden until we reach him. I’m good at that. And as for danger, it seems to me we’re going to find it anywhere we go. If you want to turn back . . .”

  Her cheeks reddened and her chin lifted. “I will not turn back.”

  “So let’s rescue Hlanan, and travel by magic. Everybody gets what they want that way.”

  She brought her chin down in a decisive nod. “All right.” She shot a glance at the bird, hesitated, then clamped her lips shut on whatever she’d been about to say.

  “Hear that, Tir? We’ll get him out, but you have to find him for us. Soon as you can.”

  The aidlar flooded my mind with a bright splash of joy that sent tingles through me to my fingertips, then it sped off, soon to disappear against the clouds forming on the horizon.

  Kee mounted her pony, then wheeled it toward the west. “The bay is this way,” she said.

  By nightfall we were riding in a slashing downpour. This didn’t much bother me, but Kee’s face in the sporadic flashes of lightning was pale and miserable. When I offered to find shelter so we could wait out the storm she spurned the idea with a curt “No.”

  I stopped talking, mentally resigning myself to an unpleasant journey unless Hlanan could get us to the capital fast. For something to do, I went back to trying shimmers, this time experimenting with wind.

  My ready magic knowledge was limited to shimmers, and wind pushing, and the ones Hlanan had called Voice-cast and Mind-cast. Each of those last two I’d discovered in dire situations: the first when I was about to lose my life, and the second, one terrible day in Thesreve. They scared me too much to try practicing them. Easier to harness a hurricane.

  But wind-pushing was easy, if impractical for much besides blowing out inconvenient candles. I couldn’t cause much breeze—hardly more than a stir—and it didn’t go much farther than I could toss a heavy stone. Still, it was this one that I tried now, aiming the push somewhere right over Kee’s head, so the wind drove the rain either in front of her or behind. It was hard to keep it up, and my aim wasn’t always good (for I had to aim each push), but after a time I not only noticed that it was slightly easier to aim, my pushes had more force.

  Then I became aware of a steady, warm glow from the necklace.

  The impulse to put the necklace on was purely for the heat. The air had grown steadily more chill, and although I much prefer cold to hot, and indeed rarely feel cold as long as my fuzz was dry, being soaked to the skin makes me feel chilled after long enough. And wet chill isn’t comfortable for anybody, excepting maybe fish and sea serpents.

  So I pulled the necklace free. Though the day was gloomy, the necklace sparkled with inner lights, almost as if eyes twinkled and blinked. I fixed it around my neck. The big diamond settled between my collarbones, an eerily perfect fit. Then I made my push.

  Whoosh! The rain parte
d like a curtain for an instant, and I almost fell off my pony.

  Do not be afraid, a voice said in my head. I am helping your focus.

  What? Who? Only my experiences with Tir’s mind-contacts kept me from squawking out loud.

  I, Faryana. I am prisoned in the stone you wear. Usually I can only sense the emotions of the wearer. Your thoughts, when you make your magic, come clearly, and I have aided you as you cause no harm. Who are you?

  Lhind, I thought cautiously.

  Why do you fear to tell me? I cannot harm you. But perhaps I can help. And there came a projected image.

  Instinct made me close down the inner eyelid. At the same time, a gasp from Kee brought me back to the here-and-now. The rain, no longer diverted, poured down on her in a sudden deluge. I flung up my hands and made the breeze again, scarcely comprehending as Kee looked around in mute misery.

  Then I looked again at the image the woman had sent.

  Faryana was small, wearing a draped cloth over her smooth dark blue fur. Her hair flowed around her head like water, sweeping down her back into a long midnight blue tail. Her eyes were a dark blue, same color as her hair.

  She was a Hrethan—but she was different from me.

  My breeze faded and I made another. Warmth spread from the stone swinging against my breastbone, and I glanced down into a fierce blue light.

  Cautiously opening the mental barrier again, Faryana’s thought flowed in, hurt and confused. You do not trust the Hrethan? she thought sadly. I promise you I will not harm you.

  No, it’s not that. It’s just that I, ah, feel safer keeping my secrets. How did you get into that stone? I asked.

  I was trapped by a young sorcerer named Geric Lendan, came the answer. I was newly appointed guardian of a Protection, which he tried to take from me. When I circumvented him by hiding it he tricked me with lies and forced me into this shape until such time as I release the Protection into his control.

  That’s nasty, I replied. So you’ve also tangled with that yellow-haired swamp-fouler! But how did your necklace get into that pickle-faced Kressanthe’s keeping? Don’t tell me she pinched it? I smothered a laugh at the thought of that princess turning thief.

  Geric wore these stones for a time, to gloat and to weaken my resolve. When he tired of that, he gave me into the keeping of this princess you mentioned, knowing that the constant barrage of her ill-natured, angry and greedy emotions would also work against me.

  Now I understood Geric’s command to that soldier concerning me and whatever I carried.

  So you’re the guardian of something important, eh? I asked. How can we get you out?

  Geric has the key to the enchantment binding me.

  A real key? Or—

  It is a figurative image only. You can bind together the spells that form an enchantment with anything: words, or an object, or even a time that is to come.

  I plunged my fingers into my sash, and plucked out the bone-whistle. Holding it up against the stone, I thought: Is it this thing?

  I do not know. Her distress was clear. But I sense great power and greater danger in whatever object you brought near. It has touched my prison much in recent time, causing me terrible dreams.

  I thought of the necklace and whistle rattling among my stash since I left Rajanas’s palace, but I didn’t want to tell her—yet— that she’d been nipped by a thief.

  So you dream when you aren’t worn? I asked instead, as I slipped the whistle back into my sash.

  I do.

  “This looks like a good cave,” Kee’s voice broke into my conversation. “Darkness is falling, so we cannot go farther. I must admit I mislike the way the rain comes and goes so suddenly. It’s very uncanny.”

  I looked around. Our trail had led us downward into a valley between two rocky hills. All around us scrubby trees and bushes grew, the trees all too narrow to afford much in the way of shelter.

  Kee urged her pony under a rocky overhang carved by an ancient river. Now only a run-off stream burbled and raced down one side of the cliff and away. Kee dismounted. I followed.

  For a time no one spoke as we cared for the ponies, Kee demonstrating and me copying whatever she did. When they were as comfortable as we could make them, drinking thirstily from the stream, we felt our way farther into the cave.

  It wasn’t very deep, just round, with layers of stone carved over the centuries by rushing water. Here on the dry rocky ground we found the remains of an old campfire, and some dry brush stacked. Kee had brought a sparker, so we soon had a small fire going. Kee changed her tunic and spread her wet one over a boulder to dry, then she crouched over the fire for warmth, closing her eyes against the acrid smoke rising from the brush.

  I knew I’d be dry enough by morning, and the air was not really cold. It was I who brought out the flatbread and cheese we’d been given, sharing it out equally. Kee ate hers in silence, then she curled up in the wrinkled cloak she’d stuffed in her pack, and her breathing deepened into sleep.

  Eating did not tire me. Quite the opposite. When I finished my share of the food, I felt restless. The steady rain discouraged me from going out and exploring. Finally I decided to examine my stash more closely.

  First I took the necklace off. When I laid it aside, the stones faded to cold, glassy dullness, and the little blue light was gone.

  Then I took the bone whistle from my sash, and turned it over and over in my hands. It was a pale, grayish white, very thin, about as long as my shortest finger. A bird bone? Or the bone of another creature carefully hollowed?

  The idea disturbed me, even though I knew the creature whose bone it was no longer felt the lack. What kind of magic required a portion of a once-living being?

  Dark arts. I remembered Hlanan using this term several times. Could these arts be any worse than the “justices” of Thesreve burning people who had done little bits of magic, whatever the kind?

  I looked at the bone, studying the odd marks scratched into it and trying to make sense of my instinctive revulsion and wariness. I’d finally left the wolves because of the piles of fresh bones that regularly appeared outside our cave after the wolves went on a run; it was entirely a natural thing for them, but it never was for me.

  So what was the purpose of this bone whistle?

  I put it to my lips and blew lightly through it. The wind it made was an unmusical whisper, a soft hiss like dead leaves on ice. It was not a loud sound, but on the other side of the campfire Kee stirred, murmured fretfully, then sank back into sleep.

  Nothing else happened.

  So I put it up to my forehead—

  And a voice said inside my head, Lendan? Why have you disturbed me?

  I yanked the whistle away. Another prisoner in a magical object? I looked down at the whistle in surprise. Well, why not pursue this? Good or bad though they might be, I could hardly be harmed by somebody in a whistle. So I touched it to my forehead again, and the voice came: You are not Lendan.

  Did Geric stick you in an enchantment, too? I responded.

  For a moment I heard nothing. The silence was strange, a blank wall. Then the voice was back. Who are you? Its tone was curious, and amused. Very different from Faryana.

  Who are YOU? I returned. Besides a prisoner in a whistle.

  A sorcerer, came the answer. This time the amusement was more pronounced. I take it you are one as well.

  Maybe, I thought, enjoying the sense of challenge this voice caused. One thing I will tell you, I pinched you away from G—

  Before I could finish thinking Geric’s name, a stab of pain lanced into my head. My inner eyelid shut down hard and I could neither think words at the voice nor hear it thinking to me.

  Once again I yanked the whistle away, rubbing my fingers against my head. What was that? Nothing had changed in our cave. The rain poured steadily, Kee slept on, and nothing had dropped on me or leaped out in threat.

  I put the whistle back to my head. If that trick was you, it wasn’t funny. I’ll throw you away and not free
you if you try it again.

  It was just a small identity spell, came the prompt reply, in a respectful tone. I won’t attempt it again since you are capable of warding.

  The shift in tone warmed me considerably. Before I’d sensed that—despite being a prisoner—the person in the whistle had been laughing at me. There was no laughter now.

  You wouldn’t tell me who you are, it explained.

  I’m Lhind, I replied. And that’s all you need to know right now—except I don’t mean you any harm. I’m not a conceited, cheating swanker like that Geric. So who are you?

  After the slightest pause, the voice replied: Jardis Dhes-Andis.

  FOURTEEN

  Hoo! I thought.

  That is, if this person is telling the truth.

  How’d he get you into a whistle? I asked. I thought you were supposed to be the most powerful sorcerer-king around these days.

  Very distinct amusement permeated the answer: I will tell you when we meet.

  So you want me to get you out? I asked.

  I don’t think you can reach me, was the reply. You don’t have enough skill.

  I was about to slam back a fairly hot reply when the voice added thoughtfully, But perhaps I could teach you. After all, you are handling this method of discourse with admirable ease, and I understand it is difficult for most people. It certainly was for young Lendan.

  I chortled. Well, I do know a few tricks, and nobody taught me those. So maybe I’m not as unskilled as you think.

  Perhaps, came a gratifyingly surprised reaction. What can you do?

  I was just about to launch into a description when a belated sense of prudence stopped me. I studied the whistle in the reddish light of the flames. It wasn’t that the voice—Dhes-Andis or not—had scared me. I’d scared myself. Until recently, I’d exerted my strength and wits toward keeping my secrets hidden. Then Hlanan exposed them, catching me in a trap that I should have been on the watch for. I’d relaxed my usual vigilance because I’d come to trust him.

  Now here I was, all ready to give everything away, and this time there was no trap and certainly no trust, except the sort of trust one gives to the boundaries when someone, enemy—or not—is caged. I’d been ready to give all my secrets away just to show off, to wipe out the laughter that seemed to be aimed not at the situation, but at me.