Magic of Thieves

by C. Greenwood

  But, despite our clumsy flight, no enemy shouted or came running in pursuit as we put distance behind us. Terrac kept us well away from the road and we slogged our way along over uneven, rocky terrain. I decided my throbbing ribs weren’t broken as I’d first supposed, but walking was still little short of agony. It was only sheer willpower pushing me forward and that will was more Terrac’s than mine.

  The rain made our journey doubly miserable and even when it abated, it left behind a deep clingy mud, making walking difficult. Twice, the wheels of our cart sunk into the mud and it took both of us pushing to break free again. Slowly, I came back to myself a little. After the second halt to free the cart from a mud sink, I broke the long silence between us.

  “So how did you escape?” I asked the question because it seemed I should, not because I truly cared to know. “The last I saw of you, you were being dragged into the house by a handful of Fists. I didn’t think you’d get free of them alive.”

  “I’m glad to know you considered that when you sent me in,” Terrac said coldly. “It took me some time to realize this was how you planned things all along. That you fed me to the wolves intentionally.”

  “I didn’t do it for myself, if that makes any difference to you.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “It wasn’t personal, Terrac. It was for Brig. I had to give you up.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “Don’t think I didn’t see your reasoning or feel its implications. You put Brig’s rescue ahead of the safety of the ‘cowardly boy priest’ because you believed his wellbeing was the more important of the two. His is the life of value.”

  “Was,” I interjected miserably, but he appeared not to hear me.

  “I thought we were friends, Ilan, but I should have known better than to trust someone like you.”

  “Yes, maybe you should have,” I snapped. “Maybe this friendship should never have begun. What common ground could there be between a worthless woods thief and a high-minded priest-in-training? Does it occur to you for a moment that if you had been different, I might have put your life first? But it’s difficult to care about someone who doesn’t stand up for himself or anyone else, who never shows a sliver of courage or confidence when you need it.”

  I sensed I hurt him, even if he didn’t show it. A long silence stretched and when he spoke again, his voice was emotionless. “I bumped a log from the fireplace when no one was watching and caught the floor rushes afire. They were so dry they went up like kindling, and I slipped out during the confusion.”

  It took me a moment to remember what he was talking about. “And what did you tell them, that they allowed you to sit unwatched and unbound?”

  “Exactly what you told me to say, that I was a good priest and an honest man. Your words came back to me when they questioned me, as I suppose you intended them to. I invented a story of how I was traveling late along the road when the storm blew up and upon seeing the light in the window of the hold house, decided to stop and beg shelter for the evening. I approached stealthily at first because the place had an abandoned look and I feared I would stumble upon thieves or other dangerous folk trespassing.”

  He shrugged and added, “The Fists said I had too ‘soft’ a look about me to be a cutthroat and besides, I had the mark of the church to lend credence to my story.”

  He indicated the pale scar of the priesthood branded on the inside of his forearm.

  “So they decided I was harmless,” he said. “I was permitted to share their fire and what food they had, which was decent of them. They didn’t seem like bad men.”

  “Oh no, not bad men at all,” I said sarcastically. “They’ll sit down to share a bit of bread with a stranger and they’ve got pretty shiny armor and better polished manners. But what they did to Brig, oh, that was purely incidental.”

  He frowned. “I’m not saying they were right in the way they treated him, but let us remember Brig was an outlaw and well aware of the penalties he would face—”

  “Penalties?” I broke in, unable to contain my anger. “Penalties! Did you see what they did to him? Stop the cart! Walk back there and take a look.”

  “I didn’t mean—” he tried to say, but I wouldn’t be soothed.

  “I said take a look! I want you to see, to know what your ‘decent’ heroes did to him.”

  I could feel the tendons standing out on my neck and the hot blood rushing to my face, but I didn’t care. I suddenly realized I needed to smash something. Anything. Terrac’s face would do.

  But he didn’t give me an excuse. Drawing a deep breath as if to steady his emotions, he said, “I think we’d best speak no more on this. We’re both weary and at the end of our tethers, and further discussion will only lead to more hasty words and later, to regrets.”

  I said, “I’m in the mood for hasty words and regrets and I’ll speak on as I please.”

  “Then I refuse to stay and listen.”

  He quickened his pace to move ahead of me, effectively ending our discussion, for I couldn’t muster the stamina to keep up. I suspected he knew my aching ribs made quick strides a torment.

  We kept up our forward progress, passing along the edge of a shallow wooded ravine sometime late in the night. I was lost deep in my dark broodings so that I didn’t immediately notice when one wheel of the cart got too near the edge and began to slide in the mud toward the downside of the gap. Not until I saw the cart tilt sharply sideways did I realize it was about to fall.

  “Terrac!” I shouted. “The cart!”

  But it was too late. The rickety cart skidded further in the muddy earth and Terrac dove out of its path no more than a second before the entire cart flipped over and tumbled down the hillside, dragging the struggling horse after it. I stood rooted to the spot as both cart and horse disappeared into the darkness below. I could hear the rig crashing through the trees on the way down, the awful screams of the horse plunging helplessly after it, and finally the thud as they hit bottom.

  I didn’t wait for more than that. Ignoring the pain in my side, I threw myself recklessly over the steep edge and began scrambling down the hillside. I heard Terrac clambering after me, but as he paused to pick his way more cautiously than I did, I reached the bottom before him. I first discovered Brig’s body, thrown from the cart. Nearby, the gray horse was tangled in its harness and half-buried beneath the rig, but still alive and screaming shrilly as it thrashed to free itself from beneath the wreckage. Its movements gradually quieted, growing feebler as I approached and I saw at a glance it wouldn’t survive.

  I heard the noisy approach of Terrac behind me and left him to put the animal out of its misery. I could handle only so many gruesome tasks in a night. I turned my back on the scene and tried not to be aware of what happened, which was difficult because Terrac had to interrupt my unawareness twice, once to request the use of my knife and again to inquire where he ought to place the blade for the swiftest result.

  The cart, I determined next, was beyond repair. Both wheels were shattered, not that that particularly mattered with no way to bring it out of the ravine and no horse to pull it even if we could accomplish that feat. I climbed back up the hillside, collecting as many scattered pieces of the rig as I could find, and heaping them into a pile. Terrac helped me lift Brig’s remains gently onto the top of the heap. Then the priest boy wisely withdrew to a copse of pines on the far side of the hill, leaving me alone with my grievous task.

  I gathered an armful of brush, the driest I could find on such a damp night, piling it carefully around the body, and removed my ragged old cloak, using it to cover Brig’s face. For lack of a better parting gift, I laid one of my long-bladed knives across his chest. I remembered the strange bow I still carried and briefly considered leaving it instead, but somehow I was reluctant to part with it. Anyway, it hardly made a fitting gift either. There seemed nothing more to be done and so I used my flint stone to set fire to the smaller bits of brush, managing after several tries to coax to life a fitful flame. The fir
e spread reluctantly over the rain-dampened kindling, but at length, the entire funeral pyre was wreathed in flames.

  I sat at the edge of the circle of firelight that penetrated the night and watched the blaze consume Brig. Whenever the flames threatened to die, I added more brush until I had a tall bonfire raging. The heat warmed my face and the smoke burned my eyes, but I didn’t move back. After a time, I reached behind me and, for no particular reason, pulled out the bow to examine.

  It was a finely crafted weapon, making it all the stranger that I discovered it in an abandoned barn. The pale wood looked and smelled freshly cut and took on an almost living glow beneath the firelight. It took me a moment to realize the carvings spiraling up the limb weren’t random designs, but strange runes unlike anything I’d ever seen. I had a peculiar feeling, looking at those runes, almost like the stirring of magic I felt when sensing another life nearby. Maybe I would ask Terrac later if he could decipher the unfamiliar form of writing. He was the scholar, not me.

  But hard on the heels of that thought came the memory that the priest boy and I weren’t exactly on friendly terms at the moment. I glanced at the burning pyre and loneliness washed over me as I remembered the one person who cared for me most, the only friend who knew about my forbidden talents, was now gone forever. In the face of that, everything else lost significance. When I looked back to the bow, there appeared to be a forlorn sense to its unreadable runes that matched my pain.

  It was a mark of the strangeness of my mood that I didn’t flinch this time when the bow began to glow orange and gold. I felt it grow warm in my hands and pulse like a stilled heartbeat throbbing suddenly to life. Inside my head, I seemed to hear its quiet moans of anguish, perhaps echoing my hurt, or maybe crying out for some loss of its own. Either way, the result was oddly comforting. I continued tracing my fingers absently up and down the runes as I watched the flickering flames.

  My grief grew muted and while there was a chill loneliness in my heart, an ache of regret beyond words, I shed no more tears for my loss. It was as if, with the death of Brig, my own essence had abandoned me as well, leaving me incapable of feeling anything but emptiness. Was this how Rideon had grown so cold? I felt a sudden surge of understanding for the man, an understanding that had nothing to do with sympathy or affection.

  Trying to shake this alarming change, I dug deep inside myself seeking some spark to prove who I was still hid within, but it was like reaching into an empty shell. I dipped into a chasm of nothingness, sifting blank thoughts and meaningless images through my fingers in search of something I knew should be there. Even my unease at this discovery was a quiet, distant thing as if I were merely a witness, observing myself through another’s eyes.

  I felt older, emptier, and vastly changed as I sat hunched before the flames, lost in thought, until the fire burned low and a pale dawn came to chase away the stars.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I watched Terrac warily the following morning, but if he was still angry over my betraying him to the Fists, he gave no sign of it. It took us all of the following day to find our way to the place in the wood where the trees never greened. Here, the rest of our band had set up a temporary camp after evacuating Molehill and Red Rock. It was nearly dark by the time we stumbled on the outlaws a few miles upstream of the creek leading to Red Rock falls. The gathering was large, the combined number of both our camps crowded together into the temporary one.

  Immediately on arrival, I felt a pervading sense of gloom hanging in the air. Until now, we thought ourselves impervious to attack, hidden as we were deep within the safety of Dimming’s shadows. But our confidence had been shaken and we were all acutely aware of the danger that might break over our heads at any time. No one knew as yet what had become of our homes at Red Rock and Molehill; the only thing we could be certain of was that it was unsafe to return. Rideon moved among the outlaws, planning with them, seeking to lift their confidence. Wherever he had been, spirits lifted, but it was obvious it would take time for us to recover our former self-assurance.

  I had to give an explanation for my disappearance and as my story quickly spread through the gathering, I was hailed as a kind of hero. No one appeared to care that I had set out to save Brig and returned without him. What mattered was that one of their own had struck a blow back at the Praetor’s men. A dozen times over, my attack on the Fists was declared the most daring and bold deed anyone had ever heard of from such a youngster. Suddenly, men who hadn’t so much as given me their names before today were clapping me on the back and congratulating me around the campfire.

  Terrac, unwilling to partake in the glory, wandered off and left me to deal with it alone. In a different time I would have enjoyed retelling my tale as many times as it was requested and recounting my actions in the most fantastically exaggerated manner possible. But now I couldn’t enjoy the attention because I knew, whatever the others thought, my mission was a failure.

  My thoughts were dark ones that first night back, as I sat surrounded by my throng of newfound admirers. I huddled over a bowl of venison stew, not because I was hungry, but because someone had shoved it into my hands. I forced the warm liquid down my throat, reasoning that as long as I kept my mouth full, I couldn’t be expected to talk. I was quickly wearying of recounting my adventure.

  When I heard the sounds of someone’s approach and silence descended over my companions, I didn’t need to look up to know Rideon stood over me. I was expecting this moment.

  “Hound,” Rideon greeted me.

  I knew now was the time to apologize and beg forgiveness for disobeying his orders in following Brig, but I couldn’t find enough fear inside to prod me to it. Instead, I looked up and met his gaze unflinchingly.

  He didn’t react with the anger I expected.

  “The men tell me you are a hero tonight, that you’ve defeated a handful of the Praetor’s Fists and survived to boast of it. They also say you’ve killed the traitor Resid.”

  “I did,” I admitted, bracing myself for whatever was coming.

  “Perhaps I’ve underestimated your courage and skill. You broke my orders, but in so doing, you risked your life to strike a blow for all of us. For that, it seems to be the general will we should honor you tonight. Bold deeds notwithstanding, I warn you the next time you discount a command of mine so blatantly I’ll kill you on the spot.” Here his voice hardened momentarily. “But on this singular occasion, it would be ungrateful to kill a returning hero.”

  He offered the ghost of a smile or the nearest thing to one I had ever seen on his face. “And so, for this night and this night alone, I make you immune to our laws. Revel in your glory for a few hours and at dawn return to work.”

  He looked around at the gathered assembly. “All of us will set to work. There are difficult days ahead, but I’m confident we will survive this setback and be the stronger for it.”

  As he turned on his heel and strode away, I wished I could feel flattered, could know a thrill of joy at receiving this recognition before my comrades. But the time when I would have felt pleased was past. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.

  Despite Rideon’s advice to enjoy the moment, I sought my bed early that night. I was exhausted and the purple bruises marring my ribs still pained me. I found an out of the way spot, well distanced from the others, and curled up beneath a tall elder tree.

  I woke at one point during the night, thinking I heard footsteps rustling in the leaves nearby and Terrac softly calling my name. I kept still and when his footsteps eventually receded, breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t know why he sought me, but all I wanted was to be left alone tonight. I cradled my head in one arm and rested my other hand on the finely grained wood of the bow beside me. I didn’t have any arrows for it as yet. I thought in the morning I would ask Dradac to make me some fine new ones, the best he ever fletched. I fell asleep stroking the smooth wood and vaguely wondering that it felt warm to my touch.

  Despite my exhaustion, I spent a troubled night tossing
and turning on the rocky ground. For the first time in a long while I dreamed of the night my mother died all those years ago and of the brooch she left me. Then I dreamed of Hadrian, the priest of Light who promised to teach me about magic if I came to him in Selbius.

  I awoke early the next morning and lay awake, staring up into the scattered patches of lightening sky peeking between the leafless branches of the trees overhead. I was unused to seeing so much sky. The bare branches made it look later in the season than it was, but I knew elsewhere in the forest the trees would still be thick with greenery. Three days short of Middlefest, it seemed wrong to be surrounded by this gloom and deadness.

  I rose and passed through camp, stepping carefully to avoid trampling on the sleeping forms of my comrades where they huddled on the ground. I remembered from past explorations a small spring not far from this spot, probably one of the factors Rideon had taken into account when settling on this site. Finding the gurgling stream only a little distance away, I knelt and washed the sleep from my eyes and filled my waterskin.

  When I rose from the stony banks, I found Brig sitting nearby on a fallen log, watching me. His grey eyes were fixed on a point in the distance, his weathered face creased in the half-frown that always meant he was puzzling over something. He rubbed listlessly at the calluses on his rough hands and his mouth moved, as if he were muttering beneath his breath. The sight of him sent a pang through me, but I felt no shock or alarm, only comfort. I shook my head and smiled, noting how the front of his faded woolen tunic was fastened crookedly. I leaned forward to right it for him, as I had done many times before, and stopped abruptly, my hands hovering inches from him.