Mark of the Thief

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  The only reason I didn't scream was that I was too frightened and exhausted to make so much noise. Tears came to my eyes, but not from the pain. The harder I tried to make things better, the worse they got. Only days ago, I was a slave in the mines, a hopeless situation, but at least it was a life I knew.

  "Nicolas, you are the head of our family now." After she was sold away from us, my mother had cried those words as she was being led away in chains. "I'm relying on you to protect your sister."

  "I will," I had promised her through my tears. "Always."

  "Stay together. Because I will see you again," she'd said. "If the gods are willing."

  And then she was gone.

  Whatever my fate, I had absolutely failed my family.

  And that was the worst thought of all.

  With little hope, and even less of an idea of what direction to go, I finally forced myself to my feet. Maybe the gods would seal me in here forever and laugh at my failures. But until they did, I had no choice but to continue searching for a way out.

  The bleeding in my arm eventually stopped, though the pain erupted every time I stumbled off the narrow pathway and fell into the sewage. My eyes had adjusted a little, but then I'd spot a grate overhead where the sunlight poured in and the darkness beyond it would turn black again.

  It had been two full days since I became lost in here and nighttime was approaching again. Except for one grate that had poured in clean water, I hadn't had anything to drink, and nothing at all to eat. Despite that, and the endless ache in my arm, the worst pain came with the realization of how stupid I'd been. Unforgivably foolish.

  Sal had been right. From the moment of my birth, I was cursed. Born in poverty to a father who lost a half-second battle with a lightning bolt, and a mother who gave up hope for us too soon. The bulla -- a mistake of my own doing -- was a second curse. Caela had abandoned me. Radulf knew I was alive and held the bulla. And the empire had turned on me, just as Aurelia had predicted.

  Aurelia. Something flashed in my memory from our last fight. Hadn't she said that she lived below ground? I had always pictured her in some sort of mine, but there were no mines in Rome. This was what she had meant. Aurelia had to be here somewhere, in the sewers. We hadn't exactly parted on good terms, but she might be my only chance of survival.

  I wandered on farther, trying to convince myself that she was down here and probably knew this maze well enough to walk through it blindfolded. If she used the sewers, then she knew the ways in, and the ways out. She would have food, and perhaps a solution for the growing pain in my injured arm. Whether she would share any of that with me, however, was a question I preferred not to think about.

  Despite my hopes, as day faded to night, the sewer walls all became the same again. I didn't dare call her name for fear of someone above hearing me and reporting where I had escaped. It was probably useless anyway. If only I knew where I was. I had gone for miles in infinite loops, likely repeating the same senseless steps that I'd crossed a dozen times already. My injured arm throbbed, and the hunger that had gnawed at me was now becoming a warning of how serious the situation was if I didn't find food and clean water soon.

  Eventually, I was forced to rest on the narrow walkway, every part of me feeling shredded apart. I leaned against the brick wall, which was covered in a slimy moss that could only have grown from the underworld. I reached for the bulla, hoping to draw in some of its warmth, but it had slid around to my back, and I didn't have the strength to retrieve it.

  I must've fallen asleep that way, and sometime later awoke to a fierce ache in the mark on my shoulder. It froze me in place at first, as I struggled to move my arms and unclench my teeth. In my sleep, I had rolled onto the bulla, which was now sucking strength from the Divine Star into itself. But it was doing more than pulling out my strength. Magic was going with it.

  Finally, I was able to shift enough to move the bulla. The ache immediately stopped, though it was several minutes before I was breathing evenly again. Oddly, the bulla then began to replenish my strength, returning to me what it had just stolen.

  As I lay there, I began to wonder how Radulf stole magic from others with the Divine Star. He had no bulla, but the effects Crispus had described to me seemed similar to what I'd just experienced. With pain like that, hopefully I never would again.

  Once my strength returned, I began to walk again, weighing the few things I already knew about Radulf, and what I understood about magic. There had to be a way to save my life. Once I escaped these sewers, I would find it.

  I crossed to a grate overhead, one of hundreds I had seen over the last few days, but every one of them was sealed, or too far above my head to reach, or too small. This one wasn't much better, but at least it seemed to be in a quiet part of the city and I had a way to climb up to it. All I needed was a way to make the opening larger. Perhaps with the bulla's help, I could collapse the rock around it.

  That was where I stopped. The memory of what I'd done in the amphitheater was still raw. When he fell, the bestiarius would've been seriously injured, or maybe worse, though I hated to think about that. Clearly I had drawn upon the magic in the bulla, somehow. I still wasn't sure if the magic was good or bad, which meant I could no longer be sure whether I was good or bad. But it saved my life before, and I needed it again.

  So I raised my hand and tried to summon enough strength to push the grate out of its place. All I needed was to spread the rock farther apart or for a couple of rocks to fall. With the right tools back at the mine, I could've done this in an hour, but here, I felt ridiculous attempting it by only willing it to happen.

  And this time, my will was not enough. The bulla had gone cold on me. Maybe because I was afraid to use it. Without even meaning to do anything, I had unleashed a magic in the arena that I did not understand and could not control. There were thousands of people at the games, every one of them endangered because of my recklessness. For all I knew, using magic in these tunnels might bring an entire street down over my head and any number of people with it.

  Only the gods were meant to have magic. It was never intended for someone like me. I grabbed the bulla's strap and tried to pull it over my injured arm, but my arm ached too badly to move it. So instead I cursed loud enough for the gods to hear and kicked at the sewer wall with all the strength I had left.

  "It's dangerous for any slave to have such a temper," someone said. "It's worse when that slave has the power to use his temper against fifty thousand people."

  Aurelia.

  I swerved around so fast that I slipped and fell back into the sewage again. With the sting in my arm, I sprang back to my feet with lightning speed and then bumped my head on the curved wall above me. Truly, my grace was no better than my magic.

  Aurelia stood in front of me, arms crossed and eyes narrowed like she was staring at a madman. Even in the darkness, I saw that Aurelia was better armed than she had been on the surface. She had a bow slung over one shoulder and a quiver full of arrows on her back. She had all sorts of tiny sachets attached to a belt around her waist, as well as the long knife I had seen before. As far as I knew, she was armed in twenty other ways I couldn't even see.

  "It's not a temper, just desperation." I stepped toward her. "I need help."

  She took the same number of steps backward and put a hand on her knife. "Don't come any closer, Nic. I'm warning you."

  I stopped and, through the little light seeping in from the grate, tried to read her expression. Her eyes were wary and watchful and her jaw was tense. She was afraid of me, probably for good reason. I raised one hand to her, hoping to show I wasn't armed, but she flinched.

  "I won't hurt you," I said. "I would never --"

  "I was in the amphitheater. I saw what you did. Lots of people got hurt trying to escape. Some people didn't escape at all."

  The hand of my injured arm wrapped over the bulla as it warmed again. "I don't know how that happened. I didn't mean for any of that."

  My explanation wasn'
t working. She shook her head, undoubtedly trying to figure out how to get away from me, but I couldn't let that happen. With every passing moment, I felt another piece of my life slipping away. I was dying in here.

  "Are you all right?" she asked.

  The bulla finally warmed and traveled to the wing of my shoulder. Everything about me felt warm, even hot. I didn't want to feel magic now, not when I was trying to convince her there was no danger in being near me.

  "No," I mumbled, not sure if I was responding to her or trying to command the bulla. I fought against the heat inside, but as weak as I was, the magic wanted to take over. Not here, not now. Not ever again. A sudden feeling of dizziness swam through me. I set a hand on the sewer wall to keep myself from falling, and the wall shook, as if something were trying to break out from behind it. It happened only once, but it startled me and I immediately let go.

  Aurelia put out both hands as if ready for a fight. "Did you do that?"

  "Please help me." I was about to black out. "I'm drowning." I lowered my hand and took another step forward.

  Before I had any chance to react, she kicked out a leg and connected directly with the wound in my arm. I cried out with pain and splashed into the rancid water, but this time I couldn't get up again. The bulla tried to help -- I felt it trying, but there was nothing left inside me now.

  "I'm sorry." She crouched down to help me up. "You scared me, that's all." She grabbed my hand, then touched it with her other hand. "Nic, you're burning with fever." Her hand ran up to the injury in my arm, and through my haze, I heard her draw in a breath. "It's infected."

  "I won't hurt you," I said, and then everything faded around me.

  My eyes opened slowly and unwillingly. I would've preferred to remain asleep, but at some point, the need to know where I was overpowered my desire to roll over and let everything vanish again.

  Except for a few candles around me, the room was dark. Since there were no windows, I wondered if it was day or night, and how much time had passed since I had last opened my eyes. The room was round with dark bricks stacked as high as I could see, and one doorway leading to an outer room had faint light streaming in from overhead. So we were still underground. It seemed quiet at first, but then I noticed a buzzing sound nearby. No, not buzzing. As I became more awake, I realized it was the sound of voices.

  Suddenly a face appeared right in front of mine and I yelped with surprise. It was a little girl, with dark African skin and large eyes. She didn't look half my age, but was already quite pretty.

  "He's awake!" she called. "Aurelia, he's awake!"

  I sat up on one elbow and saw Aurelia stride across the room toward me. Her mouth was pressed into a tight line. Her whole face looked strained actually, and I wondered if that was because I had slept so long. Or because I was awake.

  "How do you feel?" she asked.

  "Awful."

  She frowned and folded her arms. "You look awful. But that's an improvement from before."

  "How long was I out?"

  "Two days. The infection in your arm was so bad we almost had to cut it off, but we decided to scrub it and see if it could be saved. It was a good thing you were sleeping so deeply, because the cleaning would've made you faint again anyway."

  "I didn't faint," I muttered. Fainting was for weak rich women who had slaves to catch them when they fell.

  "Sure. If you want to believe that."

  Well, I did. I wasn't weak. Though I did have to lie back down again as dizziness swarmed my head.

  "You need food." She twisted behind her and then returned with a bowl in her hands. She thrust it at me and whatever was in there looked gray and mushy, but at least it was warm. "Eat this."

  "What is it?"

  "Only people with money get to ask such a question. It will do you good. Now eat."

  I smelled it first, and happily realized it didn't smell like the sewers, or wherever we were. Not that the stuff in the bowl smelled good -- it was some sort of porridge that probably had gone sour. But I began eating anyway. She was right, about the poor not being choosey.

  "Before you fainted, you said you were drowning." Aurelia pursed her lips.

  "No, I didn't," I said with a mouthful of food. "I wasn't."

  "Well, you said it," Amelia insisted. "What did you mean?"

  Then I remembered the bulla. I felt for it at my hip, and tried to find the strap at my neck, but it was gone. My temper instantly rose. "Where is it?"

  She folded her arms. "I hid it. How did you do the magic in the amphitheater?"

  That was none of her business. I put the bowl aside and sat fully up in the bed. "Give me the bulla."

  "Not until you explain what happened. Magic belongs to the gods. Not to humans, and certainly not to a slave boy."

  "And the bulla doesn't belong to you!" I said. "Give it to me and I'll go."

  "Go where? You're lost down here. Besides, I felt the bulla myself. There's nothing different about it than any other trinket. You just want it for the jewels inside. I think the magic is in that mark on your shoulder. We would've cut that off too, if I'd known how."

  I'd had enough of her. I threw off the blanket and swung my feet to the floor, but the effort was too much and made me dizzy again, so I had to stop. My arm was wrapped in a tight bandage from my shoulder down to my elbow and was wet with a peculiar smell.

  I touched it, then sniffed my fingers. "What'd you put on there?"

  "Olive oil and oregano, for the infection." She smiled. "It stings at first but it works. You were worse off than you might've realized."

  Seeing her smile softened my own anger. I reached for the bowl and finished the rest of the porridge, then she said, "Let that sit for a while. If you can handle more, then we'll get you some bread."

  I would've liked the bread now, but I wanted the bulla even more. Once again, my hand slid to my side where it should have been, and wasn't. I felt its absence as intensely as I would've felt a missing arm or leg, and wished I had enough energy to fight Aurelia for it. "Give me the bulla and directions to get out of here," I said tiredly. "Then I'll go."

  Aurelia cocked her head at a couple of young children in the room with us, ordering them to leave. When only she and I were left, she said, "While you were asleep, I went back to the surface and asked around about you. There's nowhere to go, Nic. Nowhere. Everyone is looking for you. The emperor ordered his soldiers to kill you on sight, and they've blocked every gate to this city. The Senate wants you brought before them for questioning. Then yesterday, General Radulf gave a speech in the forum. He promised to drag you back to the amphitheater to answer for your crimes. He said he will overturn the city to find you. A million people live in Rome, and by now, every single one of them knows there's a reward for turning you in."

  I looked down and kicked my foot against the ground. By now I should've been used to bad news, but this was even worse than expected.

  Aurelia moved from her chair to sit beside me on the bed then placed a hand on my forearm. "In the forum, Radulf said you stole something from him -- the bulla, obviously -- and that you want to use it to overthrow the empire."

  "That's not true!" I said, and then clicked my tongue. "Well, it's not true about overthrowing the empire. And I didn't plan to steal the bulla -- it's just that once I had it, I knew I couldn't give it to him."

  "So you admit to being a thief," Aurelia said. "Radulf was telling the truth about that?"

  "Yeah," I mumbled. "I guess I am."

  I hated the sound of it spoken aloud. One of the last things my mother ever said to me was that no matter what else was lost, I must always keep my honor. That was gone now too.

  Aurelia nodded, and then I felt the cold blade of her knife at the back of my neck. Her hand that had brushed across my forearm was now locked around it, and she called for the other children to come back in with a chain. I cursed under my breath. And then cursed a second time, louder, in case she hadn't heard me before.

  "This isn't personal," she
said as two girls hurried in. They started by locking manacles around my wrists and next moved to my feet. "I've stolen things too -- every one of us down here has done it when there's no other choice to live. But you did have a choice with the bulla, and so the crime is different."

  "This isn't about what I stole," I said angrily. "You want that reward money."

  "I need it," she said. "That money is my way back to my family."

  But I shook my head, trying to make her understand the stakes that were involved. "If you take me to Radulf, he'll kill me."

  "Senator Horatio is offering the biggest reward right now. I'll take you to him."

  "What? No!" He was the pompous senator who had wanted to see my teeth. Aside from my personal objections to having to breathe the same air as him, he was no better than Radulf.

  "It's for the best," Aurelia said. "The Senate wants to question you."

  "And then execute me!"

  "They might listen to your explanations."

  "What explanation?" I spat back at her. "It isn't my bulla, Aurelia, or it isn't supposed to be. How can I explain that?"

  "I don't know!" she said. "But that's not my problem."

  No, she was my problem. For at least the twentieth time in the last week, I regretted ever having met this girl. Of all the curses in my life, she was proving to be the worst.

  Once my legs were manacled, Aurelia removed her knife and replaced it in the sheath. I immediately tried to summon any feeling of strength inside me, but I was still weak from lack of food and my injury, and besides, without the bulla, I was nothing more than I'd ever been before. The mark on my shoulder prickled as if it was trying to respond to my call for help, but that too faded. I pulled against the chains, hoping to find a rusted link that might break or maybe the lock hadn't been securely fastened, but they held fast. Then I kicked at one of the girls who had put them on, just because I could. Aurelia swatted my leg and told the two girls to return to the outer room with the others.

  "You said you wouldn't hurt anyone," she said.

  "I missed. Anyway, you said you would help me," I countered.

  "That was before I knew you were a thief."