Star Thief

by Robin Kristoff

  “You look bored,” Kris whispered to Nolan while they waited for the start of their second performance. Her lips nearly touched his ear, making his skin prickle. “We’ve been going through this for months. Hour after hour of watching people talk nonsense to each other.”

  “How did you stand it?” Nolan asked. “I’d go mad sitting like this all the time.”

  Kris half-smiled, her eyes on Jal and the innkeeper’s wife, who were deep in conversation one table over. “My grandmother always said I needed to learn patience. I’ve been learning it. And you get better at guessing what people are saying if you watch them hard enough. Jal starts moving his hands to a beat if he’s talking about music, no matter what language he’s talking in.”

  “Oh,” said Nolan weakly.

  They entered the first true mountains Nolan had ever seen, and the road began to weave through heavy pine woodland broken abruptly along the road by villages and towns. When they stopped at an inn called The Hearth for their third performance in Ostmonton, Tylan played two duets with Nolan, the backup of two Maraynian songs, one Ostmontian song with Kris (Nolan was amazed that Kris could make the language actually sound pretty), and three simple but pretty melodies all on his own. Nolan knew next to nothing about harps, but even he could tell that Tylan had a real talent for the instrument. For the songs Jal had him rehearse endlessly, he no longer played as though he thought about every note, but rather as though he felt them. Kris’s voice glided over the music like silk. Tylan glowed at his sister as they crescendoed into the end of his final piece. The two joined hands for the performer’s bow to the applauding audience and moved aside for the last duet between Jal and Nolan. Nolan smiled his congratulations to the beaming Tylan just before Jal signaled the start of their piece.

  Nolan let his fingers run over the now-familiar notes, enjoying the sound they produced while letting his eyes wander over the hall. Many people had eaten their fill and left for the night or retired to their rooms. A Night God priest sat in the back of the room, but he was relaxed and idly sipping his wine. The other remaining guests ranged from courting couples to a few miserable looking individuals well gone in their drinks. As always, Jal attracted a good share of the attention as the night waned. The hum of dinner-hour conversation had dropped off to a low murmur. Most eyes were on Jal and Nolan. A few people were tapping their feet to the lively rhythm.

  Kris and Tylan settled themselves at a small table whose customers had left a half hour before. The Hearth’s innkeeper paused from counting the night’s earnings for long enough to send his daughter to them with a basket of bread, some cheese and ham, and a jug of cider. At the back of the room, two young men began to thread their way through the inn tables. They alone paid no attention to the music or to anyone else around them. They walked straight to Kris and Tylan’s table without pausing. Nolan fumbled a lasting high note when he saw that they shared Rusamites’ pale skin and black hair.

  He recovered the melody and glanced at Jal to see if the older man had noticed anything. The bard didn’t usually miss a trick. But his music, it seemed, was too distracting. He strummed the harp with the same glassy-eyed intensity that he always did during performances that were purely instrumental. His face was turned in the direction of the audience with a slight smile, but Nolan doubted if he’d have noticed a loose bull overturning tables, much less a pair of extra Rusamites.

  The two young men emanated aggressiveness. The pair, both lean and wiry, leaned over the table with a far more powerful presence than Nolan would have believed men of their build to be capable of. The taller of the two ripped a chunk of Tylan’s cheese off with the fingers of his left hand, palming it greasily into his mouth. Nolan glanced to the rest of the room, but only he and the priest seemed aware of the exchange. The priest, watching sharply, remained still in his seat.

  The shorter man talked and pointed between Kris, Tylan and the corner of the room where Jal and Nolan were playing. Nolan could see the tension building across Kris’s face and through her shoulders. She kept shaking her head and gesturing the men back towards the door. At the close of the song the shorter man reached forward and grabbed Tylan’s hands. He ignored Kris’s sharp exclamation and Tylan’s struggles alike as he examined both sides of the boy’s hands grimly.

  The newly raised voices of the Rusamites carried easily over the light spattering of applause. Nolan took the flute away from his lips and ducked behind Jal towards the Rusamites’ table in one fluid movement. He had no idea what he planned to do. His whole body suddenly felt too warm. Jal finally seemed aware of what was happening in his surroundings. His gaze followed Nolan during his flourished bow until the innkeeper’s wife cut off his view, bubbling with delight.

  The two men noted Nolan’s presence with a contemptuous glance. “Your defender?” the shorter man asked Kris. His grip on Tylan did not loosen. The color in Tylan’s lips and cheeks had vanished. Tylan’s hand was twisted over unnaturally.

  “Let him go,” Nolan ordered.

  Now the glances came back, this time slightly more measuring. The taller man finished downing the cider and wiped his sleeve across his mouth.

  “You’re teaching him our language?! How much time do you waste on these mundanes?”

  “Now,” Nolan growled. He repositioned himself slightly, bracing for a struggle. Even without the use of magic, he hoped he made something of an impression. He was taller than both of them by half a head, and had a sturdier frame to work with.

  The man threw Tylan’s hand away as though it were covered in slime. “I suppose I should expect no less from someone who has a mundane for a brother. His hands all over those metal wires and not one mark on him? Bad enough to spend any more time than needed with mundanes, bad enough to have that one for a brother—”

  “Your famous family kept that very quiet,” the taller man added roughly.

  “But to flaunt it! The both of you should be ashamed of yourselves. When you go before the magni we’ll make very plain what that boy is. The magni know what to do with his kind, don’t they Toln?”

  “And misfits like you.”

  “We won’t be going before the magni,” Kris said firmly.

  Toln snorted derisively. “What, do you think we’re just going to let the two of you keep running amok? Who knows what you two have been doing in this place. You’re coming with Lenit and me.”

  “You’re not taking them anywhere,” Nolan growled.

  Fire sparkled in Lenit’s hand. He raised his arm to backhand Nolan. Nolan ducked and swung out a foot towards Lenit’s legs, only to find that Lenit was already sprawled on the floor. A shimmering blue bubble surrounding Nolan evaporated a moment later. Kris stood with her hands outspread and a determined expression on her pale face.

  “Leave. Now.”

  The innkeeper, a barrel-chested man of thirty-five or forty, appeared at Nolan’s side in that instant with Jal in his wake. He scowled at all of them impartially and began speaking emphatically in rapid Ostmontian. The Night God priest stirred at last from his table. He put one hand on the innkeeper’s arm and added something to Lenit and Toln.

  The pair shot one last glare at Kris. “This isn’t the last you’ll see of us, Flynn,” Lenit snapped. They began shuffling out reluctantly, hands raised slightly in a model of surrender.

  The priest studied Kris keenly, his brows furrowed. He didn’t seem at all frightened, but his cool look prickled the hairs over Nolan’s scalp.

  Kris dropped her hands to her sides very slowly.

  “Their job security here seems to be in some question, and our patron is strongly suggesting we make our departure from the town of Lichensveld,” Jal commented. “I suggest we pack our things and leave first. I’ll ask questions later.”

  Explanations did not take long. Nolan let Kris and Tylan make them while he shouldered on ahead of the rest through the dark with the heaviest packs. He wasn’t convinced that Toln and Lenit would truly try to follow them if they wanted to stay out of trouble and em
ployed in the town, but he wanted to put all of the ground between them that he could. Kris might be strong at magic, but he had no idea if she could fight the two of them.

  He’d never counted on a girl to do his fighting for him. When he ever saw his friends at home again, if he ever saw them again, he’d have to forget this particular moment of his life if he ever wanted to look them in the face.

  Not that it was his fault he couldn’t do magic. And without magic how could he fight magic when other people threw it at him? He’d been so ready to give it a try with Toln and Lenit. He’d been so sure for once he would have been the strong one in their group, protecting Tylan and Kris. And then Kris had just…put a bubble around him.

  He’d never felt so useless in his life.

  He didn’t care that he was out striding the others. A small voice in his head, louder now than usual, asked him why he was even still on this journey. Nolan had gotten everyone into the whole problem, with some people on the wrong planet and others slowly dying in a miserable little jar. Jal was earning the money they needed. Kris could fight for herself and for Tylan. Why was Nolan even there, if it meant Kris had to protect him too? The other three could carry the star-jar to the mountains just as easily without him. Nolan was just there to clear his conscience. And a fat lot of good he was doing at that.

  At least Nolan could still carry the equipment. He was the strongest of them. That gave him some kind of purpose, even if only as a two-legged mule.

  He’d never wanted magic before this night. The idea had hardly crossed his mind since he was a small child. Nolan made a mental note to talk more with Tylan tomorrow. He thought he understood now a little of what the younger boy must feel every time his sister lit a fire.

  CHAPTER TEN

  They should have set a watch. Nolan hadn’t seen the need. He’d been sure he would lie awake all night running his fingertips over the scars on his hand and replaying the scene with Toln and Lenit in his head. Even if he fell asleep he thought Kris the ever suspicious, the ever watchful, would surely have been awake with her own demons. The chill setting in every night now could also have kept every one of them awake. But Nolan was wrong. One more fatal error to add to his growing list of mistakes.

  Nolan was never sure what woke him up at dawn. It might have been a horse snorting from a hundred yards away. It might have been a Rusamite stepping on a tree branch. The first thing Nolan saw when he woke up was a shaking branch, followed by a glimpse of a brown hat belonging to the man who was creeping through the branches up the slope to where Nolan and the others had spent the night. He was less than fifty yards away. To the man’s left and right a series of other small disturbances revealed that this pursuer was not alone.

  “Kris!” Nolan whispered urgently, blurting the first word that came to mind. Nolan scrambled out of his bedroll as quietly as he could, his heart drumming. Kris sat up, tense and wary.

  “People,” Nolan whispered. “I think they’re…”

  Kris had already bolted out of her blankets. Tylan stirred beside her, blinking his eyes confusedly. Jal woke with a snort before Nolan touched him.

  “They must have found magni to track the bracelets,” Kris murmured distractedly. Warm, heavy power bloomed around her. With more gravity in her voice she added, “We’ll never outrun them.”

  “We’ll have to try,” Nolan answered shortly. He motioned Jal for quiet, but clearly the older man had already gotten a quick sense of what was happening. He grabbed for his bag.

  “Nolan’s right. No choice but to—”

  “Run, Ty,” Kris commanded. And the trees in front of them exploded.

  Two, three, four times white-hot power struck at the Rusamites that were now half-visible through the trees. Kris charred the land that her power touched. Flames and smoke began to rise, turning the air instantly gritty and bitter. The first explosion sent a man flying violently backwards, and Nolan didn’t see where he landed. A silvery shield seemed to absorb the next, and the last two ricocheted off into the forest away from their targets, sending up more flames and smoke. Frightened whinnying broke out from the direction of the road. Men started shouting.

  “Ty, I said run!” Kris yelled. Raw power radiated off of her. Though Nolan saw no trace of the mad sparks he associated with her temper, he could sense the magic she had called to hand. Her hair lifted as though caught in a windstorm. She was trembling, though with effort or with fear it was impossible to tell.

  Tylan wavered, his eyes darting from Kris to the Rusamites and back again.

  A charged yellow ball the size of Nolan’s head flew towards them. Kris motioned. The ball knocked into a tree thirty feet to Nolan’s left and disappeared. The spruce wavered, creaked, and fell with a resounding crash.

  Jal picked Tylan up bodily by the waist and threw him behind them. “Run, boy!” The next exchange of fire and tree-shaking volleys seemed to decide Tylan. He cast one last desperate look at Kris and took off, running awkwardly through low-hanging branches.

  Nolan looked at Jal for one last second of hesitation, then relaxed ever so slightly into a plan of action. “Knives. Metal.”

  Jal nodded back grimly and produced a knife from his boot. Nolan dove for the bag with the kitchen supplies in it. Flashes of light, more yelling, and the threatening sound of cracks and explosions littered the edge of his senses as he pawed through the bag and grabbed two carving knives.

  A glance at Kris showed that, despite at least four to one odds, she was holding her ground. Wisps of what looked like silver netting kept approaching her from her right, trying to work their way around her. They frayed and fell to the ground ten feet away from her skin. None of the Rusamite mages seemed willing to come any closer. Or perhaps they couldn’t. The ground between Kris and her attackers was now steaming. Weak sunlight glinted on the sweat dotting Kris’s face, but her expression gave away nothing but fiercely concentrated determination.

  Jal made his way down the hill on Kris’s left. Deciding he didn’t like at all the look of the silver netting, Nolan made his way down on her right, hoping to circle behind at least one distracted fighter. A ball of flame came through the trees on his left. He jumped forward hastily. The flames singed the elbow of his coat and set the tree beside him on fire. He waited for the next attack, but none came. A renewed volley of shocks broke out between Kris and the Rusamite mages, giving every impression that a thunderstorm was rising straight out of the ground.

  Moving low but not bothering to be quiet, Nolan circled in on the mage now nearest to him, the one who kept sending silver netting at her. The mage was a tall, lean man in his late thirties. Nolan couldn’t see the man’s face from behind him, but he guessed the mage was tiring. His whole stance seemed artificially erect. As Nolan drew closer, he could see that the mage’s shoulders and arms were trembling. With just a second’s hesitation, Nolan lunged and connected the dull end of his knife mightily with the temple of the mage. The mage twisted and fell with a cry that went completely unheard amid the battle sounds around them. Nolan hit him again before he had the time to think of a spell. The mage went still. Amazed and grimly thrilled by his success, Nolan left the unconscious man and scouted out his next opponent.

  His gaze fell on three men and a woman in the road. He crept up alongside them thinking there was an odd sameness to two of the men. It wasn’t that they looked alike. One man was older, gray-haired, squat, and plump; the other was slightly younger, perhaps in his forties, and of an unremarkable build and weight. But their hair styles matched—cropped to their ears save for two thin braids running from their temples and tucked behind their ears. Their clothes were better fitted and less worn than what the other Rusamites had. They walked in step with each other through the trees as though completely impervious to the chaos going on around them. Each rested one hand on the shoulder of the man and woman beside them. The other guided more magical nets in Kris’s direction. These nets, more rope-like than the mage’s, wove into each other ten feet from where they stood, thick
ening more and lengthening up the hill towards the sounds of the mages’ fight.

  Magni. Nolan didn’t have the least shadow of a doubt of what these newcomers were. Setting his sights on the younger, fitter man, he crept closer as quickly as he could.

  “Nets, you fools, nets, like we showed you. Not stunners!” The taller man shouted impatiently. “We want her fit, not half dead!”

  Somewhere along the way Kris or Jal must have accounted for another of the mages, but the remaining two on the hill obediently changed their spells to wispier versions of the magni’s nets.

  “Weave them together!” The plumper man snapped, his cheeks coloring with anger.

  The nets wavered, flickered, and began to edge closer to the magni’s net. With an effort, Nolan stopped himself from watching and lunged for the younger magni.

  The man twisted at the last second. Nolan caught him in the shoulder instead of the head, overbalanced, and the two of them fell to the ground on top of each other. As much by luck as anything, the tip of Nolan’s knife grazed the magni’s arm as they landed. The magni kneed Nolan in the gut and rolled out from under him, clutching his bleeding arm and seething with hatred. With both of the magni’s attention now fully focused on him, Nolan jumped back to his feet and tried to face them both at the same time. The mages eyed Nolan coldly. Each reached to grip one of the magni’s shoulders.

  The difference between the magni was now obvious. The man that had looked average from the back had a mask-like, bony face with bottomless black eyes. The plumper, older man looked at Nolan with mild surprise and annoyance. His brows were quirked in what looked very close to amusement. The plump man drew a blade very like Kris’s wooden dagger from his belt.

  “You are meddling in matters that are none of your concern,” he said coldly.