Thief (The Key to Magic Book 7)

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  "Postponed for two days. Both shuttles will launch together. This minor interruption is not going to stop us from reclaiming our world."

  TWENTY-FIVE

  With the villa dark and quiet, Telriy woke well before dawn on Thirteenthday, nursed Celly and changed her nappy, then rose without making a light.

  There was little likelihood of her being heard. There were some distant sounds of muted activity from the direction of the kitchen and from the adjacent Auxiliaries wing, but the two rooms along the hall were still being used for storage and none of the routes walked by the guards passed beneath her windows or near her door. Nevertheless, she moved quietly and was careful to bump nothing.

  One of the Cousins was up, but it was low on the southern horizon and none of its dim light shown directly through the windows, leaving the room near perfectly dark. The shadows in the ether, however, gave her a good sense of where everything was and it took only a few seconds to dress in her travel clothes and check her satchel one last time. After cinching the bulging bag's buckles, she went to the central window, opened the latch, and, very slowly so as to minimize any possible squeal of the hinges, swung the vertical sashes inward. Her caution was unwarranted. The brass hinges turned as if floating on air. The opening between the vertical jambs of this widest of the windows was an armlength and a third, more than enough to allow her chair to pass.

  Casting the lifting and driving enchantments on the chair took only a moment -- a fists clenched, headache inducing moment to be sure, but only a moment nonetheless. Then she hung the satchel over the back of it, gathered up her once again sleeping daughter, and settled onto the seat. Casting her own adaptation of Mar's adaptation of Gran's glamour took but a wave of her hand, a snap of two fingers, and a mumbled ancient word.

  Then they were off, flying into the brightening sky.

  She felt a temptation to look back as she left the villa and all those in it behind, but she did not.

  She kept her altitude to less than eight manheight and held her speed to below a brisk walk, the former because none of the intact onion domed towers stood between her and her objective and the latter to keep Celly out of the strong wind.

  The glamour kept them from being seen by the people beginning to move about in the neighborhoods and lanes over which they slowly flew, but they could still be heard, so when Celly stirred, with the skyship docks yet several hundred paces off, and began to fuss, she let her nurse straightaway, though she knew the little glutton must be still nearly full from earlier. She thought she saw a face or two turned up from a construction crew gathering at a nearly rebuilt large building immediately below, but if any of the workers heard Celly's brief strong complaint, none that Telriy could see took alarm.

  With any luck, all of them had taken the sound for only the cry of a passing bird. Yhejia or Tsyl would have discovered Telriy's empty room by now. Depending upon how they interpreted her departure -- as voluntary or involuntary -- an Auxiliary might be sprinting even now towards Master Khlosb'ihs residence to turn out a general alarm and search. Word of a baby's cry headed in the direction of the docks could only concentrate the potential searchers in that direction. If the whole docks were up in arms, stealing the courier boat might be impossible.

  Happily, she noticed no commotion as she drifted over the barracks tower, just a routine changing of the polybolos crews and lookouts.

  Masons had begun work to repair and extend the old curtain walls built attached the tower to include the docks and skyship works, but aside from a number of gated strongpoints and scattered bastions constructed to hold batteries of polybolos, the area could still be accessed on the ground from any direction.

  Master Khlosb'ihs and his officers believed that while it was plausible that a Phaelle'n attack could come from out of the unsettled ruins, it was more likely that one would come from the air. Therefore, the main emphasis of the defense had been given over to the armed skyships and the polybolos emplacements.

  As Telriy had expected, the Eagle, the sailed skyship that had brought Rhavaelei, was nosed into the first slip along the old causeway. Next to her was (according to the sign board on her stern) The Wings of Elboern, another sailed freighter. Both had deck watches, but both had gangplanks down, sails furled, and were lashed to the dock. Neither captain apparently had intentions to sail out this morning.

  Adjacent to The Wings of Elboern, was another skyship that looked as if it had just come from Master Khlosb'ihs' skyship works. This one was half the length of the freighters, but had no masts, making it entirely magical. Its entire hull and deck were sheathed in steel plate and polybolos blisters protruded in every conceivable direction. This had to be the first of the new style close attack boats that the Viceroy had told her of. It was designed to fight its way into a battlefield to deploy and then provide polybolos overwatch for a full troop of marines.

  It briefly crossed her mind to take this, so impressive did it look in the rising sun, but she realized that it would be absurd to steal a warship bereft of its crew. Though she could pilot it with ease, there was no way that she could operate its weaponry.

  Beyond the close attack boat and the wooden span that had been installed to fill the long gap in the ancient stone causeway, were the narrower slips intended for the courier boats. None were present, but she had expected none until a little later in the morning.

  At the eastern end of the causeway was the abbreviated stub of the twin to the barracks tower. A committee of architects and masons had recommended to Master Khlosb'ihs that the unstable ruin be taken down to its square foundations and a modern round and tapered stone tower build to replace it. The Viceroy had put the project on his ever expanding list, but as yet no men or material had been available to work on it.

  It was there, hovering inside an irregular gap that might have been a window in the long ago, that she and Celly waited, still wrapped in a glamour as the day brightened and dock workers and armsmen came and went along the causeway, until the first courier boat docked.

  At speed, that craft came in from the north, no doubt the regular boat from Khalar, made a sharp banking curve, and then shot towards the nearest slip. It came in so fast that Telriy thought for a moment that it would plow straight into the causeway, but at what had to be the very last moment, the courier boat slowed dramatically, coasted a few armlengths, and nudged up to the ancient stonework in a gentle bump that killed the last of its momentum.

  The maneuver was reckless but effective and struck Telriy as bold statement of skill.

  The magicians who were chosen to pilot the courier boats were some of the best. They had to be. A means of communication was only as good as its speed and while skyships had made the messenger's task many orders of magnitude easier, there was still a constant demand for faster and faster delivery.

  The courier, an older man, and his two marine guards jumped off onto the causeway as soon as the boat came to a stop and then rushed away towards the west tower.

  Was there some new trouble in Khalar? She shook her head. Khalar's problems were no longer her concern.

  While the bigger skyships, most often crewed and captained by men and women who had learned their trades on water borne vessels, always tied up when they came in, the courier boats often did not. Given the proper ethereal adjustments, any skyship, unlike a docked ocean vessel that was always subject to the waves and tides, would remain exactly where her pilot had left her, undisturbed by the wind, whether it be a breeze or a gale.

  Unless, of course, another magician came along to take control of her.

  But the pilot, puttering around in the stern, had not gotten off as Telriy had expected.

  She had no intention of waylaying the pilot but she also had no intention of waiting for the next boat, which might not show up for another hour or two, by which time all of the legionnaires and marines might be in an uproar over her disappearance. Taking the boat with armsmen running back and forth and every guard on high alert might prove impractical.

 
; After making sure that Celly was still sleeping, she drifted the chair in a wide curve out over the precipice to come to within a dozen armlengths of the stern of the boat.

  With close-cropped hair the color of burnished copper, the pilot was short, slim, and ... female. And, as far as Telriy could judge, only in her teens. Having settled on a bench, she was eating a breakfast of flatbread, hard yellow cheese, and summer sausage. From the looks of it -- she had taken off her boots -- she intended to stay aboard until her next courier arrived.

  Telriy quickly thought of and discarded a number of ploys to lure the young woman off the boat. Upon reflection, none of them had any significant chance of success.

  After another moment, she decided to try a direct approach. She shifted the chair over the deck and to within a few armlengths of the pilot. With no one nearby on the causeway and the big freighters a good hundred and fifty paces away, any potential observers should unable to recognize her if they noticed her appearance at all.

  The young woman frowned and swiveled her head all about when Telriy got close. Had she sensed her through the ether?

  When Telriy dissolved her glamour, the pilot jumped up, startled, but then grinned. "Gods! You're the queen, right? I've seen you at a distance, but I'd never thought I'd meet you. Is that your baby? Can I see?"

  Telriy smiled her most friendly smile. "Certainly. Her name is Celly." She rearranged her daughter's blankets to make her face easily visible.

  The young woman hastened close in her bare feet and peered at Celly with a genuine look of wonder on her face. "Gods! She's beautiful! I'm going to have some babies one of these days! There's this boy that wants to marry me, but my mum keeps chasing him off with a broom."

  "There's no rush. You have plenty of time."

  "That's what my mum keeps telling me. You're not much older than me, are you? You already have a baby. I bet the king is a good kisser. Is he?"

  Telriy winkled her forehead. "He'll do. What's your name?"

  "Bedhris. He looks like he would be a good kisser."

  "Bedhris, I need this boat."

  "Sure! Where do you want to go? There's only one courier boat pilot that's faster than me and he works the Elboern-Mhajhkaei run."

  "I just need the boat. I'll pilot her myself."

  Bedhris looked crestfallen. "Oh. Well, alright. I guess, though, that I should come along to bring the Bluebird back?"

  "The Bluebird isn't coming back, Bedhris. I'm keeping her."

  The young woman looked uncertain. "I might should get you to sign a receipt. Master Khlosb'ihs gets in a snit if all the paperwork isn't in order."

  "No receipt. No paperwork. And I need you to forget that you saw me."

  Bedhris raised her eyebrows. "You running off?

  "Not exactly."

  "Well, my mum says that women can do just as they please and I guess that means even running off if they want to. Let me get my stuff and the Bluebird is all yours."

  "Bedhris."

  "Yes, ma'am?"

  "Could you get lost for a while?"

  "Oh, like getting lost so no one can ask me about what happened to the Bluebird?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, that boy wants to show me some odd architecture on the other side of the Monolith."

  Telriy sighed. "Think with your head, not with your heart. Thinking with your heart only makes babies and widows."

  "Is that what you're doing? Thinking with your head?"

  Pursing her lips, Telriy nodded.

  Bedhris nodded seriously in return. "I will. I promise."

  Without another word, the young woman darted back to grab her boots and a leather bag shoved under the bench, then ran by Telriy with a wave, bounded to the dock, and sprinted towards the eastern tower.

  Before Bedhris was half way to the tower ruin, Telriy recast her glamour, feeding sufficient flux into the modulation to make it conceal the entire boat. Then she closed her eyes to help her concentrate and took control of the Bluebird. Mar's spells were as familiar to her as was his face and body. She rapidly backed the courier boat away from the causeway, banked around and soared away on a southerly course, driving her speed up to ten leagues per hour.

  No shouts rose up after her and none of the big skyships made ready to give chase.

  She would have been extremely surprised if they had. Her glamour was good. She seriously doubted that anyone save Mar could pierce it.

  As the forest flashed by below, she put Celly in her bundle blankets on her chair and then took a stroll about the small deck.

  Because of their short, quick trips, courier boat carried few supplies and hardly any equipment. There were two water barrels, one half full and the other brimming, lashed to the center bulwark. In a cabinet on the other side of the bulwark, she found some grain, nut, and molasses cakes wrapped in waxed paper. There was a billhook in a rack, another couple of fastened down benches, and two buckets, one of which had clearly been used as a latrine, though it was empty now.

  It would do. At the first isolated village that she encountered on her way to the coast, she would pause to buy a store of more palatable foodstuffs and also any other item that presented a need along the way.

  Just as she had begun to walk back to the stern to check on Celly, the boat gave a sudden upward lurch as a blast of splinters, screeching sound, and ethereal fire punched up through the deck toward the stern on the starboard side.

  Racing to Celly across the bucking deck, she realized that something moving too fast to be seen had penetrated the boat from below!

  The boat dropped abruptly, making her stagger, but she kept her balance and made it to her daughter.

  The boat dropped again, at least several manheight, began to continuously shudder as it took on a strong starboard list, and finally began to sink bow down, the deck canting sharply.

  The flying spells were coming apart. The driving modulation was already down to a wisp and the lifting modulation was bleeding gushers of flux in every direction.

  As soon as she was seated and Celly clasped tightly to her chest, she enchanted her chair and immediately abandoned ship, flying upward and away and shrinking the glamour close in around just the two of them once more.

  Within seconds, the crippled courier boat had struck the treetops below and burst apart in an explosion of ethereal fire. The thunder of the report was loud enough to have been heard leagues away at the Monolith.

  Nerves jangling, she guided her chair towards the ground. Had someone attacked them? Would they strike again?

  She looked all about and tried to extend her ethereal sense as far as it would go, but saw and detected nothing but the forest and a few burning bits of the courier boat that had lodged in the canopy.

  Spying a small gap in the vast sea of greenery, she directed the chair towards it. If some enemy was out there, then the forest would at least hide them from sight and might disguise their presence in the background ether.

  She had to reduce her speed to a minimum to navigate through the gap -- it was only a half dozen paces wide -- and as the chair sank into the dank shadow, her eyes struggled to adapt from the bright sunshine above. Nearer the ground the gap narrowed, becoming a green walled shaft centered around the standing spike of a dead tree. She maneuvered under the overhanging branches towards a spot where the undergrowth appeared less thick. She had little choice but to land upon the wild myrtle that had grown up around the stump; no patch of ground larger than her hand was visible.

  As the chair settled onto the thatch of myrtle, branches resisted then snapped, but she fed flux into the lifting spell and the descent continued without a jostle. She pulled up her feet to keep them out of the possibly tick infested leaves and kept one hand tight upon the arm of the chair and the other snug about Celly.

  When they were just fingerlengths from solid earth, the right forward leg came to rest on a stone that she had not seen until the myrtle had been pushed aside. The chair tilted, made a noise of squeeing complaint as the frame twisted sligh
tly, and as the other three legs dropped onto the leaf-matted earth, she heard and felt the crack of the perched leg snapping

  With the integrity of the Vessel -- the wood of the chair itself -- damaged, the ethereal flux restrained inside it began to spew in all directions. Reacting immediately to the danger, she dissolved the two spells to forestall a possible catastrophic release. Freed of the magic, the chair tilted further and she scrambled up before it could flip over with the two of them still on the seat.

  Feeling anger bubbling up -- born in the attack on the courier boat and matured in this final minor annoyance - she stamped about, glaring at the trees and wishing that a target for her fury would appear. Celly remained asleep and unconcerned.

  After a few minutes, she and Celly were still alone save for the vegetation, a few butterflies and dragonflies coasting through a stray beam of sunlight, and one curious squirrel. She shrugged to cast off her anger like a smelly old coat and then returned to where her chair sat amidst in the crushed myrtle.

  Its ethereal presence had been altered. Even though the damage was minor, it did not feel the same and seemed somehow deficient, though she could not divine in what specific way. She tried to enchant it with the lifting spell, felt resistance, and desisted. She could not take any risks that might put her daughter in danger.

  So, in spite of all her careful plans, she and Celly would be walking after all.

  A booming roar crossed the sky above the trees, drawing her eyes upward. Something tiny, bright, very high up, and trailing fire and smoke shot across the bit of blue that she could see. In an instant it was gone to the south, though the sounds of its passage rumbled across the sky for some moments.

  Frowning at this additional unexplained occurrence, she extended her ethereal sense to try to locate the Monolith. The huge mass of rock shifted the ether around it like an island in a river and she could generally tell in which direction it lay even leagues away from it.