Thief (The Key to Magic Book 7)

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  They had not gotten very far. Based upon the strength of the distant ethereal swirls and her estimate of the speed of the courier boat, they were perhaps three leagues from the fortress. She could walk that in as little as four hours.

  But she was not going back. It would take more than a single, as yet unexplained disaster to make her change her mind.

  She took her satchel from the back of the chair and moved off amongst the trees - pointedly going south -- and stopped to sit upon a large, moss-covered but otherwise dry and clean, flat boulder. When she looked down at Celly, she saw that her eyes were open.

  "Sweet one, are you hungry? My milk says that you must be."

  Celly wrinkled her small lips, blinked both eyes, and then just stared back at her.

  "I'll take that for a yes."

  She rested Celly on her lap and unbuttoned her shirt. As soon as Celly had begun to nurse, she considered their situation.

  The first thing that they would need to find would be a spring or stream. They had only the two flasks in the satchel and that would have to be reserved in the short term for drinking. Celly's nappies would need be washed as soon as they were changed; hauling soiled nappies about would be an invitation to disaster. The ether should help her find water. It had a meandering rose feel and she should be able to detect it from as much as a hundred paces away.

  Food would not be as easy to acquire, but she could go for some hours without eating and Celly was taken care of in that wise.

  A large, solid, infusible log would be her next priority. It might not be a comfortable ride, but that would get them down into the vicinity of Elboern where they should be able to find and enchant a more suitable craft.

  To leave her hands free when they were ready to move on, she made a sling from a spare shirt and used it to cradle Celly against her belly. Though the trees made her path a winding one, the ether kept her going in the right direction and after two hours of determined walking, she emerged from the darkened forest into a large, bright clearing apparently made when a storm of a prior season had toppled several mature white oaks, one huge one into several smaller ones. The space was an overgrown thicket of intertwined rotting trunks and branches, vine covered saplings, and thriving blackberries with a border of high grass along the tree line.

  Thinking that she would be better to work her way around this rather than through it, she looked to the left, searching for the easiest path, then swung her head back around to the right. A completely out of place sight in this direction brought her up short.

  Not two dozen armlengths away, a horse stood cropping at the tall grass, its reins dangling to the ground.

  Rather than spooking it by calling out to locate the rider who was possibly nearby, she walked slowly forward.

  "Hey, pretty, who do you belong to?"

  The horse raised its head to look at her, then walked towards her and Celly, in a docile, I still like people manner.

  "You haven't been loose for long, have you?"

  The sorrel was not winded or lathered, so it must not have just run away from its owner. Likewise, its tack and saddle were not scratched or damaged, suggesting that it had not come very far through the forest. When it came up beside her, it gave her another look, made a horse noise that sounded like a sigh, then began munching on a bush that was in easy reach. It was almost as if it were waiting for her to take charge of it.

  "You like to be ridden, don't you?"

  Up close, it was easy to see that the tooling and decoration of the saddle was exotic -- the inlay looked like polished coral -- and its general style was different from the Imperial. She had seen similar but not identical saddles in the far south of the Archipelago.

  "You're probably not from around here, either." When she reached out and took firm hold on its reins, it made no protest. "Well, we need a ride, so if you don't mind, we'll let you help till you find your way back to where you belong."

  The sorrel left off the bush, whinnied, and sidled a bit closer.

  "I'll take that for a yes."

  She raised her boot to the stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn, and drew her and Celly up into the saddle. The sorrel took their weight without comment or disturbance.

  It was only then that she saw the splash of dried blood on the opposite side of its mane. She felt of the spot. The horse had no wound.

  The blood must have come from its absent rider.

  TWENTY-SIX

  143rd Year of the Reign of the City

  Twelfthday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire

  The Monolith

  Rhavaelei walked through the half rebuilt gallery that served the Queen Empress' villa as a front gate, waved gaily to the four legionnaires standing guard in a side alcove -- they did not wave back, but one of them smiled -- then traipsed down the wide stair that led down to the lane. She was almost dancing.

  She would have a son!

  She was amazed at how strongly the news -- the prophecy -- had affected her. She had never --

  Some force that was like wind but that was not air slammed into and swept over her and then there was an instant of searing sound, painful light, and crushing pain. Gasping, she staggered and fell, scraping her palms on grainy sand and jumbled stone slabs as she caught herself. Disoriented and hurting, she threw her head up to try to find out what in all the stupid names of the Forty-Nine Gods had just happened.

  The view was a stunning shock. She was somewhere else!

  Leaping to her feet, she stared at the irregular walls, tilted columns, crumbling towers, and collapsed galleries that now surrounded her. She was on a half-buried street or square of some sort and was still on the Monolith -- the textures, shades, and styles of the stonework around her were unmistakable -- but this had to be one of the empty areas not yet claimed by Viceroy Khlosb'ihs' settlement.

  Her heart grew cold. It must have been some horrid magic that had tossed her here!

  "You failed to complete our bargain," Zso scolded from behind her.

  She instantly twirled around, trying to gather her composure in spite of her growing panic. "I discovered that I already have all that my heart desires."

  This remark, blurted in a cavalier, off hand fashion, was, she realized with a heart-skipping jolt, true.

  Zso shook his head in reproach. "A pity. You are such a handsome woman that it is indeed a crime to waste your delightful flesh, but I cannot tolerate divergence from my plans. Too much is as stake. And, unfortunately for you, your absence at this point will prove useful."

  With a look of regret, he raised a hand glowing with violet light, fingers clawed as if gripping something unseen.

  She threw herself back with a screech.

  Then Zso's head exploded in a spray of blood and brain matter. After a near comical second of stability, his lifeless corpse toppled over and smacked into the ground.

  Stunned, she lay on the weed sprouted patch of sand where she had landed for a cringing moment, then twisted her head about as she heard a horse's hooves clop near.

  A wizened, parchment-fleshed old man rode upon the horse. She had never seen his face before, but she had seen ones like it hundreds of times. The fellow was as plebian as any tradesmen that Rhavaelei had ever passed upon a busy street.

  His mount, an absolutely beautiful sorrel, was by far the more interesting of the pair. It had exotic, purebred lines and a brushed coat that almost seemed to shine.

  In his hand, the old man held something black and metallic. His demeanor made it a weapon. Was it more witchery? Was this another wizard?

  She scrambled to her feet, seizing on her anger to hide her fear behind.

  "And what sort of demon are you?" she demanded with all the haughty disdain that she could muster.

  The old man drew up the sorrel's reins and tucked the metallic object into an open leather pouch at his belt. Rather than the bizarre multicolored and wildly fitted attire of the deceased Zso, this apparition was dressed in normal seeming trousers, shirt, boot
s, and riding jacket made of normal seeming wool, cotton, and leather. The horse looked normal as well, in the sense that it looked like a horse and not something else, though she had no idea what a magical steed would look like.

  He grinned. "The worst sort, I assure you. I was a sorcerer once in a world that has been gone so long that I can scarcely remember it, but now I'm just a stable hand."

  Man and horse did seem sorely mismatched. Did that mean that he was not its owner?

  "That's an Aehrfhaen saddle. When I was a girl, my father had one like it."

  The old man glanced down. "Yes, I suppose it is."

  "My father said that his cost my weight in gold."

  He chuckled. "This one is worth the Monolith's weight in gold, if not a thousand times more."

  She glanced over at Zso's body, which was still oozing blood. "Why did you save me?"

  "Because you made the right choice."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You did not do as Zso bid."

  "I saw no harm in what he wanted me to say. It seemed good advice."

  From a friend, that would be true, but she had known that Zso could only have wished to achieve mischief by asking her to counsel Telriy thus.

  "Those four words would have changed the entire world."

  "Do not abandon love?"

  "Just so."

  "I do not understand."

  The old man closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain. "Be happy that you do not." He kneed the sorrel and it moved closer to her. "Take the bridle. Lead the horse a few steps in that direction."

  She kept her hands at her sides. "Why?"

  "You are out of your proper place. Zso brought you here so that you would leave no trace."

  "I am not going anywhere with you."

  "If you do not return to where you belong, the future that Telriy saw for you will be changed."

  Again, she felt her fear and panic swelling. This man had saved her from Zso. Did that mean that he was a friend?

  "Are you a friend?"

  "Have you any friends?"

  She saw no reason to lie. "No."

  "Then call me a friend of an acquaintance. Now, if you do not mind, take the bridle and walk that way."

  She wanted the future that the witch had promised. She wanted her baby and she wanted Ghorn. She stopped fidgeting, took a firm grip on the leather, and walked towards the pile of rubble at which the old man pointed. The sunlight flickered, briefly, and the shadows in the ruins shifted slightly. Had some of the stones moved?

  "Good," he told her. "You can release the bridle."

  "What happened? Was that more witchery?"

  "You are returned to your proper place and, yes, it was magic. Now, we have a schedule to keep so --"

  "Wait! Who are you?"

  The old man sighed. "I am the one who will be watching."

  "Watching me?"

  "Yes. You, my dear, are the sort of person who will always behave as long as you know that someone is watching."

  "For how long?"

  "For all of your life."

  She took a breath, held it a moment, then let it out slowly. "Will you also tell me how to behave?"

  "No. You have to do the hard part yourself. Now, unfortunately, Horse has to be in other times and places and we are already late. If you hike due south from this spot, you will reach the skyship works. Good day."

  The old man turned the sorrel about, nudged it to a canter with a kick of his heels, then vanished into nothing.

  She stood absolutely still for a moment, then turned south and started walking.

  After a bit she smiled.

  It was another moment before she realized why she had.

  For the first time in her life, she was free.

  Free of the social and mercantile obligations that had constrained her early life, free of the single-minded ambition that had shackled her up until this incredibly transformative moment, free of all conspirators and conspiracies, plotters and plots, deceivers and deceit.

  The old man on the horse had taken that all away.

  Apparently forever!

  The only thing that she must do now was live.

  Her smile broadened, stretching her face in a way that it had not been stretched since she had been a little girl, and she lengthened her stride with a new, ecstatic energy.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  nhBreen felt a jar and came instantly awake.

  Evidently having just kicked him, Mar stood at his boots, backlit by the fire, to which he must have added wood, for the blaze leapt up, hurling sprays of cherry sparks towards the brilliant stars.

  "Come with me," Mar ordered.

  nhBreen threw aside his blanket and rolled to his feet. Then, feeling a twinge, he clenched his fists and stretched his spine. His refurbished sprites had not yet rehabilitated away all of his aches and pains. He was not sure that they ever would.

  "Should we clear the camp? Damp the fire?"

  "You'll be back before your pallet gets cold."

  "Ah, good. What is our mission?"

  "I'll tell you when we get there."

  nhBreen rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes, then turned to take his first good look at Mar. This caused something of a shock. This was not the still young man who had brought him to the Waste City.

  With grey in his hair, this Mar was at least two decades older and at least two tenweights heavier, all of it muscle and, from all appearances, scars and gristle.

  "How many years it has been?" he asked.

  "You can't know and we don't have time to chat. The wizard you killed is still meddling."

  "Then I must have done a poor job of killing him."

  "Wizards are hard to kill in a permanent way."

  "Would it do any good to ask the details?"

  "I would not answer."

  "Well, then, I suppose that we should proceed and trust that facts will make themselves known when needed."

  Mar grunted. "Follow me."

  Save for a slight tingling in his skin, the passage through undertime -- no more than six counted seconds -- was scarcely noticeable. This Mar had greatly refined his techniques.

  The place that they came to was nothing like that what they had left. It was full day here -- afternoon by the angle of the shadows -- and green. Tall trees and verdant undergrowth abounded on every side. The lay of the land and the sorts of trees -- white oaks, hickories, and an elm here and there -- looked familiar. He had walked these hills more than once in centuries past.

  "This is the weald of the Steo Hills, is it not?" he asked.

  "Yes, it is. We're going to move without making noise for a hundred and six paces to the north and hide in a cane break. We'll be within earshot, so stay quiet."

  nhBreen made the obvious guess as he followed Mar through a gap in a blackberry thicket. "This is Tenthday, Third Springmoon, Waning."

  Mar did not turn to look back. "Of course."

  While he continued to walk, placing his feet carefully to avoid branches and twigs, nhBreen assembled several conjectures, then said to Mar's back in a low voice, "Eishtren's exile was not enough."

  "Correct. The blast was reduced by several orders of magnitude, but at close range the power was still absolutely devastating. We're only three leagues from the bridge. I was able to dampen and redirect the diminished blast to prevent widespread destruction, but the intensity up to almost six leagues from the epicenter was tremendous. The Phaelle'n steel beetles to the east of the river were annihilated, but so also would have been the sixteen thousand men of Lord Ghorn's First Army in this vicinity, save for what I will do today."

  "You can create wards large enough to protect sixteen thousand men?"

  The creation of the multi-layered strategic wards of the City, the largest that nhBreen had had any knowledge of and which had proven criminally and fatally inadequate, had required the organized cooperation of one hundred and seventeen master sorcerers of the sixth rank and higher -- not more because no more could be found
anywhere in the Alliance -- and had been maintained by a special unit manned by technicians of the same skill numbering more than thirty. That wards large enough to protect against the single largest concentrated release of flux in all of human history could be cast and controlled by a single man was, relative to nhBreen's experience, unheard of.

  "Yes." Mar stopped, crouched, and waved for nhBreen to do likewise. "Say nothing for three minutes. A mounted messenger is going to pass within twenty paces. He can't see us, but he could hear us."

  nhBreen closed his mouth on his next question and peered through the heavy undergrowth in the direction that Mar was looking but could see nothing but green, brown, and shadow. After a moment, he heard the sounds of something large pushing its way through the undergrowth. The sounds came from ahead, moved across to the right, then faded away.

  Mar rose and immediately moved off at a good clip, forcing nhBreen to hurry as he automatically followed. The thief moved through the chest-high brambles scarcely jostling a limb and though nhBreen listened closely, he could not hear even the sound of Mar's footfalls.

  "What is my purpose here?" he asked. "Such powerful magic as you intend to utilize is leagues beyond my now limited skills."

  "When your moment arrives, you'll know it."

  "I understand that you are compelled to be circumspect in order to prevent disorder in events, but I cannot see how telling me directly what is required of me could possibly upset anything at all."

  Mar slowed and turned about. "I tried that. It didn't work."

  "Ah, I see."

  The older Mar gestured at a dense, closely growing stand of cane, some of the plants a span thick and four manheight tall, that formed a wall across their path. The stand extended beneath a copse of pines and out into the sunshine of a clearing, but all that nhBreen could see of the clearing through the barrier was a few flashes of warm sunlight on high grass.

  "We're here," Mar whispered. "Now, don't bother me for at least a quarter of an hour."

  The thief closed his eyes and became very still. nhBreen could scarcely see his chest rise and fall.

  Twitching his lips, nhBreen looked about, found no better spot to do so, and sank down to a cross-legged sit. That he did not know exactly what was happening was a source of considerable annoyance, but if he were to continue to conform to his plan, he had no choice but to meekly accept this future version of Mar's restrictions.