by Brian Farrey
“Is it just me,” Callie said, her gaze darting everywhere uneasily, “or does everyone here look … suspicious?”
Everywhere we looked we saw shifty eyes, scarred faces, and permanent scowls. I’d grown up around people like this. But it was all new to her.
“Callie,” I said softly, “I guarantee that everyone here is either recently out of gaol, plotting a crime that could send them to gaol, or both. Of course they look suspicious.”
We strolled among the makeshift alleys, acting as if we always visited markets for thieves, but our arrival drew suspicious stares almost immediately. The clamor of buyers and sellers talking business fell silent as we walked past, replaced by nervous whispers once we’d gone ahead. Still, we kept our heads up and pretended we belonged.
Callie poked me and nodded to an old Satyran woman selling clay pots filled with highly illegal muskmoss out of a wheelbarrow. The Satyran scratched her wiry beard, which matched the silver hair on her haunches. Before I could stop her, Callie sauntered over. At Callie’s approach, the Satyran took a cautious step back, her hooves tramping in place nervously.
“Good morning, ma’am,” Callie said cheerily. “How are you today?”
The old faun, one eye permanently shut while the other assessed us up and down, grimaced. “Who wants to know?”
Callie looked flustered. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I just—Well, we were wondering if we might be able to do some business.”
The nicer Callie acted, the more suspicious the old woman became. I wanted to thank her and turn away before things got worse, but Callie pressed on merrily, taking a vial of blue paste and holding it up for the woman to see.
“We’re offering you this unique item,” Callie said. “It can be used to open magical locks. Well, you still need to pick the lock, but if it’s magically sealed, this paste will …”
I didn’t hear the rest of Callie’s sales pitch. I was too busy watching all the brawny, menacing-looking denizens of the market who’d taken an interest in our presence. A semicircle of thugs had formed to our rear. Some held wooden spoons and tent stakes the way you might hold a club.
The old faun turned quickly, gathering her pots and stacking them into the wheelbarrow. Without another word, she gripped the wheelbarrow’s handles and hobbled away.
“But I think two silvernibs is a very fair price!” Callie called after her, holding the vial over her head.
I locked elbows with Callie, walking her quickly away from the prying eyes of those assembled.
“In case you’d forgotten,” I whispered, “we are surrounded by people whose lives revolve around doing things discreetly. You’re acting like a bunknug.”
“A what?”
“It’s what we call someone who pretends they’re interested in buying stolen goods, but who’s really working for the Provincial Guard to expose a thief,” I explained. “We’ve got to be more subtle.”
She huffed. “Fine then, O Master of All Things Subtle. Show me how it’s done.”
“First,” I instructed, “we have to pick our buyer carefully.” I looked over my shoulder. The group who’d watched us talking to the Satyran had dispersed, but we still drew wary glances. I scanned the marketplace, searching for the perfect buyer.
“There,” I said, nodding just ahead. A wizened man, a long staff tucked under his arm for support, hunched over a three-legged table. A tall, sleek sprybird with tawny feathers and pointed beak perched on the old man’s shoulder. Its oval, yellow eyes, surrounded by a thin tuft of gray hairs, stared down the crowd. Holding a needle and thread, the old man slipped beads along the string to make the necklaces laid out on the table. “If he’s a necklace salesman, then I’m a four-earred cargabeast.”
Callie squinted. “What’s so special about him?”
“For one thing, he keeps a sprybird,” I noted. “They can be trained to steal. Thieves love ’em. And see how nimbly he threads the beads? He’s a pickpocket. And pickpockets also need to know how to pick locks. He’s old and his fingers aren’t what they used to be.” I pointed as the old man dropped a bead and struggled to pick it up. “If anyone could use our paste, it’s him.”
We approached the old man, who immediately stopped threading and greeted us with a warm smile.
“A gracious good morning, young ones!” he said, his ancient voice cracking. “Looking to buy a small bauble for this fine lass, sir?”
I heard Callie snicker. I picked up one of the necklaces and held it up to the sunlight. “Very pretty. How much?”
The old man cackled with delight. “For you, sir, a single copperbit.”
I laid the necklace down and pretended to continue browsing the selection. “Sell a lot, do you?”
He nodded. “Oh, yes, sir. They come from all over to buy Henren’s beads.” The sprybird gave a small squawk.
I paused. Henren was par-Goblin for trust. I wasn’t sure if he was testing my knowledge of the language and trying to tell me I could trust him or if it was simply a fake name he used for marks.
“Great quality. It must be getting harder for you to make them,” I said, giving him my best sympathetic stare.
“Henren” lowered his head and frowned. “True, sir, true. These fingers used to do amazing things.” He wiggled his thin fingers to demonstrate.
Leaning in, I said in hushed tones, “Ever have trouble with senj wahr?”
The old man’s eyes narrowed. By using the par-Goblin phrase for “magical impediments,” I’d tried to communicate I knew the language of thieves. It must have worked because the man nodded once and looked at me, eager for more information.
I produced a vial of the blue paste. “It’s a special blend. You spread this on a magical lock and you’ll have it picked in no time.”
The old man moved toward me, a noticeable limp forcing him to wobble as he walked. He took the tube and stared at the paste inside. “Really?”
I nodded. “I mean, it works on low-level locking spells. I haven’t found anything to work on a stronger spell, like a powerlock charm. But I think you’ll find that most enchanted locks will open if you use it.”
“And quite a bargain at only two silvernibs a vial,” Callie said quickly under her breath.
Henren looked intrigued and I thought he was about ready to haggle. But then he threw back his head and howled. “All my problems are over!” he bellowed. “I never have to worry about picking magical locks! These young folk have all the answers.”
“What are you—?” I cried, snatching the vial back from him. The sprybird bent forward and nipped at my fingers, then leaned back and screeched. The old man continued to carry on and people began to surround us again, scowling. “Keep it down!”
But the old man only got louder. “Gather ’round, everyone! We have a master thief in our presence. Only two silvernibs to sample his genius! Quite a bargain!”
The crowd muttered to one another. I’m pretty sure I heard mention of rope, tar, and feathers. Callie pressed against me as the mutinous rabble closed in.
“Zoc,” I cursed softly. Reaching into a pocket on my left hip, I withdrew a small, black pellet. “Take a deep breath,” I whispered to Callie, who quickly obeyed. Holding my own breath, I held the pellet up over my head and threw it to the ground. There was a crack, a brilliant flash, and a plume of thick white smoke sprang up from the ground. As everyone around us started coughing, I grabbed Callie’s wrist and pulled her through the smoke.
Running blindly, we could hear what sounded like the whole of Graywillow Market mobilizing to pursue us. I thought I felt the sprybird’s wings graze the back of my head. I batted at the air to keep it away. We didn’t stop running until we were deep in the forest and completely out of breath.
13
An Unlikely Alliance
“You can only fail to pick the Castellan’s pocket once.”
—Corenus Grimjinx, clan father
I tossed the last of our firewood on the dying embers, causing a few flames to leap up as the
fire came to life again. The night air sent goose bumps up and down my arms, the coldest night we’d felt since we first left Vengekeep. Shivering, Callie hugged herself tightly as she sat as close to the fire as she dared.
My stomach growled, a not-so-subtle reminder that neither of us had eaten anything all day. Tomorrow, I could find us some edible plants to keep our strength up until we could make it to a town where we could use the last of our money for food. For tonight, though, we’d go to bed hungry.
“We’re lousy thieves and terrible merchants,” Callie sulked, teeth chattering. “Remind me why we think we’ll be able to save Vengekeep?”
I propped my backpack up like a pillow and leaned against it. “Corenus Grimjinx, the man who started our clan, once said: ‘You can only fail to pick the Castellan’s pocket once.’”
“What does that mean?”
I smiled uneasily. “Well, the vote’s split on that, actually. Optimists think it means that after you fail to pick the Castellan’s pocket, you learn what you did wrong so you don’t make that mistake the second time.”
Callie nodded in approval. “And the pessimists?”
“They think it means that the Castellan catches you picking his pockets and orders your hands chopped off so you never succeed—or fail—at picking pockets again.”
Callie laughed and threw a handful of fallen leaves at me. “So what does that have to do with us?”
I shrugged. “If we believe the optimists and failure breeds success, we’re due for a whole lot of success any day now.”
She poked at the fire with a stick. “We succeeded in escaping. That’s something. What was that cloud thing, anyway?”
I pulled another black pellet from my belt pouch. “Something I invented. By themselves, arros root and yellin grass are nothing. But mash them together in a mortar with a pestle and they get rather … explosive. Great diversionary tactic. Da used them to get away from an unruly mob once or twice.” Or maybe ten times.
Callie grinned, eyeing my collection of pouches. “How is it that you always seem to have exactly the right kinds of herbs in your pouches at any given time? It’s awfully convenient.”
I reached into my backpack, pulled out The Kolohendriseenax Formulary, and passed it to Callie.
“Nanni gave me this,” I explained. “It tells all about twelve different types of magic-resistant plants. What each one does by itself and how you can combine them all to make new substances. It’s how I learned to make the antimagic paste. And the flashballs.”
Callie thumbed through the pages. “I’ve never heard of this before. If it’s so amazing, why isn’t it better known?”
“Well,” I said, smiling slyly, “the book was written by the Sarosans.”
Callie snorted. Living on the fringe as they did, the Sarosans weren’t taken seriously by many people. It was no wonder hardly anyone knew of the book. And given how much the Sarosans hated magic, it was hardly surprising how well they understood plants with magic-resistant properties.
She handed the book back. “Well, if it works, it works.” She took out the list with the five remaining ingredients that we needed for the solvent. “I just wish there was a way you could combine the things in your pouch to make these ingredients magically appear.”
“Can’t do that, but how about this?” I asked, flicking my wrist. In one of my very few successful bits of sleight of hand, I made a small beaded necklace appear between my fingers.
Callie gasped. “Did you … steal this from the old man?”
I grinned. “Grimjinx custom: taking souvenirs from your most memorable heists. I thought we should start a collection from our own little adventure.”
She smiled as she slipped the beads around her neck. “So … what do you think the real tapestry looked like? You know, the one your parents nicked.”
“Given everything that’s happened,” I mused, “it was probably just one giant picture of the entire Grimjinx brood with a big red X through us.”
We laughed but fell quickly silent when we heard leaves shaking in the nearby trees. Looking up sharply, we saw the silhouette of a man stepping from the darkness. As he emerged into the glow of our meager fire, we found ourselves face-to-face with the old man from Graywillow Market. Callie and I traded looks.
Henren stood there, leaning on his staff just at the edge of the clearing. The sleek sprybird, perched on the man’s shoulder, stretched its wings, then relaxed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Callie’s hand slide to her ankle, where she’d strapped a small dagger under her trouser leg, our only weapon. We stared at him and he stared at us. No one moved.
“Graeta meshek,” the old man called out, locking his eyes on mine.
Callie leaned closer to me. “What was that?”
“It’s ancient par-Goblin,” I explained in a whisper.
Callie frowned. “No one speaks that. Not even par-Goblins.”
I nodded. “Thieves do. It’s like our adopted language. How we communicate with one another.”
“Okay, then, what did he say?”
I sighed. “There’s no direct translation. It’s a code between thieves. He’s asking for sanctuary. Something thieves say when they want to share camp. It means, ‘You don’t stab me in my sleep, I won’t stab you in yours.’”
“Lovely,” Callie drawled, voice burnished with sarcasm. “Now what do we do?”
Ma had taught me the Lymmaris Creed and all the protocols that went with it. I knew vaguely of the sanctuary plea but had never been in a position to grant it.
The old man stood there patiently, waiting for our reply. Following procedure, I stood and bared both hands, turning them first palm up, then palm down, then palm up again. I nodded and said, “Shivak.”
Henren chuckled, slung his staff over his shoulder, and walked unaided to our fire. Callie glanced at me; curiously, his pronounced limp had vanished. The old man crossed his ankles and lowered himself into a seated position. He didn’t seem nearly as frail as he had earlier that day.
The sprybird hopped and came to rest on a fallen log near the fire. He looked from Callie to me and squawked.
“Be nice, Perrin,” the old man said, shaking his finger at the bird. Like his limp, his withered voice was gone. In its place was a more robust, youthful voice with a hint of a Yonick Province accent. “These two are very kind to share their camp with us.” He tossed a piece of bread at the bird, which it greedily ate. The “old man” smiled at Callie. “I wasn’t sure you’d let me stay, what with all the trouble I caused for you back at the market.”
“We let you stay so we could find out where you got the nerve to ask in the first place,” Callie said before I could respond.
Henren raised his hands. “I deserve that. But I come bearing gifts.” He reached into a ruddy leather satchel on his hip and pulled out a hemmon. The bird had been freshly plucked and already had a spit sticking through its body. The man reached over and set up two Y-shaped rods on either side of the fire, then laid the spit across them. In moments, our anger vanished as the scent of roasted hemmon promised to end our hunger.
“Really,” the man said as he removed a small tin box from his pack, “I was just having fun. I saw a couple of whelps trying their hand at a con and wanted to show you that it takes nerves of steel to pull something like that. You should be careful trying to con people at Graywillow Market. They can be a rough crowd.”
As he spoke, he opened the box and laid it on the ground. He tugged at his wild sideburns, peeling them slowly from his face. He set them in the box, which held two small glass jars filled with clear liquid and a couple of artist’s brushes. Next, he removed his false eyebrows, then rubbed at his face, the cavernous wrinkles disintegrating into the raw putty from which they’d been formed. When he was done, he’d grown considerably younger, looking more Da’s age than Nanni’s.
“It wasn’t a con!” Callie protested, holding up one of the vials of blue paste. “It really works.”
“Oh, I know.” The man s
mirked. From his belt, he pulled an identical vial, which he held up to the firelight. Half the blue paste was gone. Callie growled, checking our supply. One of the vials was missing. I nodded to the sprybird. He’d managed to snag one in the confusion of our getaway.
“I didn’t believe you at first, but I thought I’d give it a try. Helped me get into a chest I’d been trying to open for weeks.”
He reached into his pack and pulled out a small chest, sleek and polished. The lock on the front was smeared with blue paste. He popped the lid open to reveal a jeweled tiara. As if to show there were no hard feelings, the man produced three silvernibs and tossed them at Callie, who quickly pocketed them. “You could make a lot of money with that stuff,” he continued.
“We know,” I said. “We tried.”
He shrugged. “Hey, how was I supposed to know it really worked? I’d have bought some if I’d known.”
Callie folded her arms. “Then maybe you can come with us to the market tomorrow and tell your friends about it so we can sell the rest.”
The man shook his head. “Market’s already gone. Most of the stuff being sold there … well, it’s dangerous to keep in one place for too long without the Provincial Guard coming to look for someone’s ‘lost’ property.” With the hemmon fully cooked, he slid it from the spit and gave us each a meaty wing. Callie and I dug in greedily. The man smacked his lips. “So, you seem awfully young to be prowling the forests of Korrin Province at night.”
Neither Callie nor I looked up from our meals and I cursed myself. Coming up with a cover story—a fake explanation to tell anyone who asked why we were out on our own—was part of basic thieving skills, and I’d completely forgotten to do this. Callie continued to stare at the ground, indicating it was up to me to decide what and how much to tell our new friend.
“Right now, we’re trying to raise money,” I said, which was basically the truth. “We’re going on an expedition. We need money to arrange transport across the Five Provinces.”