Proper Thieves

by Smith, Luke CJ

  Nalan

  Every once in a while, Nalan would look over at Devan and just watch him. Curled up in his corner of the oxcart, Devan would alternate between staring blankly at the world going by and staring blankly at the coin in his hand. He barely ate. He rarely spoke, and when he did, it was usually something snide and hateful.

  “Just ignore him,” Allister usually said when Devan got in someone’s face. “It’s not worth getting worked up over.” The first time he said that, it surprised Nalan—Allister had spent years twisting himself into knots worrying about Devan’s approval. Something had changed in him that night in The Palace, something almost as profound as had happened to Devan.

  Nalan thought back to their life at The Tower, and how he and the others had gravitated toward Devan. They all loved to hear about his big plans, his big dreams. Devan, the thin, spindly boy with a withered leg who had seemed so much bigger than he really was. Nalan always envied Devan’s certainty. While everyone else at The Collegium was resigned to a life of study and solitude, Nalan learned from Devan that a life lived that way was not only a waste, but a crime.

  But over the last four days, Devan had seemed to physically shrink. His cane long gone, he seemed dwarfed next to the tall walking stick Nalan had found him. His limp had grown more pronounced, his face twisted into a wince whenever he pulled himself to his feet. It was like he was retreating into himself, and as he did, Nalan slowly began to realize that the others had begun to gravitate toward him instead.

  There was bickering from time to time; they were all still angry about what had happened. But when they fought, more and more, they wound up looking to Nalan for advice. Nalan, with his calm, quiet voice. Nalan, who always had a sensible answer. And gradually the bickering stopped.

  Gradually, Allister’s jokes came fewer and further between. Breigh became quieter and less surly. Zella, who had started the trip angrier than anyone, spent most of her time chatting quietly with the others as the oxcart bumped and trundled down the dusty country roads.

  As he watched Devan curl up next to his walking stick to take a nap, it occurred to Nalan what the others were learning from him—they were trying to learn how to be ordinary again. They were learning how to live with the idea that not every dream comes true.

  With that realization, all the blood drained from Nalan’s face. The bottom fell out of his stomach, and all at once, he felt like he wanted to throw up. Not once in his entire life had he ever felt so ashamed.

  As if on cue, the cart crested a hill and the city of Ptolimar spread out before them. A coal-black blemish on the ash-colored countryside.

  “‘Ptolimar: City of Failures,’” Allister said over Nalan’s shoulder, as if reading off an imaginary sign board. “‘Welcome Home.’”

  ---

  The five of them didn’t talk much as they made their way through the rotting streets. Devan led; he knew the way. Nalan followed close behind him as they passed shuttered shops, squatter hostels, and campfire rings of limbless veterans that none of the workshops would hire. They stopped, finally, at a dark brown door. It looked to Nalan like a small letter “V” had once been nailed to it, but it had been pried off, leaving a lighter shade of mildew behind as a footprint.

  Devan looked back at them and made a sign to be quiet. Nalan and the others nodded. He pointed at Allister and made a different sign, telling him to wait there and stand watch. Allister nodded back.

  Devan pushed on the door, and it groaned open. In the inky darkness within, all Nalan could see was a cloud of swirling dust in the thin slit of daylight the door let in. Devan drew a small dagger.

  Crouched low, Devan pushed his way inside. Nalan followed close behind, but the moment he stepped into the room, a floorboard creaked loudly under his foot. Devan shot a look back over his shoulder; he pointed at Nalan. Nalan rooted himself to the spot and tried not to breathe.

  Slowly, Nalan’s eyes became accustomed to the dark. The room was empty of people, but full of everything else. He watched as, quiet as a whisper, Devan navigated his way through the room on the tiny pathways between piles of refuse. He would slide one foot forward along a single rotting floorboard, testing for squeaks with the tip of his walking stick. He would find the head of a nail and put his weight on it, then repeat the process as he made his way along.

  A big red ledger book, wrinkled from having water spilled on it, sat on the dining table. Devan grabbed for the quill. As he picked it up, the inkwell came with it, cemented to the pen by dried ink. It had been sitting out for some time, unused.

  At length, Devan arrived at the far side of the room, where a musty-looking curtain hung, covering a narrow doorway. Gingerly, Devan pulled back the drape.

  From where he stood, Nalan could see the glow of a single candle in the dark recess. There, sitting on the floor in a little circle of light, sat a young girl, a bandage over her eye, reading from a little red book.

  Devan smiled for the first time in days. “Psst—!”

  The girl gasped and dropped her book, cringing as she did. Then, recognizing the disembodied head poking around the curtain, she relaxed slightly.

  “Lynna?” Devan asked. “What are you reading?”

  Lynna groped for words. “Stories,” she said at last, her voice barely audible from lack of use. She repeated herself, louder. “Stories.”

  “Want to go someplace where they have lots of stories?” Devan asked.

  Lynna closed her book and set it on the floor. She nodded solemnly.

  ---

  Breigh bent forward and looked into Lynna’s face, considering her. “To have survived here by yourself for so long…” Breigh said with a martial sternness. She peeked under the girl’s bandage at the blackened socket where her eye once was. “And with wounds that would have made the stoutest axemen blanch and weep. You have a warrior’s grit, girl.”

  Seated on the edge of the dining table, Lynna looked up at Devan. Devan brushed a strand of grimy hair out of her face. “She’s not really used to compliments,” he said with a grin.

  From across the room, Allister shot Nalan a look. Nalan furrowed his brow, unclear on what Allister was smirking at. Allister waved him off, but later he’d explain: “Finally, we’ve found someone Devan isn’t a dick to.” Nalan could hardly disagree; he hadn’t seen Devan this genial since before The Palace job went down.

  “Young Lynna needs no compliments,” Breigh said. She seemed committed to keeping the thunder in her voice to a low boom. “The only compliment a warrior needs is the look of terror on a foeman’s face.”

  “Yeah, but maybe she could start with a few of the regular kind,” Zella said, stepping in with a wet washcloth. She scrubbed at the girl’s face and unearthed a small patch of pink. “Look at that,” Zella said with a smile. “There’s a little girl under there.”

  “Lynna,” Devan said, pulling a chair over to sit beside her. “What happened to Vertus?”

  “He left,” she said in her breathy whisper. “He’s been gone...” She paused to count in her head. “...ten days.”

  “Ten days,” Devan said. “He left just after I was here?”

  Lynna nodded. “That night. He was in a big hurry. He didn’t take any clothes. He didn’t even take his book.” She looked behind her to the wrinkled ledger. Nalan decided to go take a look. “He always takes his book.”

  “Ten days…” Devan repeated. “Did he say when he would be back?”

  Lynna shook her head. She bit her lip hard.

  Devan’s eyes softened; he stroked her hair. “That’s okay,” he said. “That’s okay.” As he comforted her, Devan’s shoulders slumped. Nalan frowned; when Devan had spoken the last two days, it had been about Lynna: “If nothing else good comes of this, he’d said, at least we can help that little girl and give that dick Vertus what he deserves.” It seemed Devan would have to settle for one good deed out of two.

  Above them, Breigh pounded a fist into her palm. “Where is this shit beetle?” She growled. “I shall give h
im a visual tour of his own rectum.”

  The little girl trembled and looked back up at Devan. “Easy there, monster,” Zella said to Breigh.

  “What kind of man leaves his own daughter to live in filth and fight rats for food?” Breigh roared.

  “She’s not his daughter,” Devan said. “She’s his wife.”

  Breigh’s eyes bulged, her mouth tried and failed to give voice to her fury. On her face, Nalan could see boundless rage, followed by terrible inspiration, followed by joyous anticipation of the awful, awful things she planned to visit upon Vertus, should they ever cross paths.

  Lynna leaned over to Devan. “Is she going to kill us?” she whispered in his ear.

  “Probably,” Devan said, smiling. “But probably not today.”

  Lynna looked up at Breigh. “He went to a palace,” she offered the giant warrior woman.

  Devan and Zella both looked at her. “He told you where he went?” Zella asked.

  Lynna shook her little head. “I read it in there.” She pointed at the ledger.

  Nalan couldn’t hide his astonishment if he’d tried. “You can read this?” he asked, putting his hand on the book where it lay on the table. He’d spent some time flipping through the pages, trying to make sense of the coded scratches with no luck.

  She nodded. “I’m not supposed to, but I can. I taught myself.”

  “Can you show me?” Nalan asked.

  Cautiously, Lynna hopped down off the dining table and made her way over to the book. As soon as Lynna stopped looking at him, Devan’s face soured. He watched her glumly as she pulled herself up on the bench next to Nalan.

  He noticed Nalan watching him. He looked quickly away.

  Phaedra

  “They landed here,” Tolem said, crouching down in the field outside the cave. From out of the tall grass, he picked up a long thin strip of metal the same color as the hull of Vertus’ airship. “Barely.”

  “How about that,” Phaedra said, staring off into space. She tried her best to sound interested, but it was really getting difficult.

  Tolem stood, brushed the dirt off his hands. “But the landing wasn’t so rough they weren’t able to take off again. Coins and all.” They’d already spent some time surveying the cave, time which Phaedra could have spent getting a soul-melting foot massage. She’d just finished three months’ worth of twelve-hour shifts in her role as Phaedra the Chef’s Assistant, and she was beginning to worry that the hard black shoes The Palace’s servers wore had permanently disfigured her feet. Even after two days holed up in one of Kauleth’s few truly decadent hotels, a nature hike with her boss was the last thing she felt like she needed.

  But Tolem had insisted. Of course Tolem had insisted. Phaedra had found long ago that, in her business, men were like that: clingy, needy, vain. It wasn’t enough for her to be capable, for her to simply do her job. The men in her business expected more. They wanted her to be their shadow, their toy. They wanted her to fawn over and flatter them in public and in private.

  When she was younger, it’d been fun and exciting and sexy. But now…

  “Let’s go back,” she said, sidling up next to him, putting an arm around his waist. “I’m starving.” She rubbed a hand up his cheek. “And I wouldn’t mind feeling how smooth your face is again,” she cooed.

  Tolem smiled and kissed her hand and guided her gently away. “They first touched down over there,” he said, squinting into the distance. “Doesn’t look like they hit too hard. They probably walked away just fine.”

  “Praise the gods,” Phaedra said under her breath. She leaned against a tree and sighed. “Tolem...what good is this doing? They’re not here. And it’s darned difficult to track an airship when it’s actually in the air.”

  “Darned?” Tolem wasn’t looking at her. “Your roots are showing, girl.” He was walking sideways, trying to line up in his head the path the airship traveled. “Besides, I thought you’d like a trip out to the countryside after two days hiding in the suite from The Palace’s investigators. Doesn’t this feel like home?”

  “It’s not hiding if you’re being fed spiced dates and fanned with palm fronds,” Phaedra said, peeling strips of bark off the tree. “And it doesn’t feel like home unless my daddy’s lending me to the magistrate’s man for a few extra days on our taxes.” She tossed a strip of bark over at Tolem. “I know you like the idea of me as the blushing country maid, but the country can fuck itself with both hands and a fence post.”

  Tolem laughed. He turned to face her. “I like it better when you talk like this.”

  “Like what?”

  He shrugged. “A person?”

  Phaedra smiled at that. “Wait ‘til I get going.” She turned and looked around the deserted scrub lands. “So…what are you hoping to find out here?”

  Tolem looked to the ground. “Don’t know. Some sign of what became of them.” He shrugged. “Maybe a letter saying they were heading back to The Tower and never coming back.”

  “Because you’re worried they’ll show up at the wrong time and queer our deal at The Palace?”

  “Of course. Why else?”

  Phaedra cocked her head to one side and smirked.

  Tolem rubbed the back of his neck. “What do you want me to say? That I hope they’re okay? Yeah, all right. I hope they’re okay. They’re a good bunch of kids.”

  Phaedra took a few steps closer to Tolem. “Actually, what I want you to say is, ‘I’m worried they’ll show up at the wrong time and queer our deal.’ And I want you to repeat that in front of Samus. And Vertus. And Torg. Because that’s what they need to hear right now. Not that their leader’s developed a delicate little spot in his chest for anyone or anything.”

  Tolem nodded but said nothing.

  “As bosses go, Tolem, you’re not a bad guy. Which is why I’m kinda shocked you’re still alive.” Tolem looked up at her in surprise. “Do you let all your business partners see how sensitive you are about women and children?”

  Tolem turned and looked out over the horizon. “This one time, when I was running a smuggling convoy with a tribe of Buljari raiders...I nursed a baby kitty back to health.”

  Phaedra cracked a smile, and they both laughed.

  In the end, though, her face turned a little sad. “You need to be careful.”

  Tolem touched her lightly under the chin. “Don’t worry about me, darlin’.”

  She pulled back. His hand dropped. “And if your nephew and his friends do come back? Try and queer our deal?”

  “They’re not coming back,” Tolem said. He motioned with his head toward the path back to their carriage. They started walking.

  “You can tell that from looking around the woods here?”

  “You know any smart people, Phaedra?”

  Phaedra laughed dryly. “Not a single one.”

  “Cute. I’m talking about really smart people. Not the kind who spend all their time studying and reading; the kind who don’t need to do all that shit. The kind of people who never have to try, people who never fail at anything they put their minds to. You know what happens when people like that fail at something they put their minds to?”

  Phaedra shrugged.

  “They break. And it takes a long, long time for them to get unbroken. That’s Devan. And by the time the kid gets his shit back together? We’ll be long gone.”

  Devan

  Chin resting on the table, Devan flicked his coin, making it spin on edge. Lynna looked up from the ledger and grinned from ear to ear. Until Nalan’s hand stomped the coin flat.

  “Devan,” he said. “Come on.” The noise had startled Lynna; she looked over to Devan for reassurance. He smiled weakly and nodded.

  Lynna looked back down to the ledger. She put her finger on one of the coded words on the page. “I...I don’t know what that one is,” she said. “But when he wrote it in there, he got really, really happy.”

  “It’s the last entry,” Nalan said to Devan and Zella. Zella was sitting next to Lynna on th
e bench, using her fingers to brush out the tangles in the young girl’s hair. Devan was more interested in making funny faces at Lynna than hearing what Nalan had to say about a water damaged ledger book in Vertus’ crotch-scented hovel.

  “This word here...” Nalan said. “It doesn’t appear anywhere else in the book. And it’s listed as a really big expenditure.”

  Devan watched as Zella found something unpleasant in Lynna’s stringy yellow hair, grimaced at it, and threw it on the fire. “The airship?” Zella asked.

  Nalan squinted at the page. “By process of elimination, you would think so, but…” He tapped a symbol on the same line as the mystery word. “...he ordered two.” Nalan chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, then his eyes went wide.

  “I know where they teleported the gold,” he said.

  Zella

  As Zella called Breigh and Allister back inside, Nalan tore out a sheet from the back of Vertus’ ledger and scribbled a rough sketch of The Palace, as viewed from the starboard side. “Here,” he announced as soon as he was finished. He pointed to the rounded underside of the ship. “The night of the robbery. They teleported the gold here.”

  “Why?” Zella asked, settling back into her seat with Lynna on her lap. “How can you tell?”

  Nalan flipped the ledger open and leafed back to a spot where he had taken notes in the margins. He put his finger down on one line. “‘Order: six hundred pounds of explosives. Client: Tolem of the Field.’“ He moved his finger down the page. “‘Order: one blasting hood. Client: Tolem of Dawn Veigh.’“

  “What’s a blasting hood?” Zella whispered. She swayed gently, rocking Lynna back and forth. Devan watched as the child’s eyelids got heavier and heavier; after two hours of translating for Nalan, Lynna was worn out.

  “It’s…it’s a blasting hood,” Nalan said, as if surprised that he would have to explain what a blasting hood was. “It’s, uh, it’s used in mining. When explosives are used, they dig a hole and put a heavy iron cap over it to protect the workers from debris. That’s a blasting hood.”