Lhind the Thief

Lhind the Thief

Sherwood Smith

www.bookviewcafe.com

Book View Café Edition
August 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61138-292-1
Copyright © 2013 Sherwood Smith

“Stop the thief! Robber!”

A couple of stones thumped me in the back.

I enjoyed the angry bellows until my pursuers got close
enough to hit me. The stones made me tuck my head down and run faster.

The street narrowed ahead. I scrambled around the corner of
a dingy, crack-walled house, scattering poultry in a cackling wake, and found
myself in a closed courtyard, high fences joining the three cottages that
opened onto the court.

The closest fence stood about twelve finger-spreads high,
made of thin, weather-beaten slats nailed together with warped rails. I risked
a leap to the top, balancing on my toes, and from there another leap to the
tiled roof of a cottage, crouching down as the first of the chasers bounded
into the courtyard.

They stopped, confused to find the court empty, until those
following behind ran smash into them. The hunt became a pushing, shoving crowd,
everyone bellowing and nobody listening. I had to bury my mouth in the crook of
my arm to smother my laughter. Then I raised my other palm and shimmered an
image of myself disappearing over the fence on the opposite side of the
courtyard.

“There,” the blustering bully in the lemon-yellow smock
howled, pointing in the direction of my shimmer. “He’s crawled up the curst
fence like a curst fly!”

“Around, you slow-footed slugs,” someone in back yelled as
Yellow Smock scowled up at the fence. Would he actually climb? I hoped he’d
try, and bring the entire dilapidated rampart down.

One of the warped, iron-reinforced doors opened and a brawny
woman appeared, a carving knife gripped in one of her mighty fists. “You’re
trespassing,” she snarled. “Git!”

As quickly as they had gathered the mob scattered again.

The shouts faded away. The woman cast one last squint-eyed
glare around the empty courtyard, then retreated inside and slammed the door.
Whump! went the inside bolt.

I patted my stomach, where I’d stuck Yellow Smock’s
moneybag, the week’s take from his so-called ‘protection’ service. That might
buy me a corner to sleep in, even if it turned out the local Thieves Guild
(which, I’d been warned by some young orphans who lived at the docks, was run
by the harbormaster) wouldn’t let me join.

Or maybe I ought to get something to eat first. I began the
climb down, wobbling because my head felt light, as if it was about to roll off
my shoulders and float away. Nothing but stale rain water, stolen from people’s
barrels, had passed my lips in nearly two days. No wonder Yellow Smock and his
gaggle had almost caught me.

Breathing deeply until I felt steady again, I reached the
filthy ground. And then, contemplating hot cakes with butter, I eased out into
the street.

I stepped wide to avoid a foul mess in the street, then
heard a scrape behind me, like boots against stone. A dark, heavy cloth flapped
down over my head.

I fought as hard as I could, but I had two unseen foes, and
both were stronger. I was thrown firmly to the ground. A knee thumped across my
back and both my wrists were dragged behind me, and tied. Then someone picked
me up, leaving the cloth still swathed around me, and I began to kick.

“Murder, he’s a scrapper.” The words were in a tongue I’d
never heard before, but as always I got the sense of it right away. The
speaker’s voice was that of a young man, caustic and unfamiliar. “Aren’t we in
enough trouble? Are you certain we have to do this?”

He was answered by a younger male voice—also completely
unfamiliar—in that same language: “I am bound by council rules.”

The caustic one muttered (with difficulty, as I was
struggling desperately), “You might allow another mage this pleasure.”

“A servant of Dhes-Andis perhaps?”

Just then I got a foot free, and kicked hard at empty air.
Mages?
I thought, distracted. These two
were definitely not Yellow Smock’s blood-lusting friends.

The younger voice now addressed me, this time in Chelan:
“Look you, boy. We have no quarrel with you. Stop fighting. We won’t hurt you.”

Naturally I fought harder. My toes walloped something soft.

“Oof!” someone snorted, and down I thumped onto the ground
again. This time two heavy knees held me flat, and someone wound more cord
around my feet and then around me and the sack, turning me into a kind of worm.
It was getting chokingly hard to breathe, which forced me to give up. For the
moment.

They held no further conversation for a seemly stretch. When
they stopped I was unloaded onto wood, judging from the muffled thunk. The
floor jounced as more thuds and knocks told me somebody else was climbing
aboard, then the conveyance gave a jerk. I heard the clopping of horse hooves.
I was in a cart, then.

The enemy started talking in low voices. Wrapped as I was in
that dratted sack, it was difficult to hear them.

Caustic-Voice said, “We really don’t need any extra
trouble.”

Light-Voice chuckled. “I have a plan . . .” And
his voice dropped too low to make out individual words.

Alarmed—and puzzled—I lay quietly, to wait, plan, and gather
my strength for the getaway.

A long time passed before the cart stopped. I heard a lot of
shouting, and other noise that I was unable to recognize, but I was left alone.
After another wait someone lifted me, and as I started to resist a voice said
close to my head, “I’d advise you not to move, lad, or we might drop you and
you’d drown.”

Drown? Was I at Stormborn Harbor? The thought of all that
water—and myself helpless in it—made me stiffen up, my heart thumping against
my ribs, until I was dumped once more on a wooden floor.

The next wait seemed to stretch for three forevers, and I
fell asleep. I woke up when someone began unwrapping the cord that bound the
sack around my body. The cords binding my wrists and ankles were left alone,
but at least that sack loosened, and someone pulled me up to a sitting position
and propped me against a wall. Then the sack was, at last, pulled from over my head.
Cool, tangy air ruffled across my hot face and I sucked it in gratefully,
blinking against tears caused by the brightness of the light coming through a
tiny, round window.

I shook my head, trying to clear my vision. Then I faced the
enemy, scowling from habit.

Two of them sat side by side, both on low chairs. They were
giving me as curious a scrutiny as I gave them, and for a moment no one spoke.
One was a tall, brown-faced young man with long, braided black hair and the
thin mustache of the warrior-lords west of the empire of Charas al Kherval. He
was definitely a noble, complete with device stitched on the breast of his dark
blue tunic, and both sword and knife at his belt. His long fingers sported
several rings which I priced mentally, and decided to pinch before I made my
escape. Fair exchange for being tied up and thrown in a sack when I hadn’t done
anything to them.

Because I hadn’t—I’d never seen them before.

The other was shorter and slighter than the warrior-lord,
fine brown hair just a shade or two darker than his flesh. It was tied back
with the plain black band used by servants or clerks. He wore a simple,
undecorated gray tunic, and no weapons. His only ornament was a ring of pitted,
rough silver worn on the little finger of his right hand; the bumps on the face
might have been age-worn, but the whole reminded me of something a bad prentice
might have made. It wouldn’t bring the price of two meals if I stole it.

This fellow had just begun to speak when the floor gave a
pitch. Since my wrists were still bound, I nearly lost my balance, catching
myself painfully on my elbow. The black-haired one grinned.

Then I realized why the floor had pitched: I was on board a
ship. A ship? I changed my scowl to a slit-eyed glare, and the black-haired
lord laughed. “Caught fairly, you are, young thief,” he said in Chelan.

I scowled so hard my brow began to hurt outside as well as
in.

He only laughed louder. “What a sight! And—are you sure you
want to do this, Hlanan?—what a smell.” He still spoke in Chelan, which meant
he wanted me to hear and understand.

The one in gray frowned as he looked up at the black-haired
Toad-brained Tick-Picker, then back at me. “Boy,” he said slowly and carefully,
“please believe we are not friends of that cross-looking man back in Tu Jhan.
But we saw an illusion cast, while you were hiding behind that house. You did
it, didn’t you?”

I was sorry that my scowl was already at its most terrible.

“Answer him,” the black-haired Son of a Scum-licker drawled.

“You got ale on the brain. Everyone knows no spell-casting’s
allowed in this land,” I sneered. “And if you were thinking of trying same,
they burn you for it in Thesreve.” Then, so they would not think I was afraid
of the threats of any Noble Pig-Wallowers, I spat on the floor in front of
them.

Well, tried. I was too thirsty to work up any spit, but I
gave it all my effort, knowing full well how rude a gesture it was.

The black-haired Night-Crawler reached down and gave me a
cuff on the side of the head. It wasn’t hard, but because I was sitting on a
ship with my hands tied, I lost my balance and thumped my head against the wall
with a hollow thok! that made him look surprised.

The other said “Rajanas,” in reproach.

The black-haired Molester of Slime-eaters Rajanas (I
memorized his name for adding to future curses) said, “I only meant to get his
attention. And to discourage fouling the deck.”

Hlanan said, “There’s no need. He’s obviously used to that
sort of treatment, and he’ll only mistrust us the longer.”

Rajanas the Stink in Man Form shrugged. “He’s a thief. Being
tough with a thief is the only way you’ll get any truth, instead of a lot more
insolence. But very well. As I said at the outset, this is your mistake. Permit
me to withdraw.” He still spoke in Chelan, and he addressed the other as an
equal, not as lord to servant.

He left, but not before I spat again, this time in his
direction. His laugh floated back as he shut the door.

Hlanan left his chair and came forward, sitting cross-legged
directly before me. He had wide-spaced brown eyes, and a thoughtful cast to his
expression.

“Boy, I give you my name. It is Hlanan Vosaga.” He said it
such a way that I suspected there was a part missing. Though I was not certain,
because I did not yet know his rhythms of speech, and also, naming can differ
from place to place. But his tone? That I knew. He wanted me to trust him. Hah!
“I want you to realize I mean you no harm. There are others who do. Who, if
they find someone like you who can cast illusions, enslave them to cast evil
illusions at their masters’ will.”

He waited expectantly. He’d been pleasant enough—for a
captor—so I decided to answer him. But not give him what he asked. “I’ve
managed to avoid the slavers for many years. And there are ways and ways of
cheating a person.”

“I trusted you with my name.”

“Then you are a fool.”

He surprised me a second time by sitting back and blinking
at me, with no trace of anger in his face. I watched carefully, with no
expression—except the scowl—on mine.

“What do they call you?” he asked finally, in a more
cautious tone.

“My name is Lhind,” I sneered. “And don’t see any trust in
the telling. Enchantments on names don’t work unless . . .”

“. . . unless you’ve the cooperation of the
victim, however unwitting.”

As soon as those words were out I saw the real trap. I
jammed my teeth down on my lip in disgust. This is what I deserve for blabbing!
I, who had spent my life guarding my secrets, had blundered like any village
yokel first time in the city.

“Or, put another way,” he said with an interested air, “if
you expect to be enchanted, then you permit it. But there are not many who know
that. Who is your tutor?” His steady gaze searched my face as he waited. I just
glared back, unblinking.