The Magic Thief (5 page)

T
he next morning, I mixed some biscuits the way Nevery had told me the night before. Flour, water, riser, a little butter, and salt, all beaten up really well with a wooden spoon and plopped into a pan, which I put down into the
fire's coals. Then I got out the other pan and the bacon and got that started, and checked the kettle for water and swung it on its hook over the fire.

After a while, the biscuits turned browny black, so I took them off the fire. I tried one. It was like an egg. Hard and crusty on the outside, soft and runny on the inside. Not bad! I ate another one, with honey, and then had some bacon and some tea.

Benet came grumbling up the stairs. His hair was sticking up all over his head and he looked ferocious, like a bear. I stayed out of his way while he made himself tea. He put together a tray and took it up to Nevery in the study on the third floor.

When I'd finished my tea and gotten warm enough by the fire, I went up, too, and peeked in the doorway.

Nevery, looking fierce and red-nosed from his cold, was pacing before the hearth. He and Benet had been talking, clear as clear, and Benet,
standing by the window, didn't look happy.

“Come in, boy,” Nevery said.

I went in. He hadn't eaten the biscuits, I noticed.

“The magisters meet this morning,” he said.

Right. I nodded.

“Are you willing to be my spy at the meeting? It will require risking the embero spell.”

I nodded again. It was time for me to start doing wizardly things.

“I cannot predict what you'll become, boy,” Nevery said. “The embero will change you into a creature characteristic to your nature.” He looked me up and down. He was, I could tell, trying to imagine what kind of animal I'd be.

“I'm not afraid, Nevery,” I said.

Benet, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, made a growling sound.

I wondered if the change spell had been tried on him, and if it had, what kind of creature he'd become.

“Hmph,” Nevery grunted. “We'll try it, then. You may go, Benet.” The muscle left the room, giving me an extra serving of glare before he went.

Nevery went to the table, where he studied a page in his grimoire for a few moments, muttering something under his breath, then slammed the book closed. After wiping his nose with his handkerchief, he reached into his pocket for his locus stone. “Come here, boy,” he said. I went to stand before him. “Do not resist the spell as it effects. It will hurt a little.”

A lot, he meant. But I wasn't worried.

“Now, keep still.” Nevery took a deep breath. Carefully, he laid the night-black locus magicalicus against my forehead. It felt soft and warm. Everything else in the room fell absolutely silent. Pressure built; my eardrums felt as if they were going to crack.

Then Nevery's voice rang out, spiraling through my ears and bouncing around in my
skull. As he intoned the spell, the locus stone began to glow; he raised it over my head and sparks scattered, dash-flashing, surrounding us with a curtain of glittering light.

His voice grew louder, the words tumbling faster and faster from his mouth. My skin felt like paper lit on fire and my knees grew weak. I fell onto the floor. I saw a flash and heard a brief clap of thunder, and suddenly felt nothing at all.

 

After a while, I opened my eyes. Then closed them again. The room had gotten very tall; the chairs loomed overhead. Magic, sure as sure. Footsteps approached. Nevery's. I cracked my eyes open again. The wizard was bending over me, huge, reaching an enormous hand toward my head.

I yowled and leaped away; he, startled, fell backward onto the carpeted floor. I almost laughed, he looked so funny knocked back like that. But why was he so
big
?

He got to his feet. “Boy,” he said. “Come here and look at this.” He turned and brought a large flat square from the high table and set it on the floor.

I padded over to have a look.

Well. And I'd been afraid that my characteristic creature would be a cockroach or a mangy pip-mouse. Clear as clear, Nevery had thought so, too.

But in the mirror I saw a midnight-black, skinny young cat with sparkling blue eyes and a quirked tail. It looked just like me. But furrier.

“It is you,” Nevery said, lifting the mirror away. He sat in his chair and looked down at me. “The embero spell effected remarkably easily, boy.”

Only half listening, I raised a paw and flexed, and sharp claws sprang out.

“The magisters' meeting is in an hour,” Nevery said.

I turned my head to examine the tail curving over my back. Amazing.

“Use that time to get acquainted with your new form. I have work to do.” He turned away and busied himself with papers at the table.

I remained still for a few moments. I practiced twitching my tail and swiveling my ears at every ristle-rustle of a turning page. A few dust motes sifted down from overhead and I felt a fierce urge to capture them and bear them squeaking and squirming to my den. I pounced, four-footed. My balance felt so sure; I couldn't fall if I tried. I leaped around the room, testing. It was the tail! It kept me perfectly balanced at all times. What fun! I practiced prowling, making no sound. My black fur blended easily into the shadows at the edges of the room.

Oh, what a wonderful thief a cat would make!

I made another whirlwind tour of the room.

At the table, Nevery slammed down the book he had been reading. “Perish it, boy, can't you keep still?”

I crouched down on my haunches and stalked his foot. Pounce!

He pulled away, frowning. “Stop messing about. It's almost time for the meeting.”

He found his cane, put on his gray robe, and picked me up. As we walked through the dark, damp tunnels, he whispered instructions on what to look for and listen for. When we got to the Magisters Hall island, he opened the gate and set me down, nudging me with his foot to start me on my way. I twitched my tail and scampered off to steal some information.

Keeping to the shadows along the edge of the passages, the stone floor cold against my pawpads, I slunk into Magisters Hall. The meeting room was at the end of a long hallway, just as Nevery had said. But the door was closed. I padded up to it and crouched, listening. Voices, but no words. Drats.

I couldn't get in.

 

I slunk away and four-footed it back to the tunnel gate, and waited for Nevery. Soon he was there, wearing his gray robe and pacing. He scooped me
up and swept-stepped back to Heartsease and up to his study.

As soon as the door closed behind him, he threw off his robe and wide-brimmed hat, pulled out his locus stone, and clapped his hands. Sparks flew. He grabbed up two handfuls of sparks and dumped them over my head. I felt the tingle, saw the flash of light, and heard the thunder.

Sometime later, when I opened my eyes, Nevery was standing over me. I sat up. I raised my hand. No more fur, no claws; I looked over my shoulder. No lovely quirked tail. I stretched and stood up, almost falling over. I missed the tail already.

“Now, boy, tell me about the meeting.” He sat down at the table and picked up his pen, ready to take notes.

Oh, he was not going to like this. “Well, Nevery,” I began.

“Well, boy?”

I took a deep breath. “I couldn't get in.”

He threw his pen onto the table; ink spattered. “Curse it, boy. You'll have to go again after lunch.”

I nodded.

“And I expect you to get in, one way or another.” He pointed toward the door, scowling. “Go tell Benet to give you something to do 'til then.”

As I went out, I heard him mutter, “Useless.”

Hearing him say that gave me a hollow, empty feeling in my stomach.

W
hen we finished lunch, I lugged up some water for washing and joined Benet in the kitchen. He'd made tea and a basket of muffins for afters. I sniffed at the basket. “Smells good,” I said.

Benet sat with his chair tipped back against the wall. He
held knitting needles and had a pile of black wool next to his chair; the needles went
tick-click-tick
. He didn't answer.

Oh, well. “D'you want another?” I took one of the muffins and held the basket out to Benet. He ignored it.

Putting the basket down, I bit into my muffin and washed it down with a gulp of tea.

Benet watched me but didn't speak. His knitting needles flashed, quick and silver in the black wool.

I ate the last muffin and drank more tea. Then I picked up the crumbs from the bottom of the empty muffin basket and ate those.

“What's it like, then, you,” Benet said, “being a cat?”

I froze. Benet had spoken to me. I looked at him, but he didn't seem angry: not a glare to be seen. “Well,” I said slowly, “it's…hard to explain.” I wasn't sure I could even explain it to myself. “The tail is amazing.”

“Didn't hurt?” Benet asked. “The spell?”

No more than changing clothes hurt. “No.”

He gave me a glare, just a little one. “Reckon you're lying.”

I looked at him. So he'd been hurt when Nevery'd tried the spell on him.

“Could use a cat around here,” Benet said. “Storeroom's full of mice.” He put the snarl of black wool and his knitting needles on the floor and got to his feet. “Master Nevery wants you.”

I jumped up. “I'm ready.” I followed Benet upstairs to the study. The remains of Nevery's muffins and tea lay on the table and a merry fire burned in the hearth.

Nevery himself sat at the table, his grimoire open before him. When I came in, he narrowed his eyes and frowned. Yes, I knew I had to get the information he needed or I'd be in big trouble.

Nevery got to his feet. “All right, boy,” he said, and held up his locus magicalicus. I stepped forward. He checked the grimoire one last time,
placed the stone against my forehead, and did the thing with the sparks and the ringing incantation.

This time I listened more carefully so I could remember the words of the spell. That's what a wizard's apprentice is supposed to do: learn spells. But I didn't get all of it before everything went black and silent.

When I woke up, Nevery was seated at the table, working. I stretched. Then I took a padding tour of the room. When I got around to Nevery, I sat in front of him, curling my tail over my paws. He ignored me.

I sighed and lay down to wait.

Finally, Nevery stood up. “The magisters should be done with their lunch by now.” He picked up his cane and put on his wide-brimmed hat. “And this time, boy, you'd better come away with more than a closed door.”

Yes, all right. He put on his robe, I leaped up into his arms, and we left.

 

As I had that morning, I padded down the stone passageways to the meeting room. This time the door was opened, and I went in.

In the dim room, the magisters sat around a long table, a fat wizard at its head. None of them noticed me sneak in. I crouched at the base of the fat wizard's chair, in shadows, and pricked up my ears. They were talking about the weakening flow of magic to the system of werelights that lit the eastern part of the city, the Sunrise.

The fat magister's name was Brumbee. He had a round, rosy face and was dressed in bright yellow wormsilk and velvet robes over a plain black suit and waistcoat. The sleeve of his robe had a patch with a fat black-and-yellow-striped bee embroidered on it. With my paw I patted his pocket. He kept a locus stone in there, and a ring of keys. I couldn't get them out to look at them because cats might be good prowlers, but they're not very good at picking pockets.

I was just settling into the shadows beside his
chair for a good listen when Brumbee's big, gentle hands reached down, picked me up by the middle, and set me on his lap. I struggled, but he held me tightly by the scruff, then gave me a scritch behind the ears. “Nice kitty,” he murmured in a soft voice.

He was all right, then. I sat down, tail-over-paws, ready to pick up some information to bring back to Nevery.

At last the magisters finished their discussion of the werelights.

“Very well then,” Brumbee said. He reached into his other pocket and pulled out a delicious-smelling napkin. Then he unwrapped it—a sandwich left over from his lunch!—and fed me a sliver of chicken. I ate it and licked my whiskers. “I am afraid that I must again bring up the problem of the decay of magic in Wellmet.” Brumbee looked down the table at the other wizards. “The duchess expects us to act to deal with this situation. And we don't want things to spin out of our control.”

“I agree that the situation is becoming alarming,” said a lady wizard with gray hair piled in a messy bun atop her head. “And that we need someone to focus his or her attention on dealing with this crisis. What about you, Brumbee? Would you do it?”

The fat wizard shook his head. “No, no, Periwinkle.
I
don't want to do it. What about you, Sandera?”

A keen-looking, youngish woman at the other end of the table shook her head. “Oh, indeed no, Brumbee. Not I. But we do, as you know, have another choice.” She looked around the table.

“Not Pettivox,” the gray-haired Periwinkle said.

Brumbee shook his head. “Certainly not. I purposely did not invite him today so we could consider the matter without him. Pettivox would not be suitable.”

“Power hungry,” Sandera agreed. “Therefore he is a danger, don't you know. And he spends too
much of his time traveling to the desert city. But there is still one more to consider.”

A tall, sharp wizard banged his bony fist and glared down the table at Brumbee. “We cannot name Nevery!”

Brumbee raised his eyebrows. “
I
didn't mention Nevery.”

“Well, you were thinking of him,” the sharp wizard said. “I could tell. Now, we all know he's managed to get the order of exile repealed and has returned to Wellmet. And we all know why.”

The gray-haired wizard nodded her head. “True enough. Nevery has returned. But I don't see that asking him to lead us magisters through this crisis would be such a bad thing. Better than Pettivox, certainly.”

The sharp wizard groaned. “Nevery is dangerous. He pays absolutely no attention to the laws governing the use of magic in the city. He will lead us into trouble. He's already dealing with the Underlord, I hear.”

The fat wizard gave me a reassuring stroke. “Not to worry. I think everyone realizes that in such times as these, we need a wizard like Nevery. He is the only one who can balance the Underlord and the duchess. And despite his hastiness, he's the finest wizard this city has ever seen.”

“I agree, Nevery would be best,” said Periwinkle.

“I concur,” added the keen lady, Sandera.

“Well, Trammel?” Brumbee asked.

“Oh, all right,” the sharp wizard answered. “But don't think I'm going on my knees to Nevery's ghastly old mansion to beg him to lead us.”

“That's all right, Trammel,” Brumbee said. His fingers tapped me twice on the head.
Pay attention
, he seemed to be saying. I sat up. “I have a feeling that Nevery will come to us.” He nodded. “He will meet with us soon. And, I think, that concludes the meeting.” The other wizards began to rise, talking, shuffling papers.

Right. I had what I needed. I got ready to spring from Brumbee's lap, to race to tell Nevery the news. The wizard's big hand stopped me. “Off you go now, kitty.” The man smiled and gave me another rub under the chin. In spite of myself, I purred. “Run back to your master, as fast as you can.”

I leaped from the wizard's lap and tore out of the magisters' meeting chamber.