Lhind the Thief (37 page)

One of the black-clad newcomers silently drew a blade from
its sheath, and warded Prince Geric’s helpers back. Another also drew steel,
which gleamed cold and pale in the morning light, and brought it down in a
slow, warning movement before the furious prince.

His horse reared and backed. Prince Geric pulled hard on the
reins, but the mount would not go forward.

The other two silent newcomers stepped to either side of me.
I squinted up at a tall, shadowed face, wondering if by some miracle this grim
person was here to rescue me? A friend of Hlanan’s perhaps, or even Faryana’s?

I felt a black-gloved hand close around my arm.

“How dare you interfere!” Geric snarled. “I shall go
straight to the Empress—”

He was interrupted by an almost inhumanly disinterested
voice, and I don’t know if Geric or I was the more shocked at the baldly stated
words:

“Hrethan. You are under arrest for the theft of jewels from
Princess Kressanthe of Meshrec, by order of Aranu Crown of Charas al Kherval.
You will come with us.”

Other than a brief, gloating laugh inside (I was too tired
to utter it) when Lendan backed away in impotent rage, I went entirely numb. To
have come so far, just to be caught by
that?
The irony—the
stupidity
—of it chased
every other thought out of my skull and I stood like a seed husk, empty inside.

“Come.” It was a command.

I could scarcely get my legs to move forward. My mind wasn’t
much better. Plans and counter-plans chased themselves through my brain like
fireflies in a storm, to be abandoned and forgotten.

We walked through the gate and I caught a glimpse of
pleasingly designed canals, curving bridges and white stone buildings amid
flowering trees and shrubs, then my captors took me through an unobtrusive door
in the wall. We marched down stone steps into a narrow underground chamber,
followed along this for some distance, all in silence, that black gloved hand
resting on my shoulder to guide me. We passed long corridors and doorways, to
all appearance undistinguishable from one another.

The guards turned abruptly at one of these corridors. We
climbed up a long stairway, coming out finally in another narrow hallway. This
one looked exactly like the previous ones, but somehow I knew I was above
ground again. The oppressive weight of the surrounding stone had eased
slightly.

More halls, then at last a big, iron-studded door. We
stopped and one of the guards struck the door once with her fist.

The door opened. Passing over the threshold, I felt a faint
but distinct tickle of magic. My hair involuntarily lifted and one of the guards’
eyelids flickered.

Now we were back in civilization: a wide white-marble hall
with a blue-painted ceiling with gold stars overhead, and the floor covered
with a mesmerizing mosaic pattern in various shades of blue and gold.

A tall woman dressed in blue and gold came silently from an
adjacent hallway and beckoned to the guards. We followed her through two richly
decorated anterooms, then she opened a door.

Another woman, stout, with steel-grey strands in her dark
hair, sat at a desk beside a huge window that overlooked the white-bleached
cliffs high above the sea, and the flow of a river into a vast, curving
waterfall. Above it, there must have been a hundred types of birds dancing and
diving above that glistening veil of falling waters.

I wrenched my gaze away, and turned to the woman, who waited
in silence.

She, like the guards, wore severely cut black clothing. Her
face was unremarkable, jowly-square around a short nose, her dark eyes steady
and narrowed in a considering gaze as she studied me from dusty hair to filthy
feet. Something in the shape of her brow, the curve of her wide-set eyes,
seemed familiar, though I had never met her before.

“What is this about Prince Geric Lendan, Princess
Kressanthe, and some diamonds, little Hrethan?” The woman spoke Elras, in a
low, musical voice that again seemed vaguely familiar. Then she made a casual
gesture and the guards silently withdrew.

A thick fog of exhaustion had settled in my skull, obscuring
thought and memory. My gaze was drawn inexorably back to that window, and the
braided swoop of birds . . .

“The diamonds?” she spoke again. “Do you still have them?”

Lhind?
Faryana
said.

“Oh, yes.” The fog retreated a little. I turned to face the
woman in black. “I can’t give them to you, because they need to go to the Magic
Council,” I said. With those words, the sense of urgency returned. “But that’s
not why I’m here.” I remembered I’d been arrested and added hastily, “Ah, why I
came to the imperial city. I need to speak to Aranu Crown as quickly as
possible.”

“Why?”

“Because—well, first, who are you?” I said suspiciously,
remembering what Kuraf had said about enemies all over Court.

The woman laughed, a rich husky laugh that was not unkind.
“You are in a position to bargain, little thief?” A pause to wipe her eyes,
then she said, “I am Aranu.”

Enormous relief swept away any other reaction I might have
had. “You’ve got to hurry,” I said earnestly. “Dhes-Andis put a barrier spell
over Alezand, all to try to catch me, and then he was chasing after this evil
book . . .”

The Empress’ eyes narrowed again. “Please, young Hrethan.
Will you start at the beginning?”

I did. I started with Yellow Smock bullying the Apple Woman
yet again, causing me to retaliate, and I’d reached the pirate attack on the
yacht when she raised her hand, palm out. “Wait.”

The floor seemed to dip under me and I swayed.

“Sit down,” she bade, not unkindly.

I flopped bonelessly onto an embroidered chair.

The Empress got up and moved to what I’d thought was a dark
mirror, framed by old silver scrollwork. She made a brief gesture with her
fingers before it, and a man’s startled face appeared.

“Your Imperial Majesty—” The man said, bowing.

“Have you received any word, or signal, from Alezand?” The
Empress rapped the words out without preamble.

The man looked at something out of the range of the mirror.
When he looked back, he said, “Nothing at all.”

The Empress gestured to me. “Please begin again, young
Hrethan.”

The man in the mirror looked at me silently, and I told my
story again. His expression went from puzzled to grim. He listened without
interruption, even when tiredness caused me to get my words jumbled, and I kept
having to go back to explain things.

But at last it was all done. The Empress said to the mirror,
“I want you and the rest of the Magic Council to go to Alezand, lift this
spell, and investigate. If there is any sign of Dhes-Andis or his minions, you
have my permission to do what is necessary. You will see to it?”

The man’s thin lips stretched into the tiniest, smallest
hint of a shadow of a smile I had ever seen, but somehow I sensed that he very
much looked forward to executing these orders. He bowed, and the mirror
blanked.

The Empress turned to me. “From the various and surprising
reports I’ve received over the last day, your story, amazing as it is, appears
to be corroborated,” she murmured. “In spite of his protestations, it also
explains why Prince Geric Lendan risked my wrath by laying a forbidden identity
tracer right outside my gates. Now, show me this necklace the Meshreci have been
clamoring over.”

I fingered the necklace out of my tunic, and fumbled the
clasp open. The Empress leaned forward and took the necklace from my hands,
then she lifted her voice slightly and said, “Morin.”

The tall woman reappeared.

“Guard this room. Let no one inside. Officially this child
is in the dungeon.” She rose and touched my shoulder. “You will answer further
questions, and have your questions answered, when you have rested. Sleep well,
little thief! You have earned it.”

She passed out of the room. The silent woman indicated a
couch nearby.

I looked at the couch.

I moved toward it.

I dropped down onto it . . .

o0o

. . . And woke up much, much later in a
room that was dark except for a candle burning steadily on a low table nearby.
I lay still for a while, reveling in not having to move at all.

Presently I became aware of the soft sound of running water,
and I got up and crossed the room into the next. There I saw a wide pool with
water pouring down from rocks. Several lamps revealed a thick towel, waiting
soap, and a long swath of silk embroidered over with flowers and leaves.

I hesitated about half a heartbeat, then my clothes flew in
all directions and I dropped gratefully into the water. After a long bath, I
felt truly awake again. When I was dry I turned to figure out the silk, which
seemed to be an item of clothing. I held it up, inspecting it in puzzlement.

“That part you are holding is trousers, and those two
portions hanging down go around your neck and drape in front any way you want,”
a familiar voice spoke from the doorway.

“Thianra?” I exclaimed, whirling around. She entered
smiling, dressed as usual in minstrel blue.

“The Magic Council came and cleared off Dhes-Andis’ spell.
The Gray Wolves had already gone, some with Lendan, and others to the north.
The senior mages brought us here.” She chuckled. “You might as well get used to
Hrethan clothes.”

“Draped,” I repeated. “So that’s why the Blue Lady looked so
different from—” I stopped.

“Here, and here.” She demonstrated as though I hadn’t spoken.

I pulled the slithery silk over my body and around my arms.
A twist, a loop, and I was decently covered, yet my tail and my spine hair were
free. “This is wonderful!”

“Hungry?”

I groaned and she said quickly, “I know. Does a horse have
feathers?”

We both laughed, relief and hunger making me feel curiously
light inside. I followed her into yet another room, where hot food had been set
out on a low table. Pillows circled the table.

I was on the verge of asking her if she knew anything about
Hlanan when I heard his voice. “May I join you?”

I whirled around. Hlanan stood in the doorway, his smile
tentative. He too was clean, his hair ordered, his chin shaven. He was dressed
in his customary scribe clothing.

“You’re safe,” I cried. “What happened?”

Hlanan grinned, looking more like his old self. “The King of
Liacz has Morith, now. The Gray Wolves chased me until they found themselves
surrounded by a regiment from Liacz. The king, it seems, is very fond of his
nephew. The duchess, and those she suborned, are going to have a lot to answer
for,” Hlanan said.

“And that horrible book?”

“The Council has it.”

“I don’t suppose they caught that mage?”

“The Council took my description of the correspondence. It’s
up to them, now.“

“How about Faryana?”

“No one knew she had disappeared,” Thianra said. “Thanks to
you, now the Council Members have her, and they are busy trying to find a way
to free her.”

“Lendan knows how,” I said quickly.

“Yes, but he can use that to bargain. The empress does not
want him in any position of power. There are complications surrounding Geric
Lendan.”

“But everyone is all right? Even Rajanas?”

Thianra nodded. “Busy with Kuraf planning defensive measures
in case Dhes-Andis, or anyone else, tries any more forays.”

The two exchanged a brief glance, then Thianra said, “I
think I will go see what has happened to that breakfast.”

The door snicked shut behind her.

Hlanan took a step toward me, then turned around
purposelessly. “There’s something . . .” He swallowed. “There is
one. Other. Secret. But it has to wait,” he said to the waterfall beyond the
broad window. And then to me, after a short breath. “I was asked to explain
some of the basics of magic to you. To help you for whatever you eventually
decide to do.”

“All right,” I said, aware of the emptiness inside my arms.
On my long run I had imagined our reunion in various ways, but never like this,
calm and yet distant. “All right,” I repeated, as if saying the words would
make it true.

“Magic.” He cleared his throat. “There’s magic in and around
the world, just like life. Your illusions don’t take much magic, but changing
things does. Not many magicians ever master enough to make changes, but
apparently you’ve inherited a gift for just that kind of magic, the greater
magics. You can do good or harm, just as you will, once you’ve learned to
control your gift, but there’s an effect. Not just on you but on the world
around you. We call it a price. Dhes-Andis and his adherents think of it as a
necessary part of magic. And that is why he must continually conquer new land.”

“Is there something wrong with Sveran Djur?”

“Much of it is blasted and warped, nearly lifeless. Scarcely
anything grows there, and the people, those who are left, are miserable. Long
centuries of unchecked use of magic for military purpose has drained the area
of life.”

I winced. “He told me his city is beautiful.”

“It is. Or was. I do not know, having not been there,”
Hlanan admitted. “But it used to be one of the most beautiful cities in the
world. If it still is, Dhes-Andis probably expends a tremendous amount of magic
to keep it that way—again at the cost of the land around. So by his reasoning
he must conquer new lands, just to gain the magical strength he needs to
sustain what he and his father before him have done. Back to you. Those wild
storms in Fara Bay and over the ocean after the pirate attack were the result
of your ripping magic into fire-shape and sending it through the air.”

Appalled, I said, “So I’ve done terrible damage? With two
spells?”

“Not direct damage,” Hlanan said. “It’s more like you
stirred up a pond violently, but it’s slowly settling back to normal, minus a
little of the water that got splashed out. You could do damage if you kept at
it, or if you learn and use more powerful spells.”