The Magic Thief (2 page)

O
n my first apprentice morning, the wizard Nevery woke me up.

He stood all-tall, wearing his gray wizard's robe, and nudged meagain with his foot.

“Get up, boy.” He pointed with his cane at a basin of water on the table. “Wash yourself and join
me in the chophouse for breakfast.”

Breakfast!

As he left the room, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and rolled myself out of the blanket.

Wash up, the wizard had said. I went to the table, to the basin of water. Stuck my finger in. Brrr. Cold as cobbles.

I went downstairs for breakfast and found the wizard at the same table we'd shared the night before. Nevery sat with his knob-headed cane propped against the wall beside his chair, drinking tea. His cloak, I noticed, had a patch on the sleeve with a picture of an hourglass with wings on it, stitched in dark blue thread.

“Did you wash?” Nevery asked.

I shrugged, looking past him at the table. There were hot biscuits and bacon and porridge and tea. I started for my seat but stopped when he grabbed me.

“You washed?”

Well, no. Not yet. I shook my head.

He pointed toward the stairs. “You wash. And then you may eat.”

And if I didn't make it quick, he'd eat all the bacon, no doubt. I ran up the stairs to the room. I stripped off my shirt and splashed up some water and scrubbed my hands and face. Shivering, I went down again.

Nevery nodded.

I sat down and reached for the biscuits.

The wizard stared at me while I ate. He was looking at me, but he was thinking about something else.

All right with me. I had porridge with butter to deal with. The chophouse keeper brought more things to eat. At last I finished the last crumb of pie left over from the night before.

“Had enough?” Nevery asked.

I nodded.

“I should think so,” he muttered, getting to his feet and taking up his cane. “Come along, boy.”

He headed for the door, jamming his flat-topped, wide-brimmed hat onto his head and pausing to settle up with the chophouse keeper, then striding out onto the street.

Not one to stand about talking, was he?

“Where we going?” I asked, catching up.

He gave me one of his keen-gleam glances and strode on. I kept up, having to run a few steps now and then to stay with him.

Nevery turned onto Strangle Street, then down Fleetside, glancing at the falling-down houses and dark shops as he passed, looking for something. At last he stopped before a tavern, the kind of smokehole you have to take two steps down to get inside, the kind of place people go to make dark deals.

“Wait here, boy,” Nevery said, and swept-stepped down into the tavern.

I leaned against the brick wall outside. The wind blew down the street, stirring up the trash in the gutters, poking cold fingers down the back of
my shirt. The cobblestones were like ice under my feet. Out around me, the city felt shivery and empty. I hugged myself to keep warm.

After a while, Nevery came up out of the tavern, followed by a thick-necked, tall man with spiky hair and a face like a bare-knuckles brawl. Muscle, minion, man of the hench. He wore a plain brown suit with a knitted red waistcoat under it and a wide, brass-buckled belt and, from the looks of it, kept a knife and an almost-empty purse string in his coat pocket. He'd be working for Nevery, I guessed, so I wouldn't try to steal them.

He hulked up the steps, folded his huge arms, and glared down at me. “This him, sir?” His voice was deep and growling.

Yes, the wizard's apprentice, I opened my mouth to say, but Nevery beat me to it.

“It is,” Nevery said. He paused to thread a few copper lock coins onto his purse string.

“I'm Conn,” I added.

The new muscle leaned down and spoke in a low voice, so Nevery couldn't hear him. “Stay out of my way, you.” He showed me his fist.

All right, I got the message. I edged away from him.

“Come along,” Nevery said. He went off down the street, swinging his cane, and the hired muscle went with him.

I followed, trying to listen in on their discussion, but they kept their voices low.

We ended up at Dusk House, where one of Wellmet's worst lived. Crowe. Underlord. Are you
sure
you want to go here, Nevery? I wanted to ask. But I kept quiet.

From the outside, Crowe's place wasn't too bad. Big iron gates out the front, high wall with spikes on top. Inside, a tall stone mansion house. Hard place to get into, hard place to get out of. Not someplace I wanted to go back to. But I reckoned being with Nevery would be protection enough.

Nevery had a word with the two minions at the gate, who let us in. Then he had a word with the four minions at the front door, who let us in.

“We'll take you to Underlord Crowe,” one of the minions said. “But the muscle stays here.”

“Very well.” Nevery sounded calm. But I saw how hard he was gripping his cane. “Benet, wait here.” He turned to go with the minion, and I started after him. He paused, looked down at me. “You stay too, boy.”

I watched him go off down the hallway, the cane going
tap tap
on the shiny black floor. At the other end of the hall, he and the minion went through a tall, black door, which slammed behind them.

I looked around. One of the minions had gone with Nevery. Two had gone back to their guard-room by the front door. That left one watching me and Nevery's new muscle man. Benet stood with his feet braced, arms folded, glaring at the minion, who stared back at him.

Keeping my head down, I sat on the cold floor
with my back against the wall.

At that, the minion shifted his glare to me. His eyes narrowed. “Here now. I know you, don't I?”

I sat very still.

The minion nodded. “You're that lockpick. Crowe has a word out on you.”

Drats.

The minion came over and, with hard hands, gripped me by the shoulders and yanked me to my feet. I shot Benet a glance, but he stood with his arms folded. No help.

“My master will want a word with you,” the minion growled.

A
word
was not what the Underlord wanted from me.

All at the same moment, I kicked out at the minion's shin and twisted my shoulders and I was free. Ducking under his reaching arms, I raced down the shiny stone hallway toward the door Nevery had gone through.

“Here, you!” the minion shouted. Then he
called for the other minions and lumbered after me.

I went through the door into an empty hallway. The second door I came to was unlocked, so I darted through and slammed it closed. I was in another hallway.

I needed to find Nevery. My bare feet made no noise as I ran down the hallway, pausing to try each door. Locked, locked, locked. The hallway turned; I crouched down to peer around the corner. If a guard is looking out for intruders, he looks at his eye level, not down near the floor.

In one direction, nothing but empty hallway. Down the other, two minions outside a door. Crowe still used it as his office, I guessed. Nevery was in there. I backed away from the turning and tried the nearest doorknob, a bumpy brass thing with a big keyhole. Locked. I peeked through the keyhole, checking for light: none. Put my ear against the door: silence.

I fished my lockpick wires out of my pocket and picked the lock, clean. Easing open the door,
I slid inside and pushed it shut again. The room was dark, but I could make out another door in the shadows at the other end.

I crossed the room, quick-quiet to the other door, and did the thing with the lockpicks again. Still clear. Went through the next room, to the next door.

Along the bottom of this door was a line of light. I crouched down and peered through the keyhole. Couldn't see much. Flickering werelight, maybe a shelf of books, the corner of a gold-gilt picture frame.

Then a sound.
Click-tick
,
click-tick
,
click-tick-tick-tick
. I knew what made that sound. The Underlord. A long time ago I'd done something stupid—picked Crowe's pocket to see what he carried around with him. And what had I got for my trouble? The click-ticker. It was a little hand-sized metal device holding four bone discs with notches on them. Crowe used it for counting, for calculating, and each time a number came up, the
device went
click-tick
.

From inside the room, Nevery said something in a deep growl. He sounded angry.

As I turned away from the keyhole, I realized that the room had a third door.

I went over and crouched down to peer through the ornate keyhole. A man was standing directly opposite the door, shouting at someone else. The man was a white-haired wizard, but not Nevery; he wore a black robe with gold trim and had a locus magicalicus hanging from a gold chain around his neck.

“—without the slowsilver!” he shouted. “I must have another measure of it at least, or—” He lowered his voice and I couldn't hear exactly what he said, but it sounded deadly, like sharp knives in a dark alley. Scowling, he pointed toward the corner of the room and I heard another door open and slam shut. Then the wizard turned his back and went to a bookcase. He looked around, and then pressed a panel beside the top shelf. The
bookcase swung open to reveal a dark doorway. The top of a stairway, I realized. The wizard went down. The bookcase-door stayed open.

What was he up to? Wizardly things, maybe, and as a wizard's apprentice, I should follow him and find out. Quickly I pulled out my wires and got to work on the lock. It was fancy, but it was a good one, with flanges, studs,
and
crenellations. Finally—
calm breath, quick fingers
—I got the wires to click into place and the lock turned over. I eased the door open and peered into the room. Empty.

I crossed the room to the stairway; it gaped like a pit, dark. I went down a few steps and listened, then went farther, down and down, deeper into the darkness. The stairs were narrow and steep, and I kept my hand on the wall to steady myself. At last, I came to a turning. I peered around. Nothing, just the dim outline of another turning ahead, with lights beyond it. I crept down.

When I reached the next turning, I crouched in
the darkness on the step and peered around the corner. Quickly, I pulled back. Bright lights, movement, a big space. Too many people down there to go any farther. I heard clanking, the sound of metal hammering on metal, a grinding of gears, a man's voice, cursing. An acrid smell, like burnt metal, hung in the stairway and prickled in my throat.

I listened for a few more moments, then heard steps coming up from below. Holding my breath, I skiffed up the stairs and out the bookcase-door, then across the room and into the dark room beyond. I swung the door closed and used my lockpick wires to lock it again.

Something was going on. Crowe had a workshop or something down there, and who knew what else. He and this white-haired wizard were up to something, clear as clear. I'd have to figure it out.

But now it was time to get back to the front door.

Quietly, checking the doors as I went, I skiffed back to the hallway, then back to the entryway.

I slithered through the door. Just Benet-the-Muscle at the other end, no sign of Underlord minions. I cat-footed it back down the black shiny stone hallway.

As I coasted up, Benet reached out with one long arm and grabbed me, then gave me a swat across the face. I'd gotten worse, but I wasn't expecting it, so I went crashing off into the wall, banged the back of my head, and bit my lip.

Benet didn't say anything, just folded his arms again and stared down at me.

My ears were ringing from the blow as Nevery and the minion came through the door at the end of the hallway.
Tap tap tap
went Nevery's cane on the polished stone floor. I was glad to see him. Not everybody walks out of a meeting with the Underlord. Nevery gave me one of his keen-gleam glances as he came up but didn't say anything. The minions with him glared at me, but
they didn't say anything, either.

Staying as far from Benet as I could, I followed Nevery as we left Dusk House. From the sound of the wizard's words with Benet, the meeting had not gone well.

I hoped Nevery knew better than to deal with Crowe. Only one thing ever happened to anybody who crossed the Underlord. And it involved weights and chains and the river on a dark night. Made me shiver just thinking about it.