Thief’s Magic (34 page)

Tyen shook his head, both at the treatment of her people – though after seeing Mailand he wasn’t surprised to learn of another land unhappy at the Empire’s methods of control – and at the realisation that Veroo was, by her people’s reckoning,
royalty
. And Sezee, as her niece, was too. He understood now where she had acquired her boldness and confidence. Though she would never have the authority her ancestors possessed, her family was still a powerful one.

Suddenly Leratian society, which didn’t allow women to own anything but their clothing and jewellery, seemed far more primitive and uncivilized.
Perhaps this is why Leratian women surround themselves with such elaborate rules of manner and protocol. It gives them a sense of control and respect. Interesting, then, that I find Leratian women confounding but am at ease with Sezee.

Were all women of her country like her? Maybe it was simply that Sezee was a confident and outspoken woman. Much like Vella, he realised. Which was an interesting thought …

“So if you are royalty, how is it that you were allowed to leave and travel on your own?”

Sezee didn’t answer. She was looking at something behind him, frowning. “That one’s flying low.”

He glanced over his shoulder to see an aircart buzzing past, close enough that he could see that the driver’s face was turned towards them. Aircarts and aircarriages had been a common sight since they’d left Leratia, but this one was flying unusually close. Fear pulsed through him and he turned his back.

The ship had been following the northern coast of Wendland since he’d emerged that morning. They would arrive in Darsh, the capital, soon. When they did it was possible – no, likely – Academy sorcerers and local police would be there, watching to see who disembarked.

His stomach twisted. He’d had a brief respite on the ship. A chance to eat and sleep. But it would soon be over.

“What will you do when we arrive?” Sezee asked.

“I don’t know,” he confessed.

“You’d better stay below for now. Stay out of sight.” She pushed away from the railing. “Let’s collect Veroo and ask for something to eat.”

For the next few hours he pretended that they were doing nothing more than embarking upon an interesting voyage. They ate, then Sezee insisted that he stay in the little room to rest and guard their belongings while she and Veroo watched the approach to Darsh from on deck. His thoughts circled uselessly around the problem of disembarking without being seen. Would his disguise as the women’s porter work? Was there any other way he could slip ashore unnoticed? Could he bribe one of the crew into changing clothes with him and the others into letting him pretend to help them offload goods?

If Kilraker was there, or anybody from the Academy who could recognise Tyen, no disguise would work. Could he use magic to fight his way free? He had escaped Kilraker before. Perhaps he could do so again. But even if he managed it, there would be no aircart nearby to steal. Only ships. And a ship needed more than one person to sail it.

At last the door to the passage opened and light, rapid footsteps could be heard approaching.

“Aren!” Sezee’s voice was low and urgent.

He rose and stepped into the passage. “Yes?”

She placed a hand on his arm. “We’re pulling in to the docks. There are Darsh police everywhere and men we think are from the Academy. How much money do you have?”

He picked up his satchel and opened it, keeping it tilted so she would not see Beetle. “I don’t know. A few hundred levees, I think.”

“Are you prepared to give a hundred to the captain, if he hides you?”

Tyen’s breath caught. It was no small amount and the loss would mean survival would get tougher sooner, but there could be no surviving at all if he was caught. He nodded.

“Stay here.”

She hurried away. As the passage door closed behind her, Tyen sagged against the wall, assailed by nausea.
What if it doesn’t work?
he thought.
What if the captain takes the money and turns me over anyway?

The door opened and this time one of the crew entered. He smiled thinly at Tyen.

“Follow me.”

Did that mean the captain had agreed? As the man passed him and continued down the passage, Tyen hesitated. Then he shrugged and followed. What choice did he have but to trust him?

At the end of the passage was the door to the water closet. The man opened this, then grasped the seat of the latrine and lifted. The entire thing popped out of the floor like a cork. He stepped back and jerked his head towards the hole.

“There’s handholds. Try not to knock the outlet pipe. Someone outside might see it move.”

Tyen had read in history books that, in ships of the past, one of the punishments for mutinous crew was to be locked in the chute under the latrine with predictably unpleasant results. Trying not to let his dismay show, Tyen stepped up to the hole and peered down. An enamelled copper outlet pipe curved down and to the left, carrying away the waste. There wasn’t much space around it, but the cavity below was large enough for a man to squat in, and it was clean. The walls were rough wood, with chunks of timber nailed on to provide hand- and footholds for access to repair the latrine.

He dropped his satchel inside, then stepped through to the first handhold, squeezed around the pipe and climbed down as quickly as he could manage. As soon as his head descended past the floor, the crewman, without another word, shoved the latrine back into place. Tyen crouched in the dark, tiny space and listened to the man’s footsteps as he hurried away.

The air grew warmer and heavier. Instead of growing used to the smell from the latrine pipe so close to his head he found it was intensifying in the small space. He listened to the muffled stomp of many feet and occasional heavy thump – perhaps of cargo. Then all went quiet. When the signs of life returned the nature of the noises had changed, and as footsteps approached the room above the difference was suddenly frighteningly obvious. Instead of the thud of the soft partree soles of the crew’s shoes, designed for grip, he was hearing the clack of hidesole boots worn by people whose job entailed walking the cobbled streets of cities.

The Wendland police were on board, and no doubt there were Academy men with them. Searching for him. The footsteps drew closer. The door above opened. He kept his breath slow and quiet. The floor above his head creaked. He waited for the door to close again, but it didn’t. Surely it only took one look for an unsuspecting searcher to confirm the water closet was unoccupied. Did that mean the man suspected there was more to the little room? Was he looking closer, searching for evidence of trapdoors? Had he, like Tyen, heard of the old punishment for mutinous crew?

A
faint trickling noise came from the pipe beside his ear. From above he heard a man speak and it took a moment for Tyen to remember enough Wendlandish to translate.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking that it works.”

“There’s a law against using the privy while in dock.”

“You going to arrest me?”

“Well … hurry up then.”

Tyen let out his breath as the sounds stopped and footfalls retreated from the water closet. Then they both returned in reverse as the second man took his turn. By the time the searchers had done their business and left, no other hard footsteps could be heard echoing around the ship. A long silence followed, then the earlier noises of goods being unloaded resumed and he allowed himself to relax a little.

He could do no more than wait until someone came to release him. When nobody did, he guessed that they were planning to leave him there until the ship reloaded and left the dock. He hoped they weren’t intending to stay overnight.

At one point Tyen thought he heard a familiar female voice beyond the hull. He realised that Sezee and Veroo would have left the ship to continue their journey home. He would never get a chance to thank them. Perhaps he could send a letter. He had no specific address, but if Sezee’s family was as well known as she described it would probably still get to her.

The thought of never seeing Sezee again saddened him. He had never got the chance to fulfil their last condition for helping him: to tell them the truth about his reasons for fleeing Leratia. It would have been nice to know that someone in the world knew the whole story. Other than Kilraker. Or most of it, anyway. As Vella had advised, he would not have told them what he’d stolen. It all made him more determined to get a letter to his father somehow.

He wished he knew exactly what Sezee had arranged with Captain Taga. Where was the man going next? Not back to Leratia, Tyen hoped. Had Taga accepted the hundred levees as the bribe, or demanded more? Without Sezee to confirm or deny the amount he could tell Tyen anything and there would be no way of knowing if he was lying. Tyen might evade the Academy another day, but he would not survive long without money.

Overhearing the police speaking in Wendlandish had also reminded him that whatever money he did keep, if any, might have to be exchanged for local currency. Leratian levees were used in all the Empire, but he suspected it would be easier to hide from the authorities if he mingled more with humbler locals. But exchanging money meant records would be made that the Academy might be able to trace, especially if he was required to produce identification papers. Thanks to Sezee and Veroo, he had alternative identification papers (and they had never explained why, he recalled) but if the Academy worked out that he was posing as Aren Coble they’d be as useless as his own.

As time stretched on, he grew bored. He abandoned an attempt to pick his satchel up off the floor when he found it meant making a lot of scraping noises. Remembering that he’d put Vella in his jacket pocket, he took her out. He cupped his hand over her and drew enough magic to create a soft glow, then lost himself in her stories of other worlds and powerful sorcerers, and was only jolted back to reality when the ship began to move again.

They were leaving. He went to put Vella back in his jacket pocket, then thought better of it and slipped her inside his shirt. Whatever happened next, at least she would be able to see and hear it.

He didn’t have to wait long. Footsteps once again echoed in the passage above. He heard the water closet door open, then the scrape of the latrine as it was lifted. When it came free he had a view of the water closet ceiling. Then a familiar face peered down at him.

“Oh, it’s not at all as bad as it sounded,” Sezee declared.

He smiled in surprise and relief. “You stayed on board!”

She shrugged. “Yes and no. We had a quick look around town like the tourists we’re supposed to be would, then we came back.”

“Thank you. I hope I have not unduly spoiled your travel plans.”

“Not at all. Besides, you haven’t yet told us why you’re running from the Academy. Are you coming out, or have you got too comfortable down there?”

With some effort, he managed to manipulate the satchel with the toe of one boot so that it lay against the wall, then squatted far enough to grab it. Lifting it up, he handed it to her, then climbed out. The crewman stood behind her, holding the latrine. As soon as they’d squeezed past him he slotted the seat back into place.

“Stay down here,” he advised. “The cap’n wants a chat, once we’re ’way from shore.”

Then he hurried back down the passage, passing Veroo standing outside her room, and disappeared through the door to the deck.

“Well, then.” Sezee grabbed Tyen’s arm. “It’s time you explained why the Academy is after you.”

Tyen did not resist, letting her haul him along to the doorway of their room. Veroo did not smile as he approached. Her eyes narrowed at him. Sezee, still apparently as cheerful as before she’d changed her plans for him, pointed at one of the beds.

“Sit,” she ordered, like a bossy child. Or princess.

He obeyed.

“Talk.”

He chuckled. “How much detail do you want?”

“Not so much that we’re left none the wiser when Captain Taga gets here.”

“Very well. I am – I was – a student of the Academy. I was learning history and sorcery. On a research expedition recently I found something. It was … hard to determine its value. We were meant to hand over all our finds, but it was a rule that was often overlooked and I … I knew the Academy would not see the potential in it that I did, but I thought I could find a way to persuade them. But they discovered and took possession of it before I could. It was then stolen – but not by me. By Professor Kilraker, a man I once admired and trusted. He arranged it so that I would be blamed.”

Sezee watched him intently as he spoke, and continued to after he fell silent. Then she shook her head.

“But surely, if you don’t have this thing, nobody can accuse you of stealing it.”

“They would suspect I had hidden it. Or sold it.”

“Suspicions are not proof. Not in Leratian law. And if you are so sure this professor stole it then why not tell them?” Her eyebrows rose. “Ah! But the thief no longer has the object either, correct?”

He nodded.

“Do you still have it?”

“You only asked me to tell you why the Academy is chasing me.”

“Our condition for helping you was that you told us the truth.”

“But not the whole truth,” he replied.

“That’s—”

“Sezee,” Veroo interrupted. “Leave it.”

The young woman turned to the older, who shook her head. Frowning, Sezee narrowed her eyes at him. Her gaze dropped to his satchel, still in her hands, then widened.

“Is it that mechanical insect guarding your money?”

He gave her a level look. “Couldn’t resist taking a peek, could you?”

Veroo smiled as a blush reddened Sezee’s cheeks. “I might have,” Sezee replied. “We weren’t completely unaware that we might be helping a man who might turn on us.”

“And what did the contents tell you?”

Her bottom lip pinched upward. “Nothing we hadn’t guessed already. You have money. You’re from the Academy.”

“How did my bag contents tell you I was from the Academy?”

“The shaving implements have the ‘A’ on them.”