Thief of Lives

Chapter 4

Two nights after Chane escorted Sapphire around town to show off her new gown, he walked the dark streets outside of Bela's middle ring wall in a rare mood of contentment. Once per week, Toret gave him leave to do whatever he liked. He always chose the same destination: the new Belaskian branch of the Guild of Sagecraft. On such nights, he wore a casual white shirt, brown breeches, and a simple brown wool cloak-without his sword. This was his usual attire for such visits, as he preferred to be viewed as nothing more than an avid pastime scholar of minor noble birth. His only accoutrement, tucked beneath his shirt, was the small brass vial on a chain around his neck.

He strolled along the cobbled street toward the southern side of the city. A coach for hire would have expedited his journey, but he preferred to walk. His body did not tire, and he liked the older districts with their motley architecture marking the history and growth of the city. They held an aging charm that as yet had not slipped into decay.

It had taken half a decade for the city council to negotiate arrangements for these foreign scholars, these sages, to come to Bela from a great distance. As rumor had it, the council was pleased, for it meant a partial library of historical scrolls and documents would exist within the city, along with highly learned men and women who gathered and preserved such archives. Eventually, a full library would grow from this small start. This was the first such branch of the guild on this entire continent. In his regular visits with the sages, Chane had learned much about their origins.

Started nearly two centuries ago, the sages' founding branch was in a country called Malourne, west across the ocean and to the far coast of that distant continent. Then-homeland guild grounds were actually that kingdom's old keep and castle, given to the guild in bygone days when newer structures were built for their monarchs. Malourne was the oldest of kingdoms in what they called the Numan lands.

There was also a guild branch on the continent's southern half in the imperial city of Samau'a Gaulb-"Heart of the Heavens"-capital of both the country of il'Dha'ab Najuum and the Suman Empire as a whole. A third established branch was said to be in elven lands somewhere in the middle of the continent.

After the Great War, thought to have occurred half a millennium ago, civilization on the far continent had been thrown into ruin and nearly obliterated. So much was lost that the Guild of Sagecraft was founded in the early days of Malourne's monarchs as a safeguard against another such holocaust.

Chane had read the few histories that reached back before the kingdoms of Belaski, Stravina, and Droevinka were established here. It was likely that this same war that the sages spoke of had touched this continent as well, though the thought of such a wide-reaching conflict seemed too fabricated at times. There were tales of monstrosities and unnatural hordes, and of years' worth of battles and skirmishes with invaders from across the ocean. Those speculative histories suggested that the first peoples of this continent faded as well, to be later replaced by migrating tribes and clans from elsewhere.

And now the auspices of the guild had come to Chane's own homeland.

Those distant libraries and archives the size of castles overwhelmed his imagination. Someday he would see them with his own eyes, feel their parchments beneath his fingertips, read strange tongues that spoke of forgotten days and lost mysteries, and quench his mind on centuries of knowledge gathered by the learned. How many new insights into his conjury might he find in such vast repositories? And what might be known of the Noble Dead, with some detail of knowledge that might finally free him from Toret's domination? There was now a guild here, and perhaps that would be enough to uncover a key to his freedom.

The piecemeal vision still lingered as he absently rounded a street corner onto an intersecting cobble road. A short distance ahead was an open archway in the city's middle wall. Two ring-mailed Strazhy-shlyahketne, the city's official guards, stood relaxed but attentive to either side of the massive granite portal. They gave him little more than a passing glance.

Chane's destination was only a short distance inside the ring wall. When he reached it, he paused to take in the sight illuminated by the street lanterns' dim yellow light. His vision of grand, scholarly enclaves faded like smoke in the night breeze.

City space was scarce and, from all whispered suspicions, the city council had decided it best not to house these highly valued but "foreign" emissaries too close to the royal grounds. What stood in front of Chane as the new Belaskian branch of the Guild of Sagecraft was an old, decommissioned barracks.

In years past, the guard outgrew these accommodations, and two new barracks were constructed-one near the outer ring wall and one near the inner. The old building stood empty for over a year, until the sages arrived. Weathered and aged, it was reasonably well kept and rose to two stories of sound timbers attached directly to the city wall's inner side. But as much as it had been adequate for a barracks, it was not what the sages had hoped for. There simply wasn't enough space inside to house their necessary wares, let alone build a library.

Chane lifted the front door's latch and entered, his welcome established months ago. He turned left down the narrow central passage toward where the Strazhy sergeant's quarters were once located. Apprentices and hired scribes trundled up and down the stairs with careful armfuls of scrolls, sheaves, tablets, books, and the occasional oddity he could not immediately identify. A few nodded a greeting as they passed.

The old sergeant's front chamber, once used as an impromptu courtroom for petty crimes and civil disputes, was transformed into a study area with tables, chairs, scribe desks, and shelves. Around the room were a few curious glass lamps filled with glowing light that never flickered.

Two sages in clean gray robes-one of medium size, the other slight and small-sat together at the rear table carefully considering a leather-bound box. But they were also waiting for him, and both looked up when he entered. The taller of the two was the old domin, or grandmaster sage, Tilswith.

"Right… right time," he said in broken speech with a warm smile.

Though he was well into his sixties, Tilswith's vivid green eyes were keen of sight, though occasionally he used a reading glass to magnify small script. His gray hair possessed a hint of its once coal-colored shade, and he wore it cropped short with a close-trimmed beard to match. Though lined, his narrow face and long hands were not harshly wrinkled.

"Come… sit," Tilswith said with a welcoming wave of his hand. "We may have… new clue to…"

The domin faltered and, with great frustration, hastily motioned to his colleague, who leaned close to whisper in his ear. Though he was engaging and wise, the elder man's command of local languages was not all it should be for the head of such an establishment. Tilswith tapped fingertips to forehead, letting out a grunt of frustration as if the term that escaped him were now obvious.

"Yes, yes-Great War… the Forgotten." He sighed deeply. "Pardon… days I think I never learn speak your language."

Tilswith's smaller companion shifted out of her stool to offer it up. Slightly built and barely reaching Chane's collarbone, Wynn Hygeorht was twenty years old at best, yet already Tilswith's primary apprentice. Light brown hair hung in a neat braid down her back. Her olive-toned face was round and unpainted, adorned only by small features and a pair of rich brown eyes. As assistant to Tilswith, and an initiate in the Order of Cathologers, Wynn specialized in the knowledge of knowledge itself: the preservation, organization, and coordination of libraries great and small, and always knowing where to find the last forgotten corner note that only one person in a decade might care to retrieve. She could read, write, and speak a half dozen languages, including Belaskian. Though she seldom spoke without something specific to say, it was always engaging to converse with her. After nights of Sapphire's inane chatter, the fewest words spoken by Wynn were soothing to Chane's ears.

He found true contentment during only three types of moments in his existence-on the hunt, delving some new depth of conjury, or engaged with Tilswith and Wynn. Any other moment was little more than the lingering of servitude.

He looked down at the table and this new object of interest.

"Would you care for tea?" Wynn asked in her soft tone.

"No, I am fine. How old is this parchment?"

Tonight he was especially anxious to push the world aside. He sat on the stool, Wynn just behind him, and watched as Tilswith opened the elongated leather-bound box.

From within, the sage removed a scroll. The sheath, as well as the spindles' yellow wood, looked new, and Chane wondered what could possibly be contained in this recent acquisition. From Tilswith's solemn state of excitement, it was obviously nothing he had brought with him on the initial journey to Bela.

The domin slipped the sheath off and unrolled the scroll on the table, leaning forward to inspect the contents.

"Is copy-or… original found after we leave and is stored safe in home guild in Calm Seatt. No date on original. After copy, one copy sent us, me to judge… judge…"

"Authenticity," Wynn supplied.

"Authenticity?" Tilswith glanced over his shoulder, uncertain of his pronunciation until Wynn nodded. "Great War my field. Think this part"-he pointed to the current section displayed-"write by soldier before or after battle."

Chane blinked. "Highly unlikely. Even the highest-quality parchment would not survive well for half a millennium, and I doubt such was given to soldiers in the field. If that is the true nature of the original document."

Tilswith listened carefully. It took a moment for him to comprehend Chane's speech, and then he nodded agreement.

"From notes, and marks here"-he pointed to a strange row of dots spaced between the foreign characters-"original not whole but better… better than other old texts. Look."

Tilswith slowly rolled the scroll, pointing again and again at repeated, irregularly placed rows of dots between and within passages of texts.

"Dots where scribe find no text can read. Copy match mark place, size, and more from original. Some text lost, but much survive… more than hope for this old. Puzzle how could be."

"Can you read this tongue?" Wynn asked over Chane's shoulder.

"No," he answered. The marks appeared to be tiny pictures instead of letters, all arranged in rows as writing. He'd seen few such pictographic texts during his studies, and they had all been attributed to the same source. "It looks like some form of ancient Suman?"

"Good!" Tilswith nodded and pointed to a brief one-line passage of two characters. "This name of woman. Rest may be life in soldier camp… and what eat for dinner." His finger moved down to the first full section, but he read it from right to left. "Interest… writer common soldier write letter to home."

"But why would he write it on a scroll instead of a single parchment sheet?" Wynn asked, "A single page would be dispatched more easily to its destination." As she leaned in for a closer look, her braid slipped over to the side, across Chane's shoulder. She did not seem to notice.

The same question had occurred to Chane, but none of them could think of an answer to share. The two sages' enthusiastic curiosity was infectious. He briefly wondered if Toret or Sapphire would give a whit about the possibility of a five-hundred-year-old epistolary journal written by a nameless soldier in a mythical war. Though indeed much more than a myth, it seemed.

"So what makes you think this man was writing in the time of the war?" Chane asked.

"This"-Wynn pointed further down the parchment-"is a reference to the forces of the ‘night voice, the unseen leader or messiah of the enemy. Here he mentions being in K'mal, a region near the southeast edge mountains that rim the vast desert north of the Suman Empire. Over many years, some evidence has been found of possible large encampments and battles fought in this area near the beginning of what we think of as the Forgotten, the lost time. We know almost nothing of the history surrounding this war or what came before it."

"Symbols most important," Tilswith added, "but tell little we not know. Good for theory. World was more…"-he faltered until Wynn whispered to him again-"advanced, not less, before war-or advanced like now. Much… all… lost in before. This why our guild made… protect knowledge, never more lost."

Domin Tilswith was passionate for history, and most particularly for the Great War said to have touched the world as a whole. Once he mentioned that in his own land there was still debate as to whether or not the war had truly occurred as thought. And Tilswith had always shown a keen interest in any mention of the "night voice."

Few specifics had been recovered concerning this supposed leader of the hordes that washed across the sage's continent and other parts of the world. Known by varied names depending on the cultural origin of the source, it was always coupled with mention of a voice in the dark. Rare physical descriptions were vague and varied, making it impossible to tell fact from fear-filled fancy. Tilswith suspected very few individuals of the time, if any, ever saw the being with their own eyes. Only three references recurred irregularly: It was likely male, of immense proportions, and always of midnight-black hue. Some accounts presented it as chimeric, others as reptilian, and few as humanoid, but never with detail. It was impossible to determine its true nature, or why it had led a campaign over many years, decades perhaps, apparently bent upon little more than continued spread of carnage against all sentient life not under its control. Those under its sway had no other purpose than slaughtering everything in their path.

There was some certainty that the war began in the vast desert north of the Suman Empire and far south of where Malourne now existed. Somehow the "voice" had been defeated-some accounts said "killed"-overnight, and it vanished from all awareness. From traceable accounts of the times that followed, civilization had been devastated into nonexistence. All corners of the continent reverted to loose clan structures battling over what little food and unspoiled land remained.

Before becoming a member of the Noble Dead, Chane had little interest in history. In fact, he learned swordplay and languages only because such was expected of a nobleman's son. Conjury had been his keenest passion, much to his father's ire, but he'd not advanced more than to calling up minor air elementals, dust devils, to cause mischief about the manor. Looking back, he saw himself as a shallow creature, some useless snob who would decay and die in scant years of time. But now…

Now he was ageless. Clearly, the past held much to offer for an endless future. He wanted to understand everything.

Wynn watched his intense gaze upon the scroll, and he caught her soft smile from the corner of his vision. Her face was lovely, with a balanced proportion of features set around her intelligent eyes. She would have made a fine noblewoman.

He could hear her blood, a pulse surging beneath her skin.

Unconsciously, his senses expanded until he felt her body heat spilling lightly across the side of his face.

Chane quickly focused, driving down the hunger rising in his throat. Intellectual companionship fulfilled as vital a need for him as blood. Blood could be found anywhere for the taking. The company of one such as Wynn was precious. He turned his attention back to the puzzling parchment.

Creeping down the short ladder into the schooner's cargo hold, Leesil tried not to think. It was a pointless effort, even with his head still clouded from sailor's grog. Around his neck hung a small flask of oil and a small flask of water. He carried a lantern, and his box of tools was stuffed inside his ragged shirt.

Magiere had killed the first assailant, cut his throat. Chap had pinned the second, now locked in a storage room below deck. Leesil had let the third escape due to his own drunken incompetence.

Useful, dependable Leesil had botched things up again.

Magiere called them assassins, but Leesil knew better. Skilled assassins were shadows passing unseen and unheard even by their victims. They didn't work in groups. They didn't bungle through a cabin door, rousing their victims, nor use iron cudgels and baling knives. Someone had hired common thugs to murder Magiere-someone who wanted either a cheap kill or who had no knowledge where to hire a trained assassin. Leesil was going to find out who that person was, one way or another.

Standing in the dark and narrow passage, he succumbed to shame. After all the weeks he'd spent preparing himself for what he knew was coming her way, the first time she truly needed him, he'd been in his cups again. Wasn't that what he always did when troubled? To wash away nightmares of the betrayals and assassinations for which his parents had raised him, he'd drowned himself in wine until sleep became a dreamless escape.

No more. Not a drop.

He wouldn't give in again. For two months since their last battle, he'd consumed only water and tea, and he'd still managed to sleep through the worst of his dreams. He would be what Magiere needed, even if he never slept again.

A knife's throw down the passage was a door to a small hold for the sailors' supplies. Pulling his box out, Leesil noted he wouldn't need to pick any lock. The door's latch was sealed with a cargo hook.

He lifted the hook, quietly entered the room, and closed the door behind himself.

Raising the lantern, he saw an exhausted, overweight man shackled to the floor. The chains were old and worn but still functional. The captain had questioned this prisoner earlier, but the man refused even to speak his name. Magiere learned nothing regarding who her attackers were or who'd hired them. She didn't express fear, but Leesil knew she was troubled by this mystery. So was he.

And he knew ways of asking a question that perhaps the captain did not.

The man looked at him and blinked in surprise, his round face glistening with sweat.

Leesil removed the faded green scarf from his head, letting his nearly white, shoulder-length hair fall around his face. He pushed it back behind his ears, so their slightly pointed tips were in plain view, and set the lantern down at the man's feet. With his amber eyes and dark skin, he knew he looked bizarre and unnatural to this common lowlife sitting before him.

He knelt down, his gaze never leaving the man's face, no expression passing across his own.

The stout man instinctively pulled back against the room's rear wall. Close to the prisoner, Leesil smelled old ale, stale sweat, and a hint of urine. The man's unkempt hair was dusty rather than greasy. Brown stubble covered his chin and jowls. His flesh hung slightly loose, as if he'd once eaten too well and then come on hard times. Perhaps he'd been a dockworker in Miiska before the warehouse burned down. Leesil didn't care. This man had tried to kill Magiere.

Leesil flashed a sudden smile. The man flinched.

"So you know who I am," Leesil said, "but you don't know me. I've come to give you a test."

He opened his box of tools, displaying the white metal of the one good stiletto, the garrote, and the curved, shorter blade. Pressing the catch inside the box, he flipped open the lid's interior panel, exposing the array of hooks, wires, and probes in their fabric holding straps. He took out a thin strut of gleaming metal.

"Since you tried to murder Magiere," Leesil continued, "and you were obviously hired, that makes you an assassin." He held up the wire. "Tell me, using this, what's the quickest way to kill a man from behind?"

The portly captive breathed hard. The stench of sweat thickened around him, but no answer came.

"No guess at all?" Leesil asked. "How disappointing." He carefully set the wire down on the box's lid. "But we shouldn't proceed quickly. Anything worth learning takes time."

This time, the man blinked. His stubble-covered maw opened, then closed again. Leesil reached into his box, hesitated with his hand poised above the stiletto, and then he picked up the thicker but smaller curved blade.

"But first, I should cut you free," Leesil said, "My mother gave me this blade… you should feel privileged. I never talk about my mother." He turned the blade slowly in the air until the reflection of the lantern's light from the metal lanced directly into the man's eyes. "Bone is one of the lighter elements this will cut through. You won't have any hands, but you'll certainly be free of those shackles."

The man's breath lost its even rhythm of deep heaves and grew ragged.

"What do you want?" he gasped.

Leesil let out a sigh of resignation, ignoring the question.

"I'd intended to start with your eyes. This isn't an appropriate tool for such work, but it will do in a pinch. Then again, you won't be able to watch me cut off your hands. No, we'll start at the hands and move upward."

"Stop your blather!" the man nearly spit. "What do you want?"

Leesil's expression remained unchanged, giving no acknowledgment that the conversation had somehow shifted directions. His voice remained casual.

"Who hired you?"

The man snorted, and the fear on his face vanished.

"That's what you're after? I shoulda known, you drunken sot. Feeling bad ‘cause you was sipping grog on deck? " He sneered, and almost chuckled. "Well, go ahead and cut me. I saw you try to bluff those sailors at Jack o' Knives. You ain't doing nothing."

For a long moment, Leesil didn't speak, just stared into the man's eyes without blinking. Then he snapped the blade out in a sudden flash at the man's face.

The portly prisoner lurched back, his head banging against the wall. His breathing stopped altogether as he stared wide-eyed. Leesil sat with the blade again turning between his fingers. There was no blood on the metal.

The man settled again with a snicker. "I knew it."

"As I said, you don't know me," Leesil replied.

A thin, dark line appeared on the man's face. It ran in a vertical line down his forehead, through his left eyebrow, skipped over the eye, and continued through his cheek to the corner of his mouth. His smile faded as the first trickle of blood spread into the creases of his eyelid. He blinked and tilted his head, trying to keep the blood out of his eye and not lose sight of Leesil, and then began to shake.

The silence grew lengthy and uncomfortable.

Leesil set the blade down in the box and pulled both flasks from around his neck. He took a candle from his pocket and lit it from the lantern with one hand, while popping the stopper of the oil flask with the other and spattering drops of oil across on the man's dirty trousers.

"Hey!" his captive shouted. "What are you doing?"

"No one saw me come down. No one knows I'm here," Leesil explained, as if to a child. "Those sailors were quite embarrassed that you attacked a passenger and your companion managed to jump overboard before they could catch him. When you're found, the captain won't know who did it-or won't care. And I have a very believable face."

He held the candle near the man's oil-spattered pants.

"You won't burn me," the man said. "You'll set the ship on fire and kill yourself, kill your partner."

"Water," Leesil answered, shaking the second flask. He popped its stopper and set it close by on the floor. "I know how to control fire on flesh. Small flames make only thumb-sized blisters, but they often become infected after a few days. I once saw a man's legs turn green and black. Took him nearly a week to die." He picked up the curved blade, once again flashing its gleam into the man's eyes. "You won't see the blisters, though. I wouldn't do that to you."

This time, open fear washed across the man's features, and he tried to back into the hull wall.

"Who hired you?" Leesil asked.

"I ain't telling you, sot!"

Leesil dipped the candle flame and ignited a spot of oil.

The captive cried out and swung his chained hand to swat out the flame. Leesil jabbed him rapidly in the throat with two fingers. The man fell back, gasping for air while his leg began to burn.

In a flash, Leesil splashed water from the second flask on the flame. It winked out in a hiss, leaving the acrid smell of charred cloth. He knelt on the man's hand, pinned it down, and held the candle close to his captive's face. His expression remained calm, friendly, even as anger and hatred crept into his soft voice.

"This could take all night. No one will check on you until morning… late morning, and the poor soul who finds you will most likely lose his breakfast."

He turned, prepared to set ignite another patch of oil, and beneath him, the man writhed.

"Master Poyesk!" he shouted.

Leesil stopped the candle.

"He owns a warehouse in Miiksa," he replied. "Why would he want to harm Magiere?"

"To stop her," the man rushed on. "He don't want a warehouse run by townsfolk. He'll lose what he's got now. Don't you see? I ain't lying."

Leesil rocked back on his heels.

Of course, Poyesk wouldn't want Magiere to return with a bank note large enough to build a town-owned warehouse. But he couldn't pass this information on to Magiere. Not yet. The only thing keeping her on their current path was the desire to help Miiska. If she knew one of its citizens had hired thugs to kill her, she'd lose what little resolve she had. Then what? Would she quit and go home? Miiska would deteriorate, and he and Magiere would go back to the tense holding pattern they'd suffered for months. No, he couldn't tell her. They had a service to render and payment to receive, or there would be no future for them. He could protect her without telling her anything about the source of these thugs.

Leesil stood and turned the oil flask over the man's head.

"No! What are doing?" the man coughed out.

"Did he hire anyone else?" Leesil asked.

"No! No one but us. I swear."

Leesil stared down until he was satisfied the truth had been spoken, then leaned over. The man recoiled, but the half-elf simply ripped the man's pants leg open to examine the burn. The skin was merely singed.

"If you tell the captain I was here, he won't care. All that will matter to him is what information you told me, not that I was here. And I can find you again." Finished, he carefully repacked his tools, grabbed the lantern, and headed for the door.

"Would you have cut my hands off…" the man whispered, "taken my eyes?"

Leesil left without pause, fastening the door securely behind him.