Lhind the Spy

My heart gave a great badump of joy. “You came to rescue me,” I realized at last, grinning in delight. How charming was that? And how could anyone not love a man who brings a person her thief tools, just in case?

  I squeezed the rest of the way through the window, glad that few castle-builders seem to think it necessary to put bars in high windows. I dropped to the tile floor and approached the two tables. Hlanan and Prince Geric had been tightly chained down by their outstretched limbs, their jackets yanked apart and shirts ripped open, baring their chests.

  “Don’t touch the chains,” Hlanan murmured.

  I paused for half a heartbeat to scowl at Geric, who had turned his head. He stared back, mouth twisted in a wry smile. I wormed my fingers under Hlanan’s back, struggling to get past the jacket and tunic to the long pocket below the waistband of his trousers.

  “They didn’t search you?” I whispered.

  “They were ordered to remove only magical paraphernalia from us. Disdained taking what they thought was a money-bag,” he whispered back, smiling in spite of a puffy bruise on his lip.

  I winced, my knuckles pressing painfully on the table. Hlanan’s breathed hissed with his effort to arch his back, as he was stretched out fairly tightly.

  But it was enough. My forefinger touched the familiar stitching along the outside of my tool bag, then my second finger, and a short time later I clutched my most faithful companion to me, hugging it in relief.

  “You’ve got to get out of here,” Hlanan murmured. “She will be back with the fourth candle at any moment.”

  I opened the bag and dug for my lock pick as I inspected the chains for the lock.

  Hlanan’s face pressed into the side of the table. “No!” he said. “You can’t touch the chains. There’s a ward on them. I can feel it.”

  “So that’s what that glow is. Can you tell me how to break it?”

  “Take too long,” he said hoarsely. “Only her key will work. Get yourself free.”

  “What about you?”

  Before he could speak, the clatter of footsteps and gear and voices echoed up from far below. Someone had begun the long climb. That could only be bad.

  I looked at Hlanan, whose face had blanched. “Get away,” he said.

  “First,” I retorted, my fingers plunged into my bag, “let’s give them a little lock trouble, eh?”

  “With what?” That was Prince Geric.

  “With this.” I pulled up what I’d sought: a diamond.

  His head thumped back. “No doubt you took that from me.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And I hate to lose it now, but. . . .” I sprang to the door. It was a familiar lock, an ancient one, sturdy iron but very simple, with a lock access on the inside as well as the outside, which meant this tower had not always been a prison. It was also a mage retreat, which might explain that skin-prickling sense of magic in the air.

  My fingers trembled, and my heart knocked against my ribs, but I clung fiercely to logic. Whoever was coming was not racing up the stairs. If I worked fast. . . .

  There wasn’t much I didn’t know about locks. I’d had that knowledge slapped and cuffed into me early in my life, and I’d kept my fingers nimble over the years since. Using my tools, I got the diamond nicely wedged at the top of the mechanism. Iron, meet diamond. Nobody would be opening that door.

  Then I turned around, uncertain of my next step.

  That’s when noise echoed from below: a roar, thumping, horns blaring from tower to tower, and a deep voice bellowing from somewhere outside, “Attack at the gate!”

  “Ah,” Prince Geric said. “That will be Nath.”

  Nath—I’d heard that name before. An image in memory: a shaggy gray head, captain of the Gray Wolves.

  I looked down at Hlanan, still straining ineffectually against the chains. Another glance at Geric, to thoroughly enjoy the sight of the handsome, debonair prince disheveled and filthy, stretched out helplessly. But there was no more time for gloating, because Hlanan was just as helpless.

  I leaped to the back of Hlanan’s table, careful to keep my toes from encountering those chains at each corner of the table, and from there to the high window.

  A squeeze, a scramble, and I was out.

  As I spidered my way down through the ivy again, the noise of a concentrated attack increased: from the sound, the Gray Wolves were trying to batter the gate, with a hiss and a clatter of arrows shot into the main courtyard to harry the imperial border guards.

  I didn’t think even the Gray Wolves, formidable as they were, could breech a gigantic castle.

  But their attack might interrupt that mage enough for me to . . . what?

  When at last I reached the join of the tower to the sentry wall overlooking the courtyard with the trees, I perched between two weather-beaten battlements, my toes curling under me. Cold usually did not bother me, as long as I didn’t get wet. As snow melted underfoot, my bare feet ached, though not nearly with the maddening insistence of my throbbing shoulder.

  What now? Free Hlanan, of course. But I had to think it out. No more wading in without a plan. So. That mage was somewhere inside, finishing up the last candle. There was no breaking a shren square if she got all four candles up, therefore I had to keep her from completing it.

  That meant a distraction.

  You’d think a battle would take care of that, but Maita wasn’t anywhere in sight. Maybe she relied on her guards to handle battle. Magic was her concern.

  Therefore my distraction had better be magical.

  My problem? I had only my personal magic. I was not nearly strong enough for mind thrust, even if I had her at hand. It was nearly as dangerous to me as it would be to her, especially in my present shape. Same with voice cast.

  All I had the strength to command was illusory magic, which was easy but didn’t actually do anything except make images. Again, when feeling very strong, I could pull at air and sound enough for brief noises or buffets of wind that felt like an effect, but that extra effort lay beyond me now.

  What kind of visual illusion would be of use?

  Of course! What would be more threatening than the appearance of other mages?

  My empty stomach cramped again, and my head wobbled on my neck, feeling as if it might float away. I steadied myself against one of the bare tree branches, drew in some deep breaths, and then formed two, three . . . for . . . five illusions, sacrificing detail for distance as I planted them on each of the surrounding cliffs and outcroppings, plain to be seen. They had blurry ovals for faces, but each wore the distinctive robes of the Mage Council, which I had seen in the imperial city: forest green, with rank symbols embroidered in gold along the sleeves.

  I did not know what those symbols meant, but I didn’t need to. I didn’t even have to reproduce them with accuracy. My illusion gave them a golden glint.

  Then I sat back to steady my buzzing head as I waited for the effect.

  It wasn’t long in coming. A horn tooted a frantic signal different from the earlier one, and not five heartbeats after, a young runner raced inside—to report, I hoped.

  Another effort: I gave three of the figures a greenish glow, which I trusted would look like magic being woven.

  Within a short time, there she was, surrounded by armed guards. I did not wait to see where she would go: it was enough that she wasn’t inside.

  Three leaps, and I landed in the courtyard. I ghosted from tree trunk to tree trunk, but no one was looking inside the court. All their attention stayed on the gates and on my fine illusions looking so sinister and mysterious on the mountains surrounding the castle cliff.

  The door stood open. I sped inside, sniffing inwardly for that prickly, hot metal almost-smell of heavy magical efforts. It was easy to find, testifying to the intensity of her labors. I discovered the hall upstairs empty of guards. Three locked doors stopped me long enough for my trembling fingers to pick them, and I reached her magic chambers.

  In the middle stood the last tall candle, glowing faintly with green
ish magic. Papers and books lay all around.

  I was afraid of magical wards, a concept I barely understood. I didn’t know how to make any. But there was always physical damage. I had learned that wards against water and fire were the toughest to make.

  Twin candles burned on either side of a lectern. Afraid to touch anything, I ripped a bit of silk from my hem, twisted it together, and held the end to one of the candles. When the silk caught fire, I flung the twist at one of the candles, knocking it over in my haste.

  It fell to the floor, the twist with it: the wick smoked, then flared. Cautiously I extended my fingers over the candle, but felt nothing magical. The lectern I did not trust, but the candles seemed to be just candles.

  I poked the candle. Nothing happened to me, so I picked it up and touched it to the paper on the lectern. When that began to darken and curl in a satisfying way, I touched my flame to the book behind it, and then I hopped around the room, setting fire to anything that would burn. Some of the flames snuffed out immediately, raising a faint, nasty stench. None of them burned well.

  But I knew a fire spell. Dhes-Andis had taught it to me. That memory was seared into my brain.

  My illusions would not hold up very long. I had to trust to her distractions and her probable exhaustion to keep her from figuring that out. I wanted her to waste time and effort throwing magical wards and spells at my pretend mages. It would take half a heartbeat to dispel illusions. If she even bothered. Illusions could do nothing. They were merely trickery with light and air.

  Summoning the last of my strength, I pulled flame from that place beyond time and space, then staggered back, falling down painfully. All around me books, scrolls, paper, wood, whooshed up in a spectacular sheet of flame.

  Thrilled—and a little horrified—I gasped, frightened laughter bubbling through me as I backed away. Flames wreathed up the lectern, reflecting off what I had not seen before, the metal gleam of a ring of keys sitting along the very top.

  Maita had rushed out without grabbing them, probably to keep her hands free for spell-casting.

  I stretched a finger over them, almost touching, though the heat by now had become withering, causing my hair to bind tightly together, my scalp and my spine twitching.

  I felt no magic itch, so I touched a key. Nothing.

  As a thief, I had learned that keys were always useful, so I grabbed them all and backtracked rapidly past that tall candle, which glistened in the blaze, its contours puckering as it began to melt.

  I plunged my hand into my tool bag for another stolen gem, worked it into the lock and shut the door, leaving the gem to fall into place, I hoped. I dared not wait to find out if it was successful.

  I sped down the hall, passing a stairway. At the top of it I heard frantic voices. Guards, outside the cell where Hlanan and Prince Nasty were imprisoned?

  I tried doors along that side of the building, and at last found an open one. I dashed through a room that looked like someone’s bed chamber, and to the window, which I threw open. I peered out, relieved that I had guessed right. Below a sheer drop. To either side, ancient ivy.

  I stashed the keys in my tool bag, shoved it down my front, and once again slipped out a window, firmly gripped the ivy, and pulled myself up. By now that blasted wound was bleeding sluggishly down my back, tickling horribly in my fuzz. No help for it.

  An endless time (during which I heard four horn signals, a great shout, a terrible crash) later, I popped through the window at last and dropped to the floor. I swayed and caught myself against the table, my knuckles nearly brushing a chain.

  “Awk.” I snatched my hand back. Reminded of the keys, I pulled forth my tool kit, as Hlanan said hoarsely, “I smell smoke.”

  “Diversion,” I said smugly. “A good one! Now, what do you think these might be for?”

  Outside the door, the muffled voices paused, then someone shouted something, and rattled impatiently at the lock.

  “No, I tell you, something’s stuck in there,” came a louder voice.

  The door reverberated as someone kicked it.

  Hlanan tried to lift his head, and I obligingly held the ring of three keys over his face. His forehead cleared. “Good job, Lhind: the one with the three teeth will undo our locks.”

  “Wait, what about the wards?”

  “The key is the key to the enchantment,” Prince Geric drawled. “You’ll appreciate the visual pun?”

  Ignoring him, I hunted over all those long lengths of interlocked metal and at last found the binding lock under the table, well out of reach of Hlanan’s reach. The key caused a greenish spark when I touched it to the lock. I dropped the key, then noticed that the sinister glow over the chains had vanished.

  I unlocked the chain and threw the lock down. The chain hissed and rumbled as they snaked to the floor in loops and piles.

  That same voice outside shouted, “What’s going on in there?”

  I smothered the urge to yell, “As if we’d tell you!”

  Hlanan struggled impatiently as I leaped to the smaller locks and undid them one by one. Then he sat up, rubbing at his bruised, torn flesh where he’d fought against the shackles.

  “Can you get out the window?” I said doubtfully, glancing at the locked door. That diamond, I knew, was wedged in tightly.

  “Keys, please?” he responded, sliding off the table. He staggered against it, and I wondered how he was ever going to climb down that ivy.

  “Why?” I asked.

  His lips pressed in a line as he glanced at Prince Geric, whose mocking gaze was turned our way.

  “Let him stay there,” I said as my first move in bargaining. First I had to get him scared.

  “Lhind,” Hlanan sighed.

  “He was going to send me to Dhes-Andis!”

  “He can’t do that now.”

  “Certainly not—if we leave him right there,” I retorted.

  But as I spoke, Hlanan took the keys from my fingers, and bent to hunt for the locks chaining Geric to that table.

  “I was going to,” I muttered.

  He gave me a puzzled look. “Lhind, we cannot leave someone to Maita Boniree’s blood magic.”

  “She won’t be able to do it now,” I gloated.

  Hlanan’s lips parted, then he gave his head a slight shake. “Tell me later. We must get out of here.” To Geric, he said, “Magister Boniree will be after us immediately. Continue the truce?”

  “Yes,” Geric said.

  Hlanan grunted as he bent and fumbled at the lock. A click, two clicks, and again the chains roared as they fell all around.

  Hlanan and I both turned toward the door, expecting a response, to hear nothing.

  Nothing?

  “They’ve gone?” I asked, as if Hlanan knew any more than I did.

  He looked blankly back at me, and I sprang to the door and dropped down to peer beneath it. There was only the thinnest bit of space between door and floor. I wedged one eye as best I could, squashing my nose . . . and saw nothing.

  “No one’s out there,” I said.

  “Went to report,” Geric said, sitting up and rubbing his raw wrists.

  “Or were summoned to the battle,” Hlanan offered.

  I was already busy with my lock picks. Getting that diamond out should have been easy, but my fingers were slippery and trembled. When at last the stone fell onto my palm, I breathed in relief—and Geric reached over my head to pinch it off my palm, saying caustically, “I’ll take that back now.”

  I scowled at him, though I had several more of his gems still in the bag. But he did not need to know that.

  “Magic transfer?” I asked Hlanan, wanting to get away so badly I would even endure that horrifying wrench again.

  But to my surprise, they both shook their heads, Geric wincing as if he had a headache. I knew Hlanan had a headache by the way he squinted, his forehead tight.

  “Unless you know far more magic than I, transfer would be a very bad idea,” Geric said, watching Hlanan, who sighed as he
thumbed his temples.

  To me, Geric said, “First thing she did was ward us against transfer.”

  He did not wait for a response but laid his hand to the door latch, then eased it open.

  No one lurked beyond. Noise echoed up from somewhere.

  “Which way, Lhind?” Hlanan murmured.

  I started down the hall, thinking, what next? The lower floor ought to be full of enemies. No, empire guards. It was difficult to know what to think, because they were supposed to be on our side!

  If they were trying to keep us in, they were enemies.

  So, how to get out. How about the same way I got in? Hlanan and the Pompous Prince would be useless at tower climbing, but surely they could manage those tree branches, then over the wall to the ledge, which was on the opposite side of the castle from the action.

  The thought became the deed—and I still didn’t like thinking about that horrible journey. As soon as we reached my open window, I could see the cold hit them. Prince Geric had done up his shirt and tunic again. Hlanan hadn’t bothered. Back when he was a chained galley slave, he had become so inured to physical discomfort that he ignored his body when concentrating on something else—like running for his life.

  I looked at that sharply etched collarbone, and the rise and fall of his chest in the V, and thought, he hasn’t been eating well, though surrounded by wealth and comfort. I reached to support him, but he gave his head a minute shake as Geric scowled at the tree branches a short leap away. Of course. We were supposed to be scribe and imperial prisoner, as far as Geric was concerned.

  Hlanan hastily did up the front of his clothes as I pushed past both of them, hopped into the broad stone window sill, and then to a tree branch. “See? Easy,” I whispered.

  “If you have a tail,” Geric muttered.

  He was right. Where I could leap, they had to swing, not easy at all in the cold.

  But they managed, and we made it to the wall. Then came the hideous climb down. Even with me feeling my way first to show them where to put hands and feet, both of them had bleeding, numb hands by halfway down, and they dropped the last distance.

  Then came the miserable trip along the ledge as the snow steadily increased.