The King's Thief

Chapter 1

Kaliss knelt in the mud. In the meagre light from the sickle moon he could see the target ahead of him; the merchant Dangha’s warehouse. As a cloud covered the moon, the area was once again shrouded in darkness, but Kaliss’s brown eyes retained much of his night vision; looking to his right, he could see Irban similarly crouched at the corner of an adjoining warehouse. Kaliss’s brow knit in frustration; even from twenty feet away he could see Irban clearly. The moon faintly lit the man’s clothing, almost identical to Kaliss’s own, a black cotton shirt, hardy leather trousers, boots and a leather jacket, for the night was cool. Irban’s angle was wrong, the entire left side of his body in view from the target.



Despite the coolness of the night, Kaliss could feel the cotton of his shirt sticking to his back, his heart pumping in his chest as adrenaline flowed through him. He flicked his eyes back to the target. It was time to move. The flickering display on his Chronomag counted down the final ten seconds, and he tensed. His right hand moved to the pouch on his belt containing his lockpicking tools, and he shifted his balance from his left knee to his right foot. As the last tiny light on the C-mag turned green, Kaliss exploded into action. His peripheral vision caught the blur of motion from Irban as he too made his move. Eyes flicking left and right, Kaliss saw that Sayela had done her job well; the single guard assigned to this warehouse was elsewhere, probably in an alleyway enjoying her company. He allowed himself a chuckle. People. They were so stupid sometimes.

Irban and Kaliss reached the wooden door at almost exactly the same instant, immediately flattening themselves against it. Dropping so that he was eye-height to the lock, Kaliss was already fumbling for the correct pick in the pockets of his black cotton trousers as he examined the complex lock.
“Nice night for it,” muttered Irban sourly as he furtively scanned the surroundings.
“You’d prefer daylight?” Kaliss replied in low tones. His concentration zeroed in on the task at hand.
Irban fixed Kaliss with a hard stare. “I had a pint, a wench and a soft place for my arse, and you come knocking. This had better be worthwhile, Kaliss.”
“Oh, it should be; now shut up, or it’ll all be for naught.”
Irban snorted, but went back to his lookout. Kaliss inserted a torsion wrench and began to run the bent end of the half-diamond pick along the tumblers. He closed his eyes the better to visualise the precious metal pick raking along the metal of the lock. In seconds his fingers felt the clicking feedback as the pins set one by one, and with a twist the lock was free.
“Halfway there…” muttered Kaliss under his breath.
“Just hurry it up, will you?” Irban hissed.
Ignoring the swarthy Therian, Kaliss set his fingernail against the red wax seal that lay above the lock; the magical half of the protection Dangha had employed to protect his wares.
“I hate this bit.” With a twist, the wax was on the dirt floor, and a blue fire leapt up from the space it had occupied. The fire jumped across the intervening space to alight on the thumbnail Kaliss had used; from there, it spread up his arm, then snuffed itself out, burning nothing.
The thief sucked his thumbnail; although the arcane fire could do him no harm, it still stung. Irban snorted softly. “You still owe me an explanation for how you can do that without being burned to a crisp like any other Dud,”
“I don’t know. I’ve always been able to do that; are you complaining? I can go home, if it’s a problem…”
The look on Irban’s face spoke volumes as Kaliss pushed the door open. It creaked alarmingly, but swung open, admitting them to the gloom of the warehouse.

Almost immediately plunged into darkness, the two men darted in and to the left; the silhouette of them against the relative light outside would have made a tempting target were there another watchman. As they waited for their eyes to adjust, Kaliss felt something brush his leg; in a flash his knife was out of its wrist sheath and he crouched, holding it point-first at about the right height. As his pupils dilated and his vision improved, he saw the black shape of that fiercest of hunters; the warehouse cat, gingerly licking the end of his steel blade. Kaliss relaxed; having heard nothing, it was safe to assume there was no second guard.
“There’s nothing here.”
As Kaliss rose, he looked at Irban and smiled, an unfriendly expression; “Yes there is, there’s…” Then his gaze took in the gloomy warehouse, the dusty floors, the prowling cat and, most importantly, the distinct lack of a shipment of finest smoking Toba. “…nothing here.” he finished in a growl. “That little runt Simrin must have given me a bad hookup.”
“More likely he sold it to someone else first and made two wages off it,” commented Irban.
Kaliss sheathed his dagger with a sigh of frustration. “That boy will regret this,” he muttered. “Another scar to add to his collection, the little bastard.”
The C-mag on Kaliss’s wrist vibrated a little, and he was instantly alert again. Irban reacted too, meaning that the distress signal was a general warning; something had gone wrong. Only a second later the sound of a whistle could be heard, and running feet. Abandoning the warehouse, Kaliss and Irban began to move back towards cover; a light rain had started to fall, and the ground was starting to become treacherous. Kaliss skidded round a corner, flattened himself against the wall again and risked a look around the corner. Everything was as it had been, the warehouse a mere ten feet away, the door slightly ajar now. Suddenly a shadowy figure appeared around the corner of the warehouse, running flat out. Slight, short and unmistakably female, Kaliss watched as Sayela pelted towards them. Kaliss slapped the wall in frustration, knowing that the night was a waste; he signalled to Irban and, as the running figure passed them, the two men joined her.

The three would-be thieves knew exactly where they were going. A series of boltholes were known to all of Kaliss’s group of criminals and, in times of need, they could be accessed quickly and inconspicuously. The nearest one to the target warehouse lay in the basement of a baker’s shop; a sharp left turn took them on to a wider street, followed by a right into a smaller alleyway. The three leapt over the short fence and ran down the side of one of the thin houses common to this area of Theria. Kaliss held up a fist, signalling a stop, and together they crouched for a moment. The sound of running footsteps was distant yet.

Looking down at her unblemished face, almost hidden under a flow of red hair, Kaliss felt the faint stirrings of desire; although he had lain with many in recent years, he knew that Sayela was special. He took a moment to drink in the sight of her, dressed as she was in a loose green cotton shirt with a neckline that was positively indecent and a brown skirt that could be interpreted as a belt. Although he was beyond such childish reactions as sweaty palms, he felt the more mature faint rustlings of lust. However, he pushed those feelings aside; she had failed them.
“What went wrong?” he rasped. The footfalls were coming closer, and slowing down.
“I tried everything I could think of; turns out Dangha hires guards who just aren’t interested in women.” Her lilting accent turned wry as she said “Maybe you should have sent Irban in my place.”
“You little cur”, growled the tall Therian, “How dare you say that about me. I’ll have you know that-”
 “Shut it, the pair of you,” Kaliss hissed. “They’ve stopped.”
All three held their breath as they listened. The panting of the out-of-shape city guard was deafening in the still night.
“They’re long gone. We should leave off the chase, report this.” A gruff voice, middle-aged.
“No, they can’t have gotten that far. Search the area.”
Eyes widening slightly, Kaliss started to move off, and Irban and Sayela followed. Every sense seemed to be heightened, the night sky seeming to give enough illumination for it to be midday in his eyes. The pace was excruciatingly slow as he looked back to see a uniformed guardsman pass the mouth of the very alley they were in. Kaliss froze, but Irban wasn’t so observant; the big man shunted into Kaliss and, to his mounting horror, his foot stumbled into a discarded beer bottle. The noise as it hit the wall sounded like the end of worlds; the guard swung his lantern in their direction, and as they froze in the sudden light he began shouting for backup.
Kaliss knew that they had seconds to act in. Training kicked in; he grabbed Sayela’s sleeve and began to run down the alley, away from the harsh light. He could hear Irban’s laboured breathing behind them, and the demand from the guard that they should “Stop, in the name of the King!” Kaliss swung his gaze from left to right, desperately seeking a doorway, a fence, anything, but this alley seemed as void of escape as a jail cell.
“Stop, or I shoot!” screamed the guard, and Kaliss spared a look back to see that the man had his hand out in front of him, index finger pointed, black metal sheathing that digit. Greenish fire already crackled around the end of the metal. He felt Sayela’s sleeve rip from his grasp as she stopped, a panicked expression on her face; he half turned, half stumbled to a stop and looked back at her with outstretched arms.
“Please, stop,” she cried, tears gathering in her eyes. Kaliss turned away; he had no intention of letting the brutes throw him in jail. His deeds would see him hang. Irban was ahead of him as he began running again, and then he heard a screaming howl from behind.

Time seemed to slow to treacle. His long black hair whipped his cheeks as he turned his head to watch the green fire coming. The mass of energy seemed to grow from the tiny tip of the metal finger-sheath and expand to the size of a man’s head. Kaliss saw everything in intense detail; the bolt of fury leaving the wand, the way it sparkled in an almost beautiful fashion, the way it merely brushed past Sayela’s face, searing and burning the entire front of her head. Kaliss watched, too stunned to react to seeing his lover blasted and falling aside, as the fire continued on, approaching him with full force. Given no time to brace himself, Kaliss closed his eyes and felt… nothing. Snapping his eyes open again, he turned to see that the lethal blast had passed through him, or around him somehow, and, as he watched, it slammed in to the back of Irban, lifting him off his feet.
Irban writhed on the ground, in too much pain to even scream, as the flames spread from his back to his arms, legs and head, causing intense pain and burning the flesh to a cinder. Almost dispassionately Kaliss watched as his companion these last eighteen months died. In some distant, walled-off part of his mind there was a caged monster screaming, but the rest of him was busy cataloguing things; the smell of burning flesh, the hideous light from the unreal flame, and the echoing last screech from his lover. Panic seemed to fill a cup inside his head, and he knew if that cup overflowed, something might snap.
The renewed sound of running feet brought him crashing back to the present. He resumed his run down the alleyway, past the still-smouldering corpse of Irban, and skidded around the corner. Even at this time of night, the square containing the Outermarket was bustling; a whole different clientele to the day, but still there was business to be done. Lurching around the front of a stall, Kaliss began to thread his way through the crowd, making his way to the other side of the square. Behind him he heard the shouts of confusion and fury as the guardsmen reached the crowd and began shoving people aside. Kaliss emerged from that same crowd as if spat out and, now panting heavily, ran down the nearest street. He finally spotted a sign he recognised; the Blind Stoat, a drinking-house he rarely frequented, but it would do. He slammed through the door and was instantly just a regular, quietly nursing a pint in the corner. Relative safety was his, at least until the owner of this pint came back from the outhouse. Keeping his expression neutral, he tried to sort the whirl of thoughts and emotions that were threatening to overwhelm him.