The King's Thief

Chapter 14


Beck moved quietly around the workshop. He had rented this scummy, dimly-lit room from a surly slumsdweller by the name of Ricken. The man’s stench was overpowering, but Beck had put his personal feelings aside to accept the tenancy agreement; he needed a place that he would never normally be associated with, and this certainly fitted the bill. A completely empty room had originally greeted him, and he had quickly furnished this with a trio of trestle tables, a fourth, smaller, desk and a chair for him. Moving the remaining Banshees had been a simple affair; he had sewn two rough hessian bags together, the kind that potatoes normally came in, and covered each woman. Then he had given a coin to one of the servants at the Barracks, telling him that the bags contained food for the Barracks which needed to be stored long-term in the Slums. Within a day, the bags had turned up. The three altered women now lay, a finger occasionally twitching slightly, on the bare trestle tables. They remained naked; the first signs of emaciation were starting to touch Sayela, as she had been nearly a week without food.

Chapter 13

Kaliss stared out over the chalk cliffs, watching the restless sea. It was not the first time he had seen such an expanse of water, but he had never travelled beyond the island-kingdom of Rondia, and he was apprehensive of travelling. Now, he was left to his own devices as a cloaked Faergaldan dealt with a grizzled old man, off to the right. The man was Garny Riggs, a ferry captain. He lived in the town of Uring, by the coast, and made his living transporting people between Rondia and Yorril, one of the larger countries on the continent.

Chapter 11

Kaliss watched as the Sylva prepared their camp. He saw several of the warriors take large brown objects from their packs and stride off into the trees, more than twenty feet away. The party had stopped in a natural clearing, and the night was dark. Kaliss shucked his pack onto the ground and looked around the circle; the Sylvan men and women seemed to split naturally into talking groups, he had noticed, but there did not seem to be any romantic motives behind the groupings. Certainly there had been no night-time visits to other peoples’ blankets.
Ryn was in charge of cooking tonight, and he had already made the fire. It crackled merrily as the thief approached. Nearby, the carcass of a deer lay ready for roasting. The animal had been seen ten minutes before, limping through the trees as they sought a place to rest. One of the women had spotted it and, without waiting for instruction, had leant against a nearby tree, closing her eyes. A dim glow had seemed to emanate from her, lighting up the closing darkness, and when it diminished the deer was lying dead on the ground.

Chapter 10

Kaliss grabbed hold of Ryn’s arm. The group were walking over a windswept hill, occasional outcroppings of gorse and bracken being the only scenery. The ground alternated between deep mossy grass and bare stone, the very bone of the land laid bare by erosion.
“Something’s bothering me, Ryn.”
Ryn turned his head to look at Kaliss. After three days on the road, the thief had asked infrequent questions, but the Sylva was surprised it had taken the thief this long to notice the fact he was about to question. Ryn merely cocked and eyebrow, indicating that Kaliss should ask.
“Your feet. You don’t wear boots, but you’re able to walk across stones without discomfort… and then, on that last bit of stone we crossed you… well, you clopped, that’s the only way I can put it.”

Chapter 9

Beck opened his eyes. Dawn had broken, and with it Beck’s concentration. He rolled from his seated position onto all fours, feeling stiff muscles protest at having to move. Staggering to his feet, he moved to the window and flung open the shutters, letting a cool breeze roll in. Turning to the form on the wheeled hospital bed, Beck took in the site of his efforts. The lesions and small bruises were gone, that been the easy part, but the silver orb was gone. The biggest change had taken place on the head of the body which had once been Sayela. The silver had flowed as if liquid to cover the ragged face, turning the charred landscape into a reflective half-orb. The effect was as if Sayela was wearing a solid silver fencing helmet, like the ones the recruits used in training. Standing over her, Beck could see himself reflected and oddly distended, and behind him, the grinning face of Kaliss. Whipping round, Beck’s hand went for his sword-belt, but it was lying on the bed where he had left it. The empty room taunted him. He blinked slowly; mental fatigue was getting to him, evidently.

Chapter 8

The thief finally recovered enough of himself to speak. “My name is…”
 “We know your name, human,” the Sylva facing him said. His voice was mellow, a light tenor, and he spoke in a slightly ponderous fashion, giving weight to each utterance. “You are known to us, and we have been seeking you since news of your failed induction into your human army reached us.”
“Well, now that you’ve found me, what do you intend to do with me?”
“You are one of our enemy, but we would have it be otherwise. The erg-man, Malketh, had planned to use you to sabotage our war effort, but we bear you no malice. You are compelled by forces you can have no reckoning of, and we are aware of the special considerations regarding you.”
Kaliss lapsed into silence. Special considerations? The Sylva continued.

Chapter 7

Kallis stumbled over a rock, but somehow kept his feet under him. He continued at the punishing half-jogging speed that his new captors had set. From the jail cell, which had turned out to share a wall with the outside of the Royal Barracks, his ‘saviour’ had directed him towards a shadowy group of about five people. One of the figures was somehow creating the blinding light, but as Kaliss approached, a deep voice said “That’s him. Snuff that, let’s go.” The light had instantly disappeared and darkness had returned. Even though his night-vision slowly returned, the figures were all dressed in black and, as they trotted towards a raised entrance to the sewer, no more details were forthcoming. A quick glance behind showed that the tall man with the bow had taken up station behind him; this simple fact told Kaliss that staying with these people, for now, was the wisest course of action.

Chapter 6

Kaliss woke with a start. Feeling rested, though somewhat achy from the hard bed, he sat up and was forced to shield his eyes; bright sunlight shone through the tiny window, the bars casting a segmented shadow across the entire wall. A glance at the C-mag he still wore showed him that it was an hour past dawn, and as if to confirm that it was the breakfast hour, Kaliss’s stomach rumbled. He swung his legs off the bunk, marvelling that just twenty-four hours after breaking his leg he was able to stand at all. Then he strode across to the door and slapped the flat of his hand against it.

Chapter 5

Kaliss sat down on the only chair in the room. “Not much of a choice. I value my neck, old man, and besides, I guess I owe you some sort of thanks; you fixed me up good and proper.”
“Excellent,” hissed Malketh. Then let me tell you what is required of you. First, how much do you know of the war?”
“I know what any man knows in the street; there’s a war in the Western kingdom between the armies of Theria and the Sylvan Horde. The Sylva have their own magic that keeps the war on fairly even terms, and other than that the only news to come back is carried by cartloads of wounded soldiers.” Kaliss started massaging his leg, not quite believing it was healed.
“Right on most counts; there is a terrible war being waged far to the West of here, and it is indeed against the brutal Sylva, but the war is not on even terms. We are losing, and every day sees us pushed further and further back.”

Chapter 4

Kaliss walked along the dark beach. Blackness spread from the sea to the stars as Kaliss wandered through his own mind. The sand crunched underfoot and the sea lapped gently beside him. Walking alone, the silence was suddenly broken by a voice speaking in deep tones.
“Would you not rather come in friendship?”
Kaliss turned to see the speaker, a figure seemingly made up of pure darkness.

Chapter 3

Kaliss tumbled off his chair, ducking the blow. Turning the dodge into a controlled dive, he narrowly missed colliding with a waitress carrying a tray. Sawdust from the floor flew up into the air. Taking the opportunity to feign drunkenness, he grabbed hold of her expansive rear and gave her a cheeky grin. Used to such ribald behaviour from the patrons, the waitress gave him a little wink back, but was then shoved aside by the furious drunkard. Now that Kaliss looked at him, he wished that he had chosen a different seat, or even a different inn; the man was enormous, a slab of muscle with bricks for hands, one glass eye and a drunken energy about him. Dodging Glass-eye’s swinging fists was easy, for he had obviously had a few drinks, but it was a near thing.