The Magic Thief, Page 3

  One of these days, I decided, I would get myself a locus stone.

  Nevery, Benet, and I went through, and the gate clicked closed behind me.

  On we went through the twisty tunnels, until we came at last down a long, dripping passageway to another gate. Nevery raised the locus magicalicus. In the flickery blue light, I saw that this gate was rust-dusty and had cobwebs hanging from it. Something was chiseled in the stone under our feet; I could feel wet runes with my toes.

  Nevery muttered a word. A key spell, like before, to open the gate. The locus stone sent out its finger of white light to the lock.

  Nothing happened.

  Nevery frowned and repeated the word again. Nothing.

  My arms were tired. With a sigh, I dropped the bags onto the floor and sat on one of them.

  “Be careful with those bags, boy,” Nevery said, not looking at me, but at the gate.

  Right. But the bags hadn’t been careful of me, had they? I opened one up and peered inside. Books. No wonder.

  At the gate, Nevery knelt, looking closely at the keyhole.

  I happened to be very good at picking locks. Well-known for it, actually. But the gate’s keyhole was a funny shape, and I figured this kind of lock wouldn’t open for me until I’d had more proper wizard training, so I didn’t say anything. Nevery placed the locus magicalicus right up against the lock and shouted the opening spell.

  An arrow of greeny-blue light shot from the keyhole, knocked the stone from his hand, and burst into a shower of sparks that fell to the floor and sizzled in the puddles. With a long drone-groan, the gate opened, scraping across the stone floor.

  “Come along,” Nevery said, after picking up his locus magicalicus. Tap tap, off he went down the passageway, Benet right behind him. I heaved up the bags and followed. The gate groaned closed after us.

  The tunnel went on until we met a long stairway leading up. Nevery led us to the top, where he pushed a pile of browny-gray brambles out of the way and climbed out into the wintry gray light. Benet stopped at the top of the stairs, blocking me, so I squeezed around him to have a look.

  Heartsease. It might once have been a grand, wide mansion house with rows of sparkling windows and columns out front, but that was a long, long time ago. Now it was a pile of soot-stained stone with dark, crack-paned windows, and a gaping hole that looked like somebody had taken a huge rock and dropped it right in the middle of the house where the double-wide doorway should be.

  Two parts of the building were still standing, one on either side of the big bite taken out of the middle. Each one was four stories tall with a row of tiny windows just under the gap-tiled roof; chimneys stuck out the top like a row of snaggled teeth.

  I loved it at first sight.

  From the look on Nevery’s face, he loved it, too, though I doubted he’d admit it. Benet just looked blank.

  A courtyard lay before the house, filled with brambles and young trees sprouting right up through the cobbles. In the middle of the courtyard stood a huge, black-branched tree, but instead of leaves, the tree was crowded with coal-black birds. They perched, silent and still, along the branches, watching us with bright, yellow eyes. I had the feeling they’d been sitting there for a long time, waiting for something.

  Nevery set off across the courtyard toward one of the parts of the mansion house left standing. As we approached the tree, the birds stirred and cackled quietly, talking about us. Nevery ignored them.

  At the house, we were faced with an arched door hanging off its hinges. Nevery gave it a push with his hand and it creaked open. Within was a large, dark room stacked with dusty boxes and barrels and old broken furniture.

  Nevery stood in the doorway, looking it over. “Very well then,” he said. “We’ll start with this part of the house, Benet. My study first, then the rest of it. We’ll have to clear all this out of here.” He glanced at me. “Make yourself useful, boy.” He held out his hand. “And give me the books.”

  Gladly. I handed over the bags and Nevery picked his way across the room to a narrow stairway and went up, brushing cobwebs out of the way with his cane, each footstep raising a little puff of dust.

  Leaving me with Benet. The muscle heaved up his luggage and started after Nevery. I followed, but at the bottom of the stairs Benet stopped and turned to me. I edged back out of his reach.

  He pointed at the junk-filled room. “Clean it.”

  Well, I certainly wasn’t going to argue with Benet. Following Nevery, he went up the stairs.

  I looked over the jumble of junk in the room. Might as well get started. Boxes first, and then I’d haul the old chairs and tables and things outside, see what could be used and what was past saving.

  I pulled the rotting wooden cover off one of the boxes and realized at once why Nevery had wanted me, his apprentice, to do this particular job.

  * * *

  Have moved back into Heartsease.

  Eastern quarter of house is sound; four floors of it, at least.

  Boxes of magical paraphernalia, books, even furniture in relatively good condition. House needs more work to be made livable, but good progress today.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 4

  The box was full of magical things, all wrapped up in dusty silver paper. Another ten or eleven boxes were just the same. I wanted to unwrap them and find out what they were, but I figured Nevery would want to do it himself.

  So I cleaned out the rest of the ground floor, dragging empty boxes and broken barrels out to the courtyard, and I found a mouse-chewed broom and started sweeping the spiderwebs and mouse droppings from the walls and floors; the ceiling was too high to reach.

  Then I went upstairs to find Nevery. He was on an upper floor, sitting in a dusty chair in a very dusty room reading an even dustier book.

  “Nevery,” I said.

  He looked up and snapped closed the book. A little cloud of dust flew up and he sneezed. “What,” he said crossly, rubbing his nose.

  “There’s boxes of magical stuff downstairs. D’you want me to bring them up?”

  “No,” Nevery said. “Benet will do it.”

  He went back to reading his book. I looked around the room. The high ceiling had plaster flowers and curlicues in the corners, all dust-crusted. The room contained a few other chairs, covered with faded, ripped cloth, and a long table with a scarred surface and heavy, carved legs. A threadbare carpet lay on the floor.

  Leaning against one wall was an oil painting, about half as long as I was tall, with a tarnished gilt-gold frame around it. I crouched down to have a look. The paint was crusted over with dirt and smoke; maybe it had hung over a fireplace. I wiped away some of the spiderwebs and dust that covered it.

  “What is this, Nevery?”

  “A painting,” he said without turning around.

  Well, I could see that. “A painting of what?” I asked.

  “A dragon.”

  I stepped back to look over the picture. “It’s a kind of animal?” I asked.

  Nevery closed his book. “You are ignorant, boy.”

  I was, true.

  “The dragon was a species of giant reptile,” Nevery said. “Winged, horned, and crested, often with the ability to breathe fire.”

  As he spoke, I saw, in the smoke and grime, the kind of creature he was talking about, just its outline.

  “Dragons are extinct,” Nevery said. Before I could ask him what extinct meant, he said, “It means they’ve all died out, boy. You won’t ever see a dragon.” He opened his book again and nodded at the bookshelves that lined one wall of the room from floor to ceiling; they were all crammed with books and dust. “Dust the shelves. Quietly. Let me read in peace.”

  I found a cloth and got to it. The books were old and moldy. I opened one to see what it looked like inside, and it made a crackly-crack sound that made Nevery look over at me and scowl. Carefully, I closed the book again, wiped it down, and put it back on the shelf. The cloth got dirty after a few minutes and I was covered with dust
from my hair to my feet. But I kept working at it.

  Finally Benet came back from whatever job he’d been doing and Nevery sent him down to fetch the boxes full of magical things.

  “Put them here for now,” Nevery said, and Benet set down the box he was carrying and went downstairs for the rest. I went over to watch.

  Nevery started by opening each box and handing me the tops, which I dumped in a pile by the door. Then he pulled one of the silver-paper-wrapped objects from the first box and unwrapped it.

  Inside was a glass globe about the size of a fist. He held it up. In the grayish light, its surface glimmered with rainbows, like oil on water.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Scrying globe,” Nevery answered. “You’ll keep it polished. Use only wormsilk cloth or it will become clouded and unusable.”

  I nodded. Right. I’d keep it polished. Good job for an apprentice.

  Carefully, Nevery set the globe on the carpet beside his chair and unwrapped three more, each one larger than the next. I knelt down and peered at them. Scrying globes? “What do they do?”

  “Escry,” Nevery said.

  That was not a very good answer.

  He picked up the largest globe and examined it closely. Unlike the others, its surface was scorched black, as if somebody had toasted it with flames. He handed it to me. “Useless,” he said.

  Its surface felt gritty. I polished it on my sleeve, but it didn’t get any cleaner. I wanted to look at it more carefully, but Nevery was unwrapping another object, a bowl made out of a turtle shell. Then he unwrapped a little tarnished silver knife in a leather sheath. After looking closely at the blade and testing it with his thumb, he tossed it aside, pronouncing it useless, so I picked it up and put it in my pocket. Next was a box of metal parts, tiny gears and pistons and springs, all of them rusty. “Hmmm,” Nevery said. He handed the box to me. I put it next to my scorched scrying globe and gathered up an armful of crumpled silver paper and dumped it with the other junk by the door.

  The first box empty, Nevery moved on to the next. The first thing he brought out and unwrapped was a small, dead alligator, stuffed, with glass eyes and yellow teeth. He regarded it for a moment, then handed it to me. “Junk.”

  I put it with the rest of my things. By this time I was hungry, and I pulled out the biscuit I’d stashed in my pocket and gnawed at it, watching as Nevery unpacked the rest of the boxes. Finally, he sat in his chair in the middle of the room, covered with dust and surrounded by magical things, empty boxes, and crumpled silver paper. He held a huge book from the last box.

  The book had a worn leather cover and raggedy-edged pages and bulged with paper markers, dried leaves, diagrams in faded ink, fragments of maps—all bound together by a thick leather strap with a lock in it.

  “Well, well,” Nevery muttered to himself. “I thought they would have burned this.” He pulled out his locus magicalicus, whispered a spell word, and, with a little pop, the lock opened.

  I leaned forward to watch, my biscuit forgotten.

  My movement distracted Nevery, and he glanced over at me. “You have work to do, boy. Go do it.”

  Jumping to my feet, I shoved the half biscuit into my pocket, grabbed a cloth, picked up a book from the shelf, and wiped it down.

  “Not in here,” Nevery growled. He nodded at the door. “Out.”

  I went.

  We spent the rest of the day cleaning and moving into Heartsease. By nightfall, we were all tired and cold. Benet had found a chest full of moth-eaten blankets. I pinched a few of them, bundled up my burnt scrying globe, the box of gears, the stuffed alligator, and the painting of the dragon, and headed up to the top of the mansion house.

  The ladder up to the attic was missing half its rungs, but I managed to climb to the top. I shoved my stuff up and poked my head through the trapdoor in the floor. The attic room was smaller than the others below, with a low, sloped ceiling and little windows with no glass in them, but it was snug enough. I climbed up and looked around. Except for me and my stuff, the room was empty. A thick layer of dust lay on the floor, and cracked plaster covered the walls. The room smelled of dust and dry rot.

  I made a bed out of my blankets and snuggled up inside, nibbling at my biscuit. It had been a good, long day, and I was tired. I ate the last crumb and fell asleep.

  * * *

  Note to self: Boy’s filthy rags make him look like gutterboy sneak thief. Which he is. But won’t do to have servant of mine looking like that. Boy probably crawling with vermin, lice. Must give him few copper locks for new clothes and louse comb.

  Weather cursed damp. Have caught nasty cold.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 5

  I woke up on my third day as Nevery’s apprentice hungrier than a pack of rats.

  The air blowing through the windows in my attic room was icy cold. I wrapped myself in one of the holey blankets, climbed down my ladder, and headed downstairs. The marble steps were freezing on my bare feet, and I was shivering by the time I made it to the second floor. Benet was there, building a wood fire in the wide fireplace.

  He gave me a glare as I came in and pointed to a bucket standing by the stairs. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to—I knew what he wanted me to do.

  I grabbed the bucket and scurried down the stairs and out to the well in the courtyard. The birds in the huge black tree watched me without stirring from their perches. After filling the bucket, I started to head back to the warm kitchen. Drats. Nevery would notice if I hadn’t washed.

  I went back to the well and, putting my bucket down, used the water in it to wash my face and neck and my hands and feet. Brrr. Even with my blanket wrapped around me, my teeth were chattering as I dipped the well bucket down, filled it again, and hurried back to the kitchen. There, Benet pointed to a kettle on the hearth, so I poured the water in, then huddled up next to the fire to get warm.

  “Is there any breakfast?” I asked.

  Benet didn’t answer.

  After a while, I got warm enough to look around. The room was not meant to be a kitchen. Maybe once it had been a drawing room, because it had tall windows and wallpaper and plaster flowers, just like Nevery’s study upstairs. The fireplace was framed by white plaster ladies in draperies holding up a marble mantelpiece. Benet had moved in kitchen furniture—chairs and a sturdy table with a knife-scarred top and, by the hearth, a kettle, an iron trivet, and a three-legged stool. A closet door stood open; I guessed we’d use it for a pantry.

  The kettle boiled. Benet took it off the fire and put it on the trivet, then added, from a small box on the table, a handful of tea leaves. When that had steeped for a while, he poured out the tea into a cup with a chipped gold rim and flowers painted on it. He gave me a glare and pointed up.

  I got it: take the tea up to Nevery.

  Leaving the blanket by the hearth, I brought the cup upstairs to Nevery’s study. He was sitting in his dusty chair reading the fat book he’d found the day before.

  I waited in the doorway until he looked up.

  “Here’s your tea,” I said.

  “Well, bring it here,” Nevery said. He sneezed. The magical things were still scattered across the floor, so I picked my way across the room to his chair and gave him the tea. He took it and inhaled the steam rising up from the cup, then sneezed again and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. I went back to the door but hesitated before going out.

  “What, boy?” he asked.

  “Should I dust some more?” I asked.

  He frowned at me.

  “So you can stop sneezing,” I explained.

  “I’m sneezing, boy, because I’ve caught a nasty cold.”

  “You’re sick?” I asked.

  “Obviously I’m sick,” he said crossly. “Surely you’ve had a cold once or twice; you know what it’s like.”

  A cold? I was cold all the time in the winter, but I’d never had a cold. I shook my head.

  “Hmmm,” Nevery said. “Ever had a stomachache? Th
e runs? A fever?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You’ve never been sick, then. Odd. Very odd.” He set down his teacup. “Come here.”

  I picked my way back across the room and stood before him. He pulled my head down and looked through my hair.

  “No vermin,” he said to himself. “Hmmm.”

  I stepped back.

  Nevery looked me over. “You’re probably wondering about breakfast, boy.”

  Yes, indeed I was.

  “Go with Benet into the city. He will buy supplies and you will help carry them back here.”

  All right. No breakfast because there was likely no food in Heartsease. I nodded and shivered back down to the fire in the kitchen. I only had a moment to get warm before Benet was ready to go. He led me down to the ground floor, stopped to put on a warm coat and stuff a string of copper locks in his pocket, and we were off.

  I wondered how we were going to get through the magical gates, but Nevery had thought of that. Benet pulled from his pocket a small stone wrapped in a piece of cloth. It wasn’t a locus magicalicus, because Benet wasn’t a wizard, but something else not as powerful. He put the stone up against the lock and it clicked open.

  We went on down the tunnel and through each of the gates, one after the other, until we came to the stairs leading up to the Night Bridge. Benet led the way and I followed, out onto the bridge and the busy morning traffic.