Stephen Deas - The Thief-Takers Apprentice

‘Which one’s the witch-doctor then?’ he asked nervously, sheltering for a moment from the rain. Talking to city guards was something he’d spent years learning not to do. In the world he was used to they meant nothing but trouble.

The soldiers looked at him. One of them wrinkled his nose and pointed, straight at a narrow alley between two of the warehouses. Berren thanked him and hurried on. Fish-men. That was just silly stories told by men too far in their cups to know what they were saying. Probably the witch-doctor was the same. Being scared was silly. So he stood, just inside the gate, and stared at the alley where the guardsman had pointed. He could see a doorway right enough. In the doorway, little things were squirming in the shadows. Cats. Lots of cats, hiding from the downpour. At least the rain washed away some of the smell.

The door opened and the cats vanished inside. Berren quickly looked away. A few seconds later, a figure appeared. For a moment it paused, shrouded in the shadows of the house. The witch-doctor. Berren was certain of it. His heart jumped. The witch-doctor, come to take him for his insolence!

No, that was stupid. Hundreds and hundreds of people walked in and out of the River Gate every day. It was hard to imagine that even a very busy witch-doctor could curse more than a handful of them. Even so, with every step towards the Godsway arch, he half-expected to feel a heavy hand on his shoulder.

No hand came. As he reached the arch, he risked another glance back towards the door. What he saw was a man, hurrying quickly away, heading towards him, face bowed against the rain. The man ran right past him, without seeing him, without even noticing that he was there. Berren stood absolutely still, and watched him go.

It was Master Sy.

There were children playing in the yard again, the same scruffy half-a-dozen ragamuffins who came in every few days and sang songs and chased each other with sticks until someone else in turn chased them away. As Berren came into the yard, soaked to the skin, they were dancing. The rain didn’t seem to trouble them at all.

‘Man with no shadow that nobody knows Comes to harvest that which he sows Great white tower made of stone that grows Home to the makers of all of man’s woes

Four great wizards come out of the sky Lay to rest the dead that rise Two born low and two born high Touched by silver, three will die

Dragon-king and dark lord’s bane Each will wax and then will wane The Bloody Judge lifts his hand All is razed to ash and sand

Black moon comes, round and round Black moon comes, all fall down.’

Today Berren ignored them, hurrying past and into the thief-taker’s house. The door was open, and when he got inside, there was Master Sy, sitting at the table, bright and awake. There was food on the table. Fruit and bread, but no sign of Lilissa. Berren stood in the doorway, and stared.

‘Are you…’ He didn’t know what to say.

‘Am I what, boy?’ The thief-taker’s face was clouded. He looked angry and troubled. Carefully, Berren put down the buckets of river water just inside the door. Outside, the children had stopped their game. He could feel their eyes on his back.

‘We ran away into The Maze and there were mudlarks and everything. We hid in this place I know. And then we came back and you weren’t here.’ He wondered whether he should say anything about One-Thumb and the Harbour Men.

Master Sy looked at him. Looked through him, as though looking at something that was inside Berren that neither of them had ever seen before. ‘I was careless, lad. I got cut. I should never have fought four at once. That’s always too many, no matter how many tricks you know. Best you know that.’

Berren nodded. This was more like it. Four men! Four men with swords! He’d fought them and he’d nearly won. Had won. Like in the alley but even better. ‘I went to get water. When I was coming back, I saw you. You came out of the house on the river docks. The one where Garrent said not to go. That why you were there? Where’s Lilissa?’

‘The House of Cats and Gulls.’ The thief-taker laughed, but his face was cold and unfriendly. ‘Funny place to wake up. But if I hadn’t then I would have gone there anyway to find out why I wasn’t dead.’ He lifted his shirt. In the hollow of his arm was a livid scar, as long and as thick as a finger. ‘They didn’t just cut me, boy. They good as killed me. And Lilissa’s gone home, boy. Where she should be, back with her fishmonger’s son and well away from the likes of us.’

Berren stared at the scar. That was from last night?

‘Well? Do you like the rain so much, boy, or are you coming in?’

‘The witch-doctor did that?’

Master Sy rolled his eyes. ‘Witch-doctor? Is that what they’ve told you he is?’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll take you to him someday. But no, a snuffer did that. One of them touched me, and badly. Saffran healed a wound that would likely have killed me.’ He straightened his shirt, sat down at the table and gestured to the seat next to him. ‘You want to know about me and the witch-doctor on the docks? Then come in and break some bread with me. I’ll tell you about where we come from. And after that we have work to do.’

Berren looked at his feet. ‘I took your purse to go and buy some food.’ He showed Master Sy the purse, and then the little bag of spice cakes he’d bought on Godsway for him and Lilissa to eat.

‘Well now you can give it back to me. Besides, as you see, I have another. So that being the case, come here and sit down. Do it now.’ He had steel in his voice this time.

Berren walked in, closed the door behind him and sat at the table with Master Sy.

‘Do you remember, when I first brought you back here, I told you that someone had stolen something from me a long time ago? You asked me what had happened to them, and I said that nothing had happened. Nothing at all. Do you remember that?’

Berren nodded. Behind him, someone shouted something out of a window. The children in the yard yelled and cursed back and then ran away. Everything went quiet.

‘They stole my family from me, Berren. They stole my family and my kingdom.’

Berren stared in disbelief. ‘They stole a kingdom?’ That seemed impossible. How could a…

‘How could a poor thief-taker in a city like Deephaven have once been a king? Is that what you’re thinking?’ Master Sy laughed, bitterly. ‘Yes, indeed. How could he? Well I was never a king, Berren. But I was the eldest bastard son of one.’ The thief-taker picked up a knife and cut a strange-looking fruit in two. Red juice ran down his fingers and then his chin as he bit into one half. The other half he put on a wooden plate and pushed it along the table. ‘Dragonfruit. Don’t suppose you’ve ever had one of these before?’

‘No.’

‘Well you’d best have one now. You might not get another chance and they’re not to be missed. They grow them in the south and ship them up the coast. They don’t reach the markets in Deephaven all that often. Usually they go straight to the tables up on The Peak, or else they go down the river to Varr.’ He shrugged. ‘There must have been a good harvest this year. Food for princes, this. It’s bruised and past its best, but still.’ He took another bite. ‘What do you want, lad? Had enough of thief-taking now you’ve seen the nasty side of it? You want to go back to your Master Hatchet?’

‘No.’ Berren shook his head. ‘I can’t. They’d kill me. And…’ he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Even if I could, I thought about it and I don’t want to.’ The three men in the alley, the Bloody Dag’s mudlarks, now the snuffers on the Avenue of Emperors. That’s what he wanted. To be like that. Deadly.