Stephen Deas1 - The Thief-Takers Apprentice

‘Ach!’ The thief-taker leaned forward and spat over the edge of the balcony. ‘Boy, you could pick any of those towers on The Peak. Pick the one you want. Whichever it is, the person who ordered it built knew their letters.’

The priest grumbled under his breath and wagged a finger at the thief-taker. ‘Urlik the Grim has a place up on The Peak and he certainly didn’t know how to read and write when he got it. Doubt that’s changed.’

‘The Grim was no better than a pirate in the war and I doubt that’s changed either.’ Lines of anger filled the thief-taker’s face. He jerked his head towards the doorway. ‘Come on, boy. Time we were going.’

Berren got up. He followed the priest and the thief-taker down the stairs; with Master Sy wrapped up in a cloud of anger strong enough to crack stones, Berren kept his distance. They emerged into the back of the temple next to another enormous door. On the other side stood a smaller door, like the one into the tower. The old priest stopped. He followed Berren’s eyes. ‘That one goes down,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing there you’d want to see.’ With a deep sigh he turned and ambled around the side of the temple. Berren hesitated, but Master Sy shooed him on. Beyond the black and silver altar in the centre, Berren passed a row of five black and silver columns, each reaching up to the roof.

‘The five are for the five faces of the moon,’ said the old priest without looking round. ‘Teachers, Guardians, Seekers, Savants and Wanderers, if you care to remember them. Syannis here is on the road of the waning moon. Seekers of truth and unravellers of secrets. Obvious as though it was written on his face. You, though…’ The priest went to the column in the middle. He touched it and murmured something. The air crackled. ‘You I can’t read at all.’ He frowned and shook his head. ‘I can give you a blessing if you want it,’ he said. ‘You might need it.’

Berren shied away. Master Sy growled something. He’d walked straight past the columns. Set into the black wall beyond were three altars. Master Sy went to the nearest one, a golden sun set into the stone of the temple wall. He touched the sun with his fingers and then dropped to one knee for a moment. A little past the sun was a slab of black stone flecked with tiny white spots that seemed to glow in the dark. The third altar looked as though it was broken, a slab of granite half hanging out of the wall, cracked and split with pieces missing. Berren wondered what he should do, whether he should bow before one of them as well. Without really thinking he drifted towards the furthest one, the broken one. Then Master Sy was suddenly on his feet again with a hand on Berren’s shoulder.

‘Not that one, lad.’ He turned to follow the footsteps of the priest. Garrent was heading for the door through which they’d entered.

‘It looks broken.’

‘It is. There were four gods once. Something happened to one of them.’

That was too much. ‘Broken?’ he scoffed. Always there. That was the point of gods. The sun and the moon and the earth and the stars and the wind and the rain and the sea. Stuff like that. That was what the thief-taker had said, wasn’t it, up on the top of the tower? Broken gods? Fool’s talk!

‘Something funny, boy?’

Berren quickly bowed his head. ‘I didn’t think gods could be broken, that’s all,’ he said, as contritely as he could.

‘Really?’ Master Sy pushed Berren towards the way out. ‘And how would you know that, lad? Did I make a mistake and take a priest’s boy? Because I thought I took a little thief off the streets who had wandering fingers and a head full of nothing. Expert on gods, are you? Eh?’

Berren kept walking. He glared at the floor and didn’t say anything.

‘No, didn’t think so. Come on, out. We’ve got more places you need to see and we didn’t come here to talk about gods. Garrent here can tell you all about how the world got broken and the earth god with it on some other day. It was the moon-folk who did it, after all, so he should know.’ He pushed open the door. The light and the noise of Moon Street gushed over them. For a moment, Berren thought he meant the priests in Deephaven. He stopped, too shocked to move, and turned back to the thief-taker, mouth agape in wonder.

‘The priests…?’

‘Not Teacher Garrent, you dolt!’ Master Sy roared with laughter. ‘For pity’s sake, lad, did no one tell you any stories when you were growing up?’

Berren just stared at him. He remembered stories aplenty. Stories about how he’d better do what he was told or he’d be beaten black and blue, that was the gist of them. Mixed in with a healthy smattering of stories about how he was going to die in all sorts of colourful and gruesome ways. The idea that he might receive a story as a pleasure was a new one and he didn’t quite know what to say. Slowly he shook his head.

The thief-taker looked shocked. The laughter went away. ‘No, I suppose perhaps they didn’t. Well that’s all it is, lad. Just stories. Stuff from long before the first men blew in from across the seas. I suppose gods fight just like men do.’ He sucked in a deep breath between his teeth. ‘They say the first sun-king rose up from the ruins, long long ago. Fey stories, boy. Dusty old legends. Nothing that matters any more. Keep walking.’

Berren shook his head and turned his mind back to the world outside. After the quiet of the temple, stepping out into Moon Street felt like stepping out into a war. Even though the steps were shallow and wide, he took them carefully. His head was spinning.

‘When you’ve learned to be civil, I’ll take you to one of the solar temples. They’ll tell you all the stories you want, if you have the courtesy to open your ears.’

Another voice rang down from the top of the stairs. Teacher Garrent, standing at the door behind them. ‘But if Syannis ever tries to teach you anything about the gods and the four paths himself, you’d best know now that he’s probably wrong about almost everything, young Berren! You should always listen attentively to your master, mind, but come back here afterwards and I’ll tell it to you properly. ’ The priest smiled and closed his mouth and waved farewell, but Berren heard him whispering in his ear. And remember what I told you, young man. Beware the house on the docks.

Further up the hill beside the market, the cart that had been blocking the street was gone.

‘Come on boy, don’t dawdle!’ Master Sy marched away from the temple in big swinging strides, forcing Berren to run to keep up. The thief-taker was positively steaming. ‘If you ever have any trouble, boy, go to Teacher Garrent. He’s kind and he’s safe and he’ll look after you. If you ever want any actual help, though, then you might want to consider looking somewhere else.’ He cut sharply right off Moon Street and wove between the alleys into the traffic of the Godsway. The road here was every bit as busy as Weaver’s Row, but it was a different kind of busy. This was a steady, orderly procession of carts, rolling up and down the hill between Four Winds Square and the river docks. No, the Rich Docks, that’s what the priest had called them. Berren wondered why.

At the top of the hill in the huge open space of Four Winds Square, the carts scattered. Master Sy ignored them. He marched straight across the middle towards the city courthouse on the other side, the place where the execution scaffolds had been. As Berren walked beneath where they’d stood, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He stopped to peer at the ground and look for traces of blood; but before he could find any, Master Sy was yelling at him to keep up and he had to run again.