Roger Taylor - Arash-Felloren

Lassner’s attention was rapt nevertheless, and a few sharp questions ordered the events as nimbly as his finger had ordered the contents of the purses. ‘Bad mistake,’ he declared when Pinnatte had finished. ‘Very bad.’

‘There was nothing to show who he was.’ Pinnatte anxiously repeated what he had already said. ‘No staff, no robes, nothing. Just another plum for picking.’

Lassner frowned, but nodded. The excuse was accepted. Pinnatte did not normally make mistakes, least of all anything as serious as this. He reached out. ‘Give me your hand.’

Pinnatte thrust out his right hand stiffly, half-fearing some form of punishment. But Lassner merely took it and examined the mark.

‘A typical Kyrosdyn trick,’ he pronounced disparagingly, releasing the hand. ‘Something to make you fuss and fret – chew your nails over. And it’s working, isn’t it? Look at you. You’re here, but your mind’s skittering about the city like a cat with a tin on its tail.’

‘He used Kyroscreft on me,’ Pinnatte insisted. ‘He just pointed at me and I couldn’t move my legs. And he was surrounded by… something.’ He rubbed the back of his hand. ‘What if he’s done something to me?’

A flicker of impatience crossed Lassner’s face and he let out a loud breath. ‘You’ve got the makings of a good thief, young Pinnatte. That’s why you’re here and why I don’t take much premium off you for the learning you’re getting. You could go far… get a Den of your own one day, perhaps. But you’ve still a lot to learn; there’s more to real thieving than just cutting purses.’ He became unexpectedly confidential. ‘Some of the best thieves in the city are heading trading houses or serving on the Council. The only difference between them and us is that we’ve got a sense of honour.’ He waved his digression aside then tapped his head. ‘Making people think they’ve seen something that they haven’t, or seen nothing when they’ve seen something, is as important to you as learning how to use a sharp knife and a soft touch when you’re taking purses.’

‘There was no trickery,’ Pinnatte protested. ‘I felt what he did to me. I couldn’t move my legs.’

Lassner shrugged. ‘I’m sure you couldn’t,’ he conceded, ‘as you thought. Kyrosdyn aren’t people to trifle with, for sure, everyone knows that. But from what I’ve heard, they can’t do anything that I haven’t known many a good thief capable of.’ He became almost earnest. ‘When you’re frightened, your mind plays tricks, betrays you. They play on that. And play well. They’re treacherous and clever.’

Pinnatte shook his head and made to speak.

‘Listen to me, lad.’ Lassner’s tone made Pinnatte stiffen. The older man had an ugly temper at times, and though he no longer had the skills that had once made him one of the Guild of Thieves’ finest, he was still highly respected, and someone to be reckoned with. ‘What you need above all else in this business is to see things as they are. Not as you think they are, or as you think they ought to be, but as they are. Use your eyes, use your wits, look into the heart of what’s happening. Let everyone else be confused, chasing shadows… but not you. You need to be the one who sees what’s really happening.’

Pinnatte nodded earnestly. Tempered with relief that no punishment was coming, it was a mixture of respect and fear that was holding him there now that he had told his story. Though he was listening to the old man, he had no idea what he was talking about. How could you not see something the way it was? he thought scornfully. All he wanted to do was get to his room and set about his hand with hot water and a stiff brush. Lassner looked at him for a moment, then his eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘Get some hot water and give that hand a good scrub,’ he said.

Despite himself, Pinnatte gaped and momentarily stopped rubbing his hand. The old man chuckled darkly and waved him out of the room. ‘You see how easy it is, lad, when you use your head and your wits. See things as they are.’

The demonstration made a vivid impression on Pinnatte, but his dominant concern soon returned. Within a few minutes he had collected a pan of hot water from the grumbling and dangerous boiler at the back of the building, and made his way up the rickety stairs to his own room on the first floor. There he began vigorously scrubbing his hand, grimly determined to remove the Kyrosdyn’s mark, no matter what Lassner chose to say about it. Within a few minutes the back of his hand was red raw. But the mark was unchanged. As he stared at it, the memory of the sudden loss of the use of his legs, and the Kyrosdyn’s eerie presence as he had taken his hand, returned with dreadful clarity. His hand was trembling as the brush slipped from it and clattered on to the floor. For a moment, fear threatened to overwhelm him completely. Unclear but intense visions rushed in upon him, telling him of a future where somehow he would be irrevocably bound to the service of the Kyrosdyn. A crystal glittered in front of him.

‘I’ll have your worthless soul. Bind it in here. Listen to its futile struggling. Trapped. For ever.’ The voice, the manner, everything, chilled him.

‘When you’re frightened, your mind plays tricks, betrays you. See things as they are.’

Lassner’s words entered his swirling confusion. He latched on to them. Lassner, at least, he knew. Insofar as anyone could be trusted, Lassner could – whatever else he did to his charges, he didn’t lie to them. A trick, he’d said. Something to make him fuss and fret…

‘And it’s working, isn’t it?’

But he hadn’t been able to move his legs. And the stain wouldn’t go…

A howling cry built up inside him.

For an instant there was only darkness – closing all about him.

Then, years of assessing consequences made themselves felt. If he gave in now, succumbed to the darkness and the scream within him, what would follow? He might be one of Lassner’s favourites at the moment, but that would soon change if he became a trembling clown who sat shivering in his room all day.

Another future unfolded in front of him, displacing that of the Kyrosdyn’s bondage. One in which he had neither Den nor Den Master. In which he was without friends and companions, sliding relentlessly down through the complex social order of Arash-Felloren, down to begging and scavenging around the decaying slums that pocked the city, down to scuttling about the tunnels and sewers, capable of preying only on his own kind, down to some dismal, unsung death.

The cry found a different voice, soft and strangled and full as much of anger as fear.

‘It’s a mark on the back of my hand,’ he whispered desperately through clenched teeth. Nothing more than some fancy dye like the old woman downstairs used to colour purses. You could scrub that until the skin peeled and it wouldn’t come off. That’s all it was. That, and a mess of sinister-sounding threats. How could he be put in a crystal, for pity’s sake? It made no sense. A grown man caged in a thing like that. It was ridiculous! How could he not have laughed outright when the words were spoken? Lassner was right, they were tricks, that’s all – tricks. Still, now he really knew why the Kyrosdyn weren’t to be trifled with. They were good at playing tricks – very good. Even Lassner had made him think for a moment that he could read minds. Who could say what could be done by someone who practised that kind of a deception day in, day out, just as he did cutting purses?

He was breathing heavily, forcing air in and out of his lungs as he did whenever he was about to tackle anything particularly difficult.

‘It’s a mark on my hand,’ he said again. ‘Nothing more. Like the old woman’s dye, it’ll wear off in time.’