Anthology: Thieves World: Turning Points

The landlord held up a protective hand. "So you told me, and I said you could do it, but it kicks up a stench that makes even the Hillers sit up. You might want to wait for the day afore market day. That's when most of the hogs are slaughtered and your stench won't be as noticed." Lumm was at the desk now, looming over the volumes and notebooks.

"I'll take that under advisement," said Heliz, but his eyes tracked Lumm's hands as they moved over the scattered notes and pages.

"So many different ways of writing," said Lumm, admiring the various scripts.

"Different languages," volunteered Heliz, hoping the man would soon grow bored and return to his drinking. "Different alphabets, often alien and mutually exclusive syntaxes. Some languages include more vowels, some do without them, some indicate tense by umlauts and carets…"

Lumm touched the small open notebook and Heliz's words died in his throat. "These are interesting. Poetry?"

Heliz reached out and grabbed the booklet from out in front of the stunned Lumm. Despite himself, the larger man staggered back, as if threatened.

Heliz held the small notebook to his chest. "Sorry."

"And what was that about?" said Lumm, truly irritated now. "It's not as if I can read your damned poems."

"I'm sorry," said Heliz, suddenly realizing he was in very real danger of losing his quarters. "They're not poems. They're words. Powerful words. Dangerous words."

Lumm's face clouded. "Dangerous? You mean like spells? Don't care for magic around here."

Heliz shook his head. "Not spells. I mean, not quite. These are the words that spells are made of. Wrapped at the heart of all spells are parts of these words, or at least cognates." He looked at the cooper, but only got a blank, puzzled look. "Um, similar words that sound like them. These words of power are the building blocks of the world. Using them, even unknowingly…" Heliz's face clouded for a moment in memory, but he shook it off. "Speaking them can be dangerous, in certain circumstances. Sorry if I startled you."

Lumm tried to look as if any of that sunk in. "But they're not spells," he concluded.

Heliz thought about trying to explain again, then said, "No. They're not spells, though a spellcaster might be interested in them."

Lumm looked at the linguist for a long moment. "People don't like spellcasters much in Sanctuary."

"I know," said Heliz, letting out a relieved sigh that nothing had really sunk into the barrel-maker's thick-spackled skull. "That's one reason I came here. Less danger of some wizard wanting to take my work. Privacy for my studies. That and there are so many languages that people have used here."

"Hmmmpf," said Lumm, looking at the collection of writing, and dismissing it. Heliz let himself relax. "I'll leave you to your work, then. But I hope you stung that merchant enough to make the rent. I don't want any more buttons. I'm going back to the Unicorn. You want to come?"

Heliz managed a modest shrug that would only fool someone like Lumm. "I cannot. I have my studies."

Lumm shook his head and galumphed down the back stairs, taking most of the air with him.

Heliz was suddenly aware that he was still clutching the booklet tightly to his chest. Carefully he opened it, as if the words caught within could escape. There were about a dozen. A verb that softened the earth for plowing. An adjective that caused fire to ignite. A turn of phrase that helped lambs' birthing.

Words that any mage would slay for, if he knew they existed.

And a single word, a noun, that Heliz had spoken aloud only once. A word that had devastated his home monastery and killed every one of the other Crimson Scholars. There had been fifty of them, members of his order, in a hillside tower a day's ride north of Lirt, all led by his great-grandmother. He had grown up there. He had studied there. And he had researched and toiled in its great libraries. And he had discovered this word there. And after he had spoken the deadly word, the tower lay in wreckage at the foot of the hill, and only he managed to pull himself from the wreckage.

And he had fled to the most illiterate, backwards, unmagical spot he could find to avoid ever having to deal with it again.

Lumm stalked through the streets, heading back to the Vulgar Unicorn. He wasn't angry at the little scholar as much as confused. Why would anyone turn down a bit of coin, especially for a skill that didn't require any heavy lifting? This scholar was a good tenant as tenants go, but his mule-headed devotion to words completely bum-fundled him. If the lad would just get out a little, he wouldn't be so tightly wound.

Above Sanctuary, the sky grumbled a warning curse. The cloud cover was heavy and low tonight, such that the reflections of fire-pits could been seen illuminating the rounded bottoms of the clouds. It looked like a trickster's storm, more like a summer storm than a winter one. A storm that could drench the town in an instant, or could equally pass over Sanctuary for more promising locations. As Lumm looked up, a spidery thread of lightning crawled along the cloud base, followed by the deep toll of thunder. Definitely a summer trickster's storm.

For the first time, Lumm wondered if Heliz was really a sorcerer.

He didn't seem like one, in that he didn't turn into things or have curses or anything. He didn't do any chanting, or dancing, or summoning. And he didn't have the animals, the familiars, stalking about. He wouldn't rent to someone with pets.

Maybe Heliz was a sorcerer-a spellcasting wizard, in fact-but he wasn't a very good one, and that's why he came here. But why be a wizard if you don't want to cast spells?

For that matter, why would a scholar be in Sanctuary? It was not as if the town had a university, or a library, or even other people interested in languages.

Of course, the easy solution would be just to leave the smaller scholar alone, take his silver buttons, and then turn him out on the street when his funds were exhausted. That would be the easiest solution.

Lumm shook his head. Without proper coin, this town would kick the small man into the gutter in a week's time. Heliz was right that Lumm looked for sad cases. Heliz was one of them.

The common room of the Unicorn was as smoke-ridden and murky as usual. Old Thool, the Unicorn's resident sot, was lurching from table to table, cadging what change and dregs of drinks he could manage. The two waitresses, known to all as Big Minx and Little Minx, threaded through the tables, grabbing empties and avoiding hands with equal deftness. Half the people in the room were watching the other half, and malice hung in the air with the smoke. A typical night, then.

Lumm himself scanned the room, looking for the Berucat merchant. No sign of his heavy frame. But Lumm's eyes stopped for a moment at one of the back tables.

At first he could have sworn that Heliz was a wizard, and had gotten to the Unicorn before he did. On second thought, the table's occupant could have been the scholar's sister. She was dressed similarly to the linguist, though her red robes, running from neck to ankle, were cleaner, newer, and still had all of their silver buttons. Yet her hair was as dark as the scholar's, swept back instead of in the bowl cut that Heliz wore. They shared sharp features: dark, heavy eyebrows and a thin, raptorish nose. Yes, she could have been his sister.

And Lumm was staring long enough that the newcomer realized she was being watched. She gave Lumm a smile and beckoned him come over.

"Help you?" she said in a pleasant, soothing voice.

"Sorry to stare," Lumm stammered. "You just remind me of someone." There might be another reason, he realized, that the linguist was in Sanctuary. It would not be the first time someone came to the town to lose themselves of pursuers, family, creditors, or all three.