David Eddings - The Redemption of Althalus

The black-haired stranger seated himself on a log across the fire-pit from where Althalus lounged and looked penetratingly at the thief. It might have been some trick of the light, but the dancing flames of the fire were reflected in the stranger’s eyes, and that made Althalus just a bit edgy. It’s not every day that a man comes across somebody whose eyes are on fire. ‘I see that I’ve finally found you,’ the stranger said in a peculiarly accented voice. It appeared that this man was not one to beat about the bush.

‘You’ve been looking for me?’ Althalus said as calmly as possible. The fellow was heavily armed, and as far as Althalus knew, there was still a price on his head back in Arum. He carefully shifted his own sword around on his belt so that the hilt was closer to his hand.

‘For quite some time now,’ the stranger replied. ‘I picked up your trail in Deika. Men down there are still talking about how fast you can run when dogs are chasing you. Then I tracked you to Kanthon in Treborea and on to Maghu in Perquaine. Druigor’s still trying to figure out why you just dumped all his money on the floor and didn’t steal any of it.’

Althalus winced.

‘You didn’t know that it was money, did you?’ the stranger said shrewdly. ‘Anyway, I followed you from Maghu up into Arum, and there’s a fat man up there who’s looking for you even harder than I am.’

‘I sort of doubt that,’ Althalus said. ‘Gosti wants people to think he’s rich, and I’m probably the only man around who knows that there was nothing in his strongroom but copper pennies.’

The stranger laughed. ‘I thought there was something that didn’t quite ring true about the way he kept going on about how you’d robbed him.’

‘And just why have you spent all this time looking for me?’ Althalus asked, getting to the point. ‘Your clothing says Nekweros, and I haven’t been there in years, so I’m sure I haven’t stolen anything from you recently.’

‘Set your mind at rest, Althalus, and slide your sword back around your belt so the hilt doesn’t keep poking you in the ribs. I haven’t come here to take your head back to Gosti. Would you be at all interested in a business proposition?’

‘That depends.’

‘My name’s Ghend, and I need a good thief who knows his way around. Are you at all familiar with the land of the Kagwhers?’

‘I’ve been there a few times,’ Althalus replied cautiously. ‘I don’t care very much for the Kagwhers. They have this habit of assuming that everyone who comes along is there to sneak into their gold mines and just help himself. What is it that you want me to steal for you? You look like the kind of man who can take care of things like that for himself. Why would you want to pay somebody else to do it for you?’

‘You’re not the only one with a price on his head, Althalus,’ Ghend replied with a pained expression. ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t care much for the reception I’d get if I happened to venture into Kagwher just now. Anyway, there’s someone in Nekweros who’s holding some obligations over my head, and he’s not the sort I’d want to disappoint. There’s something he really wants over in Kagwher, and he’s told me to go there and get it for him. That puts me in a very tight spot, you understand. You’d be in the same sort of situation if someone told you to go get something for him and it just happened to be in Arum, wouldn’t you?’

‘I can see your problem, yes. I should warn you that I don’t work cheap, though.’

‘I didn’t expect you to, Althalus. This thing my friend in Nekweros wants is quite large and very heavy, and I’m prepared to pay you its weight in gold if you’ll steal it for me.’

‘You just managed to get my undivided attention, Ghend.’

‘Are you really as good a thief as everyone says you are?’ Ghend’s glowing eyes seemed to burn more brightly.

‘I’m the best,’ Althalus said with a deprecating shrug.

‘He’s right about that, stranger,’ Nabjor said, bringing Althalus a fresh cup of mead. ‘Althalus here can steal anything with two ends or with a top and a bottom.’

‘That might be a slight exaggeration,’ Althalus said. ‘A river has two ends, and I’ve never stolen one of those; and a lake has a top and a bottom, but I’ve never stolen one of those either. What exactly is it that this man in Nekweros wants badly enough to offer gold for it – some jewel or something like that?’

‘No, it’s not a jewel,’ Ghend replied with a hungry look. ‘What he wants – and will pay gold for – is a Book.’

‘You just said the magic word “gold” again, Ghend. I could sit here all day and listen to you talk about it, but now we come to the hard part. What in blazes is a book?’

Ghend looked sharply at him, and the flickering firelight touched his eyes again, making them glow a burning red. ‘So that’s why you threw all of Druigor’s money on the floor. You didn’t know that it was money because you can’t read.’

‘Reading’s for the priests, Ghend, and I don’t have any dealings with priests if I can avoid it. Every priest I’ve ever come across promises me a seat at the table of his god – if I’ll just hand over everything I’ve got in my purse. I’m sure the dining halls of the gods are very nice, but you have to die to get an invitation to have dinner with God, and I’m not really that hungry.’

Ghend frowned. ‘This might complicate things just a bit,’ he said. ‘A book is a collection of pages that people read.’

‘I don’t have to be able to read it, Ghend. To be able to steal it, all I have to know is what it looks like and where it is.’

Ghend gave him a speculative look, his deep sunk eyes glowing. ‘You may be right,’ he said, almost as if to himself. ‘I just happen to have a Book with me. If I show it to you, you’ll know what you’re looking for.’

‘Exactly,’ Althalus said. ‘Why don’t you trot your book out, and I’ll have a look. I don’t have to know what it says to be able to steal it, do I?’

‘No,’ Ghend agreed, ‘I guess you don’t at that.’ He rose to his feet, went over to his horse, reached inside the leather bag tied to his saddle, and took something square and fairly large out of the bag. Then he brought it back to the fire.

‘It’s bigger than I thought,’ Althalus noted. ‘It’s just a box, then, isn’t it?’

‘It’s what’s inside that’s important’, Ghend said, opening the lid. He took out a crackling sheet of something that looked like dried leather and handed it to Althalus. ‘That’s what writing looks like’, he said. ‘When you find a box like this one, you’d better open it to make sure it has sheets like that one inside instead of buttons or tools.’

Althalus held up the sheet and looked at it. ‘What kind of animal has a hide this thin?’ he asked.

‘They take a piece of cowhide and split it with a knife to get thin sheets,’ Ghend explained. ‘Then they press them flat with weights and dry them so that they’re stiff. Then they write on them so that other people can read what they’ve put down.’

‘Trust a priest to complicate things,’ Althalus said. He looked carefully at the neatly spaced lines of writing on the sheet. ‘It looks sort of like pictures, doesn’t it?’ he suggested.

‘That’s what writing is,’ Ghend explained. He took a stick and drew a curved line in the dirt beside the fire. ‘This is the picture that means “cow”,’ he said, ‘since it’s supposed to look like a cow’s horns.’

‘I thought learning to read was supposed to be difficult,’ Althalus said. ‘We’ve only been talking about it for a few minutes, and I already know how to read.’