The Thief Queen's Daughter (3 page)

Ven wandered down the path paved with stones of glorious colors. All along that path were baby evergreen bushes around which wire cages had been sculpted in the shapes of marvelous beasts, unicorns and dragons and sea serpents and lions with wings. The shoots of a few of the bushes growing outside the cages were being trimmed by the gardeners. Ven could tell that one day the cages would be taken away and the evergreens themselves would be in the same shape as the beasts.

In front of him was a central garden, like many others in the wide lawn that led to a tall wall at the edge of the cliff. Off this central garden were five smaller ones, each dedicated to one of the elements. Ven stopped in the garden that was being planted in the colors of fire, admiring the red and orange plumes of the flowers, and the bushes with crimson and gold leaves.

One of the many gardeners was shaking mulch around the flame-colored bushes.

“Enjoying your day, sir?” the gardener asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Ven replied.

The man looked up from under his wide straw hat and smiled broadly. His blue eyes twinkled.

It was the king.

“Your—Majesty?” Ven asked, his voice choked.

The king put his finger to his lips.

“Come with me,” he said.

Ven obeyed, following the disguised monarch through the gardens of earth, wind, water, and ether, and all the way back to the rear of the palace, where an enormous hedge maze stood.

The king glanced around and, seeing no other workers nearby, motioned for Ven to follow him into the hedge.

Again Ven obeyed, struggling to keep up with the human king’s long strides as he hurried through the puzzle of green walls, around and under bushy barriers, until at last he came to a stop facing the back wall of the palace.

“Are you ready for your life to change, Ven?” he asked.

Ven inhaled deeply.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

“Good,” said the king. “Because it’s about to, whether we like it or not.”

D
O YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MUSIC, VEN?” THE KING ASKED
as he ran his hands over the stone wall.

“A little bit,” Ven replied. “My family members, like all Nain, hum and chant when we’re working in the factory. It’s a little like being back inside the mountain again, or so I’m told. Of course, none of us know how Nain
really
live—the Polyphemes haven’t lived underground in four generations. Chanting is pretty easy. You don’t have to remember many words, which is a good thing, and the noise of the factory drowns out any sour notes.”

“That must be nice to—hear,” the king said. He grunted as he pushed on the stone. “I, on the other hand, am utterly tone deaf. If I weren’t king, I could’ve made a fine living as a singer.”

“Er, can you be a singer and be tone deaf at the same time?” Ven asked. His eyes grew round with wonder as the king’s fingers sank into the stone like it was butter.

“Well, certainly. Singers are paid to sing beautifully. When they sing horribly, they are paid even more to stop. I’ve had a few in my court that I’ve paid to not even
start,
having heard them once.” The king turned his hands in opposite directions.

The wall before him slid aside with a soft grinding sound.

Before them was a tall, thin slice of darkness, a black slash in the shadow on the wall in between the huge stone bricks.

“Whoa,” Ven said.

The king stepped inside the slit sideways.

“Come,” he said.

“What is this place?” Ven asked. “Are we underground?”

“No,” the king replied, making a left turn. “We are between the walls of the first floor—the throne room is just beyond here. If I were to have had this place built as a dungeon or below the ground, everyone who worked on constructing the castle would know that it is here, since those things have to be dug out and built over. Instead, when the Nain who came from the mountains of the High Reaches to build the castle were laying the stone walls for this part of it, I asked the lead stonemason to build this place in secret for me. He sent the bricklayers away and set the walls himself. He let me help so that I would be able to find it again. We did it in a single night—mostly because the stone almost seemed to move into place by itself when he touched it. Your race has an almost magical knack with stone and earth.”

“Is it a hiding place?” Ven asked, running his hand along the smooth wall in the dark.

“Of a sort, yes. It’s a vault. It’s not for hiding people, but for storing things. But it is so artfully designed and laid out that no one within the castle even knows it’s here. All this space is missing from in between the rooms of the first floor—but even the Nain who come to court cannot tell.”

“And what do you store down here?”

The king chuckled and stepped aside in the small space. “Have a look.”

Stretching into the darkness was a long, straight hallway. It was the longest unbroken space Ven had seen since entering the tunnel, with no turns that he could see.

Along the walls on both sides were cubbyholes, like shelves built into the stone, some high, some low to the ground, in all sizes. Most of the cubbyholes appeared to be empty, but a few had objects in them.

The king’s eyes sparkled in the dark.

“Do you remember on the day you first were brought to see me, how I told you of my own journeys at your age? How I had begun to see the magic, not tricks and illusions, but the
real
magic that was out there in the world, hiding in plain sight?”

“Yes,” Ven said. “That’s why you hired me to be your Royal Reporter—so I could go out and see it for you, now that you are king and can’t go yourself.”

King Vandemere’s smile faded. “Yes,” he said. “I have to be careful what I say, Ven—more careful than I have been. A king’s words need to be chosen wisely, because they carry a lot of power. So remember what I am about to say, no matter what comes to pass—when I chose you to act as my eyes, I believe I made the best choice a king could have made.” He smiled again at the look of confusion on Ven’s face. “I have something I would like you to look into for me, if you are feeling brave enough.”

“Yes, indeed, Your Majesty,” Ven said quickly.

King Vandemere turned to the wall of cubbyholes and pulled out something the size of a loaf of bread. It was wrapped in burlap or some other rough cloth.

“I believe I told you what my father said to me before he died,” the king said. His words did not echo in the dark space, but seemed to cling to the inside of Ven’s ears. “When I told him I was beginning to see magic of the world, he told me that this magic was like pieces of a great puzzle—that if I could find the pieces and put them together, I would have the answer.”

“Yes,” said Ven. “I remember.”

“Well, my father knew this, because he had his own little collection of pieces of this so-called ‘magic puzzle.’” The king held out the object to Ven. “This was one of my father’s puzzle pieces.”

Ven stared at the object in the king’s hands.

“Go ahead,” said King Vandemere. “You can open it.”

Slowly, Ven reached out his hands and took it.

Slowly Ven peeled off the burlap. Inside was a small wooden box, delicately carved, with a strange round seal on the front where the top met the bottom. In the dark, Ven’s underground vision allowed him to see that it was engraved, but he could not tell with what sort of inscription.

“Have you ever seen one of these before?” the king asked, tapping the seal on the front of the box.

“I don’t know,” Ven admitted. “I can’t see it very well.”

“Open the box,” said the king. “That might help.”

Ven lifted the lid carefully. The seal came away from the box without resistance, as if it had been broken a long time ago.

Suddenly, bright golden light flooded the hidden vault.

Ven squinted quickly to keep his eyes from stinging.

“Reach in and pick it up,” the king urged.

Still squinting, Ven followed the instruction, then slowly opened his eyes. In his hand was a smooth oval object that felt like a stone, but it was translucent. It had settled from burning gold to almost blue in color, and glowed from within, as if fireflies or some other light source had been captured inside it.

“Sorry about that—I’m afraid the bright light is my fault,” said the king. “For some reason, it does that when I hold it, or am close to it. But in anyone else’s hand, such as your own, it is calmer.”

“What is it?” Ven asked.

“I’ve no idea,” said the king. “It came to my father on the day of his coronation, when he was crowned High King of Serendair in the old castle far to the north of here, where I was born. It arrived with all the other gifts of state, presents from the other kings, queens, and nobles on the island who ruled the subkingdoms, like that of the Nain or the Lirin. But unlike those gifts, there was no card, no sign of who sent it. There was this, however, and I think it might be a clue.” He tapped on the round seal.

Ven held the glowing stone closer to the seal. In the now-bright light, he could see a strange series of symbols around the edge of the seal, forming a circle. In the center of the circle an image of a hand was engraved.

“Have you ever seen one of these before?” the king asked. Ven shook his head. “I would have been surprised if you had. The language engraved around the edge here is called Thieves’ Cant. This is a token to enter the Gated City in Kingston.”

Ven shuddered. “I’ve been outside the gates of that city,” he said, remembering how nervous Char had been as they passed it. “My friend says it’s a market of thieves, where you could easily lose everything you own.”

“That it is,” the king agreed. “Or so I’ve been told—I’ve never been inside there myself. These tokens are very valuable—they cost ten gold crowns. People purchase them on Market Day, which is the middle day of the week, at the guard stand outside the city gates, in order to be allowed inside to shop for the day.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” Ven asked incredulously.

“Because it’s said that some of the most magical and exotic goods in all the world are sold there—things of great beauty and great value that you cannot get anywhere else,” said the king. “And while it’s possible some people lose their money there, apparently not everyone does. It is said to be a wondrous place of amazing sights and experiences. For many people, that is worth the price of admission, and the risk. This token is what lets you in, but more important, it is what lets you
out
. You are given a token like this on your way through the gates. If you do not have it when you try to leave, they will not let you back into Kingston.”

“Why is there a city within the city?” Ven asked, absently scratching his hairline.

The king exhaled. “Long ago, before most of western Serendair was settled, that part of the island was a penal colony, where criminals, thieves, murderers, and thugs of all sorts were sent to live, away from the civilized towns and villages east of the Great River. Eventually, when the western part of the island was being settled, the descendents of the thieves who had been exiled there came into conflict with the law-abiding settlers. Finally it was determined that those people who were the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original criminals should be locked up within the heavily guarded walls of the Gated City.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Ven said.

“I agree, but this was long before my grandfather was king. It was believed that while these people were not criminals themselves, as far as anyone knew, they had been living in lawlessness all their lives. The Gated City is a prison of a sort, because the people who live there are not free to leave. But they have houses, and shops, businesses, and schools, just like any other city. They even have their own laws and law enforcement, so the constable of Kingston has no right to enter there. Unless, of course, he wants to go shopping.” The king tapped the token humorously.

“So do you think this gift came to your father from the Gated City?” Ven asked. He was already imagining what the stores and schools inside a walled former penal colony would be like, and his mind was racing with excitement.

“It might have,” the king said. “I wondered if it was an invitation to visit there, but that was just a guess. There is a message inside the box, but it doesn’t say who sent it.” He held the open top of the box next to the light of the stone in Ven’s hand. The radiance from the stone showed that the top was carved in symbols like the ones on the token. “This language is a series of mathematical codes. It was one of the first puzzles I ever tried to solve. My father gave it to me on my eleventh birthday to work on. Finally, after almost two weeks, I broke the code.”

“And what does it say?”

The king’s bright blue eyes gleamed in the reflected light, and he smiled.

“The message reads: ‘The brightest light in the darkest shadow is yours.’ I have no idea what that means—or what it has to do with the glowing stone. I had always planned to investigate, to go inside the Gated City while I was out traveling the wide world. But then my father took ill, and I was called home from my wanderings to be with him. He told me on his deathbed that there was a great treasure within the Market, but he was very sick, very weak then, and sometimes what he said made little or no sense.

“So I have always wondered what the strange message meant, as well as what lies beyond those gates. I’ve heard reports, but no one has ever really been able to tell me what it’s like inside that city. I can’t officially send someone in there; it might be seen as an invasion, because they have their own laws. Someday I hope that someone I trust, someone curious and brave enough will want to go in and then tell me about it. That way I will know if the things I have heard about the place are actually true.” He laughed at the excitement in Ven’s eyes. “Maybe that person might be able to solve this riddle at the same time.”

“At your service, Your Majesty.” Ven bowed slightly, as his father had taught him to do.

“I was hoping you would say that,” said the king. “But remember, this task might prove a dangerous one. You should not go alone.”

Ven nodded. “I have a good group of friends who might like to do a little shopping in an exotic place,” he said. “None of them have any money to buy anything, so they will be able to pay attention to what’s going on around them.”

The king reached into the pocket of his work clothes and pulled out a small leather sack tied with a drawstring.

“I had guessed what your answer might be. Here are ten garnets, gems each worth the price of admission to the Market. Many people prefer to carry precious stones rather than coins or scrip, and almost every merchant will accept them as payment. This should get you and your friends inside the Gated City, and give you what my father used to call ‘walking-around money’ as well. But again, I caution you to be careful. Hang on to those tokens, stay together, and remember it is far more important for you and your friends to get out safely than to bring me any information that might risk your lives.”