Thief’s Magic (11 page)

Tyen shook his head to indicate he had no answer.

“Because there are more
people
.” Gowel thumped his fist softly on the table at the last word, startling Tyen enough that he met the adventurer’s gaze, despite his efforts to the contrary.

“It is easy to see how the impression could come about that magic is generated by making things,” Gowel continued. “People are always making things, so why not claim they make magic, too? It’s good for business. It attracts commissions from the wealthy and powerful.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Most likely magic is a more earthly emission. A by-product of human existence, like sweat or excrement or body heat.”

“But Belton contains more than a million people,” Tyen pointed out. “Surely that would generate a lot of … by-product.”

Gowel nodded. “What makes Belton so different? Machines! All gobbling up magic faster than even this great city can replace it.”

Tyen tore his gaze away from the adventurer’s intense stare. Comparing magic to sweat or excrement did not lend his explanation much appeal, yet the idea that magic was a by-product – an emanation – from the presence of humanity had a pleasing simplicity.
And there has to be a reason why people believed that creators made magic, I suppose, even if they were wrong.

“So … we need to get rid of the machines?” he prompted.

Gowel let out a short laugh. “Of course not. But we should be judicious in their use. Stop wasting magic on indulgences. Make the machines more efficient.”

Tyen nodded. Gowel’s theory made sense. It was based on evidence and logic. The radicals weren’t as foolish as he’d been led to believe. At least, this one wasn’t.

“Can you prove this?” he asked.

Gowel sighed. “Not easily. Only by taking others far outside the draining caused by the great cities, to the lands I have visited where the cities are rich in magic, could I convince them of what I’ve found.”

“So why don’t you? Do they refuse to go?”

“Either that, or they point out that when they return they will be accused of being radicals, too.”

“You have to find another way to prove it, then. Or convince enough people to make opinion sway in your direction.”

Gowel looked at Tyen appraisingly. Tyen felt his face warming as he realised he was agreeing with a radical viewpoint.
Of course, Gowel could be lying. I’m not sure why he would, though. I wish I had Vella with me. I could get him to touch her, then ask her if he was telling the truth … oh!

He sat up straight. Once the Academy understood how Vella worked, they could use her to confirm the truth of Gowel’s words. If Gowel would consent to hold her, that was. That, he suspected, would be the easy part. If the Academy was as frightened of the truth as Gowel claimed, what chance had Tyen to persuade them to try? He sighed as his excitement faded.

“See?” Gowel said, grimacing. “I told you I’d frighten you with my radical ideas.”

Tyen shook his head. “You didn’t. I already knew we were running out of magic. I thought I had a way to prove what you’re saying, but I’m not sure it would work.”

“It’s always worth trying,” Gowel said.

Tyen considered the man. Perhaps he was right. “You’d have to agree to have your mind read … by a book.”

As the lines on the adventurer’s face converged in an expression of bewilderment, Tyen smiled. Then he began to explain.

T
o Tyen’s relief, Professor Kilraker sent for him that evening, after dinner. Tyen was eager to explain his idea, and had hoped he wouldn’t have to wait days, even weeks, to get the chance. His relief evaporated, however, when the servant sent to fetch him led him to the Academy Director’s office.

Sudden anxiety closed Tyen’s throat and he croaked out a thank you as the man held open the door for him. Though the room was large the scrutiny of the five men watching him enter, the warmth from a roaring fire and the smoke from their pipes made it feel close and airless. Kilraker gave him a nod and smile of reassurance as he approached. Another history professor, Cutter, stood beside him, along with Delly and a professor of sorcery, Hapen, who taught final-year students. Those two regarded Tyen with disapproving frowns.

“Tyen Ironsmelter,” Director Ophen boomed from behind his desk. “Come here.” His hand did not stop beckoning until Tyen stood a few inches from the desk’s edge, then it dropped and picked up a small, familiar object. “Is this the book you found in the tomb in Mailand?”

“I believe so.” Tyen reached out to take the book, but the Director lowered it to the desk again, his fingertips resting on the cover.

“Tell us how you came by it.”

“It was in the tomb I found. In the sarcophagus, in the corpse’s hands and wrapped in a covering.”

“The tomb you went to great lengths to ascertain the location of, I hear. Did you go to such effort because you were looking for anything in particular?”

“No. I had no clue that the tomb would be any different from the others. I only wished to save myself some digging.”

The Director smiled. “Applying scholarly thought to make a task more efficient is a commendable approach. When did you discover the book’s magical nature?”

“After I removed the covering. I was surprised to find the pages unmarked, but then words appeared.”

“What did they say?”

“From what I recall … ‘Hello, my name is Vella’.”

“In what language were these words?”

“Leratian.”

One of Ophen’s eyebrows rose and his mouth twisted to one side. “How is that possible, if this book has been entombed for six hundred years? Even if the words were Leratian, they would be an early, almost indecipherable form. Can you read early Leratian?”

“No. But Vella – the book – is able to adopt the language known by the man who holds her.”

The Director frowned. “How does she – it – do that?”

“She links to their mind. That is how she collects information.”

Ophen quickly withdrew his hand from Vella. He stared at her, then looked up at Kilraker.

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I did not know. I did warn you against—”

“Yes, yes. I haven’t opened it,” the Director said, scowling.

Tyen opened his mouth to tell them that Vella did not need to be opened to read their minds, then thought better of it. They seemed too suspicious of her, and at any rate the damage – if any – was already done. Kilraker, Delly and Ophen had already touched her.

The Director looked up at Tyen. “You have examined it several times since you found it. What did you learn?”

“She is over a thousand years old and from another world. She was created from a person – a woman – and is only conscious when touched by a living human. Her purpose was to collect and spread information. Ask her a question and she will answer it to the best of her knowledge – and she can only tell the truth.”

“Ingenious,” Kilraker breathed, then he turned to look at Tyen with narrowed eyes. “And you didn’t think she was valuable enough to hand over to the Academy?”

Tyen winced. “Not at first.”

“At what point did you realise she
was
valuable?”

“When I … Though actually…” Tyen sighed. “At the same time that I realised she wasn’t ready for the Academy.”

The Director leaned back and crossed his arms. “What do you mean?”

Tyen met the man’s gaze. “She had been locked away in that tomb for six hundred years, so her store of information was out of date. Some of the ideas she had needed disproving.”

“Such as?”

Taking a deep breath, Tyen forced himself to tell them what they would discover soon anyway. “Such as the belief that creativity generates magic.”

Professor Delly chuckled. “Hard to disprove, when nobody has yet proven where magic comes from.”

Hapen’s expression was serious. “If she – if
it
contains such superstitions and is so out of date, why would you trust the rest of the information contained within?” he asked.

“I didn’t. Not until I had checked it against other sources,” Tyen explained. “Not all of her knowledge is incorrect. Just as a great deal of our knowledge is built on the wisdom of the past, so is hers. Just as we are constantly reassessing our knowledge, so is she. Like the Academy library, she is only as useful as the information stored inside her, but because she is more portable it is easier to expand that store and … and perhaps educate people beyond the Academy walls.”

“Because sharing our secrets with the rest of the world would be of great benefit to all,” Ophen said, his scowl and tone suggesting otherwise.

“We need only take care that we do not fill it with
our
secrets,” Kilraker said in a low voice.

This time Tyen did wince. He should tell them that Vella had already read their minds, but still he hesitated.
They will find out as soon as anyone reads her. Though if they don’t know she can then perhaps nobody has tried yet. Perhaps they all have secrets they fear will be revealed. Perhaps if I offer to do it for them – yes!
That way he could continue to talk to her, and the Academy would have the benefit of using her for her true purpose.

“You don’t have to read her yourself to use her,” he told them. “Roporien used to have someone else do it for him.”

Five heads turned to stare at him and he cursed silently as he realised his mistake.

“Roporien,” Delly gasped, his eyes wide.

“You didn’t say—” Kilraker began.

“Well, who else could have made such a thing,” Hapen said. He gave a low laugh. “Out of a poor, innocent woman, too.”

Director Ophen’s hands were now braced against the desk, as if to push himself as far back in his chair and away from Vella as possible. But his gaze was avid, as if he was both attracted and repelled.

“How do you know that she must tell the truth?” he asked. His gaze lifted to Tyen. “Have you tested her?”

“No. I haven’t had time to think of a method to do so, but so far I have not found an instance where she has lied to me. Even when doing so would have been in her best interests.”

The Director slowly turned his head from side to side in a shudder of denial. “No,” he said. “No, no and no. It is too dangerous. If this got into the hands of the radicals…” He rose, picked Vella up and handed her to Delly. “Lock it away.”

Tyen’s stomach swooped down to his knees. “But she’s only conscious when—”

“But Director—” Kilraker said at the same time.

“No,” Ophen said firmly, fixing first the professor then Tyen with a direct stare. “Nobody is to read it or even touch it without my permission.” Then his attention returned to Kilraker. “Or discuss the uses to which it could be put.”

Delly carefully slipped the book into a pocket. “I will take it to the Librarian.”

The Director nodded and sat down again. “Tell him to come and see me, once it is in the vault.” He looked up at Tyen. “As for you, I am satisfied that your intentions were good, but it is not up to you to judge when an artefact owned by the Academy is ready to be possessed by it. You should have delivered the book to us as soon as you arrived. No, in fact you should have given her to Kilraker as soon as you’d found her.”

Tyen bowed his head. “You are right. I apologise.”

The man exhaled, then waved a hand. “Kilraker can decide the appropriate punishment, since it was he who you should have deferred to. Now, with that sorted out, you may all go.”

All four professors hesitated, as if they were not used to such a dismissal, then stepped away from the table and headed for the door. Tyen forced himself to follow. If Kilraker wasn’t willing to argue with the Director, then Tyen certainly would gain nothing but the man’s ire by lingering.

I didn’t even get close to explaining Gowel’s theory and how we could use Vella to prove it
, he thought
. Maybe if I come back when he is in a better mood he’ll listen. Especially if I point out a way Vella could be used for the good of the Academy. And if I can get Kilraker to support me …

As if hearing his name in Tyen’s thoughts, the professor turned around and smiled apologetically.

“I’m afraid I will have to make sure you are seen to be appropriately disciplined,” he said.

Tyen nodded. “I know,” he replied. But he doubted anything could be as awful as knowing he might have condemned Vella to oblivion for the rest of her existence.

T
hree days later Tyen set out to find himself a job.

It was the kind of crisp, sunny weather that made up for the more common miserable grey days of winter, but the sunshine did not cheer him. Inside one of his coat pockets was the page of the
Reporter
that listed jobs a young Academy student might apply for. In the other was Beetle, in case the opportunity arose to attract another commission.

The entire employment section had been considerably smaller than he’d expected, but since he’d not had to seek a job in the city before he had no idea what size it ought to be. Professor Kilraker’s punishment had been to suspend Tyen’s lessons for the rest of the half-year. That meant Tyen would have to begin that half-year again to have any chancing of passing it.

The other professors had accepted nothing less, Kilraker had told Tyen. Especially since Tyen had managed, somehow, to avoid direct censure from the Director. Some, Tyen knew, thought he ought to have been expelled for “stealing” treasure rightly belonging to the Academy. Clearly they did not know how common it was. It had been tempting, so very tempting, to reveal Miko’s theft of the poible. After all, Miko’s crime had been worse – he’d actually stolen
and sold
a treasure.

But it wouldn’t have gained Tyen anything but petty revenge, and it would have lost him a friendship. Though he had to admit he did not find Miko’s company as comfortable as he had before. Every morning, Miko slipped out of their room early and looked alternately guilty or defiant whenever they were both there and awake. As much as Tyen told himself Miko had broken his promise because he was concerned about Vella’s influence, he did not feel he could completely trust his friend now.

He wished he could discuss it with Vella, then cursed under his breath. None of the professors would even talk to him about her and the Director had ignored all requests for a meeting.
At least it doesn’t matter if it takes me a few weeks or months – or even years – to get her out of the vault. She won’t be aware of the time passing.