Thief’s Magic (29 page)

Another, louder wail set the air vibrating, then a great hulking shadow emerged from the mist. Heat radiated from it. Steam hissed from the engine. As it passed, Soot billowed above it as magic was drawn down to heat the water within the boiler. The great machine slowed to a stop.

Looking left and right, Tyen saw that a small crowd had formed, mostly shadows in the fog. He had deliberately chosen to sit at the end of the station, away from as many other travellers as possible. Those closest enough to see him were all looking towards the engine.

He stood up, crossed the line, walked around the end of the railsled and climbed aboard the end carriage. It was empty, since few people needed to travel away from the city this early in the morning. He sat down.

A whistle sounded, then the carriage jerked into motion. Slipping Vella into the pocket of his coat, he began to invent a story for the ticket checker about how, disoriented by the fog and not used to rising early, he’d bought a fare going the wrong way.

B
efore long, Tyen had sunk into a misery of realisation as he thought of everything he was giving up and leaving behind. His father would be worried. Ashamed, too, if he believed the Academy’s accusation of theft.
I will write him a letter, when I’m far enough away. Though I’ll have to take care to ensure they can’t trace where it was sent from.

He thought of his friends, but the pang of regret was not as strong as he’d expected. Miko had betrayed him. Neel’s loyalty was to himself and his family. Tyen hadn’t seen his old friends from before he joined the Academy for a few years, and it bothered him to think that they might believe he’d become a thief.

What would happen to his belongings at the Academy? He supposed they would be sent to his father. As he began a mental inventory of his possessions he thought of his desk, covered in partly made insectoids, and his heart lurched.

The thought of leaving Beetle behind was unexpectedly painful. It was silly to be attached to a mechanical device. Silly to feel worse about abandoning it than anything or anyone else. He might see his father again one day, even if only as a visitor to his cell. Who knew what would happen to the little insectoid? He doubted anyone who took possession of it would appreciate the work that had gone into creating it. The Academy might even throw it away.

The Academy. Tyen’s chest constricted. His dreams of becoming a professor had been all but stripped away. He’d completed a few years of classes out of the eight required to qualify as a sorcerer or historian. Not enough to broaden his employment choices beyond those of a mere machine operator. Though the chances of ending up bored and forgotten in a mundane job now weren’t as great as ending up bored and forgotten in a prison.

The door between carriages opened and Tyen’s heart skipped as he saw a uniformed man enter carrying a ticket punch and a satchel. The old man saw Tyen and strolled over with the practised ease of someone well used to the swaying of the carriage.

Tyen produced his ticket, then pretended surprise when it was the wrong one. The ticket checker’s eyebrows lowered.

“Where’d you tell the seller you were going?”

Tyen searched for a believable reply. Was there a town on this line that sounded enough like Belton that the ticket seller would have mistaken it? The checker grunted at Tyen’s hesitation.

“You told him you were goin’ to the city, right?”

Tyen grimaced. “I think so. I can’t remember.”

“Well, either you don’t travel much or you must’ve thought that tickets to Barral had got cheaper. A
lot
cheaper.” The man opened a satchel and began searching inside. “It’ll cost you another two-plat and four.”

Tyen took his wallet out of his coat and paid the man. “When do we arrive?”

“If all goes well, fifteen past two. We make a longer stop at Millwend at around twelve for those who wish to stretch their legs.” He handed Tyen a new ticket.

“Thanks,” Tyen said. He stowed his wallet again and watched the man walk back to the door and disappear into the next carriage. Then he reached in his other pocket for Vella, thinking that when the man returned he would buy as many maps and timetables of the different rail networks as he could and read them while holding her. Something tickled the ends of his fingers, and he felt a vibration through the lining of his coat.

“Beetle! Come out!” A happy relief rushed over him as the insectoid crawled up his arm. He found himself blinking away the beginnings of tears. “Ridiculous,” he muttered to himself. But to have something familiar – not to have not lost
everything
he valued – suddenly meant a great deal.

Well, not everything
, he amended. Ordering Beetle back into his pocket in case the ticket checker returned, he reached in after it and brought out Vella.

So
, he thought at her,
where should I go?

Somewhere out of the Academy’s reach.

He chuckled.
That means somewhere out of the reach of the Empire. There aren’t many places outside of its control or not under a treaty to return criminals.

But there are some.

Yes. Places that are far, far away and difficult to get to. Like the lands of the Far South, over the Lower Latitudinal Mountains, which Gowel explored recently. Or the deserts of the Grand Island to the west, though they’re plagued by dangerous sand pirates. And the Peora Archipelago, otherwise known as the Cannibal Islands.

The Far South sounds safer. The people at Spirecastle were friendly towards foreigners, according to Gowel.

Tyen nodded. He wished he’d stuck around that night in Palga to hear more of the explorer’s stories. Thinking back, Tyen recalled Gowel saying that magic was plentiful there, and describing a city carved out of a great spire of rock where people travelled up and down in cages, or flew. How much of that was true, Tyen couldn’t guess. There had been plenty of dusky and adventurers were prone to boasting and exaggeration.

Have you been there?

Yes, but a very long time ago. It was far less developed than what Gowel described and I did not learn of this place called Tyeszal – Spirecastle. A land of many small kingdoms, all quarrelling. Still, that’s better than pirates and cannibals.

I wish I had a copy of Gowel’s map.

You were in contact with me when you saw it
, Vella reminded him. Lines began to appear on the page, forming a map that Tyen could only half remember.

He smiled.
Now
that
is a handy skill. I’ll need an aircart to get there. I can build one I guess, if I have time and the materials.

Then my advice is: go to the Far South.

Tyen looked up, out of the railsled window. He’d travelled north-east last night. Judging by the time of day and direction of the shadows, they were currently heading east. He would have to change trains. And then? Perhaps board a ship sailing south to Wendland.

His Wendish was passable, but he had no grasp of any other languages. Fortunately, Leratian was understood in many lands within and outside the Empire. When he got to the Far South communication would become a problem, but he’d be no worse off than Gowel had been.

The train began to slow. Realising they were nearing another station, he quickly transferred some of Kilraker’s money from the pogbag into his wallet, taking the opportunity to do so while nobody was around to see the large store of notes in there. A few passengers boarded when the train stopped, and when the ticket checker arrived Tyen asked for railsled maps. The man could only supply him with a map of the line they were on, however. Keeping hold of Vella in one hand, Tyen carefully examined everything, from the strip map of the line and all the stations to the timetable printed on the back.

He checked with Vella to see if she had stored the information, then pocketed her again. For now he could do nothing else, so he watched the outside world pass by. The houses and factories of the city outskirts had dwindled and been replaced by lone buildings and weedy, empty land. Soon fields replaced them in turn, broken by the occasional cluster of houses. The railsled horn blared less often to warn gatekeepers to stop traffic on the roads they crossed. Weary from a night spent driving the aircart, Tyen realised he had fallen asleep when the ticket checker shook him awake to tell him they had arrived at Millwend and he’d best hurry if he was going to “stretch his legs”.

Fortunately, the men’s room was close by and as he climbed back on board he encountered two of the local baker’s boys selling pastries. They were well pleased when he bought their last two flaky triangles. He gave them a generous tip, enjoying a vengeful satisfaction at spending Kilraker’s money.

The next two hours passed slowly. The railsled stopped less often and travelled faster between stations. The land became hillier, and the line twisted and turned. Looking back during turns, he could see the Soot trailing above them. They crossed a steep valley via an impressive steel bridge, then plunged into a tunnel and darkness for a while. On the other side they emerged among houses, which grew rapidly smaller and were built closer together until they suddenly gave way to larger buildings – factories and storehouses. Consulting his map, Tyen counted down the stations to Barral which, judging from the view outside his window of factories and machines stretching into the distance, was a city prospering mostly on industrial production. Soot clouds hung above everything, the tops appearing slowly to dissolve as magic flowed down from above.

The railsled line gradually curved towards two lozenge shapes hovering in the distance. He remembered from the map that an airpark lay near the main station of Barral. It made sense to connect the two forms of transport so that passengers could move from one to the other, though by being in close proximity they would be competing for the available magic. From the size of the distant capsules they were large aircarriages used to transport several people across greater distances than personal aircarts. As the railsled drew closer, one of them dropped out of sight below the rooftops.

As they stopped at more and more stations, the ticket checker returned more often. Tyen stopped him to ask if he would be able to take a railsled south to the coast from Barral. The man nodded.

“The Goldman line. Smaller than this one. Built by Mr Goldman for his private pleasure, then after he donated it to the Empire for public use it was extended north to Barral and south to Sacal Bay. That is, extended as far as Valley Road. To connect that line with this they’d have had to pull down some rich people’s houses and cross Grand La’ Gillweather’s estate, and even the Emperor himself couldn’t have convinced any of them to allow that.” He chuckled. “You’ll have to get a one-seater to Goldman Station.”

Sacal Bay was a minor port, Tyen knew. He thanked the man, who didn’t appear again before the railsled pulled under the arched glass roof of Barral’s main station. Tyen followed signs pointing to where vehicles could be hired. Waiting in line, he saw that the man in front of him was reading a paper. Among the columns of text was a drawing of a face. Something about it was familiar, so he looked closer. Reading the headline below it, his blood went cold.

D
ANGEROUS
S
ORCERER
F
LEES
A
CADEMY!

The Leratian Police Department informed the
Leratian Daily
today that they are seeking a former student of the Academy. Tyen Ironsmelter, pictured above, is considered a dangerous sorcerer and is not to be approached. If you see this man, report …

The text was replaced by an advertisement for ladies’ hats as the man turned the page. Tyen cast about, looking for a paper seller, but none were about. He resisted the urge to dash away and seek one out so that he could find out what else the article had said about him. Better that he didn’t lose his place in the queue.

The sooner I travel on from here the better
, he told himself.

How far had the article spread? The
Leratian Daily
was printed overnight and sent out across the country early each morning. The fastest distribution was by rail. It might have travelled on the same train Tyen had and perhaps that man had just bought it, or it might have arrived earlier and Tyen’s face and news of his crime had gone ahead of him.

His mind swelled to bursting with new and terrible possibilities. Trains heading directly from Belton to Sacal Bay would arrive hours before him. The Goldman line might not even run at night, forcing him to find a place to stay and delaying him by several more hours.

And when he arrived, more than the police would be waiting. The paper had called him a dangerous sorcerer. Requests would have gone out to sorcerers to help the police soon after Tyen had fled in Kilraker’s aircart. They’d be watching for him at all the places he might attempt to leave Leratia. Like Sacal Bay.

His skin prickled. Someone might be waiting here already, to see who stepped off the trains from Leratia. Were they watching the station right now? He glanced around, expecting to see uniformed men marching towards him, but nobody was paying him any attention. That he’d made it to the line for one-seaters was … odd. Surely the Academy had found Kilraker’s aircart by now and worked out that this was the line Tyen was most likely to have travelled on.

But nobody here could yet know that. Railsled was the fastest form of transport, and only one
following
the one Tyen had caught could deliver the news that this was the line he had taken. He had, at worst, an hour before it did.

If someone was watching the station, would they recognise him? He glanced down at his clothes. They were clean and fashionable but not expensive. He was dressed like any student of the Academy, but since the Academy was in Belton and not Barral he doubted many people looked like that here. He needed to change his appearance, and quickly.

He needed to appear ordinary and unremarkable. Common. The sort of clothes a factory worker might wear. He cast about in the vain hope there might be a suitable shop nearby, but wasn’t surprised when he found none. He’d have to ask the one-seater driver.