Lhind the Thief Read Online Free PDF

never to do again,
admiring someone just because nature had been generous with his looks. But not
with his nature. His single glance at me had been one of utter disgust, his
humane suggestion that I (being offal) be tossed overboard. And here he was
singing about love .
    Love! Romance! Poets and bards all claimed love and romance
were all-powerful as well as eternal, but really, what is either but
attraction, as ephemeral as a sleet storm, and about as comfortable? No,
attraction was more like a disease than a storm.
    I recalled that contemptuous glance of disgust, the
indifferent suggestion that I be tossed to my death, and turned away, but I
couldn’t scold myself into a comparable indifference.
    Somewhere, somehow, I had formed the belief that beauty
ought to be joined to the qualities I thought beautiful: kindness, compassion,
truth. I scrambled up the steps to the deck, but the melody pursued me as
relentlessly as memory. Two inescapables, memory and music, as imperceptible
and yet as powerful as any magical enchantment.
    And both as untrustworthy as beauty, love, and romance.
    Music, I could not make. Memory, I could not command.
    There I stood, unable to recover my own past. The memories I
could call up were mostly the kinds I’d rather forget, like a certain
lantern-chinned player in the ancient city of Piwum, where—for the first and
last time—I’d actually managed to earn an honest living, as a theater mage. My
illusions made those plays look better than they sounded, until I found myself
not watching my cues, but that one fellow, in hopes of gaining another smile in
spite of my cowled, disguised self.
    He was handsome, but also loud, arrogant, tight-fisted with
a coin, and disloyal to everyone except his own comfort. But did I see that?
No, all I thought about were his beautiful black eyes, the cleft in his chin,
the rich and sonorous sound of his voice, and I found myself using my powers to
steal little things for him (“Just little things, it hurts no one,” he said
winsomely)—fine slippers and velvet cloth and gold ribbon for his hair—just to
win a smile, to hear those pretty words.
    I debated removing my disguise, just so . . .
I never did define what was going to happen after that, except there’d be a
glorious ending like the most romantic songs. Then, late one evening, I
returned backstage to fetch my rain canopy and encountered him murmuring the
exact same pretty words to the girl who sold fruit, before the two went off to be
alone.
    I left that city that night, and for the past three years,
my strict rule had been to leave as soon as I learned anyone’s name.
    So here was this beautiful blond nobleman warbling this song
about a couple of witless people wasting their time longing for each other and
letting other people and weather and things deal them nasty blows without their
doing much about it, except complain in metered rhyme.
    Beauty, pah! Love, faugh! Romance, I spit upon thee!
    Glad to be completely disease free, I thought scornfully
that my shimmers had more substance.
    I retreated to my cabin to hoard up on sleep.
    o0o
    I woke up in the early morning when Hlanan entered with
another tray.
    My mood was foul.
    Hlanan’s wasn’t. He grinned like he’d just heard a rare
joke, and I wondered if that Rat-eyed Rot-Nose Rajanas was above putting some
sort of mouth-frying spice in the food. I’d certainly do it to him, had I the
chance.
    “Good morning, Lhind,” Hlanan said.
    Ignoring him hadn’t worked, because he studied me with even
more interest than he had the day previous. I didn’t want to be studied any
more than I wanted to be questioned. What to do? Ask the questions, and be as
boring and annoying as possible.
    “What are you laughing about,” I snapped. “We finally nearing the shore so I can get off this
garbage scow?”
    “I’m happy because my aidlar returned this morning.”
    “What’s that?” I retorted.
    “It’s, well, a talking bird,” he said as if I’d