Thief’s Magic Read Online Free PDF Page A

professor ordered.
    As the pair leapt to the ground the aircart’s descent slowed abruptly and, with less weight bearing it down, it began to rise again. Kilraker looked up at the capsule. Flaps lifted, allowing hot air to spill out. The ascent slowed, then the cart began to sink again.
    “Ropes!”
    Tyen tossed the nose rope down to Drem, who caught it and drew up the slack. They were a well-coordinated team now, having landed the cart several times on this expedition. As the chassis settled on the ground, Tyen tossed a ring peg down and used magic to ram it into the earth. Drem fed the rope through the ring while Tyen hurried to the back to repeat the process with Miko.
    With the cart secured, Kilraker, Neel and Tyen could step off the chassis. The professor strode away to arrange transport to the Academy Hotel, while Drem set to untying their luggage.
    “Put what’s to be locked inside the chassis on the right and what you’re taking to the hotel on the left,” he told them as he lifted the first item.
    “Left,” Miko said. Then, as the servant sorted through the luggage: “Hurry up, Drem. Gowel’s been away for a year. He’ll have some tales to tell.”
    “I’m going as fast as I can, young Miko,” Drem replied. “And there’s plenty of hours left until the ridiculous time of the night Gowel will keep us all up to.”
    “I’m sure the professor will let you go to bed long before then,” Tyen said. “One of us has to be lucid enough to get this thing off the ground tomorrow morning.”
    “Tomorrow afternoon, most likely,” Drem grumbled.
    By the time they had the deck clear, the capsule had cooled enough that it could be tied down beside the chassis. A hire cart had rolled up and Kilraker had haggled down the fee to a reasonable rate. Tyen helped Drem to pack luggage into the aircart chassis and the servant locked the hatch, then they all grabbed their bags and hastened to the hire cart.
    Kilraker was smiling as they piled on board.
Looking forward to catching up with his friend and competitor
, Tyen thought.
I wonder …
perhaps he should slip Vella down his shirt again. She might learn something from the stories the two archaeologist adventurers would tell that night.

CHAPTER 3
    T he Academy maintained a hotel in every city and town in the Empire worth visiting. Though Palga was too small to be called a city, Tyen wasn’t surprised that the town had one. Favourable winds made it a favourite stopover for air and sea travellers, of which many were Academy graduates of some sort.
    He had been amazed at the size of the hotel, however. It seemed disproportionately large for the town, and most of the locals were employed in servicing or supplying it. Yet though everything was of exemplary quality, Kilraker assured them that it was to the Anchor Inn, the establishment on the other side of the road, that the younger graduates flocked to share a “bite” of dusky and boast of their journeys to the far reaches of the Empire and beyond. Adventurer men, and the occasional woman, of the non-academic and foreign kind also frequented the inn, and were often willing to share a tale or two.
    As Tyen followed Kilraker and the other students into the inn’s public room, noise and warmth surrounded him. At the same time he was conscious of the book tucked into his shirt, its shape hidden under his waistcoat. Drem had insisted they all change into their usual city clothes: shirt, waistcoat, trousers, jacket and cap – not worn since they’d passed through Palga on the way to Mailand, after which they’d donned practical dust-coloured mar-cloth trousers and shirts along with warm airmen’s jackets, hoods, scarves and gloves.
    As he entered the drinking room, Kilraker set his hat on one of a row of nails along the nearest wall. The students set their caps in a line below it and followed the professor towards a cluster of four men sitting at one of the inn’s trestle tables. One of the four looked up, his teeth