Just A Thief

The sounds of the guards shouting and struggling to their feet behind us pervaded the corridor, echoing down it much the same as my new captor’s footfalls did, sounds bouncing back at us ceaselessly. I kept my hand clenched tightly around my treasure, unwilling to let it be jostled from my grasp. Maybe if I was lucky, this “Zane” character would be a kindred spirit and free me from the shackles. He seemed to be a thief, just like I was when I chose to be. Please let him be a kindred spirit.

“Zane?” I asked tentatively after a bit more bouncing on his shoulders, “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he answered calmly, then asked casually, “what’s yours?” as he slid around a corner.

“Not important right now,” I retorted, casting for what to say next. “What is important, at least to me, is where you’re taking me? And if you’d be planning to put me down eventually, because, if you haven’t noticed, I can move on my own. I’m not an invalid, thank you very much!”

“I’ve got you,” he remarked easily. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat from lugging me around as he said, “And we’re going somewhere safe. I saw your little trick. Do you happen to still have that key you took form them, or did you drop it at some point?”

“I’ve got it,” I answered slowly, and I was admittedly surprised that he’d seen me swipe the object in question.

“So as soon as we get into the passage, I’ll unlock it for you. If you’ll be nice to me, that is, and not treat me like those poor guards we left back there. You gave them hell all the way up the stairs!”

Zane laughed, a lighthearted sound, as he turned another corner. The shouting was fading rapidly in the background, and I hoped that more guards hadn’t been alerted to our presence and the current situation.

“They were rude,” I stated simply, letting out a huffing sigh. “You haven’t been though, so far, other than grabbing me without my permission like some sort of kidnapper…so I suppose that I can play nice until you give me a reason to do otherwise.”

I couldn’t believe myself for a moment, having told a complete stranger that I would basically trust him. Especially when he was just a thief that had shown up at the right time to save me from a questionable fate. I probably owed him for the rescue from the unsavory end that was likely to have awaited me after my lineage was compared with others by the mages only to turn up negative.

The only sound that permeated the corridor now was the thief’s light and quick steps, undoubtedly made louder by the extra weight slung over his shoulder…an extra weight called me. It seemed as though we went endlessly deep into the palace, with nothing but echoing footsteps following us, and still Zane had yet to start breathing hard.

Speaking of the thief, he chose that moment to slow down, chuckle lightly, and announce to me, “Here’s the passage.”

“But…” I looked at the ground in front of us, then said exasperatedly to the grinning young man, “there isn’t a passage…”

“Yes there is,” he replied easily, and I knew by his tone that a mischievous sort of smile was stretched across his face, “but to find it, you have to know exactly where to look.”

I saw his hand reach out and shove a tiny piece of brick no more than a square inch in area. How he knew exactly where that one small spot was puzzled me, but I didn’t say so just yet as I watched the piece move a fraction. The floor and wall receded some then, surprising me greatly, and a staircase came into view. A torch was lit and at the ready in a bracket near the top of the stairs. At the amazing sight of what had just happened, hundreds of questions swarmed my mind and it took a lot for me to focus on Zane’s pleased exclamation.

“Good! It’s still burning!” he said cheerfully, and then I found myself swung from his shoulder and to my feet in just a few short seconds. From the ten or so minutes of disuse, and the sudden weight on them, my legs were kind of weak and I stumbled before Zane caught my arm in a gentle but firm grip. “I’ll get you free before I close the passage,” he explained quickly to me as he held me steady, “because working by the light of their torches is going to be better than trying to do it by the light of just my one, isn’t it?”

“Much,” I replied in answer, relinquishing my hold upon the small metal instrument into his warm, calloused hand…a hand that was used to working for what he needed or believed in. With the light from the other torches, I thought idly to myself, at least this way he won’t burn me by trying to hold his one torch nearer to see, or some similar nonsense like that.

Hey, he could save me without having common sense…right?

I shook the thought away violently as one shackled clicked open with a heavenly sound and fell down three steps, clinking and bouncing as it did. This Zane person sure was efficient at this, and since he was doing so much for me I didn’t want to make a hasty decision about him. He seemed rather nice, but that could always have been a deception. I didn’t like to think that of him. I might have been utterly foolish for the trust I suddenly placed in him, but he hadn’t given me reason to distrust him.

“There you are,” his ever cheerful voice sounded out. The other shackle fell to the floor with a clang even as Zane stood taller, on his toes, to tweak a string with one deft pull. The string was apparently connected to the passage door, and must have been more than just a piece of string to close it like it did. With an echoing thud, the passage door fell closed.

“Just follow me,” he continued to speak when I didn’t, and I’ll get you out of the passage safely. Then, if you wanted, you could either go your own way or come with me. Though I daresay that if you go your own way you’re very, very likely to run into the guards again, and I doubt that would end on good terms for you.”

“Why’s that?” I asked curiously, then amended, “Why is it that I’m more likely to run into them again, I mean. And thank you, by the way. For liberating me.”

I said the last in a joking tone, and the man snorted a little.

“You’d be more likely to get caught again because with us, since our headquarters are in the least likely place that they would think to look for it,” Zane said this merrily, taking the lit torch in his hand, “And you are very welcome.”

I just rolled my eyes in the near darkness and followed the dark-haired thief who was currently my only acquaintance who wasn’t either a total jerk or in a cell down in the dungeons. Zane led the way down the stairs and I had a feeling that he was making his way more carefully than he would have done without me in tow.

After following him in complete silence for a while, a certain surge of curiosity got the better of me. I withheld the question and just let my mind wander for a few moments more, but after a bit longer the question was gnawing at my mind more vigorously than I had anticipated. I groaned to myself, realizing that I’d have to ask it or it would completely eat me up inside.

“Zane,” I finally started to say, stopping. He did the same and turned to look at me inquisitively.

“Yeah? What is it?” he asked.

“Do you think you could answer a few questions I have…?” I asked tentatively of him.

“I could,” he said cheerily, “for just a very small price. A trifle!”
Frowning uncertainly at this proclamation, I asked, “What kind of price are we talking about here?”

Dozens of different scenarios raced through my head, the simplest of which was money…and I didn’t have any of the currency of the realm unless they took pennies. Doubtful. Other prices popping into my mind were far more difficult or compromising to achieve and I didn’t even want to think about them.

Zane’s price, however, was quite simple. Even more so than money.

“It’s easy enough,” he shrugged, sitting down on a step and motioning for me to follow his lead. “You just have to tell me your name.”

Relieved, I took a seat beside him and said with a sigh, “Done. I’m Aria.”