Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) Read Online Free Page A

looked at the heavy object that had hit him during the fray, however, his mood was infinitely improved.
     
       The cloaked sorcerer had left behind his pouch of gold. The merchant quickly stuffed it into the pockets of his own garment, hoping no one would take much notice. This was turning out to be a most interesting day. He hoped the gold in the pouch was worth the trouble it had cost him.
     
    ~
     
       With the long, flowing cloak and heavy, lumpy turban he’d stolen, Gribly passed off rather well as an aristocrat. Striding through the crowd with an affected swagger, he tried to make his face look cleaner and meaner- as if he really was rich and snotty, like those around him. He stayed towards the middle of the wide, crowded lane leading between the mishmash of shops, careful to blend in and not attract attention. It wasn’t hard, and soon he began to think he would make a very fine lord indeed, if he was ever given the chance.
     
       “Lord Gribly, Prince of Thieves,” he snickered to himself under his breath. The title sounded good… very good. He whispered it to himself several times as he made his way through the mob of gentility towards Ymeer’s central tower, and in a short time he was confident enough to try a new plan. Why waste time looking for Old Murie’s balm if he could just ask for directions? He looked genteel enough, he hoped, that he could simply pose as a nobleman’s son and be directed to it, rather than waste time sneaking around looking for it.
     
       A trio of guards in bronze helmets and breastplates sauntered past, hefting their short spears and complaining about the afternoon sun that the greedy market-goers seemed immune to. Gribly found himself hiding his face and detouring far out of their way to avoid any chance of being discovered. When he chanced to look up again, he was actually in the shadows of Ymeer’s highest tower, which sat in the center of the inner walls, behind the courtyard, leading the way into the great fortress of Ymeer: an infinitely high mountain of walls, palaces, and towers, all made out of the same pale sandstone that reacted so strangely to Gribly’s touch.
     
       I’m in over my head, the young thief realized. Careful to remain in the enormous shadow of the royal fortress, he tilted his head back in an attempt to see the top. He could not.
     
       “Young Maister?” a wheedling, wobbly voice called out to him. He looked down again; not ten feet from him was a portable wooden skeleton of a shop, with canvas stretched across the beams to stop the sun when necessary. The caller was a hunched little man whose skin was shriveled and red from a life spent in the desert. His wares were precious pearls and gems of every shape and color- mostly fake, if Gribly knew anything about merchants of this kind. He wore the puffy, complicated dress of a noble, bunched at the elbows and knees with tight, white boots and gloves to match. They looked over-worn and old, though well-pressed.
     
       Gribly inclined his head slightly, as he thought a nobleman would, and stepped over to the jeweler’s booth. The wrinkly man rubbed his calloused palms together and then ran his fingers through thin, greasy brown hair flecked with white.
     
       “Ah, Maister,” he began, “You looked, how I should say… a bit, ah, lost?”
     
       “Not at all,” sniffed Gribly in his best nobleman’s accent. “I am merely looking… searching for a particular… a particular item which I hath not yet borro- not yet found.” The lad could have kicked himself for almost giving away his plans, but he thought his accent was well-pretended enough.
     
       “Ah…” replied the wrinkled man, rubbing his chin now. He winked at Gribly in a way the boy didn’t like, almost as if he knew what was going on. “And this item, ah, might be it found here, among my humble collection?”
     
       “I don’t believe it is so,” answered Gribly, and now he knew he sounded