J'role wanted very much to be someone new.
Yes, he nodded. Yes.
9
Jangle listened as carefully as he could to his mother talking to the thing in the corner of the other room, but he could not make out the words. He heard only tones. Soft and somewhat menacing from the thing in the corner, fearful from his mother.
He climbed out of bed, carefully and quietly, making no sound, his feet light against the warm stone floor. A heavy curtain hung between his room and the central room and a bit of light from one of the floating, magical spheres in the other room made its way through it. The light was greenish, for that was the color his mother liked at the hour just before bedtime.
Taking small steps with his small feet, J'role moved toward the curtained doorway. One step after another, drawing in long, silent breaths after each successfully accomplished step.
After a long while he stood only two feet from the curtain. All he could hear now were whispers, but his mother still sounded frightened.
J'role wanted to move forward, wanted to do something. He imagined rushing forward, pushing the curtains aside, saving his mother from the thing in the corner of the other room. Yet something held him back. He realized that she was talking to it. She had not shouted for help. She had not raised her voice and demanded that it leave the way she had done when J'role's friend Weshthrall broke one of her glowpots.
Maybe she wanted to talk to the thing in the corner. He listened again.
The conversation continued
He would ask her in the morning.
He turned Silently aid crept back to bed. It was many hours before he could sleep, for the whispers in the other room lasted a long time.
When J'role answered Garlthik’s question with a nod, the ork smiled and squeezed the boy's wrists. It didn't hurt, and J'role realized the ork was simply happy that J'role wanted to be a thief. But the ork quickly became serious again, the fire between them illuminating his face.
"A thief lives in the shadows, J'role," he said. "Most people want the light of the sun to warm their bodies. A thief may want it, but he may not have it. A thief is silent. While others can speak their ideas and thoughts and feelings, a thief must keep all that to himself; he seeks solitude and secrecy while others seek companionship.
“Most important, a thief steals. You do not take from the world, you take from others.
You do not exchange goods or coin to support your life, you simply take. Yours is a life without remorse. That is key. The magic will leave you if you feel shame for what you have done. Others can afford shame. We cannot. Do you understand?"
J'role nodded. He didn't know if he could keep from feeling shame, but it seemed a lovely ambition. How nice never to feel bad again.
"Close your eyes."
J'role did. A wind seemed to crawl over him, cold and wet. Magic? Was this it?
"The darkness that you see is your own darkness. Cherish it. It is yours, neither to share nor to give. Within your darkness you are safe." Garlthik tightened his grip on J'role's wrist. "Open your eyes." Again J'role obeyed. "Remain still. Move nothing, do nothing, but listen for the sound of your own heart." J'role concentrated on listening to his heartbeat. Instead he heard many, many other sounds-his breathing, the wind lightly touching the window curtains, the hiss of the fire before him. Insects outside. But as the moments wore on, the sounds gradually faded away, one after another, each vanishing into the dull roar that became a great silence. Soon only the beating of his heart remained.
J'role nodded his head slightly.
“This is your silence,” Garlthik continued. "Where you live now, there is no other sound that matters but your own heartbeat. The cry of an infant, the sigh of a young woman, the pleadings of an old man, they are all overwhelmed in the silence that is yours, the silence of your life."
Garlthik paused, and in his face J'role saw a touch of concern-out of place with the serious tone the ork had been using. "Make no sound," he whispered. Then, without warning, he dragged J'role's left-hand forward, lowering the boy's forearm into the flame.
Pain tore through J'role's arm. He tried to jerk his arm away, but Garlthik held it tight. He wanted to cry out, but was afraid to. Afraid of what he might say, might do.
"This pain is yours and no one else may know of it. The pain you have felt all of your life; all of it now comes to this point. This moment is yours and in your heart it separates you from every other person in the world. In your isolation you may take what you want, do what you wish. Now you are adrift from all, and none may know you. You owe nothing to anyone, but everything is yours for the taking."
Garlthik released J'role's hand and the boy fell back, rolling to the floor. He clutched at the burned flesh with his right hand, but immediately pulled his hand back, for his touch only increased the pain. The smell of burned meat filled the room. Tears formed in J'role's eyes. It felt as if someone were removing the flesh of his forearm with a sharp blade, over and over again, taking only a little layer of flesh each time. The creature in his head turned this way and that, writhing with pleasure.
Why did Garlthik do this? As J'role rocked back and forth, cradling his maimed arms he saw Garlthik stand? The flame casting his shadow onto the ceiling.
"Get up," he said, bending down to brush his heavy hand against J'role's cheek.
J'role remembered the potion Garlthik had used to heal his broken arm after the fight at the kaer. Was he going to cure him now? The boy looked up at the ork with pleading eyes, but Garlthik only said, "Get up now, or I'll leave you here and go after the city myself."
J'role stood. Every bit of motion ripped pain through his arm.
"This is your first talent. My teacher taught it to me as my first talent, and you'll need it to steal the trader's ring." He gestured to the area immediately in front of J'role. "Now walk, but don't make a sound."
Yes, thought J'role, as he clumsily staggered forward, the pain darkening his vision, making even the bright flame vanish in and out of his sight. He just wanted to do what Garlthik said to do, to please him, so he'd cure the burned arm.
Garlthik's rough hand grabbed him from the back. "That wasn't silent, you little fool."
The ork pulled J'role back to where he'd been. "Do it again. Haven't you listened to a word I've said? What did I say on the road?"
J'role tried to think back to what Garlthik had said on the road, but the pain lanced his thoughts, turning any idea he had into a hot red flash. He raised his arm toward the ork, tears streaming down his face, his mouth firmly shut.
"What? Is that an excuse? I had my arm broken, boy, and I made my way out of a series of good knots. Do you think pain is an excuse? Pain is what feeds you. Without pain, there is no thief magic." He relaxed his grip on J'role's neck. "Now, think of the pain, think of what I said on the road. The magic will support you."
J'role started to focus on the pain, desperate to please the ork-desperate so he could finish the ritual and run away and never see Garlthik One-Eye again.
"No, you're just panicking now. Feel it? You're tightening up against it. You're thinking about the future, thinking about when the pain will be gone and you'll be safe. That time may never come. What's that doing for you right now? Forget anything but now. What do you want to be right now?"
Gone, J'role thought fiercely. I want to be gone and invisible and safe. He hated Garlthik for tormenting him. Then an idea came to him, floating just above the pain, skimming across the surface of his thoughts from a place J'role could not fathom. He realized that was it. The desire to be safe, to hide from the pain.