Free Wrede, Patricia C - Mairelon 01 by Mairelon the Magician (v5.0)

Tibb had dispensed
whenever her students were slow; Kim found herself learning more quickly than
she would have dreamed.
                They were
well out into the country now, and Kim found the open fields and hedges very
strange after the close confines of the London streets. Near noon they stopped to
let the horses rest and graze on the verge. Kim helped Hunch unharness them, then Mairelon called her over to begin her first lesson in
reading. She spent most of the two-hour stop scowling ferociously at the little
brown book of letters Mairelon had produced. She emerged with a profound
respect for anyone who had mastered this difficult art, and an even more
profound determination to join their number.
                The
afternoon was occupied by more lessons, but this time Mairelon was the pupil.
He asked Kim to teach him how to pick locks. Relieved to find that there was
something he didn't know how to do, Kim readily agreed. She scornfully
rejected, however, the notion of beginning with the lock on the chest inside
the wagon. "You ain't--you aren't goin' to get nowhere--anywhere?--if you
start in on a fancy job like that one," she told him.
                Mairelon
accepted the rebuke and brought out a smaller padlock from somewhere in the
depths of the wagon. "Do we need anything else?" he asked.
                "You mean, special keys and such?"
                Mairelon
nodded apologetically. "I've heard that they're useful."
                "Maybe,
but I just use a bit of wire. If you lose a key, you got to get a new one, and
that takes time. A bit of wire's always easy to come by."
                Mairelon
nodded. Kim spent much of the afternoon demonstrating the twists and pulls that
Mother Tibb had shown her so long ago. She was not as patient a teacher as
Mairelon had been, but her student had the benefit of years of experience with
sleight of hand, and he learned very quickly. By the end of the afternoon, she
was ready to let him try his hand at the rusty-looking lock that held the rear
doors of the wagon.
                "Tomorrow,
perhaps," Mairelon said. "I think I've had enough for one day."
                Kim
rather agreed with him. She was tired and very dusty from the long trek in the
wagon's wake, and her brain whirled in an attempt to assimilate all the new
things she had learned. When they reached the edge of a little village and
pulled off the road to make camp at last, her main emotion was relief.
                Hunch
tended the horses while Mairelon and Kim gathered wood. When the fire was well
started, Mairelon hung a pot above it on a wobbly tripod affair that he had
cobbled together out of green branches and twine. Hunch went muttering through
the grass and weeds along the road. He returned with several lanky plants, which
he threw into the pot along with a little meat and some vegetables from the
wagon. Kim was not sure whether it was Hunch's seasoning or the long walk, but
the stew was the best she had ever tasted. There was plenty of it, too; Kim ate
until she was stuffed, and there was still some left in the pot.
                When the
meal was over, Mairelon and Hunch began a low-voiced conversation on the other
side of the fire. Kim quickly grew frustrated with her inability to hear what
they were saying, and Hunch's occasional fierce glares made it quite clear that
she had better not move any closer. Kim glared back at him, which accomplished
nothing beyond providing her with some emotional satisfaction, then rose and
wandered back to the wagon. She glanced at the rusty lock holding the rear
doors, shook her head, and went on around to the steps.
                Inside
the wagon, she gave the chest a speculative look. She decided against it;
Mairelon knew she could open it, and had undoubtedly taken precautions. More precautions, she amended, remembering the purple explosion that had thrown