Read Online The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner - Free Book Online

always found them. We ran into no impassable obstacles although we climbed over fallen tree trunks and sometimes scrambled uphill on fingers and toes. I was happy to have my soft-soled boots.
    We stopped for lunch before I’d exhausted myself, but I was glad to rest. It was clear that the magus meant to lead us up the streambed until at some point we left Sounis and entered the mountain country, Eddis. Maybe we already had. I hesitated to ask, but I was delighted when Ambiades did.
    “Where are we?”
    “Eddis, since that last climb.”
    “Why?”
    My eyebrows lifted. So the magus hadn’t told his apprentices where we were going. I wondered if he’d told Pol.
    The magus turned to Sophos to ask, “What did you learn about Eddis from your tutor?”
    So Sophos recited what he knew while we ate our lunch. Eddis was ruled by a queen and a court of eleven ministers, including a prime minister. Its main exports were lumber and silver from mines. It imported most of its grain, olives, and wine. The country was narrow and ran along the top of the mountain ranges to the south and southeast of Sounis.
    It sounded like a paragraph from a book describing“All Our Neighbors” or something equally simpleminded.
    When Sophos was done, the magus turned to his senior apprentice. “Tell me what you think are the most significant facts about Eddis.” And Ambiades performed admirably. It made me think he had some aptitude for his training, though I’d gotten the feeling that he thought his apprenticeship was somehow beneath him. Maybe it rankled that Sophos was the son of a duke and he wasn’t.
    “Eddis controls the only easily traversable pass through the mountains between Sounis and Attolia, the two wealthiest trading countries in this part of the world. It has the only remaining timber industry on this coast. All of our forests have been logged. They don’t have many other natural resources in the mountains and they get most of their wealth as a result of other peoples’ trade. Eddis taxes the caravans that go through the mountains and sells her lumber to Attolia and Sounis for merchant ships. Because she depends on trade, she has always been neutral and tried to keep the peace between Attolia and Sounis. After we drove out the invaders, we would have invaded Attolia, but the Eddisians wouldn’t let us.”
    “Very good,” said the magus. He turned to Sophos and asked him if he knew about that incident.
    “When they took apart the bridge across the Seperchia?” Sophos guessed.
    “Yes,” said the magus. “It runs through a gorge, and without crossing the gorge, an army can’t get down the far side of the pass into Attolia.”
    “They were cowards, and they knew they were safe in their mountains,” said Ambiades. He spoke confidently an opinion held by most Sounisians.
    “Why should they have let Sounis through if war would hurt trade?” I asked, forgetting that I risked rebuke by intruding on the conversation of my betters.
    Even Sophos knew the answer. “Because the Attolians had lied. Eddis let the Attolians bring an army through the pass when the invaders first came because it was supposed to fight on our side, but instead the army helped the invaders overrun us at the siege of Solonis.”
    “So after all that time Sounis was out for revenge?” Several hundred years seemed like a long time to nurse a grudge.
    “Most people find it galling to lose their freedom, Gen,” the magus said dryly. The remark passed over Sophos’s head, but Ambiades laughed.
    I said, “Yeah, but Eddis didn’t get overrun, did it? The invaders never conquered them?”
    “No,” said the magus. “The invaders eventually overran Attolia as well as Sounis, but the rule of Eddis has never changed hands at the instigation of an outside force.” That was the end of the conversation and of lunch. We went back to our ascent.
     
    Twilight came mercifully early in the deep ravine of the streambed. Our party slowed down once we could no