The Thief

“The king of Sounis was not polished. Nor was he an impressive bearlike man the way kings were in my mother’s fairy tales. He was too short and too oily, and he was a shade too fat to be elegant. But he was shrewd. He routinely doubled his taxes and kept a large army to prevent any rebellion by his citizens. The taxes supported the army, and when the army itself became a threat, he sent it off to fight with his neighbors. Their victories enriched the treasury.”

Here, Gen meets the king of Sounis right before he is assigned to the mission with the magus. Gen’s description of the king shows that physical appearance is not a factor in intelligence and that stories tend to favor people who look how we expect them to, such as kings being tall and imposing. The second portion of this quotation offers additional context to Sounis. The king knows how to remain in power and how to keep his people from rising up against him by using his army, which supports How We Use One Another and how soldiers are an extension of whoever controls them. This section also implies that wars are not always fought for a reason or because tensions are problematic. Gen’s description implies that the king starts wars to keep his army in check, which suggests that the world is often shaped by a single person making decisions to benefit themselves.

“‘Do you think I want everyone in the city to know that you are out working for the king?’

‘Why not?’

‘Do you announce that you’re going off to steal something before you start?’ He thought for a second. ‘Yes, you do. Well, I don’t.’

‘Why not?’ I asked again.

‘None of your business.’”

This exchange between Gen and the magus comes as the group sets out on their mission, and it offers context to Gen’s character, as well as the relationship between Gen and the magus. Gen was initially imprisoned for stealing the king’s seal, and he was caught because he bragged about doing so in a public place. It’s later revealed that the magus set Gen up to be caught and that Gen intentionally bragged to get imprisoned as part of his plan to retrieve the stone for Eddis, but at this point, Gen and the magus are unaware of the secrets each keeps. The conversation itself highlights Gen’s irritating nature. The magus is angry because Gen was making a spectacle of himself, and rather than be cowed, Gen asks “why” in a parrot of how young children ask a parent for an explanation. The magus does not find Gen’s antics amusing, and this is an example of the type of interaction between the two that dominates the next several chapters.

“Over the tops of garden walls we could see the citrus, the fig, and the almond trees, shading the grass or the edge of a veranda. The horses provided a sort of moving platform, allowing glimpses into other people’s privacy. I would have preferred to climb the walls and look my fill. I didn’t like the way the view kept disappearing behind the dark green leaves of an orange tree just as I got interested.”

This excerpt of Gen’s thoughts comes after the group rides out of the city proper. They are passing walled-in lands of homes, which the height of their horses allows them to see into. Prior to this, Gen expressed his dislike of horses and his inability to ride well with his hands damaged from the prison manacles. Here, Gen notes a positive aspect of the ride, which is that he can see into places he couldn’t without the extra height. His dislike of moving along shows that Gen has an eye for detail and likes to study a thing until he knows it well, aspects of being a thief that he uses when he explores every inch of the maze later on.

“‘Where did you get so dirty?’

‘Prison,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ she said. People went to prison all the time. ‘I expect you’re glad to get out.’

‘Yes, ma’am, especially because the food is so good.’”

This exchange between Gen and the woman who owns an inn where the group stays gives more information about the country of Sounis and shows another aspect of Gen’s personality. The woman is not surprised to hear Gen has gone to prison. This coupled with Gen’s note that people went to prison often shows that those in power are not shy about using that power. Similar to how the king sends his army to fight a war to keep them from revolting, some people are sent to prison because it benefits someone in power, not because that person did anything wrong. Up until this point, Gen has been surly and bad-tempered, but here, he is charming and friendly. This shows that Gen has little respect for the magus and the upper ranks of society that he represents. By contrast, Gen feels for the average person, for whom hardship could come at any moment.

“‘I wouldn’t know, not being scum from a gutter. But my father is a soldier, and it’s a bloody, thankless, useless job for people who are too stupid and too ugly to do anything else.’ Even if my father and I have come to appreciate each other a little more, I still don’t think much of his chosen profession, but I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it then. My capacity for tact sometimes surprises even myself.”

This passage of Gen’s dialogue and thoughts comes during a conversation while the group eats. Pol reprimands Sophos for sleeping late, which prompts a discussion about the life of a soldier and what is expected of those who choose that life. The reference to Gen being scum comes from an earlier discussion where Gen was likened to scum because his mother was a thief, and Gen’s explanation here is an example of how he doesn’t lie but also doesn’t tell the whole truth. He is not scum, but he does not elaborate to say he grew up among Eddisian royalty. His father is a soldier of high rank, and while that makes him one of the elite few who do not have to live like the bulk of soldiers do, Gen’s opinion of being a soldier does not change, even knowing the favors his father’s status grants. Gen’s final thought about his ability for tact shows that he does think about what he says and feels badly when he says something offensive.

“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.”

This passage comes shortly after the group crosses into Eddis, which they do by climbing a mountain. The information Sophos gives shows the problem with learning only from books. While gathered information can offer facts about location, trade, and government, the knowledge Sophos has of Eddis is limited to what Sounis has been able to collect. As Gen knows much more about Eddis, having lived there his entire life, the recitation sounds simpleminded to him because it barely touches on the details of his country and shows how little Sounis teaches its people about its neighbors. The reference to a book like “All Our Neighbors” adds to this by making Sophos’s information seem like something children would learn in school that lacks depth or nuance.

“‘It’s hard to say what is myth and what is real,’ said the magus. ‘There may have been a king called Hamiathes, and he may have initiated this tradition. We do know that there was a stone called Hamiathes’s Gift and that at the time of the invaders people still believed in its power and its authority.’”

The magus says this after he divulges that the group seeks Hamiathes’s Gift. The myths say that Hamiathes was king of Eddis and that he passed the stone to his son, who passed it to his son, and eventually, having the stone came to be known as a mark of becoming Eddis’s next ruler. This myth is the reason Gen seeks the stone—so his cousin may be crowned the next queen of Eddis—and the magus’s perspective on the myth here supports that Beliefs Are Not Truth. Whether the myth is true in the form the magus presents or not, the story is based in some truths, though there is no way to know exactly which parts are true. This also shows that the magus is willing to take grand chances for Sounis. He has no proof that the stone is real or that it is located where he believes it is, but for Sounis, he assembles a traveling party and uses Gen, hoping that his decision to do so will work out in his and the country’s favor.

“Sophos thought for a minute. ‘I think he just doesn’t want people to believe in them, to have superstitions. I don’t think he objects to an academic interest.’”

Here, Sophos has just asked the magus for more information about the old gods. Ambiades argues that Sophos’s father is against Sophos studying the old gods, and this line is Sophos’s response, which calls to the difference between beliefs and information. Sophos’s father objects to people believing in the old gods because it is opposite what most people from Sounis believe, and this could lead to conflict. By contrast, having an academic interest does not necessarily mean people believe in the things they study, and no knowledge is wasted knowledge. This also speaks to how much Sophos enjoys learning and how he is willing to skirt his father’s restrictions to gain understanding. Sophos’s father may not see Sophos’s interest as strictly academic, but Sophos is too curious to care.

“It’s always interesting to hear different versions of people’s folktales, Gen, but you shouldn’t think that your mother’s stories are true to the original ones. I’ve studied them for many years and am sure that I have the most accurate versions. It often happens that emigrants like your mother can’t remember parts of the original, so they make things up and then forget that the story was ever different. Many of these myths were created by great storytellers centuries ago, and it is inevitable that in the hands of common people they get debased.”

The magus says this to Gen after Gen objects that the magus’s origin story of the old gods isn’t correct. These lines show both the magus’s arrogance born of his education, as well as the nature of stories to shift over time. The magus doesn’t believe Gen’s mother could possibly know the correct versions because she is a commoner and because the stories that were passed down were distorted from many retellings. Further, the magus is sure that his research has led him to have the most accurate versions of the tales, but since he bases this only on the records Sounis has managed to collect, this may or may not be true. The magus doesn’t believe there is any knowledge that could possibly escape him at this point, something he overcomes when he realizes both Gen and Ambiades were able to fool him.

“‘What are you doing awake?’ I asked him.

‘Keeping an eye on you.’

I looked at the other three sleeping bodies. ‘You take turns?’ Ambiades nodded.

‘Since when?’

‘Since the last inn.’

‘Really? And I’ve been too tired to appreciate it until now.’ I shook my head with regret and went back to sleep.”

This conversation between Gen and Ambiades is an example of the banter that goes on between the two men. Gen’s behavior has made the rest of the group wary of him, which prompted them to have someone keep a watch on him at all times. This speaks both to how they don’t trust Gen and also to the seriousness of the mission, as well as how concerned they are about being discovered. Gen’s final line here is a dig at Ambiades and the group as a whole. He regrets being too tired to know they’ve been keeping a watch on him because, if he had, he would have purposefully made things more difficult. The fact that Gen goes right back to sleep shows he sees no point in antagonizing the situation right then, but this does not keep him from doing so later.

“When Sophos was done saddling his horse and Pol’s, he loaned me his own comb. I told him to his face that he was much too nice to be a duke. He blushed deep red and shrugged.

‘I know,’ he said.

‘So does his father,’ snarled Ambiades, leaning down from his horse as he rode by.”

Here, Gen has recently stolen Ambiades’s hair comb, which infuriated Ambiades. Feeling bad that Gen doesn’t have his own comb, Sophos offers his, and the exchange speaks both to Sophos’s gentle nature, as well as what is expected of politicians in the story world. In conjunction with Sophos being on this mission so he can toughen up, Gen’s comment shows that high-ranking politicians are meant to be ruthless and unkind. Sophos knows he is not the person he needs to be to hold power, and this embarrasses him, evidenced by how he blushes. This passage also highlights the conflict between Sophos and Ambiades. Sophos looks up to Ambiades because he is everything Sophos aspires to be to please his father, and Ambiades treats Sophos poorly because Sophos allows it and doing so makes Ambiades feel powerful, something he craves.

“Earth had promised that she would give no more gifts to him except those which she had given to all men. So she told Eugenides that he must use his own cleverness if he was to acquire the attributes of the gods. Cleverness was a gift she had given to all men, although to few had she given as much as to the woodcutter’s son. She told Eugenides that the Sky sometimes lay in the evening with one of the goddesses of the mountain lakes, and when he did, he left his thunderbolts beside him.”

This is a passage from one of the many tales about the old gods. Turner uses the story-within-a-story framework both to provide context about the old gods and to show the group, and specifically Gen and the magus, growing closer through storytelling. This excerpt comes from the tale of how Eugenides (the thief god whom Gen is named after) became a god. Much like Gen on the book’s journey, Eugenides stole something on behalf of one power so another power could be manipulated. Both Gen and Eugenides embody How We Use One Another. They use their thieving skills to do the bidding of others, neither receiving anything for themselves but the right to know they accomplished the theft.

“I knew about the plague years that had come thirty years before I was born. It had traveled with the trading ships across the middle sea, seeping through the lowlands and killing off entire families. In the wineshops in the city they said that as many as half the people in Sounis had died. All sea trade stopped. The crops rotted in the field, and Eddis had closed her passes, trying to keep the sickness out. My grandfather, who had been a young man during the plague years, had told me that no thief would touch the possessions of a plague victim for fear of contagion. Everything was burned.”

Gen thinks this as the group rides through an area that was once farms but that has now grown back to resemble wild forest. Following the plagues Gen describes here, these lands were no longer farmed because there were not enough people to take care of them, which is yet another example of how the world changes. Whether through the changing of power or through natural illness, countries gain or lose. The final lines of this quotation show how everyone is affected by such times of strife. Gen’s grandfather was a thief like him, and the fact that thieves would not steal anything that belonged to a plague victim shows how devastating the plague was, as well as how a livelihood is not as important as a life. If a thief stole something that belonged to someone who died of the plague and then contracted the plague, that theft would be for nothing, and there was the very real possibility they would not live to steal anything else.

“‘I’m sorry,’ said Sophos humbly. He was standing with his shoulders slumped, rubbing a sore elbow. He’d dropped his sword onto the dirt. ‘I’m just not fast enough. You’re a better swordsman, Ambiades.’

Ambiades shrugged as if to say, ‘Of course,’ and Sophos blushed. I snorted.

‘All it shows,’ I said, ‘is that Ambiades is six inches taller than you and has a longer sword, as well as a longer sword arm.’”

This passage comes from the second time the magus leaves Gen alone with Sophos and Ambiades. Sophos and Ambiades are sparring while Gen watches, and has been the pattern from previous sparring sessions, Ambiades wins while Sophos is lucky to get in a hit at all. Sophos believes this shows how terrible he is at sword fighting, and Ambiades doesn’t argue because easily beating Sophos allows him to feel powerful and better than the younger man. Gen’s observation shows that there is more to swordplay than who is a more skilled opponent. Rather than shrugging Sophos off as unskilled, Gen uses the match to show how natural circumstances, such as a height difference, gives Ambiades an unfair advantage. This is also a hint that Gen is a trained fighter, something neither Sophos nor Ambiades realizes.

“‘Did you know,’ I asked the magus, ‘that when you think someone is very intelligent, you say he is clever enough to steal Hamiathes’s Gift?’

The magus cocked his head. ‘No, I didn’t. Is it just among your mother’s people?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But I know what happened if you tried and got caught.’

‘I don’t know that either,’ the magus said, surprised by a gap in his scholarship. He wasn’t surprised that I knew. I suppose crime and punishment are things that most thieves keep track of.”

This exchange between Gen and the magus comes after Gen tells the story of how Eugenides’s brother tricked him into stealing the Sky’s thunderbolts. After finishing it, Gen asks follow-up questions related to Hamiathes’s Gift, and this is one of the first times the magus realizes there are things he doesn’t know, which foreshadows how he humbles in the book’s final chapters. It also shows how Gen has changed. Rather than berate the magus or make fun of him for not knowing something, he simply continues the conversation and explains the punishment in the next few paragraphs. The expression about stealing Hamiathes’s Gift is another way Turner builds the story world by creating expressions that call to the stories of ancient myth and filling in the modern culture.

“I stood under the hole in the ceiling and looked up. When the river came back, it would pour first into the chamber, backing up to fill the temple. When the room and the temple were full, some water would still flow through the chamber, but most would carry over the top to the falls and hide the doorway in the rock face. It was a work of genius, and I wondered how long ago it had been built.”

Here, Gen has entered the maze for the first time, and as he has done in new situations up until this point, he takes a moment to get the lay of the land. This scene is important in showing the care with which Gen prepares to steal something and his attention to detail. Rather than running directly inside and starting the search, he pauses, even though he is on a time limit and must get out before sunrise. The architecture of the maze itself speaks to the care with which the place was built, and the sheer ingenuity makes it possible that the gods themselves built it, an idea that is bolstered when Gen finds the chamber of the gods on his third night in the maze. Also, rather than relying on tools and locks to keep the place safe, natural forces, such as water and stone facades, are used.

“Locks are not difficult things to open. They all work on the same system: Little tumblers keep the lock closed in this position and open in that position. The more tumblers you have, the more expensive the lock, but if a thief can open a lock with four tumblers, he can open one with six or eight or twelve almost as easily. He just uses a longer false key with adjustable strikes to move the tumblers.

If you want to keep something safe, I say hire a guard, at least until someone invents a better lock. Or hide your treasure where no one will find it. That’s what most people do. Being able to find valuables in boxes hidden behind bed frames, being able to move through a building with no one the wiser, those are more important skills for a thief than opening locks. Those and a good head for heights. People don’t usually hide their emerald earrings in the cellar.”

This passage comes as Gen enters the maze on the second night and follows a description of how he easily opens a lock and goes on his way. The information Gen offers the reader here gives context to the profession of thief, showing that it is more complex than it appears at first glance. Rather than simply picking locks, what is often thought of as a thief’s main activity, Gen pushes lockpicking aside as one of his lesser-used skills. Rather, he thinks of the ability to find hiding places and move silently, things that keep him unnoticed. His skills of observation are also critical, as they allow him to find valuables in places where others wouldn’t think to look for them. In Gen’s estimation, part of being a good thief is knowing where to look, and this becomes relevant as he explores the maze and finds no trace of Hamiathes’s Gift. As he describes here, locks are not the problem. Rather, the entrance to the room that holds the gift is well hidden, and it is up a set of stairs, touching on the importance Gen places on dealing with heights.

“‘There is a description of it in the scrolls of the high priests of Eddis,’ said the magus. ‘Whenever anyone produced a stone, the high priest compared it to the scroll’s description. No one but the priest could read the description, and so no one ever offered a successful copy. Probably because someone who is already as wealthy and powerful as the high priest of Eddis is difficult to corrupt.’

‘Or he’s corrupt already and doesn’t want to share his power,’ I said.”

This exchange between Gen and the magus comes after the magus believes the stone was lost during the attack from Attolian soldiers. Once the panic has worn off, the magus thinks of solutions, settling on making a copy of the stone, which he is able to do because he’s read the ancient scrolls of the Eddisian high priest. The magus’s and Gen’s different ideas of corruption show how their different upbringings have influenced them and is yet another hint that Gen is more than he seems. As someone of high rank who has undying loyalty to his country, the magus would be difficult to corrupt, and thus, he sees high-ranking officials as similar to himself—difficult to corrupt because they already have power and status. By contrast, Gen understands the mindset of a thief and that this mindset doesn’t change with the magnitude of what is being stolen. A common street thief has the same ideals as a powerful person who has stolen their way to greatness and intends to steal their way to keep that greatness. Gen’s line also shows that he has insight into Eddis’s high priest, which is only clear in retrospect once his secret is revealed.

“How could I explain that this was a perfectly normal reaction for someone who has had a careless prayer answered by the gods? The silence of the horses had been immeasurably more unnerving than the gods in their temple. Maybe because the stables had been part of my world and the temple had not.”

Here, Gen has just stolen new horses for the group, and when he brought them onto the stone road, their shoes were silent. The only explanation Gen has for this is a gift from the gods, and this unsettles him because, despite being from Eddis and believing in the old stories, he has never truly believed the gods were real until he was faced with them in the temple. The silence of the horseshoes is proof that the gods are smiling on him, as was how he survived even after the water trapped him in the temple. In the instance of the temple, that place was of the gods, and so Gen could cope with godly interference there because he at least somewhat expected it from the place. With the horses, though, he is used to the world working a certain way—horseshoes make loud noises on a road. As such, when the horses are silent, this frightens Gen because the world he knows is not working as it’s supposed to, meaning that gods hold more power than he can fathom.

“‘I’ve known Pol my entire life,’ Sophos said unevenly. ‘I don’t want him to be dead,’ he insisted, as if his wishes should be granted. ‘He has a wife, and he has two children,’ he wailed, ‘and I am going to have to tell them.’”

These lines of dialogue from Sophos come after Pol and Ambiades are killed and Sophos, along with Gen and the magus, have been captured by the Attolians. Here, Pol’s death is hitting Sophos, who is realizing that he has to step up and start taking responsibility for both himself and the people who look up to him. Until now, Sophos has been content to get lost in his books and believe the world would leave him alone to read and learn. Pol’s death has shattered his innocence, forcing him to confront the darkness in the world. Like Gen when the horses shoes made no noise on the road, Sophos is dealing with things he’s had no framework for, and the result is an emotional storm that Sophos must weather to move forward.

“‘His father’s money must have run out, and he decided he’d rather be a wealthy traitor than an impoverished apprentice. Attolia paid him, and he had arranged for someone to follow us from the time we left the king’s city in Sounis. If we moved too quickly, Ambiades was careful to slow us down.’ We both thought of the food missing from the saddlebags.

‘I owe you many apologies,’ the magus admitted.

‘They are all accepted,’ I said. It wasn’t important anymore.”

This exchange between Gen and the magus comes after the group realizes the depth of Ambiades’s betrayal. The missing food refers to the incident in Chapter 7, where the magus blamed Gen for stealing the food and whipped him. It was Ambiades, not Gen, who took the food, which shows Ambiades cunning, as he was careful to do something for which Gen would easily be blamed. Here, the magus apologizes for this instance and for all the other moments where Ambiades, not Gen, was to blame for things that slowed the group down. Gen accepts the apology without rude comments, and the civil exchange between the two men shows that both are at the end of their character arcs. They have grown, both as individuals and as friends, to the point where they understand the other made mistakes and that it is not worth lording those mistakes over one another. This also shows that their current situation, prisoners in Attolia, is vastly more important and dangerous than anything Ambiades did in the past and that they must focus on what is important in the moment.

“‘If you could be anywhere you wanted right now, where would it be?’

I sighed. ‘In bed,’ I said. ‘In a big bed, with a carved footboard, in a warm room with a lot of windows. And sheets,’ I added after I’d taken a few more steps, thinking of them rubbing against my sore feet, ‘as nice as the ones they sell on the Sacred Way. And a fireplace,’ I added, expanding the daydream. ‘And books.’

‘Books?’ he asked, surprised.

‘Books,’ I said firmly, not caring if the magus thought it was odd. ‘Lots of books.’”

Here, Gen, the magus, and Sophos have escaped the Attolian prison and are headed toward Eddis, which is intentional on Gen’s part, though the others don’t yet know this. Sophos starts this discussion to distract the group from the hopeless thoughts of being recaptured and from the difficult terrain they travel through. Gen’s answer hints at his personality and also that he is familiar with niceties, another hint about his true nature that his companions miss. His desire for books catches the men off guard because both assumed Gen to be nothing more than a thief and not interested in education. Overall, this passage shows the importance of thinking positively even when a situation seems hopeless. It also shows the power of imagination and how picturing what one wants can bring it about, since Gen ultimately does get his fancy bed and books.

“Ambiades was clever. It’s too bad he was a fool, too: always wanting more money, and more power…more respect. He would have made a fine magus if he could have stopped being the grandson of a duke.”

The magus says this as he and Gen discuss Gen’s secret and clear up any remaining questions about their time together and Gen’s identity. Gen thinks Ambiades suspected Gen’s true identity, and the magus’s dialogue here is said with sorrow and respect. Ambiades was highly intelligent and cunning, and he fell victim to his tragic flaw: greed. The magus’s analysis of the situation shows how politicians and advisors are not so different. Both must make critical decisions and use their knowledge to work through puzzles. Ambiades becoming an apprentice to the magus was not a mistake, but he never would have fulfilled the role because it did not offer the acclaim and grandeur he wanted.