Stardeep

CHAPTER THREE

City of Laothkund, Shadow Tongue Lair

A man in soot-blackened clothes balanced on a ledge three stories above the winter-chilled street. A gaggle of sentries on its way to Sal's Tavern for warm buttered rum passed beneath him. The lamplight from their shuttered lanterns receded, once again plunging the shivering seaside district into night's full embrace. He loosed his held breath, wending steam into the icy air.

The man faced the wall, the pitch-soaked toes of his boots gripping the frigid mortar hardly at all. As if in supplication, he rested the side of his face against the tomb-cold stone, his arms splayed to either side. He hadn't counted on the freakishly chill weather. Gusts off the Sea of Fallen Stars usually kept the city of Laothkund bearably temperate, even in midwinter. Not tonight.

He eased his left foot forward. His supple, calf-hide boots were ordinarily like extensions of his feet. But he was so cold he couldn't feel his toes, and instead of providing extra grip when he needed it, the pitch seemed determined to trip him. The wind, muttering with winter's chill, threatened to pull him from the precipice, with or without help from the pitch on his boots, and dash him to the street.

A particularly stiff gust nearly turned his speculation into reality. He hadn't had such a rude introduction to the hard cobble streets since childhood. Fear was not an option; he simply required a better hold. Immediately.

He inched his left hand along the too-smooth wall, feeling for irregularities between the bricks, his fingers searching for a grip. He'd removed his black gauntlets, as thin and fine as they were. Despite their demonic talents, an unimpeded sense of touch was too precious to hamper when taking the street less traveled. But his fingers were quickly losing sensation in the heat-thieving zephyr.

The man, known in the city of Laothkund as Gage, was no stranger to heights. He'd plied his trade too long and too successfully to hesitate over leaping an alleyway chasm, or to shy from ascending a tower in utter darkness. He was so familiar with the lofty, tight places of the city he actually preferred them to the wide streets. Normally.

His fingertips eased over a gap, deep enough for good purchase. "Thank the Queen of Air," he muttered. With the new handhold, he levered himself around to the east side of the building, out of the wind.

Gage was a slender man, so much so that most assumed he was a wood elf mix. Many in Laothkund were, after all. But his birth hadn't followed a moon date. No, his wiry shape was forged from years spent running through Laothkund's twisting neighborhoods. Few could match his knowledge of the city or his ability to quickly navigate the congested lanes. No one was better at jumps, vaults, wall runs, slides, or lucky tumbles. No one knew better which of the many laundry lines would hold a man's weight, and which would instantly snap if tested.

Serendipitously, the same skills were perfect for a housebreaker. Or, as they called it in the narrow streets of the Tannery, thieving.

Ahead was the high shuttered window that had first drawn Gage's attention from the neighboring roof. He sidled along the ledge, moving with increasing confidence.

No light escaped from between the shutter slats. He pried a wooden strip away from the sill and saw the reason-behind the shutters, the window was completely sealed with brick and mortar.

He rubbed his nose, considering. The thief had reconnoitered the warehouse yesterday. This window was the only entrance not under constant scrutiny. Sure, he could probably engineer a ruse that would allow him to slip in the front door. But the time necessary to design and implement a plan subtle enough to penetrate the lair of Sathra of the Shadow Tongue would be onerous. And boring.

Actually, the bricked-up window might work in his favor. How could any of Sathra's stooges predict the resources Gage could bring to bear against simple mortar? He doubted whatever lay beyond the sealed window was guarded. Gage cautiously pried a few more slats away from the shutter.

He pulled his gauntlets from his belt and slipped them onto his hands, clenching his right hand as if squeezing something lest it wriggle from his grasp. The gloves were warm, almost hot to the touch, and his chilled fingers tingled. The eye on the back of the left glove opened and blinked up at him. A muffled voice groaned. Gage brought his right fist up to his face and whispered, "Quiet. We're on a job."

He unclenched his fist, revealing a disturbingly realistic mouth in the palm, complete with lips bordering a dark cavity where none should be, in which a too-sinuous tongue squirmed, dripping venom. The glove whispered, "I will eat your soul."

It always said that.

"Eat rock instead." Gage responded.

He turned the muttering palm toward the mortared wall and pressed, achieving complete contact. The eye on the other glove blinked stupidly, but the demon physically bound in the fabric of the thin gauntlets knew what he wanted.

The wall seemed to shrink away from his touch. A moment later, every brick in the sealed window shivered and pulsed, each pushing away from the other in defiance of the mortar that held them. Gage pushed forward and the bricks dimpled, parted around his silhouette, then closed over after him. He was inside. Behind him, the bricked window settled back into perfect solidity, hardly any worse for wear. Not a trick he could pull very often.

Gage carried many hidden advantages-a half-dozen throwing knives secreted about his body; a broad leather belt stitched with pockets containing a spool of stiff wire, a petite oil tin, several miniature abrading files, a flask of pitch, and an assortment of alchemical mixtures; and of course, his catlike grace and exceptional mind.

All these tools and talents paled in comparison to his gloves, despite their penchant for sneaking out in the middle of the night and getting up to mischief. Not for the first time Gage thanked the Queen of Air, Akadi, on his good fortune in acquiring the gloves. A year ago, he'd taken a commission to pilfer a tome called Glyphs and Griffons from the library of the mage Tenambulum. Once he'd secured the book, he'd been unable to resist looking around Tenambulum's sanctum. The absent mage had a reputation as a demon catcher. Most of a day later, shivering and bleeding, Gage had emerged wearing the Hands of Paymon. Almost all the days since then had proved his choice a good one. Though he'd learned it was dangerous to rely on the gauntlets too entirely..

He stood in the cluttered interior of a small, nearly pitch black room. A storage closet of some sort? He produced one of his alchemical oddities-a clear glass vessel that produced light nearly equal to a candle when shaken. He shook. Crates, barrels, and boxes jumped into visibility, jammed and jumbled together. A fine layer of dust covered everything. No one had opened the door into this room for some time.

He sidled up to the door, under which wan light peeked. He pressed an ear to the wood and held his breath. He heard nothing save the beat of his own heart.

Unless the silence heralded an ambush, he'd penetrated the lair without alerting the occupants. Although "penetrated" was perhaps too optimistic a spin on the depth of his entry into Sathra's domain. Metaphorically, the closet was more like a ledge to which he clung by his fingers.

He sincerely doubted the prize he'd come to claim resided in the jumble of crates and barrels.

Nonetheless, he examined the contents of a wooden container; old habits were hard to break. He found dried fish-and it had gone bad. He crinkled his nose and replaced the barrel-head, careful not to touch the rancid contents. A foul smell could betray him as easily as too much noise or straying into a sentinel's peripheral vision.

Back to the door. The hinges were chancy. He pulled the oil tin from his belt and dripped the lubricious fluid onto the two brass fittings. He stowed the canister, waited a moment for the oil to penetrate, then eased the door open a finger's breadth.

A hallway. Not very wide. Stairwell at the far end. Two other doors stood in view besides the one he peered from, one of which was ajar. A hanging lantern, its wick turned low, burned from the hallway's center. Both ends of the passage were thick with night shadows. Good.

Gage stowed his light and emerged from the storage closet. He eased the door shut and merged with the darkness. He crept down the hallway, approaching the glimmering lantern and the doors that stood across from each other. Brighter light danced from the slightly open door.

A raucous laugh told him the room was occupied. The laugh was followed by a hoarse shout, several jeers, and a draft redolent with stale pipeweed and vinegary wine.

He stepped up to the partially open door and squinted into much brighter light. Caps, overcoats, gloves, and cloaks lay in disarray on the floor around a large table. Six or seven hardbitten figures sat under a crude chandelier of lanterns. They were absorbed by a game of cards. Probably Sathra's low-brow muscle, off duty from their tasks of intimidation and loan collection. He studied the amounts being wagered. A lot of copper, some silver, and a gold or two proudly glinting from a few players' stakes. Not worth making a play for.

He glided across the hall to the other door. It was unlocked. He risked opening it a sliver. The room served as a billet, currently empty, but with enough cots for ten or so men. He closed the door, considering.

Gage had options. He could flit past the card game and down the stairs, leaving the players none the wiser. But if he met trouble he couldn't deal with quietly at the bottom of the stairs, the card players would come running.

He could launch a surprise attack into the chamber and try to take out as many players as possible before they subdued him. Gage was certain he could knife a couple, and the blinking eye of his left gauntlet could probably put the fear of hell into one or two more-leaving the remaining few to beat Gage into the floorboards. He was at his best when his foes were not aware of his presence. Inviting a pitched battle was a risk he wasn't stupid enough to take.

He could try the special alchemical concoction he'd been saving-a nasty fluid that vaporized into a gas on contact with air, and brought sudden sleep to those who inhaled it. But the game room might be too large. The gas might not reach the farthest players before they raised the alarm.

Gage decided on a trick he'd employed on a couple other occasions with moderate success. He ran his finger down the pockets he'd sewn in his wide belt, and stopped at the one etched with two lines side by side. He pulled out a narrow tube filled with the gooey pitch he normally reserved for high climbs. Pitch had so many uses.

He rolled the tube from the end, forcing out a line of black paste he applied in a stripe up the door frame. He used half the remaining pitch in the tube, perhaps more than necessary. It was expensive, but he shrugged. Better to expend resources than wish he hadn't skimped later. Gage recapped the tube and returned it to his belt. Taking a breath, he slowly swung the door closed. Door and frame squeezed the sticky pitch between them.

No sounds of surprise or alarm followed. If no one opened the door for another few moments, they'd find themselves held inside. Not for more than a moment, at most. But a moment could spell the difference between Gage getting in and getting out with a minimum of punctures.

He nodded at his handiwork and made for the stairs.

Five steps and he stood on a landing with a switchback. He continued down.

Gage peered into another passage like the one above. More doors, though; two on each side and one at the far end.

He suspected the door at the end was his ultimate destination. Still, prudence dictated he check the other four on the way.

The first door on his left smelled like a chamber pot. Sure enough, a privy, and none too clean. He doubted Sathra used this one.

Across the hall from the privy he found an office. A man sitting at a desk strewn with parchment and quills looked up as Gage peered in. "Yes?" said the man.

Startled, Gage slammed the door closed. Nice. If he sat thinking for an eternity, he doubted he could imagine a more suspicious response.

He jerked the door open again. The man was rising, his open mouth wide with alarm. "Hey!"

Quicker than thought, Gage flicked a knife from the concealed scabbard below his left arm, flinging it across the room with the same graceful motion. The knife plunged into the man's mounting yell, silencing him.

The thief dashed forward and caught the body before it crashed onto the desk. He lowered the still-twitching form to mud-smeared floorboards. He retrieved his dagger and cleaned it on the man's pants. Poor bastard. He told the glazing eyes, "You asked for it, working for Sathra. I'm sure you've done far worse in your time."

He stood, sheathing his knife. Gage checked the hallway to see if he'd roused any activity, then pulled back, closing the door. Returning to the desk, he skimmed through the papers scattered across it. He discovered the man he'd just knifed was a mid-level functionary, captain of the muscle upstairs and another group on this floor. Not part of Sathra's personal force, then; the captain apparently didn't measure up enough to be counted among the so-called "Shadow Cadre." Gage hated that name. According to a rough floor plan he found, the cadre was housed on the ground floor. He kept reading.

He found documents describing traffic in hellborn drugs, a protection racket broader than he'd imagined the Shadow Tongue could engineer, the outline of a scheme to blackmail the ruling council of Laothkund by implicating them in a made-up alliance with Thay, illicit slave trade in children. . things that would curdle the stomachs of any moral person.

But Gage wasn't here to right wrongs. He looked for a clue, any clue to the singular article he sought.

Was this it? A note about a detachment of Sathra's cache deployed to retrieve an item, unnamed. Whatever it was, Sathra had issued specific instructions-the item was not to be fenced under pain of death to her underlings. She wanted it returned directly to her, in this building, as her prize.

That had to be it! For Sathra to name something as a trophy instead of merely selling it, an item had to be particularly special. As he knew it to be. Gage had never seen anything quite so beautiful, and no trinket had before awoken his acquisitive nature so surely. If he could, he'd keep it for a prize, too. .

Gage shook his head. He couldn't let his covetousness overmaster him-the object wasn't for himself.

When Sathra's people stole it from under his nose, Gage was furious. He was here to steal it back.

He quit the chamber. Back in the empty hall, he didn't bother to check the remaining two doors. He made directly for the door at the end of the hallway. No more distractions. He glanced at a document he'd snatched from the desk: a map of Sathra's base.

He was close to retrieving his prize.

He was close to claiming Angul, the Blade Cerulean.

The door at the hall's end opened on a wide warehouse. Wooden crates of various sizes were piled everywhere in haphazard stacks. Dangling lanterns from above provided weak light. The smell of wet stone was strong in the chamber. Gage crept along the outer wall, ready to fight or flee should he be discovered. Voices in the central portion of the room bantered back and forth. Were they members of Sathra's Shadow Cadre, or merely brute laborers?

A man's rough voice echoed, "Didn't listen, did ye? Didn't listen when old Bendar told ye not to take that snake charmer's coin. Oh, no! And now look what ye got!" A laugh.

A different voice answered, this one slurred with drink or disfigurement. "Damned hedge wizard. How'd I know he could make good on his promise to curse me? I had to slit his throat, though. Passing phantom coin just ain't good business. He had it coming. I don't deserve what I got in return, I'll tell ye that."

"Snakes keep finding ye, eh? Even in winter's cold. Gotta watch where ye step, eh?"

A grunt in return.

"Ha! Old Bendar told ye!"

Gage left behind the bantering voices as he slipped into a side passage. He caught his breath-a huge form was propped on a stool too small for it, blocking most of the corridor. An ogre! Tattooed and pierced, Gage recognized it as one of Sathra's trained guardians. The figure shifted and loosed a hooting snore. Not trained well enough.

He eased past the creature and tiptoed to the passage's end. Another look at the map, a grin, and he found the secret catch in the floor. Down the narrow, steep stairs he disappeared, guided by the greenish glowing eye on his left gauntlet.

He came to the secret sliding panel the map promised, and paused to listen. All was quiet in the chamber beyond. He slid aside the panel and saw a wide vestibule. To one side, broad steps mounted upward. On the other side, a rounded door closed off Sathra's personal quarters.

Gage moved along to the iron valve that sealed Sathra's vault.

Sathra's name was inscribed on the rusted surface. Rumors suggested Sathra's personal quarters served double duty as the treasury vault of the Shadow Tongue criminal organization, but he hadn't believed them. His skepticism may have been misplaced. Either way, vault or personal quarters, it seemed likely he'd find the sword Angul within. A pitted metallic wheel protruded from the iron door, next to a keyhole. To the side was a pull chain. A few heartbeats examining the wheel and keyhole revealed expertly wired elements of a mechanical trap. Mechanical, probably riddled with spells to boot. Sathra could afford to be lavish with her security.

But Gage was no slouch. He pulled his packet of alchemically hardened, arcane-proofed tools from his belt. It was rare that a mechanism, trap or otherwise, got the better of him. He just needed to study it awhile, get a feel for it…

The wheel spun, squealing. Someone was behind the door, about to emerge!

He stood from his crouch, dropping his tools to the floor. The sound of the turning wheel covered the noise of his metallic files as they slipped loose from their case and clattered on the floor. He kicked the implements into a corner.

No place to hide in the vestibule. Up was the only way to go.

He jumped, right arm straight up. His palm slapped the ceiling. Crunch-the mouth on his gauntlet bit into the stone, as he'd hoped. The little beast would bite anything it could get its mouth on. Hard. The trick was making the glove let go. He'd once used it as a climbing aid, but feeding the demon something tastier than stone with every handhold proved too cumbersome.

With his gauntlet holding flat against the ceiling, he swung his legs back and forth, and with a stifled groan managed to swing them up flush to the ceiling, then thrust them into the corner where two walls met.

The wheel ceased spinning and the iron door below Gage slammed open. Sathra stormed out, screeching. She cradled one hand in the other. The cradled hand was red and blistered. It trailed smoke and the odor of burnt flesh. Had she just botched a spell or alchemical mixture?

The decorative metal spikes in her hair barely cleared the thief's suspended form. The description Gage paid good coin for was accurate. Sathra's infamous gluttony was visible in a full figure beneath folds of black silk. An overabundance of black metallic jewelry pierced her flesh.

The description he'd paid for failed to mention the shroud of shadows coiled around Sathra like mist. The darkness trailed in her wake, uttering a susurrus of whispers, ". . find out where. . lost the light… so hungry. . cold. ." He held his breath, clamping down on an urge to gasp with fear.

Gage waited only a moment after the sound of the last whisper faded up the stairs. He dropped, or tried to. As before, the glove wouldn't release the ceiling. He hung down in front of the door by one arm. He rifled his belt with his free arm, anxiously glancing up the stairs, then into the vault. Lucky she'd forgotten to close the door. .

Damn it, she must know he was here! But why hadn't she attacked him when she opened the door? Because she burned herself, he answered. She was in obvious pain. Perhaps she had simply forgotten to close the door. Not everything was a trap.

Right. That's possible. The leader of the Shadow Tongue forgot to close the door to the vault containing all her most valuable loot. Sure.

It was a false hope. You didn't become the head of a criminal organization as powerful as Sathra's if you made mistakes when distracted. Which meant she probably went up the stairs seeking underlings to deal with the intruder in her lair. Him.

With his left hand, he found a niblet of jerky on his belt and held it up next to his gloved hand, still affixed to the ceiling. The mouth unclenched and he dropped, landing easily on his feet. He flipped the jerky into the waiting mouth. It gibbered and noisily chewed its bribe.

Time to run. He hadn't adequately investigated the nature of the vault. He should retreat, make a plan. But wasn't that a blue glow ahead? It reminded him of Angul's signature aura. By the frost giantess's icy kiss, the sword must be just inside.

He ran. Into the vault, not up the stairs. Stupid, stupid!

His pulse pounded and a flutter of reckless joy stuttered his breathing. He was in uncharted territory, and he liked it. Taking uncalculated risks meant he wasn't dead. He took them willingly-they weren't pressed on him by any sense of duty or because of a devotion to a higher power. He was his own man.

He was too close to retreat. He was about to lay hands on Angul. No doubt about it. He'd recognize that unearthly flame anywhere. The blade must be secreted just ahead. He wondered how Kiril, Angul's legitimate wielder, was reacting to the loss of the sword she complained about so vociferously.