The Black Irix

* * *

The sound of the cell door lock releasing brought him awake again. He sat up quickly, blinking away the lingering vestiges of his sleep, his eyes adjusting to the light.

Panamon Creel stood in the doorway. Before Shea could say anything, the thief put a finger to his lips, signaling for silence. Then he moved over to Flick, fastened his hand over the Valeman’s mouth, and woke him. Flick struggled momentarily, but Panamon made hushing noises, speaking to him in low tones, warning him to be silent.

“Time to be going,” he whispered. “Don’t talk. Follow my lead. Do what I do.”

Shea didn’t argue, but a surge of happiness filled him. He motioned to Flick, and the two of them tracked Panamon out into the hallway where a pair of Chule’s guards lay slumped on the floor.

“They were very tired,” the thief said, cocking one eyebrow.

Shea grinned, then looked over at Flick, but his brother was still scowling suspiciously.

Panamon led them down the hallway and back up through the various levels of the complex–a slow and torturous journey in which Shea barely allowed himself to breathe. Every so often, Panamon would stop, see something he didn’t like, and turn them back another way. But no one saw them.

Then, finally, they were outside again, standing in an open courtyard but still inside the fortress walls.

Panamon turned back to them and pulled them close.

“Our horses are in a stable just on the other side of that wall.” He pointed. “We have to saddle and mount them and ride through the gates to be safe. We still have a couple of hours before dawn to distance ourselves from Chule. But we don’t want to drag our heels doing it. Come on.”

“Wait.” Shea grabbed his arm. “What about the Elfstones? I’m not leaving without them!”

Panamon nodded, his face expressionless. “Of course you’re not.” He reached into his tunic, pulled out the pouch with the Elfstones, and handed them over. “That was never the plan.”

Shea felt a rush of joy. So he was right. Panamon hadn’t betrayed them after all. “What was the plan?”

“Later. When we are well away.”

They slipped through a door in the wall that housed the stable, found their horses, saddled them, and rode down a narrow corridor along the outer wall to the main gates.

Guards stepped forward and stopped them, their faces dark with suspicion and their pikes held ready. “Where do you think you’re going?” one asked.

“Back to where we came from,” Panamon answered. “Chule told us we could leave in the morning. Morning is here. We want to get an early start on the day. We have a long way to ride, and the hardest part is getting out of the Northland.”

The guards exchanged an uneasy glance. “No one told us about this.”

“No? Then maybe no one thought it was something you needed to be told. Maybe they thought you could figure out what needed doing on your own. But if that’s not so, why doesn’t one of you go back inside and wake Kestra Chule to ask him? Or you could just detain us for another four hours until he wakes up on his own. I will ask him then how you two happened to be chosen for this duty.”

The guards shifted uneasily, hefting their pikes in a threatening way and still blocking the gates as they looked back and forth between Panamon and the Ohmsfords and each other. There was a long few moments as they silently debated their options. Finally, one stepped aside and signaled up to the walls to winch open the gates.

Minutes later, Panamon was leading the Ohmsfords back through the ravines of the terrain that bordered the keep, moving slowly but steadily away from its imprisoning walls. They rode in silence, concentrating on finding a safe path through the treacherous landscape using what dim light the cloud–obscured quarter moon and scattered stars could provide. Shea kept looking back over his shoulder at Flick, who was bringing up the rear. Flick kept looking back at Kestra Chule’s black fortress.

But there was no sign of activity on the walls and no sign of any pursuit. It seemed they had gotten away cleanly.

And with the Elfstones safely back in hand! Shea kept reaching up to feel their bulk inside his tunic pocket, fingering their familiar outline, reassuring himself that they were really there.

By sunrise, they had reached the banks of the River Lethe and were crossing the old wooden bridge to the northern fringes of the Streleheim and the promise of safety, and the Valeman could stand it no longer.

He rode up next to Panamon and caught his eye. “What just happened back there? What was that all about?”

Panamon looked over. Flick had ridden up to hear, as well. “A little sleight of hand,” the thief answered with a shrug. “I knew Kestra Chule from his time in Varfleet, in days now gone, when he was a buyer and seller of stolen goods. We were friendly enough; I was a thief, he was a buyer. Eventually, he became a collector. He found that fortress we just left–perhaps once occupied by Trolls or even Skull Bearers, but then abandoned–and he moved in.

“A while back, while doing a bit of business with me, he mentioned that he was looking for someone to build him a vault to house some very valuable artifacts and precious metals from his collection. After a few drinks, he bragged about how he had recovered a Black Irix. He wouldn’t tell me how he came by it at first, but then he mentioned that he’d had to move half a mountain to reach it.

“So I told him I’d heard a story about a Troll who had worn the Black Irix who’d died in the collapse of a mountain. He cocked an eyebrow at me in a way that told me we were talking about the same thing. So I mentioned the name of a vault builder I knew. Chule went to him, was shown the vault he wanted, was told how to set the locks to his own satisfaction, and the sale was made. Chule hauled the vault back to his fortress and installed it. He set the locks with his own set of numbers and twists of the dial, and put the Irix inside along with the rest of his treasure.”

Panamon laughed. “He even bragged on it afterward. How clever he was! How foolproof his protections! But I knew something he didn’t. Vault makers always put in a backup set of numbers and twists in their locks so that if something goes awry with the code entered by the owner, there is another way of getting inside. I went to the vault maker who had sold his product to Chule and convinced him to give me that information. He was willing enough once I handed over a substantial sum of money. He was never going to attempt anything against a man like Chule. What did he care what my intentions were?

“So now I had the means to steal the Irix. What I didn’t have was a means of finding out where inside the fortress Chule had installed his vault and whether or not the Irix was inside it. Before going in, I had to know both. And I couldn’t very well ask Chule.”

“That’s why you came to Shady Vale,” Shea said. “You knew I could find out by using the Elfstones.”

“Well, that was part of it,” Panamon acknowledged. “The other part involved persuading you to go with me into the keep. Because I needed something to convince Chule my intentions were good. He’d always kept me at arm’s length before, and I needed to get much closer than that. So I told him I would bring him the only Elfstones in existence. Of course, I demanded a huge fortune for this, all of which is now safely tucked away in my gear.”

He patted the blanket and bags strapped across the rear of his horse. “Right inside there.

“I gave you up to Chule so he would think well enough of me to engage in a little celebration afterward. That allowed me to slip a sleeping potion into his drink. After that, it was simply a matter of relieving him of the Elfstones, leaving him asleep on the couches to ostensibly retire to my bedchamber, but instead going to his, finding and opening the safe the Elfstones had revealed earlier, and taking out the Irix.

“Once that was accomplished, I came to find you and get you out of there. My initial plan was to leave things as they were until this morning so we could simply ride out together and leave him none the wiser until he decided to have a look inside his safe. But I didn’t like what he had to say earlier about letting you go. I think maybe he intended to make sure you never told anyone he had the Stones. And since I had put you in harm’s way, I thought it my obligation to take you out again.”

“You should have told me what you were intending,” Shea said. “That was a terrible thing you did.”

Panamon gave one of his maddening shrugs. “But it was done for the right reason–to recover the Irix and return it to Keltset’s people. Exactly what I told you I intended from the first.” He sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, Shea. And Flick, too. But I couldn’t tell you ahead of time; you might have inadvertently given the game away if you had known. Worse, you might have refused me right out of hand. It was a huge gamble, but I had to take it.”

His familiar grin reappeared. “Life is a gamble, isn’t it?”

“It’s certainly a gamble where you’re concerned,” Flick snapped.

“He’ll come after you, won’t he?” Shea asked suddenly. “He’ll know you stole the Irix and took back the Elfstones, and he’ll hunt you down.”

Panamon nodded. “He’ll try. But I’m not so easy to catch.”

“That won’t stop him. You know it won’t.”

“Maybe not. But I might have mentioned something to the Trolls about his illicit acquisition. They didn’t seem too happy about it. I think they will be watching for him to emerge from behind his walls into the open. When he does …”

They were passing through the area where they had encountered the Harrgs two nights earlier, and the sun was just cresting the horizon, sending its muted light through the cloud banks and mist, when Panamon reined in his horse.

“I leave you here to continue on to the Vale. Ride straight through the rest of today and for as much of tonight as you can manage. Keep close watch. I don’t think they will catch up to you, but you want to be careful anyway.”

“Where will you go?” Flick asked. He almost sounded sorry about it.

The thief pointed west. “I have a delivery to make, and the sooner it’s done, the better. Temptation is a terrible thing, and I would hate to give in to it here.”

“If you do, we will come looking for you,” Shea declared. “And we will find you, too.”

Panamon Creel laughed. “I don’t for a moment doubt it. Good–bye, Shea. Good–bye, Flick. I hope you will find a way to forgive me for what I did. I hope that what I am about to do will put paid to my debt to you both and persuade you my intentions were always the best.”

Off he rode, galloping swiftly away. They watched him until he was only a speck on the distant horizon.

As he disappeared from view, Shea heaved a sigh. He had never really believed that Panamon had decided to abandon them. He had never been convinced–even though the evidence suggested otherwise and Flick kept insisting he was wrong–that his friend intended to leave them in the hands of Kestra Chule. This wasn’t the Panamon Creel he knew. In spite of his other faults, it wasn’t the sort of man he was.

Looking back on it now, he had never been so happy to be proven right.