The Thieves’ Guild

Chapter Twelve

So what did you two talk about?” Alynthia snarled as she led the way down the hall. It was the first words she had spoken to Cael since they’d left Oros’s chamber. About twenty silent minutes had passed, minutes in which he could feel the tension seething within her. She walked in front of him, her back as stiff as a ramrod.

Cael began to suspect she was leading him in circles. Though the hall was bare of any identifying ornaments, a couple of doors looked familiar, as though he had passed them several times before.

“Nothing much,” he responded.

“Did he tell you why you were summoned?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

They continued on in silence for a while, passing another familiar-looking door. Cael grew impatient He stopped. With- out seeming to notice, Alynthia continued down the hall and vanished around a corner. He stood for a moment, irresolute, listening to her footsteps fading away in the distance. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, he hurried after her.

As he turned the corner, he tripped and fell sprawling to the floor. Alynthia stepped on his back and pinned him to the floor. Her lips twitched with anger. “You will follow me without question, even if I choose to lead you in circles!” she snarled as she ground her heel into his spine.

“Yes, Mistress,” he groaned, trying to squirm free of her boot.

“And you will call me Captain, do you understand?”

“Aye, Captain,” he answered.

“Now get up!” She stepped aside and allowed him to stand. He dusted the knees of his trousers and waited for her to lead on. She stalked away, her heels pounding on the stone flags of the floor.

“Never question my orders,” she continued, turning the same corner for perhaps the fourth time. “As a freelance, individual initiative has served you well enough, but in the Guild it is a dangerous habit. There are people in this city who pay handsomely for protection.”

“Meaning they pay you to not rob them,” Cael said.

Alynthia ignored him. “Only the Guild captains know who they are, so we can’t have you going off on a lark. You hit who I tell you to hit and no one else. Understand?”

“Aye, aye, Captain, sir,” Cael barked like a theatrical pirate.

Alynthia stopped beside a low door, turned, and fixed the elf with a cold eye. “Do try not to be such a buffoon,” she said as she opened the door. Beyond, a staircase led down into shadows.

“Where are we going?” Cael asked as he followed her down.

“Didn’t I tell you not to ask questions?” she barked. “Your only concern is to follow me.”

Cael reluctantly obeyed. They reached the bottom of the stair and stepped into a low, smoky, torchlit hall. By the damp, heavy stone of the walls and arched ceiling, Cael guessed it to be deep underground.

Unlike the other parts of the Guild house that he had seen, this section was alive with activity. Young men and women scurried about, tending to duties that at first glance seemed bewildering in their variety. Two burly chaps strained to carry a heavy iron door, while a girl of no more than ten summers followed them, holding a large basket of sparkling black plums. Three men bearing double jars of oil squeezed through, careful not to spill a drop. A little further down the hall, a pair of dull-eyed Kalamanites tended the torches lining the walls, replacing old, smoking torches with fresh new ones. Suddenly, a half dozen youths bolted past in hot pursuit of a young girl clutching what appeared to be a merchant’s money belt, while a peg-legged instructor hopped after them, shouting to the girl that she had damn well better not let them catch her, or else she’d receive a right smart hiding. He bobbed and smiled to Alynthia as he passed, then continued on his way, loosing a string of curses at the pursuers, promising double punishment if they couldn’t catch a young strip of an girl like that.

Alynthia led the way down the hall. Soon they passed doorways opening both to the right and to the left. In one room, a band of black-clad thieves were performing a series of acrobatic exercises that made even the agile-footed elf stare in amazement. In another, a meal of common but hearty food was being served to a small group of brown-robed senior apprentices. They conversed in whispers. Through a third door, Cael saw a startling variety of Palanthian citizenry, from waterbearers to sailors to bejeweled and perfume-pomaded nobles. An elder master thief stalked among them, eyeing each sweating apprentice with deliberate care, and delivering praise or correction, or, when necessary, a punishing thwack of his stick to each deserving student of the arts of disguise.

“Today you shall begin to learn the discipline of the Guild. You’ll forget your independent ways and learn to appreciate the company and camaraderie of fellow thieves,” Alynthia explained as she led the way.

“Surely you don’t intend to place me with these,” Cael said. “They are children.”

“No, I have a regimen of very special training prepared for you,” she said with a laugh over her shoulder. “I am sure you have heard of the tests given to apprentice wizards at the Towers of High Sorcery.”

Indeed he had. Once, when the moons of magic still coursed nightly across the sky and the Towers of High Sorcery were centers of magical learning, those apprentice mages deemed worthy enough were accorded a test to see if they were prepared to assume the responsibilities that came with learning spells of power. The tests were voluntary, because failure invariably meant death.

“So I am to be tested, like some apprentice mage?” Cael asked incredulously. “I should think my besting you in the house of Gaeord is sufficient proof of my abilities.”

“It is not your abilities that are to be tested,” she snapped back, a little overloud. She lowered her voice, continuing, “You are still an apprentice in the ways of the Guild. You must watch how we operate, so that you may learn to anticipate the actions of your colleagues in the Inner Circle. You must learn to depend upon them for your very life, and they must be able to depend on you for the same. When you are truly a team, you will be able to act together without speaking, and live and breathe as one.

“In the days of the old Guild, few thieves trusted each other, few would work together toward a common goal. This distrust, this selfishness led to the Guild’s downfall, by black betrayal. When Mulciber reformed the Guild, she used the example of the Knights of Takhisis to teach her captains how to organize and lead people who do not naturally work together. This is what you must learn. This is what you will begin to learn, tonight.”

“Me, a Knight of Takhisis!” Cael laughed.

“Be quiet, you foo1!” Alynthia barked.

They had reached the end of the hall, where a low, iron door stood, set deeply into the ancient stone. Few thieves were about in this area, and no one guarded this door, though it looked stout enough to be the entrance to a treasure chamber. Alynthia stopped before it and motioned for Cael to move in front of her. He stepped forward and ran an appraising eye over the door and its massive lock.

“My test is to pick this lock?” he asked.

“Of course not, you idiot!” she cried. “Haven’t you been listening to me? This is not a test of your individual ability. It is a test of your integrity.”

“Then I will fail, for I have none,” the elf responded with a smirk.

“Then you, or one of your companions, will die,” she answered coldly. “If you survive and one of your Circle dies because of your failure, rest assured, the others will gut you like a herring. And I won’t stop them.”