The Thieves’ Guild

Chapter Two

20th day of Brookgreen, 38 SC

A rustle in the rose bushes by the wall marked the spot where Petor and Marta had secreted themselves for the better part of an hour. A giggle and a hushed whisper preceded their stumbling appearance on the garden path just beside a white statue of a centaur aiming his marble bow at the moon. A great oak, growing in the midst of a spacious lawn, cast its moon shadow over the path, but torches set atop tall poles illuminated the garden path at regular intervals. Petor hurriedly buttoned his blue velvet coat and fluffed the white silk ascot at his neck, while Marta brushed bits of dirt and leaves from her gown. She giggled again and plucked a rose petal from Petor’s hair.

“Stop that!” he hissed. “We mustn’t be seen!”

“Oh, what do I care anymore?” she laughed.

“I do! Your father would kill me!” Petor cried. He was a young man of nineteen summers, his companion older than he by a mere month.

“Daddy? He’s harmless,” Marta said offhandedly.

“Ha! He’s the seventh richest man in all Palanthas!” Petor exclaimed under his breath.

“Riches and wealth. That’s all anybody ever thinks about,” she sighed.

“It took my father eighteen years to be invited to one of your father’s Spring Dawning parties. If I ruined it for him by being caught in the bushes with you…” His voice trailed off with a shudder.

He took a few moments to collect himself, making certain his fine clothes were in order, while Marta toyed with her hair and twiddled the rings on her fingers. Petor hurriedly glanced about, then grasped Marta by the hand. She gazed longingly into his eyes, her lips parted expectantly.

“I’m going in by the kitchen. Do try and not be seen returning to the party,” Petor pleaded. Without another word, he dashed away, his fashionable goldbuckle shoes rutching noisily on the garden path.

“I’ll do as I like!” she called after him, then turned on her heel and stomped away. Her dainty, bejeweled slippers made walking difficult on the loose gravel. She turned once more and shouted to the darkness, “I’ll go in by the front door!” She spun round and stalked away. “That’ll show him.”

When she had gone no more than a few steps, a shadow dropped silently over the wall, landing like a cat behind the rose hedge where Petor and Marta had had their assignation. It slipped out to crouch behind the marble centaur, then flitted across the path (its footsteps making no sound on the gravel) and seemed to meld with the trunk of the massive oak on the lawn. A rustling of its long cloak, as of a breeze stirring the stems of the rose bushes, was the only sound of its passing.

Marta continued obliviously on her way, mumbling to herself, her feet crunching on the path. The shadow slipped from tree to tree, bush to bush, paralleling her course as it crossed the lawn. It seemed too swift and silent for a man, and it moved with a deadly purpose. It ran in a crouch with head eagerly thrust forward, darting across the open moonlit spaces in a flash, but when it stopped and its cloak settled about it, the normal eye could not distinguish it from wood or stone. It seemed somehow to merge with whatever shadow it crossed and to blend with the shrubbery and the trees.

Marta straightened her back and livened her step as she neared the house. The sweet sounds of a spring dance floated from the open windows. The house itself was monumental in its construction. Through only four stories tall, it loomed like a snow-clad mountain in the early spring night. Spacious lawns and luxuriant gardens surrounded the house on three sides, but on the north side a reflecting pool, fed by a canal from the Bay of Branchala, extended all the way up to the building’s foundation. The estate lay in the northeast quarter of Palanthas, at the foot of the terraced slopes of an area known as the Golden Estates. It was surrounded by a tall stone wall, with an iron gate opening onto Bookbinder’s Street. The wall crossed the canal by way of an arch, and there a water gate and guardhouse prevented intrusion. The canal was large enough to let small boats pass. Several guests had arrived at the party this way, for their barges stood in rows, pulled up along the shore of the reflecting pool.

Except for a narrow decorative ledge between the third and fourth stories, the walls of the house were of white marble polished to a glassy sheen and seemingly without joint or crevice, while the depth of the window embrasures showed the walls to be as thick as the bole of the oak in the garden. Every window bore stout shutters of iron-banded oak, and each was likewise protected by heavy bars of iron set directly into the stone of the walls. Though on this night many of the shutters were thrown wide, allowing light and the sound of merrymaking to spill out onto the lawn, when closed up tight and locked from within, the house of Gaeord uth Wotan stood as impregnable as a dwarven mountain stronghold.

As well it should be. Master Gaeord was one of the city’s most successful merchants, with a fleet of seventeen ships sailing the seas of Krynn and bringing home their profits to fill their master’s coffers. The home of Gaeord uth Wotan was known throughout the city for its collection of art, fine plate, jewels, and antiquities. Few Palanthians could boast such wealth as his.

Still, he was not a noble and his house not the home of a noble, as even the most plebeian visitor to the city could discern from a cursory glance Compared to the elegant estates of Nobles Hill, the house of Gaeord uth Wotan was about as aesthetically pleasing as a jail. In truth, it had once been a warehouse-a huge, flat-roofed block of stone and iron. What is more, the estate did not lie within the precincts of the Old City, which fact forever doomed the Wotans to the merchant class, no matter how great their wealth might grow. The noble families of Palanthas could trace their bloodlines back to the city’s founding citizens, and no amount of money could purchase a title of nobility. Gaeord uth Wotan had only gained his considerable wealth in the past thirty years, a period of time that seemed but a single drop of a water clock to the two-thousand-year histories of many Palanthian families. He was respected and honored for his contributions to the city, and not a few feared his power and influence. His Spring Dawning party was one of the premier events of the festival. An invitation to it meant prestige for the bearer, so much so that even the noble families of Palanthas found it necessary to make an appearance, however brief.

The finest minstrels in the city filled the air with their music Marta paused as the music slowed to a waltz. She began to dance alone upon the lawn, straying nearer and nearer her silent shadow. It never moved but crouched like a boulder beside a fountain of rose quartz. Marta laughed, her gown spreading about her as she twirled, so near now that the hem of her dress actually brushed the shadow. Still, it did not move. Finally, she danced away, and as the music changed once more to a vigorous spring ring, she skipped across the lawn and rounded the corner of the house. Her shadow leapt after her silently, pausing to peer around the corner before following.

All the estate between the front door and the gate was aglow with torches burning with sweet resins. Carriages of all styles and periods covered the lawn as thick as bison on the plains of Abanasinia, while servants and coachmen tended the horses or gathered into groups to share a skin of wine or gamble with dice. Marta danced along the circle of the drive, stopping occasionally to curtsey to an imaginary suitor or admirer. Her shadow moved among the carriages, paralleling her all the way to the door.

A pair of mail-clad guards suitably attired for the occasion with ribbons of green and white wrapped like a maypole around their pikes, lounged near the front doors. At Marta’s approach, they discreetly turned aside and became engrossed in a discussion of the moon, abandoning their post rather than confront their master’s scandalous young daughter. Marta stuck out her tongue at their backs as she danced into the house. Her shadow slipped in almost on her heels, crossing the threshold unnoticed except for a pet owl perched on a gilded stand beside the door. The owl ruffled its feathers in an alarmed manner and swiveled its head around to watch. Her skirts swishing over the marble floor, Marta whirled down the broad entry hall toward the ball room, while her shadow ducked aside, choosing instead a wide stair spiraling up into darkness. The guards resumed their post without noticing.

At the top of the stairs, the intruder paused, freezing like one of the marble busts standing on pedestals along the balcony overlooking the grand foyer. To his right, the balcony ringed the circular foyer before disappearing beneath a marble arch. Bronze guardians stood to either side of the arch, female warriors with long slim swords at their sides. Halfway between the stairs and the arch stood a gilded mahogany door. It creaked open. The intruder instantly stepped into a niche, somehow slipping behind the pedestal filling the niche, though there didn’t appear to be room enough for a cat. He steadied the rocking marble head atop the pedestal with his fingertips and merged into the shadows.

A man stepped through the door, closing and locking it behind him. He dropped an ornate brass key into his waistcoat pocket and turned toward the stairs. He was round as a bowl, but he walked with the swagger of a man long accustomed to striding the decks of a sailing ship. He wore a coat cut from the finest blue broadcloth, and several necklaces of rich gold hung about his thick, sunburned neck. A green emerald as large as a quail’s egg sparkled from one of his fingers. Walking, he whistled out of tune with the music echoing from the ballroom below. As he passed the niche and started down the stair, a black-gloved hand flickered out from behind the pedestal and fingered the pocket into which the brass key had been placed. just as quickly the hand withdrew as the portly man brushed irritably at his breast as though it were a fly and not a bold thief’s fingers disturbing his pocket. He continued without stopping. The intruder stepped out from the niche and watched the master of the house, Gaeord uth Wotan, cross the foyer below him, still whistling out of tune.

With a swirl of his black cloak, he spun round and glided to the mahogany door. He paused and examined the lock, then rose and proceeded toward the arch with its bronze guardians. His footsteps slowed, his head swiveled from one guardian to another. The statues seemed ordinary enough, if rather ornate in design. The female faces were extraordinarily beautiful and as alike as twins. Each bore a slim sword gripped in a long, shapely hand, one in the left hand, the other in the right. They were naked to the waist, sublimely muscled, perfectly cast. The dim light playing over their dark metallic forms gave almost the semblance of movement, of breathing.

Suddenly, the intruder dashed forward, his cloak billowing behind him. At a movement to his left, he dove, rolling beneath the arch just as two razor-sharp bronze blades sheared a span from the hem of his cloak. He continued his roll another dozen feet before rising to his feet, already running. He glanced over his shoulder. The hall behind him was empty. He slowed his steps to listen for a moment, and hearing nothing, shrugged and continued on his way.

He hurried down the darkened hall as though he possessed full knowledge of the layout of the house. He passed without pause numerous rooms and chambers, many promising untold wealth by the stoutness of their doors and locks. But he never hesitated. Finally, he stopped at a small, nondescript door almost hidden behind a fine tapestry. Without pause, he opened it quickly and stepped through, closing it silently behind him. He found himself on a narrow landing. Plain stairs, illuminated at this landing by a pair of braziers hanging from the ceiling, rose from below and continued up into darkness. He mounted the stairs three at a time until he reached the top landing, Where they ended at another door. This he opened as before and stepped out into another hall, closing the door behind him.

To his right, torches in sconces burned along an unadorned wall. The floor was laid with unpolished stone, well worn in the middle by the passing of many feet. From a door at the far end, sounds of raucous merrymaking echoed along the hall’s empty length. To the left, the hall was dark as a cave. His cloak unfurled like a flag as he turned, and he vanished into the gloom, invisible in his ebon clothes, mask, and hood.

The darkness seemed not to hinder his movements. He strode quickly down the hall, right hand lightly brushing the wall as though to guide him. No obstacle arose to trouble his path, and after turning a corner, he quickly reached his destination. It was a door, no different than the score he had already passed. Removing his black gloves, he knelt beside it and produced a leather pouch from some hidden pocket in his clothes. From this, he chose a thin metal wire and slipped it into the door’s weighty lock. Beside this, he inserted a second, thicker wire and began to work these back and forth inside the lock.

Minutes passed, and a sigh escaped him, the first sound he’d made since climbing over the garden wall. He chose a different wire and tried again but to no avail. He sat back on his heels and rested, tucked a stray strand of coppery hair back into his hood, chose a third wire, and tried the lock again. Still it would not turn, and he was just reaching for a fourth wire when a light appeared at the end of the hall.

A female servant of the house turned the corner, a candle in a silver holder illuminating her flushed face. She hurried along the passage while fiddling with a ring of keys in her free hand. The intruder eased away from her,moving down the hall about twenty feet before stretching himself out flat where the wall joined the floor. The servant stopped at the door he’d been trying to enter and tried several keys in the lock. The intruder tensed, noticing his pouch of lockpicks lying on the floor between her feet. Finally, she slid an iron key into the lock. It opened with an click. She hurried into the room, leaving the door open behind her. The intruder rose silently and crept to the door, retrieved his lockpicks, then slipped into the room and ducked behind a barrel. After a few moments, the servant exited, a large gold platter tucked under her arm. She closed the door, locked it, and hurried back the way she had come.

The room was dark, but not so dark as the hall. It was little more than a cupboard, long and narrow, with a small window at the far end. A little light spilled through the cracks in its shutters and gleamed off dozens of shelves of some of the finest gold and silver plate in the city. The shadow-intruder, though, ignored the riches at his fingertips and rushed to the window. He drew back its bolt and carefully opened the shutters.

The window overlooked the front lawn. He leaned out, his head passing easily between the window’s thick iron bars. Directly below him stood the two guards, still at their posts by the front door, their ribbons fluttering in the breeze rising from the bay. He climbed up into the window embrasure. It was barely large enough for a kender, but somehow he managed to squeeze into it. He slipped one leg through the window’s bars, then the other, then twisted and contorted himself to pass his body and shoulders through, and finally his head, until he dangled by his fingertips fifty feet above the unsuspecting guards. He looked down between his legs, took a deep breath, and let go.

The shortened hem of his cloak fluttered up around him as he fell, but before he had dropped a dozen feet, his fingers touched the tiny decorative ledge running along the wall between the third and fourth stories. He caught at it, stopping his descent in almost perfect silence. Only a slight scuffling of his boots on the polished stone wall betrayed him. He lay still, dangling by his fingertips, then glanced down. The guards had not moved.

Now, with perfect care, he slid one hand along the ledge, pulled his body and other hand after it, then repeated the action. Though people passed in and out of the party, some arriving and some leaving, others merely stepping outside for a breath of air, no one happened to look up. Not that they would have seen much of interest had they done so. A shadow perhaps, shapeless, hardly seeming to move at all. The sweet-smelling torches illuminating the grounds below blinded people. The intruder moved slowly, but without pause, along the ledge, crossing the front of the house and turning the corner, then made his careful way another dozen yards. The deepest part of the reflecting pool lay below him now.

Below the ledge but twenty feet above the water, an iron cage projected from the wall, attached by several stout bolts. The cage protected not a window but a door, like the door of a loft. Through that door, many of Gaeord’s most precious cargoes were delivered at night, moving by boat up the canal without ever passing before the eyes of a Palanthian customs officer. A block and tackle could be affixed to the inside of the cage, while its bottom swung open to allow the cargo to be lifted inside. This hinged aperture was sealed by a massive lock that looked strong enough to defy even the heaviest pry bar, and the top of the cage was protected by tall iron spikes.

Having positioned himself directly above the cage, the intruder kicked out from the wall and sailed outward like an acrobat or a flying squirrel. The trajectory of his fall took him beyond the edge of the cage. A little closer to the wall and he could have landed atop the cage, and he would have been skewered by its spikes. A little farther out, and he’d have gone for a swim in the reflecting pool. As it was, his outstretched fingertips brushed the upper bars of the cage before catching hold of the bottom rung and stopping his fall with arm-wrenching abruptness. The cage held his weight with barely a shudder. He dangled from it for a few moments as though catching his breath, then swung like a monkey along the underside of the cage until he reached the lock. A fish plopped somewhere in the pool, sending long ripples across the moonlit water.

Letting go with one hand and dangling from the other, he removed from a pouch at his belt a strange device. It was a tube of dull metal, no longer than his smallest finger and not much thicker. Small square plates of steel covered both ends. This he worked carefully into place between the body of the lock and its metal loop. Once it was in place, he gingerly squeezed the center of the tube. With a sharp clang, the lock burst open. Its fragments, as well as the lock-breaking mechanism, splashed into the water below. The intruder then slid back the bolt and let the bottom of the cage swing open. He climbed up inside it, then swung across and landed in the embrasure of the door.

A pair of wooden doors confronted him now, but these were not meant to keep out thieves, only the wind and rain. A thin-bladed dagger slipped between the boards followed by a sharp upward jerk and the bar was lifted. He opened one door wide enough to slip a hand inside to catch the bar, then slowly opened the door and dropped into the room beyond.

By some instinct or uncanny intuition, he recoiled instantly. With leopardlike reflexes, he caught the hand that guided the dagger aimed at his heart. Another blinding parry trapped the fist that would have shattered his teeth, and a lifted knee foiled the boot meant for his groin. He jerked his assailant into the moonlight in front of the doorway.

The figure was dressed much like himself, except that where he wore a full mask to hide his features, his assailant wore only a strip of cloth over the lower half of her face. A pair of dark flashing eyes glared at him from beneath her hood. She struggled a moment longer, silently, then grew still, her breath hissing sharply through her mask.

“You are hurting me,” she whispered venomously.

“You would have done much worse to me,” he answered.

“You surprised me,” she said. “Who are you?”

“I am a thief,” he said, “like yourself.”

“You are a thief, but you are nothing like me,” she spat.

“Ah, yes. You must be a Guild thief,” he sighed.

“Yes, and you are intruding upon Guild business, you freelance pig.”

He ignored the insult. Instead, he sniffed, testing the air for some elusive scent. He drew the daggered fist closer to his face. Suddenly, she jerked away, but he held her fast. He forced her wrist closer to his face until the point of the dagger tickled the thick muscular cord below his ear.

“The yellow Ergothian lotus, said to drive men mad with passion. In Palanthas, all know this perfume you wear, Lady Alynthia,” he whispered.

“And your mask cannot hide the fact that you are an elf,” she countered.

He stiffened as though insulted. “My name is Cael Ironstaff,” he said. “Is that the name of an elf?”

“Call yourself what you will,” she hissed. “After this night, the Guild will hunt you down like the dog you are. You will not escape us.”

“Why should I wish to escape you, Mistress Alynthia?” he answered. “I can think of nothing so desirable as being pursued by you.”

“Pig!” she almost shouted, her feet flailing at his knees and groin. He twisted her around and pinned her arms behind her back until she grew still, her chest heaving, breath hissing between clenched teeth.

“Do you have it?” he asked sternly.

“Do I have what?” she snarled over her shoulder.

“You know what I-”

He had not yet had time to take in his surroundings, and for that he was now heartily sorry. A door somewhere within the warehouselike chamber opened. A light spilled in, sending shadows leaping up the walls. He forced her down behind a crate, clapping one hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out while holding her tight with the other. For a moment, he felt her tense and struggle, but then slowly she seemed to relax against him. He felt the smooth curves of her flesh cupped into his own, and the warmth of her body sent a thrill though his limbs. The delicate perfume of the yellow Ergothian lotus began to drive him to distraction, despite the danger.

Then a whispered voice pierced the silence. “Captain Alynthia?” it inquired. “Are you here? Guards are approaching. We’d better- what the…?” The lookout had just spotted the open loft door.

Alynthia wormed herself free for a moment. “Over here,” she barked. “Slay me this…” her voice trailed off in a string of muffled curses.

He jerked her to her feet and stepped back until he stood in the loft door, keeping her between himself and the lookouts. Opposite him, a hook-nosed thief crouched half-hidden by a wooden crate, a dagger poised by his ear, ready for throwing. A second hid in the shadows by the open door, a small crossbow in his fist. Alynthia struggled and twisted until her mouth was again free.

“Slay him, you fools,” she ordered the lookouts, but they hesitated, afraid lest they strike their leader by mistake.

The intruder faced no such obstacle. With a deft twist, he pried the dagger from Alynthia’s grasp and sent it flying at the hook-nosed thief. Hook-nose ducked behind the crate only just in time, as the dagger whistled by his chin and buried itself in the eye of the thief by the door. He dropped like a poleaxed cow, dead before he bit the floor.

Freed from his grip, Alynthia spun around with fists clenched, but by some trick she found herself flying backwards through the air. She landed on her rear with a thump and slid across the polished floor, tumbling into Hook-nose who had just risen to launch his dagger. With a mocking laugh, the intruder stepped out of the loft and dropped from sight. Hook-nose rushed to the loft door and leaned out. He whistled in amazement.

“What is it?” Alynthia asked as she dusted herself off. “Did you get him?”

“No, Captain,” the thief admitted.

“Why not?”

“He’s not there.”

“What do you mean? He must be there. He’s in the water,” she said.

“There’s not a ripple, and I didn’t hear no splash,” the thief answered as he turned away. He sheathed his dagger with a snap. “He must be some kind of wizard.”

“Perhaps,” she admitted. “Well, at least he didn’t get the…” She slapped at her pockets, a strangled howl of rage rising in her throat.