The Thieves’ Guild

Chapter Twenty

Alynthia knelt by the window, peering out, while Cael slipped into a black cloak and hood and drew a mask over the lower half of his face. Glancing back at him, she shook her head. “Even with the mask, anyone can tell you are an elf,” she whispered.

“I cannot change who I am,” he answered, his voice muffled by the mask.

“A shame. Well, it will have to do,” she said, returning her attention to the window. Outside, the full moon stood poised on the peaks of the mountains to the east of Palanthas. By its light, Cael folded a small black cloth bag and tucked it into the pouch at his belt. The bag, which they had found upon entering the room a little more than an hour ago, contained the soft black outer garments, masks, and capes that he and Alynthia now wore. It also contained, two broad-bladed poniards, equally suited to close fighting or throwing.

Thieves of the Second Circle of the Guild, in whose territory the building stood, had placed the bag here in preparation of the evening’s work. It was the nature of the new Guild not to allow one hand to know what the other was doing, so those who left the parcel of clothing did so without knowing the reason and without questioning it. The command came from above and was authorized by the seal of Mulciber.

The room’s only window commanded a crossing of two alleyways, one running east to west, the other northeast to southwest. It was partially boarded over, allowing a good view of all that passed without, while concealing those within. The moon shining down the east alley revealed anyone approaching from that direction.

“Make yourself ready. It is almost time,” said Alynthia.

“It’s hours yet, surely. The night is still young,” Cael said.

“When the moon clears the eastern peaks, we go. That is the order.”

“But wouldn’t it be better to wait until the night is old and Jenna is deep into her sleep?” the elf asked.

“Mistress Jenna seals her house against all intrusion before retiring for the night, so we propose to enter while she is awake and before her wards are set.”

“Sounds tricky,” Cael said.

“It is. You will do nothing except under my direct order, do you understand me?”

“Aye, Captain sir,” Cael answered.

They waited in silence while the moon rose behind the distant mountains. The city around them was quiet, for here, so close to the Shoikan Grove, most of the buildings were abandoned and empty. Despite the hundreds of years that had passed since the grove first appeared, these buildings remained in good repair. Rather than allow any section of Palanthas the Beautiful, City of Seven Circles, to fall into disrepair, the city paid handsomely to maintain these buildings, hiring laborers willing to brave the proximity of the magical grove in exchange for the princely sums such work commanded. A few hardy souls still lived in this neighborhood, mostly mages and folk of similar occupation, people seeking quiet and solitude away from the hubbub of the city. This situation was made all the more strange because the grove stood quite near the very center of the city, within shouting distance of some of the busiest quarters in town. For the most part, though, only the wind whistled down these alleys, and shadows played in the courtyards.

Finally, Alynthia whispered, “It is time.”

Together they slipped through the window and into the alley beyond. Keeping to the shadows, Alynthia led them along a narrow path. They passed with no more sound than two cloud shadows racing along the ground. In moments, they halted beside a blank wall, and ‘Alynthia placed her black-gloved hand against Cael’s lips, enjoining him to silence. They waited again, huddling in the shadows.

A rope of black-dyed silk dropped down and dangled between them, brushing their shoulders. Alynthia steadied it with her hand and looked up, signaling to those on the roof. She pointed at Cael’s staff and lifted her eyebrows as though to say, “How do you expect to climb a wall carrying a staff in your hands?”

In answer, he placed his staff against the wall and whispered, “Conceal.” A reddish glow enveloped the dark wood, but the staff did not otherwise change. A puzzled expression crossed his face. “Conceal,” he whispered again. The staffs crimson glow faded, then vanished.

Alynthia pulled him close and hissed into his ear, “What are you doing?”

Cael stared at the wall for a moment. “It must be protected against magical intrusion,” he whispered.

“Of course it is! Now climb, before we are seen!”

Cael shrugged, still staring in bafflement at the wall. He turned away from Alynthia for a moment, and when he turned back, the staff was no larger than a cane. He slipped it under his belt.

Alynthia shook her head as though she disapproved but motioned impatiently for him to climb. He grasped the rope and started up, Alynthia following close behind.

He reached the roofs edge, three stories above the alley, and found a masked thief steadying the rope. Another extended a black-gloved hand and helped him up the last few feet. When Alynthia appeared below, each lent a hand in lifting her to the roof and setting her on her feet. At a quick sign, they vanished into the darkness, finding ready places of concealment. Alynthia drew up the rope and left it coiled at the roofs edge.

The roof of Mistress Jenna’s house was flat, unlike most of the roofs of the surrounding buildings. A short wall enclosed it, providing a sort of battlement, if it were needed. Cael scanned the roof and with his elven sight saw by the glow of their bodies’ heat no less than a dozen thieves covering every possible route of escape and keeping a careful, inconspicuous watch over the city below. Not far away, the trees of the Shoikan Grove rose above the rooftops as though keeping their own watch over the thieves. The trees’ shadows, looming so near, made everyone more tense and wary.

Near the center of the roof, four thieves huddled in a small group. Alynthia nudged Cael. He dropped into a crouch, running with a swift, light gait. Alynthia followed him.

Three of the four thieves turned. The fourth was busy at some task of obvious delicacy, judging by his level of concentration. He was carefully pouring something onto the roof. Acrid smoke rose up around his face, swirling up from where the liquid bubbled and hissed on the roofs surface.

“Acid,” Alynthia said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Magical. All ordinary attempts to cut through this roof have failed, because of the wards placed on it by Mistress Jenna.”

“What if she is below? Won’t she notice the acid eating through her ceiling?” Cael asked.

“She uses the top floor for storage. Living quarters are on the second floor, shop on the first floor, laboratory in the basement. If we are lucky…” She ended with a shrug.

“Won’t the acid eat through the next floor as well?”

“Mancred is being very careful to only use enough to dissolve a hole through the roof, aren’t you Mancred?” Alynthia whispered.

The thief grunted in answer, not allowing a spoken response to break his concentration.

Meanwhile, the other three thieves busied themselves assembling a sturdy metal tripod, from the apex of which hung a small pulley. While one oiled the pulley and tested it for noise, another carefully uncoiled a thin black rope and threaded it through the pulley’s wheels.

“What am I supposed to do?” Cael asked Alynthia.

“Stay close to me and keep quiet,” she answered through pursed lips. “Mancred, how much longer?”

The thief grunted again, then sat back on his heels and carefully stoppered the bottle of acid before slipping it into a pouch. “A hundred slow heartbeats,” the old thief estimated. “A hundred and twenty, perhaps.” He coughed quietly, perhaps from the acid’s fumes.

As the thieves of Cael’s Inner Circle finished assembling the tripod, Mancred leaned over the hole eaten into the roof by his magical acid. A few last wisps of smoke arose from it and were shredded by the southerly wind. Without looking up, he extended one gloved hand. Varia quickly slapped a small gardening shovel into his hand. With this tool, the elder thief began to excavate, carefully removing scoops of sizzling, still-smoking debris from the hole and setting them aside, knocking gelatinous strands from the shovel with the heel of his palm. After the fourth such excavation, a thin beam of yellow light lanced up from below.

“The tripod!” Alynthia hissed. The thieves responded by placing the tripod over the hole, then covering it with a wrap of black cloth. This cloth effectively blocked the light from hole, preventing anyone from observing it from below on the street. This done, Mancred quickly dredged out a breach large enough for a man to fit through.

At a motion from Alynthia, Varia grasped the pulley rope. Ijus wrapped a loop around his waist and swung out beneath the tripod. She quickly lowered him through the hole. Hoag followed, then the old thief Mancred, who quietly grumbled of his aching joints as he slid down the rope. Next, Alynthia dropped through the hole, guiding her fall with one hand on the rope, and landing with no more sound than a cat.

Finally, Cael ducked beneath the tripod and grasped the rope. He looked into Varia’s cobalt blue eyes gleaming in the moonlight over the top of her mask. “Don’t worry. I won’t drop you,” she whispered. “Be careful not to touch the sides, or the acid will burn you.”

With a nod, Cael swung out on the rope. While he dangled by one hand, he kept a tight grip on his staff with the other. Slowly, Varia lowered him through the hole.

He dropped the last few feet, landing without sound beside Alynthia. Quickly, he crouched against the wall, while their rope vanished up through the hole as noiselessly as smoke. Looking up, he saw Varia’s hooded, masked face peering down at them. She signaled with a thumb’s up. Alynthia nodded, then pointed down the hall. Ijus eased forward.

The hall was ordinary enough. Cael had half-expected to find it lined with all sorts of impossible traps both magical and mundane, but as far as he could tell the passage was empty. A few torches burning in iron sconces provided a thin, smoky yellow light. Nondescript doors stood open at either end of the hallway, revealing dark rooms beyond. Between the thieves and the door to their right, there opened a staircase where a little light shone from below. Ijus paused here and peered quickly around the corner. He signaled that all was clear.

Just to their left stood a large locked iron door, the last barrier to their mission. Alynthia made a motion as though opening a scroll, at which Mancred moved around her and approached the door.

The elderly thief studied the door for a moment. It was of iron plainly wrought and stoutly riveted with reinforcing bands of blued steel. Its lock, also of blue steel, looked impressively strong. At first glance, the door’s metal appeared unadorned, but after a moment’s study, strange patterns showed themselves in the grain. It was writing, but in a language unknown to any of them.

Mancred nodded to himself and removed a scroll from the pouch where he stored the acid. He indicated to Alynthia, but without touching the door, three places where the ‘writing’ seemed the most intricate. He motioned everyone except the lookout at the stairs to draw near, indicating with the scroll an imaginary circle on the floor. Alynthia grabbed Cael’s hand and pulled him within the circle.

Satisfied of their positions, Mancred turned back to the door and opened his scroll. Hoag moved closer to peer over the old man’s shoulder, and Cael stole the opportunity to slip a hand around Alynthia’s waist. At a venomous glance from her dark eyes he quickly withdrew it and met her stare with an innocent smile. She looked away, but the twitching of her eyelid revealed her continuing annoyance.

Mancred began to read from the scroll in a voice no louder than a whisper. The air about them began to hum, not so much a sound as a buzzing feeling inside their skulls. A tremendous pressure closed over their ears and stole their breath, as though they had just been covered with deep water. Just as quickly the pressure disappeared, and the old thief let his scroll roll up with a snap.

“I have given us protection within an area of magical silence, so we can-”

A brief hiss cut him off. They started, fearing discovery, but saw only Ijus at the stairs motioning wildly. He pointed at his ear, and at them, then back at his ear.

Puzzled, Alynthia stepped outside the imaginary circle, motioning for Mancred to open his scroll. He did so, and she pointed at her ear, then at the scroll. The thief by the stairs nodded in agreement. Mancred frowned, staring at Cael’s staff.

Using the language of hand signals, Alynthia asked the old thief, “What is wrong?”

“His staff disrupted the spell,” Mancred silently responded. Alynthia turned on the elf, who had not been able to follow the conversation. Her eyes flashed anger. She stabbed a finger thrice through the air, violently pointing first at Cael’s staff, then at him, then at a spot on the floor outside the circle of silence. With a confused shrug, he stepped to the place she indicated.

Mancred tugged at Alynthia’s sleeve and signed, “However, the staff might remove the glyphs guarding the door, as it did the door of his dwelling.”

“Can you remove them with your scrolls?” she asked the old thief.

“Yes,” came the answer with a quick nod.

“Better to take the sure path than the unknown,” she answered.

With a final glare at Cael and his staff, Alynthia moved once more beside Mancred, who with a weary glance at the elf opened his scroll and set to work. Unfortunately, his scroll, penned by mighty wizards five hundred years before, had only one spell of silence upon it, and once cast it was erased forever from the parchment.

Now whispering, now breathing sibilant chants, the thief cast spell after spell from the ancient scroll, unweaving the threads of Mistress Jenna’s protective wards. As each magical ward was broken, it expired with a release of red or blue or green light in the shape of a magical rune or sigil, which dissipated in the air like pipe smoke. Some of these signs, being similar to Elvish letters, Cael was able to interpret. One was of fire, another of ice, a third the zigzagged symbol of Had the thief not broken these wards, anyone attempting to open the door or even to touch it without first speaking the proper passwords would have been burned to ash, frozen, or blasted to smithereens before he glimpsed the wonders beyond that iron portal.

Finally, with a weary nod, Mancred indicated that all magical protections had been removed. A glance at the door showed that the mysterious patterns in the grain of its metal had vanished. The old thief stepped back, his work completed. He collapsed against the wall and mopped his sweating forehead with a black rag.

At a motion from Alynthia, and a warning finger across her mask-hidden lips enjoining silence, Hoag slipped up to the door and crouched before it. From a pouch at his belt, he removed a thick leather wallet. He placed it on the floor between his knees and opened it, then expertly eyed the massive blue steel lock. After a few moments, he chose a thin rod as long as his middle finger. He inserted it into the lock, gave it a deft twist, and a tiny silver needle appeared at the center of one of the lock’s many rivets. A droplet of amber fluid glistened on its tip. Hoag carefully removed this deadly metal fang and flicked it aside, perhaps in the hope that Mistress Jenna might step on it in the dark with bare feet.

Now he set to work. First, he chose a pair of thick wires and inserted them into the lock, then pushed a narrow flat shim in beside them. Working carefully, the sounds of his tinkering muffled by the cloaked bodies around him, he jiggled, prodded, levered, wrenched, twisted, and finally with a satisfying click turned the lockpicks in the lock. He slid the lock from its stout iron staple and set it on the floor beside the door.

Alynthia stepped forward and pushed against the door. In well-oiled silence, it swung wide. The thieves grinned at each other through their masks. Cael wasn’t sure whether it was because of their success or because Alynthia so trusted their abilities that she opened the door herself rather than order an underling to risk the possibility of an overlooked ward. They crowded into the doorway beside her, even old Mancred, anxious to see what fabulous treasures awaited them.

Before allowing them into the chamber, Alynthia indicated by a stern look and a raised finger that each thief might choose one item apiece, and that they must choose quickly. The thieves nodded their silent agreement, and she stepped into the room, while the others followed.

The treasure chamber looked worthy of all their efforts. Over the years since Mistress Jenna first established her Three Moons shop, she had acquired one of the strangest and rarest collections of curiosities, artifacts, relics, and magical items known on Krynn. Not even the fabled Towers of High Sorcery at the height of their power could have surpassed her treasury. Indeed, it was very likely that a great many of the items to be found here had once decorated a shelf in some tower master’s library or rested upon a table in his conjuring chamber. There were wands in jeweled cases, potions in bottles of silver, porcelain, pottery, and glass. One shelf was reserved for rings, while another was stacked with what appeared to be ancient books of spells and incantations. From a bar hung a rack of wizard’s robes and cloaks, some black, some red, some white. All were apparently magical, or at the very least arcane, from the runes and sigils stitched on the sleeves and hemmed in threads of silver and gold. One appeared to be sewn with something like starlight, for upon close inspection no thread was visible, but from a distance a clear silver-blue stitching was plain for all to see. A pair of rolled rugs stood in one corner, while opposite them was a wide golden brazier in which coals had been placed but not lit.

The chamber was illuminated from above by three clear glass balls that floated in the air and glowed with an inner spark. Directly below these light globes stood a number of marble pedestals atop which were placed perhaps the greatest treasures of the chamber. Some seemed quite ordinary, such as the small octagonal-framed spectacles lying atop a black velvet cloth, or the pair of plain leather gloves, somewhat tattered, that lay in a box of finely carved mahogany. Others were more fantastic, such as the great brazen horn tipped with ivory that lay on a red pillow, or the fine belt of tooled leather, gilded with gold and silver and studded with jewels that were worthy of a crown.

It was among these items that the Potion of Shonlay stood. The bottle was tall, almost as long as a man’s arm, narrow as a straw near the lip. The glass was milky white. Colors swirled within it-green, red, and blue, and clouds like black ink.

As Mancred entered the chamber, his eyes settled on the octagonal rimmed spectacles. Without even a glance at the other items in the room, he walked straight towards them and lifted them lovingly in his hands. Cael followed him, detouring to inspect the gloves. Alynthia strode round the room, eyeing everything but choosing nothing, completing the full circle of the chamber in a few hurried strides. She returned to the door and turned to watch her thieves.

Hoag had already chosen his treasure-a dagger with a blade as red as fresh blood. Cael slipped’ the gloves onto his hands and felt them mold to his fingers, wrapping his hands in velvet softness that was both comfortably warm and pleasantly cool. His fingers felt tremblingly alive, as though he might pluck the moon from the sky if he so desired. Meanwhile, old Mancred slipped the glasses onto his face and glanced around the room. His eyes opened wide in surprise, and a smile spread beneath his mask, but he did not explain his reaction.

A warning hiss came from the hall. The thieves froze, every ear straining, no one daring to move. They heard a noise like someone playing bowls in the hall outside. What they saw filled them with wonder and apprehension.

A huge silver ball rolled to a stop outside the door. Where it had come from, no one knew, though it might have issued from one of the open doors at the ends of the hall. The ball stood almost to Alynthia’s waist. It rocked back and forth ominously. Finally, it rolled into the room. Alynthia stepped aside to let it pass, a look of horror widening her dark eyes.

The ball rolled almost to the center of the room, stopping mere inches from Cael’s foot. Again, it rocked back and forth as though uncertain what to do. It shuddered to a stop and split along its equator, opening like a great silver clam. The upper hemisphere of the thing was hollow, but the lower appeared solid, its upper surface etched with spiraling lines. As they watched, the spirals began to whirl, and a great horn or funnel spun itself up out of the ball. It looked like one of the shouting devices sailors used to communicate between ships during heavy seas.

Mancred inched his way toward the door, while Cael held his breath and wondered if the thing could hear the pounding of his heart. It was close enough for him to see, by standing on tiptoe, down into the thing’s funnel ear. There he saw a tiny white membrane, like the skin of a drum.

Hoag was closest to the Potion of Shonlay. Alynthia motioned for him to grab it, then move with greatest stealth to the door. Cael, however, seemed stuck. So close was the listening device that he feared even to budge. Hoag was slowly inching over to the pedestal where the potion stood. Though his eyes seemed more often on the listening ball than his destination, he crossed the half-dozen steps without incident. Breathing a silent sigh, he reached out and grasped the bottle.

Cael saw, a moment too late, the lead seal atop which the bottle rested. Without thinking, he cried out, “Stop!” but to no avail.

At the sound of Cael’s voice, Hoag froze, the bottle in his hand lifted an inch above the pedestal, his head half turned toward the elf with a look of astonishment frozen on his face. His skin, clothing, cloak, hood, and mask all faded to a dull, stony gray. He moved and breathed no more. Alynthia screamed in rage but was forced to dodge aside when the silver ball spun down its funnel ear, snapped its lid shut with a musical chime like a large silver bell, and rolled rapidly through the doorway, nearly trampling her in its haste. Mancred yanked her aside at the last moment, else she might have been crushed. The thing smashed into the wall opposite the door, sending a spiderweb of cracks radiating across the stone for several feet, then spun off toward the stair. A high, shrill voice began to shriek, “Mistress Jenna! Mistress Jenna!”

The iron door slammed shut.

“Get the potion! Now!” Alynthia shouted as she turned to the door.

“It’ll break!” Cael cried, trying to pry the bottle out of Hoag’s hands. “He’s been turned to stone. I tried to warn him.” He clawed at the petrified flesh encasing the neck of the potion bottle.

They heard the ball clanging down the stairs, all the while shrieking “Mistress Jenna! Mistress Jenna!” like some hideous parody of a parrot. Below a woman’s voice answered in a language none of them knew but all understood to augur magic.

“Leave it!” Alynthia ordered. “Help me open the door.” Her nimble fingers danced across the iron surface, searching for a latch, a hidden keyhole, anything that might release the door. There was no handle for her to grip and pull. She pressed against the door, throwing her body against it, but she might as well have been trying to crash through a stone wall.

“I’ll break off his hand!” Cael shouted, still trying to free the potion from Hoag’s grasp. He held out his staff, still cane-sized, and said aloud, “Dinshar” The ironwood shaft shimmered, and suddenly it was staff-sized again. He raised it above his head and brought it ringing down on the thief’s wrist Chips of rock exploded from the blow, but the stone thief held firmly to his prize.

“Forget the potion,” Alynthia shouted.

“No. If we fail, it means my life,” Cael said, raising his staff for another blow.

“Can you open the door, Old One?” Alynthia asked Mancred.

He removed a scroll from his pouch, unrolled it, and quickly read the enchantment inscribed upon it. The door shuddered in its frame but did not move. Mancred staggered back, the scroll slipping from his grasp. “It is too powerful,” he gasped.

“Trapped!” Alynthia cried, her voice almost a shriek of despair. “Trapped like gully dwarves.”

“I’m no gully dwarf! Speak for yourself!” Cael exclaimed, abandoning the potion at last. The mightiest blows of his ironwood staff had hardly marred the petrified thief’s wrist. The Potion of Shonlay remained firmly-in his stone grasp.

He rushed at the door, his staff a blurred wheel. His staff rang like a struck bell against the iron door. A ring of red fire spread from the point of impact, and the door opened a slight crack, revealing a lurid glow in the hall beyond.

“Good work,” Alynthia shouted as she pushed past him “Do not fear,” she added in a low voice, pausing to grip his arm. “All is not lost.” He had no time to ponder her words.

Ijus still stood at the top of the stair, a loaded crossbow pointed into the stairwell. The stairs crackled with flames as though the entire lower floor were afire. The thief’s eyes were on his captain, awaiting the order to retreat.

“What’s that fire?” Alynthia asked.

“An illusion of mine,” he shouted. “It won’t hold her long.” Even as he spoke, the flames winked out.

Cael stood beside Alynthia as Mancred scurried up the rope. He held it out for Alynthia, but she turned back, motioning Ijus to abandon his position.

Before he could move, he swore a surprised oath and fired his weapon down the stairs. There was a dull crack. He turned and shouted, “She’s protected against missiles.”

A single word echoed from below, and a flash of light streaked up the stairs. It exploded against the lookout’s chest, flinging him against the wall like a rag. He collapsed to the floor, dead, the smell of seared flesh filling the air.

“Go!” Alynthia ordered.

Cael stared in horror at the man who had just died, the second of the Circle to sacrifice his life to save him.

“Go now! Hurry!” Alynthia shouted at him.

He turned to her. “No, you go. I will die tonight whether I flee back to the Guild or remain here, that much is certain. I might as well die in battle.”

Alynthia’s eyes softened. She nodded quickly, and said quietly, “Get out if you are able. I’ll wait for you.”

“Go,” he answered her, touching her hand a moment She pulled away from him, grasped the rope, and was lifted rapidly through the hole in the ceiling. Cael watched her feet vanish into the darkness above, to be replaced by Varia’s masked face, her eyes glinting with excitement. She lowered the rope to him and hissed, “Hurry!”

A noise from behind drew him around. Mistress Jenna, her red robes flying about her like the sheets of a ghost, floated into the hall. A globe of shimmering air surrounded her.

“Shon l’phae loch fellawathwen Tanthalas lu’ro,” Jenna said in the Elvish tongue. “Here is the fool to whom I once sold a pair of boots enchanted to leave reversed footprints,” she snarled. Her voice sounded strange through the shield of her magic, as though she spoke from the depths of a cave. “I suspected you would come. You were not hard to predict”

“Maybe not, but I was clever enough to rob two treasures from your hoard, Mistress,” he responded as he gripped his staff.

“Not clever enough to escape with them,” she answered. “Surrender. I do not wish to kill you.”

“Neither do I want you to, but I will not surrender,” the elf said.

She floated closer to him. “Were you not an elf and so inured to all charms, I would befuddle your mind and force your compliance. But I see stronger measures are needed.”

With these words, she extended one hand, index finger pointed at the elf’s chest She spoke a word, and a bolt of lightning coursed down her arm and flashed from her fingertips.