The Thieves’ Guild

Chapter Four

An elf hobbled out of the alchemist’s shop at the corner of Trade and Truth Streets, pausing to watch as the owner, a small round man with a small round face baked brown and leathery from years of bending over his cauldrons, locked the door and propped a sign in the window that read, “Closed for the Spring Dawning Festival.” The elf turned, and, smiling, he patted the coin-fat purse dangling at his belt. Long strands of fine hair the color of burnished copper framed his narrow elven face and offset by the richness of their color the brilliance of his laughing, sea-green eyes. Narrow lips smiled slightly beneath a proud nose. His cheeks showed no hint of downy hair, for no elf upon Krynn could grow a beard. He wore a white tunic, somewhat blowsy at the sleeves and breast, and a pair of loose-fitting trousers of brown homespun. A pair of hard-worn, dull black boots completed his attire. He held a gnarled staff of polished black wood gripped firmly in his left hand.

Across the street, a pair of drunken sailors stumbled from an alley and squinted in apparent surprise at the sun, already well up in the eastern sky. The elf turned right and slipped into Gravedigger Alley-a close, dusty lane lined along one side with stacks of empty caskets. Many of the city’s undertakers had their shops here. The noises of hammering and sawing resounded against the walls, drowning out all other sounds, even the click of his staff against the cobblestones. The work of this alley’s denizens never ceased, it seemed, not even on a day so full of hope and joy as the Spring Dawning Festival.

The elf limped along, leaning heavily on his staff. Behind him, the two drunken sailors staggered into the alley. One bumped into a stack of coffins and sent the gruesome boxes crashing to the cobbles. A man appeared in the door of Mauris and Sons Caskets and began to curse at them loudly enough to be heard even over the constant hammering and sawing.

While the elf watched them over his shoulder, someone bumped into him from in front. Instinctively, his hand grasped at the heavy coin "purse at his belt, while he spun, fist clenched. A young girl staggered back from him, her basket of laundry spilling onto the dusty cobbles at her feet.

A string of shocking oaths escaped her lips as she angrily brushed a hand through her mop of long, dirty blonde hair.

“Why didn’ya look where you’re going?” she swore. “Didn’t see you me stannnn…!” Her gray eyes grew wide as they met his. Her jaw dropped.

The elf smiled, his green eyes sparkling. “What’s your name?” he asked the girl.

“Claret,” she whispered, her eyes still round as saucers.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Sixteen,” she answered, then started as though stung. “Nineteen!” she corrected herself with a shout. “I am nineteen.”

“Almost nineteen,” she amended in response to the elf’s skeptical glance.

“Do you live in this place, Claret?” he asked.

“Yes. My father-” she began.

“I have lost my way. Can you tell me how to reach the Palanthas Trade Exchange?” he interrupted.

“I’ll do better than that. I will show you,” she said suddenly, grasping his hand.

“But your laundry,” the elf said.

“It’s not mine. I was only doing it as a favor.” She hurriedly collected the spilled laundry and dumped it into the basket and before shoving the whole affair into an open doorway. “Come along, I’ll take you there,” she said. Clutching him by the hand again, she pulled him along, but he stumbled, unable to keep up.

Seeing him hobbling madly to keep pace with her, a little cry escaped her lips. “I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “Your foot.”

“It’s nothing,” the elf consoled her. “Pay it no mind. But walk a little more slowly, if you would.”

They continued on their way. She led him past more under- takers’ and cabinetmakers’ houses, a stonecutter’s shop with finished marble headstones crowding the doorway, and an inconspicuous door that proclaimed the occupant to be a dentist and surgeon. They reached the end of the alley and stepped into the sunlight, turning right onto Horizon Road just east of the gate. The elf looked back and spotted the two sailors, still staggering along behind him.

“What’s your name?” Claret asked.

“Caelthalas Elbernarian, son of Tanis Half-Elven,” he answered.

“Son of who?” the girl asked over her shoulder.

“Never mind,” he said with a smile. “You may call me Cael.”

“I’ve never met an elf before, nor anyone so handsome. But handsome isn’t the right word, is it? Beautiful. Yes, that’s it. Beautiful. Are you married?” she asked in one long breathless string.

“You seem to have got over your shyness,” Cael noted.

“I’m not really shy, you know. You surprised me, that’s all. It isn’t every day that you meet someone like you in that alley. How did you hurt your foot?” she rambled. “My father is missing a hand. He used to be a fine carpenter, but he accidentally cut his hand off with an axe, and now all he does is sleep and drink wine and yell at my mother.”

With Cael in tow, Claret led the way down Horizon Road toward the Great Plaza at the center of the city. Before they’d gone a stone’s throw, she turned left onto Palisade Lane, so named because of the balconies shading both sides of the street. Cafe waiters were already setting out tables and iron chairs beneath the balconies or hanging clean white tablecloths along the decorative rails above in preparation for the crowds that would soon be filling the city for the celebration of the festival.

Two score paces down this lane, the girl pulled him beneath a pillared arcade and into a doorway where a flight of stairs led up into darkness. He twisted his hand free and stared at her in surprise, but found that she was looking past him. Turning, he saw the sailors stagger past, arm in arm. Neither looked his way. The girl breathed a sigh of relief.

“Were those two men following you?” she asked.

Cael paused and gazed admiringly at the girl before him. She returned his gaze unashamedly, blinking at him with her gray eyes. “No, I don’t think they were,” he said at last. “But I see I couldn’t elude you as easily as we eluded them.”

“They were probably Guild thieves,” she answered proudly. “What did you do, steal something from them? Don’t worry, I shan’t tell. I can keep a secret better than anyone.”

“I believe you,” Cael said. “But it is best you don’t know.”

“I understand, but I’ll help you just the same. If anyone asks for you, I’ll tell them you’re everywhere that you’re not.”

“Thank you for you help, Claret,” he said, as he took a coin from the fat purse at his belt and pressed it into her palm.

She looked at it, then scowled at him. “I don’t want this,” she said, obviously hurt.

“Very well then,” he countered while deftly snaking a hand around her slim waist. Her slippers scuffed across the dusty stairs as he pulled her close, her soft lips tightened in surprise as his met them, stealing a kiss, then releasing her before she had a chance to resist.

She pulled away, blushing to her ears, almost ready to bolt, her brow knotted in confusion. Cael’s green eyes sparkled with mirth. “I hope that will suffice,” he said.

For a moment longer, the girl stood irresolute at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the elf. Then her face split into a grin, her gray eyes dancing. “It does for now!” she laughed, then dashed away. Cael stepped out from the stairway to watch the coltish grace of her long-legged stride as she fled, giggling, back the way they had come.

After he had seen her off, the elf strolled leisurely along Pallisade Lane until it brought him to the Palanthas Trade Exchange. He wandered for a while among the stalls, purchasing a small tome of elven poetry from a bookseller, then a jeweled pin from a man displaying his wares atop a woolen blanket draped over a crate of live cats. A woman tried to drag him into her stall to view an alabaster figure of the god Paladine, which she assured him had been carved by Reorx himself. He managed to gracefully extract himself from her greasy fingers, only to be captured by a young boy promising to show him a pair of candlesticks carved from the eyeteeth of a black dragon. Another woman rushed up and shook a live chicken in his face, pointing out in a shrieking voice the particularly fine qualities of the hysterical fowl. He ducked aside, finding himself within a warm dark tent sharp with the odor of vinegary wine. The woman with the chicken followed, only to be chased out again by the broom-wielding wine merchant. Cael breathed a sigh of relief and slipped out the back.

This brought him into Jawbone Alley, which led away in the direction of the docks. After a few twists and turns, the alley opened onto a broad thoroughfare generally known as Bayside Road, though in truth there was little to identify it as road. Sometimes it was broad enough for three hay carts to pass side by side, sometimes two men walking in opposite directions would bump shoulders. More often than not, the widest stretches were filled with stacks of crates waiting to be loaded, making these areas as difficult to navigate as the most cunning maze. Bayside Road separated the city from the bay, running from Admiralty Street in the northwest corner of the city to Navy Point in the northeast.

This day, the docks were alive with activity. Those ships that had wintered in Palanthas were loading and preparing to disembark. Sailors and seamen representing nearly every race on Krynn crowded the quays seeking employment aboard any ship that might take them. Other ships arrived hourly, returning from winter-long voyages that had visited nearly every port and harbor of Ansalon, bringing home to Palanthas their profits and curiosities. As far as the eye could see, masts rose high above the docks, creating the impression of a forest of tall ships. And above them all, floating and hovering and crying longingly, were the gulls of Palanthas, famous in song and tale.

Cael made his way along the cobbled waterfront, weaving among the boxes and crates and squads of city guards, customs officers, and Knights of Takhisis. Though the Dark Knights allowed the city a loose rein when it came to harbor traffic, they had very strict rules about what could and could not be imported into the city. These rules were posted at strategic points all along the docks so that no visiting ship’s captain could claim ignorance as a defense. One of their most rigid laws forbade the possession or sale of any weapon. More than once, Cael was stopped and questioned, his papers checked, and his staff examined.

All the while, he felt eyes watching him, but whenever he looked around, he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Once, he spotted a woman mending a sail who looked suspiciously like the chicken vendor who had pursued him into the wine-merchant’s tent. Another time he was accosted by a beggar whom he thought resembled one of the drunken sailors.

He walked slowly, leaning heavily on his staff and stepping carefully along the slippery cobblestones. His long straight auburn hair, though not so uncommon in Palanthas as it might have been in some other cities, singled him out as did the fact that he was an elf. He received many a stare. Even in a city as metropolitan as Palanthas, it wasn’t every day that a crippled elf strolled along the rough and tumble waterfront.

His cool green eyes alert and inquisitive, he seemed aware of everything that passed around him, and though obviously crippled, he had no trouble dodging the occasional netload of freight that swung too near. He handled his staff as though born with it in his hand, and once, when a loose net hook careened at his face, he struck it aside without pausing in his hobbling stride.

He continued along the waterfront until he reached Fleece Street and its beggars. He passed them without a glance, ignoring their plaintive cries and miserable wails, turning at last back onto Horizon Road, having taken the circuitous route around the city wall to bypass its heavily guarded gate. At the corner of Fleece and Horizon, he passed a noblewoman dressed in a green gown, with silver bangles on her wrists. Behind her, two men struggled beneath a massive rug, bearing its rolled weight on bowed shoulders. His suspicions alerted, Cael glanced back, but they turned quickly into Washwell Alley and vanished from sight. The woman looked like the seller of alabaster figurines, while one of the male servants, though his face was hidden by the rug, was certainly the second of the drunken sailors.

As he stood staring after them, a sound behind him brought him spinning around. “Pardon me sir, could you spare-” the old man began. Cael had seen a glint of metal in the old man’s hand and instinctively cracked the fellow over the head with his staff. The old man slumped to the ground at his feet, his tin cup spilling its meager bounty of thin copper coins at the elf’s feet.

Quickly, Cael propped the old man up against the wall, pausing for a moment to check for the lifebeat at his throat, and sighed in relief. “Sorry, old one,” he apologized. “You ought not to sneak up on me like that.” He gathered up the coins, dumped them in the cup, and placed it in the beggar’s limp grasp. Then, on second thought, he emptied the beggar’s cup back into his palm, returned the cup, and hurried away.

After turning onto Horizon Road, the elf resumed his normal pace. The ancient cobbled way was sunk beneath the level of its curbs. Its iron sewer grates rose up to trip the unwary traveler and jolt the careless wagon driver from his seat. Where a tavern or shop stood, its doors thrown wide or darkly closed and guarded, the curbs were worn away by the passing of countless feet. Here stood a fountain spilling cool water into an ancient well, there a gate of new-Wrought iron guarded a small comfortable garden where a speckled terrier yapped wildly.

As the cool morning breeze lifted, Cael felt a great longing enter his heart. All around him this great and ancient city thronged. He wondered at its multitudes, its thousands and tens of thousands of lives and loves and hates, its joys and grief. He looked at the well-ordered buildings and streets, some ancient and beautiful, some new and shabby, and a feeling for this place blossomed within him, unfolding and spilling with a thrill through all his limbs. He’d been in Palanthas, City of Seven Circles, for nearly a year, though to his elven senses it seemed but the passing of a day. After all he was an elf, and to the elves the passing of time means little. It seemed all the more strange to him that he should suddenly feel such affection for a city of humans, for nothing in the elven heart is sudden. He shook his head in wonder, his long auburn hair tousling in the freshening breeze, as he continued on his way. The breeze brought a scent of rain, and thunder rumbled in the hills to the west.