by A Van Wyck
He couldn’t believe Etrigan Plunket had refused to send someone after the insolent youth – to bring the sinner back to answer for crimes against the Temple. He remembered the weight of the knees upon his brittle chest, the vice of fingers across his mouth… the warning strop of cold steel on his forehead. No matter if he hadn’t seen the offender, who else would have sneaked into his cell and disfigured him so? Only that– That insolent reprobate! The little criminal would come to a sticky end, oh yes he would! Why, if he himself hadn’t been so far above the base drives of his fellows, he would have–
Something skittered through the bushes to his left.
When his girlish scream had completely faded into the night and he’d coaxed his left leg back to earth, he shook himself, whimpering slightly as he continued on his way. He walked a little faster now, darting glances at shadows, the hem of his robe rubbing at the backs of his ankles. Night had swiftly overtaken him, transforming the verdant, peaceful roadside into a stark forest fraught with unknown dangers and unexpected sounds. He really wasn’t an outdoors type of person. Nothing good ever happened outdoors. Inside was where the real men with real work kept themselves busy. Reading books and doing research and studying the great mysteries of the natural world. How would being outside help any of that? His recent time spent on the trader barges had been absolute torture. He’d been forced to spend most of his time in cramped, sweaty quarters. His skin crawled at the memory. He was sure he’d contracted lice or fleas or some other such heathen affliction. He shivered as he trudged on, concentrating on his feet so he wouldn’t trip again.
The first thing he was going to do when he got to the Temple was take a nice long bath. He’d rouse some of the first level acolytes from their beds to draw him one and–
Someone was standing in the middle of the road.
He staggered to a stop, absurdly grateful he hadn’t embarrassed himself with another scream. Allotting himself a moment in which to quietly straighten his robes, he squared his shoulders. First impressions were important.
“I hope I didn’t scare you,” he called out in a properly abashed tone, with just the right amount of humor. He was good with people, he knew.
A full length cloak made whoever it was very difficult to distinguish from the night. It was hooded so he couldn’t tell if the person were facing him or not. The person did no more than stand, in the exact middle of the road, blocking the way. His first thought was of bandits but of course he needn’t worry about that. His priestly robes would armor him against any such nefarious intent. His confidence wilted slightly at the memory of the unimpressed mule vendor from this morning.
“Hello?” He cleared his throat and tried again in a more normal, lower register. “Hello?”
He waited politely for a response that didn’t come. The person didn’t appear to have heard him. He drew a step closer.
“Excuse me, good evening,” he tried again. “Oh, I’m so glad to meet someone else on this miserable night. I fear I’ve lost my mule. Would you mind walking me into town? I’m sure it can’t be much further now.” Perhaps he could even prevail upon this person to escort him all the way home. They’d be sure to like that. A chance to serve the Holy Temple.
But the figure said nothing.
“I’m a priest,” he added helpfully.
Almost… he added to himself, righteously.
He drew a few steps closer. “I say, can you hear me?”
He was close enough now to see the person had their back to him, ignoring him. How rude! Well, he’d had about enough of all this mistreatment. First that unworthy criminal, then the disrespectful barge captain, then Etrigan Plunket, then that woman vendor, then her mule and now this? Well, this person was going to acknowledge him, was going to walk him all the way to the Temple and then thank him for the privilege.
Straightening imperiously, he closed the last few steps, raising a hand.
“Excuse me, are you deaf?” He closed a hand on the cloaked shoulder.
His shrill scream was strangled by the vice clamping his jaw. The man had him by the throat!
He scrabbled feebly, trying to dislodge the hard fingers digging into his neck but could find no purchase on the merciless grip.
His unknown assailant drew him closer, off balance so his toes dug furrows in the gravel, until his nose brushed the end of the drawn hood.
“Where…” a hoarse voice rasped from its depths, rolling over him with a sweet, cloying stench that cut through his frantic struggles. He felt his knees go weak, threatening to drag him to the ground but for the implacable grip around his throat. The horrible voice spoke again, grating on his ears.
“Where is it?”
He desperately wanted to utter a denial but his tongue stuck in dry panic. Effectively mute, he wheezed.
“I know you’ve seen it,” the hoarse voice continued, “I can smell it on you…”
His eyes bulged as he felt his feet leave the ground. He dangled from the horrifying creature’s grasp, feet kicking ineffectually.
The creature’s other arm lifted and from the darkness within the sleeve snaked a taloned hand, pale and shedding skin in swathes of rotten grey flesh.
One blackened, curved nail traced slowly over his forehead and lightly down his nose.
“You will tell us,” it promised.
As the pain started, he found his voice, lost his bladder. The dark forest was briefly alive with his shrill screams.
The contractor dropped the lifeless, reeking thing that had been a man to the ground.
“A burst heart,” the mercenary captain observed, stepping into view.
“Pitiful…” the magus wheezed.
One taloned hand gestured. Thin tendrils of oily smoke rose from the lifeless monk, slanting furiously as though caught in a driving gale. Within moments there was nothing left of the hapless man but a greasy stain on the dirt road.
“Do we continue west, sir?” the captain enquired.
“Yes,” the magus wheezed. “I can still–”
The captain suppressed a flinch – barely – as the magus suddenly wheeled to glare westward, a furious hiss like a branding iron escaping the dark hood.
“Sir?” the captain questioned his contractor, keeping his voice level.
“It has help!” the magus spat. “Our sense of it grows unclear.”
A lesser man might have backed away from the malevolence pouring from the dark figure.
“Ready your men,” the magus commanded.
The captain moved off, grateful for any distance between himself and the magus, however brief it may be. It seemed their contract had somehow just gotten more difficult…
* * *
Jiminy peered over the wall, watching the compound guard pace obliviously into the gloom of the garden and out of sight. He patted his chest where the sand-spawned pendant that was supposed to mask him lay against his skin – and slipped smoothly over the top.
He’d never owned a featherbed but he imagined this must be what it felt like to dive into one. The comfort of the familiar, the enveloping dark of safe blankets and the welcoming embrace of the night. He settled gently to earth, breathing deep the invigorating scents of kempt grass, sleeping blossoms and a new caper. The night clung to him as he flitted to crouch behind an artfully trimmed hedge.
Stilling, he cast his hearing wide… The thrill of the hunt was on him, heady and strong. He imagined he could feel the breaths of the guards swirling in the kiss of air on his skin, could catch their scents borne on the night exhalations of the foliage and detect the tread of their boots in the pulse of the earth. Amidst this cacophony of silences, there were no alarms.
Yet.
He had missed this. He felt his thinking slowly shift, felt his thoughts slot into the well-worn grooves that seemed more a part of him than his own name or face. It was like the onset of a fever. A bubbling energy, like spiders beneath his wraps. He was helpless against the wide, uncontrolled grin that graced his face.
The g
arden was an open invitation and he flowed along its mazes and blinds, graceful and at home as any noble dancing at a ball held in their honor. He glided along the low hedge that bracketed the footpath, strewn with gravel and eager to announce an unwary footfall. Hardly touching the ground, he breezed around the statue of an unaccountably excited naked man. Beneath his thief’s wrap the hilarity of his grin threatened to burst his cheeks.
Gusts of exhilaration carried him like a windblown leaf through the columns of the little atrium and up to the decorative side doors of the mayor’s mansion. Convenient columns, like old friends, vied for the pleasure of shielding him from the reflected light of the myriad glass panes adorning the doorframe. Inviting his eyes, they showed a deserted interior, slumbering, like those inside.
Picks glinted dully in the dark and the double doors seemed to breathe open at the gentlest brush of his fingers.
He slipped into the heavy stillness of the house. The simple lock he reset behind him. It unlocked easily from the inside anyway and there was no need to leave a conspicuously unlocked door for the guards to find.
The weak light from the windows at his back playfully tried to hem his movement but he skipped over, under and around their beams and illuminating pools. Rugs, and more furniture than any house save a warehouse of furniture should hold, reached for his ankles, his shins, his elbows but he deftly avoided them all.
Breese’s sketch hovered before his mind’s eye as if the man had traced a wine soaked finger on the back of his eyelids. He ghosted his way up to the main staircase, the soles of his feet awake for the wooden reverberation of approaching guards.
He felt the sentinel before he saw anything and silently melded with the shade of an enormous potted plant.
The guard and his spindly chair sat on the landing halfway between the first and second floors. Bored arms were folded across a barrel chest, legs far flung in search of comfort. It would have been too much to hope that the sentinel would be asleep. From that vantage, the man would see anyone approaching the stairs.
This required some thought.
He lazily swam the shadows, slowly circling the free standing stairs, careful to keep out of the guard’s range of vision. There was a cozy seating area and a large unlit hearth behind the staircase – some kind of reception area. A stuffed stag’s head surveyed the deep carpet and deeper couches from its place among the ornate wood paneling. To his strangely fevered eyes, the dimples in the soft cushions, the tracks through the shag carpet, the smudges left by lazing fingers… The ghost of the governor took shape, taking its ease here of an evening, discussing unimportant matters with equally unimportant people in important tones. Sipping expensive booze from the decanter on the little side table.
In the fugue of the hunt, such things were reduced to the indistinct buzzing of gnats, hardly worth his attention. Plans and strategies were resolving themselves, seemingly from the ether, and presenting themselves for his consideration.
If he’d studied the layout of the mansion himself, he’d have knowledge of convenient balconies, drainpipes or servants’ stairs that might offer an alternative route. But alas, he had to depend on the information of others – something he detested.
It would be an effortless climb, up the paneled wall, over the banister and right up behind the guard. But short of cracking the man over the head, there was no sneaking past and, besides, he had graduated from such crude methods long since. He was no mere burglar, breaking heads and windows. He left no muddy footprints, no upturned drawers, no whisper of his presence.
The crystal decanter of amber spirits waved for his attention. No one believed a guard who reeked of drink when he said he’d been knocked out, as opposed to passed out. But it would be an amateurish and completely unsatisfying solution. Hardly worthy of the best thief in all of Oaragh. Besides, the guard was a big bastard and looked to have a thick skull. If his first hit didn’t lay the man out, things could get hairy.
Instead, his eyes were drawn to the bronze figurine beside the decanter. He picked it up, weighing it experimentally.
The governor certainly has a fondness of nudes.
The far corners of his grin tugged higher beneath his wrap. Stuffing the statuette through his sash, he sailed over the back of the divan and up the wood paneling. The need for absolute silence slowed him somewhat but within a few breaths he was hanging from one of the banister’s uprights by one hand, toes anchored in the paneling. With growing hilarity he drew the bronze nude from his sash. Maneuvering like one threading a needle, he passed the figurine through the uprights of the banister, took careful aim and, smothering a laugh, brought the solid bronze around with all the strength his awkward position allowed.
The guard cursed as one spindly chair leg gave a satisfying crack.
Like water through a sieve, he extricated himself from the uprights and dropped down to the muffling carpet, towing the figurine. The negligible noise of his landing was drowned by the dull crash of the guard and the remnants of the spindly chair.
Hand clamped over his silently crowing mouth, he let himself fade into the shadows of the reception room. The guard’s shock turned to simmering anger once extricated from the debris, judging by the stream of muttered profanities coming from above. Wood clattered disconsolately as the man gathered the pieces of the erstwhile chair.
An irate voice spoke in a carrying whisper from the floor above.
“The fuck are you doing?! You’ll wake the whole house!”
The enraged muttering expanded to include the new speaker.
“What was that?” came from the second floor in a warning tone.
“What does it look like?!” the angry guard whispered. “Damn chair broke, didn’t it?!”
“Told you to stop riding it like that,” the second guard whispered with a note of glee.
“Wasn’t riding it!” the angry guard countered.
“Hush, you oaf! You’re gonna get us fired!”
“Oh, hush yourself! His lordship’s had a ‘visitor’. He’ll not wake for less than a stampede in the solar. Keep an eye out, will you? I’ll be right back.” Heavy footsteps clumped down the stairs, accompanied by the clatter of kindling.
A sadistic chortle from upstairs marked the direction the other guard moved off in.
When he was certain both had gone he slipped from cover, over the banister and up the stairs, the figurine reappearing in its proper place as if by magic. He slid smoothly into the roving guard’s wake, comfortable and unnoticeable as the man’s own shadow. He counted the doors they passed as he flitted from cover to cover, Breese’s map foremost in his thoughts.
When the guard he trailed abruptly stiffened, drawing a surprised breath, he deftly disappeared into the welcoming shadows. His questing hand found no knife handle beneath his wraps and his grin became a regretful rictus. Motionless, vibrating with tension, escape plans and exit strategies cascaded through his mind, all waiting upon the fateful moment the guard would raise the a–
“–achtchaa!” the guard sneezed.
Heart rapping a wild tattoo on the inside of his ribcage, he watched the guard shake a hay-fevered head and paw a dripping nose before continuing down the hall.
Uncontrolled laughter competed with the curses roaring through his brain.
He couldn’t imagine ever giving this up. Moon and stars, he felt so alive! It was as though his very pores were ready to spit lightning! Who would trade this for a life onboard a stinking ship?
The shadows held him close as he crossed over to the door he sought. The gold engraved latch and lock were ornate in appearance but simple of design, a clever trick to fool unsuspecting thieves. The spell symbols etched around the keyhole and handle were minute and did not resemble any of those he was familiar with but that hardly mattered – he wasn’t going to try and pick the lock.
Mouthing a quick blessing on old Squint, he drew from his own pick set a saw blade the length of his middle finger and thin as a whisker. He wedged the supple saw between the dou
ble doors, finding the bolt. Teeth fine as cricket’s legs, hardened by highest alchemy, chewed quickly through the metal, its chirping song not out of place in the night time hush. This particular tool was one of the crowning jewels of his kit, which, coincidentally, was exactly how much it had cost him. The heat of the friction competed with the soft bloom from his ring finger – the talisman reacting to the magic of the lock.
The double doors swung open, revealing a richly furnished study. Padded leather, glossy desk and dusty books all looked unremarkable. But if Breese told it true, a ward hung over this room. He passed his right hand, palm out, across the intervening space as if a pane of glass separated him from the room… and felt the faint throb of heat from his ring.
Though he meant to grimace as he reached beneath his wraps, the expression could find no purchase on his grinning face. He held the phial he extricated up to the dubious light, uncertainty assailing him. He looked again at the quiescent, inviting room and knew he would not leave.
Unstoppering the phial, he maneuvered it beneath his wraps and tilted his head back. The salt-like crystals burned his tongue. He wondered wryly whether the guard’s next round would find a poisoned, dead thief in the study doorway. It tasted of nothing. How would he even know if it was work–
He gasped. His mouth was on fire! Desperately he tried to spit but the crystals had evaporated into burning fumes, coursing up his nose and down his throat. He tried to strangle the cough that would give him away, imagining the acrid fumes turning his lungs into scorched mush. Unable to completely suppress the cough, he choked quietly… and stilled as his breath plumed cold and brilliantly white in the balmy air. Cautious, he cupped a hand to his mouth and blew, shivering as the frigid air frosted his skin.
They could have warned me, dammit!
But even as he raged he felt that damned uncontrollable smile, colder now, creep back onto his face and he cursed himself for an idiot, plucking his wraps back up to hide the offending thing. The burn in his throat could not distract him from the enticing room… Pulled onwards by the same force that wheeled the stars in their arcs, he swung the double doors closed behind him.