The Alabaster Staff r-1

by Edward Bolme

  It was empty.

  He crossed to the window and opened the shutters, noting that they were not latched. He stuck his head out, looking up, down, right, and left. He saw that the shutters two rooms down were thrown wide open. He glanced at the narrow footholds offered by the ornamental carvings and whistled a low, appreciative salute to the thief's daring.

  He dashed back to the hall, turned, and moved past the concerned guard. He saw the next door slightly ajar and just a trace of water against the wall. He gestured the guard to take the lamp and follow him. Below, he faintly heard the guards grabbing their lamps and weapons, and winced at their incidental noises. His sword held defensively in front of him, he stalked down the hallway toward the corner.

  Just as he reached the corner, he saw the thief running toward him, clutching something in one hand. Her eyes widened as she saw him, and he was likewise startled by the sudden encounter. His surprise slowed his reactions for the blink of an eye, but then he reached out to grab her collar.

  Naturally she tried to stop, but Demok knew she was too close, her momentum too fast. His wide, powerful left hand reached for her clothes and gripped the material… and he was left holding nothing but a cowl, as the thief slipped on her wet stockings and fell to the floor.

  He glanced down at her, tossed the cloth aside, and began to reach for her again, only to see her pull her knees up to her chest and lash out with both of her feet. One foot caught him squarely in the pelvis, the other in the abdomen just below the diaphragm. The forceful blow knocked the breath out of him and propelled him into the guard holding the lamp. He landed awkwardly, and he deliberately dropped his short sword to avoid skewering either the guard or himself as he tumbled to the floor.

  The young woman turned around and lunged for the stairwell at the other end of the hallway. Demok regained his feet and charged after her in the dim corridor, drawing his long sword. When he reached the stairwell, he vaulted over the railing and dropped to the ground floor, landing in a combat-ready crouch.

  Two startled guards stared back at him.

  "What's happening?" one asked.

  Demok snarled his frustration at having been outmaneuvered.

  "Upstairs! Follow me!" he ordered, and lunged back up the staircase, taking three steps at a time.

  He reached the third floor just in time to see the thief. She had already run back down the short hallway and entered the room one floor above where they had first encountered each other. He saw her open the shutters, climb through the window, and jump into the alley below. He ran for the window, and as he leaned out he saw the bale of hay on the ground, moved there by the thief herself. He saw no movement otherwise.

  He gripped the sill tightly in frustration and stared into the falling snow.

  "Grab a lamp," he said. "Follow me outside. Leave those tracks untouched."

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kehrsyn had always loved the sensation of falling; it reminded her of flying. When she was a kid, she'd spent many hot summer days jumping off a high bridge into the river, trying to capture that evasive feeling. Since she'd become an adult, however, her flying and jumping and falling had all been associated with escaping danger.

  Funny, she thought, how much you can think of when you're in serious trouble.

  Kehrsyn hit the bale of hay and rolled off to the side that concealed her bag. She snatched the bag's strap and plucked her rapier from the earthenware urn as she ran for the corner of the building. Once around the corner, she flipped the strap over her shoulder, jammed the stolen scepter through her sash in place of her boots (twisting the wand around to create a sort of knot to hold it, for surety's sake), yanked her boots on, and gripped the ties of her scabbard in her teeth. Then, with an unsettling feeling of deja vu, she climbed up the side of the building across from her. She didn't want to be followed in the streets, but she was also beginning to have uneasy feelings about the name Wing's Reach.

  She fled across the snow-covered rooftops as quietly as she could, and dropped back to the streets when she ran out of houses. There she took a deep breath and relaxed her stance. She reversed her cloak so that the lining was on the outside, changing its color to white. At least, it used to be white, but years of use had made it an uneven beige color. She pulled her hair back and secured it in a ponytail, then took her dagger off her forearm and put it back into its hiding place on the bottom of her bag. She carried her bag openly on the outside of her cloak, for no thief would carry such a bulky item. She rested one hand on the hilt of her rapier, so that the end of the scabbard showed clearly through her cloak. That gave her the appearance of being a swordswoman, and everyone would remember that the thief of Wing's Reach had been unarmed.

  She moved her pouch of coins to hang over the front of her right thigh, so that it jingled slightly. That would make people think she was either a fool to make her wealth known, or so confident in her abilities that it didn't matter. The wand she moved to the rear of her sash, safely covered by her cloak. All of that together made her look like a person of a flagrant-and not at all a larcenous-bent.

  Her disguise in place, Kehrsyn moved through the snowy city streets. Her heart pounded with fear and victory, with trials conquered and trepidations yet to come. Yes, her future was uncertain, but she had penetrated Wing's Reach cleanly, pilfered an item, circumvented several insidious traps, and escaped a chance encounter with a guard. With the staff in her possession, the blackmail of the thieves' guild would be neutralized, and perhaps she might even find herself privy to some permanent lodging with the city walls.

  In all, she mused, the benefits of her success were covering over the threats and dangers that had loomed over her life-some old, like her paucity of food, and some new, like the threat of death, or worse. She took some time to watch the falling snow, forgivingly covering up the grime in the streets and providing the overcrowded city with a new garment of pristine white.

  Kehrsyn sighed with relief when she finally saw the gates of the Thayan enclave through the falling snow. Though she had just broken a vow that she'd kept for many long years, she couldn't help but feel some tinges of pride at how she'd conducted herself. She'd planned well, allowed for complications, and kept her head when things turned against her. If she could just keep that up for maybe one more day, she'd be all right.

  As instructed by the guards, Kehrsyn knocked on the door indicated and pushed it open, letting herself into the room. Her heart pounded. She had never been in a mage's study before.

  A large, low wooden table dominated the center. What little of the tabletop could be seen through the clutter of scrolls, tomes, and glassware was covered with scars and stains. A thin silver chain rose from the center of the table and reached two thirds of the way to the ceiling. A greenish phosphorescent flame burned at the end of the chain. It seemed as if the fire's ethereal magic supported the chain against gravity. Kehrsyn could see no other means of support.

  A second large table sat against one wall, covered with a humanoid cadaver so thoroughly dissected that Kehrsyn could not even hazard a guess as to its species. Thankfully, a pot burning with heavy incense sat next to the bloody surgical instruments and masked the corpse's dead-meat stink. Bookshelves dominated another wall, filled with thick, leather-bound tomes inscribed with arcane and sinister characters. A sticky pall of incense hung in the air, veiling the misshapen wizard Eileph, who sat on a wide, comfortable chair studying a book that sat propped up on a stand. The book was easily half as large as he was.

  Though that was all strange, it was the toad that made Kehrsyn stop in shock. A large toad, closing on a foot in length, sat atop Eileph's nearly hairless head, its paws spread wide across the Thayan's skull to grip his pallid skin in a tight embrace that seemed obscenely intimate. Its color was reminiscent of rotting leaves, and its grotesque and flaccid obesity stretched taut its greasy, warty skin. It had a wide, sagging mouth surmounted by two cold eyes the color of dead fish.

  Kehrsyn's lower lip curled in disgust as the toad's h
ead swiveled slowly, just a small adjustment in her direction until it looked squarely at her. Its body pulsed, and its throat filled with an appalling amount of air. It let the air back out in a deep croak that sounded like a glutton's belch. Perhaps, surmised Kehrsyn, it was.

  The toad opened and closed its mouth once. Kehrsyn pulled her lip back farther, disgusted.

  Eileph sat reading his book and as yet seemed unaware of her presence. Kehrsyn cleared her throat, and the toad responded with an even louder croak.

  The hideous thing opened its mouth again, stabbing its tongue into the air in the direction of an empty bench placed against the wall, then staring at her again. When Kehrsyn hesitated, the toad repeated the gesture.

  Kehrsyn cringed, closed the door behind her, and edged over to the bench, which sat close to the dissection table. As she put her bag down and sat on the edge of the bench, the toad nodded almost imperceptibly.

  As she sat and waited, Kehrsyn took the opportunity to pull out the magic wand, careful to handle it only through the square of cloth she had cut.

  At first glance, Kehrsyn thought that for Eileph to dub it a "necromancer's staff" seemed far too grandiose. It measured less than a cubit, stretching from Kehrsyn's elbow to her wrist, barely even worthy of being called a scepter. At its crown it was no thicker than a flute, tapering to the size of Kehrsyn's finger at the other end. Despite what she'd been told, for some reason Kehrsyn had expected it to be made of some unusual or glowing substance, but instead it was a plain material, almost pure white, perhaps bone or some exotic wood. It looked so clean that one could easily believe it had been forged but the day before.

  Still, she thought, the necromancer's staff demanded a name far weightier than "wand." Its polished surface was deeply etched with pictograms of exquisite detail. Tiny stylized birds, eyes, hands, and other images covered the staff from one end to the other, minute and detailed enough to absorb the mind for hours, and with edges sharp enough to provide a satisfying, biting grip in the hands, even through the cloth. The interior portions of the relief work were inlaid with what looked like powdered gold. Viewed at even a short distance, the gold blended with the white to give it a unique color. The bronze band around the top had all of its luster, and was formed into delicate waves of flowing water and studded with smoky quartz. The bronze river whirled up to hold a large piece of black amber at the top, delicately carved. The staff was light and moved easily in the hand, yet it had an indefinable momentum about it that conveyed a sense of consequence.

  It was beautiful. Even were it not magical, it would be incomparably valuable, worth far more than anything Kehrsyn had ever seen in her life, let alone held in her delicate hands.

  And it belonged to someone else.

  The full import of her actions came back to her, washing away her confidence and exhilaration with the undeniable truth of what she held in her hands. She had stolen a priceless item from someone, selfishly taking their valuables to benefit herself, and she had ruined the cloth during her theft, a thoughtless act of vandalism to further her crime.

  Kehrsyn clenched it tightly as the tears began to well up in her eyes. Why did the gods make it so that all her prospects for survival or prosperity could be obtained only by taking that which belonged to others? Why did her benefit have to come at someone else's pain?

  Why had the gods conspired to force her to break the only vow she'd ever made?

  A loud croak and a rough-edged "Aha!" interrupted her painful musings. She looked up through blurry eyes and saw Eileph hobbling over to her with great excitement, the toad still sitting implacably on his head. He let out a long, covetous sigh that sounded like nothing so much as a death rattle. Kehrsyn barely managed to wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her free hand before Eileph reached her.

  She drew back as far as she could while sitting against the wall, contained by the corner of the room at one shoulder and the dissected cadaver at the other. Eileph's avaricious eyes bulged out of his head, and his face was blotchy with anticipation. His whole body quaked with excitement, and Kehrsyn could see his trembling fingers flex like a malformed spider. She feared the misshapen Thayan might rupture a blood vessel in his brain just by looking at her ill-gotten treasure.

  Instead of falling over dead, however, Eileph moved with a speed Kehrsyn would not have thought possible. He snatched the small scepter from her grip and held it in front of her eyes, shaking his white-knuckled fist.

  "Do you have any idea what you have?" he shouted, his face and baleful breath mere inches from hers.

  Kehrsyn tried not to wince and tried to shrink back even more, both unsuccessfully.

  "Neither do I," said the wizard. "Look at this aura, will you? Look at the power throbbing within!"

  Eileph held it in front of his face and hers, rotating it in his hand as if he expected she could see the magical auras as well as he could.

  "Thissss," he hissed, "is amazing! This is a true relic, an item…" His tone changed to a purr as he stepped away from Kehrsyn and limped for his work table, all the while stroking the wand. "Oh, such craftsmanship. It's beautiful. A masterpiece! Such runes, such sigils as I have never seen. And the magic embedded within, wrought within the matrix of these symbols, why… why this could be the Staff of the Necromancer!"

  "That's what you said last time," offered Kehrsyn.

  "Pah! Speak not of things beyond your comprehension, young lady!" bellowed Eileph. "I did not say this was a necromancer's staff-well, I did, of course, but that was last time-I said that this might be the Staff of the Necromancer, a relic forged by the archwizard Hodkamset, favored of the God of Death, of which all other such staves are hackneyed imitations!

  "It is said to be carved from the spine bones of a dragon," he continued in a disgruntled voice. "I'd always imagined it would be bigger. Nonetheless, I could spend a lifetime studying this-" He turned back to Kehrsyn, clutching the staff to his barrel chest-"and I will," he said, waggling his eyebrows, "as soon as this war is brought to a successful conclusion. You haven't forgotten that part of the deal, right, wee little thief?"

  "Uh, no, of course not," said Kehrsyn, forcing a smile.

  Eileph giggled malevolently. "That is wise. It does not do well to anger the Red Wizards." He stopped abruptly and straightened up as much as his misshapen body allowed. "Humph. Listen to me, I sound just like one of the zulkirs." He sucked in his lips and drummed the fingers of one hand on the table. "Must be the excitement of the moment. Calm, now, old boy, you have work to do."

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled. It would almost have been a sigh, were it not so violent and lustful.

  When he opened his eyes again, he was much closer to the almost-personable Eileph that Kehrsyn had met in the plaza.

  "Let's see what we have here, shall we?" he said.

  He sat at the table and pulled the chain down toward him, links clinking on the tabletop as he drew the light closer. He laid the Staff of the Necromancer down on a cloth, and with his other hand he absently peeled the toad from his head. It tried to hold on, pulling at his skin, but Eileph prevailed and tossed it to the side. The ugly beast landed on the table on its back, and its legs flailed in the air as it tried to roll its bulk over.

  "Hmm," said Eileph, as Kehrsyn timidly drew closer.

  She noticed that he studied only one side, the side that had not been illustrated in his drawing. Kehrsyn's eyes kept getting pulled back to the periodic flailings of the toad, and eventually she used the scabbard of her dagger to nudge the hapless beast back onto its bloated stomach. Despite its earlier demonstrations of intellect, it did not acknowledge her assistance.

  As Kehrsyn used the scrap of cut cloth to wipe the toad's slime from her scabbard, Eileph finally spoke up.

  "The color is good," he said, "and the stone I can handle, but I wasn't counting on the gold inlay. Humph. That'll take some extra time." He drummed his fingers on the table again and smacked his lips. "I can have it for you by noon tomorrow. Shall I deliver it,
or will you send someone to pick it up?"

  "Um, you'd probably better… deliver it," answered Kehrsyn.

  "I understand," said Eileph. "If I'd just stolen this, I wouldn't want to carry it around, either. I tell you," he added through gritted teeth, "if someone stole this from me, I'd be testing some creative new ideas I've-"

  "I'd just as soon not know," Kehrsyn interrupted.

  Eileph laughed, then glanced at Kehrsyn with an intense look and asked, "Still at sixteen 'Wright's?"

  "Yes," said Kehrsyn, after a mere heartbeat's pause.

  "Begone, then. I have work to do."

  Kehrsyn stood, picked up her bag, and headed for the door.

  "Be careful," Eileph said as she was closing the door behind her. "It's slippery out there."

  "Thanks," said Kehrsyn.

  Once the door was shut, she leaned against it for a few moments.

  "It's also cold," she whispered to the darkness.

  Kehrsyn pulled her cloak around her and paused. Eileph's suite was at the end of a short hallway, and the only guards Kehrsyn had seen were at the gates.

  Why not? she thought.

  She shrugged off her bag and set it against the wall as a pillow, then she curled up in the shadows at Eileph's doorstep-on her right side, as her left arm was still raw-huddled her cloak around her, and soon fell fast asleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Morning arrived on the butt of a spear as a gruff guardsman jabbed Kehrsyn in the ribs. She mumbled an excuse that she had fallen asleep waiting for Eileph, and if her protestations availed her, she shuddered to think what would have happened to her without them. As it was, the guard merely hauled her out by the collar and ejected her from the Thayan enclave.