by Jeff Crook
“It is agreed then?” Oros asked. One by one, the other Guild captains nodded their approval.
Mulciber finally spoke. “Captain Alynthia Krath-Mal, you shall win for us the Potion of Shonlay. If you fail, you shall deliver the elf for execution of punishment. If he should escape, his punishment you alone shall bear. Both Sir Arach Jannon and Mistress Jenna are still searching for him. He must die rather than fall into their hands.”
“Yes, my lord,” Alynthia agreed, bowing her head.
“Captains, I leave you to conclude your business,” Mulciber said. They all rose. Cael waited expectantly, but nobody emerged from the alcove. Not even the shadow of a movement marked the Guildmaster’s exit. How and where had he disappeared?
At last, Oros gave a sigh and said, “Well, he is gone. And I, too, leave you to your business.” He approached Cael and motioned for him to follow.
“Come with me for a while,” the Guild captain said. “Alynthia has business that does not concern you.”
Cael followed the Guild captain as ordered, passing through the double doors and into the hall of pillars. The minotaur fell in behind them. With a growling laugh, he grasped the elf’s small wrist in his massive fist and twisted his arm behind his back.
“Gently, Kolav,” Captain Oros said without turning. “He is one of us now.”
Chapter Ten
More than anything else, Sir Elstone Kinsaid hated account- ants. He hated anyone who could take a group of Knights—honorable, heroic men and women ready to sacrifice their lives for the Knighthood—and reduce them to numbers and figures in a book: a quantity of rations per day, a bill for monthly repairs to armor and equipment.
On the desk before him lay a short missive, written in a crisp, efficient hand on a half sheet of paper. It read:
To the Lord Knight of Palanthas
Sir Kinsaid,
You must reduce your monthly expenditures on supplies, rations, and payroll by eleven percent before the end of this year. The dragons in your talon stables require copious amounts of provender, and steel coins do not grow on trees. With a little imagination and ingenuity, I am confident you can do this.
Sir Morham Targonne
Lord of the Night
PS. I am still awaiting those reports from last month.
With a snarl, the Lord Knight of Palanthas crumpled the letter into a tiny ball, squeezing it in his fist until his knuckles turned white. With a spasm of anger, he opened his fingers and let the note roll from his palm and fall onto his desktop. It lay there in a valley surrounded by mountains of reports, analyses, and studies that demanded his perusal, approval, and signature, so that they could be filed away somewhere where no one would ever be likely to read them for the next thousand years. Dragons may hatch, grow up, age, and die, but the work of accountants goes on forever.
The writer of the letter, Morham Targonne, had wrested control of the Knights of Takhisis from Mirielle Abrena, the Knight who had almost single-handedly held the Order together after the Chaos War. A few short months ago, around Yuletide, Word had arrived by wyvern rider that Lady Mirielle had “retired” and passed the leadership of the Knights of Takhisis to Morham Targonne, a man who had entered the Knighthood as a clerk, a mere accountant, a man whose hand better fitted the grip of a pen than a sword. Everyone learned, sooner or later, what “retired” meant. She had been murdered, probably poisoned.
One of the new Lord of the Night’s first orders had been to change the name of the Order to the Knights of Neraka. This was a move Sir Kinsaid opposed most vehemently… in private. He said nothing to his officers and pretended to support the change lest they think him weak or rebellious, but within his own heart, he felt deeply offended. He had been in the Order long enough to have shared in the original Vision, the gift of their dark queen, Takhisis, to all her Knights. Thanks to the Vision each Knight knew his or her place in Her Dark Majesty’s plan. Then Takhisis had abandoned Krynn, along with all the other gods, after the Chaos War, and with her went the Vision. This did not change the loyalty Sir Kinsaid felt toward his queen. The Knights of Takhisis had been founded to serve her. To change its name to the Knights of Neraka was to betray her. It bespoke of an Order whose guiding purpose had shifted from a Vision of the glory of their immortal queen to a worldly Vision, one where Knights sought the wisdom of merchants, and consulted accountants before riding off to battle.
A knock at his door brought Sir Kinsaid back to the matter at hand. At his gruff command, the door opened, and a young Knight of the Lily stepped into the room, snapping to attention as the Lord Knight of Palanthas raised his eyes from the reports on his desk. “Sir Arach Jannon to see you, sir,” she said, sharply saluting with a fist to her black armored breast.
Returning her salute, he answered with a sigh. “Show him in.” If there was one thing he hated almost as much as accountants, it was mysteriously behaving wizards.
Moments later, the Thorn Knight glided into the room, his hands folded into the sleeves of his gray robe. He wore his usual smug smile, his black eyes twinkling with some inner merriment. Seeing him, Sir Kinsaid felt his anger at Morham Targonne boil up and come rushing out, aimed like a jet of steam from a gnomish tarbean tea brewer, straight at the face of the Lord Justice.
“Remove that silly grin from your face, Sir Knight,” he growled.
Sir Arach’s mouth fell open at these words. He stammered, trying to regain his composure. Finally, the best he could manage was a puzzled stare. “M’lord, I was told… I was told you wished to see me?”
Sir Kinsaid snatched a letter from his desk. It was not the letter he intended to grab, but it didn’t matter. He shook it at the Thorn Knight. “Do you know who this letter is from?”
“No, m’lord,” Sir Arach said. By his best guess, it could be one of two dozen that had been reported to him as having arrived upon the Lord Knight’s desk this day. One of these, he knew to have come from the Lord of the Night himself. He had deduced the letter had been his promotion to Lord Justice of Neraka (thus his smug grin as he entered the room). Obviously, something had gone awry.
“It’s from Mistress Jenna,” Sir Kinsaid barked. Actually, it was from his sister, but the wizard hadn’t been invented yet that could read a letter he waved in his hands.
“Oh? What does she say?” Sir Arach asked. Strange, he hadn’t known about this particular letter. A hole must exist in the circle of informants surrounding the Lord Knight.
“She demands to know the status of her case—the theft at the house of Gaeord uth Wotan. She says she has been able to get nothing from you except evasive responses and flat denials. She grows weary and demands justice or else, she says,“ she will take matters into her own hands.”
“What does that mean, take matters into her own hands?” Arach said smugly.
“Aren’t you listening to me?” the Lord Knight roared, his face red as a radish, the veins standing out along his neck like worms. “She demands! She threatens!”
“The audacity!” Arach exclaimed sympathetically.
Sir Kinsaid’s face flushed a deeper shade of burgundy. “I am under strict orders from General Targonne to leave Mistress Jenna alone. Leave her alone! In other words, don’t rile her up with evasions and denials!” he bellowed. Sir Arach glanced around nervously, wondering if those in the waiting area outside could hear. It would not do to have the tale of this dressing-down travel beyond the Lord Knight’s castle. He noted the thickness of the door and the walls with some relief.
“Who is this thief, and why has he not been arrested?” Sir Kinsaid demanded. “Don’t you think I have enough to do without having to coddle irate sorcerers and whining merchants?”
“His name is Caelthalas Elbernarian, but he goes by the alias Cael Ironstaff. He professes to be the son of Tanis Half-Elven, a Hero of the Lance, but his claim seems to have little merit,” Sir Arach spouted officiously. “Probably the name is a fabrication. This Ironstaff is a notorious rogue, a liar, and braggart, by all accounts.”
/> “You seem to know so much about him,” Sir Kinsaid said, somewhat mollified. “Why haven’t you captured him yet?”
“We think he has left the city,” Sir Arach answered.
“How do you know that for sure?”
“We don’t, but he has not been seen in three weeks, not since the day of the Spring Dawning festival, when one of your Knights let him slip through his fingers at the Horizon Road gate—he has been executed for his dereliction of duty, of course. Ironstaffs dwelling and the places he frequents—the Dwarven Spring, the alchemists’ shops, the University and the Great Library—have been watched most closely. He has vanished. He has either left the city willingly, or he has been slain by another thief and his body dumped in the sewers. So, as you can see, we are working on the case but there is little I can do right now, no matter how loudly Mistress Jenna protests.”
“She says in her letter that the thief is being hidden by the Thieves’ Guild,” Sir Kinsaid said.
“There is no Thieves’ Guild in Palanthas,” Sir Arach assured him.
The Thorn Knight jumped as Sir Kinsaid’s fist struck the desk. An avalanche of papers and reports cascaded to the floor. “If there is one person in this city who truly believes that lie,” Sir Kinsaid said in a voice tight with barely suppressed emotion, “he is a fool. I don’t care where this thief is or who is hiding him. If this supposed son of Half-Elven is in Palanthas, whether he be a living thief or a bunch of bones in the belly of a sewer monster, I want him found and his theft restored. I want Mistress Jenna satisfied. Do you understand me, Sir Knight?”
“Yes m’lord,” Sir Arach responded with feigned humility, bowing his way to the door. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “If it comes to searching the sewers, it might prove expensive.”
“Get out of my sight!”
Sir Arach ducked though the door as a glass paperweight shattered against the wall by his head.
Chapter Eleven
It was the first time he had seen anyone other than his bunkmates and trainers in three weeks. His escort, a wavy-haired young thief from the Fifth Circle, knocked on a small, nondescript door, then stepped back to wait. The hall they stood in was low and narrow, lit at regular intervals by candles in silver sconces. Cael had never been here before. He wasn’t even sure where he was. He’d not seen the light of day since that morning in the sewer, with the dawn light filtering through the grate above.
The door opened, and with a wave of his hand, Captain Oros motioned for Cael to enter and sit. The captain ordered wine, bread, and cold meats to be brought to his chamber. An apprentice thief, his eyes as wide as platters, hurried from the room, quietly closing the door behind him. Alone with the elf, Oros unbuttoned his coat with a sigh.
Cael closely watched the Guild captain. It seemed to him that the man acted a little too friendly a little too soon. Not three weeks had passed since Mulciber had sentenced the elf to death for his freelance activities, then granted his provisional pardon, and today the leader of the Eighth Circle of the Guild had summoned him and was now treating him like an honored guest, or even an old friend.
He realized of course that under the guise of casual friendliness the Guild captain was studying him. Every so often, as the man moved about the room, lighting a candle here, adjusting a chair there, pouring wine or carving the bread, he’d look up to see the elf’s reactions. Though hungry and thirsty, Cael toyed with the food and drink set before him until he saw the Guild captain set to his own meal with unabashed gusto. Finally, he eased his aching throat with a cup of chilled pale wine, then devoured the meats and hearty bread brought by the servant.
Three more cups of wine carried him through the meal. Another servant arrived to remove the plates, but Cael kept a tight hold on his cup. He felt the wine, the sweet oil of conversation, loosening his tongue. He was dying to have a word with the Guild captain, but as yet the man had hardly spoken three words to him.
The chamber in which they dined was small but comfortably furnished. In one corner stood the table at which they ate their meal. Opposite the table, a pair of deep chairs huddled near a glowing brazier. A few books and curious oddments littered the shelves, but none of them attracted his curiosity. In fact, the only thing more interesting than the Guild captain himself was a sea cabinet shoved into the third corner of the room. The cabinet was banded with scrollwork iron and fastened by a silver lock. It looked large enough to hold a store of treasure.
When all the servants had gone, Captain Oros invited Cael to join him by the brazier. Cael settled into his chair, but the Guild captain remained standing, sipping thoughtfully at his wine while he eyed the elf.
Finally, the Guild captain asked, “So how have you enjoyed your little stay with us? Bogul tells me you’ve been coming along nicely.”
“Is that so?” Cael asked, surprised. So far, he had not been able to detect much of anything in the way of training. He had been living in Thieves’ House for about three weeks now, and during that time he’d done little besides rooming with a group of six other thieves, “brothers” and “sisters” of his Inner Circle (to use the Guild’s terminology). Their immediate commander was old Hook-nose, whose real name was Bogul. They lived together in a small dormitory of seven beds, isolated from other thieves, playing dice and telling stories of previous thefts and jobs, eating, and drinking wine. Three hours per day they spent in a large empty room that they called the gymnasium, performing a regimen of callisthenic exercises surely meant to kill them, under the critical tutelage of a severe, ice-eyed female half-elf of the Kagonesti persuasion. If this were not enough, they spent another hour every day wrestling with a pair of dwarves, twin brothers named Gunder and Gawain, who did their very best to break every bone in the thieves’ bodies. The first week of Cael’s captivity and ‘training’ was a haze of pain broken only by bouts of extreme fatigue and excessive drinking, gambling, and telling of enormously stretched tales. By the second week, Cael could hold his own with his fellow thieves, at least in the drinking part (he’d always bested them in the telling of tales), but he still lost hugely to their dice. By the third week, they’d stopped calling him “elf” and started using his name, he’d figured out how they were cheating him at dice and had won back a good portion of his losses, and the previous day he had actually stood Gawain on his head, for which he received a hearty breath-stealing congratulatory thwack on the back from Gunder.
The brothers and sisters of his Inner Circle were not apprentice thieves, not by any measure. They were all experienced pickpockets, safecrackers, and cat burglars. The oldest of the group was Brother Mancred, an old cutpurse with some skill in magic, they said. He rarely bragged, not like the others, and spent most of his time sitting, his gaze far away. Next eldest in the group was Hoag, a dark-eyed native Palanthian who tried to assume the role of second in command to Bogul. He was the most hostile towards Cael, and never stopped calling him “elf.” His particular expertise was lockpicking. He liked to tell a story of stealing the whiskers of a leopard, a story that always began the same—“I once took a bet from a gnome in Tarsis…”—and was always received with groans and threats.
There was Pitch, a hard-nosed ex-legionnaire from the Legion of Steel. She was more warrior than thief and wore her hair shaved close and neat. She suffered from a pathological need to win, and grew angry and violent when she lost at dice. The others seemed to suffer her without too much complaint.
A huge beefy man named Rull loved to perform feats of strength, not to intimidate or dominate his companions but simply to win their praise and applause. Still, Gunder and Gawain laid him on his back nine times out of ten during the wrestling hour. The other female of their group was Varia, an acrobat, actress, pickpocket, and con artist. Where Pitch was hard and bitter as vinegar, Varia was the very picture of womanly beauty. Surprisingly, her brother thieves never made the usual banal attempts to gain her affection. Cael learned why when he spent nearly an entire day of his first week tied up in his bed sheets after making ina
ppropriate advances and discovering that Rull regarded her as a sister not only in name but also in blood. Before becoming a thief Varia had studied at the Citadel of Light and had learned a little of the art of mystic healing.
The sixth thief of their little band was a dark-spirited knife-in-the-back fellow named Ijus. The others said that he was a failed apprentice mage, a street magician gone terribly awry, but he rarely spoke for himself except to make some sick joke, usually at the most inappropriate times. He thought death the grandest joke of all and held a vast repertoire of macabre tales stored up in his twisted mind. However, he was a favorite lackey of Hoag’s, and followed him around like a whipped dog.
Although the past three weeks had seemed tiresomely pointless to Cael, he now began to realize the reason behind his incarceration. He was building camaraderie within a group of thieves who had already been together for a while. Through shared misery (and nothing is more miserable to a thief than boredom), they had forged something resembling friendship. He was the new member in an old group, and without this bonding period, in which they got to know one another, shared wisdom and techniques, and established their social hierarchy, he posed a threat to their success in future capers. Now, he was almost one of them, and he felt it. He was accepted, even if only on a provisional basis. Their approval awaited some final test—that he understood. Perhaps this was to be it.