Den of thieves abt-1

by David Chandler

  “I have a message for the bailiff,” Croy said, trying to sound frightened. A real messenger would be staring at the blade of the halberd, he thought, so he turned his head as if he were looking at it. His eyes, though, never left sight of the guard’s hands.

  “Give it here, and I’ll see he gets it.”

  “Oh, you want it?” Croy asked. “Very well.” He brought out the sap he’d been hiding under his cloak and smacked the guard across the temple. The kettle helmet rang like a bell and the guard grimaced as his eyes fluttered closed. Croy barely managed to catch him before he collapsed to the floor.

  Then Croy stopped perfectly still, crouched on the top riser of the stairs with the guard in his arms, and listened. The ringing helmet had made far more noise than he’d liked, and he needed to know if anyone had heard him.

  He could hear the workmen outside grumbling about having to wait to offload their wares. He could hear horse hooves clopping on the flagstones of the courtyard. He could hear a guard atop the wall, hailing his fellow across the way, checking that all was well. He did not hear what he’d feared: no cry of alarm, no voice raised inside the palace to ask what that sound was. No one calling for the unconscious guard, to ask if something was the matter.

  Very good. Getting the guard back down the stairs was not easy, but Croy had good muscle in his arms and a strong back. He shoved the guard into a verger’s room, then stripped him of his armor and tied his hands together behind his back. With a gag in the guard’s mouth, he thought he would be safe awhile. He threw his own cloak over the supine form of the guard for modesty’s sake, then pulled on the leather jack and put the helmet on his own head. He found the padded hood on the man’s belt and drew that on as well. It hid both his blond hair and his square chin.

  Then he headed back to the second floor and straight to the door of Anselm Vry’s office. He raised the knuckles of one hand to knock, intending to announce that there was a message from the moothall and a reply was expected. That would get Vry to open the door with no fuss.

  Yet just before he knocked he stopped and listened a moment-and heard a conversation beyond the door that grasped his attention.

  “You must put it on. People expect to see you wearing the robe.” That was the voice of Anselm Vry, certainly.

  Croy didn’t recognize the other voice. It was that of a grown man, but there was a childlike petulance to it-and at the same time a sort of hollowness, as if the owner of the voice was gravely ill, or, for that matter, ghostly.

  “You can’t make me. You can’t make me do anything. I’m free of it!”

  “If you won’t wear the robe,” Vry said, sounding exasperated, “you can’t appear in public at all. I’ll have you locked up in your room. And then we’ll see how free you are.”

  “I’m free. I’m free! Every night, when they took it away-every night I dreamed. I dreamed of this! And in the morning when they brought it to me again, I wept. You won’t-you won’t bring it back, will you? Promise!”

  “I promise. Now put on the robe. And stop sniveling. It doesn’t befit you. After Ladymas things will be different, just dream of that.”

  Enough. Croy had never been a keyhole-listener before. He did not relish gossip, or knowing other people’s secrets. He knocked and announced himself firmly. “Message for you, your honor. From the moothall.”

  “Damnation-what do the shopkeepers want with me now?” Vry said behind the door. Croy heard footsteps approaching and he stepped back to allow the door to open. Vry poked his head out and extended one long-fingered hand. “Give it here, and be gone,” he said.

  Croy grabbed the hand and hauled the bailiff out into the hallway. Vry started to shout for his guards, but Croy was quick enough to get an arm around his throat and hold him still.

  “You’ve come… to murder me, Croy? It doesn’t… seem your style,” Vry managed to gasp out as Croy put pressure on his windpipe.

  “I saw no other way to gain audience with you, Anselm. No, I’m here for exactly the reason I said, to deliver a message-though not from the masters of the guilds. Will you listen to me if I release you? I have vital information you require.”

  “I’ll listen,” Vry choked. Croy let him go. “I’ll listen, then I’ll have you arrested. I don’t know how you managed to get in here, and I can only wonder how you expect to get back out with your head attached to your neck. What message could be so important that you would risk your life for it?”

  “The sorcerer Hazoth has the Burgrave’s crown,” Croy said.

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  Croy shook his head. “You needn’t pretend. I know everything. And now so do you. The crown is safe, sealed in a leaden coffer in Hazoth’s sanctum. What he wants with it I have no idea. Now, I must be going.”

  “You’re right,” Vry told him. “This is vital information. I don’t suppose you’d tell me how you came by it.”

  “I’m bound to secrecy,” Croy said.

  “Of course, of course.” Vry nodded in understanding. “Hazoth,” he said. He tapped his upper lip. “Can you get the crown away from him, d’you think?”

  “By myself? No. But you can marshal troops enough to wrest it from him, certainly?”

  “I suppose I can. I owe you my thanks, Croy.” Vry clapped him on the shoulder. “I only wish I could pay you back for this debt. But you know that the Burgrave’s word is law, and he has ordered your death. What can I do for you, that will not counter his decision? It’s not in my power to pardon you, much as I’d like to.”

  Croy clutched his friend by the forearm. “Just give me a head start. Don’t call your guards for five minutes. That will be enough. Oh, and Anselm?”

  “Yes?” the bailiff asked.

  “You really should take better note of who comes and goes through your gates.” Croy smiled broadly and gave the bailiff a deep bow. “I still serve the Burgrave,” he said. “My duty was clear.”

  And yet-the words tasted wrong in Croy’s mouth. For in truth it was not for the Burgrave he’d come to the palace. Cythera had told him all about the theft of the crown, and together they’d made this plan. She could not leave Hazoth’s service as long as he held her mother prisoner-and while he lived, he would never release her. Croy knew he could not destroy the sorcerer on his own. No matter how strong his arm, no matter how puissant Ghostcutter’s blade, he could not match Hazoth’s magic.

  Yet if it were to come to light that Hazoth was behind the plot to embarrass the Burgrave, well… perhaps the wheels of justice could turn in the right direction, just this one time. Anselm Vry would bring every guard and watchman in the city down on Hazoth’s house, and they would see just how strong his magic was then.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  It was not Anselm Vry who next approached Hazoth’s villa, however.

  It was Malden.

  He had spent most of the day hiding in the bushes of the Parkwall Common, crouching like a footpad without even a jug of brandy to keep him company. The last thing he wanted after his night carousing with Kemper was more liquor.

  It was easy enough to stay still. Every time he moved he felt like his brains sloshed back and forth in his skull. He felt weak and queasy. He was not sure if that was his hangover or only fear.

  The gate of Hazoth’s villa opened and Bikker came striding out. This was what Malden had been waiting for. The bearded swordsman clanked as he walked-Malden could hear him all the way across the common-and he scratched at one armpit as he headed toward Old Fish Street, the road that led to the wharves on the river Skrait. Malden had no way of knowing what his business there might be, but he didn’t care. As long as Bikker did not return for an hour or more.

  When Bikker was well out of sight, Malden rose painfully to a standing posture and then walked across the green common, in full view of Hazoth’s house. He wanted very badly to turn around and run, or at least to approach in a less conspicuous manner-there were trees all along one edge of the common that would hide him well.
/>   He did not turn away.

  At the gate, Hazoth’s guards were waiting for him. They stood well inside the fence, and Malden knew from watching them a long time that they would be inside the radius of the spell that protected the place. He offered them no threat and they made no move to challenge him. They leaned on their polearms and just watched him come closer, daring him with their eyes to step through the gate.

  There were six of them visible. They wore chain mail and surcoats in the colors of Hazoth’s livery: black and scarlet. One of them turned his head and spat as Malden stepped up to the gate.

  There was no turning back once he was through.

  He stepped over the threshold.

  He could perhaps be forgiven for closing his eyes as he took that fateful step. Yet nothing happened-at first. The forecourt of the villa was covered in crushed gravel, with here and there a dandelion or a sprig of clover poking up through the rocks. The gravel crunched under Malden’s leather shoes. He took another step.

  And that was when the spell took him. He felt as if he had run at full speed directly into a brick wall. His body tensed at the impact and his bones thrummed, though he could see no barrier before him. It felt like ghostly hands passed over his face and chest, and then something gripped him around the waist.

  One of the guards laughed.

  Malden did not cry out-he had no breath in his lungs-as the invisible force lifted him bodily off the ground. The grip around his waist and chest held him immobile as invisible fingers rifled through his purse and inside his tunic, as his cloak was lifted and checked for concealed weapons. He had been smart enough to leave his bodkin at home, but the buckle of his belt and the handful of copper coins in his purse grew searing hot for a moment, until he thought they would burn through his clothes. As quickly as it had come, however, that phantom heat dissipated.

  The invisible hands lowered him to the ground again-but held him still.

  “Good morrow to you,” Malden managed to croak out. He caught the eye of one of the guards. “Will you let me speak?”

  The guard came over and jabbed him in the chest with the butt of his pikestaff. Hard enough to rattle his sternum. “What business have you here, dog?”

  Malden licked his lips. His mouth was still very dry from the night before. “I have a message for Hazoth. One he desperately needs to hear.”

  The guard smiled broadly. “Tell it to me, and perhaps we’ll let you go.”

  Malden nodded agreeably. “Would that I could. I’m afraid it must be communicated directly to the sorcerer, however. It is information of a… delicate nature, and best not spoken aloud where unwanted listeners might hear.”

  The guard scowled. Yet he walked over to one of his fellows and conferred with him a while. Malden could do naught but wait-the invisible wall still held him pinned. He could not so much as scratch an itch.

  The second guard ran into the house. He was gone quite a while. The others moved closer to the gate, weapons at the ready in case Malden had some charm that would free him from the invisible wall.

  Not very clever of them, he thought. They should have been watching the fence, looking for some armed force approached from another direction. His own approach could have just been a diversion to hide the advance of a more dangerous force. The fact that he, who had no training in security, could see as much told him something. These were not soldiers, then, but only bravos hired to look menacing, not to effectively guard the villa. Good to know.

  Not that he could make use of that information if the invisible guardian continued to hold him. It seemed he waited forever, exposed under the sun, unable to move. For a span nothing happened. Eventually, though, the guard returned from the house. He rushed over to his post as if nothing had happened, and Malden wondered if he should be left there, suspended in nothing, until he died of thirst.

  But then Cythera stepped out of the doorway.

  The hood of her velvet cloak was up, hiding her face in shadows. Her hands were bare, though, and seeing tattooed coils of ivy twisting around her fingers, Malden knew it was her.

  She approached him directly, stopping five feet away. He supposed that spot must mark where the barrier ended on the inside-another useful thing to know.

  “I am very glad to see you,” he said, smiling down upon her. “I’d bow to you, as you deserve, but as you can see, I’m a bit indisposed. If you’d be kind enough to let me down I’d be most obliged.”

  “You’re a fool,” she said. “You’ll die here.”

  “I’m desperate,” he told her. “If not here, I’ll die elsewhere, and just as certain.”

  She gave him a look of uncertainty. A questioning look. As if she could not believe he had come here and risked so much. He smiled in return, hiding his true fear. A part of him was woefully glad to see her again, and not just because she was the only one who could get him out of the barrier.

  “As you wish,” Cythera said.

  She lifted her hands in a complicated gesture, her fingers tucked in or stretched outward in weird contortions. She spoke a word that Malden could not hear clearly, even at so close a distance.

  The air flexed with magic and he dropped to the ground, falling on his knees and scraping his hands on the gravel. The magic wall was gone. “I offered to bow, and now you see me kneel. You have my thanks, lady.”

  Cythera did not offer to help him up. Instead she turned on her heel and walked back toward the house. The guards weren’t even looking at Malden. He staggered to his feet and then raced after her, through the massive stone doors and into the coolth of a dim portico.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  When Malden’s eyes adjusted he found himself in a broad marble hall held up by massive columns of braided stone. Light streamed in through tall windows at the far end of the room, which looked out over a garden maze. The glass alone in those windows would be worth ten times what a craftsman up in the Smoke might make in a year. Along the walls stood alabaster statues of ancient scholars and wizards, some of whom he recognized by the things they held or the way they were dressed. There was Antomach the Sage, who had proved the world was round. He was identifiable by the compass he held before him, his other hand held high with a miniature planet floating above his upturned palm. Malden could not see how it was suspended-perhaps by magery. Another statue depicted the necromancer Vull, a figure of such antiquity no one living now remembered what land he’d hailed from. He was shown here in one of his favorite shapes, that of a massive bear with skeletal human hands. Other statues were draped in cunningly wrought shrouds of stone, or stood nude with wolves curling around their titanic legs.

  At the center of the hall a double staircase of worked stone rose gracefully toward a gallery above. Standing next to the stairs on a stone plinth was something that shocked Malden as incongruous-a globe of iron, its surface pitted and mottled with rust. A fine sifting of red powder made a crimson shadow on the floor around it. It must have been fifteen feet across and was as ugly as the sharp end of a crossbow bolt. What it was doing in such elegant surroundings was a mystery.

  Cythera’s footsteps rang on the floor, which had been polished near unto a mirrored surface. “He’s waiting for you through here,” she said, and gestured toward a tall doorway in the wall to Malden’s right. “Don’t anger him by tarrying here while you gawk.”

  He nodded and let his gaze run over the hall’s features one last time before following her.

  “Surely you must realize you are unwelcome here,” she whispered to him as she opened the door and ushered him inside. “I thought you were smarter than this.”

  “Think me not clever?” he asked, mocking hurt feelings. “I waited until Bikker went out, did I not? How soon do you expect him back, by the way?”

  Her brow furrowed, though it was hard to tell from the tattooed creepers that grew upward from her eyelashes. “Bikker? He shan’t be returning.”

  “Doesn’t he live here?” Malden asked. “I thought he was a retainer of the sorcerer, lik
e yourself.”

  She shook her head. “He’s no servant of my master. And I am no retainer.” She seemed unwilling to say more. She brought him into a long hallway lined on one side with doors. More windows pierced the outside wall, their glare cut down by gauzy curtains that hung from the ceiling. Small tables and display cases stood between the windows, holding curios, some that Malden would very much have liked to stop and examine more closely, and others that made him flinch and look away. He saw one case that held a collection of severed human hands, while another was full of what appeared to be giant pearls. A stuffed and lifeless snake lay coiled on one table, holding a carved ball of white jade in its jaws. The purpose of such things-or if they even had a purpose beyond mere ornament-was lost on him.

  At the far end of the corridor Cythera opened another door, which led into a library. Despite himself, Malden’s jaw fell open once again.

  It was a comfortable, snug space, though several times larger than the common room at Cutbill’s lair. Sumptuous rugs covered the floor, and a fireplace filled half of one wall. Couches and chairs upholstered in leather stood here and there, where a visitor might choose to sit and read, and an enormous tapestry map of the continent hung from the ceiling showing all the cities, roads, and rivers of Skrae and the Northern Kingdoms in cunning detail. What really astounded Malden about the room, however, was the collection of books.

  Books were expensive. They had to be inscribed by hand, then bound in costly hides. Illuminators and engravers were employed in their construction, and since very few people in the kingdom could read, there was a premium on their production. Even the Burgrave might have had only a single shelf of books in his palace, mostly devotional works praising the Lady.

  Yet Hazoth had hundreds of books here-perhaps thousands. Far more than Malden could count. Thin folios and massive tomes, miniature librams that would fit in the palm of the hand, grimoires bound in carved wooden covers inlaid with gold and silver and bronze. Books adorned with gemstones, and others with leather covers tooled with a pattern of skulls and bones. Some shelves held loose papers in great sheaves, bound with string, or scrolls and palimpsests wound about ivory rods, or forms of printed matter Malden had never imagined-books built into miniature chests, or folded fans of paper, or books made of pentagonal signatures tied together with ribbon. Books that glowed with their own light, and books that looked like they had scuttled into the shadows at the back of deep shelves, as if afraid of the sun. Opened books sat on lecterns or scriptoria, written in languages and even alphabets he did not recognize. Ink pots of black and red and purple were arranged around one table, and quills from birds far more exotic than the typical goose or crow.