by Tina Hunter
With a small jump, she landed on the gravel shoreline and walked toward the Blue Vollonite lights of the docks. The magical light was bright enough to make it hard to see into the dark from within it, so she was safe for the moment. She’d heard the Imperial City in Dukana used Red Vollonite which would let guards see into the dark so no one could approach the city like she was now. Here in Iridan, Red Vollonite was too rare to be wasted on lights.
As Lynn got closer, she saw people moving about the docks. At this hour of the night it would most likely be Dockers and sailors, but they would still notice if someone magically appeared from the cliff face. They might alert the constabulary, or perhaps the guards who stayed in upper Iridan or the outer walls. She’d have to stay on the outside of the light, close to the wall of rock and its sheer face up to the upper city. She’d have to pass through the lower markets, which began at the base of the cliff, then make her way to the middle markets on the hill where her employer’s office was.
The lower markets were closed and dark when she arrived, and she could slip between the buildings and rest for a moment. Her arm ached, but she didn’t risk taking out the artwork for light to see how bad it looked. As long as she got to Mr. Darkan soon, he’d have someone to fix it up for her. Knowing that that was her last job for him made her happy despite the pain. He wanted more and more risk from her. True, he had been paying her more money, but at some point she would have to stop before she was captured or killed. Perhaps stopping after the last job would have been better. It had been easy enough and had gone right to plan.
Muffled voices brought her attention back to her surroundings. The guards wouldn’t have made it all the way down here yet. She had jumped off a cliff while they walked around it. However, the sooner she got away from the water the better.
The surrounding shops were dark, but there was enough light from the streets further over to see where she was going. Slinking from shop shadow-to-shadow wasn’t the best way to get through the neighborhood, but her arm made climbing up to the relative safety of the rooftops impossible.
More voices. Closer this time. She couldn’t tell if they were just drunks taking a late-night stroll or guards looking around. She wasn’t about to find out. Time to open a shop, not her preferred career choice but it would do in a pinch.
The closest shop was a blacksmith. Since it would have tools and weapons, it was not a good option. It would likely have a good strong lock. However, the lovely little dressmaker store two shops down was a perfect target. Who would want to break into that store? Well, besides her.
Luck was on Lynn’s side and the door was unlocked. Inside the big windows made the shop feel more like a cage than a refuge. It took a few moments before she found a backroom. The darkness inside it was absolute, with no windows to let in the moonlight. She felt around for something to shove into the bottom crack of the door, then reached into her bag and pulled out the blanket-wrapped artwork. She only needed to unwrap a corner to see the surrounding room. Just three crystals from the gold plaque lit up the room like daylight.
The storeroom she was in had dresses and suits hanging on racks in various stages of completion. However, it was her arm that commanded her attention. A swollen lump protruded from the middle of her arm and bleeding scratches all over made it look worse than she’d imagined. At least the bone wasn’t sticking out. If she was lucky, no infection would have gotten in yet. Magic couldn’t do anything for an infection. She found some plain linen and wrapped her arm with it, putting as much pressure as she could stand to bind her arm. With her arm the way it was, a disguise would be very helpful in making her escape.
A beautiful blue fabric caught her eye and, with her good arm, she pulled out the dress from one rack. It was a simple Aguara design, a new style corseted top and a full skirt, but over the glossy stiff fabric was the softest lace she’d ever felt. Like silk only thicker. It was likely an import, expensive, and too unique to steal without a buyer first. However, the green one beside it was almost boring. A standard middle-class Aguara dress made of linen with nice puffy sleeves that would hide her bandage. Nothing unique about it, and no corset. It was a shame to leave the blue one, but she’d get away faster in a boring dress. And thankfully, it was a few sizes too big.
With difficulty, she pulled the simple green dress over her male dress shirt, vest, and snug trousers and pulled off her hood. She unpinned her braided hair from the top of her head, letting it unravel down her back. She knew the trousers and shirt made her look like a man in the shadows, and that was exactly what she wanted the authorities to think.
Lynn’s shirt stuck out the top of the dress and without a bustle it hung off her in the wrong places. She found a dull brown cloak and threw it on. Her bag would stand out with this outfit but if she tied it right, it would make do as a bustle. With a quick look around to memorize her surroundings, she covered up the artwork and put it back into the bag. It was lumpy and didn’t tie up nicely under her skirt but it would do in the dark. She opened the door into the main shop area and fumbled her way to the back of the store looking for an exit into the alleyway.
It was hard to feel her way through the store after having light. Before long she found a series of doors, which led to the alleyway. There was nothing back there but a solid wall of rock and the back of the shops all the way to a crossroad.
Lynn wouldn’t have to cross Main street and its blue Vollonite light. Only a few streets in lower Iridan were still lit with oil this late into the night. By the time she saw another person, she had already made it to Middle Market, and it was only a few drunks here and there. Nothing she couldn’t handle, even with her arm the way it was.
She noticed an upper-class carriage stopped in an alley and found a shadow to hide in. Thankfully, it was just a nobleman, feeding a few of his crystals on the drunk and homeless laying in the alley. That was the price one paid to sleep in the street, a price she knew too well. She continued on slowly so as not to draw attention to herself. She had to see a man about some artwork. And to let him know she was quitting.
Two
~Later Saturday Night~
LYNN ARRIVED AT Mr. Darkan’s shop soon enough. His magic emporium was closed and dark, but she wasn’t looking to go in the front door. Once she was in the back alley, she tapped three times on the back door.
A cloaked figure with a single candle for a light opened the door. She felt eyes on her though she couldn’t tell whose they were.
“Darkan’s expecting me,” she whispered, lifting her hood so the figure could see her face better. The figure moved out of the way and let her walk into the dark landing at the top of the steep stairs that led to Darkan’s office. She heard the door close, and the figure led the way down. Their footsteps echoed on the stone stairs, carved right out of the hillside. The same stone that made up the cliff face, the stone towers, and the castle in Upper Iridan.
At the bottom, it opened into a large sitting room with lush red carpets to cover the stone floor, and elegant chairs to lounge on. It was a room of opulence lit with a dozen candles. A man dressed as opulently as the room sat behind a large oak desk. His large girth made it seem all the more extravagant for the amount of fabric needed to drape his body in rich golds and reds. Two doors led out of this one. One she knew was his storage room, the other seemed to connect to a cave system, there was no end to what or who could come out of that door
“And who do we have here?” Darkan’s rich voice was deep and smooth. It would be pleasant to listen to if it didn’t come from such a horrible man.
Lynn removed her hood and smiled as sweetly as she could. “Just little old me.”
“Ms. Narin! I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you so finely dressed,” he said using one of her many fake names.
Lynn had to keep herself from rolling her eyes. Such a backhanded compliment, but what else could she expect from him.
“Thank you. I believe I have something for you.” With as much dignity as she could manage, she untied the ba
g from under her skirt and gently set it on the ground. After what she’d put it through tonight, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see a few dents or cracks. But when she unwrapped it, the plaque was as pristine as it was when she had seen it hanging in the Minister’s hallway. Relief washed over her. Damaged goods meant negotiating a new price.
“It’s beautiful,” Darkan said, straining to look over the desk to where she was unwrapping it. It was beautiful now that she took a moment to admire the plaque. It was a large golden rectangle the size of her forearm, with strange words inscribed in circular patterns all over it. In places along these circles were nine perfectly round crystals with unfamiliar sigils. Each one glowed with magic. There were the typical shades of blue and red but three were purple, a color she had never seen up close until today. She didn’t know what any of it meant, but it was worth 300 gold crowns so it was exquisite to her.
She gently lifted it up with her one good hand and carried it over to the desk. It wasn’t heavy, perhaps one of the crystal’s made it lighter than it should be. Maybe another one made it indestructible, which would explain how it escaped the night unmarred. She couldn’t read the language written on it, so there was no way to know what the magic did.
“Excellent, excellent. Well done my dear. Well done.” Darkan looked it over like a prized child placed in his lap. There should have been a bag of money waiting for her, but she would let him have his moment, then she’d get her money. Or rather, she’d get her arm fixed first and then get her money. Then she’d quit. She was very much looking forward to putting this part of her life behind her. Not the stealing part, but working for Darkan had shown her a kind of life she would like to never see again.
After this job she would have enough money. Her Uncle Pater was in for a fight for her family’s farmstead. Times were changing. Aguarian women were allowed to earn their own money and own their own property now. It was time for her to own some too.
“If you don’t mind, I seem to have broken my arm tonight. Could you have Nathan look at it for me?” she asked as sweetly as she could manage. Darkan looked at her as if waking for a dream and then noticed her arm. The figure in the cloak pulled back the hood to reveal a lovely looking woman. Probably his new secretary.
“Of course, my dear. However, Nathan has left us to pursue other opportunities, but I can send for Brutus. He’s just as good I assure you.”
‘Other opportunities’ was code for dead. She wondered if it happened while working, or if he had forced Darkan’s hand.
There was something to be said for efficiency though. Darkan had the whole place running like clockwork... or rather bells. The secretary went over the wall to pull a cord and a series of bells rang in the chambers behind door number two. Whoever and whatever was back there, she would never know and had no plans to change that.
Darkan spent a few minutes running his pudgy fingers over the intricate words engraved on the gold.
“Do you know what they mean?” she asked.
“It’s an ancient language, used by the Mergoi Kingdom long before the great war with Dukana. I know a few words,” he said. Lynn’s maternal grandparents came from Mergoi, now a part of the Empire, and she found herself interested in what the strange letters might mean.
“Here,” he pointed to the words inscribed around one of the purple crystals, “this means home or birthplace. But the sigil is likely for Retrocognition. And this one,” pointing to the words around a blue crystal, “means something like gathering or market, but the sigil is either Lighter or Heavier Gravity. Fascinating.” His fingers left trails of sweat marks on the gold where he let his fingers linger too long. It was gross but expected, considering his face was dripping with sweat. Lynn didn’t find it that warm in here.
A man took that moment to walk in carrying a blue crystal blade the size of her hand. Brutus, she assumed, given that after a minute of scanning the room, he walked directly to her staring only at her arm.
“How long ago?” He spoke with a clipped but lovely accent she couldn’t place. He was also huge. Taller than her by at least a head and twice as thick. All of it muscle. She would have pegged him for one to do the breaking arms, not fixing them.
“An hour or so,” she said letting him gently lift her arm from where she had clutched it to her side. He removed her makeshift bandage and examined the wound from all sides, making him look like a gopher popping out of its hole every time he moved his head. Lynn suppressed the urge to giggle.
“Too soon for an infection. Magic will work just fine. If you just have a seat, I’ll start the treatment.” He directed her to a chaise for lounging and she sat like a proper lady. No point in acting like herself around people who didn’t know her. Darkan already knew more about her than she would like.
“Now this might hurt a little,” he said it so gently like she was a real lady and not just a thief in clothes the wrong size.
“Thank you, but I’ve done this before. But I’ll take a Bit if you have one.” She tried to put his mind at ease with a gentle smile back. Darkan just laughed.
“Don’t bother with the niceties with this one Bruty Boy. She’s the Black Shadow, the thief that has made me - made us - very wealthy.”
Brutus raised a single eyebrow and just looked at her. She gave an exasperated sigh. Leave it Darkan to ruin what moment she might have had of respect. She was just a worthless thief to him. Brutus pulled out a vial of milky fluid and a well-worn peg of wood meant to bite on. He handed her the wood without a word, and she bit down on the peg, tasting oak and the soap he’d used to clean it with.
The wash, whatever it was, stung like tiny daggers on her skin, but that wasn’t the hard part. Once he carefully pat dry her arm with a clean cloth, produced from some unseen bottomless pocket, he moved the crystal blade close to her skin. It was shaped like most Vollonite daggers, easy to handle and only sharp on one side. Magic required skin contact to work, and Brutus brought the flat part of the blade down on her arm. Lynn took a deep breath and braced herself.
Whatever pain she felt at the moment of the break was a stubbed toe in comparison. She had watched once, when she’d cut up her hand badly, how the magic seemed to melt the skin before putting it back together. She didn’t look anymore. It certainly felt like it was melting, melting, then a cold burn, then needles running through and around every damaged spot of her arm.
When it changed to the same sting as the wash she took the bit out of her mouth and inspected her arm just as Brutus pulled away the blade. Aside from some redness that was giving way to tanned olive skin, it appeared just how it was supposed to. Not a cut, bruise or bump to show she had just broken her arm. In a few minutes her arm would be back to normal.
She glanced up to find Darkan still absorbed in running his sweating hands all over the expensive artwork, and his Secretary was making little notes by his side. Time to get paid and get out. She cleared her throat to get their attention.
“I hate to interrupt your review of the artwork, but I believe my payment is still outstanding.” She smiled as best she could, waiting for either her arm to stop stinging or for Darkan to acknowledge her existence again.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said absently, waving his hand towards the secretary. The pretty lady walked to door number one, the storage room. “And I have another job for you, very important. You’ll leave in the morning,” he continued.
“Begging your pardon, what was that?” Leaving in the morning? That was not going to happen.
Darkan finally looked up at her, just as her arm stopped stinging.
“Another job. Surely, you haven’t gotten bored with my company yet have you?” he said with a casual smile. Lynn dropped her fake smile.
“I’m not doing another job for you. Not tomorrow. Or next week. I’m done stealing for you.” She held his gaze as confidently as she could, even when his casual smile morphed into a scowl. There were very few people who had ever gotten out of working for Darkan. He had eyes everywhere, and people regul
arly ‘pursued other opportunities’. But she had leverage on him and he knew it.
He turned to look at the Secretary, who had stopped to watch their exchange from the doorway of the storage room. He gave her a single nod, and she disappeared into the room. From her seat on the chaise Lynn couldn’t see inside, but the woman returned quickly enough with a large bag and a small box. Bag good. Box... possibly very bad.
“I’m sad to hear you want to leave us. We’ve grown so enamored of your presence that I’m not sure how we’ll manage without you,” he said. Secretary placed the bag and box on the desk in front of him, and he handed the artwork to her. She headed this time to door number two. Lynn didn’t watch her though, she kept her eyes on Darkan. What was he up to?
“But if that is what you wish to do, I suppose there is nothing I can do to stop you.” He tried to smile sweetly, only it didn’t reach his eyes. He held out the bag of coins to her. “The money we agreed on. As promised.”
Lynn stood up, forgetting about Brutus who was sitting there watching their conversation with as much rapt attention as the secretary had. This was a trick, wasn’t it? After that exchange, she was expecting something more.
She took the bag from his hand and checked it. Inside were a very large number of glittery gold coins. She took one out to examine it - a Doublette, twice as thick as a normal Crown and worth twice as much, too. There should be 150 of them in this bag. She bounced it in her hands to get a feel for the weight. It seemed about right, but aside from taking them all out and counting them she’d have to trust her guesswork. He’d paid her. It was time to go.
“Thank you for your prompt payment, good sir,” she bowed low and tried to keep the grin off her face. She was doing it. She was leaving.
“Of course, dear girl. Of course,” and then Darkan opened the little box on the table.