by David Cook
With the wand he brushed the hangings. The first three barely stirred at his caress. The fourth quivered at his touch like a thing prodded in its dreams. Pinch poked it again, a little more firmly. The heavy cloth suddenly snapped and writhed like a thing alive, trying to envelop the slender rod.
Well enough, Pinch thought. Stay clear of that wall.
So the path led to the right, away from the living curtain. That meant the next trap would come there, where he was being herded to go.
Careful testing revealed nothing else obvious behind the walls, so Pinch focused next on the floor. The floor beneath the sill sounded solid enough when rapped, so he tentatively set one foot on the floor. When nothing gave way, he eased down into nervous crouch. He rolled a marble from his kit into the center of the tower room. Only after it came to a stop did he move again and then he never took his eyes from it as he sidled around the perimeter of the room. If the marble moved it was a sign that something in the floor had shifted: a pivot, a trapdoor, or some sinister deadfall. He spread his arms and legs spiderlike as he moved, a painful way to get about and one that his tired, restitched muscles could barely stand, but it was the most prudent way. Should something shift, the spread of his weight gave him the best chance of recovering.
It was poised like this that Pinch discovered the next trap. With his gaze still locked on the marble, he slid a foot closer to his goal. All at once, the floor disappeared beneath his toes. There was no telltale creak, no rattle and swish of the trapdoor to give him warning. There was just suddenly nothing up to his knee and beyond.
Even expecting some trap, the drop caught the rogue off guard. His weight had been overbalanced to that side, and before he could correct it he slid until the weight of what dangled over the edge pulled the rest of him along. A frantic look over his shoulder presented a strange sight, his body being swallowed by the unbroken smoothness of the floor. Illusion! he realized in panic, the thrice-damned floor was an illusion. Gods knew how many floors he might plunge through or what lay below.
Desperately Pinch scrabbled at the floor, but the vein-creased stone was polished to a perfect and ungenerous beauty. His fingers squeaked greasily over the sheen. All at once the cold stone popped away from his chin and, like a sailor drowning in a shipwreck, his head dropped into the ocean of magic. The world of light and substance disappeared into a swirl of irrational color, the blend of mottled stone, and then gloom.
In the last instant, Pinch's fingers closed on the only thing there was to seize, the sharp edge of the stone rim. With the instinct of years of practice, he set his fingers the way a mountain climber clings to the smallest ledge of rock. The strain on his arms was tremendous; his fingertips almost gave way at the jerk of his sudden stop. His prize tool pouch tumbled from his waistband, spilling the marbles, rods, and steel into the darkness that swallowed everything beneath him. Through the panic and the strain, he listened for them to hit bottom, to at least give him some clue in their departing plunge.
They dropped forever and then finally hit something with a soft, crunching plop. As Pinch dangled helplessly, he could only think that the noise was not one he would have expected. If there had been the clank of steel on stone or even the splash of water, that would have made sense, but a sound like that of an insect crushed under a boot was just beyond understanding.
And then deep below, he heard the sound of the floor slithering.
Just what was beneath him? It wasn't good, whatever it was. Futilely Pinch tried to pull himself back up to the floor, but his grip was too poor and his muscles too spent from the rigors he had already endured. The priests had healed him, but the healing left him still weak. Perhaps it had all been intentional on their part, and they had foreseen what the night would bring him.
Pinch fought to drive the panic out of his mind. Concentrate on what was known and drive out speculation. Think and act, think and act-he recited the litany in his mind, driving out the burn in his arms, the bone-cracking pain in his fingertips, the fear of what waited below him.
His eyes were adjusting to the darkness, which was not complete. From the underside, the illusion was like a thick filter of smoke. Against it he could make out the lip of the real floor. It curved a semicircle against the back side of the small chamber, except for a small landing at the very wall that most certainly had to be in front of the shelf. The gap formed a moat, the last line of defense around the royal regalia.
The slithering below grew louder, though not closer. It was as if a host had been roused and not some single thing. In the near darkness, Pinch could barely see a gleam of white, perhaps the floor, though strangely folded and misshapen. He looked again, harder, straining to see clearly, when all at once the floor heaved and shifted.
Gods damn, I'm looking at bones.
His fingers creaked and almost gave way, so that Pinch couldn't suppress a shriek of pain. The cry reverberated through the pit and, as if in eager concert to it, his voice was taken up by a sussurant hiss as the white gleam of the bones rippled and pulsed in a slithering crawl.
The floor was alive with maggots, thick fleshy things that coated the shattered arches of bone like pustulant skin and mounded themselves in squirming heaps against the walls. The skeletons beneath him were the bones of those who'd tried before, scoured clean by a slow death in the nest below. How long could a man live among them? How excruciating would the pain be as they burrowed into his flesh? Better to die in the fall.
Fear dragged from inside Pinch the last reserve of his strength. With his fingers slipping, he kicked his legs up madly. His toes flailed for the ledge, scraping it once as his fingers started to pull free. Desperately he tried again. One foot hooked over the edge and he pressed his weight on it. The leather sole slid, then held, but his strength was fading fast. Frantically, the rogue levered one elbow over the edge and kicked his other foot up until he could raise his head above the sea of phantasm and see the real world again. Half-supported on his forearm, Pinch risked letting go with one hand. Almost immediately he started to slip backward, so with a desperate lunge he slapped his hand down as far onto the stone as he could. His cramped fingers burned, his palm stung, but his crude grip held for the least of instants. In that second he wrenched himself up and over, seizing on the momentum of his lunge to carry him to safety. Barely he twisted his hips over the edge and onto solid ground.
Pinch lay drained on the cool stone floor, unable and unwilling to try any more. All he wanted to do was collapse and rest, to come back another night and try again. Sweat soaked his doublet, and beads of it matted down his curly gray hair. His shoulders were shaking and his fingers were knotted like claws, clumsy and useless to his trade.
Nonetheless, Pinch knew he wouldn't quit. As he lay panting on the marble, he felt alive with the thrill of it all. It was the joy of risk, the game that he'd outwitted again. This, surely, was what a thief lived for. If he left tonight, he knew he'd just come back tomorrow to risk it all again.
Sprite was waiting, he reminded himself as he struggled to his feet. There was no more time to waste here.
Barely collected or steady on his feet, the rogue gauged the distance to the ledge. The priests had designed their trap well. The moat, he guessed, was just large enough for a man to cross in a single giant stride, like clearing a puddle at the side of the street. The landing gave enough space for him to stand discreetly but well, from what he remembered from below. It was just a matter of knowing where to step and where to avoid, and he'd had that lesson already.
Taking up the bag Cleedis had brought, Pinch sized up the possibilities and then finally, with only a small twinge of misgiving, boldly stepped out over the emptiness.
The next thing he knew, he stood on the landing, the box of rosewood and gold right before him.
The Cup and the Knife were dazzling as merited their role, but even the box was extraordinary. The gold work was the finest of dwarven hammered wire, the rosewood perfectly treated and polished. Pinch dearly wished he could take
the box too, as personal profit, but that was not in the plan. The switch had to be unnoticed, which meant that the case had to stay.
Still, for all his covetousness, Pinch was not about to snatch the items up and run. The greater the treasure, the more fiercely it is protected. Instead he carefully studied every aspect of how the treasures were displayed. He attended to the velvet they were nestled in, the case, its locks, even the shelf and the wall around it. These efforts gave the welcome reward of slightly longer life when he stopped to trace out a thread no thicker than a spiderline that ran from the dagger to the edge of the lock. The line for a trigger, he knew without a doubt. He didn't know what it triggered, but that hardly mattered for it could only be ill to his well-being.
It was delicate work, cutting the thread without discharging whatever it was connected to, but Pinch worked as a master. He had no desire to be roasted, frozen, electrified, paralyzed, or just killed outright. When the line was finally loose, he checked the whole over again before he was satisfied. Priests were almost as bad as mages for trapping their possessions. The counting rooms of moneylenders were almost never this difficult. The whole thing probably had more to do with the arrogance of the clergy than the actual value of what they protected. Priests figured that whatever was important to them was naturally important to the rest of the world.
Still expecting the worst, Pinch lifted the relics from their shelf. When nothing happened, his hand began to shake, an unconscious tremor of profound relief.
Now was the time to hurry; the dangerous part was done. From the bag at his waist came the replicas. Like the perfect form and its shadow, the one outshone the other. The confidence that this crude replica would fool anyone waned when sun was held to the stars. It would have been better if there had been more time to find a master artificer. The only solution, of course, was to hide the sun so that only the stars remained. Indeed, confidence rose as he wrapped the originals so that the copies glittered in their own right.
The quick work slowed as he set the fakes in place and worked at reattaching the thread. Pinch doubted his place in the pantheon of thieves would be assured if he were blasted trying to reset a trap. More than likely Mask would deny him the comforting rest of shadows for such bungling.
It was a point of theology that blessedly remained unanswered. The thread was reattached and the job done. His work accomplished, the rogue's hands trembled again as the tension drained away.
With a light, almost joyous step, Pinch spanned the concealed gap, taking a mind to keep well away from the suspicious hanging Maeve's scroll had detected. Regretting the loss of his fine tools, Pinch gathered up what little gear remained, unbound a slender rope from his waist, and prepared to leave. He'd slide to the ground, feed back the rope and be gone without a trace of having ever been there to start with.
The sharp nip of a dagger point into the small of his back killed Pinch's jaunty mood.
"Please give me cause to thrust this home, Master Janol," whispered a voice at his back. It was a deep voice, familiar and cold, luxurious with the ripeness of cruelty. It was a voice filled with the resonance of a massive chest and strong lungs.
"Iron-Biter…"
"Chancel Master Iron-Biter of the Red Priests, Janol-or should I call you Pinch like your friend did before I stuck him?" The dagger pricked sharper into his skin in response to the contraction in Pinch's muscles at hearing the news. "Hold steady, thief. This is a dagger of venom at your back. All it takes is one prick, and then do you know what will happen?"
"I thought priests were above poisoning."
"The temple does what it must. Now give up the Cup and Knife. Just remember, one trick and you're dead. The venom on this blade is particularly nasty. It'll be a long, painful death for you."
Pinch very carefully nodded his understanding. Iron-Biter's expertly applied pressure kept the blade a hairs-breadth from piercing the skin. He reached into the pouch and very carefully removed the Knife. He offered this behind him, handle first. The rogue was not about to do anything to aggravate the dwarf.
"Perhaps we can come to an understanding…"
The dwarf hissed like angry steam. "Unlike some, I am loyal to my temple-"
"And to Prince Vargo. That's who you're doing this for, isn't it. You just didn't happen to be wandering through the garden in the dark."
The dwarf plucked the dagger from Pinch's grasp. "The prince is the rightful ruler of Ankhapur. We won't let Cleedis's little games change that."
"We-or just you? What has Vargo promised you?"
"The Cup. Give me the Cup!"
"Why? You'll kill me if I do."
"I'll kill you if you don't give it to me. If you do, I'll let you live."
"Why?"
"It would be better if no one asked questions about your disappearance."
"And what if I talk?"
There was a sharp laugh behind him. "I know what you are now, Pinch. Suppose the entire city knew."
The regulator paled. Exposure-it was the most fearsome threat any rogue could ever face. To be named and branded a thief was as good as death and worse still. Brokers would avoid him, marks grow wary in his presence. Old partners would frame him for their jobs, and the constables would pressure him to spill what he knew. He'd seen it happen before, even used the knowledge against his rivals. He'd reveled in how they had squirmed helplessly on the hook. It led them to penury, drink, and even suicide-and it could do the same to him.
There was no choice in it, Pinch grimly knew. With hateful reluctance he passed over the Cup. It was snatched from his fingers.
"Turn around," the dwarf ordered.
As Pinch did, he understood now how a dwarf of no skill and monumental size had managed the catch. It was not right to say he came face-to-face with his captor, for where the dwarf should have been was nothing, just empty air. The only signs of any presence were the Cup and Knife half-visible in the folds of an invisible cloak.
"God's cursed spells!" Pinch hated the way they upset his plans.
The air chuckled. "With them I can move quieter and more unseen than you'll ever hope to, scoundrel. Now, to the wall." A poke with the dagger indicated the direction Pinch was supposed to move-toward the trapped arras.
"You said you wouldn't kill me."
"I need to make sure you won't trouble me while I put things right. Move."
Pinch took a hesitant step and, when nothing happened, the dagger urged him forward again. The thief's mind was racing with desperate plots. Could he fight an invisible foe? What there any chance he could lure the dwarf into the trap instead of himself, or even get the little priest to take one step too close to the maggot-infested pit below?
With one more step, it all became futile speculation. Barely had he moved forward under the poisonous blade's urging than the arras that had hung so thick and limp on the wall suddenly writhed with inanimate life. The tassels at the top, draped over the iron hanging rod, released like little hands and lunged forward in an eager embrace. The thick cloth wound tightly around him, hugging him in its grip like the wrappings of a corpse. The speed and the strength of it spun Pinch to the floor and left him gasping and choking as the rug tried to crush the cage of bones around his heart.
Pinch fought it as best he could, writhing like a worm to brace against the pressure and steal enough air to prevent suffocation. At the same time he had to be mindful of the floor, lest he wriggle himself over the concealed lip and into the fetid pit below. Iron-Biter's dark laugh showed the dwarf's sympathy for his struggles.
At the limit of Pinch's attention, the air shimmered and a swirl of form emerged from nothing, like a curtain parting in space to reveal another world. From the play of folds and fabric, it was clear the dwarf's invisibility came from a magical cloak that he now neatly folded and stowed away. Ignoring Pinch's mortal struggle, the priest carefully spanned the gap to the shelf, barely able to cross with his short legs. There he made a few passes over Pinch's fakes and then casually replaced them with the good
s the rogue had handed over. The dwarf studied the frauds for a moment and then casually tossed them through the insubstantial floor.
By the time Iron-Biter leapt back to Pinch's side of the concealed pit, the rogue could feel his ribs creak, crushed to the limit of their bearing. "I… die," he struggled to say with the last air in his lungs, "there will be… questions."
Iron-Biter looked down, his beard bristling as his lips curled in a broad smile. "You are a fool, Janol, Pinch, or whomever. No one at this court cares about you. Your disappearance will ease their worries. You were never missed and never wanted here."
With that, the dwarf seized the edge of the arras and spun Pinch to the edge of the pit. "Let the worms have you!" and with a single, twisted syllable, the rug suddenly released its hold and Pinch rolled through the floor and into the darkness.
15
Morninglord's Blessing
Released from the carpet's brocade embrace, Pinch fell into the fetid darkness. In the absence of light and form, only his heartbeat set the length of his fall. In the two beats it took to hit bottom, Pinch's thoughts were a dichotomy of the disquieting certainty of absolute death and the black pleasure of malevolent joy. Doom acquired a dark humor.
I'm going to die as maggot food. Not the best of epitaphs-but at least nobody will know.
Pinch smashed into the squirming mass, writhing in eager expectation of his arrival as if the blind, pulpy white worms could sense his coming. It was like landing in a bed of eggs, although eggs don't wriggle and scrape underfoot. They were a deeper churning sea of corruption than expected, and Pinch's body crashed into them like a rock hurled into the waves, splattering the maggots against the tower walls
Nonetheless, there was solid rock below, and though his plunge was slowed by the greasy, hungry mash, Pinch cracked the bottom with a brutal blow. Ribs aching, wind gone, bleeding from his scalp, the rogue lay dazed in the center of an ichor-stained crater of grublike life.