Slavery was illegal in the United States. Or, at least, it was illegal for humans to own slaves. Elves, on the other hand, could own as many slaves as they wanted. Sometimes people were flogged or beaten on Punishment Day, the videos uploaded to the Internet…and sometimes they were levied massive fines, and when unable to pay the fines, sold into slavery to Elven nobles or commoners.
See, I have a lot of problems, but looking at the slaves reminded me that it could be worse. Morvilind was a hard master, but he let me have twisted form of freedom, albeit so I could become stronger and therefore more useful to him. He had kept his word so far, casting Russell’s cure spells every year in July.
Our lives could have been worse. We could have been wearing orange and serving food to Lord Castomyr’s guests.
But looking at the slaves, looking at how the guests ignored the slaves, I understood why the Rebels hated the Elves so much.
On the other hand, the Rebels would have murdered all those slaves to get at Castomyr, claiming it was for the greater good.
I rebuked myself. I could stand around bemoaning the cruelty of the world…or I could get to work and make sure my life and Russell’s life didn’t get any worse.
So I headed for the bathroom. Considering the amount of alcohol that got consumed at these kinds of banquets, it was just as well that the banquet halls had four restrooms – two for the men, and two for the women. I headed into the nearest women’s room and glanced around. Two of the stalls were occupied, so I set my purse on the counter and made a show of checking my makeup until the occupants left the bathroom.
One of them didn’t wash her hands. Disgusting.
As soon as she was gone, I hurried over to the waste bin, lifted up the garbage bag, and picked up the OUT OF ORDER sign I had hidden there earlier. I slipped the door open, hung the sign from the handle, and closed it. It wouldn’t take long for someone on Castomyr’s maintenance staff to investigate, but I would have a few minutes.
I hurried to the stall nearest to the window, climbed onto the toilet seat, and reached into the ventilation duct.
The duffel bag I had taped to the inside of the vent was still there.
I yanked it down, unzipped it, and changed clothes. I kicked off my shoes and pulled on a pair of cargo pants beneath my dress, the pockets already loaded with useful tools. Admittedly, cargo pants under a formal dress was an odd look, but I had used the trick before and it saved me the time of putting on a new shirt. After that I donned warm socks and black tennis shoes, and shrugged on a black athletic jacket over my dress, then a set of black gloves. I zipped the jacket up, pulled on a black stocking cap and a black mask that covered my face except for my eyes (in case of security cameras), and stuffed my high heels and purse into the duffel bag alongside my other tools. I pulled out the straps of the duffel bag, turning it into an impromptu backpack, and left the stall.
Windows of frosted glass dotted the wall between the stalls and the sinks, clear enough to admit sunlight but frosted enough to discourage peeping perverts. (The flogging of voyeurs was always a popular hit among Punishment Day videos.) The windows were locked, but I had broken one the locks earlier, and I swung a window open, vaulted over the sill, and landed in the cold November night, the gravel of a dead flowerbed crunching beneath my shoes.
The entire thing took less than seventy seconds.
I took a quick look around. I was in the gardens on the eastern side of the house, the side that faced the rest of Wisconsin rather than the Mississippi River. The mansion was far enough from La Crosse proper that I saw nothing but darkened hills to the east, save for the occasional patch of light here and there. All of the guests had come through the western doors, likely because Castomyr wanted to show off his view of La Crosse and the river.
Yet for the moment, this side of the mansion was deserted, and I was unobserved. I was also out of the security cameras’ line of sight.
I took a deep breath, summoned power, and cast a spell.
Magic leaks constantly into our world from the Shadowlands, the hazy, nightmarish realm between the worlds. Morvilind’s training had taught me how to capture and shape that power, and my skill had improved through practice. This spell was straightforward and uncomplicated, but it took a lot of power, and I couldn’t maintain it for a long period of time.
I focused my will and floated off the ground, the spell of levitation lifting me from the frozen flower bed. I rose past the bathroom windows, past the second floor, higher and higher, until I came to the mansion’s top floor, a good fifty feet above the ground. I was careful not to look down. The levitation spell took a great deal of concentration, and if I broke that concentration, I would splatter myself all over Lord Castomyr’s gardens.
The windows on the top floor were latched, but they were neither locked nor equipped with alarms. Evidently Castomyr’s security people figured that no one would levitate up to the window, but in fairness to them, thieves with my abilities were rather rare. Still holding the levitation spell in place, I produced a folding knife, opened it, and popped the latch on the window. It tilted up at a forty-five degree angle, and I slipped through, rolling into a darkened room, a heavy carpet beneath my shoes.
I closed the window behind me, returned my knife to its pocket, and looked around.
I found myself in an ornate sitting room laid out in the Elven style. The walls had been covered in ornate wooden panels carved with Elven hieroglyphs, the wood polished to a gentle glow. All the low chairs and tables had been painted with black lacquer and adorned with golden highlights, and the chairs had cushions of white silk that did not look particularly comfortable. A pair of ornate glass lanterns hung from the ceiling, paneled in red and green glass, though they had been wired for electricity. The whole room reminded me of Morvilind’s mansion, though somewhat less harsh. Perhaps Castomyr lived with an Elven woman who had a taste for gentler décor, though I couldn’t imagine Morvilind burdening himself with anything as inefficient as companionship.
A sliding wooden door stood in the far wall, and from behind it I heard the faint sound of voices in conversation. I had expected this, but a cold trickle of alarm went down my spine anyway. I knew Castomyr lived with other Elves, both his vassals and various Elven commoners sworn to him. I didn’t have all that much experience with Elven commoners. The Elven nobles lived among the humans they ruled, but the Elven commoners kept to themselves, living in cities constructed after the Conquest where the only humans allowed were slaves. Yet all Elves had some magical ability, even the commoners. They took to it more naturally than humans did, which meant that if I cast any spells, there was a chance the Elves in the next room might sense it.
Fortunately, I didn’t think I needed to cast any spells.
I crossed the room in silence and knelt next to the wall. After a moment’s work one of the wooden panels came loose, revealing the crawlspace between the top floor and the one below it. I squeezed inside, pulling the panel closed behind me. A moment’s fumbling, and I pulled a small LED flashlight from my pocket and flicked it on, revealing the dusty gloom of the crawlspace. Pipes and bundles of wires crisscrossed the space, along with several rattling metal ducts connected to the mansion’s HVAC system.
It is annoying to be short, but it did have occasional advantages. Riordan wouldn’t have been able to fit down here, but I could. I had gotten a look at the mansion’s blueprints while working with the cleaning crew, and I knew this crawlspace would take me right to Castomyr’s personal quarters.
I crawled forward, making sure to keep the flashlight on its lowest setting, my ears straining for any sign that I had been discovered. In some ways the mansion’s security wasn’t set up to deal with someone like me. Castomyr had built his mansion as a fortress, likely to repel an Archon attack. Perhaps the thought of a magic-using human thief had never crossed his mind.
Foot by foot I crawled forward. At last I came to the section of the crawlspace I wanted, and I squeezed upwards into the gap between two walls.
There was another access panel there, and I listened for a moment, peering through the cracks. I heard nothing, and no light leaked through the cracks. I didn’t think anyone was in the room beyond, but there was no way of knowing until I opened the panel.
After a deep breath, I gently eased the panel open, the wood scraping against a thick carpet. The room beyond was dark, the lights off, and I let out a relieved sigh. This room was Castomyr’s library, and I feared that some of his vassals might have retreated here for peace and quiet or to enjoy a tryst. I swept my LED flashlight across the large room, the light glinting on the expensive wooden furniture and the spines of the books upon the shelves, their leather covers marked with Elven hieroglyphics.
The library was deserted.
I crawled out of the wall, taking care to keep as much dust as possible from getting on the carpet, and put the access panel in place. Once I stole the tablet, the Inquisition would go over this place with a magnifying glass.
By then, I planned to be back in Milwaukee.
I crossed the library, my shoes making no noise against the thick carpet, and stopped before the door to the vault.
It was an impressive door. It was built from a massive slab of steel, set in a reinforced frame, and I knew that the surrounding wall was thicker and stronger as well. Three separate locks held the door closed, and an alarm unit rested in the frame. Anyone attempting to open the vault door without possessing the proper keys would set off the alarm, and no doubt Castomyr’s men-at-arms would swarm the library in short order.
Fortunately, when I had been working with the cleaning crew, I had vacuumed and dusted Castomyr’s library several times, which let me observe the vault door, and more importantly, memorize the door’s serial number. A little research through an anonymized Internet connection let me find the company that had manufactured the door, along with the standard blueprint. So I had come prepared.
At least, I hoped that I had come prepared. I would find out in another five minutes or so.
I set to work. I pulled a little electronic device about the size of my palm from the duffel bag, and I wired the alarm circuit into it. If the device worked, it would feed the alarm circuit into itself, tricking the alarm into thinking that the door remained closed. I powered up the device, took a deep breath, and cut the alarm circuit.
Nothing happened. The little LEDs on the device remained green. The alarm circuit had not activated.
One obstacle down.
I reached into my duffle bag, drew out a leather bundle, and unrolled it, revealing rows of oiled lock picks and related tools. I pried off the metal access panel on the front of the vault door and started working, tracing out the gears and the tumblers. Fortunately, the vault door was entirely mechanical, with no electronic components other than the alarm. That meant I couldn’t hack the door, but it also meant I could open it with physical tools.
Step by step I worked, probing the tumblers, releasing gears, and easing the bolts back. It was chilly in the library, but sweat started to drip between my shoulders as I concentrated. I could have used magic on the locks, but I suspected Castomyr had a warding spell on his vault, and using magic on the vault door would draw his instant and lethal attention.
So I did it the old-fashioned way.
After about fifty minutes of work, I released the last lock upon the vault, and the bolts slid back with a loud clank. I took a deep breath, blinked the sweat from my eyes, grasped the handle, and pulled the door open. I just had to get the tablet, and then I could retreat and get the hell out of La Crosse.
The vault beyond looked less like a bank vault and more like an expensive museum. It was a large room, at least as large as the library, with a floor of polished wood and walls covered in more of those wooden panels with Elven hieroglyphics, likely to conceal the reinforced concrete and steel of the vault. Niches lined the walls, and in the walls rested various relics – swords and helmets and breastplates, or rings and gems and other valuables. Pedestals stood around the room, bathed in tasteful recessed ceiling lights. Various other objects rested upon the pedestals, daggers and statuettes and other relics.
To judge from the tattered banners hanging upon the walls, banners adorned with orcish and dwarven and frost giant script, it was likely Castomyr’s trophy room. I took a quick glance around as I stepped forward, but I didn’t see any security cameras. If Castomyr liked to collect the relics of the Dark Ones, or even if he trafficked in stolen artworks, he wouldn’t want a video recording of his misdeeds. My eyes fell upon one of the pedestals. It supported a stone tablet about the size of my hand, arranged on a black pillow, its surface carved with cuneiform symbols. It was the tablet that Morvilind wanted, and it looked identical to the one I had stolen from Paul McCade back in July. As far as I could tell, there were no mechanical or electronic traps or alarms upon the pedestal, but there were other kinds of traps.
I lifted my hand and summoned magic, forcing it through the rigid patterns of thought, and cast a spell.
I wasn’t particularly skilled at the spell, but it worked nonetheless, and I cast the spell to sense the presence of magic. At once a barrage of sensations threatened to overwhelm me, and I fought to concentrate on them. There was a spell around this entire room, one I had never encountered before, but I suspected it blocked arcane observation. Many of the objects in the room had been enchanted, some with potent spells.
And dark magic radiated from the tablet.
Magic is a force, kind of like gravity, but unlike gravity not all magic is neutral. Magic radiates into our world from the Shadowlands, and there are several different types. Most of it is just energy, like radiation, and you can use radiation for good things, like medicine and power plants, or bad things, like nuclear bombs. Magic is no different. Most of the magic that radiates from the Shadowlands is just raw power. But some of it is actively malicious. Necromancy was one such type of dark magic, and blood magic another, and the High Queen forbade their practice by both Elves and humans.
The magic of the Dark Ones was another type of dark magic, and the tablet was saturated with it.
I shuddered with revulsion, releasing my sensing spell. The dark magic wrapped around the tablet felt tainted, as if I had just thrust my hand into an open sewer. I didn’t know why Morvilind wanted the damned thing, and I didn’t want to know.
But with the revulsion, there was a flicker of fascination.
Because the dark magic was strong, and I liked power. More to the point, I needed power. My magic and my brains were the only reason that I was still alive. They were the only reason that Russell was still alive. Russell had six more cure spells before the frostfever was purged from his system, and once that was done, I strongly suspected Morvilind planned to kill us both. If I wanted to stop that, if I wanted to be free of him, then I needed more power.
A lot more power.
Maybe the Dark Ones had that kind of power…
A wave of self-loathing went through me. I’m not a good person, but I had met worse. The Rebels were allied with the Dark Ones, and I remembered the dead women and children I had seen at the Ducal Mall and in Madison after the Rebel attacks there. I remembered the anthrophages hunting me through Grayhold as I fled for my life, desperate and terrified. I still had to cast a warding spell every morning to keep the anthrophages from finding me. If using the kind of power that the tablet offered meant I would become a monster like Sergei Rogomil, I would pass, thanks.
But dark magic or not, there were no traps on the tablet, so all I had to do was to pick it up and walk out of the mansion.
I took a step towards the pedestal, and then it all went to hell.
“Good evening again, Miss Rastov!”
I almost jumped out of my skin.
Armand Boccand strolled out from behind one of the pedestals, his shoes tapping against the polished wooden floor.
I gaped at him, my brain frozen as it tried to process a dozen different things at once. How the hell had he gotten in here? Had he been wait
ing within the vault? Had he followed me? Impossible. There was no way those dress shoes were stealthy, and if he had been using a spell to hide himself I would have sensed it a moment ago. Did that mean he had another way into the vault? If he did, that meant he was one of Lord Castomyr’s security men. Or a Homeland Security agent. Or an agent of the Inquisition…
“It’s just as well,” said Boccand, “that we are in Minnesota in winter. Else a mosquito would have flown into your open mouth by now.”
I closed my mouth, watching him and wishing I had thought to bring a gun. That said, I didn’t need a gun to kill. Riordan had taught me a spell to conjure a globe of lightning, and if that globe hit Boccand in the chest it would stop his heart. I started to gather power, preparing myself to work a spell.
“What do you want?” I said.
“Ooh,” said Boccand. He spun around, the tails of his long coat flaring around him, and I tensed, preparing my spell. His spin was the sort of maneuver that was perfect for concealing the draw of a weapon, but when he finished turning he held his silver pocket watch in his right hand, still connected to his vest by its chain. It was a big watch, nearly five inches across, and I caught sight of several smaller dials upon its face. “Now that is surprising.”
“What?” I said.
“You’re a magic user,” said Boccand, squinting at his watch. He clapped it shut and tucked it away into his pocket. “Stronger than you ought to be at your age. That means you’re somebody’s shadow agent. I haven’t seen someone like you in ages, dear!”
“Who are you?” I said.
“I suspect,” said Boccand, leaning against the pedestal holding the tablet, “that I’m someone a great deal like you.”
“And who am I?” I said, trying to figure out what the hell he intended to do.
Cloak Games: Shadow Jump Page 4