The Shadowmage Trilogy (Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Books)

by Matthew Sprange

  The Council considered that, and Lucius saw a few heads nodding round the table as Magnus’ reasoning became apparent.

  “More important is what happens after the initial greetings,” he said. “I confess, I am not entirely sure what the Guild will be after, nor how aggressively they will negotiate. They must be willing to consider compromises, or we would not have been able to arrange this meeting. However, we must be ready to cede ground if it first gains us territory elsewhere and, second, ensures peace between us. I will not have war among thieves, not while I am guildmaster.”

  Conversation then turned to the operations and territories the Council wanted to keep and which they might consider for trade. As they spoke, Lucius’ head began to swim with information; he had had no idea of the complexity or number of the operations the Hands had an interest in. There was far more than just theft at stake.

  The growing prostitute rings were clearly an important element for some of the Council, for while new to the Hands and still small, they showed much promise. They fought against the advocates of smugglers and blackmailers. Lucius learned of a city-wide counterfeit ring that traded in false documents, coin and art. It was confirmed that the Hands did indeed have a burgeoning trade in assassinations, whose franchise owners were considered among the most skilled in all the guild. As well as the pickpockets, protection rackets and general burglaries, the Council spoke of narcotics from the Sarcre Islands, trade of arcane artefacts from ruins in the darkest parts of the Sardenne, and an underground network that could spirit Pontaine agents to and from Turnitia throughout the year.

  Lucius began to wonder just how wealthy the Night Hands were, when all their operations were stacked up and accounted for. He thought of the vaults built into the foundations of the guildhouse, and thought of how they must be nearly overflowing with coin and valuables. Not for the first time, he could see the organisation he had chosen to join as a whole, that it was not simply a gathering of those who worked outside the law, but a business, run as tightly and efficiently as that of the richest merchants. Fundamentally, it was all about the money.

  A short thief poked his head round the open door of the meeting room. “They’re here,” he said, before ducking back out of sight.

  The mood in the room changed immediately. Council members sat straighter in their seats, while Magnus’ bodyguards, Taene and Narsell, shifted their weight ever so slightly, moving their hands a fraction of an inch along their belts to where their blades lay. For his part, Lucius folded his arms and squared his shoulders as he waited for the Guild’s delegation to arrive.

  They heard quiet voices talking amiably from down the hall, accompanied by footsteps. Everyone in the meeting room seemed to draw in breath at the same time as Caradoc appeared at the door, standing to one side as he politely waved his guests through.

  Though Lucius had never seen the leader of the Guild of Coin and Enterprise before, he recognised the man immediately by his bearing and demeanour. He looked exactly like a guildmaster should.

  So did Magnus, of course, but Lucius had always seen him as a natural guildmaster because of his authority, leadership and wisdom, all of which became apparent after talking to him for just a few minutes. Loredo Foss was different in just about every way. Lithe and graceful, he was dressed in a black leather jerkin lined with dark red thread. His hair was black and slicked back, while his beard was small and pointed, barely covering his chin. This man was a natural guildmaster, Lucius thought, because he was a master thief, among the very best in his game. That would make him a very dangerous enemy, and Lucius began to appreciate some of the risks Magnus had accepted in opposing himself to the Guild.

  Loredo was followed only by one other, which was a statement in itself, considering they had entered the lair of their enemy. It was Caradoc’s counterpart, Loredo’s own lieutenant and trusted confidante, a woman Lucius had heard of but had never seen.

  She stalked into the meeting room behind her guildmaster as if she were the leader of all thieves, not he. Her boots, whose hard leather clattered on the floor of the meeting room, ran past her knees, and Lucius could not help but think of all the weapons that might be hidden within them, even though they had been told to divest themselves of any offensive items before entering the guildhouse.

  Named Jewel, she had a reputation among the Hands for being utterly lethal, for it was rumoured she was more assassin than thief. Her narrow eyes regarded everyone suspiciously and though she was not at all unattractive, the hardness of her features, which promised quick and silent retribution to anyone who would cross her, seemed to sap any desire.

  It was a brave move bringing only one bodyguard to a meeting between thieves of this level, but Lucius thought that, between them, Loredo and Jewel might account for many Hands before they were slain, should the summit take an ill turn.

  Magnus stood up to greet his guests, and the action was quickly copied among the rest of the seated Council.

  “Loredo, Miss Jewel,” he acknowledged as he extended a hand across the table. “I bid you a warm welcome to our humble home, and hope your journey here will prove a fruitful one.”

  Accepting Magnus’ hand with a firm shake and brief nod, Loredo replied. “You show great wisdom in calling this meeting, Magnus. I, too, hope for an outcome beneficial to the both of us.”

  The Council returned to their seats as Loredo sat down, followed by Jewel. The woman said nothing but eyed each of the Hands methodically, as if judging the threat they might pose to her master. As her eyes swept over Lucius, he drew an involuntary breath, and fought to keep his own gaze even. He had the unlikely notion that Jewel had just given him a number that placed him in the order of people in the room she would like to kill.

  As Caradoc joined Magnus’ side, the guildmaster remained standing as he took a wine urn and poured four cups. He placed the cups in a row and looked across at Loredo, who smiled. He selected two and passed one to Jewel. Magnus scooped up one of the cups that had been left and drained it, before setting it back on the table with a loud clack. Caradoc followed suit, before reaching for the urn once more and refilling Magnus’ cup, then his own.

  “I thank you for that show of honesty, Magnus,” Loredo said. “But I would think that if you wanted me dead, you would not stoop to poison, nor would you go to the trouble of arranging this meeting.”

  “Merely demonstrating my willingness to be open here,” Magnus said, as he watched Loredo take a sip from his cup. Jewel’s cup remained untouched on the table before her.

  The two guildmasters regarded one another briefly before Magnus spoke again. “Loredo, you and I have a problem. I run a guild of thieves, and have an interest in making money. You run a guild of thieves and have an interest in making money. Of late, these interests have clashed too many times. If we allow this to escalate, we risk a war that could destroy both of us.”

  “I have no interest in a thieves’ war,” Loredo said. “It would prove messy and bring the Vos guard crashing down on us. If you have an easy solution, I would gladly hear it.”

  “We could perhaps divide the city in two,” Magnus said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “We could take the west while you have the east, or perhaps we control the north while you take the south.”

  “Giving you, in the first instance, the docks, and in the second, the Five Markets,” Loredo said.

  “As we can all see, there is no easy solution,” Magnus concluded, and Loredo nodded once in agreement.

  “I suggest we make the division based on territory and trade,” Magnus said. “If we give something up, you make a concession in return. We will ensure there is parity between us, and that every one of our members understands there are some areas they simply do not work in.”

  “That, I feel, would be the most equitable solution,” Loredo said. “So, where would you begin?”

  “Let us start with the disputed territories that have led us here. The Street of Dogs and the Five Markets.”

  For the first hour, Lucius
listened with rapt attention as the two guildmasters spoke, proposing and counter-proposing over and again, as they vied for each advantage. Never once was a voice raised in anger, but each retained a hard edge that served to rein the other in when a demand grew too insistent. After the second and third hours, Lucius’ legs began to grow numb, and he noticed others shifting their weight or fidgeting.

  Magnus made a point of asking various members of his Council or one of the senior thieves to clarify a point, to list earnings over a given period, or give a rundown on recent activities. By contrast, Loredo never asked Jewel for anything, and he seemed to have the uncanny knack for knowing exactly what Magnus was talking about, citing figures and statistics without fail.

  Lucius was startled when Magnus asked him a question, briefly wanting to know the average takings for the pickpocket team that had been slain by the Guild. Lucius answered automatically, but he found his mind drifting back to the brother and sister team he had known, Markel and Treal, and the brutal way in which they had died. It was so very hard not to regard the two thieves on either side of the table as mortal enemies, and yet the meeting was being conducted with both respect and courtesy. He began to wonder if it had been Jewel who had sanctioned the murders, or even had performed the act herself; she seemed just the sort of woman who could cold-bloodedly kill a child.

  Throughout the meeting, Jewel only spoke once, while Magnus had been proposing an exchange of trades. The pickpockets in the Five Markets had been placed on the table, and they were considered a valuable operation; while they generated comparatively little money, whoever held the children of the pick-pocketing teams would have a ready source of new blood for recruitment as thieves proper. Loredo was proving intractable over the Hands’ control over the Five Markets, and so Magnus raised the possibility of allowing the Guild to take the pickpockets, if in return the Hands could claim complete dominance over all assassinations in the city.

  “No.” Jewel only said the one word, and when she spoke it was as if ice had been dashed in the faces of the Council. Loredo, ignoring the effects of her input, went on to say that assassinations were a specialised field that had highly specialised agents. The idea of one guild holding them all was simply not feasible.

  As hours four and five went by, it seemed as though a little progress was being made, but the guildmasters still proved relentless, neither wishing to show weakness by calling for a break in the meeting first.

  Assassinations, it was decided, would be regarded as being outside of the discussion, with a view to perhaps creating a separate assassins’ guild in the future. Magnus was able to retain control of the Five Markets, in part because he allowed the Guild free use of his smuggling routes.

  An argument brewed between Caradoc and Loredo as the matter of compensation for the deaths of those who had been involved in the earlier ‘skirmishes’, as they were euphemistically called, between the guilds. Loredo had demanded the princely sum of a thousand gold coin for the death of his Street of Dogs man, which would be an extortionate amount for a rich merchant’s ransom. When the subject of the murdered children was raised by Caradoc, Loredo flatly denied any compensation, reminding him that the earning potential of one so young was negligible. Seeing his lieutenant clearly struggling with his temper, Magnus stepped in before voices were raised, announcing that he would not only relinquish any interest in compensation for the pickpockets, but that he would agree to the thousand gold blood price for Loredo’s man – but he also made sure the Street of Dogs came down firmly in the Hands’ territory because of this.

  Scams in the merchant quarter went to the Guild, while the Hands retained the docks. This was an arrangement that suited neither guildmaster well, but both realised something valuable would have to be sacrificed in the meeting. Lucius, for his part, was happy at this decision, for he had been planning his own operation in the docks, and was now favouring it over his plans for the raid on the church of the Final Faith; bothering religious fanatics could prove distinctly unhealthy, he had eventually decided, and he doubted the priests would go anywhere soon, whereas the ship he had been watching was scheduled to depart later in the week.

  After seven hours, a weary Council stood as the guildmasters shook hands and toasted one another’s success. An accord had been reached. There would be no war among the thieves.

  THE FOLLOWING DAYS seemed almost like an anti-climax to Lucius, and he formed the impression that many others among the Hands felt the same. The common room was filled with complaints from those who’d had their franchises pulled, the operations now passing to the Guild of Coin and Enterprise, but there was an equal amount of relief, felt in the quiet conversations of others. Everyone had been expecting the worst, with strangled or stabbed bodies strewn throughout the alleyways of Turnitia. Instead, there had been nothing. If anything, business was picking up.

  Those who had been present at the meeting between guildmasters had been forbidden to speak of what they had seen and heard, for Magnus wanted the changes to the Hands’ operations to come from him alone, speaking to each franchise holder in turn and informing them of whether they still had a regular source of income or not. It was not until two days later that Lucius had the chance to discuss the meeting, and that was with Magnus himself.

  He had literally run into the guildmaster as he was leaving the training chamber, wiping the sweat from his face with a ragged cloth.

  “Ah, Lucius, my boy,” Magnus greeted him. Once he realised who was talking to him, Lucius threw the cloth back into the chamber and smiled hesitantly.

  “Magnus,” he acknowledged with a nod.

  “Preparing for your first operation? You are going into action this week, are you not?”

  “Tomorrow, all going well,” Lucius said. “Still need to find a few more volunteers though.”

  “You’ll get them. Many may not sign on until the last minute, but I think enough trust you now.” He gestured up the corridor. “Come, walk with me for a moment.”

  The request caught Lucius off guard, and he had to stride quickly to catch up with Magnus.

  “You opted for the docks in the end, then?” Magnus asked.

  “Yes. I had a plan for the church of the Faith, but there were a few impracticalities.”

  “Indeed. The priesthood would have been straight on to the Vos guard, demanding the entire city be closed down and every thief hung from the cliffs. If you had not scrapped the mission yourself, the Council might have been forced to step in. You demonstrate both ambition and good judgement, two qualities that do not always go hand-in-hand among thieves.”

  Not knowing quite what to say, Lucius just nodded. He had walked with Magnus past the meeting room, and he glanced into the open door to see if any of the Council were present, but it was empty. Magnus began asking about his training, and Lucius did not realise where they were headed until the guildmaster halted outside a plain wooden door and produced a key. Behind the door was a small flight of stairs, spiralling upwards. With a wave of the hand, Lucius was ushered up, but he hesitated.

  Though he had not been in this part of the guildhouse before, it was fairly common knowledge that Magnus kept his own set of chambers on the highest floor. Few were invited into his personal living space, and Lucius wondered why he was being accorded the honour.

  “Come along, boy,” Magnus prompted. “I have much to do – a guild does not just run itself!”

  With Magnus close behind, Lucius ascended the stairs as they rose in a tight spiral.

  They emerged into a small study, spartan in appearance with few nods to luxury. A desk lay below a single skylight, strewn with papers, maps and a single oil lantern. A leather-bound chair sat behind it, while in front were three austere wooden seats, of the sort that might be expected in a commoner’s kitchen. These were the only items of furniture in the study, and all rested on a tired-looking threadbare rug. Two doors faced one another to Lucius’ left and right, and a quick glance told him they were both very thick, with intricate locks holdi
ng them fast.

  Magnus manoeuvred himself behind the desk and nodded to Lucius to take a chair while he sat. Leaning back casually, Magnus released a sigh, as if happy to have come to the study, and he leaned back in his chair, legs straight out, hands steepled across his stomach.

  “As you can see,” Magnus said, indicating the piled papers on his desk with a wave, “the business of the Hands is never ending. There is always something!”

  Not knowing why he was here or what he was expected to say, Lucius just smiled as if he understood just how much work Magnus was required to handle. In truth, he had little idea.

  “It is the Allantian Voyager that you are planning to strike, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Lucius said. “One of the dockmasters told Elaine that it was taking on silk from Pontaine. When she heard I was scouting out the docks, she suggested I run the operation.”

  “And her take?”

  “Twenty per cent of the gross.”

  Magnus pursed his lips. “That could be a lot, considering she is taking none of the risks.”

  “It is my first job, so I thought it fair,” Lucius shrugged. “And if I do well on this haul, she will be all the more ready to let me know when the next valuable cargo comes in. I have to pay my dues first, after all.”

  “You do,” Magnus said, smiling. “You seem to be learning the franchise system well, though I would be concerned that there may not be much left for yourself, after you have shared out the profits among everyone you gather to help you – those silks will need a lot of manpower, and any fence is likely to charge a large commission on such a sizeable haul.”

  “I thought about that. If I am generous on the first job, recruitment for my second will not be so hard.”

  “But your next volunteers may become greedy.”

  “I’ll always be up front about payment. Everyone will know where they stand.”

  “That is well. I think you are beginning to understand, Lucius, that when working alongside those who thieve and swindle for a living, the only guarantee one has is mutual self-interest.”