Swan's Braid and Other Tales of Terizan
Page 4
Tribune Two's pale eyes narrowed and thin lips opened to make a protest. A sharp gesture from One closed them again.
"Very well. As you don't seem to approve of this job..."
Terizan winced, realizing that the Tribune's choice of words had not been accidental and reflecting that she really had to learn to keep her opinions to herself.
"...you may go."
A little surprised it had been that easy, Terizan bowed gratefully. She had her fingers around the heavy iron latch that secured the door to the Sanctum when One added, "Send in Balzador, would you?"
"Balzador?" She whirled around and swept an incredulous glance over the three tribunes who ran the Thieves' Guild. "You're going to send Balzador to steal the Eye? Tere's no way he's up to something like that."
"Then who is?" One asked, steepling long, ringless fingers and examining Terizan over the apex. "If you are unwilling, who do you suggest we send to the Temple of Keydi-azda in your place?"
Who indeed? Mere days before she'd joined the guild, Terizan had found herself on a narrow ledge that lead nowhere. To go back meant almost certain discovery and her head adorning a spike in the Crescent. To go on meant trusting her weight to an ancient frieze of fruiting vines carved into the side of the building. That feeling of having no choice but a bad one was remarkably similar to what she felt now.
The only sound in the Sanctum was the quiet rustle of fabric as Three shifted his bulk into a more comfortable position. Even the lamps seemed to have stopped flickering while they waited for her reply.
Either she became responsible for the thief they sent, or they sent Balzador, who didn't stand a chance.
Terizan lived again through the moment when the carving crumbled under her foot and she plummeted two stories down, only luck keeping her from finishing the fall as a crippled beggar.
The guild took care of their own, but at a price.
"You've already accepted the contract?" she said at last.
"We have."
"To steal the Eye of Keydi-azda?"
"Yes."
"I'm going to need more information than that."
Three picked up a narrow scroll from among the junk piled high in front of him and began unrolling it. "We assumed as much."
"You assumed rather a lot," Terizan muttered sinking cross-legged down onto a stack of recently acquired carpets.
One smiled, her austere expression growing no warmer. "Yes," she said. "But then, we can."
***
Terizan walked slowly down the Street of Prayers, grinding her teeth. She hated being backed into a corner and she really hated the smug, self-satisfied way Tribune One had done it. When an orange-robed follower of Hezzna stepped into her path and tried to hand her a drooping palm frond, she glared up at the veiled face and growled, "I wouldn't."
Behind the orange haze, the kohled edges of the acolyte's eyes widened. Holding the frond between them like a flaccid green sword, he stepped back out of her way.
Feeling a little better, Terizan quickened her pace. Traffic picked up in the late afternoon and she didn't want to waste the anonymity the crowds provided. At the top of the street, junior priests, robed in pale blue, stood on the four balconies of the Temple of the Light and sang out the call to the sunset service. At the bottom of the street, junior priests, wearing identical robes of dark grey, stood on the balconies of the Temple of the Night and did the same. Up and down the Street of Prayers, the people of Old Oreen hurried to complete the day's business. Very few of them were heading to either service. As far as Terizan could see, none of them were praying.
According to the Tribunal, Keydi-azda's temple shared a wall on one side with the imposing bulk of the Temple of the Forge and on the other with the building where the Fermentation Brotherhood held their weekly meetings. Two stories high but only one room wide, its fronting built of the same smoke-blackened yellow brick that made up most of the rest of the city, it was an easy temple to overlook. A weather worn eye carved into the keystone over the arched door gave the only indication of what waited inside.
The door lead to a short hall and another door. Drawing in a deep breath and reminding herself that she was only scouting the job, Terizan stepped over the threshold.
It was quiet, dim, and smelled of sandalwood.
At one end of the rectangular room, shelves rose from tiled floor to painted ceiling. Petitioners could either leave an offering or remove an item they felt they needed. The shelves were half empty. At the other end of the room stood a small altar where a cone of incense burned in a copper dish.
Above the altar was a second carving of an eye. More ornately carved than the exterior eye, it also boasted an iris of lapis lazuli centred by an onyx pupil.
Keydi-azda was the god of comfort. After a meal, fat men would loosen their belts and sigh, "Bless Keydi-azda." Terizan had murmured the blessing herself on occasion when a good night allowed her to pay for more than bare necessities. Everyone knew the name of Keydi-azda.
Not many, it seemed, came to the temple.
Terizan sang The Drunken Baker quietly to herself. Twelve verses later, she was still alone.
"The priest is old," Tribune Two had said, "and sleeps soundly."
"Must be napping now," Terizan muttered, walking silently toward the altar, a hair rising off the back of her neck with every step. She'd just have a closer look and be gone before anyone noticed she was there.
The Eye sat loosely within its collar of stone.
If I slid a blade behind it, it'd just pop off into my...
"...hand."
Surprise, as much as the unexpected weight, nearly sent the disc crashing to the floor. Although barely larger than her palm, it curved out two fingers thick in the centre of the onyx and was heavier than it looked.
Heart beating so loudly an army could've marched through the temple without her hearing it, Terizan slipped the Eye under her clothes and used her sash to snug the flat side tight against her belly. Braced for contact with cold stone, she found it unexpectedly warm.
Then she turned and walked out.
No one tried to stop her. Feeling slightly separated from the world as she knew it, she made her way back to the Thieves' Guild and handed the Eye of Keydi-azda over to a grinning Tribune Three.
It was as simple as that.
Even Balzador could've done it.
***
A triple knock jerked Terizan up off her pallet, heart in her throat, and propelled her halfway out the narrow window before her brain began working.
Constables didn't knock.
"Get a grip," she told herself firmly, drawing her leg back over the sill and rubbing at the place where her knee had cracked against the edge of the sandstone block. "It's probably just Poli wondering if you want to go to the dumpling maker's with him." The sun suggested it was past noon, late enough for Poli to be up and thinking of his first meal of the day.
Tugging the worst creases out of her tunic, she limped to the door, drew the bolt, and swung it open.
One artificially arched brow arched even higher as Poli's critical gaze swept over her and around the tiny room. "You're sleeping late. Busy night?"
Terizan ignored the implication. "Bad dreams." She stepped aside to give him room to enter. "I must've woken up a hundred times."
"Guilty conscience." Removing a pile of clothing from the only chair, he sat and smiled beneficently. "Nothing a little food won't cure. Do try to wear something that won't embarrass me."
"Like there's a lot of choice," she muttered dragging her only clean pair of trousers down off a hook. Shoving one foot into a wide leg, she caught her toe in the thieves' pocket above the cuff, bounced sideways, tripped over the tangled blanket, and fell to the sound of ripping cloth, missing a landing on the pallet by inches.
As she swore and rubbed her elbow, Poli surveyed the split seam and shook his head. "You've got to start shopping off a better quality of laundry line, sweetling. Wear the dirty ones before we starve to death."
***
The dumpling maker had sold out of cheese dumplings so Terizan rolled her eyes, ordered lamb, and bit through her tongue while trying to chew a chunk of gristle soft enough to swallow. She spit out a mouthful of blood and picked up her cup.
"There's a dead fly in my water."
"Not so loud," Poli advised, wiping his fingers on the square of scented cloth he was never without, "or everyone will want one." Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. "Do you see the young lady in the yellow scarf? There by the awning pole? I think she's trying to catch your eye."
Terizan refused to look. "The way my luck's been going today, she's probably an off duty constable."
"I don't think so."
"Poli, I'm not interested." She shifted in place and slipped a hand up under her tunic to scratch at her stomach.
"You're never interested, sweetling."
"That's not true."
"No? If everyone in the city had your libido, I'd starve. You're not harbouring a broken heart are you? I told you not to pursue a relationship with a mercenary."
"What are you talking about? You practically threw me into her bed."
"Nonsense." His lazy tone sharpened. "Can I trust that the itch you're chasing is not caused by some sort of insect infestation?"
"I have no idea but it's driving me crazy." Fleas would be just what she needed.
"Let me look."
Figuring that the little Poli didn't know about skin could be inscribed on a grape with room left over for the entire Book of the Light, Terizan leaned away from the table and lifted her tunic a couple of inches.
"It's just a rash," he announced after a moment's examination. "Most likely caused by something you've leaned against – something circular from the look of it. I don't think it's dangerous, merely uncomfortable."
Something circular.
Through the sudden buzzing in her ears Terizan heard her voice tell the Tribunal, "People who steal from gods spend the rest of their short lives in uncomfortable circumstances." She hadn't meant uncomfortable literally but why not; Keydi-azda was the god of comfort after all. And it certainly explained the way her day had been going.
"All right, sweetling. What have you done?"
She shook herself and pulled down her tunic. A quick look around the dumpling maker's cantina showed no one sitting close enough to overhear. "I did a job for the guild..."
By the time she finished, Poli had paled beneath his cosmetics. "You stole the Eye of Keydi-azda?" he hissed. "Are you out of your mind?"
"I can't see as I had much choice."
"They gave you a chance to send someone else. Any other thief would've taken it."
Both hands flat on the scarred table top, she leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. "I'm not any other thief."
Poli closed his eyes for a moment, then he sighed. "No, you're not, are you. Well, there's only one thing to do. You've got to put it back."
"I can't. I gave it to the Tribunal. I don't know who has it now."
"Can't you find out?"
"Sure, I mean the guild always insists on a written contract for blackmail purposes. All I'd have to do is break into the Sanctum and steal it."
Poli ignored the sarcasm. "Good."
Terizan opened her mouth to protest then closed it again. People who steal from gods spend the rest of their short lives in uncomfortable circumstances. A short, uncomfortable life. She'd planned on a long life. She had too much to do to die young. "Oh bugger," she sighed. Although she'd certainly intended to challenge the Tribunal's authority, she'd expected to have a little more time to strengthen her position in the guild. Fighting the urge to scratch, she dipped her finger in her cup and traced a circle within a circle on the table – driving a splinter in under the skin far enough to draw blood. "All right, you win. I'll find out who has it and I'll steal it back."
"Your guild encourages freelance work," Poli reminded her.
"I doubt this is what they had in mind," she muttered around her injured finger.
He waved a dismissive hand. "Then they should have been more specific."
"You're not helping, Poli. First problem, there's always at least one member of the Tribunal in the Sanctum."
"Don't they trust you?"
"We're thieves, of course they don't trust us." Eyes narrowed, she stared down at the rapidly evaporating sketch. "I think I can get rid of the Tribune, at least for a few minutes..."
***
The herbalist Terizan decided to use had a small shop facing the cramped confines of Greenmarket Square. As it wasn't an area she frequented, personally or professionally, she hoped she'd be neither recognized nor remembered. Ignoring sales pitches as wilted as the vegetables, she made her way around the edges of the square and, just outside her destination, stepped on something soft that compacted under her sandal.
It turned out not to be a rotting bit of melon rind.
The dim interior of the shop smelled of orange peel and bergamot. Bundles of dried herbs hung from hooks in the ceiling and were packed into stacks of loosely woven baskets. Bottles and boxes crammed the shelves along one wall. In one corner, a large terra cotta jar sweated oil. Dust motes danced thickly in the single beam of light that managed to penetrate the clutter.
As Terizan entered, stained fingers parted the beaded curtain in the back wall and an ancient man shuffled through the opening. "How may I help you?" he wheezed. "Love potions? Women's problems? A soothing balm to ease the pain of inflamed eyes?"
"Cazcara zagrada powder."
"Ah, constipation." He squinted in Terizan's general direction. "I should have known from the smell."
"That's on my shoe!"
"Of course it is. Two doses, one monkey."
"I need four."
"Four?" Shaking his head, he lifted a stained basswood box onto the counter, opened it, and spooned the coarse brown powder onto a piece of fabric with an amazingly steady hand. "Be careful," he told her as he twisted the corners up and tied them off with a bit of string. "I don't care how backed up you are, just one dose of this will put you in the privy blessing Keydi-azda. And that's no laughing matter, young woman!"
"Trust me, I'm not laughing." Wiping the snarl off her face, Terizan handed over the two copper coins.
***
The large antechamber outside the Sanctum smelled strongly of onions. Peppers would've been better but onions would have to do. Terizan traded jests with a group of thieves playing caravan then made her way across to the pair of kettles steaming over small charcoal fires, the four doses of cazcara zagrada palmed and ready. "Is it done yet?"
"Is it ever done before sunset?" Yazdamidor growled. He'd been a thief until a spelled lock cost him the use of one arm. Now, he cooked for the guild.
"Look, Yaz, I'm in a hurry..."
"Got a job, does you?" He snorted, not waiting for her answer. "Course you do, smart one like you." Scooping a bowl of barley mush out of the first kettle, he thrust it at her. "There's always someone what can't wait. Go ahead, just don't blame me if it ain't cooked through."
She doctored the stew as she scooped it onto her mush, stirring in the powder with the ladle and hoping that she'd got as little of it as possible into her own food. Unfortunately, the way things had been going, she expected an uncomfortable evening. The meat was cooked through, but since the goat had probably died of old age, she couldn't see as it made much difference.
She finished before anyone else started. As the caravan players filled bowls and moved to join her, she clutched her stomach, muttered a curse, and hurriedly left the room. Racing up the stairs, only partially faking, she heard Yazdamidor
laugh and shout, "Told you so!"
Now, it was all a matter of timing.
Most thefts were, patterns being easier to break into than locks.
In order to join the guild, thieves were expected to make their way through the guild house to the inner Sanctum. The rumours that reached the city of deadly traps and complicated protections were exaggerated, but not by much. Terizan was the first thief to have ever made it all the way. Since no one had done it since, it was safe to say she was also the only thief to have made all the way.
As a member of the guild, her access to the House had improved since that afternoon and, this time, it wasn't necessary to enter through an attic window. Even considering that she still had to avoid the dogs, she only had to cover half the original distance. Disconnecting the wire set to ring warning bells inside the Sanctum, she pried up a tile and laid an iron bar – removed from a trap she'd disabled a few moments earlier – across the opening. The rope tied to the middle of the bar she uncoiled as she chimney-walked down the narrow chute to the trap door at the bottom. Easing it open a finger-width, she listened.
Nothing.
The Sanctum was...
Then she heard the scraping of a horn spoon against the side of a wooden bowl and hurriedly braced her feet. Regrettably, since she'd already begun to move, the angle was bad and she wouldn't be able to hold her position for long. As the muscles in her lower back began to cramp, she wondered if the Tribune about to be so abruptly visited would believe she was just reliving past glories. Probably not.
It didn't help that her stomach felt as though fire ants were nesting just below the surface of her skin. She squirmed to ease the itch and her left shoulder slipped.
Oh crap...
As she fell, she grabbed the edge of the trap door and used it to swing out past the net waiting to scoop up those who entered without proper planning. A somersault in midair and she landed facing the Tribune's table.
The empty room echoed to the sound of footsteps pounding up the long flight of stairs used to bring clients unseen into the Sanctum. It was the only direct route into the heart of the guild house and the upper end was both trapped and guarded. It was also the most direct route to the privies.