Copyright © 2019 Darren Deegan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Front cover images from Shutterstock.
First printing edition 2019
Arcane Rex Press
ISBN-13: 978-1-9160766-1-7 (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-9160766-0-0 (Hardcover)
Pineapple.
ONE
Intense bursts of silver light made radiant the warehouse district. The broken clouds moved swift with the wind, allowing the intensity of the full moon to shine through for minutes at a time. Selene cursed the timing beneath her breath, and her leader for his insisting she go out that night. It was not a night for such matters.
The entire section of the district was controlled by one of the richest men in Eitane. Power and wealth had afforded him quite the security force for his empire, and that force garrisoned the entire area.
A solitary young woman, late at night, would attract scrutiny from far too many of his patrols, so building to building, darkened doorway to doorway, she crept ever closer to her objective.
Grey stone shone pearlescent in the moon’s light, creating a beacon of her destination. Three floors of solid stone, hewn from the Dubh Mountains in the south. Strong, daunting, much grander than those buildings around it and throughout the neighbourhood, symbolic of the man behind the organisation.
With a building such as the one before her, Selene would have favoured the security and efficiency of the rooftops above, but the owner was far too knowledgeable to allow that. It had an unusual slanted roof, and top floor windows that opened less than the width of her fist, all constructed to diminish the options of a common thief.
Common was not how one would describe Selene’s skills.
Forced on to the streets from a young age, she fought for every ounce of food, every doorway to sleep in, every shred of clothing she could find. Her talents emerged fast. It would be years after that before the Thieves Guild took her in. Years before perhaps the best thief in Emeer trained her, but now almost a decade on, it had all made her what she was.
She’d circled around to the west face of the stone fortress, each step placed with practiced grace. Selene took in her surroundings in their entirety, from flickering amber windows and the guards who passed them, to the bright beams of light streaming down, illuminating shallow puddles between her and her target that would produce unnecessary noise upon approach.
It was the heavy set, armour clad patrolling guards who had her unflagging attention. Each one lapped the building in the opposite direction to the other, timed to allow no more than a few heart beats between crossing the same place.
Heart beat after heart beat, she watched, enveloped by the surrounding darkness, counting each pace of her would-be captures.
She sprang from the alleyway, one puddle, then another, Selene glided effortlessly until at last she reached her target; a small reinforced door embedded two feet into the stone facade.
Lock picks in her hand between breaths, the thief went to work on one of the most complex locks she had ever encountered.
With the slight, deliberate movements of her wrist, the picks clicked and scraped within the lock’s inner workings, but only failure greeted her. Her pulse quickened with every second. Heavy footfall on the rain ladened stones drew ever closer, their steps almost in unison, drowned out only by her thumping heart.
The stonework of the arch began to illuminate with approaching torch light, it would be moments before the entire entrance was bright enough for her would-be captures to visualise their prey.
‘Breathe, damn it, act like you’ve picked a lock before,’ she sighed, trying to settle herself.
The picks steadied in her hands, and she commenced once again. Each movement was slow, meticulous, as she had done a thousand times before. Selene felt for each pin deep within the lock, not advancing until she was certain it was locked into place. So she began, pin to pin, the world around her turned to a dull hum, and after what could have been a lifetime, she allowed a terse smile to reach her lips when the mechanism slid open in her grasp.
Burnt amber light grazed her arm, but she shoved hard and swift, throwing her weight into the door. She whirled upon entry and secured the door with haste behind her.
Adrenaline surged through every ounce of her being, invigorated, it spurred her on, least she waste it. Selene pulled a folded piece of parchment from within her coat; a crude interior outline of the building supplied by her contact.
It depicted the second floor of the tower, and a room at the northwest corner, within which, stood the lock box holding the information she required. What the design didn’t indicate, was how to get to the second floor from where she stood.
The entrance chamber was dimly lit with several wall torches, but already she could see at least half a dozen doors leading to every side of the building. No obvious entrance to a staircase was in sight, she realised this was intentional to throw off trespassers. The more doors she opened, the greater the risk of one making a sound and alerting any guards who may be inside. It was but a moment before she thought getting inside may have been the simplest part of her assignment.
* * *
‘Gods, grant me strength.’ She murmured.
Several wrong doors, and hallways that led to nothing but lavish waiting areas, or stores for servant’s use, she tired of the man’s ludicrous layout. With little other options, Selene gave a final push, and discovered the doorway to the stairs at the end of a long passageway.
With renewed vigour, she moved with urgency. The stairs were made of solid wood, strong and study, she could take two at a time without the worry of a step giving way to squeaks beneath her feet. The entrance to the second floor loomed ahead, Selene felt like the job had taken far longer than most, and already wanted it to be over.
Her prize was not jewellery, antiques, nor coin, it was information she hunted for. And for her, that just didn’t seem worth all this effort, not when the information was for someone else’s gain.
A quick scan of the crude map told her she was no more than twenty paces from the office where the documents were kept. And while she knew the two quick turns and the hallway to follow, what she didn’t know, were how many guards if any lay beyond. Her contact had been a former cleaner, and other than the layout, she had little to no information.
Selene prayed to the goddess that there wasn’t a contingent of heavily armoured men standing guard. And as she turned the final corner with extraordinary care, she let out a lengthy exhale in relief. No torches dotted the walls, but the pale light of the harvest moon shone bright through the two narrow barred windows, illuminating the hallway and reinforced door at its end.
Guess that moon was good for something, she mused, hurrying along to the door.
While the door was stronger than most interior doors, its lock was no more complicated than she would have expected. She made brief work of it and pushed her way inside, closing the door behind her.
Thanks to the light that had made her life so much more difficult upon entry to this fortress, she was able to take in the room in its entirety. Decor was minimal, and while its owner was wealthy, he had spent little of his office, it was purely business. A great wooden table and chairs occupied one end of the room, book shelves and a cabinet aga
inst the back wall of the other framed a strong oak desk.
She rushed to the desk, examined everything that sat upon it, noting its location in case it was necessary to move anything on it. Four drawers made up the space below the desk, all unlocked and filled with meaningless parchment and stationary. Nothing worth taking, not even an expensive knife for opening letters, it was clear this man spent his wealth more wisely than most. After moving her practised hands across the two bookcases for false books, or triggers to hidden entrances, she set her sights on the cabinet.
Like the desk, it was made of thick oak, reinforced on all corners by blackened iron. It stood three feet from the floor, and random items were strewn across the top, nothing unusual. At least not until she examined the lock that held the small doors shut.
Selene smiled, for she knew what would await her behind the doors of the inconspicuous cabinet with the far too complex lock. For the third time that night, she went to work on a lock, a lock she hoped would be her last. Vin didn’t pay his thieves for work like this, it was required of them as part payment for their membership to the guild. Not that anyone would dare say no to him, not if they valued their life.
A reassuring click filled her ears as her pick passed the final ward within the lock. The doors opened without a sound, and she was greeted with a stack of parchment, several leather bindings, and scrolls filled high on the bottom shelf.
She praised the guild leader for at least supplying her with the information she needed to find the documents. She need only search for a simple design that would be on the wax seal set upon the documents, which would be bound in leather, given their importance.
‘Something easy for a change,’ she breathed with relief as she picked up one of only three leather bound parcels of parchment.
The familiar rattle of keys pulled her attention from her prize to the door not feet from her, the door she hadn’t re-locked after entering.
‘What in the nine hells is going on here.’ A deep gravelly voice said from outside as the door began to open. ‘If someone’s in there, you better show yourself.’ The voice again.
The space inside the door began with fill with amber light as the unseen guard unsheathed a sword. He would be upon her in moments, and there was no where to hide that wouldn’t be uncovered in seconds once that light engulfed the room.
Selene darted for the door, pressing herself against the wall behind it, hoping to steal a moment to think. A gloved hand entered her line of sight first, an out stretched sword gripped tight within it, followed by the armour clad man, a lit torch in his off hand.
‘I know someone’s in here, best to show yourself now, perhaps I’ll show you mercy.’ He breathed deep, ‘perhaps not,’ he finished beneath his exhale.
He moved further into the room, straight ahead while scanning the far corners with his torch. It was now or never she knew, and so with every ounce of training and skill she possessed, she crept out from the shadow of the door and slipped backwards through the opening into the hallway.
Outside the room, she allowed herself to breathe again, and thanked whoever watched over her for the soft runner that lined the stone floor beneath her feet.
With as much speed as she dared, she took off to the end of the hall and down the wooden staircase to freedom. With the guild leader’s documents within the deep pockets of her leather coat, she vowed never to return to this fortress again.
TWO
Rain had beaten down with the wrath of the gods for days, causing the grey cobblestone streets to become almost treacherous to cross, but cross them he did. Endlessly. His task had been simple, or so he thought; meet a contact, exchange a package, secure passage back to Eitane.
Instead, he had wasted his precious time in Falias for three days, returning to the designated meeting point at the two given hours each day. He tired of the guild leader’s task.
The noon meeting time came and went as it had three days in a row. Gareth released a long sigh and allowed his now cemented routine to continue. He carefully ventured back across the street and sauntered along to the local tavern for some warm food to chase away the dampness from his bones.
Except for the bone chilling constant rain, Falias was an impressive city, although he would always refer to it as a town, when compared to the capital city Eitane. Falias stood at the centre of Emeer, taking up residence along the banks of the River Danu, which fed into the River Bán. Merchants from all across the North and East of Emeer would descend on the city, hoping to load their cargo onto barges destined for Eitane, saving them time and money. This meant that Falias prospered almost as much as the capital.
Prosperity was the only term to use when describing the city, for prosper it did. Everything from the fine hand carved stone work on every building in sight, to the painstakingly cobbled streets, showed the depth of the city council’s pockets. With a city less than half of the size of Eitane, there was little trouble ensuring the city looked its best at every turn.
‘Gareth, back again, lad?’ The grey haired owner shouted from behind the bar.
‘So it would seem. I’ll take the usual, Phil.’ Gareth said, as he made a bee line for the table next to the open fire.
Wood crackled in the fire, illuminating the newly minted smile on his face. The tavern was warm, clean, and homely. Given that it was in the old quarter of the city, the less up-kept section, Gareth was always surprised by its appearance.
Back home, in a section of the city like that, you would feel privileged to have wooden boards beneath your feet. Another sign of Falias’ prosperity, even the lesser parts of the city were better kept than his usual haunts.
The food was laid down in front of him, a deep dish pie, made with meat that was much less fatty than he was used to, warm vegetables and thick, crisp, crust, with a steaming mug of apple cider accompanying it.
‘Thanks, Trisa.’ He said, devouring the food with his eyes.
‘Unusual to see you around this long, Gar, what’s got you hanging about?’ The barmaid asked, with a pretty, flirtatious smile.
‘Oh, just a bit of business that’s running longer than usual.’
She smiled again, a more curious look, than flirtatious. ‘Oh, I see, and what is it this time? Selling some chickens? Or perhaps dragons are in your keep on this visit?’
Gareth had always made up a story for the inquisitive barmaid, everything from selling golden hens, to vicious dire wolves. Anything to divert attention from his true business, and of course, to keep her entertained. ‘Oh you know me too well, Tris.’ He lowered his voice and leaned in close, ‘it’s actually fire breathing turtles.’
Returning to his meal, as if he’d said the most common of things, he continued, ‘huge market for them at the moment, especially up North with all those mad mountain people.’
Trisa gave him an amused look, winked, and walked off to the occupied tables at the back of the tavern.
* * *
Night had fallen long before Gareth left the tavern, a touch more inebriated than he would have liked. The week had felt long, and tiresome, he yearned to return home to Eitane, to his family, to Selene. Vin would have been furious with him if he’d left without meeting his contact though.
So as he had each day that week, he made his way back across the cobbled street, to the meeting point in the basement of an empty building owned by the guild.
Vin, the Thieves Guild leader, had establishments all across Emeer. Each had a different purpose, from profitable businesses, to storehouses for illegal goods waiting to be shipped or sold. Gareth’s destination was the latter, and when empty, it was used as a dead drop or meeting point for Vin’s numerous contacts.
The building was substantial. Given the bustling economy of Falias, the guild needed to store a lot of cargo coming from the east coast, before it was loaded onto the barges for Eitane. The grey stone facade of the building was pierced only by a heavy wooden door, twice the height of a man, allowing passage for cargo ladened waggons. No windows dotted th
e building, like those that surrounded it, save for a handful that stretched two sides on the second floor, where no one could peer within from the adjacent streets. Privacy was key.
Gareth slipped in through a metal reinforced door in the side alley of the building. The door swung open and closed as if it glided on air, the efforts of the guild members in Falias would not go unnoticed by him. With a clandestine meeting ahead, he would be thankful for a quick and silent mode of egress, should the worse happen.
Soft orange light danced along the walls on either side of him, the oil lamps left burning were low, just enough to illuminate the central floor space of the warehouse. To his eyes, the building was empty, but a stillness hung in the air which made his hair stand on end, and his skin tingle. There was little that Gareth feared, but these people were different to the type Vin normally had him meet.
He crept forward, one carefully placed boot at a time, and made his way around the stone pillars that lined each side of the room, creating an aisle from which he could stalk. With his position intuitively chosen, Gareth took comfort in a cloak of shadow, as he leaned against the cold stone, and watched.
‘Not a sound made, nor glint seen.’
Gareth quickly scanned the room but saw nothing.
‘Do you use such cunning and skill when meeting all of your clients?’ The voice again.
Gareth couldn’t begin to guess its location, it appeared to come from everywhere, and no where. Still, he kept his silence and waited.
‘Such skill for a thief so young, or is it assassin?’
‘I think I should be asking you that question. Are you afraid to step into the light?’ Gareth asked, willing to play his game.
‘Why step into the light,’ a presence so close, Gareth thought he could feel the man’s breath on his neck. ‘When the darkness offers so much more.’
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