The Silver Thief

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Every artist puts their name on their work somewhere. Painters. Potters. Even stonemasons got a signature—they'll lay one specific stone upside down, say. Weaponsmiths got one, too. Some small, deliberate imperfection that marks it as yours. Nothing that weakens the weapon in any way, mind you. Just something to put your stamp on it."

  "So every smith's signature is unique. Do you recognize this one?"

  "Not offhand." Brenner smiled toothily. "But if you make it worth my while, I can find out."

  She haggled out a price, leaving him with one of the swords and taking the other with her. By then, the sun stood directly overhead. Hard to believe it had only been half a day since the burning of the Marrigan. She touched the hilt of the sword she'd taken from Gaits' attackers. Felt wrong to be wearing it. Like marrying your cousin's killer. But if she could use it to take them down…

  Like Gaits had said, the Order of the Alley was now homeless. Adrift on the six winds. But Kerreven hadn't structured the institution to be so fragile that it could be torn down in one night of terror. Itching for intel, Raxa headed for the One-Eyed Frog, a pier-side tavern designated for use by the Order if their members ever lost a central location.

  Beyond the Frog, women slogged through the mud on the edge of the bay, digging clams and barble shells, whose meat was highly prized, but which Raxa had always thought looked like enormous gray phalluses. She stepped inside the tavern. Compared to the dazzle of the streets and the sea, the interior was as black as a tomb.

  Someone grabbed her right arm. Her left hand darted for her dagger.

  "Raxa." The voice was Jenker's, Order muscle. "Keep your calm."

  He guided her to a back room and knocked a code into the closed door. It swung open, revealing three more Order grunts. Inside, Ackley sat at a table accompanied by a large jug of wine. He was their logistician, a lieutenant same as Gaits.

  "Raxa." He kicked out a chair. "Figured you'd be too slippery for the bastards."

  She seated herself. Jenker poured her a glass of wine. It was light and summery and tasted like apples. "Does anyone know who said bastards are?"

  "That remains a matter of high speculation. But I know this much about them: they're walking dead men."

  "Are we in shape to hit them back?"

  Ackley drained his mug. "We lost the Marrigan. And a lot of good people. But most of us weren't there last night. Most of those who were ran off as soon as they saw it was hopeless. Yet right now, it looks like we're utterly smashed, right? Good. That's exactly what we want them to think."

  Hearing this soothed Raxa better than any wine could. "What about Kerreven?"

  "No one knows."

  "He's the boss, Ackley. How can no one know if he's alive or dead?"

  "Because if he's dead, he can't talk. And if he's alive, he might want his enemies to think he's dead."

  "I've got Gaits." She finished her wine. "And a lead on who did this. As soon as I know, you will, too."

  "I can't wait." He gave her an appreciative but confused smile. "How did it take them this long to start putting you to use?"

  On her way back to Vara's, Raxa took the scenic route, dropping into every pub she passed. Not to drink (though that was certainly a welcome secondary benefit), but to soak up the gossip. As she hopped from tavern to tavern discussing the possibly identity of the attackers, she heard every possibility she'd floated to Gaits along with several she hadn't—including the idea it had been a civilian mob come to flush the scum out of the neighborhood.

  At Vara's, Gaits was asleep. The stout woman came in from tending her goats.

  "How's he doing?" Raxa said.

  "He'll be weak for a while," Vara said. "But unless infection takes him, he'll come away with no worse than a few scars." She watched Raxa. "Who is he? Your bedwarmer?"

  "I don't think I'm his type."

  "What? Young and pretty?"

  "Female."

  Vara took a moment, then laughed. "I've had rams like that. Don't have eyes for anything but each other. I don't understand it, but they seem happy enough."

  As soon as Gaits fell asleep that night, Raxa walked across town to her new house. It showed no sign of having been disturbed. The bone sword was still where she'd hidden it on top of a rafter in the attic. She greased it down with steelblack, got one of her nicest dresses, and went back to Vara's.

  In the morning, she put on her dress and dropped by Brenner's. She'd expected he'd need more time to get to her task, but as soon as she came in, he locked the door behind her.

  "Found your signature," he said. "It's Gonson's work. His shop's over on Pennimore."

  "How long would it take you to forge fifty of these?"

  "Me? A month. But Gonson's got a full house of apprentices. He could bang out fifty of these inside a week."

  She thanked him and tossed him a small but weighty purse. She hoofed it across the city. Gonson's shop was at the edge of the Heights, a ritzy neighborhood on a hill inside the Ingate. Racks of weapons adorned the walls. Gonson was well into middle age, but like most blacksmiths, he looked capable of wrestling down a bear.

  Raxa smiled and leaned over his counter. "It's so good to meet you. My friend recently had a sword made by you and I just think it's so elegant. I'd love to commission one for my husband's birthday."

  She laid the sword on the counter. Gonson unsheathed it, giving it a long once-over. "Sorry, ma'am. But I didn't make this."

  She frowned uncertainly. "You're sure? I'd swear he gave me your name."

  "Looks like fine work. I'd love to claim it. What was your friend's name? Perhaps I can find out who made it for him."

  "Gaittigan." She took back the sword. "But I'm sure he had one of his servants handle this. I'll have to ask who."

  She gave the smith her brightest smile. On her way to the door, a well-dressed man strode inside. Raxa paused to admire a rack of swords on the side of the room. Gonson took down the man's order for a new saber, writing it on a greasy sheet of paper.

  She killed the rest of the day going from pub to pub. She was sorely tempted to check in on her rescues, but now wasn't the time to risk being seen with them. Long after sundown, when even the Sharps had gone quiet, she returned to Gonson's shop. The windows were dark.

  The front walls were wood. No walking through those. But the forges in back required fireproof housing. She cut down the alley behind the shop, stepped into the shadows, and walked through the wall.

  She was afraid the apprentices would have rooms in the back, but the building was deserted. She located Gonson's office, rifling through his drawers. Two of them were locked. She had the first sprung in two minutes. It was full of jewels, presumably for prettying up pommels and crossguards.

  The second drawer held his ledgers.

  They were sorted in order of date received. She paged backwards. About half were in the same writing—Gonson's, presumably—while the others had been made out by the buyer. Almost all were for single orders or matched sets for a handful of guards. The commission for 42 blades was as obvious as a full moon. Dated sixteen days ago. Right after the Order's seven-day spree through the richest houses in the city. The order had been made by one Hallidan. It wasn't written in Gonson's hand.

  She folded it into her pocket, closed the drawer, and jimmied the lock shut.

  By the time she got back to Vara's, it was three in the morning. She entered as quietly as she could, but a candle lit as she closed the door behind her.

  "Gaits?" She scowled at him. "You should be asleep."

  "So should you." He limped toward her. "Which means you must be up to something interesting."

  "I found the smith who made the matched blades."

  Gaits took it from her, scanning rapidly. His eyes darted up, the liveliest they'd been since the attack. "Who wrote this? The smith?"

  Raxa shook her head. "The buyer. But there's no way he was stupid enough to use his real name."

  "I'm sure he didn't." Gaits grinned and smacked his index finger into
the middle of the page. "But it looks like he was stupid enough to use his real handwriting."

  "How does that help us? There must be a hundred thousand people in this city."

  "But less than a tenth of them can read. And of those, our master of forgery knows everyone worth knowing."

  He insisted on delivering the paper to Ackley then and there. Raxa didn't get to bed until dawn. The next day was dead quiet. The day after that was the same. Unable to hold still, Raxa took the black ring around to three other jewelers, but none could identify it.

  Back at the house, Gaits and Vara were arguing so loudly Raxa could hear it from the street. As she walked inside, Vara was in the process of tearing Gaits' shirt off his chest.

  "Vara!" Raxa yelled. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "This fool you call a friend spent all day running around town." Vara jerked her chin at his ribs, which were trickling blood into their bandages. "Popped half his stitches."

  "Then you'll have to redo them. Assuming you can find time away from milking your goats." He swung toward Raxa. "Raxa! I've got word from the Order. We know who paid for the swords."

  She grinned viciously. "Who was it?"

  "Not my place to say. Kerreven wants to tell you himself."

  "He's alive?"

  "He's ready to strike back—and he wants you to be his blade."

  11

  Dante stood with his back to the edge of the plateau. Thirty people stared him down, most of them bearing swords or the deadly wheels.

  "That's them," Ked said. "That's them!"

  Beside him, Cord nodded, well-toned arms folded. "I remember the face of everyone who's bested me."

  Blays rolled his eyes. "Do you duel every traveler who comes to Collen?"

  Ked spat. "Are you travelers? Or Mallish spies?"

  "Definitely travelers."

  "Is that why you've spent the last week parlaying with your running dog masters?"

  "This is ridiculous," Dante said. "Get out of our way. We don't have to answer to you."

  "But you'll want to." A gravelly-voiced man stepped forward. He was at least sixty, but he had the jaw of a bulldog, and if you were to attach his head to a mill wheel, his bald pate looked capable of grinding flour. He wore trousers and a vest the color of dust. "Come with me. And don't try any of your tricks."

  A man and a woman stepped to either side of him. They wore pale yellow robes trimmed with red thread. Each carried a dirk, which they placed against Dante's spine.

  Naran let his hand hang near the hilt of his saber. "What's the nature of this inquiry?"

  The bulldog-jawed man stared him down. "It's no inquiry. It's a trial. To find out how bad you sold us out to the Mallish."

  "Sold you out?" Blays laughed. "We're on the same side!"

  "So you say."

  "I'd tell you to go ask the Mallish soldiers, but when we left them, they were being devoured alive by giant spiders."

  The gray-clothed constable held up a meaty palm. "Enough! Save your breath for the trial."

  Keeping one eye on the dirk-wielding monks, Dante glanced at Blays. The two of them had been in similar situations often enough that verbal communication was no longer necessary. At the moment, Blays' face was saying two things: first, that he didn't like where this was headed. And second, that he would much prefer to extricate themselves without any whirlwinds of limbs and viscera.

  "Will we be allowed to speak in our defense?" Dante said.

  The older man glowered. "'Course you will. This ain't Bressel."

  "And will we be allowed to call witnesses on our behalf?"

  "What did I just tell you? King Charles and his ghouls will march you up to the noose the second they've tortured the answer they want from you. But Collen's a free land. If you're charged with a crime, you get to speak. How else can the gods hear you?"

  "I'm glad to hear your land is so enlightened. In that case, I'll need Hodd, a monk of the Reborn Shrine, to be at this trial."

  The bulldog-jawed man smiled humorlessly. "Don't you worry. He's one of the chief accusers."

  He ordered the ribboned warriors to disarm the prisoners. Blays unbuckled his belt and turned over his swords. "Be careful with these. If they go missing, the crimes I commit in response will have us tied up in trials for the next ten years."

  He continued the lengthy process of turning out his many knives. Dante passed over his sword. Its fine steel was worth a year's wages. Not for the first time since getting dragged away from the north, he was glad he'd left the bone sword behind. He felt no strong connection to his current weapon, yet as he passed it over to the ribboned warriors, frustration bubbled in his veins. If these had been Mallish troops arresting him, he would have simply blasted them into a rapidly expanding red hemisphere. But these were Colleners. Their story wasn't so different from Narashtovik's. Even the enemy was the same.

  Narashtovik's ending had been happy—but he feared Collen's story would someday end on a far darker note. He had no wish to contribute further tragedy to their tale.

  In all of Dante's travels, jails had taken one of two forms: towers and dungeons. In Collen, the jail was located beneath a squat basalt building outside the keep. The cells had been carved right out of the rock. The doors were the iron grilles commonly seen in such places. The bulldog-jawed man, whose name was Den, motioned them inside a single cell and locked the door.

  Blays swiveled his head, taking in their surroundings. "I have to say this is the least musty dungeon I've ever been in. But would it have killed you to give us separate cells?"

  "Won't be here for long," Den grumbled. "'Sides, it's your right as accused to be able to speak freely with each other. How are you going to do that from different cells?" He trudged away.

  "So," Blays said as soon as the constable's footsteps faded. "Ready for our dashing escape?"

  "We're not escaping," Dante said.

  "I assumed we only let them capture us so we could get out of this without bloodshed. And that our next step would be to reclaim our well-deserved freedom."

  "I don't think that's necessary."

  "You know why I'm going to win this argument, then? Because in a few days, you're going to be too busy strangling in a noose to debate me. We already saved Collen from whatever the Mallish were planning with the shaden. Why not tunnel us out of here?"

  "Because we need to tell these people about their true history. Anyway, we're not going to get hanged. I know a way to prove we're not in league with Mallon."

  "How do you intend to do that?" Naran said. "Charges of treason are as pernicious as heresy. For most lawmen, suspicion is proof enough."

  "We'll start by telling them the truth about why we're here."

  Blays frowned. "I thought we were keeping that as secret as the king's syphilis. If Mallon gets word of our involvement here, their eyes will turn to Narashtovik."

  "They won't be able to harm Narashtovik until they've dealt with Collen." Dante seated himself on a stone bench along one wall. "Collen needs to know what they're up against. That's the only way they can defend themselves."

  "But we don't even know what they're up against. I thought we'd agreed not to get involved here."

  "We're not. Once they cut us loose, my only goal is to figure out how to kill Gladdic. If the answers aren't here, we'll travel back to Bressel. Things will have quieted down since we left. And by the time we get there, our loon will be in Narashtovik, where I'll have access to the complete wisdom of the Citadel."

  Blays continued to argue, but they're hardly spoken for another minute before a door creaked and footsteps thumped down the tight stone corridor. Den moved in front of the doors, flanked by his two yellow-robed monks.

  "Move your asses," he said. "Time for your trial."

  Naran stood, brushing off his pants. "This is rather hasty."

  "Every man deserves a fast trial. Would you rather rot in here?"

  Den marched them upstairs and outside, where a squadron of colorfully-ribboned warriors awa
ited to escort them. Dante expected to be taken to the Reborn Shrine, which seemed the natural location for the handing down of divine judgment, but their destination turned out to be a clearing on the north end of the city known as Justice Falls.

  The ground was naked stone. It had once been ringed by a semicircle of twelve-foot stone blocks, but many of these had toppled and cracked. Two winding grooves ran from the middle of the ring to the edge of the cliffs. Den ordered Dante, Blays, and Naran to stand between the two grooves. A warm wind buffeted their faces.

  Den strode back to the standing stones. Ked, Cord, Hodd, and several other familiar faces were assembled to either side of him. An announcement of the trial must have gone out during their brief stay in the dungeons; two hundred strangers stood outside the ring of standing stones.

  "Bring out the waters," Den called roughly. "And let justice water the desert."

  Two small carts rumbled forth, pushed by pairs of apprentice monks. The carts each held a large barrel. The vehicles came to a stop at the edge of the grooves. The two monks who'd helped take them prisoner walked forth solemnly, kneeled beside the barrels, and flipped open their spigots. Water splashed into the grooves and ran toward the cliff's edge where Dante stood.

  "Duset," he blinked. "The sign of Arawn."

  Blays nodded at the Colleners watching them. "If they've got Arawn on their side, is it too late to buddy up with Taim?"

  The waters flowed past them. And began the long fall down the cliffs.

  Den gestured toward the three accused. "These three are said to be Mallish spies and conspirators. Make your case!"

  "Hang on there," Blays yelled back. "Aren't you going to tell us how this process works?"

  "What's there to tell? The justice will describe your crimes. You'll be allowed to state your defense, if you have any. And at the end…" Den motioned sweepingly to the crowd. "This fine lot will judge your guilt."

  "Trial by mob?"

  "That's no mob. That's democracy!"

  "I have to admit it sounds more fair than Whetton," Blays muttered.

  Den gestured to the group of witnesses. A squat man strolled forth, his face laced with scars. Muscles bulged beneath his short sleeves. He stopped twenty feet from Dante, turning to regard the audience.