She sidled up to the counter and leaned against it. “Then it’s a lucky thing that you’re always so very useful to me, isn’t it?”
He gave her a flat look and she laughed. Reaching into her pouch, Nalea produced half of the jewelry and the goblet. The fence just narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. When she pulled the chunk of raw æmber out, though, his eyebrows scaled his forehead.
Ruvyn got up quickly and went over to lock the shop door and shut the blinds. Then he hurried back to the counter to stare at the glowing crystal. “I knew you were the ambitious sort, Nalea, but by the Architects you have gotten bold. What did you do, rob a councilor?”
Her grin just widened.
The older elf stared at her. “You cannot be serious. They’re going to throw you into a pit one of these days, girl, and count yourself lucky if they don’t stretch your neck first.”
Nalea shrugged insouciantly and started to gather the stuff back up. “If you don’t want the goods, all you have to do is say so. I’m sure I can find another–”
Ruvyn caught her wrist to stop her and then released it with a sigh. “You know I’m going to take the business. I don’t have the bits to hand for the raw, though.”
She grinned at him again and put it all back down. “I’ll take it in barts, then.”
He mulled this over then nodded. “Barts it is. I’ll take the guild’s cut off the top, as usual.” He slid her a pile of æmbits for the other goods, and went into the back to retrieve the barts. They were plastic disks, each threaded with hypercarbon in a unique pattern. Each represented a favor owed in the black markets of the underworld. They were also known for the peculiar trait of glowing when around ultraviolent emotional radiation.
Nalea swiped through the holo while she waited. The guild occasionally recruited for jobs, but most of the time she operated on her own. That meant keeping up with current events. She frowned a little to see that her escapade had been pushed to the third page, if only because they’d hidden whose house she broke into this time. The first page was dominated instead by talk of a huge auction that had been announced. One of the city’s bigwigs had apparently passed with no heirs, and now all their fancy goods were going to be sold off to the good and worthy among the citizenry.
By the time Ruvyn got back the idea was already half-formed. Her fingers were drumming restlessly on the countertop, and he raised an eyebrow at her.
“That’s the look that forebodes trouble for someone. Hopefully, not me.”
Nalea chuckled at that and accepted the barts from him, tucking them away into a pouch. “Not you at all. I think I’ll leave you to see to your business, though.” She put her hood back up and headed for the door. “I have an auction to attend.”
Hours later, Nalea made her way through the city. Night had fallen, but that didn’t bring darkness to great swaths of the Hub. Even the Dark Districts themselves were often lit by the red light of forges all through the night, a burning glow under their sooty cloud. She passed into the Logos district, a gleaming wonderland of advanced technology. Holographic advertisements sprang to life around her as she passed, hawking wares in simulated voices.
Besides, she had only come to this district to reach a public transit station. Someone occasionally got the bright idea of trying to run a line into the Lawless Zone. It always ended the same: with the structure picked clean by scavengers. The tragedy of the commons played out with alarming speed.
The station lay ahead. Hub City never really slept. People were coming and going at all hours. Still, the traffic was down from the heights of the day. She could easily make her way to the gate into the station. There, a slot waited for an æmbit to allow her inside. The elf dutifully slotted one in… then tugged on the string looped through it the moment it chimed acceptance. It shot back out into her hand, and she slipped into the waiting area.
Nalea boarded the train that would take her to Hubcentral, the beating heart of the city. She wormed her way through those already on board to find a seat. The train chugged into motion, and she hopped up onto one of the seats to peer out the window. She loved the city, in her way. It was forever growing and changing. If you got bored in the Hub, you could walk a few blocks in any direction and the world would transform around you. Forest groves full of pixies coexisted beside unfathomable lakes and neon signs.
Soon the locomotive was pulling into the Central station. Hubcentral was marked by towering buildings and an overabundance of the city’s great and powerful. Nalea was drawing looks the moment she stepped off the train, hardly an ideal situation for someone of her profession. Luckily, she didn’t intend to walk the rest of the way at ground level.
Instead, she found her way into the nearest alleyway. Sure that no one was looking, she skittered up the side of the building with casual ease. The wallcrawling techniques were not isolated to Shadows, but they certainly saw plenty of use in their ranks. A mark might be alert for pickpockets on the street, and doormen kept a watch on the front of most buildings here. Nobody ever thought to look up, though.
The wind was brisk once she reached the top. It set her cloak to flapping and chilled her body. She tugged her mask up to keep warm if nothing else, and set out across the rooftops. Some of them were close enough that she could simply leap across to the next with a graceful bound. Others forced her to jump over, catch herself, and climb up to continue. At least one she had to actually climb down to a fire escape to jump over, the next building was so much lower.
One way or another, Nalea made steady progress. She was soon within eyeshot of the building she was after. She took a moment to step up to the edge of the roof and glance down. People in fine dress, the glamorous sorts, were all headed inside. They were being dropped off by hovercabs and expensive limousines. This was definitely the place.
There was about a ten-foot gap between this building and that one. The elf glanced around but there wasn’t any easier approach than the direct one. With a deep sigh, she backed up and focused hard on that wall. It seemed uncomfortably distant in this moment, but she put that out of her head in a hurry.
She counted down in her head. 3… 2… 1… She was off like a shot. Even now, her footfalls were barely audible slaps against the roof below. The edge came up swiftly. There was a slight rise. A step carried her up onto it, and she flung out into empty air. For an eternal moment she was over nothing but a fall of more than a hundred feet. She hit the far wall with a smack and started to slide down.
Nalea caught hold of a windowsill with a lightning grab, arresting the beginning of her tumble into oblivion. The impact had knocked some air out of her lungs, so she just let herself hang and wheeze for a moment while she recovered. Then she scrambled up to crouch on the lip of the sill. It was a precarious balance, but her gyroscopic belt helped her maintain it.
The next problem was actually getting inside. The room beyond the window was dark and seemed like a good place to start. It wouldn’t open to mere pressure though, just rattled under her hands. Locked.
“How security-minded of them,” Nalea mumbled to herself.
A gust of wind howled by, and she caught the sides of the window to steady herself until it passed. Then she fished her lockpicks out of their pouch and began exploring the seam. A minute or two of fidgeting later and a soft click announced her success. The window opened, and she slid inside, dropping to the floor without a sound. She quietly shut the window behind her and turned to survey where she’d ended up.
It appeared to be a conference room, to judge by the table that dominated the center and the chairs surrounding it. Nalea maneuvered around it all and made her way to the door. Light peeked through the surrounding gaps. She leaned lightly against the wood to listen and heard footsteps and chattering voices heading her way. With a deep breath, she waited for them to pass.
“…such short notice. They only told us yesterday. We’ve been cooking the food non-stop ever since.”
“Well, you can’t schedule a death.”
“Sure, but wh
at’s the rush to do this right afterwards…?”
The voices trailed off into the distance. Nalea waited a moment longer, just to be certain nothing else would break the silence, then eased the door open and crept out. The hallway extended in both directions. To the left it went on to a T-intersection, while the other way led to bright lights and the murmur of conversation. Remaining cautious, the thief headed towards where all the people were.
She arrived at a railed walkway circling an open central area. Dozens of tables had been set up below, filling most of the chamber. The high and mighty sat, while the peons served. From this high they were all tiny figures. That gave her a small smirk. She turned her attention towards the front of the chamber where the auction would be held. A stage and a podium had been set up, but none of the items had been brought forward yet. That suited her perfectly. They must be keeping them in a back room.
Nalea followed the railing, staying low and near the wall to avoid any unfortunate glances from below. She could see a shadowed set of doors back behind where the stage was set up. That seemed a likely place to try for, but was there another way? As she came around to the far end of the railing, she could feel the æmber already. Even through the intervening walls, it was like warmth on her skin. Raw or processed, the energy came off it like the sun’s rays.
The elf crept into the room at the far end of the level she was on. This one was someone’s office, though it was empty given the hour. She swept around the room quickly, searching for anything that would let her head downstairs from here. There were vents, but unlike those in the serials they weren’t big enough to get into. Not even for her, and she was relatively small.
There were doors and more hallways off her current level, and other levels besides. She could spend the whole night searching. It was just a matter of time until the auction started, however, and that could ruin the whole night. She was going to have to be a bit more aggressive to see this through.
She stepped up to the edge and looked down into the center area again. Below her was another railed walkway, and more beyond. One for each floor down. It couldn’t be more than a five- or six-foot gap from the bottom of one to the top of the next. No problem at all, she reassured herself.
The trick, of course, would be avoiding sight while she did it. Reluctantly she retrieved her ring of invisibility and put it on. She twisted it to activate, and the æmber-infused properties sprang to life. In a way that some simply called magic and others called the very edges of science, it would bend light around her so that she couldn’t be seen. In the process, it somehow also kept her from going blind.
The problem was how long it lasted, which was completely uncertain. The cloaking devices were an old favorite of Shadows agents, but in Nalea’s experience they were best only used in extremity because of their limitations.
Nalea swung out over the railing. The fall would be no less lethal inside the building than from the outer wall if she messed this up. With a deep breath, she steadied herself and let go. Her stomach lurched as she dropped. She caught herself nimbly on the next railing, then dropped down to repeat.
She continued down, leap by leap. Her hands were sweating by the time she got to the bottom level, but the leather across her palms kept the grip steady. She was now ready for the drop to floor level. She let go and began to fall, only for someone to step out beneath her at the last second. With a stifled shriek she caught hold of one of the columns on the railing’s balustrade.
The person below, a human male of middling height with a bald head, was dressed as one of the serving staff in simple black garb. Nalea had time to absorb all these details because she was dangling by one hand right above him, kicking in empty air just a matter of feet from his scalp. Her grip was awkward, bending her wrist painfully.
The server looked up and frowned. He must have heard her. There was nothing to see, however. He stared right through where she was. All she could do was hang there as the pain in her arm grew. She gritted her teeth and held on with all of her might.
At last, he turned and walked away. The moment he was beyond earshot, Nalea let herself fall the rest of the way to the ground. She landed heavily, her usual grace stripped away. The impact sent a spike of pain through her ankle, and she flinched. That was going to swell later, she felt sure.
There was no time to recuperate, however. The elf gathered herself to her feet and limped towards the back chamber as fast as she could. She had moved around behind the stage when she felt her skin tingling and a faint burning scent wafted through the air. With a silent curse she checked her ring; the power was depleted. She was visible once more.
Nalea had come too far to give up now. One quick glance around to confirm that no one had seen her yet, and she put on a last burst of painful speed. She pushed through the doors into the back chamber. Once inside, she closed it behind her just as swiftly.
The original purpose of the room was no longer clear. It had obviously been cleared out for these festivities. Now it was a storage room for all kinds of treasures. They were laid out in glass cases, reminiscent of a museum and ready to be wheeled out for the auction. The thief’s heart was practically singing as she took it all in. Fantastical jewelry, strange devices, curious statuary and more.
Nalea stopped at one in particular and stared. It was nothing much to look at – truth be told, it was somewhat difficult to see. It appeared to be nothing more than a key, though one carved out of pure midnight black. A Key of Darkness. She had heard of such relics mentioned in the guilds before.
Used properly, it was said that one could open any lock. It would be a perfect place to start here, to say the least. She set about picking the lock on this case through more mundane means. The moment it had clicked open, she lifted the glass and–
A brilliant flash strobed directly into her face, even as a thunderclap of sound sent her staggering backwards. She pressed her hands to her face and stumbled away, crashing into another of the carts. Through half-blinded eyes she could see the contents had vanished, mere illusions. The door slammed open and people dressed as servers and the rich alike rushed in, only now they were carrying ray guns.
A trap.
Terrified, Nalea pulled her knife and swung it wildly, trying to keep them back. Her vision was still mostly a dark blot, her ears still ringing.
“You don’t want to do that!” called a particularly lanky human. “You’re not a killer! Don’t make this any uglier than it has to be!”
Nalea bared her teeth at him. “You don’t know anything about me, hubber!”
She reared back and hurled her knife. The man who’d spoken flinched away, and one of the others opened fire. Nalea dove right before they did, hitting the ground and low-crawling blindly among the fake displays. Green rays splattered the surrounding cases, shattering them into smoldering bits.
The knife, however, whistled right past the lead man. It went on to hit its target dead-on, striking the light switch behind him. All the lamps in the room flickered out instantly, plunging the room into complete darkness. The elf’s golden eyes adapted swiftly, though her vision was still blurry from the flash. It played havoc with her pursuers, though, who shouted among themselves.
A few broke out hand lights and others bumped around trying to find the switch to turn the lights back on. By the time they’d succeeded, Nalea had staggered back to her feet and made it to the window. There was no time to fumble it open and risk it being locked. As the light flooded the room once more, she wrapped her cloak over her face and hurled herself through the glass.
Luckily, she erupted through at street level and tumbled to the ground in a pained heap. Though she’d preserved her face well enough, her arm had gotten slashed in the process. Nalea winced in pain as she scrambled to her feet, just in time to get blinded anew by the headlights of a groundcar. She stumbled back towards the building even as the groundcar slammed on its brakes, tires squealing.
She fetched up against the side of the building with a wince. It had star
ted raining again while she was inside, cold droplets splattering the walls and street all around. It mixed with the blood from her arm, fell to the ground in drops of diluted red. Hubbers were already climbing through the broken window after her, and running up the street from both directions as well.
There was nowhere to go but up.
Nalea began to climb the wall. She lacked her usual agile speed. Instead, each grasping handhold higher was a source of pain. She bit her lip against the discomfort and blinked away the tears. A glance over her shoulder revealed the hubbers gathered beneath her. One was aiming their ray gun up at her, but the lanky one knocked their arm down and was visibly chastising them. Their voices were swept away in the wind and the rain.
The thief reached the height of the other roof first. She was exhausted and the pain was becoming worse. The gap would have been impossible even fresh, however. It was one thing to leap in and seize the wall, another to try to push off the flat surface at that distance. All she could do was push on and try to reach the roof.
At last, wheezing and gasping, she heaved herself up onto the top of the great building. She curled up on the cold, wet metal there, desperately trying to catch her breath. She had to get up. She had to find somewhere to run to. They would be on their way up through the building now.
Then a dark shape stepped over her, and something stopped the rain from reaching her.
“A good effort, Madam Wysasandoral. I can see how you’ve evaded them for so long.”
Nalea blinked up, frantically wiping water from her face with hands that were also soaked. A sylicate stood over her, their white core gleaming from within an obsidian form. They were holding an umbrella slanted to cover them both. The other hand was keeping their top hat from blowing away in the wind.
As bizarre as the tableau was, all she could think to ask was, “How do you know my name?”
The sylicate chuckled. “Ah, but I know a great deal about you. Such as your predilection for roofs, and the fact that not being on the front page would draw your attention.” They tipped their hat. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. I am Talus.”
Tales From the Crucible Page 14
