Thief's Fall

by C. Greenwood

  It only lasted a moment, and then the iron was pulled away. A cheer went up from the onlookers, as if this were a great event.

  Careful to hide my dismay, I examined the stinging red X that stood out angrily on my arm. Like it or not, I was a branded member of the thieves’ guild now.

  * * *

  Following the branding, the thieves began to disperse, a few slapping my back in passing or offering noisy congratulations, as if some happy thing had happened. As they streamed past, I caught sight of Ferran and Ada working their way toward me. I gave a sharp jerk of my head toward the door. Even though the danger seemed to be over, I wanted them out of this place before the unpredictable thief king decided to withdraw his generosity. Ada met my gaze, and I could see she understood. To my relief, she led the protesting Ferran away with the others.

  The companion of my earlier adventure, Javen, appeared suddenly at my elbow, holding a small pot of strong-smelling green cream.

  “It will draw the heat from the burn,” he explained.

  I remembered what he had told me before about his father having been a healer. I didn’t protest when he slathered a thick layer of cream over the place where my arm stung from the branding. The cool ointment brought soothing relief.

  The thief king appeared before us. “So, what do we call the newest member of our privileged circle?” he asked me.

  “I am Rideon,” I said.

  I waited, but he didn’t supply his own name. Perhaps he preferred to go only by the name of king.

  He made a gesture of dismissal to Javen, who took his healing salve and quickly left us.

  When we were alone, the thief king said, “Young Rideon, there’s something I want to show you. Come with me.”

  Without waiting to see whether I would follow, he strode away. I glanced around and realized we were completely alone now. Everyone else had gone. Reluctantly I followed him across the temple.

  “Do you know what it is that you see around you?” he asked me, spreading his arms wide as he walked. His voice echoed among the stone pillars. “This ghostly place is the original city, the old town where Selbius’s earliest settlers dwelt,” he explained. “It was abandoned hundreds of years ago, after those first inhabitants died of plague. Their descendants stretched outward and built up the modern city we have now. With all the people gone, only this desolate shell remains, a decayed carcass of a once-thriving area.”

  I wondered why he was giving me the history lesson while I followed him to the back of the temple. He fell silent as he circled around what must have been an altar at one time. Here he pushed aside a crumbling statue of a winged creature with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle. It slid easily across the floor, revealing a hidden staircase beneath its hollow base. The stone steps plunged into deep darkness.

  My guide took down a torch from one of the sconces along the wall and beckoned me to join him in descending the stairs.

  I hesitated. There was no knowing what was below. But the thief captain wasn’t going to murder me so soon after having pressed me into his band, I decided. And whatever lay beneath this temple could hardly be more dangerous than everything else I had faced tonight. Besides, it was important not to show fear before the thief king. I sensed if ever he smelled cowardice in me, he would have no further use for me.

  So I followed the light of his torch down the long spiral below. We hadn’t gone far when the stairway opened up into a cavernous room as large and open as the hall above. Great pillars held up the ceiling. Arranged side by side between the columns were rows of sarcophaguses. The hairs on my arms stood up as I realized what I was looking at. Some of the more ornate stone boxes had likenesses of important persons engraved on top of them. Others were plain. As the thief king walked past the rows of dead as easily as he might stroll a garden path, I glimpsed a still more chilling sight. Beyond the sarcophaguses were places where bare bones and skulls were simply piled in heaps upon the floor.

  My guide must have noticed my looking at them. “During the plague,” he explained, “victims fell many and fast. Toward the end, the living could no longer manage the formalities of death and were forced to simply discard heaps of corpses below the temple, sealing off the crypt to avoid contaminating the air above with the disease.”

  “So we’re walking among diseased corpses?” I asked. “That is comforting to know.”

  “Don’t worry. Any lingering taint will have died away years ago,” he said. Then he added, “Most likely.”

  Far from reassured by that, I was impatient to be away. “Is there any particular reason why you’ve led me down here?”

  “I have brought you to see this,” he answered.

  We rounded a thick pillar that had been obscuring my view, and suddenly a heap of precious goods spread before me. Flickering torchlight reflected off silver trays and serving sets, sparkling vases, crystal chandeliers, all piled upon the floor. I saw rolls of fine carpets and elegant furnishings that would surely sell for much. There were carved wooden boxes, some containing jewelry. Other, larger chests held worked silver goblets or other valuables.

  “This is the guild’s treasure hoard,” I realized aloud. It wasn’t treasure in the usual sense. There were no piles of golden coins or bejeweled crowns. But it was riches of a sort, probably the result of many years collecting.

  “You’re wondering why I wanted you to see it,” the thief king said.

  Actually, I was. It seemed to me the point of a secret treasure was to keep it hidden.

  I watched as he walked over to a velvet-lined box and dropped the sparkling necklace I had brought him inside, adding this new prize to the collection.

  With his back to me, he said, “I bring all new thieves down here as soon as they’re branded. I make it no secret where this treasure lies. I bring them here, and I make sure each knows exactly what would happen if he ever laid finger to a copper coin or silver spoon of it. Look here.”

  He strolled to a cobwebbed niche along the wall and pulled down a thick jar of clay. This wasn’t part of the treasure. It looked as old as the crypt around us. He removed a stopper from the jar and turned it upside down, pouring out a stream of ashes. Then he held the jar out so I could see its remaining contents, a shriveled fleshy-looking mass colored black by the ashes it was packed among.

  He must have seen that I didn’t know what I was looking at. “The heart of the last man who tried to steal from me,” he explained. “It’s the only piece of him left to display.”

  He replaced the jar and walked to one of the sarcophaguses. “And here,” he said, pushing aside the stone lid with effort. Inside, crowded atop the bones of a more ancient skeleton lay a rotting corpse not many weeks old.

  “Another betrayer,” the thief king introduced. “This one thought to overthrow me and take leadership of the guild. Naturally, I acted swiftly to bury his plan.”

  I understood now why he had brought me here. He wanted to show his power, his ruthlessness, and demonstrate what would happen if I ever failed him.

  He was studying me, measuring my reaction.

  “Your success tonight was impressive,” the thief king told me. “I like your boldness. But brave men are often ambitious men. See to it that your courage does not outmatch your wisdom.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I have no thought to outshine your greatness. I wish only to serve.”

  He smirked at the bald flattery.

  Doubtless in his eyes I was just some desperate peasant boy who survived by picking the occasional pocket. I felt it was best to be ingratiating, to keep my apparent aims low so he wouldn’t feel threatened by them. I recalled the fawning behavior of the lesser nobles who used to hover around my father, the congrave. My father had despised them, but now I must adopt their ways.

  My response must have passed his test, because the thief king soon led me out of the crypt and back to the temple above. From there we parted ways. I hesitated briefly on the temple’s outer stairs, overlooking the moonlit ruins of the old
city. I supposed Ferran and Ada had returned to their lodging above The Ravenous Wolf. And so that was where I too must turn my steps.

  But as I walked away from the temple, in my mind’s eye I saw again the great heap of the thief king’s treasure. I remembered the way the blue gems on the necklace I contributed had gleamed warmly in the torchlight. What was the value of such a prize, I wondered. What sort of new life could I build for Ferran and me if I had only a small fraction of that wealth in my own hands?

  Right away I began to scheme.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Back at The Ravenous Wolf, I meant to head straight upstairs to Ferran and Ada. Instead, I was intercepted by Kinsley and Javen just inside the door. They cheerfully congratulated me and took me around the noisy room, pointing out fellow guild members and introducing me to the regulars. These thieves who had seemed so rough and dangerous earlier looked slightly less intimidating now we were no longer enemies. I had no doubt they would still kill me on little provocation. But for the moment they regarded me with indulgence. When Javen told how I had snatched the necklace right out of a house where the praetor himself was dining, there was even some respect thrown my way. I could tell they thought I was either brave or mad—quite possibly both.

  Both Kinsley and Javen appeared to have taken a liking to me, possibly on account of our similar ages. They urged me to stay below and celebrate with them. But I was in a hurry to break away. I needed to speak with Ada and reassure myself Ferran was all right.

  Making my excuses, I escaped my rowdy companions and climbed the stairs to the lodgings above. I could still hear the noisy shouts and laughter of the drunken patrons below. Something told me getting free of these thieves was going to be difficult in the future. From now on, I would have the feeling of being under observation by my fellow guild members, who hung about this place night and day.

  Upstairs, I found the door to our quarters unbarred. It seemed to have no lock. Both Ferran and Ada looked up in surprise when I entered. My little brother ran to me at once, throwing his arms around me.

  “Rideon, you’re safe!” he cried with obvious relief.

  I said I was and reassured myself at the same time that he was unharmed. The thieves had done him no injury in my absence, though it still pained me to see the X burned into his arm. It looked less livid and painful than my own fresh brand. Probably a couple of weeks old, his had already begun fading to a softer pink color. Still, the mark didn’t belong on a son of our father’s house.

  I pried Ferran loose and turned to Ada, who looked almost as relieved as my brother to find me safe.

  “We should leave town right away,” she told me. “It’s not too late for what we ought to have done in the first place. It’s time to flee to Dimmingwood. The thieves cannot reach us there, and we will find my family and settle in one of the woods villages.”

  To buy time, I walked to where I had left my magic bow in the corner. I was glad to see no one had touched the weapon in my absence. I was developing a possessive feeling for the thing. It had proved its worth on more than one occasion.

  “We shouldn’t do anything hasty,” I told Ada, touching the delicate ruins engraved on the arm of the bow. “We’re being watched because we’re new. Give the thieves time to get used to us and to conclude we’re just like the rest of them. Once they see we’re cooperative and no threat, they’ll pay us no attention. Then we’ll find it easier to slip away.”

  Privately, I had my own reasons for wanting to delay departure. True, the plan had always been to hide ourselves among the shadows of the great forest, away from our old enemies. We had only ever stopped in Selbius along the way to supply for the journey into the forest. Dimmingwood was where I had meant to make a new life for Ferran and me.

  But now, tonight, I had seen another option, a way to make safe our futures. I had no intention of leaving the city or the thieves’ guild until I had secured my objective.

  “But how long must we wait?” Ada asked.

  I went to the window and propped one boot up on the sill. I removed my father’s ring from the hollow place inside the heel and replaced it on my finger. Now I was accepted by the thieves, I no longer feared they would rob me of the precious possession. My father’s signet glared up at me in the dim light Ada had created with one of her magical blue orbs. I tried not to consider what my parents, long dead, would think of what I was becoming. I wasn’t thinking of riches but of securing Ferran’s and my future, I told myself.

  “We should give it at least a week,” I answered Ada. “By then, the guild’s interest in its newest members will have died down and we will be forgotten.”

  By that time, I added silently, I would have gained the thief king’s trust and made myself necessary to him. Only then would I be given the opportunity I waited for.

  * * *

  It had been a long day for me. We went to bed soon, Ada giving me enough of her extra blankets to make up my pallet alongside my brother. Sleeping on the hardwood floor felt strange to me, now that I was accustomed to the ground of the forest where I had spent so many recent nights. I actually missed the rustling of leaves and the sound of the splashing waterfall running down the side of the cave where I had sheltered. Dimmingwood had quickly worked its way into my soul. It called to me, but I ignored it.

  As I lay next to the softly snoring Ferran, waiting for sleep to claim me, I remembered my promise to the praetor’s son, Tarius. I had agreed to go up to the castle tomorrow. But I decided now not to keep that promise. I had enough trouble ahead without involving myself in whatever job was planned by the spoiled heir of a noble. It troubled me to break my word. But I had little cause to trust praetors or their offspring. Not after the wrongs my family had suffered back in Camdon at the hands of that other praetor. Besides, I had noticed something twisted about young Tarius’s manner and sense of humor during our brief meeting. He was a crafty one and not to be trusted. Most likely he planned some treacherous trap that would be amusing for him and not for me.

  Anyway, what could he do to me when I failed to show up? He had threatened to give my description to the city guard. But he had only seen me in dim lighting, and there was bound to be a thousand other ragged boys in this city matching my physical description. I dismissed Tarius and his schemes from my mind.

  I tried to think pleasant thoughts instead, recollections of the past and the castle where I grew up. But I was disturbed to find the memories of both my parents’ faces were dimmed. By time or the amulet I wore? I imagined I could feel its magic now, burning against my chest where it rested. Ever since waking from my “death” in the lake to find myself wearing the old riverwoman’s charm, my distant past had been murky. I struggled to hold on to things that happened more than a few months ago. At least recent events were clear. Bits of old memories occasionally resurfaced on their own, or I was able to claw them back when needed. Still I was haunted by the fear of losing them for good.

  I fell asleep, gripping the leather-bound book that held the whole record of my life. With my mind betraying me, I was coming to depend on that little book more and more.

  * * *

  The one-week delay I suggested to Ada turned into two before I knew it. I spent the days following my initiation working for the guild. With Kinsley volunteering to help me hone the skills he assumed I already had, I learned the tricks of the trade. We started small. He taught me how to choose a mark in a crowd, to jostle them as if by accident, and how to dip a hand in and out of a coat pocket without the victim noticing their load had suddenly grown lighter. He also showed me how to distract shop owners while lifting small items from their shelves.

  Often we worked as a two-man team. Kinsley was already known to the shopkeepers as a troublemaker, whereas I was new in town and had an honest face. He liked to rib me for what he called my genteel “lady’s” manner and correct way of speaking. Little did he guess the upbringing that had instilled them. These things made me stand out from the other thieves. But the shopkeepers liked my
polite approach. It made them trust me. That meant while they were busy chasing Kinsley out of their stores, I could be furtively pocketing their wares.

  We always gave a tenth of our pickings to the guild and its leader, either in the form of goods or the coins we gained by selling the stolen property. Others we might cheat but never the guild. We didn’t dare.

  Sometimes Javen joined us on those jobs. The one thing the three of us didn’t do was burgle any more houses. To my relief, the thief king didn’t ask me to repeat my visit to a certain noblewoman’s home. I doubted a second attempt to go after the Azure Star would end as well as the first.

  I was making friends among the guild. I spent most of my time with Kinsley or Javen, but I was rapidly learning the names of other members. We didn’t acknowledge each other in the streets. But many of them came to spend evenings at The Ravenous Wolf. I still had no taste for watching or betting on the beast fights, but I forced myself to spend time in the common room anyway, getting to know the men who did. If I wanted the freedom to carry out my plans, it was important not to stand apart or look like an outsider.

  It was doubly necessary that I appear to fit in because Ada certainly wasn’t making any efforts to do so. Often during those early days, I caught her eyeing me strangely as I visited with the thieves. Did she suspect I was less eager to escape them than she? Both Ada and Ferran continued their work around the tavern, cleaning and serving. Ferran worked out in the yard as much as possible to be away from the cruel abuse of the animals inside. I had instructed him never to pick the pockets of the patrons but to leave that sort of thing to Ada and me. No matter what the guild and its leader expected, I wasn’t willing to expose my brother to the risks of being caught thieving. Guild members were expert at ducking the authorities, but there was still a high price to pay if the city guard caught a thief in the act.

  I was now fully focused on the scheme that had begun to take shape in my head that first night when I had been shown the thieves’ hoard of treasure. I would have to work slowly, cautiously. But bit by bit I meant to siphon off some of those riches. Not for myself, of course, but for Ferran. We couldn’t depend on remaining in the thief king’s good graces forever. The one-eyed man was fully capable of befriending one day and killing the next. No, I outwardly worked for him but secretly acted for myself, biding my time for the day when I could put my plan into action.