The Thieves’ Guild

by Jeff Crook

  Now he set to work. First, he chose a pair of thick wires and inserted them into the lock, then pushed a narrow flat shim in beside them. Working carefully, the sounds of his tinkering muffled by the cloaked bodies around him, he jiggled, prodded, levered, wrenched, twisted, and finally with a satisfying click turned the lockpicks in the lock. He slid the lock from its stout iron staple and set it on the floor beside the door.

  Alynthia stepped forward and pushed against the door. In well-oiled silence, it swung wide. The thieves grinned at each other through their masks. Cael wasn’t sure whether it was because of their success or because Alynthia so trusted their abilities that she opened the door herself rather than order an underling to risk the possibility of an overlooked ward. They crowded into the doorway beside her, even old Mancred, anxious to see what fabulous treasures awaited them.

  Before allowing them into the chamber, Alynthia indicated by a stern look and a raised finger that each thief might choose one item apiece, and that they must choose quickly. The thieves nodded their silent agreement, and she stepped into the room, while the others followed.

  The treasure chamber looked worthy of all their efforts. Over the years since Mistress Jenna first established her Three Moons shop, she had acquired one of the strangest and rarest collections of curiosities, artifacts, relics, and magical items known on Krynn. Not even the fabled Towers of High Sorcery at the height of their power could have surpassed her treasury. Indeed, it was very likely that a great many of the items to be found here had once decorated a shelf in some tower master’s library or rested upon a table in his conjuring chamber. There were wands in jeweled cases, potions in bottles of silver, porcelain, pottery, and glass. One shelf was reserved for rings, while another was stacked with what appeared to be ancient books of spells and incantations. From a bar hung a rack of wizard’s robes and cloaks, some black, some red, some white. All were apparently magical, or at the very least arcane, from the runes and sigils stitched on the sleeves and hemmed in threads of silver and gold. One appeared to be sewn with something like starlight, for upon close inspection no thread was visible, but from a distance a clear silver-blue stitching was plain for all to see. A pair of rolled rugs stood in one corner, while opposite them was a wide golden brazier in which coals had been placed but not lit.

  The chamber was illuminated from above by three clear glass balls that floated in the air and glowed with an inner spark. Directly below these light globes stood a number of marble pedestals atop which were placed perhaps the greatest treasures of the chamber. Some seemed quite ordinary, such as the small octagonal-framed spectacles lying atop a black velvet cloth, or the pair of plain leather gloves, somewhat tattered, that lay in a box of finely carved mahogany. Others were more fantastic, such as the great brazen horn tipped with ivory that lay on a red pillow, or the fine belt of tooled leather, gilded with gold and silver and studded with jewels that were worthy of a crown.

  It was among these items that the Potion of Shonlay stood. The bottle was tall, almost as long as a man’s arm, narrow as a straw near the lip. The glass was milky white. Colors swirled within it—green, red, and blue, and clouds like black ink.

  As Mancred entered the chamber, his eyes settled on the octagonal rimmed spectacles. Without even a glance at the other items in the room, he walked straight towards them and lifted them lovingly in his hands. Cael followed him, detouring to inspect the gloves. Alynthia strode round the room, eyeing everything but choosing nothing, completing the full circle of the chamber in a few hurried strides. She returned to the door and turned to watch her thieves.

  Hoag had already chosen his treasure—a dagger with a blade as red as fresh blood. Cael slipped’ the gloves onto his hands and felt them mold to his fingers, wrapping his hands in velvet softness that was both comfortably warm and pleasantly cool. His fingers felt tremblingly alive, as though he might pluck the moon from the sky if he so desired. Meanwhile, old Mancred slipped the glasses onto his face and glanced around the room. His eyes opened wide in surprise, and a smile spread beneath his mask, but he did not explain his reaction.

  A warning hiss came from the hall. The thieves froze, every ear straining, no one daring to move. They heard a noise like someone playing bowls in the hall outside. What they saw filled them with wonder and apprehension.

  A huge silver ball rolled to a stop outside the door. Where it had come from, no one knew, though it might have issued from one of the open doors at the ends of the hall. The ball stood almost to Alynthia’s waist. It rocked back and forth ominously. Finally, it rolled into the room. Alynthia stepped aside to let it pass, a look of horror widening her dark eyes.

  The ball rolled almost to the center of the room, stopping mere inches from Cael’s foot. Again, it rocked back and forth as though uncertain what to do. It shuddered to a stop and split along its equator, opening like a great silver clam. The upper hemisphere of the thing was hollow, but the lower appeared solid, its upper surface etched with spiraling lines. As they watched, the spirals began to whirl, and a great horn or funnel spun itself up out of the ball. It looked like one of the shouting devices sailors used to communicate between ships during heavy seas.

  Mancred inched his way toward the door, while Cael held his breath and wondered if the thing could hear the pounding of his heart. It was close enough for him to see, by standing on tiptoe, down into the thing’s funnel ear. There he saw a tiny white membrane, like the skin of a drum.

  Hoag was closest to the Potion of Shonlay. Alynthia motioned for him to grab it, then move with greatest stealth to the door. Cael, however, seemed stuck. So close was the listening device that he feared even to budge. Hoag was slowly inching over to the pedestal where the potion stood. Though his eyes seemed more often on the listening ball than his destination, he crossed the half-dozen steps without incident. Breathing a silent sigh, he reached out and grasped the bottle.

  Cael saw, a moment too late, the lead seal atop which the bottle rested. Without thinking, he cried out, “Stop!” but to no avail.

  At the sound of Cael’s voice, Hoag froze, the bottle in his hand lifted an inch above the pedestal, his head half turned toward the elf with a look of astonishment frozen on his face. His skin, clothing, cloak, hood, and mask all faded to a dull, stony gray. He moved and breathed no more. Alynthia screamed in rage but was forced to dodge aside when the silver ball spun down its funnel ear, snapped its lid shut with a musical chime like a large silver bell, and rolled rapidly through the doorway, nearly trampling her in its haste. Mancred yanked her aside at the last moment, else she might have been crushed. The thing smashed into the wall opposite the door, sending a spiderweb of cracks radiating across the stone for several feet, then spun off toward the stair. A high, shrill voice began to shriek, “Mistress Jenna! Mistress Jenna!”

  The iron door slammed shut.

  “Get the potion! Now!” Alynthia shouted as she turned to the door.

  “It’ll break!” Cael cried, trying to pry the bottle out of Hoag’s hands. “He’s been turned to stone. I tried to warn him.” He clawed at the petrified flesh encasing the neck of the potion bottle.

  They heard the ball clanging down the stairs, all the while shrieking “Mistress Jenna! Mistress Jenna!” like some hideous parody of a parrot. Below a woman’s voice answered in a language none of them knew but all understood to augur magic.

  “Leave it!” Alynthia ordered. “Help me open the door.” Her nimble fingers danced across the iron surface, searching for a latch, a hidden keyhole, anything that might release the door. There was no handle for her to grip and pull. She pressed against the door, throwing her body against it, but she might as well have been trying to crash through a stone wall.

  “I’ll break off his hand!” Cael shouted, still trying to free the potion from Hoag’s grasp. He held out his staff, still cane-sized, and said aloud, “Dinshar” The ironwood shaft shimmered, and suddenly it was staff-sized again. He raised it above his head and brought it ringing down on the thief�
�s wrist Chips of rock exploded from the blow, but the stone thief held firmly to his prize.

  “Forget the potion,” Alynthia shouted.

  “No. If we fail, it means my life,” Cael said, raising his staff for another blow.

  “Can you open the door, Old One?” Alynthia asked Mancred.

  He removed a scroll from his pouch, unrolled it, and quickly read the enchantment inscribed upon it. The door shuddered in its frame but did not move. Mancred staggered back, the scroll slipping from his grasp. “It is too powerful,” he gasped.

  “Trapped!” Alynthia cried, her voice almost a shriek of despair. “Trapped like gully dwarves.”

  “I’m no gully dwarf! Speak for yourself!” Cael exclaimed, abandoning the potion at last. The mightiest blows of his ironwood staff had hardly marred the petrified thief’s wrist. The Potion of Shonlay remained firmly-in his stone grasp.

  He rushed at the door, his staff a blurred wheel. His staff rang like a struck bell against the iron door. A ring of red fire spread from the point of impact, and the door opened a slight crack, revealing a lurid glow in the hall beyond.

  “Good work,” Alynthia shouted as she pushed past him “Do not fear,” she added in a low voice, pausing to grip his arm. “All is not lost.” He had no time to ponder her words.

  Ijus still stood at the top of the stair, a loaded crossbow pointed into the stairwell. The stairs crackled with flames as though the entire lower floor were afire. The thief’s eyes were on his captain, awaiting the order to retreat.

  “What’s that fire?” Alynthia asked.

  “An illusion of mine,” he shouted. “It won’t hold her long.” Even as he spoke, the flames winked out.

  Cael stood beside Alynthia as Mancred scurried up the rope. He held it out for Alynthia, but she turned back, motioning Ijus to abandon his position.

  Before he could move, he swore a surprised oath and fired his weapon down the stairs. There was a dull crack. He turned and shouted, “She’s protected against missiles.”

  A single word echoed from below, and a flash of light streaked up the stairs. It exploded against the lookout’s chest, flinging him against the wall like a rag. He collapsed to the floor, dead, the smell of seared flesh filling the air.

  “Go!” Alynthia ordered.

  Cael stared in horror at the man who had just died, the second of the Circle to sacrifice his life to save him.

  “Go now! Hurry!” Alynthia shouted at him.

  He turned to her. “No, you go. I will die tonight whether I flee back to the Guild or remain here, that much is certain. I might as well die in battle.”

  Alynthia’s eyes softened. She nodded quickly, and said quietly, “Get out if you are able. I’ll wait for you.”

  “Go,” he answered her, touching her hand a moment She pulled away from him, grasped the rope, and was lifted rapidly through the hole in the ceiling. Cael watched her feet vanish into the darkness above, to be replaced by Varia’s masked face, her eyes glinting with excitement. She lowered the rope to him and hissed, “Hurry!”

  A noise from behind drew him around. Mistress Jenna, her red robes flying about her like the sheets of a ghost, floated into the hall. A globe of shimmering air surrounded her.

  “Shon l’phae loch fellawathwen Tanthalas lu’ro,” Jenna said in the Elvish tongue. “Here is the fool to whom I once sold a pair of boots enchanted to leave reversed footprints,” she snarled. Her voice sounded strange through the shield of her magic, as though she spoke from the depths of a cave. “I suspected you would come. You were not hard to predict”

  “Maybe not, but I was clever enough to rob two treasures from your hoard, Mistress,” he responded as he gripped his staff.

  “Not clever enough to escape with them,” she answered. “Surrender. I do not wish to kill you.”

  “Neither do I want you to, but I will not surrender,” the elf said.

  She floated closer to him. “Were you not an elf and so inured to all charms, I would befuddle your mind and force your compliance. But I see stronger measures are needed.”

  With these words, she extended one hand, index finger pointed at the elf’s chest She spoke a word, and a bolt of lightning coursed down her arm and flashed from her fingertips.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The magical attack came too swiftly for Cael to hope to dodge, and under any other circumstances, he would have died horribly. However, instead of blasting a smoking hole in his chest, Jenna’s lightning bolt merely struck Cael’s staff and disappeared. Such a comical look of surprise appeared on the sorceress’s face that Cael actually laughed out loud before realizing his good fortune. He changed his guffaw into a shout of defiance.

  “So, my staff defeats your spell, Mistress Jenna! Shall we see if it can shatter your sphere of protection as well?” He leaped at her, swinging his staff with all his might.

  Jenna flew backward, avoiding his blow, and Cael’s staff crashed against the wall. He recovered, preparing to strike again before Jenna could escape down the stairs.

  A shout from above stopped him. Looking up, he saw Alynthia reaching a gloved hand through the hole in the roof. “Come on!” she ordered. “Now’s your chance.”

  With one more glance at Jenna, who was busy opening a scroll, the surprise on her face changing to indignation, Cael leaped up and caught the proffered hand. Grimting, Alynthia pulled him onto the roof.

  “Shall we go?” she asked, as Varia stuffed the tripod into the hole.

  “After you,” Cael answered.

  They sprinted for the roofs edge, Varia quickly following.

  Behind them, the tripod rocketed up out of the hole into the night sky and came crashing down in the street in front of Jenna’s shop. Cael and Alynthia reached the battlement wall where they had first climbed up. Their rope still lay coiled beside it. At their approach, a thief rose up from the shadow of the wall and tossed the coiled rope over the edge. He was a burly fellow, with forearms like those of a galley rower. He wrapped one end of the rope around his waist, then around his beam-thick wrist.

  “Down you go, Captain,” Rull said.

  “Wait,” she whispered. “Look, Cael!” She pointed back the way they had come.

  Mistress Jenna was on the roof, her long gray hair swirling in a nimbus of power around her head. Still, the shimmering globe of air surrounded her, visible even in the darkness.

  As Jenna slowly scanned the roof, searching for the fleeing intruders, her magical globe of protection was suddenly bombarded, struck by light and audible pinging noises. A second attack followed, then a third, striking from three different directions. Jenna spun quickly, trying to locate her opponents, only to suffer more blows.

  “What is that?” Cael asked, amazed.

  “Slingers,” Alynthia answered with a smile beneath her mask. “That’s our Guild for you. There are slingers on every roof. And now…”

  She paused. A larger and louder flash, almost an explosion, burst upon Jenna’s shield, spinning her around, adding to the look of frustrated rage on her face.

  “…the crossbowmen.”

  “Impressive, but what good are they? She is protected against both dart and slinger’s stone,” Cael said.

  “Yes, but look how they distract her,” Alynthia commented. A bolt crashed against the shield just before Jenna’s face, drawing an instinctive recoil from the sorceress. “We escape while she swats flies. Follow me, Cael!”

  She kicked one leg over the roofs battlement, grasped the rope, and swung over. Cael watched her rappel down the wall as expertly as any mountaineer. When she touched the ground, she shook the rope for Cael to follow.

  “Wonderfully light, she is,” Rull said as he held the rope’s end in his iron grip. “Over you go.”

  Cael swung over the battlement and lowered himself hand-over-hand to the alley below. He had no skill such as Alynthia’s for rappelling down ropes in the black of night. As soon as his feet touched the cobblestones, the rope came slithering down after him. He al
most swore aloud, thinking the thief had tried to drop him.

  But no, Alynthia quickly wound it into a remarkably small coil and stowed it in a large flat pouch at her belt. “In case we need it for further escapes,” she explained. “Let’s return to our safe room and stow these black clothes. We can’t walk about Palanthas dressed like this.”

  “I should say not,” a voice said behind them. They spun around, Alynthia drawing her dagger, Cael gripping his staff.

  Before them stood a small man draped in heavy robes of gray. His face was thin and pale, his eyes small and black and ratlike. They seemed almost to glow red in the darkness of the alley.

  Alynthia took a step toward him, but he halted her with a warning, “Ah, ah, ah! I wouldn’t do that.” His robe parted slightly, revealing a drawn hand crossbow. “You’d be dead before you took another step. You may drop your illegal weapon now.”

  Reluctantly, Alynthia let the weapon slide from her fingertips. The man’s ratlike eyes then swiveled to gaze at the elf. “Cael Ironstaff of… Where is it you are from anyway? No matter. You and your accomplice are under arrest.”

  “By whose authority, and on what charge?” Cael growled.

  “Why, the charge begins with burglary, though I am sure I can conjure up a few more capital offenses if need be. As for me, I am Sir Arach Jannon, Knight of the Thorn and Judge of the Law in Palanthas. My authority here is unquestioned.” So saying, he placed a pair of spidery fingers to his thin lips and sounded a piercing whistle.