Mobius

by Garon Whited

  “How much governing have I been doing?”

  “Almost none.”

  “So, who’s been in charge?”

  “I didn’t think of it that way. You’ve always been in command. I’m only doing what I think you want done.”

  “And it isn’t changing. You’re officially doing what I want for the valley. If there are problems you can’t handle, you come to me. Fair?”

  “Very.”

  “I’ll see about getting you some armor, too, so you can look the part. Have someone sort out the rankings, will you?”

  “We’ll have a tournament.”

  “Hold it. I also want to include a board game. Do you know the one where you move the pieces around, like moving armies?” I asked, thinking if they didn’t have one, I’d “invent” one. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was pretty sure some of my meals knew how to play one.

  “Shahs? The battle-game?”

  “I think so. We need to rank people on both martial skill and on strategic skill. I also want to have some additional war-games where people lead others in battle to capture an enemy flag. We’ll probably need to set up a system to score points.”

  “This sounds complicated.”

  “But much more accurate than the ladder in Sarashda. A First there may be heavily armored, moderately-skilled, and incompetent to lead. One of the others may have a talent for Shahs and lightning reflexes, but inadequate training and minimal armor. Their ladder doesn’t reflect a warrior’s worth. I think the additional trouble is worth it.”

  She rolled out of bed and started throwing on clothes while I spoke.

  “I’ll think about it while I interrogate your prisoner. I’ll also send another squad out to the bridge.”

  “The bridge?”

  “If you’re about to cause havoc with Sarashda, they may try an attack. They’ve enough force gathered at their blockade to try it, but they’ve had no reason. If you’re about to anger Naskarl, he may give foolish orders.”

  “Good point.” I kissed her quickly and picked up my helmet and gauntlets.

  I went down to the barn and Bronze met me there. I called Hazir back, used the connection for a gate lock, and we stepped through into a sort of backstage area to a theater.

  The structure was an amphitheater to rival the arena, but it was a stage with seating for plays and the like, not somewhere to have men and monsters try to kill each other. Behind the stage were buildings, several of them, all joined together in a haphazard fashion. Without a production going on, it was a lot of space going to waste. No doubt some sections were storage for props and the like, locked up and possibly guarded, but we had a sizable room all to ourselves.

  Hazir extended his hand and we did the ceremonial high-five in place of a handshake. Everyone else—the warriors I hired and the warriors they hired for me—looked somewhere between keenly interested and uncomfortable. Everyone was armed and ready, as per their instructions. Good.

  “Welcome, friend Al. I see your magic door still works with precision and dispatch.”

  “It does. I’m quite fond of it. Now, if you will excuse us, I’m afraid I have to get right to work this evening.”

  “A pity. I do understand you are busy with your vendetta. Naturally, I cannot take sides.”

  “I understand. Good evening, friend Hazir.”

  “Good evening to you, friend Al. And to all of you,” he added, nodding at the others. He took his leave and I wondered where his servants were. Probably outside, waiting. If they didn’t see anything, they couldn’t be used to question his impartiality.

  I had the warriors divide themselves into groups of five and handed out battle plans. For the most part, they would have a simple task. Walk in the door, put any employees to the sword, take the money, and leave. Not rendezvous elsewhere, not deliver it to me, but take the money and run. Anywhere not Sarashda. I already had documents written to that effect so any authorities other than Sarcana should acknowledge they were following orders in a vendetta. The warriors liked it. It was a new wrinkle in inter-House warfare and it met with their enthusiastic approval. Financial gain usually does.

  “Don’t stick around too long hunting for loot,” I cautioned. “If you get caught, Sarcana will still kill you. The objective is to get what you can and get away with it. There shouldn’t be so much loot you have a hard time carrying it. If it’s going to slow you down, don’t take it. I want you to be smart and effective, not stupid and dead.”

  They promised, but I had my doubts.

  The odd mission was the treasure courier from the pleasure-house. We could attack the brothel, but it had over a dozen warriors on guard duty. Even if we won, it would take time, possibly time enough for reinforcements to arrive if they fought a defensive battle. The carriage and four escorts was mobile and likely to try to run for it, but also more vulnerable. Fortunately, I know someone who has a lot of influence over horses, so I planned to go along on the mission.

  There was a moderate delay while I watched the pleasure-house, waiting for the carriage to get ready. I wanted the assaults to be somewhat coordinated. They didn’t have to be simultaneous. I only wanted to avoid giving warning. If one or two hits are reported, then a couple more, and then a couple more, someone might realize it was the beginning of a full-scale attack. If they all occurred within ten or twenty minutes of each other, we should be able to walk away. Even a modern emergency call takes precious time—someone calls the cops, they get the story, they relay it to the nearest unit, the unit heads toward the trouble, and finally you have a policeman. Even with a magic mirror, I doubted anyone in House Sarcana, or even the whole of the city of Sarashda, was capable of quicker response on horseback.

  The carriage from the Sarcana estate pulled up at the pleasure-house, preparatory to loading the profits. Everyone headed for their targets, some on their own horses, some riding double, and few crowding into small, open, one-horse carts. I accompanied my squad as we headed off at a walk. All we had to do was get between the Sarcana estate and the pleasure-house.

  I watched on my mirror as squads made it to their targets. They didn’t deploy expertly, but they did know their business once they entered the establishments. No shields—not in tight quarters—but bucklers and short swords did the good work. I didn’t watch all of them, but I watched enough to know they knew their business and were following instructions.

  My focus shifted to an aerial view, watching the Sarcana carriage. The money was loaded in a pair of strongboxes, the courier stepped inside and sat on them, the guards mounted up and rode fore and aft of the transport, and the whole arrangement set off at a brisk trot.

  I had us move over to another street in order to intercept them. In a line, we all rode up the street in the opposite direction rather than sit and wait as an obvious ambush. I took two men with me as “retainers” and led the other three by about one carriage-length. The guards were alert, but they were mostly concerned with me. I don’t think they can be blamed. I was wearing the black armor, so they recognized me, and Bronze is usually two plane tickets and a long cab ride from inconspicuous.

  We passed by each other, trading glares and sneers. We stopped just as the rearguard passed me, about the same time the carriage-horses snorted, clattered to a halt, and reared in the traces. The driver shouted, the guards’ heads snapped around, and swords came out all over the place. I did my part by running Firebrand through the guard on the left-rear. Then it was five against three for the guards. The driver gave up trying to control his horses—they shivered and trembled when he applied the whip, but they didn’t move.

  Bronze swung around and brought me alongside. I convinced the driver to quit by grabbing his ankle and jerking him across, over my head, and into the nearest wall. I missed the window, so eventually he also hit the ground. He chose to lay there and moan. His partner, riding shotgun, stood up and moved toward me, intending to use his sword. Firebrand, being about two feet longer, gave him the universal signal to slow down—a sucking c
hest wound. He gasped and gurgled and fell from the carriage seat.

  Meanwhile, my men dispatched the three remaining guards. Two of mine were wounded, but not enough to stop.

  I tried to look in the carriage window, but it was well-curtained.

  “Get out and run,” I called. “You’ll live. Stay inside and we’ll come in after you.”

  “The first man inside dies!”

  I rammed Firebrand’s point through the door. It burped fire and I withdrew the blade. The scream was partly startlement, partly pain. Smoke wafted out of the carriage. I heard the crackle of something actively burning inside.

  “Five. Four. Three. Two…”

  The door opened and a smoking, singed courier hopped out, coughing. The two wounded men climbed inside and extinguished burning curtains. A third man took the driver’s seat, and the other two managed the empty horses. We set off for the nearest city gate at the best speed traffic would allow. With me in the lead—and, more importantly, Bronze—city traffic was remarkably accommodating.

  As I suspected, the response time is woefully slow for places without a formal emergency services number. We parted company at the city gate and I turned back.

  Time to find a suitable doorway and get back to the valley. The sunset was looming and I had one more robbery planned.

  My specially-coded hole in the estate’s scrying defenses was still there. The weakened areas of wall were also intact. The first would require someone cast a diagnostic spell and see beyond the basic “It’s working” indicator. The second would require someone lean on the wall in exactly the right spot. Neither happened.

  I looked over the vault again, remotely. It looked no different from before.

  One of the things I learned from Mary is how useless a vault can be.

  Let me explain. A vault is a physical barrier. If no one bothers you, it’s possible to break into any vault. All it takes is equipment and time. The reason vaults are popular is they force you to take time, allowing people to show up and argue with you. They’re also a good place to put alarms (so people will immediately show up) and traps (so people don’t have to show up). Admittedly, my native world frowned on traps and other active defenses, but it wasn’t a problem here.

  Ideally, your vault is hidden away, shielded from casual examination. If someone can get the detailed plans on your vault, its alarms, its defenses, the locking mechanism, all of it, then most of the time spent opening it can be prepared in advance. I don’t have to sneak down to the vault and examine the alarm spell, carefully tracing it then and there, and invent a bypass to keep it from going off. I don’t have to analyze the lightning trap while sitting in front of the door, hoping it isn’t on a timer. And I don’t have to spend half an hour examining the intricate mechanism inside the door for sliding the locking bolts.

  With a hole in the scrying defenses, I get to sit in my workshop, put my feet up, and make notes rather casually. I can even prepare spells to handle specific obstacles—in this case, alarms, lightning, fire, and the defensive spell warping the signature of space around the vault. If I had to, I could unlock the door, but it would slow me down. If I broke the warping spell, I could use a gate to get in, gather up a ton of gold, and use a gate to get out again. Best of all, the locked door would defend me from people who might show up to argue.

  Dealing with the various spells was never in doubt. One at a time, in the proper sequence, either disabling or destroying them—the outcome was inevitable. It was like taking apart a gun. As long as no one was using it to shoot at me, what was going to stop me? My only real concern was the interior of the vault. Until I took down the space-warping spell, I couldn’t look inside to check on any interior defenses. And, once I did that, the clock would start ticking—not because of any alarm, but because of two other reasons. Something inside the vault, as yet unseen, might set off an alarm, or someone involved in the vault’s security might notice.

  Briefly, I toyed with the idea of arson as a diversion. Despite Firebrand’s enthusiastic approval, I nixed it. While it might offer some distraction to the defenders, it would also wake up everyone and draw more attention to the fact something was wrong. What I hoped to do was get in, get the gold, and get out again as quickly as possible—and, hopefully, before anyone could respond effectively. If we started things burning, it would, in essence, give the other guys a wake-up call. Better to jump them while most of them are sound asleep.

  I wish Mary were here. She’s the professional. She’d walk in, talk sweetly to a bunch of guards, and walk out again disguised as a clinking fat lady.

  It was about three in the morning before I had everything arranged to my satisfaction. I made sure my person-sized gate in the workshop was in good working order and had extra power, since I was planning to open it inside the vault. People trying to bother me in my thievery would have to unlock the vault to get in, so I was unlikely to be surprised. I didn’t relish the idea of relying solely on a magical gate as my only escape, so I brought the silver phasing cloak with me. With the warping spell down, it ought to work fine. I didn’t like the ought to portion, but it was another option besides a gate. And, if all else failed, someone in Sarcana would come to open the door for me, and then I could leave in a more mundane, although more violent, fashion.

  My scrying spell shimmered into existence at the base of the stairs, outside the vault door. It was an iron door, quite heavy, and locked with both mechanical bolts and spells. I liked the mechanical setup inside the door. The lock was fine and complicated, but turning the key to open it didn’t move the heavy bolts. Instead, the internal lock engaged a mechanism to let the person opening it turn a handle, and the handle drew back the bolts. Until the key unlocked the mechanism, the handle simply spun. A clever way around the problem of a fine mechanism and thick bolts.

  I set off a sequence of spells, launching them through a small, brute-force gate. First in the alarm system, then in the defenses, then in the locking mechanism, and finally in the warp shield. I didn’t wait to evaluate the results, but plunged my scrying sensor through the door and into the vault.

  The room was not illuminated, so I saw everything in shades of grey. It was not well-organized in the sense it did not have dedicated shelves or drawers, but the chests bolted to the floor were arrayed neatly. The chests were also locked, but they did not appear magical in any way. Presumably, alarms on the chests wouldn’t penetrate the vault’s defenses.

  I chose to leave the door closed and use it as a last line of defense in case I was detected. I opened a gate on the inside of the vault, using the main door’s frame as the target lock.

  The sight that greeted me was not what I saw in my scrying spell.

  In retrospect, it’s easy to see what happened. Inside the vault, someone had a false-scrying illusion. Why would there be one? Because someone is determined to safeguard their vault contents. I was mildly impressed. There were two layers of magical defenses I had to overcome to get a scrying sensor in there in the first place. I’ve used a similar spell to intimidate would-be spies by forcing the image they see to be a huge, lidless eye of fire. What I saw was simply a picture of the interior of the vault, dark and empty, concealing the true contents.

  Four warriors, seated on chests, leaped to their feet. The usual scale armor gleamed in the lamplight and reflected from drawn swords. They stared at me, at least as startled as I was. We traded dumbfounded expressions for several seconds before one of them recovered and charged me. I stepped through the gate, swept his thrust aside with the back of one gauntlet, and thrust my hand forward like a spear, into his face and out the back of his head. He didn’t even convulse, just went down.

  The other three charged as the gate opening disappeared, transferred down to my Ring of Spying. I pressed back against the vault door for leverage and threw my fresh corpse, fouling two of them. The remaining man hacked at me and I took it on my forearm armor, grabbed his wrist—I was aiming for his hand—and squeezed, making crunching noises. He scream
ed, echoingly, which bothered my ears a bit and annoyed me.

  I drew Firebrand. The lamps were not the enchanted sort, so they blazed white as Firebrand caught fire.

  The other two approached more carefully, so I whisked Firebrand in a blinding, bright arc, both to leave afterimages on their vision and to open a sizable hole in the guard with the broken wrist.

  They moved toward me together, careful to keep a wide spacing. They wanted me between them, but I wasn’t willing to take my time. Tendrils—always coiling and shifting about me at night—flicked invisibly through the room, latching on to everything with any life left in it. Instantly, they finished off the wounded. The unwounded staggered as their vitality drained away. One realized I was doing something and attacked, but two quick movements and he was lying down, smoking slightly, while his blood joined the rest in crawling rapidly up my boots. The other simply collapsed. I gave everyone some head wounds to help define the cause of death and sheathed Firebrand. There wasn’t much to be done about the blood loss, but everything has a downside. I went to work with my Saber of Sharpness.

  Opening the chests was not difficult. Scooping out bags of coins wasn’t, either. But transporting it all—that was trickier. The vault and the layout did not lend itself well to rapid transportation of wealth, and there were quite a lot of bags in quite a lot of chests. I hadn’t anticipated a haul this large. Gold is heavy, so… what? Two tons? Three? I might be able to drag it all up the stairs, but in what? I didn’t bring a sled, and tossing a couple of tons through a gate—two fistfuls at a time!—would take much longer than I liked. It was labor-intensive, to say the least, and I wasn’t comfortable taking so much time.

  I can get more money, but Sarcana doesn’t have my resources. I wound up cutting open the chests, tossing bags into the infinite darkness of my cloak, and moving on to the next chest. I cleaned out the whole vault that way, saving only the last chest of gold as a prize. That one, I cut free from the floor and carried out through my gate as I departed.