“You know damn well why. For you. Because I ‘disgraced my family’ by taking up with an elf. An ‘employee.’”
She shook her head. “That’s part of it, certainly. But not all of it. It’s because you were never the best. Because being average has never been good enough for you. Like your father.” She paused, her eyes widening as she realized what she’d said.
She’d crossed a line. I leapt to my feet, started to speak, started to shout—and instead, turned away and walked out, into the study across the hallway.
I fumed, white-hot anger filling my veins with fire. What business was it of hers? What gave her the right to speak of me like that?
I knew the answer, of course. It was because she was right.
Second place is the first loser, my father had always told me. He was a cruel man, well suited for life in the Empire, and I hated him—but he wasn’t wrong. I had to be the best.
Irian walked into the room. Her expression was regretful, and she held two glasses. Not water, but whiskey. I took one from her, but held it, not drinking. She sipped the other one.
“Look—” she started, and I held up a hand, forestalling her apology.
“Forget it.” I gave her a smile. No hard feelings. She returned it, a little unsure, and I kissed her. We stood like that for a minute before we pulled apart. I sat down heavily in one of the large mismatched armchairs, my aching knees thanking me.
“You’re right. But not completely. Pride’s part of it, for sure. But the pay’s good. Enough to relax for a little while. Maybe go to Orlais, see Val Royeaux. Go to one of those little countryside estates. Eat all the cheese your heart desires.” I hesitated. “Might even be enough to start over somewhere else. Still. We make this decision together. We’re a team.”
She sighed, and then leaned in, kissing me gently on the forehead.
“You’ll never leave Minrathous. You say you hate it, and maybe part of you does. But everything you love is here.” She smiled. “Everyone you love, too.” I embraced her, and we held each other closely, my chin resting on the top of her head.
I didn’t like to admit it, but she was right. I knew the city. Knew all the bars that would let you drink on credit, the restaurants that would always make the food just right. It was broken, it was messy, it was home—or at least, the closest thing to it.
The hug slackened, ended. She stepped back and looked in my eyes. Seeming to come to a decision, she sighed and shook her head. “Fine. We’ll do the job. I can’t say I like it. But…” She paused, and then grinned. “I am holding you to Val Royeaux.”
* * *
The Archon’s palace filled the Minrathous skyline. Dominated it—it was visible from pretty much anywhere. When you first came to the city, you spent a few weeks admiring it, in awe of it. Eventually, you got used to it, and it became part of the background, like the sun or the clouds.
Tourists loved it, though. Nobles from Orlais, from Antiva—the only ones who could afford to make the trip. The roadways outside were always crowded, full of people representing the nicer parts of Thedas. And, of course, those who preyed on them. Had to admire that local entrepreneurial spirit.
Our entrance into the palace was a long way from the glittering arches of its front gates. No matter how beautiful the façade, every building needed a servants’ entrance, and we sat on the rooftops opposite. Much less glamorous—you could smell the stench of the sewers here, and there was little attention paid to appearances. The contrasts of Minrathous, in the flesh, so to speak.
At this time of night, the streets were quiet. A pair of guards walked patrol, talking amiably. They paid little attention to their rounds, giving the palace only a cursory glance. The light from their lanterns receded, disappeared around the corner, the sound of footsteps growing fainter and fainter. We waited. Five minutes. Six. I started to get antsy. But ten minutes passed and still, nothing.
No one else came. Didn’t meant they wouldn’t, though. My entire body was tense, waiting for the shout of a second patrol that was absolutely going to come at the worst possible time as we slipped through the shadows, across the road, and started to climb.
The crumbling stonework on this decidedly less public façade of the palace provided most of the footholds. The climbing axes we’d brought with us managed the rest, and before long we were up on the lower roof. I glanced below. There, just coming around the corner, the lantern of another patrol. Eleven minutes. They were supposed to come every four minutes.
I stepped through the opening and dropped to the ground, landing awkwardly. Beside me, almost feline in her grace, Irian. Show-off. She wore all black, like me, but where my clothes revealed someone who enjoyed the finer things in life a little more than she should, hers showed off the body of an athlete. And they were tighter. I swallowed, tried to focus.
We moved quietly, quickly through the halls, our only close call coming when a pair of elven servants walked by. We stepped into a side room and waited, ready to offer either a convincing explanation or, if that failed, a blackjack to the back of the head. No deaths. We weren’t about to kill a servant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But their few hours unconscious would give us the time we needed. They passed without incident, though, and we carefully made our way into the main hall proper.
“All right,” I whispered. Louder than I’d meant to. Stress. It’d been a long time since I’d been here, and my last memories of the palace weren’t very pleasant.
I tried again. Quieter. “We have about ten minutes until the guards come back this way. We need to be gone. I don’t really want to explain why we’re in the Archon’s palace at three in the morning.” She nodded.
I examined the hall professionally, dispassionately. It seemed surprisingly unguarded, the artifacts and spoils of war protected only by the thin glass of their display cases, but I knew that looks were deceiving. The last time I’d had a job here, I’d spent a couple of days playing tourist, and I’d noticed two separate layers of security.
The first, the most obvious—the small statues of spiders that dotted the walls of the chamber. More than decorative, each was paired with another statue on the opposite side of the room, and breaking that connection by, say, walking in front of it, would animate them, at which point they’d do their level best to restrain the intruder until the guards could deal with them.
The second was less spectacular but just as effective. Every third paving stone was safe. Each of the other two were attached to magical triggers. Stepping on them would slam the doors of the room shut, trapping the intruder inside. Didn’t mean you couldn’t get out another way, but it was likely to be a lot harder—and a lot more painful. I knew that one from experience.
We picked our way across the massive hall, Irian following exactly in my steps. I was counting on them not having changed the order of the statues since I’d been here last.
We made it to the display cases without incident. My bet had paid off. In front of us, three display cases, each intended to contain its own Chantry artifact. The center case where Dumat’s Folly had, until recently, sat was empty. The glass in its display case was missing.
I took the rune from my satchel and held it against the dais, channeling as small a flow of magic as I could manage. The rune flickered briefly, glowing red. So, whatever had been there had, in fact, been Dumat’s Folly. I had to be sure—the Chantry wasn’t above replacing real artifacts with fake ones, while the real one sat in some vault.
I looked around. There were a half-dozen doors scattered around the room. Each was locked at this time of night, warded so even if you brought a lockpick, you’d have sentries on you in minutes. The window above the servants’ entrance we’d used was another possibility—but on our way up the outside of the building, I’d looked for marks, signs of anyone else using our same path, and found none. And the doors were locked at all times, so that ruled them out. I frowned.
My last job here had fallen apart for exactly that reason—there was only reall
y one way in or out. And I knew from bitter, painful experience that going out through the window was almost impossible, just because of where it sat. You needed both arms and both legs, and a whole lot of luck. The latter had been lacking for me, and it was why I’d barely escaped with my freedom, never mind what I’d come to steal.
“Look,” Irian urged, pointing at the ground. I squinted—her eyes were better than mine—and saw what she had noticed. Blood left a trail, spattered on the stone—but it suddenly, abruptly, disappeared. Right beneath the display case that had contained the artifact.
The otherwise parallel lines of the stone floor were slightly askew. And—I leaned down—sure enough, the thin line of dust traced a complete square into the ground. So. I knew how they’d gotten in and out.
But something felt off. The magic countermeasures were everywhere, and the work of hundreds of years. I had a hard time believing that someone had just dug their way in and not set off any of them. It seemed too obvious.
I pulled a small crystal from my satchel and, holding it in front of me, snapped it in half. Magical dust flurried out. It would adhere to stronger magic, showing the lines of any enchantments, active or otherwise. A moment passed, a second, and then the dust traced out lines of magic on the display case.
It was subtle—far more so than the magic in the rest of the hall. A glimmering web of lines traced across the bottom of each case, marking the outline of the objects within. Incredibly delicate work—a lot more than I could manage. It was tied into the objects in the cases—if one removed the object, or even moved it, the flow of magic would break. I didn’t know what would happen then, but I had to assume it was bad.
But where Dumat’s Folly had sat, the magic simply stopped … No, not completely. The faintest flicker of it still stayed there. Had it been missing, I would’ve guessed they’d just removed the enchantment until the object had been returned. But it was almost as if it were being blocked—just imperfectly
It didn’t make sense. What made that one case special? I needed to trace the magic back to its source—see where it had been severed. I knelt, my knee screaming with agony. I ignored it.
Beneath the cases, I found what I was looking for. Where the lines from each case gathered, they formed a thick trunk of magical energy that disappeared underground. But something was keeping that energy from reaching the case that contained Dumat’s Folly.
I closed my eyes and reached out with my senses, letting my own questing energy flow over the space. There. Right where the magic branched, an enchantment instead diverted the energy back into itself.
It didn’t make sense. The opening in the stone was brute work. The magic at the base of the dais was fine—finer than anything I could do, at least. Maybe they’d brought along a mage?
No—anyone who could manage that sort of magic wouldn’t need to dig a hole. Or if they did, they would’ve sealed it up behind them.
I remembered what my client had said about the thieves having had help from inside the Chantry. Could be one of them, maybe? Corruption was far from unknown among the priesthood.
I looked at the enchantment again. There was something strange about it that itched in the back of my mind. I needed a closer look—but to do that, I would need to pull it apart. And once I did that, the magic would flow back into the dais, which would quickly discover that the Folly was missing. At which point, I imagined the whole building would know we were there.
There wasn’t much else I could do, though. We’d have to work quickly.
“Be ready,” I whispered to Irian. She nodded.
With a gesture, I started to pull the spell apart, releasing the stored energy. Just as the spell dissipated, I knew what was bothering me.
The magic was weeks old—the pattern of dust on the floor, where the stone had been cut, had been there only a couple of days. It was possible that someone had come in before the theft, but it seemed almost as though there’d been two robberies—weeks apart. But why?
I was out of time. There was a loud screech, and suddenly, the sound of alarms. The doors around the chamber slammed shut.
Well. Guess we knew what that magic did.
I could hear distant shouting. One of the doors started to open. I focused my energy and hit it with a wave of heat, melting it into the stone. The door screeched to a halt. The sound of footsteps retreated. I figured we had a minute, maybe two, before they either blew the door open or found another way in.
We had a decision to make. Either stay here and deal with the Archon’s guards, or go down into that darkness and take our chances. I swallowed. I didn’t like underground, but I had the feeling I’d like sitting in a jail cell even less.
With a grunt of effort, I cast a simple spell—one I’d used a thousand times, just not on this scale—and lifted the square that had been cut out of the floor, stone grating on stone. I gave Irian a look and nodded toward the now-open hole. She caught on immediately, wasting no time, slipping through the opening and into the waiting shadows below. A splash.
I looked in, took a deep breath, and leapt in, releasing the enchantment as I fell. Above me, the stone dropped into place with a deafening thud, cutting off the light, and dust showered down on me as I fell.
* * *
The mud at the bottom of the hole was thick enough, deep enough, that I landed with a soft, squishy sound, instead of the bone-cracking force I’d been bracing for. I sat up, spitting out a mouthful of warm, damp soil, wiping mud away from my eyes until I could see again.
“Well, that was fun.” I grumbled, rubbing my ankle. Gingerly, I tested it. A little pain. Not enough to keep me from walking, though I probably wouldn’t be climbing through many windows for a while. Above, small pieces of debris continued to rain down, shaken loose from the titanic impact. I stood up and took stock. I was covered with mud, every inch of me caked with it. Using my staff as a prop, I got to my feet. Immediately I sunk to the tops of my boots. Fantastic. I took a step, and another. Not too bad. I took a third step and my left boot stuck in the mud, my foot sliding out.
The boot vanished with a wet slurp. Great. I took another step and my foot came out of my other boot, which promptly vanished, too. Even better.
Ahead of me, coming back down the tunnel, Irian walked lightly, her outfit almost impeccable, her boots barely sinking into the thick sludge. I sighed.
“Footprints. A little way down the tunnel.” She looked me up and down, her mouth quirking slightly into a smile as she noted my stockinged feet. I glowered at her, daring her to say something, but she only raised an eyebrow and then turned. I could see her shoulders shaking, though.
Everyone thinks they’re a lot funnier than they are.
A hundred or so feet down the tunnel, the footprints disappeared. A couple of hundred feet farther in, the tunnel split. To the left, it continued as before, thick with mud, while straight ahead, the mud turned to dry stone. I gave Irian a look and pulled out a coin.
“Flip for it?” She gave me an arch look.
“I’ll take this one.” She looked down the side tunnel and her mouth twitched again, fighting a smile. “Don’t want to get my boots dirty.”
I sighed and shook my head, resigning myself to my muddy fate.
The tunnel grew smaller, narrower, and before long it was too low to walk through. I’d need to crawl. I got down on my knees and continued forward, squelching all the way.
A hundred more feet, and I found it. Half buried in the mud, a rough-spun hessian bag. Inside, a half dozen heavy mining picks. And a note, carefully wrapped to protect it from the elements. I opened it as carefully as I could. Difficult, with me covered in mud.
I recognized the language immediately. Qunari. That complicated things. But I couldn’t make heads or tails of it—not even a few words here or there. Damn. Maybe Irian would have better luck—she’d always had a better eye for this kind of thing. And there was something else on the note. Blood. Whoever’d hurt themselves upstairs could have been the ones who handled the
note.
It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a whole lot more than what we’d had before. I rolled the note back up, tightly, so that it’d survive the journey back through the tunnel.
Crawling back, I emerged to find Irian waiting impatiently. She saw me and reached out a hand, helping me to my feet.
“Anything?” she asked, absentmindedly wiping her hands on her pants. Wordlessly, I handed her the note. She unrolled it and stared at it for a moment, frowning in concentration.
“Can you read it?” I asked, a little impatiently. The mud was starting to dry out, harden, and I just wanted to get out of there and clean myself up. She nodded.
“Yes.” She met my gaze and shrugged. “They tried to recruit me a while back. Promised me a life of glorious freedom under the Qun. I went to one of their training camps. Didn’t stick.” I raised an eyebrow at that, but she continued, “It’s orders—well, instructions. Ben-Hassrath. Locations and names are in code, but it’s telling them to get the item and return home. Not to be seen either.”
I frowned. So far, the Ben-Hassrath had more or less stayed out of the war. Which was strange—I’d always pictured the Qunari as more of a single mind. But while the military Antaam had seemed eager to fight, ready to avenge centuries-old wrongs, the Ben-Hassrath had sat it out. Stayed to the sidelines, avoiding direct confrontation wherever possible.
This whole thing seemed to suggest that they had maybe reconsidered that position.
“I’ve found something, too. It was shoved underneath some bricks, at the end of the tunnel.” From her own satchel she pulled out a leather-wrapped package. “You’re not going to believe this.”
I took the package and frowned. It was remarkably heavy. And large. I pulled at the strings, undoing them, and unwrapped the leather. I gasped. Couldn’t help it.
It was Dumat’s Folly. I looked at Irian, my eyes wide. She shook her head.
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on. Maybe we’re just lucky?” She snorted.
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights Page 46
