Under Cover of Darkness

by Julie E. Czerneda

  What they’d missed, and what One hadn’t, was that Terizan had no intention of becoming part of the Thieves Guild Tribunal, at least, not yet. Granted, she’d been taking reading lessons on the Street of Tales, but she wasn’t ready to make an irreversible challenge to the Tribunal’s authority. Besides, the thought of spending any significant amount of time in close proximity to Tribune Three and the scent of sandalwood oil he’d recently started rubbing all over his not inconsiderable bulk, turned her stomach.

  Terizan hoped he was doing the rubbing himself because the alternative just didn’t bear considering.

  “The job you’re talking about,” she continued, scratching her nose to keep from sneezing, “is a job for a spy.”

  “And what is a thief but one who steals in and then steals out again holding something belonging to another. In this instance, the something is information. Otherwise, there is no difference.” Tribune Two sounded more emotionless than usual—probably in an effort to make up for the earlier reaction.

  “It’s simple,” Tribune One sighed, lacing ringless fingers together. “If the rumors are true and there actually is a conspiracy to overthrow the Council, you steal into one of their meetings, then you steal out with the names of those involved.”

  “If,” Tribune Three snorted.

  “The Council is convinced . . .” Two began.

  “The Council has its collective head so far up its collective ass that it’s run out of air,” Three interrupted.

  “Tribune Three has a point,” Terizan noted. “What if the Council’s wrong? What if there is no conspiracy?”

  “Then bring them proof of that.”

  “Proof of nothing?”

  “That should be no problem for a thief of your skills,” One said, not bothering to hide her smirk. “Unless your failure at the wizard’s tower has shaken your confidence.”

  Oh, yeah. She was never going to live that down. That she’d succeeded at the wizard’s tower was beside the point since no one could know of it. “I’m not questioning my skills; I’m questioning the Council’s requirements.”

  Two’s pale eyes narrowed. “Rumors of conspiracy make the Council understandably paranoid. If this matter isn’t settled conclusively, they will begin making random arrests. They’ve already hired another two dozen constables.”

  “We don’t need to tell you that increased security will adversely affect our membership,” One added. “Of course, you may refuse the job . . .”

  Terizan held up a hand and slid off the pile of stolen carpets that seemed to be a permanent fixture in the Sanctum. “If I turn down the job, you’ll offer it to a thief with lesser skills who’ll get caught and probably killed and I’ll be responsible and blah blah blah. We’ve been through this all before.”

  “If you turn down the job,” Two told her, voice cold, “we’ll offer it to a thief who might be less than scrupulous about the names he or she offers the Council. Who might add names to the list for personal reasons.”

  The pause after this declaration was triumphant.

  “Did the Council give you any idea where I should start looking for this conspiracy?” she sighed.

  “They’ve heard rumors of meetings in the Necropolis. You have three days.”

  The Necropolis was haunted. Everyone knew that. From all reports, the winding paths that led from the gate to the top of the hill were as busy with the restless dead as Butcher’s Row was with the living on market day. Only the lowest plateau down by the river where the very poor were buried in trenched graves remained untouched by ghostly activity.

  Terizan figured the very poor were probably glad of a chance to finally rest.

  She’d never seen a ghost. Mostly because she never went to the Necropolis, a decision of a very early Council having made sure the dead had nothing worth stealing.

  “When it has been decided by a physician of Oreen that in death the citizen shall pose no danger to the city, then the body shall be wrapped in an unbleached cotton shroud and laid to rest in that part of Oreen designated for the dead.”

  The City of the Dead; where the wealthy built mausoleums like mansions and everyone else marked their family’s place with as much ornately carved stone as they could afford. The Thieves Guild, like many of the city’s professional organizations, had an area in the catacombs for their members without family although, for obvious reasons, thieves’ funerals were seldom well attended.

  If an organization intent on overturning the Council was meeting unseen in the Necropolis, they were probably meeting in the catacombs. Cut into the lowest level of the hill, the narrow passageways and chambers carved out of the rock would provide a perfect hiding place for any number of secret societies—underground in more ways than one.

  As the wall around the perimeter was low enough that any reasonably determined adult could easily get over it, and the Necropolis was large enough that there wasn’t one place to watch all access points, Terizan decided she might as well go directly to the catacombs. Where she found the black, iron-bound doors securely locked.

  They were the kind of locks a merely competent thief like Balzador could get through, but even by fitful moonlight it was obvious to Terizan no one had. Not for some time. If this rumored organization was meeting in the tunnels under the Necropolis, it was getting in another way. She peered up toward the crest of the hill, past the hundreds of tombs cut into the walls of each terrace. Any one of them could be a secret entrance to the catacombs below. She couldn’t break into all of them. Well, she could, but there was no time and less need.

  Moving to a less visible position while she considered her options, she crouched in the velvet shadow cast by the cracked sandstone box that held the remains of Hanra Seend, Wife, Mother, Weaver, and something else too worn to be read in the moonlight. She could climb to a better vantage point and hope she spotted one of the conspirators skulking about the graves, waiting to be followed. Or she could just pick these locks and go through the front door, then decide on her next step once she got inside.

  “He’ll let her use my loom!”

  Terizan pivoted slowly in place to find her nose barely a finger’s width away from the nose of the pale, distraught, and translucent woman crouched beside her.

  “He’ll let her use my loom,” the woman repeated. “She won’t take care of it, I know she won’t. You have to tell him not to let her use my loom.”

  “. . . and then she touched my arm and I bolted.”

  Poli raised a delicately arched brow higher still. “Ev eryone knows the Necropolis is haunted, Sweetling.”

  “That’s not the point.” Terizan paced across her best friend’s bedchamber and back again to stand at the foot of the bed. “She was dead, Poli, and she was talking to me. She wasn’t just moaning and wafting about, she was interacting. And when she touched me, I could feel this flash of despair.”

  One elegant shoulder lifted and fell. “Well, as you said, she was dead. That’s a valid reason to be depressed.”

  “Poli!”

  He sighed. “So the poor woman carried the concerns of life over into death. You just got in her way; stop taking it personally.” Moving a fringed cushion aside, he patted the edge of the bed. “Come and sit and tell me why you were in the Necropolis after dark. You know you’re going to anyway, so you might as well get it over with. That way we can both get some sleep.”

  “It was Guild business . . .”

  “Anything said in my bed, stays in my bed—or my guild wouldn’t have much business.” He patted the blanket again. “Come on.”

  So she told him how the Council had heard rumors of a conspiracy and how rumor had placed the conspiracy in the Necropolis. She told him how the Council had come to the Thieves Guild and how she was to steal into a meeting and out again with the names of those involved. “Although how I’m supposed to get the names of those I don’t recognize, I have no idea. I doubt they do a role call before every meeting.” She deepened her voice. “Ajoe the Candle-maker?” And up again
. “Aye.”

  “Don’t tell me Ajoe the Candle-maker’s involved!”

  “I was just using him as an example because I was at the Necropolis and his wife’s just died and that’s not the point,” she sighed. “The point is, I have no idea how I’m supposed to steal these names.”

  “You’ll think of something. You always do.” He spent a moment staring at his reflection in the hand mirror he’d taken from the tiny table by the bed. “What will the Council do with the names when you get them?” he asked at last, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.

  She shrugged and plucked at the blanket. “They’ll arrest everyone involved, probably execute them.”

  “People are always complaining about the Council.” He lifted a thoughtful gaze up off the mirror. “Taxes are too high, the constables are never there when you need them, there are holes in my street deep enough to swallow a donkey—but it’s never come to action before. I wonder why now. This lot’s certainly no worse than any other.”

  “Better than some,” Terizan allowed. It hadn’t been that long ago that the Council had executed three of their own who’d been taking bribes from a bandit chief.

  “The rumors could be wrong.”

  “Could be.” Rumor moved through Old Oreen faster than weak beer through the Fermentation Brotherhood. “But then they want proof of that.”

  “Proof of nothing?”

  “That’s what I said,” she snorted. “What do you think I should do, Poli?”

  “I think you should have sex more often, let your hair grow out, and wear brighter colors.”

  Her hand went involuntarily to her cap of short dark hair. “I have to get into the catacombs,” she said. “But I think I’d best check the place out in daylight first.”

  “Well, if you knew,” Poli sighed. “Why did you ask?”

  The maintenance of the Necropolis was handled by acolytes of Ayzarua, the Gateway. She wasn’t exactly a death goddess—two hundred years ago, after trouble with competing death cults, the Council had made the worship of Death illegal. Ayzarua represented the passage from life to death, a definition just vague enough to get around the law. She had no temple; her followers believed that all living creatures carried her temple within them.

  Terizan thought the whole thing was kind of creepy but she had to admit the Ayzaruites took good care of the Necropolis. The paths were raked, the cracks in the rock were weed-free, and the small amount of vandalism she could see appeared to be in the process of being either repaired or removed. The Ayzaruites were a definite presence in the Necropolis. Something to remember.

  In daylight, the locks on the catacombs looked no more difficult than they had by moonlight and just as infrequently used. Shooting a nervous glance toward Hanra Seend’s resting place as she passed, Terizan started along the first terrace trying to look fascinated. Apparently, the City of the Dead was a popular destination for visitors to Oreen. Took all kinds, she supposed.

  The basic design of the wall tombs included four shelves on each of three walls with a stone crypt in the center for when bare bones were ready to be removed and the shelf refilled. Tombs in the Necropolis were used for generations, and they were all variations on the theme. Individuality showed up in the ornately carved facades and in the narrow gates that led through them. Steel gates, stone gates, wooden gates; bolted, mortared, chained in place; every one of them, even the most solid, with a small horizontal window just at eye level.

  The reason for the window had long been forgotten, but as newer tombs copied the oldest tombs, everyone knew it was supposed to be there, so the window remained. It reminded Terizan of jail cells.

  Approaching the first tomb, she hesitated, afraid that when she looked in, something would look out. Bodies were no problem; she’d seen plenty and robbed a couple, but Hanra Seend’s ghost had prodded her imagination.

  Terizan rubbed at her arm. It was just turned noon. Ghosts, like thieves and traitors worked under cover of darkness. Of course, she was here now, so . . .

  Just look!

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the faint spill of sunlight past her head, but eventually she managed to make out the vague outlines of cloth-wrapped bodies. There was a faint smell of rot, a stronger smell of incense, and nothing at all to suggest either a secret entrance into the catacombs or a restless spirit. Relieved, she kept moving.

  By midafternoon, her legs ached from the constant climb. With about a third of the Necropolis examined, she’d seen nothing out of the ordinary. Trying to ignore how hungry she was, she crossed to a particularly ornate tomb and peered through the opening in the big double gates.

  Years of practice kept her from shrieking. She leaped back, the heel of her sandal came down hard on something soft and yielding, and she leaped forward again as it moaned.

  Too close to the tomb for comfort, she whirled to see one of Ayzarua’s acolytes hopping in place, rake forgotten, both hands wrapped around one bare foot. Well, she knew what she’d stepped on. That was a start.

  Heart pounding, she managed a fairly coherent, “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

  “I know!”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Pain is transcendental,” he gasped.

  Terizan figured that was a yes. She watched as he put the injured foot down and shifted his weight.

  “But I’ll live,” he concluded after a moment. He studied her in turn. “What frightened you?”

  “I wasn’t,” she began, saw his eyebrows rise, and surrendered bravado. “There’s something in there,” she told him, nodding toward the tomb. “It grabbed for me.”

  “Did it now?” He limped past her and peered through the gate. “Ah, I thought so. Pardon her ignorance, Gracious Lady. It is my Lady,” he explained turning toward Terizan with a smile. “Her likeness at least. She reaches out to help the recently dead through the gate.”

  Dared by his smile, Terizan leaned forward, eyes narrowed. Even knowing it was a statue, her heart still jumped at the sudden sight of a hand nearly at her nose. The Goddess herself, back in the dim depths of the tomb was barely visible. Terizan thought she could see friendly eyes and a gentle, welcoming smile within the depths of a stone hood, then suddenly . . .

  “Okay.” She jumped back again. “Skull.”

  “The best images of my Lady recognize she stands between life and death,” the acolyte explained. “This particular image, commissioned by the Harl family and sculpted by Navareen Clos, has a spell attached. If you look long enough into the darkness beyond the Goddess, you’ll see the Gateway open. There are only two other tombs like it in the entire Necropolis, up on the crown of the hill in crypts of the two of the oldest families in Oreen—the Aldaniz and the Pertayn. Unfortunately, the Aldaniz didn’t specify . . .”

  Terizan let his voice wash over her, paying only enough attention to nod where it seemed appropriate. The sort of person who’d spend the day methodically climbing the Necropolis peering into tombs was the sort of person who’d actually listen to this kind of lecture. It had obviously been a long time since this particular acolyte had found an audience, and he seemed determined to make the most of it. Fortunately, he wasn’t trying to convert her, he was just talking.

  And talking.

  Terizan kept nodding and amused herself by watching the shadows move across a particularly ornate carving on the next tomb over. She frowned slightly as the shadows caressed the edge of the highest bolt holding the gate to the tomb. That bolt had been removed and, from the raw look of the surrounding stone, both recently and frequently. Why bother to unlock the gate when it could be lifted, locked, away from the stone? Not the oldest trick on the scroll—she seemed to remember it was actually number eleven or twelve—but useful.

  “And what brings you to my Lady’s city?”

  “Me?” Jerked from her reverie, Terizan searched for an answer that didn’t involve conspiracy or the Thieves Guild. “It’s uh, peaceful.” Disturbingly peaceful. Uncomfortably peaceful.

  T
he acolyte nodded. “There are few places more peaceful than the grave.”

  Hard to argue with that, Terizan acknowledged. She needed to find out if he’d seen anything. But just in case he was in on it, she needed to do it subtly. “So, do many people come here at night?”

  His brows rose. Poli was right. She really sucked at subtle.

  “The gates are locked at sunset.”

  Everyone knew that. “And your lot makes sure other people stay out?”

  “There’s no need. The Necropolis is haunted.”

  Conscious of the Ayzaruite’s attention, she went out the gate just before sunset and back over the wall shortly after. Moving quickly from shadow to shadow on a path that took her well around the weaver’s crypt, she finally climbed into a hiding place on top of the tomb with the loosened bolts. Everyone knew that conspirators met in the dark of night when cloaked figures scuttling about empty streets were likely to be noticed, and they’d have no plausible excuse if they got caught. If she was running a conspiracy, she’d have them meet in the late evening and have them head home with the crowds when the cantinas closed, hiding them in plain sight. Of course, she wasn’t running this conspiracy and that became obvious as time passed and she saw no one but a few translucent figures wafting by, moaning.

  She determinedly ignored them and they ignored her.

  Finally, after the bells of Old Oreen rang midnight, the sound strangely muffled in the City of the Dead, Terizan saw two cloaked figures approaching. They opened the tomb, exactly the way she’d known they would—the bolts whispering out of the stone—and slipped inside, replacing the gate behind them. She would never have noticed the faint spill of lantern light a moment later if she hadn’t been waiting for it.

  Hanging upside down over the gate, she could just make them out as they crouched by the rear wall and together slid the shrouded body from the lowest shelf. Setting it carefully to one side, Conspirator Number One lay down in its place and crawled into darkness. Conspirator Number Two passed the lantern through and followed.