by Mel Odom
Wick thought he saw a way clear. He crossed his arms and looked as defiantly as he could out at the crowd. He was glad he was in baggy pants and not standing, because he didn’t know if he’d be able to stand on his shaking knees.
“Pick someone for me to poison,” Wick said, feeling certain that no one would be brought forth. Even if someone was, he could concoct something that would put a victim into a coma for several days. Provided the victim wasn’t buried or thrown out into the harbor, he would recover. By then, with luck, Wick would be long gone from Wharf Rat’s Warren.
“He doesn’t just claim to be an assassin,” Quarrel reminded. “He also says he’s a thief. Let’s see if he’s as good a thief as he claims to be an assassin.”
I really don’t care for you, Wick thought.
“That’s right! See if he’s truly a thief,” a man with a peg leg suggested. “Have him pick Utald’s safe.”
“A safe!” Wick cried, feeling instant relief. At the Vault of All Known Knowledge he was in the habit of tripping mousetraps so none of them would get hurt. He also kept the cats fed when no one was looking. “That’s easy enough!” After all, he’d read several books on the manufacture of safes and lock-picking, which went surprisingly hand in hand in a lot of areas. Surely they can’t come up with anything I’m not familiar with.
His enthusiasm, however, seemed ill placed. Evidently no one had expected quite that reaction. Everyone stared at him with increased suspicion.
Wick quickly realized that none of Deodarb’s characters would have reacted in quite the same manner. He deepened his voice. “I mean, bring it on, you muttonheads.” There. That’s tough enough, isn’t it?
“‘Muttonheads,’ is it?” Krok slapped his big hands on the counter on either side of Wick, emphasizing the fact that he could crush him if he wanted to.
“I was talking to the muttonheads,” Wick said weakly. Was that too tough? It had to have been too tough. “Not to you. You’re not a muttonhead. I wouldn’t ever call you a muttonhead.” Maybe a cold-blooded killer. Maybe stinky, but never to your face. Maybe—
“Utald,” Krok roared. “The safe.” He fisted Wick’s cloak and blouse in his big hand again and lifted him from the counter.
The barkeep, who until this point had been a silent spectator to the action, walked to the wall of bottles behind the counter and slapped a big hand on the wall. Tall and overweight with sloping shoulders and long gray hair, the barkeep looked like a mercenary who’d gone to seed.
At the end of the series of slaps, a section of the wall popped open. The barkeep grabbed the hidden door and swung it wide.
“My safe,” the barkeep said. “Nobody gets into my safe.”
It was impressive looking, Wick thought. The safe was a contraption of hammered metal plates, springs, gears, wheels, and levers. None of the safes Wick had ever seen had looked quite the equal of this one. When it came to safes, this one was a dreadnaught.
“There she is.” Utald slapped the safe’s side with obvious affection. “I call her Lusylle. She’s the best of the best.”
“No one’s ever beaten Lusylle,” Krok said. “There’s a lot of thieves who have tried.”
“They all call her ‘heartbreaker,’” Utald said.
“Well,” Wick said grimly. “We’ll see about that.” (He said that with much more confidence than he felt.) “If you’ll put me down.”
Krok looked at Wick dangling from the end of his arm. “Oh. Okay.” He opened his fingers.
Unceremoniously, Wick plopped to the ground and landed on his posterior. After all the slips and falls with the donkey, that region was already overly sensitive. He pushed himself back up. His lock-pick kit fell to the floor and scattered.
“Say,” one of the men said, peering over the counter, “isn’t that a Gladarn’s Lock-picking Kit Number Six?”
“It’s a Number Nine,” Wick said. “It’s acid-proof.”
An appreciative ooooohh came from the thieves in the audience. At least, the ones that were above the regular cut-and-slash or thump-and-run caliber.
“Acid-proof,” one old man said. “Now I could have used some of those when I went up against Thomobor’s Forbidden Chest. Took me three days to get inside his fortress and two shakes of a lamb’s tail for me to lose my lock-picks.” He shook his head. “I never got that close again.”
Wick set himself before the lock. As he considered the problem before him, all his fear seemed to drain away. The only thing that seemed to exist in his world was the conundrum of the safe.
“Little halfer’s got his work cut out for him,” someone murmured.
“Where did Utald get that safe?”
“Don’t know. He’s always had it here.”
“Ever seen it open?”
“Nope.”
Spinning the dials, Wick worked the springs and plates, pushing and shoving as he tried to find the rhythm of the safe. The safe was like a living, breathing organism, and everything had to be in perfect balance.
Snikk!
“That was the first lock,” a man whispered.
“Has anyone ever popped the first lock?”
“Langres,” Krok said. “But that’s been two years or more.”
“Four years.”
“I said ‘or more,’ didn’t I?” Krok asked irritably. “Four’s more than two.”
Ignoring them, captivated by the challenge of the safe, Wick kept searching for hidden pins to the second lock. After reading the books on lock-picking, he’d practiced on locks around the Vault of All Known Knowledge, until he’d locked himself into a closet and couldn’t get to the lock. He hadn’t noticed that fact until he was standing in the dark. Grandmagister Frollo had found him still standing in the dark a few hours later, looking for a monograph Wick was supposed to complete on sail design of the Silver Sea merchant ships. After that, Grandmagister Frollo had taken away Wick’s lock-picks and forbidden him to lock himself in anything again.
Claaa-aaack!
The second lock popped.
“He’s got a second lock!”
“How many more to go?”
“Three, I think. Hey, Utald, how many more locks?”
Wick glanced up at the barkeep, who continued to stand there impassively, arms crossed over his chest.
Utald shook his head. “Let the halfer find out.”
The third lock wouldn’t surrender its secrets. Wick used thin silver wire to snake out the confines of the mechanism, but had trouble picturing the device in his mind. Every time he almost had the pins in place, they dropped back into locking position.
Finally, he concentrated on feeling his way through the lock, easing each of the five pins into place. They fell again.
“Arrrgggggghhhhhh!” the crowd gasped.
“What is it? What happened?” the mercenaries, murderers, and assassins asked.
“He can’t get past the third lock. Keeps dropping the pins,” the thieves answered.
I got past the first two locks, Wick thought plaintively. No one has done that before. Surely you can believe I’m a thief now.
But he knew they wouldn’t. He wasn’t that lucky.
“Ready to give up, halfer?” Krok grinned.
“No.” Wick rubbed his hands together to warm them. Working on the cold metal of the safe for so long had left them chilled and leaden. If I give up, I might as well just jump into that chute out to the harbor. Besides, the problem of the lock had intrigued him.
He leaned into the safe again. This time he worked on each pin as it came free. On the third pin, he found a hole that shouldn’t have been there. Going back to the first and second pins, knowing what to look for now, he found holes in them as well.
Wick smiled. Clever. Clever, indeed.
“He’s smiling! The little halfer’s smiling!”
I am, Wick thought, because I know the secret of this one. Using the wire, working by touch because he couldn’t see into the lock, he searched for a hole on the front of the lock. When he
didn’t find one there, he searched from the back. After he found it, he ran the wire through the lock, threading the pins each in turn.
This time all the pins stayed in place when he pushed them back. He grabbed the lock lever, pushed a lever, and stretched two of the springs.
Kha-chunk!
4
Inside the Safe
“The third lock! He’s got the third lock!”
Resting his cramping hands, Wick looked up to find an umbrella of faces peering down at him. The animosity was gone from them. It felt like they were all on the same team, all sharing the same expectations.
Unless I fail, Wick thought. Then it’s the chute for sure.
“Hey, halfer,” the man with the eye patch said, “let me buy you a drink. You can’t keep working at that so hard without a drink. Utald, it’s on me.” He flipped a coin into the air.
Utald unlimbered an arm and snatched the coin from the air as effortlessly as a falcon taking a dove. He tested the coin between his teeth, then shoved it into a coin purse.
“What’ll you have, halfer?” the barkeep asked.
“Razalistynberry wine,” Wick said, grateful to have the drink.
“That’s a sissy drink,” one of the big mercenaries grumbled. “You should get you a shot of busthead. That’ll settle your nerves just fine.”
“Just the wine, please,” Wick said. Then he thought about the response he should have made. He frowned and glared up at the mercenary. “Who are you calling a sissy? I’m not just a thief. I’m an assassin, too. Maybe you want to remember that before you go to sleep tonight and don’t wake up in the morning.”
The tavern’s patrons broke out laughing, and slammed their fists against the counter.
“He’s got you there, Jolker!”
Quick as lightning, though, Jolker pulled his sword and had it tucked under Wick’s chin.
“You might have a care there, halfer,” the mercenary growled. He jabbed Wick hard enough with the sword to make him step back. “Won’t be any trouble to snuff you out with the candle before I got to bed tonight.”
Wick froze, leaning uncomfortably back.
“Jolker,” a calm voice said.
Heads turned toward the voice.
In the lantern light, Quarrel stood there with a bow drawn. The arrowhead nocked on the bow gleamed.
“Sheath that sword,” Quarrel said.
“And if I don’t?” Jolker asked.
A thin smile curved Quarrel’s mouth. “At this distance, this arrowhead will split your head like a melon.” He paused. “I won’t miss.”
But people on either side of the big mercenary drew back. Just in case.
“You’re taking a part in this?” Jolker asked. “Normally you don’t involve yourself in anything that goes on here outside of a job.”
“One,” Quarrel counted evenly. “Two.” The arrowhead never wavered.
Cursing, Jolker took his sword back. He grabbed up his tankard and abandoned the counter.
“You just made a big mistake, Quarrel,” Jolker snarled. “A big mistake!” He left the tavern.
Trembling, Wick accepted the mug of razalistynberry wine from Utald. He tried to drink without spilling it all over himself, and for the most part managed that. As he put the mug on the bar, the little Librarian wondered what Quarrel thought he was doing, and why the young man had taken part in the argument. But Wick was already starting to not think so badly of Quarrel.
“Go on then, halfer, let’s see if you can defeat Lusylle,” Utald challenged.
Taking a deep breath, Wick turned back to the safe. In seconds, he’d worked through the fourth and fifth locks. Neither had been anything special, and there had been no further tricks.
Click!
Ratchet!
Covered in sweat despite the chill that pervaded the room, Wick gripped the final lever and shifted the last spring.
“He’s done it!”
“The halfer’s done it!”
“Utald, whatever you’ve got hidden in that safe will never be safe again!”
A look of unease pulled at the barkeep’s face. He took a step forward just as Wick gripped the doorframe and set himself to pull.
“Wait!” Utald commanded.
“Wait?” Wick echoed.
“Wait!” Utald repeated, stepping back.
That’s not a good sign, Wick thought, stepping back himself.
“Why wait?” Krok asked.
Utald was silent for a moment. “Because the safe may be booby-trapped.”
“‘May be?’ You don’t know?”
Scratching self-consciously at the back of his neck, Utald shook his head. “No.”
“Why don’t you know?”
“I don’t know what’s in there. It’s not my safe. I stole it.”
Wick looked at the big man in disbelief. “What?”
Utald shrugged. “I wasn’t always a barkeep. I used to be with a group of bandits. We attacked a caravan and took everything they had.” He nodded toward the safe. “That was one of the things they had.”
“When was this?” Krok asked.
“Twenty-seven years ago. More or less.” Utald looked at the safe. “I just kept it around, you know, in case I ever found someone that could open it.”
“But you put it in the bar.”
Utald nodded. “It made a good conversation piece, didn’t it? Besides, I figured that sooner or later I would learn its secret.”
“Do you know who the safe belonged to?”
“Could have been the caravan master’s.”
“I never heard of no caravan master carrying a safe like this,” someone said.
“Or it could have been a wizard’s,” Utald said.
The tavern crowd drew back. “There could be anything in there,” someone said. “Maybe even something the wizard wanted to get shut of. Maybe a monster. Or some undead thing that kept following him around.”
Tense, the crowd took another step back.
Wick was suddenly aware that he was standing there alone. He slid his fingers around the doorframe, no longer prepared to swing it wide, but rather to slam it shut.
“Open it,” Krok commanded.
“It is open,” Wick insisted.
Krok drew a heavy two-handed sword. He gestured toward the safe. “Pull the door open.”
Wick leaned on the door, hoping that if anything was inside it was dead or didn’t know it had been released. He shook his head.
“Do it, halfer,” Krok commanded.
“I’m a thief,” Wick said. “Not a warrior.”
“You’re an assassin,” the troll said. “If something bad comes out of there, assassinate it.”
“Assassination, a good assassination,” Wick insisted, “takes time. Something done in the heat of the moment, that’s murder. I’m not a murderer. Any unskilled person can do that.”
Utald scrambled over the bar, distancing himself from the safe.
“You’ve been curious about this for twenty-seven years,” Wick said, feeling somewhat angry that the barkeep wasn’t doing the door chores himself. “Haven’t you wanted to see what you stole all those years ago?”
“Sure,” the barkeep said, drawing a pair of long knives from somewhere on his person. “Open it up and let’s have a look.”
Wick fidgeted, trying to think of a way to escape opening the safe.
“Do it now, halfer,” Krok said. “We’re growing old waiting.”
Closing his eyes, terrified of what he was going to find, Wick swung the door wide. He let the iron door carry him with it, hoping to use it for cover, and closed his eyes tightly.
“Bless me,” Utald whispered in the stillness that followed, “for I am a rich man.”
Since he hadn’t been struck dead (by lightning, fire, or a death bolt) or mauled to death (by a gargoyle, a dragon, or a banshee), Wick grew curious. Across the bar, the patrons stepped forward again and looked inside the safe in amazement.
“I’ve never seen one of
those made out of gold,” one of them said.
“It looks comfortable,” another said.
“Do you really think it’s worth a fortune?”
“You melt that gold down, if it’s pure enough, and it’ll keep Utald living easy for the rest of his life.”
“I don’t know about that. You know how Utald is when he gets deep in his cups and gets around women. It’s like closing your fist in a pool of water.”
“Or slow horses. Utald stays an inch away from the poor house because he has an eye for slow horses.”
Krok grinned. “Maybe you should pay to let people use it before you melt it down, Utald. Won’t hurt the gold. I’ll be your first customer.”
“No!” Utald leaped the counter with the vigor of a much younger man. “Nobody’s sitting on that! Or doing anything else either! It’s mine! I’ve dragged it around for twenty-seven years, and put it up here at the Tavern of Schemes!”
So curious he could no longer stand it, Wick looked around the door and into the safe. At first he thought the safe held a chair. Then, since it was made out of solid gold and encrusted with a few gems, he guessed that it was a throne. Hypnotized by the deep yellow luster of the gold, he peered more closely.
On deeper examination, he discovered that the chair had no seat. Well, actually, it only had part of a seat.
“It’s a privy,” Wick said.
“Not just a privy,” Utald corrected. “It’s a solid gold privy. My solid gold privy.”
Most of the people in the Tavern of Schemes broke out into laughter at Utald’s good fortune, twenty-seven years in the making, and others cursed him for it. The barkeep didn’t care. Overjoyed, Utald bought the whole tavern a round.
Later, mostly accepted into the fraternity of thieves, murderers, assassins, thieves, etc. that frequented the Tavern of Schemes, Wick drank razalistynberry wine and speculated on how the golden privy had gotten into the safe, and whom it had been intended for. No one knew for sure, and too many years had passed for Utald to remember whom it had been stolen from.
After they’d flushed the subject of the privy from their minds, the tavern’s patrons told tales about past jobs and past employers. Wick listened to the stories the men told. Of course, being the storyteller he was, Wick was soon telling them of his own adventures as a thief and assassin.
