by Tim Pratt
"An actual key. That's a bit obvious, but all right. What does it do?"
Obed shrugs. "It opens doors."
Rodrick blinked. "You mean ...just, any door?"
The priest shrugged again. "So it is said."
"Ah," Rodrick said weakly. "That would be ...quite dangerous, in the wrong hands ..."
"It can only be used three times," Zaqen said. "Or so the story goes. It was used once to open a great treasure cave, and a second time to open a besieged city. It is duller now than it used to be, the silvery lustre fading with each use. Hansu Surtova inherited the key, with strict instructions to use it only if his family fortunes were on the verge of utter destruction."
"Hmm," Rodrick said. "I suppose we need its last charge to open our vault, don't we?"
Obed shook his head. "No, that doesn't matter. The key simply fits that particular lock—it will always work to open that door. Its other magical properties are irrelevant. They are merely camouflage, created by Aroden to make the objects seem like something other than they are—but still precious enough to be cared for over the long centuries, if need be."
"Seems a bit foolish to me." Rodrick tugged at his earlobe. To open any door! But just one door. The problem was, most really valuable things were locked up behind lots of doors, and getting through any of them at all could be a challenge, but still ... "If the key got used up, it would just be a trinket, and I can see the unwitting guardian just tossing it away."
"Not likely," Hrym said. "When something has only a few uses, people hoard them. Do you have any idea how many wizards I've met who were walking around with a ring or an amulet containing a single wish? They never use the last wish—they die before they do—because they don't want to waste it, in case they ever really need it."
"I'd use all my wishes," Rodrick said. "Just like that." He snapped his fingers.
"You're an idiot," Hrym said. "And a wastrel. But we all knew that."
Rodrick stroked his chin. "Hmm. A magical key that can open any door—and it's stuck behind a locked door. Just our luck. I'll go out in the morning and take a look at the manor house, and figure out our approach."
"You think you can do it?" Zaqen said.
He waved a hand. "Of course."
"How can you be so sure there's a way?"
The thief grinned. "My lady, there is always a way."
∗ ∗ ∗
"There's absolutely no way," Rodrick said the following night. "Not that I can see, anyway. I've been to large banks with less security. According to the kitchen maid I befriended last night, Hansu Surtova is in some kind of feud with other members of his family. Apparently they're not all that respectable—there's still a lot of pirate left in the bloodline—and they're not above murdering each other. The house is locked up tight, and strangers simply don't get in—close friends and relations barely do. All the defenses are meant to keep out assassins, but they'll do just fine to keep out thieves, too."
Obed growled. "Then what do you propose? Are you so quick to give up?"
"Do you hear that, Hrym?" Rodrick clucked his tongue. "Obed has obviously never worked with me before on a real job. Of course I won't give up. Strangers don't get into the house, I said, so it's simple: I need to stop being a stranger. I have to win the old Surtova's confidence. He's a gimlet-eyed pirate with profound trust issues, but I think I know the way to his heart. He's terrified someone will try to kill him, and I say we give him his wish. But I'll step in and foil the would-be assassin, saving the man's life, and after that ..." Rodrick shrugged. "It's the only crack I need. I'll show off Hrym, sow some rumors about my skill as a bodyguard, how I've never lost a single man I've protected, and before you know it, I'll be his right-hand man. Worming my way into someone's confidence is what I do best. And once I'm on the inside ...I'll get the key."
Obed ground his teeth. "How long do you expect this to take?"
Rodrick shrugged. "A few weeks? Perhaps longer if he's unusually cautious. It's important, you see, that I make him beg for my services, or at least offer me great rewards to convince me to join him. If I seem eager to work for him, he won't trust me, but if I play hard to get, he will pursue me ever more ardently, especially since he's a man who is used to getting what he wants—"
"Sounds like a courtship," Zaqen said, and Hrym laughed.
"There are many forms of seduction," Rodrick said. "This is the kind I'm ...second best at."
"I do not wish to wait weeks," Obed said. "We will break into the house in the night. We will steal—"
"This is a Surtova," Rodrick said. "A Surtova in Port Ice. And you want to try a smash-and-grab? That would be like trying to steal something from the Ruby Prince's desert palace in Osirion. All right, I exaggerate, but breaking in secretly is nearly impossible. Assuming we make it in, successfully breaching the treasure vault could be tricky too, and as for escaping ..." He shook his head. "I befriended one of the chambermaids, too. The vault has magical wards and protections—and the servants aren't even allowed to clean in the basement. Old Hansu never lets anyone in, except himself. But in my plan, I'll play up to his vanity, get him to show off his treasures—"
"Weeks," Obed spat. "I am this close to my triumph, and you wish me to wait further weeks?"
"If you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it. But I'm not taking part in any plan that involves me captured in the midst of a crime and at the mercy of the Surtovas. They're pirates, Obed. You're a gillman—you know about pirates. They are nothing if not vigorous in their retributions."
"Master," Zaqen said. "This is Rodrick's area of expertise. I know his plan is not as swift as you might wish, but—"
"Fine," Obed snapped. "Make your preparations. And make haste." He rose and stalked out of the room.
Once he was gone, Cilian spoke from the corner—Rodrick had almost forgotten he was sitting there. "I watched smoke rise into the sky today, and had a presentiment of great destruction."
"Hmm," Hrym said. "For our enemies, or ourselves?"
"The auguries were unclear on that point," Cilian admitted.
"Oh," Rodrick said. "That's helpful. Cilian, I have you in mind for the hapless assassin—do you think you can fail to hit a man with an arrow?"
"Missing is harder than striking true, but I am capable of such a feat."
Rodrick grinned. "That's a good fellow. We'll go out tomorrow and take a look at the manor house, and see if we can get a sense of what old Hansu's schedule is like over the next few days. It's probably best if we both disguise our appearances a bit—it wouldn't do to have people remember us and remark on our spending time together. We'll figure out the right time and place for you to strike, one that will enable me to foil you, but still give you time you to escape. Perhaps near the market square, when the traders are starting to pack up their carts. I hear Hansu likes to go there sometimes to strike hard bargains with desperate merchants for their last few unsold goods—"
"Rodrick," Zaqen said. "You seem to be having fun. I haven't seen you like this ...well, since Magnos the Ash Lord."
"I am a simple man, sorcerer. I enjoy getting the best of people. Blinding yetis and murdering bandits is not much to my liking, but this? This is what I was made for."
"I am glad you have the opportunity to ply your trade, then," Zaqen said. "You'll let me know if you have need of me?"
"I may require certain sorcerous effects," Rodrick said. "Plus, I'd hate for you to miss out on all the fun."
She chuckled. "I'll leave you to your planning, then."
Rodrick cleared his throat. "Tell Obed I will work as quickly as I can, all right? I have no wish to antagonize him—I know you might find that hard to believe, but it's true. I won't say I'm fond of him, but I do respect his dedication. If I knew a simpler way to get the key out of the vault, I would take it, as much as I'm enjoying this."
"As long as the job is done as swiftly as possible," Zaqen said. "Remember, a new golden age is at stake." She left, and Cilian went with her.
"I l
iked it better when it was just gold at stake," Hrym said. "I didn't feel so conflicted then."
"You feel conflicted?" Rodrick said.
"I want to say no, but ...Aroden. That sliver of a possibility seems to be growing in my mind, despite myself. What if it's true?"
"How can it possibly be true? You know our line of work depends on making people believe lies, and people are strangely more willing to believe really big lies than quite small ones. Don't tell me you think they can pull off such a miracle—"
"We do live in a world of miracles, though," Hrym said. "That's the problem. There is a stone that turns men to gods. There is a great wound in the world, pouring out demons. There is an endless hurricane swirling to the west. There are barmaids willing to sleep with you. Who's to say this particular impossible thing is the one that's really impossible?"
"Don't be a sucker, Hrym," Rodrick said. "I'm going to sleep."
But as he lay in the dark, the treacherous thought wormed deeper into his mind:
What if?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Thieves' House
When Rodrick took Cilian to look over Hansu Surtova's manor house in the earliest twinkling of dawn, the manor house wasn't there anymore.
Or rather it was there, at least most of it, but it was no longer a manor house. The walls had been broken apart in dozens of places, bricks scattered on the streets like autumn leaves after a windstorm. Through the gaps, Rodrick could see the white walls of the house itself had been shattered, as if smashed by the fist of a towering god, leaving splintered wood and the dust of crushed stone hanging thick in the air. Various objects, barely recognizable, littered the wreckage like seashells and driftwood left on a beach when the tide recedes. Was that part of a chair, or a fragment of a bed? Were those sheets or drapes or bits of clothing, all twisted and torn? Was that the ruined body of a man, or a pair of slaughtered dogs? The piratical guards of Port Ice milled about shouting at one another, and somewhere a man was wailing in wordless despair.
"I do not think breaking in will be easy," Cilian said. "Though not for the reasons you anticipated. If the key is in a basement, under that wreck, with all these people in the area ..." He shook his head.
"What's happening?" Hrym said querulously, sheathed and blind on Rodrick's back.
"Hansu's house has been destroyed," Rodrick said. "Maybe by magic. Or an alchemical disaster? It could have been an explosion, though I don't smell that alchemical reek. Go back to the inn, Cilian. Tell Zaqen what happened. Let her tell Obed. He takes bad news better from her. I'll try to find out what happened, and if there's any way we can use it to our advantage."
The huntsman nodded and withdrew.
Rodrick surveyed the scene until he saw someone promising. An old man dressed in white furs looked at the wreck from the far side of the street with the gaze of someone who'd seen worse things, more often than he could count, and refused on principle to be impressed. Rodrick strolled over, nodded at the man politely, and said, "That looks bad. What happened here?"
"Assassination," the old man said shortly.
"I thought assassination was generally more subtle," Rodrick said. "A bit of poison in the wine, a knife in the night, an arrow fired from concealment, that sort of thing."
"I didn't say it was an elegant assassination. It's one of the ugliest and most haphazard I've seen. But Hansu Surtova is dead. Along with most of his household, but Surtova was the only target that makes any sense. He had a way of making enemies, even among those who loved him, and he was a treacherous bastard everyone knew would come to a bad end. Still, whoever did this..." The man shook his head. "It's unnatural."
"Was it explosives of some kind?" Rodrick said. "Or...magic?"
"You're an outsider," the old man said. "You've not heard the stories about the lake?"
Rodrick frowned. "Ah—which stories are those?"
"There are tales that strange creatures dwell in the waters. Monsters who sometimes emerge to make terrible bargains with the folk on the land. I plied those waters for many years, and never saw such a creature. Despite having a family full of people willing to make all sorts of hard bargains, I've never heard of anyone consorting with such creatures, if they do exist. But someone made a deal with something, that much is clear—and the terms of that deal were met last night. This destruction was wrought in mere minutes. No witnesses in the vicinity survived. Those near enough to see anything and survive report strange greenish lights and little else. I have a priest who says he believes it was demons—he can sense the presence of such things, he says. The lake may hold demons. Who can say? Whatever did this, it came, wrought terrible destruction, and then vanished. People are already whispering that it was one of Hansu's rivals, calling up a monster from the lake to kill the old man. I have no idea if that's true." He looked at Rodrick for the first time, his eyes pale and steely. "Normally we would suspect outsiders. Port Ice has a healthy suspicion of outsiders."
Rodrick took a step back. "I assure you, I never even met the man, I just saw the destruction and thought—"
"You are not suspected in this," the man said dismissively. "I said normally we would suspect outsiders. Hansu was a wealthy man, and there are many who might try to steal from him. But whoever did this wanted the man dead. The wreckage is nearly complete, but as far as we can tell nothing was stolen from his vault—gems and gold remain there, untouched, and precious antiques are shattered and broken." He shook his head. "This attack was personal. Which isn't to say we won't need an outsider to use as a scapegoat, Rodrick."
Rodrick hated it when strangers knew his name for reasons he couldn't fathom.
"You have the advantage of me," he said cautiously.
The man shrugged. "Strangers are noted here. You're the guard for that mad ocean priest, the one who likes to take long baths. Hansu did have friends in the city, and in his family, despite being an unlikable man. They'll be looking for someone to punish, whether that someone is guilty or not. Perhaps it's time you people continued with your pilgrimage? Before someone other than me remembers there are strangers among us?"
"Ah. I appreciate the advice, sir. May I know the name of the man I'm thanking?"
The old man snorted. Just then, one of the guards sidled toward him, face twisted in an agony of discomfort, and said, "Captain, they're fairly sure they've found Hansu's wife, they'd like to know if you'd, ah ..."
"Of course," the man said gruffly, and strode off, while the guard stayed behind, looking relieved to have escaped the exchange with his limbs intact.
"Ah," Rodrick said. "That fellow is the captain of the guard, then?"
The guard frowned. "What? No, we call him ‘captain' because that's the highest rank the master of a ship can obtain. You don't know who that is?"
"Sorry, I'm new in town—"
"That's Domani Surtova," the guard said. "Lord of the White Manor, ruler of Port Ice, uncle to the king of Brevoy."
"Of course he is," Rodrick said. "I should probably do whatever he suggests, then, shouldn't I?"
The guard scratched his chin and looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'd recommend it," he said at last.
∗ ∗ ∗
"We are packed," Zaqen said when Rodrick got back to the inn. "Your things are already on the cart. Obed wishes us to depart immediately."
Rodrick blinked. "Well, that's good, since the king—or mayor, or whatever—of this city just suggested to me that if we don't leave we might be accused of consorting with demons and subsequently treated to some suitably piratical form of execution, like maybe keelhauling, whatever that is—"
"They pass a rope beneath a ship." Zaqen looked around her room, presumably to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything. "So it goes completely around the hull. Then they tie you to the rope and throw you overboard, and haul on the rope, to drag your body along the bottom of the ship, and then back up the other side. I gather being cut up by the barnacles on the ship's hull, your wounds filling with salt water, is the worst part, excep
t maybe for the inability to breathe. Then they pull you back on deck, flog you across the width of the ship, throw you into the sea once more, and do it all over again. It's a bit impractical for use in town. Probably they'd just hang us."
"I'm sure whatever torture they have in mind would be preferable to listening to Obed rage and seethe over our failure to get the key—"
"We have the key." Zaqen stepped out into the hallway and hurried along.
Rodrick went after her, trying to catch up both literally and figuratively. "What do you mean?"
"Obed heard about the...commotion at the manor. He sent me, late last night, to see if I could take advantage of the disaster. I didn't see whatever caused the destruction, but things were still chaotic enough that it was easy to make my way through the wreckage unobserved. I'm not without magic, after all. Obed whipped up a charm using the other relics we'd gathered, using their affinity with one another to locate the final key. The way down was dusty, and occasionally bloody, and I got a few splinters, but the treasure room was cracked open like a mollusk dropped on a rock by a gull, so it was easy enough to retrieve what we needed. I escaped just before the guards started taking steps to secure the scene—probably not long before you and Cilian arrived for your pointless reconnaissance. I'm sorry Obed didn't tell you your plan had been canceled, but I can't say I'm surprised. My master doesn't much care if others are inconvenienced."
"You didn't bother to take any other treasure?" Rodrick's mouth ran on autopilot as they descended the stairs to the ground floor. He knew he was expected to complain about her failure to pillage, so he did, but in truth his mind was rapidly pondering darker issues.
"One small item like the key was unlikely to be missed, especially with all the walls and the ceiling being smashed to splinters—things are in disarray. But I didn't want to take more, lest the guards start searching for looters. We should probably stop talking about this until we get out of the city, don't you think?"
Rodrick fell silent, following Zaqen as she slipped out a side door and through to the stables. The horses all whinnied and pranced nervously in her presence, and her camel glared at her when she walked past him to the courtyard, where the cart waited. Obed was already submerged in the water, his tub flanked by two chests banded in iron, so newly made that some of the wood was still smeared with sap. The chests probably held whatever wealth the saddlebags and Obed's magically capacious pack had contained previously.
