Erin Evans - The God Catcher

Mardin's voice said, "The life of a thief is no grand thing. You do this, you won't be able to escape it. Turn back while you can."

Tennora rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand, warm from the leathers and from climbing the stairs-and from the fear and the concern unfolding inside of her. They were right- she was right. This would only end up hurting her in the end. And who was to say she could even pull it off? She'd picked the locks on two doors in her lifetime; chances were good she wouldn't be able to pick Master Halnian's display case.

She looked around the empty landing, a place she'd stood more times than she could count but had never truly noticed before. The door on the tower side led into the library, where she'd spent most of her long apprenticeship.

In the momentary quiet of Tennora's thoughts, a new thought rose up, clear and unhurried. It sounded like her mother's voice.

"You do what you can and what you must," it said. "Don't let them know what you want."

No one else was going to save Nestrix. No one else knew how.

She started up the stairs again.

Master Halnian's office was on the fourth floor, facing the harbor. The door was unlocked, and Tennora slipped inside without anyone noticing.

The lights were low-only the small glowballs caged inside the shelves that held Master Halnian's treasured items, and a brazier lambent with dying embers. The moonlight cast everything in shades of gray, and Tennora was very grateful she knew the room as well as she did.

Behind the divan were the glass-shuttered shelves that held Master Halnian's prized treasures-among them the gorget of the Songdragon.

Tennora crossed the room on tiptoes and slipped behind the divan. She traced the keyholes on the case that held the gorget-they were sturdy brass locks. A little shallow. Maybe eight pins deep. She unrolled her case on the floor and selected a wire with a curve so gentle it lay flat against the center of her palm.

The gorget of the Songdragon perched a wooden stand, glistening in the light of a glowball. It was only a part of the armor enchanted for the fabled Songdragon, a shape-changing dragon who had secretly resided in Waterdeep and come to the city's aid after the Spellplague, but it had been a crucial piece: the gorget held the enchantment that prevented Ahghairon's dragonward from taking hold and sapping the Song Dragon's strength.

Despite the fact the gorget had been created during the unpredictable period after the first wave of the Spellplague, the enchantment was solid and still worked. The negative effects that imbued so many of the artifacts from that time were minor and well-established, and so long as the Song Dragon hadn't gone flying in her armor at the end of summer, she was safe.

Behind her, the doorknob turned.

Tennora dropped to the floor as the door opened. Behind the divan, she watched Master Halnian's slippered feet pad across the room to the desk on the side of the room opposite her. She dared not breathe as he dropped a stack of books onto the desk, then flipped through them and rifled papers. He gave a little frustrated grunt and walked back to the door.

He tugged the bellpull there, and Tennora took advantage of the sound to pull her knees up and shuffle against the divan. Her pulse was beating mercilessly against her ears, so loud she was certain Master Halnian would hear it.

The door opened again. "Take these back to the library," she heard Master Halnian say. "And bring me…" He sighed. "No, never mind. I'm finished for today. Go finish your tasks and go home."

"Yes, master," a voice said. Tennora winced-it was Cassian. Damn it-she'd have to get out past him too. The door closed, but Master Halnian remained. Tennora shifted to the comer of the divan, a place more deeply in shadow, and watched between its legs.

Master Halnian sighed again noisily and started around the desk. Stopped. Sighed again. He opened the drawer closest to him and withdrew a small bag. She heard him inhale deeply as if smelling the contents.

He tossed the bag in his hand for a moment as if weighing it. "Just the once," he finally said.

He walked back around the desk, heading for the divan. A brazier full of lambent coals rested beside it on the side farthest from Tennora. She pressed herself against the back of the divan, willing herself to take up less space, to be less noticeable.

She heard Master Halnian mutter, and the coals in the brazier crackled to life with little effort from his cantrip.

Tennora shifted enough to peer around the end of the divan. He was holding the bag still, considering it as if it held a puzzle. After a few breaths, he set the bag in the brazier and lay down on the divan with another heavy sigh.

"Just the once," he muttered again as the fire ate into the edges of the bag. Smoke began to billow up out of the brazier, thick and faintly blue.

The smoke flowed downward, coiling along the floor, smelling meaty and faintly of pinesap. She fought the cough that rose in her chest and took a long, slow breath.

Tennora's spine prickled, then her arms and the back of her head. Her lids felt heavy. Quickly unlacing the bag from her belt, she wadded sack and stormcloak against her mouth and nose.

Even still, she felt the smoke curl around her brain.

She didn't want to simply touch the enchanted weapons and jewels that lined the shelves any longer-she'd rather devour them, seize them in both fists and draw everything out of them, learn their deepest secrets. She felt spells she hadn't thought of in tendays crowding into her memory, waiting to be spoken-but evaporating as quickly as they surged forward.

She pressed the burlap more firmly against her face.

Son of a barghest, she thought. The smoke was a magic enhancer.

A minor class of intoxicants, but one that made for interesting study-magic enhancers made it easier to cast spells and gave one access to more power. Usually short-lived, usually overflowing with side effects, they were hard to obtain. And hard to hide.

The confusion of the moment was rapidly subsumed by anger.

She was the one unsuited to the Art? She was the one who couldn't properly do magic? Rhinzen Halnian, Master of the House of Wonder, was enhancing his spells and calling her a waste of time. Telling her it was for the good of the city that she be released from study.

Gods, what a mess, she thought, glaring up at the ceiling. What an utter mess.

The sound of his breathing slowed, shuddering in and out of him as if his lungs were trembling.

Tennora longed to gasp in air for him. But it meant he was asleep or entranced, or at the least unconscious. She moved very carefully to her feet.

Rhinzen lay insensate, his eyes twitching feverishly beneath their lids. Blood flushed his cheeks, and his lips were slightly parted, drying on the wind of his breath. He didn't react to Tennora's movement, but she stood watching the rise and fall of his chest for as many breaths as she could bear before turning back to the case.

She took a deep breath through the cloth and held it, before dropping the bag and pulling the picks out of her belt.

The cabinets were locked, but not warded-no one could enter the tower without passing through the wards at the doors. Master Halnian's only concern would be overzealous students. The locks were well made and sturdy, but Tennora worked quickly and quietly.

The gorget's moonstone sparkled lavender, indigo, and silver. She lifted it gently off the stand. Nothing went off-no alarms, no traps-and she breathed a sigh of relief.

She had it.

Master Halnian stirred, grazing consciousness enough to mumble half the words of a spell. Tennora froze, but the magic sputtered and the spell failed. Master Halnian twitched and slipped back into sleep.

With the drug in him, Master Halnian was as good as a trap. The longer she stayed, the more likely she was to get caught by his mumblings. Gorget still in hand, Tennora crept back out of the room, easing the latch shut with the softest of clicks.