David Chandler - Den of thieves

The bald one touched his chest. “I am called ’Levenfingers. These,” he said, gesturing at the whitebeards, “are Loophole and Lockjaw.”

“Well met,” Malden said. “Wait. Wait… I’ve heard of him, of Loophole. It was a little before my time, but they still tell the story up in the Stink. If you’re the same man, then you got that name when you robbed the garrison house up by the palace. Is it true that you climbed in through an arrow slit, fifty feet up the curtain wall?”

Loophole wheezed as he laughed. “Another time, I’ll tell ye all, if you wish. Assuming you survive tonight.”

Malden nodded. “I’d be honored. And you-’Levenfingers-how’d you come by that name, if I might ask?”

“I was the king of the pickpockets in my day,” the bald man said with obvious pride. “They used to say no man with ten fingers could be so dab at it, so I must have eleven.” He held up his hands, which were gnarled and spotted with age but otherwise perfectly normal. “Just a nickname.”

Malden smiled at the third man, expecting an explanation of his name. It was Loophole who gave it, however. “Lockjaw? He holds his secrets well, that’s why. Never gives anything away for free.”

“Does he ever speak?”

“Not to the likes of you,” Lockjaw grumbled, in a hollow voice like a floorboard creaking in an empty house. “Not yet.”

“I see,” Malden said. He was impressed despite himself. Thievery was a dangerous occupation. If you didn’t die in some trap or under the spear of some overzealous guard, the law was always waiting. In the Free City of Ness, lifting even a copper penny from some fat merchant’s purse was punishable by hanging. These three men, daring rogues in their day, notorious for grand exploits, had survived long enough to grow old without being caught. That must mean they were very, very good in their prime. Malden wondered what they could teach him. Of course, there was more pressing business at hand. “I was called here to meet with someone.”

“Are you ready for your audience with our boss, then?”

“I suppose I’d better be,” Malden said.

Lockjaw grunted out a noise that might have been a laugh. The three of them stood up in unison, then moved aside to let Malden have a better look at the box they’d been sitting on. It was a coffin made of plain wood, tapering in width at both ends. ’Levenfingers lifted its lid and Loophole gestured for Malden to get inside.

Malden had never thought himself squeamish or, worse, superstitious. Yet a cold dread gripped his vitals at the thought of lying down in the coffin. “Only a fool or a dead man would get in there happily,” he said.

“If you don’t get in,” Loophole told him, “you’re both, anyway.”

Malden snuffed out the flame of his lantern, then placed it carefully on the ground. There would be no room for it. Then he clambered inside what, he assured himself, was truly no more fearful than a packing crate. The lid was closed and then nailed shut. He tried not to breathe too hard. He’d come this far, he told himself. He must see what would happen next.

The darkness inside the box was a solid thing, as if the air had turned to obsidian all around him. All sounds that came through the wood were muffled and thick. Malden hoped very much he would be let out soon. The same moment the lid was hammered shut, he found that he had trouble breathing inside-perhaps it was just his mind playing tricks on him, but it seemed there was not enough air in the coffin to support his life. He began to panic, to lose control of his faculties. It took a true effort of will to calm down and resign himself to what was happening.

One fact alone sustained him, one thing he was relatively sure of. The master of this place had already had many chances to kill him. Which meant that, for whatever reason and however temporarily, he was expected to survive this.

That kept most of the panic at bay. The fear tarried longer.

The box was lifted-the three oldsters must be stronger than they looked, or they had help-and carried a short distance before it was lowered again, foot end first, into some variety of chute. For a moment Malden had the sense of rapid downward movement, and then the box struck a solid surface very hard, hard enough to push all the air out of his lungs. Not knowing what to expect, he forced himself not to inhale again.

His body protested and he started to gasp for air but he managed to hold his breath a moment longer. The only way to determine where he’d ended up was by listening to his surroundings. Though the sounds that came to him were distorted by the wooden box, he was able to make out a few things. He could hear voices, people laughing among themselves. A woman’s giggle. So he was not alone.

Then there was a knock on the lid of the coffin, and he sucked in air at last. “Anyone home?” someone asked, the voice thick with mockery.

“Let yourself in and have a look around the place,” Malden replied.

The owner of the voice laughed wickedly but said no more.

It did not take Malden long to realize no one would come to release him from the coffin-that he would have to find his own way out. He was able to draw his bodkin easily enough, but then found it difficult to maneuver it within the coffin without stabbing himself. It was not much of a weapon, a triangular piece of iron that tapered to a sharp point. By law it was the largest knife he was allowed to own, the blade no longer than his hand from the ball of his thumb to the tip of his middle finger. It had no edge, just the point, and was only good for stabbing in a fight. But then, he wasn’t a violent man by nature, and the bodkin was more than it appeared to be. He’d found many uses for it in the past, and killing had so far not been one of them. It served him well as he jabbed the point into the thin seam between box and lid. Without leverage it took some time to pry the lid upward, but when he did he was rewarded by a thin stream of light and-much more blessedly-a new breath of air.

The nails in the lid shrieked as he worked to free himself. Eventually he had the lid open enough to push it outward with his hands. Returning the knife to its sheath, he sat up and looked around.

The room was broad but low, its ceiling propped up on stout beams so it looked not unlike a mine shaft. The walls were bare, close-packed earth that glistened with condensation. The place was well lit by more than a dozen candles, some backed by reflectors of copper that added a rosy tint to the light. On a divan on one side of the room sat a man in a leather jerkin and particolored hose. He had the thick shoulders of a warrior, not a thief. Upon his lap was a redheaded girl with her bodice unlaced. She laughed prettily as he tickled her. Neither of them spared him a glance. In another corner of the room a group of men in colorless cloaks were throwing dice against a wall and cheering or groaning the result.

The final occupant of the room was a dwarf who might have been the epitome of his people. Dwarves were rare in Ness-rare anywhere in Skrae-but enough of them had come down from their northern kingdom, looking for work, that Malden was jaded to their presence. They were master craftsmen, brilliant artificers who could make better tools and finer wares than any human artisan. Dwarves alone knew the secret of making proper steel and thus were highly prized and given special rights wherever they turned up in human lands. Like all his folk, this one was skinny, perhaps four feet tall, and his flesh was as white as the belly of a fish. He had a wild mop of filthy black hair and a tangled beard. He was dressed only in leather breeches and was sewing pieces of metal into a silk glove. He glanced up briefly at Malden, then shook his head and went back to work.