David Chandler - Den of thieves

She turned to face him, her face an impassive mask. “I don’t like to see people hurt. It gives me no pleasure. In that way, I am different from him. But don’t count on that fellow feeling for too much.”

He sketched a simple bow as they hurried along, and made a show of stumbling so that his foot kicked a spray of gravel against the side of the villa with an annoying rattle. They were passing the kitchens, which were housed in their own outbuilding. That way if they caught fire they would not burn the main house.

“Do you find me handsome?” he asked, with a grin on his face.

“I find you brazen. If you think I’m going to swoon over your looks, or give you my kerchief to tie around your lance, you’re fishing in the wrong pond.”

“Ah-but you smile when you see me. You admire my courage. You like me, I can tell. Well, working for that sort, I can understand why you’d turn your affections toward gutter trash. We’re easier on the heart.”

She stopped in the middle of the path and turned to face him directly.

“After today, I will never see you again. So it really doesn’t matter if I care for you or despise you, does it?”

Malden stretched his hands out at his sides. “Life is long, and the city is not so big. Only a fool says ‘ever’ or ‘never.’ ”

“Then think me a fool.” She moved her hands through the air, and it felt like a cloud passed through Malden’s body and was gone. “There. The barrier is down. Go, and do not return.”

She held out one arm and pointed toward the gate. But he didn’t move. Not until she looked at him, as if to see what was the matter with him and why he didn’t flee.

He caught her eye, though she tried to look away. She sighed and rolled her eyes, but he held her gaze until she stared back at him defiantly. Still he looked into her eyes, the only part of her he could see that was not covered in the images of sorcery. He held her gaze until something behind her eyes softened, if only for a moment. Softened, and looked back into his eyes, and did not flinch away.

“Just as I thought,” he said. Then he touched his forehead in salute and left without awaiting a reply.

The back garden gate brought him out a hundred yards from the towering Parkwall, which cut off the sun and left him in deep shade. He hurried along the wall’s length until the houses surrounding the common swallowed him up again, and only then did he allow himself to relax. As long as he had been in sight of the house he was certain he was still being observed. Once he was in the Stink proper, though, he headed toward a tavern several streets away and immediately headed into a private room in the back. A serving boy brought a flagon of small beer and some sausages when he called for them, then left him alone. Malden sat back in a chair to wait.

It was only a moment before Kemper walked through the wall and sat down next to him. “How went it, lad?”

“Like a charm,” Malden told him. “They let me in with barely a question, and Cyth-that is, his servant-showed me half the house without meaning to. I even offered to come and work there, though I was rebuffed.”

“A job! Y’asked fer a job!”

“Of course,” Malden said. “Think on it-after a day inside those walls, I would have learned more than I can studying it from the outside for a month.”

Kemper laughed heartily. “A bolder scalliwag I ne’er yet met. Ye’ve cased the premises, and him none the wiser, ha ha!”

“He even gave me a book,” Malden said, and reached inside his tunic to bring it out. “I can’t read the title, but it must be worth a fair handful of silver.” He examined the small volume and admired the snug binding, the gilt lettering on the spine. He put a thumb inside the cover and started to open it, intending only to look and see if the contents were in the same alphabet as the title.

“He just gave it t’ye?” Kemper asked, his eyes suddenly suspicious.

“Well, yes,” Malden said. “He was so impressed by- Blast!” He dropped the book to the table, where it fell open, facedown. A tiny droplet of blood welled up on his thumb. “I cut myself on the paper,” he said. A second drop appeared on his flesh, and he stared at the wound. It didn’t look like a paper cut. It looked like a rat bite.

“Lad,” Kemper said, jumping away from the table. “Lad!”

The book was crawling across the table. It arched its back-its spine-and pushed itself along the scarred wood with its pages like a slug. It was headed for a sausage on a plate and left a trail of drool or slime behind it as it moved.

“He tried to kill me,” Malden exclaimed, jumping out of his chair. “I went in there to give him a friendly warning, and he tried to kill me.” He watched the book move for a moment, fascinated by its silent slithering. Then he drew his bodkin and brought the point down hard through the cover of the book. The thing flapped and shook for a moment, then a trickle of black ink ran out from underneath its dead pages.

Kemper stood as far from the table as he could get, and refused to come back.

“It’s all right,” Malden said. “I think it’s dead now.”

Kemper shook his head in distaste. “I’m glad I never larnt t’read,” he said.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Malden said as he cut a slice of the sausage and popped it in his mouth. He kept one eye on the predatory book, not unafraid it would rise again and come for him once more. “Before, I had nothing against the sorcerer. I was only going to break into his house because I had to.”

“An’ now?” Kemper asked.

“Now I’ll be happy to take this bastard down a peg. Kemper, tell me-how did you make out? When the barrier spell came down, did you get inside?”

“Aye, son, aye,” Kemper said. “An’ none as saw me either. Let me tell ye what I found.”

Kemper had been reluctant to help Malden in his reconnaissance of Hazoth’s villa, yet he admitted he owed Malden a significant debt. Had Malden not rescued him from the Burgrave’s dungeon, he would have been tortured to death.

Besides-the plan had been half Kemper’s idea, or at least it inspired by the card sharp’s offhand comment the night of their carouse. Kemper had asked him why he didn’t just go in and ask for the crown back. He had, of course, been joking. Yet when Malden sobered up he realized that he did in fact have the perfect cover story to get him inside the sorcerer’s house. And casing the place was essential if he was to steal the crown back.

“I can see no other way to resolve my difficulties,” he’d told Kemper. “Will you help me?”

“Aye,” the intangible scoundrel had said at last. Together they formulated a scheme for it. Kemper could walk through normal walls like a ghost, but the wizardly wall surrounding Hazoth’s villa would keep him out as well as if it had been made of solid silver. The wall had to be dropped, however, every time someone came in or out of the grounds. When it was lowered for him, Kemper would have a chance to sneak in as well.

After the fact, Malden was deeply glad they had worked the thing so carefully. The wall didn’t just immobilize those who tried to cross it. It searched him with invisible fingers, combing through his pockets and his clothes with studied precision. Had Kemper been caught in that wall even for a moment, the jig would certainly have been up-Hazoth would have known the game they were playing and would have destroyed them both in the time it took him to blink an eye. It had been a major risk anyway, since they had no way of knowing just how aware Hazoth was of who was in his house at a given time. They had proven, Malden decided, that it was possible to enter the house without immediately alerting Hazoth to one’s presence, and that was a major step forward in the plot. Something to be grateful for anyway.