David Dalglish - A Dance of Cloaks

“Shit,” she said as she touched her throbbing forehead. Normally when approaching the false bottoms of buildings, there’d be light sneaking through the cracks. Here, there was nothing. Feeling around blindly, she found a small lever and pulled it. Grating noises from both sides filled her ears, and then a whoosh of air above her signified the board’s removal. She climbed out.

It didn’t take long to figure out why there was no light warning her of the false bottom. She was in the basement of a rather large mansion. She’d known of the entrance to the safehouse but never been there before.

No wonder James fled here, she thought. This place looks to be enormous.

The basement itself was not lit, but to her right she saw light spilling down across a staircase and she worked her way toward it. She kicked a crate once, biting down on her tongue to hold in another curse. She walked more carefully after that. At the bottom of the stairs she looked up. A man was leaning against the doorframe at the top, his gaze turned inward to the room they were in.

“Make him roll again,” the man shouted. “I saw Jek shaking them bones a bit too crazy. He’s probably got a rigged pair in his pockets.”

As he finished talking, Veliana pressed the tip of her dagger against his neck, having climbed all the way up without alerting him to her presence.

“A lousy guard is a dead guard,” she told him as he jerked his head around, his whole body stiffening.

“Hey Vel,” he said, smiling nervously at her. “Glad to see you’re back and cheery as ever.”

Veliana recognized him as Jorey, a low recruit promoted most likely because of the attrition caused by the other guilds.

“Out of my way,” she said, giving him a shove. Several other men in the grays of the Ash Guild jumped from their seats around a table. Two of them grabbed daggers, while the rest just gawked.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” said the man holding the dice. She presumed he was Jek.

“Hate to disappoint,” she said. “Now where is James?”

“What the fuck happened to your face?” asked one of the thieves. She ignored him and continued glaring.

“Upstairs,” said Jek.

“Alright. I want torches lit and stuck in the basement. Get two men watching it, and I mean watching it, not sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for a crossbow bolt. What about the front doors to the building? Who’s watching them?”

“Just Gary,” said another. “It’s been quiet here. The guilds have started leaving us alone since James agreed to Thren’s plan.”

This stopped Veliana in her tracks.

“He agreed?” she asked. “When?”

“Earlier this morning,” said Jorey. “Where have you been, Vel?”

Veliana shook her head, trying to match things up in her mind.

“No time,” she said. “I’ve got to talk to James. The rest of you, get to the doors, with at least one man patrolling the windows.”

“Why the attitude?” asked a fat man from the corner.

“Because Thren knows we’re here,” she said. “He won’t leave us be, not now, not ever.”

“But we agreed to what he wanted,” said Jek. “Surely he won’t…”

“The next person that argues with me gets a knife in the throat,” Veliana shouted.

That shut them up, she thought as she stormed through the house, searching for a way upstairs. When she came upon a spiral staircase she grabbed the railing and used it to climb up the steps two at a time. Once on the second floor, she looked about, seeing a hallway leading either direction. She chose one, her head on a swivel. She stopped when a voice called her name.

“Veliana?”

She spun, stepped two doors down, and found James sitting on the edge of his bed, naked. Refusing to blush or even avert her eyes, she crossed her arms behind the small of her back. A young blonde lay sprawled out on the bed beside him, her slender form barely hidden by the thin blankets wrapped around her.

“Apologies for the bad timing,” she said. “I hope I arrived at the end, and not the beginning.”

James chuckled.

“We Berens like to think of no before or after, just brief interludes in between,” he said.

He stood and pulled on his trousers. His movements stirred the woman beside him. She pulled the blankets closer and then rolled the other way.

“Who is that?” Veliana asked as James stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.

“One of Leon Connington’s maids. Why?”

Her jaw dropped open.

“Are you mad? She could tell him where our safehouse is!”

James laughed.

“You know how he treats them. He’ll be lucky if he even gets his maid back, let alone any information.”

James’s joy drained away as he truly saw her face for the first time.

“By Ashhur, what happened to you?” he asked, gently touching it with his fingertips. “Is it still tender?”

“Hurts like a bitch,” she said. “It won’t heal, either. What is this I hear about you making a deal with Thren?”

James sighed. He walked into the room opposite his own. There were no furnishings or portraits, just a single yellow curtain he pulled back so he could stare out at the city through the diamond-shaped window.

“Thren’s plan may be suicide, but there’s still a good chance of it succeeding. If we opposed him any longer, we’d never last another night. They burned us out of our last two safehouses. Did you see?”

She nodded. James shook his head, his hand curling as if he wished he had a drink to hold.

“We’ve lost so many. Our territory is almost non-existent. Even after this, we’ll still lose most of our members to other guilds unless we get lucky and hit a large haul somewhere. What would you have me do, Vel? Stand and fight him, fight the combined might of the thief guilds?”

“Other guilds must be getting nervous,” Veliana said. “Thren tried to recruit me to take your place. He feared others would abandon him if he tried to force anyone to his side.”

James laughed.

“He didn’t do any of this. He planted whispers, ideas, and let the rest of the guilds eat us alive. Those who were closest to the Spider Guild got the best territory… our best territory. He wanted you because it was easier. A quick coup, a few dead bodies, and then he’s got another puppet running another guild. Instead, he had to spill a bit more blood. It wasn’t hard. You know Kadish. His Hawks have wanted everything north of Iron Street for months. Now he’s got it. Five years we’ve fought that bastard’s war, five fucking years, and now because we don’t play along for once, we get thrown to the dogs.”

“And the shadows, hawks, and serpents,” Veliana said. “We have no friends. We never have.”

James gestured once more to her face.

“Who gave you that? Is that why you barged in here looking for me?”

Veliana turned away, suddenly self-conscious of the wound.

“That, no, Gileas did it, but he’s dead, I killed…James, Gileas sold information to one of Thren’s men less than two hours ago. He gloated over letting Felhorn know where we were hiding.”

“It means nothing,” insisted James. “It could be any number of things.”

“But he was so certain,” Veliana said. “He also claimed to have told the king’s men about Thren’s plans for the Kensgold.”

At this, James’ face darkened.

“Thren won’t believe you,” he said. “He’ll think we’re trying to find a new way to sabotage his plan, all while agreeing to it. Damn that little worm.”

Veliana knew she should have found that funny, but didn’t.

“We can’t go through with this,” she said. “We can’t throw our lives away with him.”

James wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close.