Dave Gross: Lord of Stormweather

He plucked the fertility fetish from his collar, hoping it could serve as a crude knife. Unfortunately, one glance at the ornament confirmed what he had feared. It was as dull as a spoon.

If it would not serve as a cutting edge, then perhaps the pin could become a lockpick. The silver charm consisted of a pair of blunt arrows-or what Tamlin called arrows when his more respectable acquaintances inquired. He carefully bent them apart, leaving them attached at the base and straightening them to form a more slender and fragile length of silver.

He felt outside the cage for a keyhole, then grinned when he discovered he could insert his little finger almost to the first knuckle into the opening.

"This will be easy."

Probing the lock was indeed no great challenge, but Tamlin soon discovered four different places where his makeshift pick could move some mechanism inside the lock. The problem was in moving more than one at a time.

Briefly he wished his sister were present. Since childhood, Tazi had had a talent for escaping her bedroom despite the vigilance of the staff. Tamlin had always been jealous of her ability to scale a seemingly sheer garden wall or to tease open a drawing room lock with a few hairpins.

Within a few years, Tazi gained notoriety among the household for her "wildings," nights on which she would escape the confines of Stormweather Towers for the dangerous freedom of the Oxblood Quarter or the docks. In the beginning, Tamlin would try to follow her with Vox and Escevar in tow. Even then, it didn't take Tazi long to shake her hecklers, and it had been years since they could follow her trail.

When Shamur Uskevren revealed her own secret past as a daring burglar, the rest of the family nodded and sighed, as if heredity explained it all. What it didn't explain was Tazi's sudden disappearance months earlier. At first frantic, Shamur and Thamalon calmed themselves after Songmaster Ammhaddan assured them that their daughter remained alive and free, if beyond their protection. Thamalon had wanted to launch an expedition to recover his wayward child-and Tamlin had hoped for command of the venture-before a long, private discussion between husband and wife concluded that Tazi would return on her own, when and if she willed.

Tamlin felt another pang of jealousy at his sister's freedom. If only he'd been similarly bold and had struck out on his own, he wouldn't be in his predicament.

He worked at the lock for what felt like an hour. Even on such a dull tool, he somehow managed to prick a thumb and two fingers, and his neck throbbed painfully. His cage door remained smugly fast.

Tamlin sighed heavily. He was too tired to muster a good curse. Instead, he lay back on the floor for a rest. Soon his eyes fluttered, and he teetered on the edge of sleep before a faint clicking arrested his attention.

The rat was creeping toward his cage again.

Tamlin feigned sleep. He had so much practice, he felt it was a special knack of his to keep his breathing slow and steady until a pesky servant finally gave up waking the young noble and left him dozing in his great bed. Tamlin hoped the rat wasn't much harder to trick.

When he heard the porridge bowl rock under the rat's weight, Tamlin rolled quickly over both rodent and dish. The rat wriggled and squealed, but Tamlin held it to the floor with his body while he snaked his hands under his chest to get a grip on some toothless and clawless region of the creature's body. Soon he had one hand firmly around the rat's throat and upper paws, while its lower claws made bloody stripes on his wrist.

"Loviatar's kisses!" hissed Tamlin.

Evoking the goddess of agonies made Tamlin wonder just how cruel his captors might be. He'd never understood the masochists who surrendered themselves to the Mistress of Pain, but those who inflicted her tortures on the unwilling seemed monstrous and unknowable.

He held the rat to the floor to keep it from attacking him. Though he had the thing, he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. He looked at the bowl and considered using it as a rat-sized version of his own prison. The rat might not even mind, if there was enough food left inside.

Before Tamlin decided, old iron hinges creaked, and the heavy door to the dark room opened. A pair of guards in shabby black tabards stood outside. Bits of thread curled at the outlines of emblems that had been torn from their breasts. One of them held a torch whose flame snapped like a flag. The breeze that shook the fire brought a sewer stench into the already noisome chamber.

A tall man in a long green cape swept past the guards, then gestured to them to shut the door. When they obeyed, the man unsheathed a brightly glowing glass wand.

Tamlin didn't recognize the man, but immediately knew he was a noble. He had the bearing of one who is accustomed to respect without asking for it. His golden-brown hair fell in ringlets to the shoulders of his fine linen cape, which was clasped with twin bronze raven medallions-a common icon among Selgaunt's merchants. Beneath the cape he wore a white linen doublet without ensign. The man's high boots and woolen hose were fashionable but not distinctive.

The visitor had dressed for anonymity, so Tamlin assumed his face was magically disguised as well. It wasn't unhandsome, lined by fifty years or more, and familiar to none of the famous Houses of Selgaunt. Even the man's amused smile gave Tamlin no clues as to his identity.

"My dear boy," he said with a nod toward the squirming rat. "If you are still hungry, I will have one of the men fetch you another bowl."

"Oh, do not trouble yourself," replied Tamlin. "It's just that it has been so long since I was last hunting…" He shrugged in lieu of a wittier riposte.

His captor laughed with surprising warmth. "You have always been such a charming guest, Young Master Thamalon. I hope you shall be my guest again soon, under more pleasant circumstances."

"I shall look forward to it," said Tamlin. "Yet perhaps next time I shall be your host."

"Perhaps," said the stranger. He gave Tamlin a curious look, as if suspecting his prisoner knew something more than he let on.

Tamlin wished he knew enough to take advantage of his captor's uncertainty. For lack of a clue on which to build a bluff, he asked the obvious question.

"As much as I appreciate your kind hospitality, may I inquire as to the length of my stay?"

"Ah, to the point then," said the man. "Therein lies the trouble."

At first, Tamlin didn't rise to the man's unspoken invitation to inquire. The rat spoiled his cool appearance by biting the fleshy web between his thumb and forefinger. Tamlin hissed in irritation.

"Don't tell me you sent the ransom demand to Argent Hall," he said. "Last time it took forever for my cousins to redirect the messenger."

"Droll," said the man.

He raised the glowing wand for a better look at his captive. Tamlin saw a green stone glitter on the man's finger. While nothing else about the man was familiar, Tamlin was certain he'd seen that ring before.

"Please," the stranger said, "do release that vermin. You are liable to catch some dreadful disease if it keeps biting you."

"If the Old Owl balks at your price, send your man to my mother."

Tamlin tried to smile to smooth over his hasty words. Like most of the Old Chauncel, he much preferred to talk around a subject than plunge into it, but he was sick, injured, hungry, disgusted, and disgraced beyond all tolerance. Even so, he kept his grasp on the increasingly frantic rat. If its screams annoyed his captor, so much the better.

A petty revenge is better than none, Tamlin thought. More importantly, irritation might prompt the man to reveal a clue.

No, he seems too clever for that sort of ploy. If nothing else, maybe I could throw the rat in his face.