George Martin - Rogues

The continued along the trail, making good time. The thief always seemed to place his foot in just the right place for maximum traction. Bushes did not impede his passage. He wondered if his luck would actually put barriers in their quarry’s way and decided that it could not. But it might be enough to keep him out of the Vandaayo’s reach. He wondered if he was also lucky to have found Erminia; she was turning out to be a useful companion.

He came across another upturned pebble and paused to examine it. The exposed bottom was still wet even though the sun was now well up and the day warming. He said to the woman, “He has slowed down. By now, he thinks the Vandaayo have us and is no longer hurrying.”

“He struck me as the kind who expects matters to arrange themselves to his convenience,” she said.

They went quickly but quietly now. The country was more up and down than level and soon they found themselves traversing a ridge. Through the trees, Raffalon saw a flicker of movement ahead. He stopped and peered forward, and in a moment he was sure. “There he is.”

“He’s long-legged,” Erminia said. “If he hears us coming, he may well outrun us.”

The man took a moment to appreciate that scrubbing pots had not diminished this woman’s ability to focus on what mattered. Meanwhile, he was scanning the woods around them, seeking an opportunity for advantage.

Ahead of them, the ridge and the trail made a leisurely curve to the right. If, swiftly and silently, he could cut across the bight, he might come out on the track ahead of the sauntering Fulferin.

“There,” he said, pointing. A tall tree had recently fallen, crashing through what would otherwise have been an impenetrable thicket. They pushed through the bushes, scaled the tree’s exposed root mass, and now they were on a clear, straight course. They ducked low and ran fast.

The fallen trunk was branchless for a long stretch and when they encountered its first foliage, they dropped down onto an open space carpeted in moss and lichens. It followed what must have once been the course of a spring-fed stream, now dried up, that led through a low tunnel of overarching branches and ended up behind a screen of a single flowered bush, only a few paces from the trail.

The man and the woman arrived just in time to see knob-kneed Fulferin come striding along at an easy pace. There was no time to plan a strategy. They simply leapt from concealment and threw themselves on their betrayer. Raffalon took him high, and Erminia low, and between them they conclusively toppled the tall man to the ground. By another bit of luck, the thief’s knees landed square on the god stealer’s midriff, driving the air from him in a great whoof.

Raffalon dug in his wallet and came out with a length of cord. With Erminia’s help, he flipped the recumbent, gasping man over and quickly bound him at wrist and ankle. Then they turned him again so that he was sitting with his back against a bank of earth. The woman tore a strip from Fulferin’s shirt and gagged him well, lest he speak a spell to do them mischief.

While she was doing this, Raffalon said, “If you had merely abandoned us, I could be more forgiving. But lighting a fire to draw the Vandaayo?” He left the consequences unsaid.

Erminia was more forthright. She delivered a substantial kick to Fulferin’s ribs. To Raffalon, she said, “Let us go.”

The bound man was making facial signs that he wished to tell them something. Raffalon stooped, removed the gag, but held his knife to the betrayer’s throat. The thaumaturge’s assistant said, “My master will pay you well if you help me deliver what I am bringing him.” When his captors made no particular response, he went on: “This item will complete a project of great importance to him.”

Raffalon hefted the man’s satchel. “I’ll be sure to tell him that you were thinking of him till the end,” he said.

A sly look occupied Fulferin’s face. “But you do not know who he is!”

“I didn’t,” said the thief, then nodded at the woman. “Until she told me.” He reapplied the gag, then turned and looked back along the curve of the ridge, where mottled green shapes were bustling along the trail. “We’ll be on our way now.”

The house of Bolbek the Potence was in the upper reaches of Port Thayes, which occupied a hillside that ran down to the river port. It was built of an unlikely combination of black iron panels and hemispheres of cerulean blue crystal. To discourage the uninvited, it was fenced by a tall hedge of semisentient ravenous vine, the plant’s thorn-bedecked catch-creepers constantly probing for flesh scent.

Raffalon and Erminia approached the single entrance, a narrow, wooden archway that pierced the hedge. As they neared the opening, the air turned cold and something vaporous hovered indistinctly in the gap. “My master,” it said, “expects no visitors.”

“Say to your master,” Raffalon said, holding up the carved box, “that something he is expecting has arrived.”

The apparition issued a sigh and faded in the direction of the manse. The man and woman waited, batting away the hedge’s mindless inquiries, until the gatekeeper once more semicoalesced in the air before them. “Follow,” it said.

The vines shrank back and the ghost led them along a path of luminous flagstones to a pair of tall double doors in each of which was carved a great contorted face. It was only when they reached the portals that Raffalon, seeing the wooden features move as the faces turned his way, realized that the panels were a pair of forest elementals enthralled by the thaumaturge to guard his entrance.

The doors opened at the ghost’s further approach; the man and woman stepped into the foyer, a place clearly intended to disorient the senses. The thief closed his eyes against the onset of dizziness, and said, “We will not endure ill treatment. We will leave now.” He turned and groped blindly toward the doors, finding Erminia’s hand and leading her behind him. Eyes downcast, she demurely followed.

“Wait,” said a commanding voice. The thief’s giddiness abruptly ceased. Raffalon reopened his eyes and saw that they had been joined by a short, wide-bellied man clad in a blood-red robe figured in black runes and a tall hat of complexly folded cloth and leather. His expression was impassive. He said, “What have you brought me?”

Raffalon reached into his wallet and brought forth the puzzle box.

Bolbek’s eyes showed a glint of avarice. “What of Fulferin?” he said.

“He accepted an invitation to dinner,” said the thief. “In Vandaayoland.”

The thaumaturge’s face showed a brief reaction that might have been regret. Then he said, “And in the box?”

“Fulferin said it was a god of small luck,” said Raffalon. He smiled a knowing smile and added, “so to speak.”

The greedy glint in Bolbek’s eyes became a steady gleam. “Bring it to my workroom,” he said.

Raffalon stood still. “First, we must settle the issue of price.”

Bolbek named a number. Raffalon doubled it. The mage gestured to show that chaffering was beneath him, and said, “Agreed. Bring it.” He turned and exited by a door that appeared in the wall as he approached it.

The thief was concerned. Sometimes those who agreed too easily to an extortionate price did so because they had no expectation of having to pay it. As he and Erminia followed the thaumaturge, he was alert for sudden departures from his plan.

The room they entered was of indeterminate size and shape. The walls appeared to recede or advance depending on whether they were viewed directly or peripherally, nor could the angles where they met floor or ceiling be depended on to remain static. Raffalon saw shelves and sideboards on which stood several items he would have liked to examine more closely. Indeed, he would have liked to take them away for a leisurely valuation, followed by a quick resale.