Jeff Crook - The Thieves’ Guild

Seeing him hobbling madly to keep pace with her, a little cry escaped her lips. “I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “Your foot.”

“It’s nothing,” the elf consoled her. “Pay it no mind. But walk a little more slowly, if you would.”

They continued on their way. She led him past more under- takers’ and cabinetmakers’ houses, a stonecutter’s shop with finished marble headstones crowding the doorway, and an inconspicuous door that proclaimed the occupant to be a dentist and surgeon. They reached the end of the alley and stepped into the sunlight, turning right onto Horizon Road just east of the gate. The elf looked back and spotted the two sailors, still staggering along behind him.

“What’s your name?” Claret asked.

“Caelthalas Elbernarian, son of Tanis Half-Elven,” he answered.

“Son of who?” the girl asked over her shoulder.

“Never mind,” he said with a smile. “You may call me Cael.”

“I’ve never met an elf before, nor anyone so handsome. But handsome isn’t the right word, is it? Beautiful. Yes, that’s it. Beautiful. Are you married?” she asked in one long breathless string.

“You seem to have got over your shyness,” Cael noted.

“I’m not really shy, you know. You surprised me, that’s all. It isn’t every day that you meet someone like you in that alley. How did you hurt your foot?” she rambled. “My father is missing a hand. He used to be a fine carpenter, but he accidentally cut his hand off with an axe, and now all he does is sleep and drink wine and yell at my mother.”

With Cael in tow, Claret led the way down Horizon Road toward the Great Plaza at the center of the city. Before they’d gone a stone’s throw, she turned left onto Palisade Lane, so named because of the balconies shading both sides of the street. Cafe waiters were already setting out tables and iron chairs beneath the balconies or hanging clean white tablecloths along the decorative rails above in preparation for the crowds that would soon be filling the city for the celebration of the festival.

Two score paces down this lane, the girl pulled him beneath a pillared arcade and into a doorway where a flight of stairs led up into darkness. He twisted his hand free and stared at her in surprise, but found that she was looking past him. Turning, he saw the sailors stagger past, arm in arm. Neither looked his way. The girl breathed a sigh of relief.

“Were those two men following you?” she asked.

Cael paused and gazed admiringly at the girl before him. She returned his gaze unashamedly, blinking at him with her gray eyes. “No, I don’t think they were,” he said at last. “But I see I couldn’t elude you as easily as we eluded them.”

“They were probably Guild thieves,” she answered proudly. “What did you do, steal something from them? Don’t worry, I shan’t tell. I can keep a secret better than anyone.”

“I believe you,” Cael said. “But it is best you don’t know.”

“I understand, but I’ll help you just the same. If anyone asks for you, I’ll tell them you’re everywhere that you’re not.”

“Thank you for you help, Claret,” he said, as he took a coin from the fat purse at his belt and pressed it into her palm.

She looked at it, then scowled at him. “I don’t want this,” she said, obviously hurt.

“Very well then,” he countered while deftly snaking a hand around her slim waist. Her slippers scuffed across the dusty stairs as he pulled her close, her soft lips tightened in surprise as his met them, stealing a kiss, then releasing her before she had a chance to resist.

She pulled away, blushing to her ears, almost ready to bolt, her brow knotted in confusion. Cael’s green eyes sparkled with mirth. “I hope that will suffice,” he said.

For a moment longer, the girl stood irresolute at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the elf. Then her face split into a grin, her gray eyes dancing. “It does for now!” she laughed, then dashed away. Cael stepped out from the stairway to watch the coltish grace of her long-legged stride as she fled, giggling, back the way they had come.

After he had seen her off, the elf strolled leisurely along Pallisade Lane until it brought him to the Palanthas Trade Exchange. He wandered for a while among the stalls, purchasing a small tome of elven poetry from a bookseller, then a jeweled pin from a man displaying his wares atop a woolen blanket draped over a crate of live cats. A woman tried to drag him into her stall to view an alabaster figure of the god Paladine, which she assured him had been carved by Reorx himself. He managed to gracefully extract himself from her greasy fingers, only to be captured by a young boy promising to show him a pair of candlesticks carved from the eyeteeth of a black dragon. Another woman rushed up and shook a live chicken in his face, pointing out in a shrieking voice the particularly fine qualities of the hysterical fowl. He ducked aside, finding himself within a warm dark tent sharp with the odor of vinegary wine. The woman with the chicken followed, only to be chased out again by the broom-wielding wine merchant. Cael breathed a sigh of relief and slipped out the back.

This brought him into Jawbone Alley, which led away in the direction of the docks. After a few twists and turns, the alley opened onto a broad thoroughfare generally known as Bayside Road, though in truth there was little to identify it as road. Sometimes it was broad enough for three hay carts to pass side by side, sometimes two men walking in opposite directions would bump shoulders. More often than not, the widest stretches were filled with stacks of crates waiting to be loaded, making these areas as difficult to navigate as the most cunning maze. Bayside Road separated the city from the bay, running from Admiralty Street in the northwest corner of the city to Navy Point in the northeast.

This day, the docks were alive with activity. Those ships that had wintered in Palanthas were loading and preparing to disembark. Sailors and seamen representing nearly every race on Krynn crowded the quays seeking employment aboard any ship that might take them. Other ships arrived hourly, returning from winter-long voyages that had visited nearly every port and harbor of Ansalon, bringing home to Palanthas their profits and curiosities. As far as the eye could see, masts rose high above the docks, creating the impression of a forest of tall ships. And above them all, floating and hovering and crying longingly, were the gulls of Palanthas, famous in song and tale.

Cael made his way along the cobbled waterfront, weaving among the boxes and crates and squads of city guards, customs officers, and Knights of Takhisis. Though the Dark Knights allowed the city a loose rein when it came to harbor traffic, they had very strict rules about what could and could not be imported into the city. These rules were posted at strategic points all along the docks so that no visiting ship’s captain could claim ignorance as a defense. One of their most rigid laws forbade the possession or sale of any weapon. More than once, Cael was stopped and questioned, his papers checked, and his staff examined.

All the while, he felt eyes watching him, but whenever he looked around, he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Once, he spotted a woman mending a sail who looked suspiciously like the chicken vendor who had pursued him into the wine-merchant’s tent. Another time he was accosted by a beggar whom he thought resembled one of the drunken sailors.

He walked slowly, leaning heavily on his staff and stepping carefully along the slippery cobblestones. His long straight auburn hair, though not so uncommon in Palanthas as it might have been in some other cities, singled him out as did the fact that he was an elf. He received many a stare. Even in a city as metropolitan as Palanthas, it wasn’t every day that a crippled elf strolled along the rough and tumble waterfront.