Jeff Crook - The Thieves’ Guild

His cool green eyes alert and inquisitive, he seemed aware of everything that passed around him, and though obviously crippled, he had no trouble dodging the occasional netload of freight that swung too near. He handled his staff as though born with it in his hand, and once, when a loose net hook careened at his face, he struck it aside without pausing in his hobbling stride.

He continued along the waterfront until he reached Fleece Street and its beggars. He passed them without a glance, ignoring their plaintive cries and miserable wails, turning at last back onto Horizon Road, having taken the circuitous route around the city wall to bypass its heavily guarded gate. At the corner of Fleece and Horizon, he passed a noblewoman dressed in a green gown, with silver bangles on her wrists. Behind her, two men struggled beneath a massive rug, bearing its rolled weight on bowed shoulders. His suspicions alerted, Cael glanced back, but they turned quickly into Washwell Alley and vanished from sight. The woman looked like the seller of alabaster figurines, while one of the male servants, though his face was hidden by the rug, was certainly the second of the drunken sailors.

As he stood staring after them, a sound behind him brought him spinning around. “Pardon me sir, could you spare-” the old man began. Cael had seen a glint of metal in the old man’s hand and instinctively cracked the fellow over the head with his staff. The old man slumped to the ground at his feet, his tin cup spilling its meager bounty of thin copper coins at the elf’s feet.

Quickly, Cael propped the old man up against the wall, pausing for a moment to check for the lifebeat at his throat, and sighed in relief. “Sorry, old one,” he apologized. “You ought not to sneak up on me like that.” He gathered up the coins, dumped them in the cup, and placed it in the beggar’s limp grasp. Then, on second thought, he emptied the beggar’s cup back into his palm, returned the cup, and hurried away.

After turning onto Horizon Road, the elf resumed his normal pace. The ancient cobbled way was sunk beneath the level of its curbs. Its iron sewer grates rose up to trip the unwary traveler and jolt the careless wagon driver from his seat. Where a tavern or shop stood, its doors thrown wide or darkly closed and guarded, the curbs were worn away by the passing of countless feet. Here stood a fountain spilling cool water into an ancient well, there a gate of new-Wrought iron guarded a small comfortable garden where a speckled terrier yapped wildly.

As the cool morning breeze lifted, Cael felt a great longing enter his heart. All around him this great and ancient city thronged. He wondered at its multitudes, its thousands and tens of thousands of lives and loves and hates, its joys and grief. He looked at the well-ordered buildings and streets, some ancient and beautiful, some new and shabby, and a feeling for this place blossomed within him, unfolding and spilling with a thrill through all his limbs. He’d been in Palanthas, City of Seven Circles, for nearly a year, though to his elven senses it seemed but the passing of a day. After all he was an elf, and to the elves the passing of time means little. It seemed all the more strange to him that he should suddenly feel such affection for a city of humans, for nothing in the elven heart is sudden. He shook his head in wonder, his long auburn hair tousling in the freshening breeze, as he continued on his way. The breeze brought a scent of rain, and thunder rumbled in the hills to the west.

Twenty-five. generations of Hammerfells have passed since the Founderstone was stolen from Balgard and Brimbar Hammerfell,” the dwarf growled as he tugged angrily at his snowy beard. Cael smiled wearily across the table. He’d heard this tale many times before. “We were never paid for it,” the dwarf finished.

“Not that they would have sold it,” the elf said in his gentlest voice.

“Not that we would have sold it!” the dwarf shouted, his fist striking the table so hard that their two mugs jumped into the air. Foam leaped on high and washed across the dinted wooden surface of the table. “Never! Not for any price!”

“So tell me, Grandfather, why does the world not know this remarkable tale? Why do the minstrels not sing it at every festival?” the elf asked as he sat back in his chair and gestured at the players singing in the corner of the tavern Outside the streets were alive with the noise of festivities, but inside the small common room of the Dwarven Spring, a group of minstrels played and sang a lively air to a nearly empty room. Other than the elf and the dwarf, the tavern’s only occupants were a pair of off-duty Knights of Takhisis, a young man wearing the red robes of a mage, and an Ergothian silk merchant who snored with his head on the bar. Behind the bar, the barkeep carefully stacked a pyramid of crockery mugs. Windows set high in the walls provided the room’s only illumination. These looked out at street level, presenting a fascinating view of the latest fashions in Palanthian footwear.

“Because, young Cael,” the dwarf explained, “it was forgotten . Yes, forgotten! Having stolen from Balgard and Brimbar Hammerfell their only treasure, the citizens of Palanthas promptly forgot how they came by the stone or what it meant or why it was taken from the dwarves in the first place. You see, thieves stole it from the city treasury not long afterwards, and it was never recovered. The city forgot about it, because to remember it was to remember their failure. History was rewritten and the stone forgotten.”

“Until now,” Cael commented.

“We never forgot it!” the dwarf roared. “We knew where it was all along. We tried to get it back, but we failed. Meanwhile, the city gave us a pittance in return for our ‘gift.’ To this day, we pay no taxes, though I am sure not half the fools in the Senate know why. Nor would they question it. No, the Hammerfells have always been exempt from taxation, and so it shall remain.”

“Surely, Grandfather, over the centuries your family has saved in taxes many times the value of the stone,” Cael remarked.

“That is not the point, as you well know!” the dwarf growled. “You young rapscallion, you always seem to steer me to the subject of the Founderstone. Why is that? You know how it makes my blood boil.”

“I enjoy the telling of the tale,” Cael answered. “I am an elf, after all. I never weary of remembrances.”

“Aye, that you are, my boy,” the dwarf smiled. “You and I, we are as unlike as wood and stone, yet we understand one another better than we do these humans, wouldn’t you say?” The elf nodded in agreement as he sipped from his mug.

The minstrels finished their song and set aside their instruments. One wandered over to the bar and eased himself atop a stool, while the rest stepped outside, rapidly ascending the stairs to the street and vanishing into the crowd. Meanwhile, the two Knights of Takhisis paid their bill and staggered to the door. Turning, they waved to the dwarf. “Good morrow to you, Mashter Hammerfell!” they shouted drunkenly.

“So long, boys. See you tomorrow.” The dwarf waved and turned back to his elf companion. “They keep the rings on my fingers,” he said, shrugging.

The barkeep approached the table, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. He was a slovenly man, with heavy unshaved jowls and a nap of hair clinging to his sweaty forehead. He stopped at their table and slid two coins before the dwarf. “They paid their tab in steel coin, marster,” he said.

“If nothing else, the Dark Knights can be counted on for steel coin,” the dwarf commented as he swept the coins from the table and into the pouch at his belt. “You can go now, if you like. The ceremonies will begin soon, I imagine.”