Jeff Crook - The Thieves’ Guild

He took a few moments to collect himself, making certain his fine clothes were in order, while Marta toyed with her hair and twiddled the rings on her fingers. Petor hurriedly glanced about, then grasped Marta by the hand. She gazed longingly into his eyes, her lips parted expectantly.

“I’m going in by the kitchen. Do try and not be seen returning to the party,” Petor pleaded. Without another word, he dashed away, his fashionable goldbuckle shoes rutching noisily on the garden path.

“I’ll do as I like!” she called after him, then turned on her heel and stomped away. Her dainty, bejeweled slippers made walking difficult on the loose gravel. She turned once more and shouted to the darkness, “I’ll go in by the front door!” She spun round and stalked away. “That’ll show him.”

When she had gone no more than a few steps, a shadow dropped silently over the wall, landing like a cat behind the rose hedge where Petor and Marta had had their assignation. It slipped out to crouch behind the marble centaur, then flitted across the path (its footsteps making no sound on the gravel) and seemed to meld with the trunk of the massive oak on the lawn. A rustling of its long cloak, as of a breeze stirring the stems of the rose bushes, was the only sound of its passing.

Marta continued obliviously on her way, mumbling to herself, her feet crunching on the path. The shadow slipped from tree to tree, bush to bush, paralleling her course as it crossed the lawn. It seemed too swift and silent for a man, and it moved with a deadly purpose. It ran in a crouch with head eagerly thrust forward, darting across the open moonlit spaces in a flash, but when it stopped and its cloak settled about it, the normal eye could not distinguish it from wood or stone. It seemed somehow to merge with whatever shadow it crossed and to blend with the shrubbery and the trees.

Marta straightened her back and livened her step as she neared the house. The sweet sounds of a spring dance floated from the open windows. The house itself was monumental in its construction. Through only four stories tall, it loomed like a snow-clad mountain in the early spring night. Spacious lawns and luxuriant gardens surrounded the house on three sides, but on the north side a reflecting pool, fed by a canal from the Bay of Branchala, extended all the way up to the building’s foundation. The estate lay in the northeast quarter of Palanthas, at the foot of the terraced slopes of an area known as the Golden Estates. It was surrounded by a tall stone wall, with an iron gate opening onto Bookbinder’s Street. The wall crossed the canal by way of an arch, and there a water gate and guardhouse prevented intrusion. The canal was large enough to let small boats pass. Several guests had arrived at the party this way, for their barges stood in rows, pulled up along the shore of the reflecting pool.

Except for a narrow decorative ledge between the third and fourth stories, the walls of the house were of white marble polished to a glassy sheen and seemingly without joint or crevice, while the depth of the window embrasures showed the walls to be as thick as the bole of the oak in the garden. Every window bore stout shutters of iron-banded oak, and each was likewise protected by heavy bars of iron set directly into the stone of the walls. Though on this night many of the shutters were thrown wide, allowing light and the sound of merrymaking to spill out onto the lawn, when closed up tight and locked from within, the house of Gaeord uth Wotan stood as impregnable as a dwarven mountain stronghold.

As well it should be. Master Gaeord was one of the city’s most successful merchants, with a fleet of seventeen ships sailing the seas of Krynn and bringing home their profits to fill their master’s coffers. The home of Gaeord uth Wotan was known throughout the city for its collection of art, fine plate, jewels, and antiquities. Few Palanthians could boast such wealth as his.

Still, he was not a noble and his house not the home of a noble, as even the most plebeian visitor to the city could discern from a cursory glance Compared to the elegant estates of Nobles Hill, the house of Gaeord uth Wotan was about as aesthetically pleasing as a jail. In truth, it had once been a warehouse-a huge, flat-roofed block of stone and iron. What is more, the estate did not lie within the precincts of the Old City, which fact forever doomed the Wotans to the merchant class, no matter how great their wealth might grow. The noble families of Palanthas could trace their bloodlines back to the city’s founding citizens, and no amount of money could purchase a title of nobility. Gaeord uth Wotan had only gained his considerable wealth in the past thirty years, a period of time that seemed but a single drop of a water clock to the two-thousand-year histories of many Palanthian families. He was respected and honored for his contributions to the city, and not a few feared his power and influence. His Spring Dawning party was one of the premier events of the festival. An invitation to it meant prestige for the bearer, so much so that even the noble families of Palanthas found it necessary to make an appearance, however brief.

The finest minstrels in the city filled the air with their music Marta paused as the music slowed to a waltz. She began to dance alone upon the lawn, straying nearer and nearer her silent shadow. It never moved but crouched like a boulder beside a fountain of rose quartz. Marta laughed, her gown spreading about her as she twirled, so near now that the hem of her dress actually brushed the shadow. Still, it did not move. Finally, she danced away, and as the music changed once more to a vigorous spring ring, she skipped across the lawn and rounded the corner of the house. Her shadow leapt after her silently, pausing to peer around the corner before following.

All the estate between the front door and the gate was aglow with torches burning with sweet resins. Carriages of all styles and periods covered the lawn as thick as bison on the plains of Abanasinia, while servants and coachmen tended the horses or gathered into groups to share a skin of wine or gamble with dice. Marta danced along the circle of the drive, stopping occasionally to curtsey to an imaginary suitor or admirer. Her shadow moved among the carriages, paralleling her all the way to the door.

A pair of mail-clad guards suitably attired for the occasion with ribbons of green and white wrapped like a maypole around their pikes, lounged near the front doors. At Marta’s approach, they discreetly turned aside and became engrossed in a discussion of the moon, abandoning their post rather than confront their master’s scandalous young daughter. Marta stuck out her tongue at their backs as she danced into the house. Her shadow slipped in almost on her heels, crossing the threshold unnoticed except for a pet owl perched on a gilded stand beside the door. The owl ruffled its feathers in an alarmed manner and swiveled its head around to watch. Her skirts swishing over the marble floor, Marta whirled down the broad entry hall toward the ball room, while her shadow ducked aside, choosing instead a wide stair spiraling up into darkness. The guards resumed their post without noticing.

At the top of the stairs, the intruder paused, freezing like one of the marble busts standing on pedestals along the balcony overlooking the grand foyer. To his right, the balcony ringed the circular foyer before disappearing beneath a marble arch. Bronze guardians stood to either side of the arch, female warriors with long slim swords at their sides. Halfway between the stairs and the arch stood a gilded mahogany door. It creaked open. The intruder instantly stepped into a niche, somehow slipping behind the pedestal filling the niche, though there didn’t appear to be room enough for a cat. He steadied the rocking marble head atop the pedestal with his fingertips and merged into the shadows.