Jeff Crook: The Thieves’ Guild

A man stepped through the door, closing and locking it behind him. He dropped an ornate brass key into his waistcoat pocket and turned toward the stairs. He was round as a bowl, but he walked with the swagger of a man long accustomed to striding the decks of a sailing ship. He wore a coat cut from the finest blue broadcloth, and several necklaces of rich gold hung about his thick, sunburned neck. A green emerald as large as a quail’s egg sparkled from one of his fingers. Walking, he whistled out of tune with the music echoing from the ballroom below. As he passed the niche and started down the stair, a black-gloved hand flickered out from behind the pedestal and fingered the pocket into which the brass key had been placed. just as quickly the hand withdrew as the portly man brushed irritably at his breast as though it were a fly and not a bold thief’s fingers disturbing his pocket. He continued without stopping. The intruder stepped out from the niche and watched the master of the house, Gaeord uth Wotan, cross the foyer below him, still whistling out of tune.

With a swirl of his black cloak, he spun round and glided to the mahogany door. He paused and examined the lock, then rose and proceeded toward the arch with its bronze guardians. His footsteps slowed, his head swiveled from one guardian to another. The statues seemed ordinary enough, if rather ornate in design. The female faces were extraordinarily beautiful and as alike as twins. Each bore a slim sword gripped in a long, shapely hand, one in the left hand, the other in the right. They were naked to the waist, sublimely muscled, perfectly cast. The dim light playing over their dark metallic forms gave almost the semblance of movement, of breathing.

Suddenly, the intruder dashed forward, his cloak billowing behind him. At a movement to his left, he dove, rolling beneath the arch just as two razor-sharp bronze blades sheared a span from the hem of his cloak. He continued his roll another dozen feet before rising to his feet, already running. He glanced over his shoulder. The hall behind him was empty. He slowed his steps to listen for a moment, and hearing nothing, shrugged and continued on his way.

He hurried down the darkened hall as though he possessed full knowledge of the layout of the house. He passed without pause numerous rooms and chambers, many promising untold wealth by the stoutness of their doors and locks. But he never hesitated. Finally, he stopped at a small, nondescript door almost hidden behind a fine tapestry. Without pause, he opened it quickly and stepped through, closing it silently behind him. He found himself on a narrow landing. Plain stairs, illuminated at this landing by a pair of braziers hanging from the ceiling, rose from below and continued up into darkness. He mounted the stairs three at a time until he reached the top landing, Where they ended at another door. This he opened as before and stepped out into another hall, closing the door behind him.

To his right, torches in sconces burned along an unadorned wall. The floor was laid with unpolished stone, well worn in the middle by the passing of many feet. From a door at the far end, sounds of raucous merrymaking echoed along the hall’s empty length. To the left, the hall was dark as a cave. His cloak unfurled like a flag as he turned, and he vanished into the gloom, invisible in his ebon clothes, mask, and hood.

The darkness seemed not to hinder his movements. He strode quickly down the hall, right hand lightly brushing the wall as though to guide him. No obstacle arose to trouble his path, and after turning a corner, he quickly reached his destination. It was a door, no different than the score he had already passed. Removing his black gloves, he knelt beside it and produced a leather pouch from some hidden pocket in his clothes. From this, he chose a thin metal wire and slipped it into the door’s weighty lock. Beside this, he inserted a second, thicker wire and began to work these back and forth inside the lock.

Minutes passed, and a sigh escaped him, the first sound he’d made since climbing over the garden wall. He chose a different wire and tried again but to no avail. He sat back on his heels and rested, tucked a stray strand of coppery hair back into his hood, chose a third wire, and tried the lock again. Still it would not turn, and he was just reaching for a fourth wire when a light appeared at the end of the hall.

A female servant of the house turned the corner, a candle in a silver holder illuminating her flushed face. She hurried along the passage while fiddling with a ring of keys in her free hand. The intruder eased away from her,moving down the hall about twenty feet before stretching himself out flat where the wall joined the floor. The servant stopped at the door he’d been trying to enter and tried several keys in the lock. The intruder tensed, noticing his pouch of lockpicks lying on the floor between her feet. Finally, she slid an iron key into the lock. It opened with an click. She hurried into the room, leaving the door open behind her. The intruder rose silently and crept to the door, retrieved his lockpicks, then slipped into the room and ducked behind a barrel. After a few moments, the servant exited, a large gold platter tucked under her arm. She closed the door, locked it, and hurried back the way she had come.

The room was dark, but not so dark as the hall. It was little more than a cupboard, long and narrow, with a small window at the far end. A little light spilled through the cracks in its shutters and gleamed off dozens of shelves of some of the finest gold and silver plate in the city. The shadow-intruder, though, ignored the riches at his fingertips and rushed to the window. He drew back its bolt and carefully opened the shutters.

The window overlooked the front lawn. He leaned out, his head passing easily between the window’s thick iron bars. Directly below him stood the two guards, still at their posts by the front door, their ribbons fluttering in the breeze rising from the bay. He climbed up into the window embrasure. It was barely large enough for a kender, but somehow he managed to squeeze into it. He slipped one leg through the window’s bars, then the other, then twisted and contorted himself to pass his body and shoulders through, and finally his head, until he dangled by his fingertips fifty feet above the unsuspecting guards. He looked down between his legs, took a deep breath, and let go.

The shortened hem of his cloak fluttered up around him as he fell, but before he had dropped a dozen feet, his fingers touched the tiny decorative ledge running along the wall between the third and fourth stories. He caught at it, stopping his descent in almost perfect silence. Only a slight scuffling of his boots on the polished stone wall betrayed him. He lay still, dangling by his fingertips, then glanced down. The guards had not moved.

Now, with perfect care, he slid one hand along the ledge, pulled his body and other hand after it, then repeated the action. Though people passed in and out of the party, some arriving and some leaving, others merely stepping outside for a breath of air, no one happened to look up. Not that they would have seen much of interest had they done so. A shadow perhaps, shapeless, hardly seeming to move at all. The sweet-smelling torches illuminating the grounds below blinded people. The intruder moved slowly, but without pause, along the ledge, crossing the front of the house and turning the corner, then made his careful way another dozen yards. The deepest part of the reflecting pool lay below him now.

Below the ledge but twenty feet above the water, an iron cage projected from the wall, attached by several stout bolts. The cage protected not a window but a door, like the door of a loft. Through that door, many of Gaeord’s most precious cargoes were delivered at night, moving by boat up the canal without ever passing before the eyes of a Palanthian customs officer. A block and tackle could be affixed to the inside of the cage, while its bottom swung open to allow the cargo to be lifted inside. This hinged aperture was sealed by a massive lock that looked strong enough to defy even the heaviest pry bar, and the top of the cage was protected by tall iron spikes.