Jeff Crook: The Thieves’ Guild

27th day of Darkember, 34SC

The citizens of the grandest of all Krynn’s cities, Palanthas, City of Seven Circles, hurried along her lamp-hung streets, glancing worriedly above their heads as they rushed homeward from the markets and plazas, another day of bustling commerce at an end. Thoughts of supper and bed competed with worries about the weather and the prospects of arriving home soaked to the bone, for an ugly snarl of clouds hung over the city’s rooftops, mumbling with thunder and crackling with lightning. Such violent, early-winter storms had become an all-too-common occurrence in the first years since the Chaos War, but this particular storm seemed to promise fresh surprises of fury and destruction.

The light glowing from the city’s many thousands of lamps and lighted windows painted the lower tatters of the storm a leprous yellow-gray, while directly above the center of the city, almost touched by the spires of the Lord’s Palace, a great swirling wall of cloud had lowered threateningly from the base of the huge storm. An eerie, warm, moist wind rose from all circles of the city and began tumbling litter, dust, and sand down her centrally radiating, emptying streets. Into this rising wind stepped a lone figure, swathed in a heavy cloak despite the unseasonable warmth of the evening.

Though his back was bent and his face slanted away from the biting dust-laden breeze, he walked with something of a sailorly swagger, like a man more used to the rolling deck of a ship than the cobbles of a city street. In his right hand, he swung a gnarled black cane, marking time with it on the cobbles with a light tap at each step. As he strode across the street called Temple Row, passing before its gates into the Old City, he tugged his deep hood close over his brow.

A pair of dark-armored Knights of Takhisis huddled in the lee of a guardhouse beside the gate, gazing expectantly at the sky. With a start, they noticed his appearance, but as he simply crossed the street and entered the notoriously loathsome Smith’s Alley, they let him pass without question. Instead, one rapped on the wall of the guardhouse, bringing a third Knight to the doorway. The three exchanged a few words. The third guard scratched something with a quill onto a slip of paper, and nodded.

The cloaked figure ignored them. As he entered the alley, the wind lessened somewhat. The buildings here, some of them almost as ancient the city itself, crowded close upon the narrow alleyway, shutting out all light and air. The center of the alley was worn into a deep track by two thousand years of weary treading, and down it trickled a slow noisome sump of sewage, rotting rinds of vegetables, grease, and offal. The resultant odor was stirred, albeit with some difficulty, by the rising wind, but not enough to rake the air clean of its offensive smell. No mere storm, no matter how furious, could cleanse this particular backwash of humanity. Only the sea rising in flood might hope to purge these cobbles of their ages of filth.

The man splashed across the alley with little more care than if it were a mountain brook. He muttered to himself, but not about what the alley’s muck was doing to his boots, which were shoddy and heel-worn.

“A fine night,” he grumbled to no one.

Smith’s Alley was eerily quiet. No doubt a hundred watchful eyes, and perhaps even a few arrows, daggers, and sling stones, were trained upon his bent back. This was no place for the careless traveler. Few in the city of Palanthas, even its dreaded Knights of Takhisis, dared walked this street alone at night. Better to enter a dragon’s yawning maw than turn your steps down Smith’s Alley after dark. However, the man seemed to know exactly where he was going, and it was entirely possible that he belonged there. Certainly, the tattered condition of his cloak and the confidence in his stride marked him as a likely denizen of this place. As no knife winged its silent way from the shadows to quiver in his back, as had happened to so many intruders before him, the unseen watchers appeared willing to let him pass for the moment. He continued on his way as though heedless or unaware of any danger.

Perhaps the unseen watchers stayed their swift violent retribution because they thought him mad. “A fine night indeed!” he muttered again from beneath his hood.

He jerked to a stop, tilted an ear to listen, and gripped the cane tightly in his fist. Somewhere to his left, a long, low, moaning howl arose. Perhaps it was only the wind roaring through the alleyways of Palanthas, perhaps a dog crying in fright. “A bad omen,” he snarled. “Nay! A good omen! A good omen for tonight’s work.”

As the howling rose to a quavering shriek, he continued on his way, the cane tapping out an eerie cadence in the long echoing alleyway. Somewhere behind him, a door slammed shut, while to his front a pair of ragged mongrels scurried from his path, snarling over their shoulders.

He stopped before a low, stout door set deeply into a wall of crumbling stone. He approached it, and with the gnarled cane he hammered on the door in a curious series of knocks-four, three rapid, two slow, then one as heavy as a hammer blow.

Without a sound, the door opened a crack, revealing only darkness beyond. “Who is it?” a harsh voice barked from within.

“A traveler from afar,” the man said.

“Welcome, Avaril,” the voice answered, this time more pleasantly. The door swung wide, and a lantern was uncovered, revealing a short figure with a long white beard poking through a green hood. “You are late. The goblin is afoot, they say.”

The lantern in the dwarf’s hand showed a small, low-ceilinged room half-filled with people. Many bore large heavy sacks or crates or chests, and as the dwarf stepped back to allow the man called Avaril to enter, some sighed visibly, while others returned blades to their sheaths. He surveyed the room as though looking for someone.

“Come in. Why are you standing out there?” the dwarf asked as he stepped into the alley and glanced quickly in both directions. “Strange things are moving, whispers of danger. It isn’t safe. We are moving.”

“Yes, I know my old friend,” Avaril affirmed as the dwarf, finding the alleyway empty, turned back to the door. Perhaps some tingling premonition of danger warned the dwarf, for without even raising his eyes he ducked aside. The big man adjusted his swing and splintered the knobby cane over the dwarfs skull. Avaril snatched the lantern from the fallen dwarfs hand, spun, and flung it into through the doorway. As glass shattered and the lurid glare of flames leaped up, a kender sprang from the surprised crowd within the room and slammed the door shut before Avaril could jam it open with his broken cudgel. Shouts of anger, pain and surprise battled with the roaring of flames to fill the tiny room behind the door, while Avaril flung the cane at the door.

Seven Dark Knights rushed past Avaril. The black armored leader carried in his massive fists a huge iron hammer, which he used to smash the door to kindling. Behind him came six Knights of Takhisis with crossbows cocked and leveled. As the leader strode into the flames, the other six paused to loose their bolts into the room before drawing their swords and following.

Inside the chamber, the people dropped their bags, boxes, and crates and poured through every exit, up stairs, through windows. Archers waiting in the darkness outside murdered those who fled into the alley. The others were pursued and cut down from behind. More Knights rushed in from the alley to join the chase and the slaughter, while others quickly gathered up the assorted boxes and crates and bags and carried them outside into the alley. What they couldn’t move or didn’t want, they smashed with hammers. The night was filled with the sounds of shattering glass and dying screams. Somewhere, an iron bell began to toll.