The next chapter, as promised, if slightly delayed. Next up: asskicking!
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"Get your asses in here," the gatekeeper said. "I can't be holding this door open all day." The shape and voice were that of a stocky human man, but the theatrical wink was pure Sam.
"About time," Neana grumbled, and strode in. She noticed the body sprawled across the floor, the identical twin to Sam's current form. "Dead?"
Sam looked affronted as he –she— closed and barred the door. "Unconscious."
Neana shrugged. "Dead works too."
"I wanted to talk to you about that: I'd prefer it if we could take the stash and escape without killing anyone," Sam said. Razze nodded his assent.
Neana furrowed her brow. "Why?"
"Because murder is wrong?" Sam tried hesitantly. This didn't seem to pass muster. She sighed, "Because this is a civilized city with a real working government and a city guard that could probably actually find their buttocks with both hands on the second try. If bodies turn up, they won't go unnoticed. And that will get us in trouble. And that'll get Captain Klein in trouble. And that will make him angry. And when he gets angry, he gets…" Sam shivered. "Sarcastic."
"Last time he got angry, he hit me with his shoe," Razze said morosely. "I'd rather not be beaten about the head with footwear."
Sam nodded vigorously. "The way I figure it, right now all we're doing is stealing from thieves. Nothing wrong with that. Everybody knows that stolen property doesn't really belong to anybody, anyway. If stealing once is wrong, then stealing twice… kind of turns the wrong on its head." Sam considered the idea, warming up to it. "That makes it the right thing to do, really. Yeah! It's nothing but the ill gotten gains of prostitutes and con-men and second-story artists. All that money sitting around, in a den of thieves, being put to illicit uses: it's practically our civic duty to take it away from them."
"Amazing," Neana said. "The inside of your head must look like a box of corkscrews."
Sam ignored the interruption. "But killing… well, that's three wrongs. That's one too many. Stealing, we can get away with: it's not as if Mr. Brutus the Head Thief can run to the city guard to complain that someone scarpered off with his valuables. But bloodshed… it's hard to keep that a secret for long. Bodies always surface, eventually, no matter how many stones you put in their pockets. Not that I've ever, you know, done that, but I hear things." Something else occurred to Sam. "And anyway, since we're technically foreign troops on unfamiliar soil, I think that counts as an act of war. And I don't have the rank for that. I'm pretty sure it takes at least an Admiral to start an international incident."
"We could just kill everyone," Neana pointed out: quite reasonably, she thought.
"People would notice," Razze said.
"Then we'll kill everyone who notices us killing everyone."
"We'll call that plan B." Sam said diplomatically. "Unless you absolutely have to, I'd feel better if we avoided any bloodshed. And if things take a sour turn… well, try and avoid any actual killing."
Razzed nodded. "We'll do this by shore leave rules, then: stick to fists and feet and the flats of our blades."
"Right," Sam agreed. "Just like the Captain says to do when Tarn starts a bar fight." She considered this, and added. "Or when you start a bar fight. Or when I start a bar fight." Eventually, she continued, "Or when the Captain informs us that he's bored, and its last call and he's feeling like starting a bar fight himself."
"How are you going to manage, Sam?" Neana asked, suspiciously. "It isn't as if you smack them with the flat of an arrow."
She patted her quiver. "I brought blunts. See?" The short, fat black arrow shafts ended not in a point, but in a tightly wound leather cover. Neana remembered them well from her early army training. Getting hit by one of those probably wasn't deadly, but it hurt like a hammer blow.
"Oh, all right, then." Neana muttered.
They prepared in silence: when they wanted to, they could act like professionals. Sam quickly stripped the unconscious doorman and sorted through his belongings, while Razze dragged his limp body behind a nearby chaise longue. Neana threw on her disguise: a stained traveling cloak and shapeless woolen hat of the kind that dockworkers liked to wear. Razze mournfully removed his new hat and fancy waistcoat and dropped them into a sack, to be replaced by a worn vest and a shapeless cap that he pulled down over his pointed ears. Sam looked them both over and judged them sufficiently seedy-looking. Then, with a Changeling's diffidence to nudity, she stripped out of her old clothes and put on the ones worn by the unfortunate doorman. Neana noted, with approval, that she was wearing a thin shirt of silvery chain links beneath her clothes. Her girl was no fool; mithral mail might feel like metallic silk, but it could stop a sword's thrust or muffle a hammer's blow, and it was easy to conceal beneath civilian clothing.
The plan was so simple that even Neana had to admit that it might not fail. Sam would pretend to be the hapless doorman, and Neana and Razze would pass as would-be thieves and cutthroats. If anyone questioned their presence, they would claim that they needed to speak to this Tellith person, which would probably stop any further questions; people seemed to use his name like a magic talisman. That ought to get them far enough into the building to find this legendary stash, and after that, they'd have to fight their way out.
She was looking forward to that part. In all the chaos and confusion, they might even run into Tellith. Wouldn't that be fun?
Neana's armor was in a sack on her back: she had laid certain spells upon it an hour ago that would, at her command, summon the individual pieces of chain and plate to leap out of the bag and affix themselves to her person in an instant. It was a good trick. It had saved her life, twice. Unfortunately, the spell wouldn't work on her sword, which was too large and too full of its own potent magic. Razze pulled her falchion and baldric from the sack they had retrieved from the Mother Bear, and handed it to her.
"I don't see why I couldn't carry it openly," Neana sulked. "Razze got to wear his little toothpick."
"Because the rapier is a gentleman's weapon," he replied. "Whereas your sword is as big as a gentleman."
She drew Sharneth and watched dim candlelight play across the blade's curved edge. It had been crafted over a century ago, and was obviously the product of cosmopolitan Cyre: a two-handed, leaf-shaped blade in the elven style, made from dwarven steel, and forged by human magic. A century ago the Galifaran Empire had been at its peak, and the greatest smiths and artists of every race had joined together with the best craftsman of each Dragonmarked house to advance their arts. They had worked miracles, back then, and would have counted Sharneth one of the least of their works.
Still, it was a damn good sword. The edge was a sharper than any sword had a right to be – a man could probably shave with it, if her were crazy enough – and because it was magical it couldn't be dulled by contact with any mundane substance. The balance was perfect, allowing Neana to wield with ease a sword that nearly brushed the ground when she strapped it to her back. They had thought her crazy, when she chose a sword that large from the royal armory, but she had proved again and again that she had the strength and skill to master it. It was an odd weapon to use at sea, but that was half the reason it worked; it was an odd weapon, and enemy marines trained to guard against spear and arrow and hatchet fell by the score to her huge, scythe-like blade.
She had never told them why she had chosen it. She had confessed it to Sam once, in the pit of one long night at sea, as they had shared a leather bottle of wine that they had filched from the galley. In the common tongue the blade was called a falchion, a generic word for any long, curved, or otherwise odd sword. But in elven the word for that particular design was lathlichan, which meant "stem of the leaf". It was named for its long, distinctive haft, which allowed for greater grip and leverage, and helped those with willowy elven frames to better use its fearsome length. To the Valenar elves, though, it was called "Thath Vol'tath", which meant "horse chopper", and they spat when they saw one and called all who used them cowards and scoundrels, because its length and stability made it an excellent weapon to use against the slender, fragile legs of their precious steeds. Ever since she had heard that story, Neana had wanted one for her very own; of such were the dreams of her childhood. She had named it Sharneth, which meant "Cripple-maker." It was her pride and joy.
She put it away, and did her best to hide it in the folds of her cloak. She couldn't conceal the fact that she carried a weapon, but she could conceal its quality, and the faint magical glow it gave off.
Razze was looking around the entranceway. "Are you sure that this is a thieves' guild? Because it looks just like my grandmother's house."
Neana had to agree. Unlike the rest of the city, the buildings around the docks had been built in a more traditional, wooden-board-and-thatch style, probably to better stand against the wind and weather. This particular one was nice and homey on the inside, with a definite suggestion of doilies.
They prowled about, and discovered that, yes, a little old lady must have lived here once. There were small portraits of children on the walls, the kind that street artists turned out for a copper crown apiece, and stubby end tables overflowing with the type of cheap wooden gewgaws that grandchildren might give as gifts, and dusty old draperies, and... "Is that an antimacassar?"
Razze picked up a fat wooden soldier with a crudely painted Karnathi uniform, and a lever on the back that, when pressed, made him wave a banner. The banner read "Boldrei's Blessings" and someone had drawn in, with a charcoal pencil, "To the World's Best Mum from Jan in the army." Razze hastily put it back. There was a six inch throwing dagger buried in the woodwork next to it.
Sam shivered. "So… do you think the old lady was a thief, or do you think the guild took over the house after she died?"
"Or before she died," Neana said darkly.
"Yeah, I was trying not to think about that part."
Things only grew stranger from there. All the doors leading out of the entrance hall were nailed shut. Sam finally located a false panel in one section of the wall; Neana pulled it aside to reveal a crude hole about the size of a man, leading to another hallway. The hole had the ugly, hacked look of axe-work. They wandered through to find much seedier furnishings, with haphazard stains on floor, wall, and ceiling that revealed years of neglectful housekeeping. Most of the doors in this hallway were nailed shut as well.
"I think I get it," Sam said eventually. "The thieves' guild isn't one building, it's this whole city block. They took over all the houses and shops along this street and knocked down walls to link them all together. Pretty clever. You'd never be able to track the comings and goings of their members; you could walk in the corner butcher shop, duck through a back room, change your clothes, and walk out the back door of a brothel five buildings away. And if the city guard ever did raid the place, they'd find an impenetrable maze. It would take days to search this place, and you still wouldn't uncover every nook and cranny. You'd have to take every room apart with an axe."
"Wonderful," Neana said. "So how are we supposed to find your gold?"
"Head to the middle," Sam replied sagely. "Your criminal mastermind types always make their lairs in the very center of the building. It makes them feel important, being surrounded by underlings on all sides."
She added, "That's where I'd hide a huge pile of gold, if I had one."
The next room they found was occupied. Seated around a table were a somber little Halfling with oiled hair, a rather pretty human woman wearing far too much make-up that Neana mentally classified as a "tart", and the ugliest shifter she had ever seen. All three looked up expectantly.
Neana was a half-elf. This meant that, at some point in her distant ancestry, an elf and a human had fucked. Since then, the elf blood tended to resurface every few generations, as it had in her parents' case, and in hers. She was still mostly human, except that she had pointed ears, good hearing, amazing eyes, and a marked tendency not to age as she got older: she was forty seven, but looked twenty, which could be damned annoying when you wanted to be taken seriously. However, sometimes it seemed to Neana that she had two brains: a human one, and an elven one. The elven one thought deep, slow thoughts, preferred abstract, philosophical ponderings, and had trouble dealing with increments of time smaller than a year. She thought of her human brain as quick and quixotic; it jumped from idea to idea with lightning rapacity, when it wasn't constantly bothering her with demands for food or drink or sex or violence. Sometimes it felt to Neana as if she had a yappy little dog in her head. Her elven brain smugly observed that if this was how humans feel all the time, it was no wonder the world was mired in a hundred year war.
The nice thing about having a human brain was that you could come to conclusions very quickly. She looked to the table, with its empty chair, to the pile of coins, to the discarded hand of cards, and then over to Sam, who was still wearing the doorman's face. Shit!
Fortunately, the changeling brain was even faster on the uptake: Sam blinked once in total shock, and then the mask went up. "Looks like I'll have to cash in my stakes a little early," Sam said. She swaggered over to the table and put a covetous hand on the paltry few coins left on her side. "These two assholes," she jerked a thumb at them, as if it weren't immediately obvious who she was talking about, "are demanding to see Tellith, and want me to show them where he is."
"So soon, pftha?" Neana felt the greasy little Halfling's eyes wander all over her, and for the thousandth time that morning she felt like she needed a bath. "But I have not yet taken all of your money."
Sam's eyes narrowed: she spoke Halfling. "You'll just have to wait 'til another time, little man."
Neana scanned their faces, searching for signs of suspicion. Sam was good – Sam was amazing, actually; she had the face and voice of the doorman exactly correct – but this was still a chancy con. The tart in the back certainly looked curious, and the Halfling wore an expression of seedy malevolence, but maybe he always looked like that. The shifter was squinting at his cards with two glowing lupine eyes, as if wrath could transform them into a better hand.
"Bryce?" the pretty woman asked, "what took you so long? And what was all that racket?"
"Oh, it was just that damn goblin. Ruud-something." Sam didn't hesitate. She was in her element now, spinning half-truths on the edge of a knife. Half-truths, she always told Neana, were so much more useful than lies. And, as a bonus, she now had a name to match her face. "He was wailing and hammering on the door, wanting a few copper coins in exchange for telling me some stupid rumor. He scampered off, when these two showed up."
"He ran quick enough, when I put a boot in his arse," Razze growled. Oh Gods, was he trying to sound like a thug? He grinned and squinted in what he probably thought was an evil manner, warming up to his role. "Scared the life out of him, I nearly did. I was about to show him the flat of my blade, when he—" His words were cut off in a strangled grunt, when Neana trod heavily on his foot. Gods save her from amateur thespians.
"And who are they?" the tart asked. "I don't believe I've seen them before. New recruits? The Guildmaster certainly is keen on new recruits."
"Soon it'll be standing room only in here," the shifter grunted.
"They're—" Sam began.
"None of your business," Neana rasped. Tart looked affronted, but Neana stared her down. She could stare anyone down.
"They won't say," Sam continued lamely. "They just demand to speak with Tellith. Immediately. But they knew the password, so what can I do? You know how Tellith is."
"Password?" the Halfling asked, and shared a glance with the tart. Neana knew immediately that that had been a mistake. Even the shifter looked up, as if a thought might be making the long, slow, winding trek through his dim mind.
Sam tried to roll over the confusion. "Well, I really need to be moving. Unless one of you wants to show them the way to Tellith's room?"
"He's not there," the shifter grunted. "'He's in the Guildmaster's Office. Getting chewed out for the nasty business at the Baker's place."
"Thanks, that'll save me some time." Sam scooped 'her' winnings into a pouch and ticked it into her belt. She could no more leave free money behind than she could stop breathing. Before she could shut the strings on the pouch, the Halfling tossed in a single silver sovereign.
"That's the coin I owe you from the last hand, friend." The Halfling smiled lazily. "Your silver beat my red, far and true. I always pay back my debts."
Sam snapped the pouch closed. "Err… thank you. Friend."
It was exactly the wrong thing to say. Neana's human side spotted the blur, and, despairing of elven dawdling, grabbed control of her legs and threw her against the wall. A silver flash passed through the space where her head had been, and a vibrating thunk! told her that a sharp object had struck the woodwork behind her. After that, things happened very quickly.
Neana saw the Halfling's hand move, and something bright glittered in it. He drew back to throw another hatchet, and found the sleeve of his shirt suddenly nailed to a wall by a dagger Sam had pulled, seemingly from nowhere. Sam's other hand scrabbled at Neana's side until she found the grip on her bow; she had given it Neana to complete her disguise, and Neana had shouldered it dutifully. Sam jerked it free.
Meanwhile, the shifter stood up, hurling his chair away. He might plod through a conversation like a dull mule, but when he smelled danger he responded with animal reflexes. Muscles rippled and flowed along his arms as he changed shape, growing more bestial. His fangs lengthened in his slavering mouth and his hands, already gnarled and claw-like, thickened into talons. As fur sprouted around his pointed ears, and his face grew into something like a muzzle, he growled a challenge. His challenge was accepted by Razze, by way of a fist to the face. The spry half-elf laughed as he ducked a swipe from the shifter's meaty paw.
Damnit, Neana thought, I wanted to take the shifter. Then she noticed that the tart had pushed her chair back and was making complicated gestures. Neana recognized the beginnings of simple but powerful enchantment spell. Looks like someone is a dabbler in the arcane arts.
Neana grinned. Well, I do more than just dabble.
Neana was up and onto the table with a single leap, spraying coins and cards in all directions. As she ran across the table and leapt from the edge, she forced herself into the rote, familiar motions of magic, describing invisible glyphs with her fingertips and muttering the syllables of the incantation. Working magic was like balancing the world's most sensitive scale on the tip of your finger, or the way Sam described picking a lock; you honed your senses until you could feel the shape of something huge and complicated and otherworldly, and twisted your thoughts and words into a more accommodating shape. Like the tumblers of a lock, you made yourself, by sounds and thoughts and motions, into the empty shape of a key: if you were lucky, everything fell into place and it went click.
Out of the corner of her eye, Neana saw the Halfling hurl himself at Sam, axe in hand. He was met in midair by one of Sam's blunted arrows. On her other side, the Shifter raked his claws through the air where Razze had just been. Razze spun aside and brought a vicious elbow into the shifter's midsection. Funny,she thought I never would have pegged him for a bar brawler.
"Anastri," Neana spoke the final syllable. She felt the universe go click, and her fist was suddenly pulsing with energy.
The other woman was on the verge of completing her spell. It was simpler than the one Neana had just cast, but this street-witch hadn't studied for decades at the Grand Academy in Metrol, or spent tireless hours practicing the rote maneuvers of arcane manipulation until she could even do them in forty pounds of armor and steel gauntlets. She was no battle mage.
Neana hit the tart like a catapult stone, cannoning her into the wall. All the breath whistled out from between her overly-rouged lips before she could speak the last syllable. Just to be certain, Neana clamped a hand over her mouth and felt a pulse as the power of her spell discharged. Every muscle in the woman's body clenched at once, straining against the ungodly power. Her eyes bulged, and then rolled back into her head. Neana let her go, but she remained standing perfectly upright, like a statue.
Neana turned around just in time to see Razze down the huge shifter with a final uppercut. The massive beast-man smashed a chair to splinters as he fell. Sam had her Halfling pinned to the wall with an arrow through the collar of his silk shirt and another through his sleeve. He strained futilely against the bolts: the changeling ignored him and tended to her wounds. As she dabbed at a shallow cut across one arm, she changed shape, reverting to the skinny half-elf form she used when off the ship. "You know, you'd think that the cuts would heal up when you change, but they don't." When she saw the third thief, she gasped. "What did you do to her?"
"Nothing lethal," Neana assured her. "A simple immobilizing spell. Korthir's Paralyzing Touch of the Ghoul. She'll be fine, once it wears off." Neana patted her, and the woman toppled over, falling flat on her face with a thump. "She may have some bruises," Neana admitted.
"And the smell?" Razze was pinching the bridge of his nose.
"That's the 'Ghoul' part. Sickens and weakens surrounding foes." Sam made gagging sounds. Eventually, Neana added, "the caster can't smell it."
"Lucky you."
"Well, that could have gone better," Sam said with forced cheer. "But as long as no one heard the noise, we ought to be—" She was interrupted by the tinkling of bells. It began quietly and far away, but it soon filled the room with a merry jingling. Then, with the sinking feeling you get when you finally notice something that should have been apparent all along, she saw the tiny brass bell in the upper corner of the room. It was on a length of twine that ran along the joinery and, presumably, out the door and down the length of the adjoining hallway.
"Someone heard the noise," Neana observed.
"Damn it."
"Wasn't there a Halfling nailed to that wall a second ago?" Razze asked. The wall was empty except for two arrows and a scrap of black silk.
"Damn it!" Sam wailed.
"If they know we're here I guess I can take off this disguise now," Razze observed. "Good thing, too; this vest doesn't half stink."
"I spent forever thinking up that plan," the changeling sulked. "It could have worked. It ought to have worked."
Neana squeezed Sam's shoulder; the prospect of violence filled her with uncharacteristic sympathy. "It was a good plan. It isn't your fault that it went belly up. It happens. Life's like that."
"Really?"
"Sam, I've seen Crown Admiralty think up main battle strategems that didn't last that long, once the fighting was commenced."
"You're just saying that…"
"No, I'm not. Now cheer up," Neana said. She threw off her soiled cloak and snapped her fingers. The sack on her back burst open as pieces of mail and metal plating flew through the air and fastened themselves to her body. Casps clasped and belts tightened and within moments she was wearing her full suit of green enameled mithral battle armor.
"Nice." Curiosity overcame Sam's current desire to sulk. "Does that hurt? Is it uncomfortable? I've always wondered."
"It pinches a little," Neana said absently. "But it beats spending five minutes fiddling with buckles."
Razze threw away his woolen cap and put his feathered hat back on with all the ceremony of a coronation. He drew his rapier. "Ready?" he asked.
Neana slammed her half-helm on her head and drew Sharneth. "Ready."
Sam mournfully picked up her bow. "I just thought we could get in and out again with hardly anyone getting hurt."
"It was a good plan, Sam." Neana grasped Sharneth's long hilt in two gauntleted hands. "But now it's time for plan B."
She kicked open the door.