II
"Fourteen silver. Six new ships in, including one from Duchy Astaine, and all you can get is fourteen silver?"
"But the Urhalians were thugs!" Annika explained hastily, backing up against the wall of the Broken Harpoon's filthy common room. "And van Erison-"
"I really don't care about van Erison, or any dockside constable for that matter," Bartel interrupted, cutting off the young thief in front of him. This sob story was getting far too common from Annika, and the gang leader was rapidly growing tired of it. "We have schedules to maintain and dues to pay. And nothing gets paid with excuses, Annika."
"I… I'm sorry," Annika faltered, her dark eyes darting around the dingy, bleached wood floors and walls of tavern in anxiety. Bartel finally looked up from the well worn surface of his favorite corner table at the Broken Harpoon, appraising the girl in front of him. Like most of his conscripted orphans, Annika could not be certain of her age, but Bartel figured her to be somewhere between her sixteenth and eighteenth winter. With a short, slim frame, dark eyes and curly brown hair, the young thief was actually quite attractive despite the rags she had cobbled together into clothing, but Annika had to be possessed of worse luck than any other cutpurse on the docks of Tierwaal. The beginning of trade season was usually a boon to the thieves of Tierwaal; for Annika, it only seemed to make things worse. "I… I don't have all of the money," Annika said nervously. "Please, just give me one more day."
"Now look, Annika," Bartel stated, remaining calm and even. "I took you in. I was willing to protect you from the other gangs that roam Haven-straat. But if this is how you repay me, I may end up turning you back over to Espen. And you don't want that, do you?"
"N-no," Annika stammered. Bartel leaned back slightly, satisfied with his threat. While Bartel truly had no intentions of just handing his conscripts over to the sadistic leader of the Wharf Rats, the most powerful gang on the docks of Tierwaal, the mere mention of Espen's name was enough to frighten the younger thieves of the port city. Of course, if he could get a younger orphan, one with more talent and less bad luck, out of the deal he would consider a trade, but for the moment Annika was his and his alone. "Please, Bartel," Annika begged, only a heartbeat short of dropping to her knees. "One more day."
"Give me what you got," Bartel said, putting his hand out and waiting expectantly. Annika hesitantly handed over most of the coins she had scraped together the previous night. "All of it, Annika," Bartel prompted.
"I… need at least one silver," Annika said quietly, still holding the last ten dingy copper pieces in her hand. "I… I have to pay Janson rent, and… I have no money for food."
"That's not really my concern," Bartel said, waiting patiently with his hand still outstretched. "You still owe me eleven silver after this."
Annika hesitated a moment longer, but finally handed over her last ten copper pieces to her gang leader. Bartel smiled as he added the assorted coins to his belt pouch.
"Now you're lucky I'm a generous man, Annika," Bartel said, looking back to his conscript. "You better have the rest of the money for me tomorrow at this time, or I'll be taking the clothes from your back and selling you to those Urhalian thugs you're so afraid of. A cute little dark eyed girl like you? I bet I could get at least five silver from each of them. And there are thirty of them."
"I… I'll get what you need," Annika promised, the last bit of color draining from her cheeks at the prospect of being turned over to the Urhalian merchant crew. Bartel smiled at her reaction; once again, the gang leader had no intention of losing a conscript to such a one time deal, but it certainly put a healthy dose of fear into the girl. "I'll have it tomorrow, I promise!"
"I hope you do," Bartel said, folding his arms across his chest as he glared at the girl. "Because if you don't, thirty Urhalian sailors will be more than happy to help you raise the money, among other things."
"It won't come to that," Annika promised, hurrying toward the door. "I'll get the money!"
The sun was just making its way overhead as Annika raced out into the late morning streets of Tierwaal from the Broken Harpoon. The thief was already tired from a difficult night; fourteen silver had been difficult to come by despite the influx of spring traders, and the first wave of new shipping brought out every gang of thieves and cutthroats in the city's dock districts. Espen's gang, the Wharf Rats, controlled much of the theft and extortion on the docks with an iron fist, threatening smaller gangs like Bartel's into staying away from the choicest picks. Annika, one of the lowest members in one of the lower gangs on Haven-straat, the dockside street that was home to so many warehouses, inns, taverns, and boarding houses turned brothels, rarely had a good choice in the way of marks, and she had considered herself lucky to come away with even the fourteen silver that Bartel had taken from her. A promising start fleecing a pair of Mardanian cloth merchants had quickly devolved into a frantic dash from the Urhalian sailors, who had been all too willing to take her ill gotten gains and then drag her back aboard their ship. After she managed to escape the sailors, her attempt to fleece a drunken young merchant of a pouch that had likely contained at least a gold piece in assorted coin was foiled when Zarne van Erison, one of Tierwaal's dockside constables, had seemingly appeared out of nowhere to catch her in the act. Van Erison, as usual, had let her go with a warning, but the damage had already been done, and the drunken merchant had disappeared into the darkness. The rest of the night found Annika one step behind the other thieves on the docks or one step ahead of the infrequent dock patrols conducted by the city's constables. Now Annika was in the worst bind of her young life, staring at the horrifying prospect of being turned over to an entire ship's crew in order to recover the money she owed to her gang leader.
Annika stopped in the middle of Haven-straat for a long moment, looking first to the wood and stone warehouses and the wide alleyways between them that led to the water. Between the warehouses she could see the hulls of the various cargo ships from Urhal, Mardan, and even as far away as Tourant, while a handful of masts peeked over the two or three story structures where she could not see the vessels themselves. She thought first of stowing away on a ship and trying to escape from Bartel, but she swiftly disregarded such an absurd idea. If she was caught during the journey, she would fare no better at sea than she would with Bartel come the dawn. Regardless of how she fared at sea, however, Annika had never even been past the walls and docks of Tierwaal, and could not be certain that any other city would offer her a better chance to find a home. The same challenge would prevent her from leaving by land; Apelwaal or Zaandam were not far away on the peninsula that made up the nation of Utrecht, but if either city was anything like Tierwaal Annika would find herself in the same situation that she was currently suffering.
Slowly the thief turned away from the waterfront to the buildings on the other side of Haven-straat. Inside the Broken Harpoon, Bartel was sitting alone in the common room, drinking an early morning ale where he could watch Annika's tortured movements on the street. To either side of the Broken Harpoon's three story, gray stone façade, narrow alleys ran between the building to Lantaarn-straat and the rest of the city inland. The alleys were just wide enough for two people to fit side by side at ground level, but higher up the buildings seemed to lean in over the walkways, creating dim recesses even during the middle of the day. Much of Tierwaal west of the Tierwaal-vaart, the canal that separated the main city from the villas of the rich and the towers of the most powerful mages, seemed to be built in the same claustrophobic manner, creating a thousand hideaways for a careful thief. Quickly Annika hurried into the nearest alley, only too eager to get away from Bartel's amused gaze. By the time she reached Lantaarn-straat she was almost at a run, turning quickly east and praying that she would come across an early morning shopper with a heavy belt pouch and little common sense, but by the time she had reached the white, arched bridge that continued Lantaarn-straat across the Tierwaal-vaart, she had only found a handful of beggars and one or two wary merchants that seemed to realize the young thief's intentions.
Annika stood at the edge of the bridge for a moment, looking up the faint hill that led to the wealthiest section of Tierwaal. Two city watchmen, well armed with long spears and chain mail armor beneath their black and green tunics, stood at the far end of the bridge, watching the young thief as she hesitated on the poor side of the city. While the wealthy section of the city might have offered her the money she needed to break even with Bartel, the risks accompanying the journey hardly made the reward worth it. Tierwaal's wealthy section was heavily guarded against the thieves of the docks, and the two armed guards watching Annika were only the most obvious deterrents. None of the watchmen that patrolled the villas would be as forgiving as van Erison or the other dock constables if they caught her in the act, and indeed only the most daring and talented thieves ever even attempted a heist in the villas.
"What am I going to do?" Annika asked herself out loud, turning away from the bridge and starting south along Vaart-straat. The street she followed ran a winding course between the Tierwaal-vaart on her left and the looming, peaked roof buildings on her right for only a short distance before it ran into the majestic Magie Vierkant, the plaza where so many wizards made their homes or offered their wares. The center of the plaza was dominated by the two story Boekerij-Tovenaar, one of two magical libraries in Tierwaal and the only one open to any but the most powerful wizards and scholars, while small shops offering enchantments and spells lined the buildings that enclosed the square. Annika barely noticed the elegant white stone library or the diamond shaped tower of spiraling black and gray stone as she passed them, her eyes on the dusty cobbles as she tried to think of a way to scrape together enough money to save herself from Bartel's plans to rent her out to the crew of an Urhalian merchant ship.
A metallic clank rang off of the cobbles directly in front of her. Annika's eyes immediately went to the two and a half foot bronze scepter that had seemingly dropped out of the sky, already rolling along the slanted cobbles to the Tierwaal-vaart. Instantly realizing the value of such a work of art, or at least of the raw value of the bronze, the thief was after the item in a heartbeat, diving along the stones and grabbing the rod before it could escape her grasp. Rolling up to one knee, Annika smiled in relief as she looked over the finely wrought rod, engraved with runes and vines from end to end. The simple artistic value of the rod would save her from Bartel, but her fears of her gang leader's reprisals were quickly lost as she realized that the rod had to have some kind of magical power. After all, it had fallen from the sky, right in the middle of the Magie Vierkant, as if Pelor himself had answered her prayers…
"I wonder what this does," Annika said quietly, turning the rod over in her hands.
A sudden, intense flash went off around her.
Annika jumped and nearly dropped the rod as she was engulfed by the flash, but after a long moment nothing else seemed to happen. Annika looked around, checking the ground around her, the people walking through the square, and even the sky, but nothing seemed to have changed from the flash of light. In fact, Annika seemed to be the only one who had even noticed the flash of light; all around her the early morning traffic filtering through the Magie Vierkant continued on its way without thinking twice of the sudden sunburst. Annika turned to one man that was walking directly towards him, but before she could ask if he had noticed the light flash he walked right into her and knocked her to the ground. Before she could scramble out of the way, the man tumbled on top of her, pinning her to the ground.
"Get off of me!" Annika shouted, shoving the man to one side with all the strength she could muster. The surprised man stumbled to one knee, looking around as if he had no idea where of the thief's presence. "What are you, blind?"
"I could see you a lot better if you weren't playing with invisibility spells!" the man snapped, finally getting to his feet. Annika's antagonist looked around him for a moment before swatting at the air with one hand. "Don't blame me for your stupid spellcasting, apprentice!"
Annika froze as she heard the man's words and noticed his reactions. She was invisible! He had never even seen her! The angry man spat out a few more curses before continuing on his way, but Annika barely heard him as she thought of the possibilities. An invisible thief would be nearly unstoppable! While the rod alone would not make her able to steal from the very richest properties in the villa district, Annika would have free run of the docks! She would be able to pay off Bartel in no time and maybe even pull together enough money to buy her own rooms!
A smile was rapidly coming to Annika's face as she quickly disappeared back in the direction of Haven-straat, already contemplating the magnificent rewards she would be able to reap with her newfound magical rod.