They cut their way back through the market place. Ozan casually walked by the Fremennik trader stall, and the vender was none the wise that he was two lengths of rope shy of what he had a few minutes previous. Ozan smiled at Arianna as he tucked the ropes into his pack. "These'll come in handy soon enough."
They passed through another stone arch, and to the outskirts of the city. Here tents were set up, and the merchants made Arianna feel as though she had to keep a close eye on her coin purse. They passed one merchant who offered them a tray of gems. Even with just a quick glance, she could tell that they were just finely cut pieces of colored glass. She quickened her pace some as the hammer and chisel sign of the crafting shop came into view.
The shop had a damp, earth smell, likely from all the clay that had been worked on within the building. The room was filled with shelves, all lined with needles, spools of thread, moulds of all kinds, and various other crafting supplies. A man stood behind a counter, hunched over a ring, adding delicate work to it.
Ozan took the lead through the shop, heading for the stairs set at the back of shop.
The shop owner finally noticed the two newcomers in his establishment. "Can I help you?"
Ozan shook his head. "Just passing through," he said, and the two thieves disappeared up the stairs before the owner could put in another word.
The upstairs room turned out to be a dark, cluttered store room. But Ozan took no time in the room and started up a ladder off in the corner. He pushed open a trapdoor as he came to the top, flooding the room with the bright, desert sunshine. He stepped up on to the roof and she followed him.
The city buildings stretched on before them. Off in the distance to the south loomed the palace.
"Ozan, how are we possibly going to get over there?" Arianna asked, very skeptical, even of Ozan's talents.
He smiled. "Just follow me, Ari." He turned and dashed across a plank, stretching from their roof top to an adjacent roof.
She hesitated. The plank was barely six inches wide and looked as though it had been there for ages. She glanced at the street thirty feet below. She certainly didn't like the thought of falling among the shoppers below. She took a slight step back away from the ledge.
"Come on, Ari," called Ozan from across the way. "You can do this. We have to tell the emir of what happened to the prince."
She cursed softly to herself. She knew that Ozan needed her if he was going to get Osman to listen to him.
She took a deep breath and dashed across the plank, not wishing to linger any longer than she had to be above the street.
Ozan just smiled as she made it to the other side. "You aren't afraid of heights, are you, Ari?"
"Very much so," she said, grateful to be back on a roof once more.
Ozan chuckled. "Well, you can use this to get over your fears. There will be more of this to come. A lot more."
"But Ozan-"
"No time to waste, Ari. Come on," he said, cutting her off and turning. He jumped off the side of the building.
She quickly stepped up to the side to see him land on a lower roof after sliding down an awning. He showed no sign of waiting for her, so she took her jump.
The awning slowed her fall, depositing her on to another roof top patio.
Ozan smiled. "See? Not bad, right?"
"Yeah, just great," she said shakily. "But you've made it," he said, "and there's still more to go. Come on." He turned and dashed through an arch way, into the home they had landed on.
The room was full of baskets over flowing with laundry. An older woman stood in the corner, handing up clothes up for drying. She turned as the two thieves came running through.
"Excuse us, coming through," said Ozan, and was out of the room through the window.
Arianna ran up to the window to follow, but stopped as she saw him balancing his way across a clothes line to an adjoining building.
"Get off my laundry!" shouted the woman behind her, seeing what Ozan was doing.
Not wanting to lose Ozan or deal with the irate Kharidian, Arianna hauled herself out of the window. She put a foot on the thick rope, and was surprised to find how sturdy it was. She got her balance and took a handful of large steps to get to the opposite rooftop.
Ozan stood, waiting beside a ladder for her.
"You're crazy, Ozan," she said. "No one else would do this."
He gave her another one of those smiles. "Of course not, but that's why I'm the best. Now, up you go," he said, nodding up the ladder.
She started up the ladder, glad to have a conventional means of travel. She came up to a small piece of scaffolding. She moved aside so that Ozan could pull himself up, and looked around, not finding where to go from there.
"Dead end, Ozan," she said.
"No, you just aren't looking hard enough. If you want to be a great thief, Ari, then you'll have think…unconventionally. Figure out the rest of the way."
"I thought that we didn't have time to waste. We need to get to Osman," Arianna retorted.
"Yes, we do, and if you get off course, I'll steer you the right way. It'll be a learning curve for you."
She sighed and looked around. There was no ladder to reach the next level of roofs, and the gap between their roof and the neighboring one was too great to jump.
But she did take notice of wooden planks that stuck out of the wall. The wall stretched from their vantage point to the other roof, forming an archway to those walking below. Four planks stuck out from the wall, spanning the distance.
Arianna stepped up onto the short wall, then onto one of the planks. It creaked, but held her weight. She moved across the rest of the way without any incident.
She stepped off on to the other roof, followed closely by Ozan.
"Good eye," he said and started up another tall ladder.
Arianna looked over the edge of the building. They were already three stories up, and the ladder looked as though it went up another two stories. She swallowed her fear and climbed up after Ozan.
The roof she came up to was large, but had no other way off, other than the ladder they just came up. There were no adjacent buildings at this height.
"Ozan, looked like we'll have to go back down and look for another way to the palace," she said and turned to look at her friend, just in time to see him get a running start and jump off the roof, hurdling towards another building across the street and two stories down. He tumbled across the roof and stood, unharmed. "OZAN! YOU'RE CRAZY IF YOU THINK I WILL JUMP OFF THIS ROOF!" she shouted at him.
"It'll be fine, just make sure you tumble. You'll be fine, come on and jump."
Her heart hammered. The planks and the clothesline were huge steps for her, but jumping off one building to another was, well, crazy.
'But Prince Ali needs you,' whispered a small voice in her head. 'Ozan needs you too, to vouch for him. Otherwise Osman will lock him up on sight.'
She paced back and forth, glanced over the ledge at Ozan, who was looking back at her expectantly.
'Thieves like the two of you need to look out for each other.'
She sighed and took as many steps back as the roof would allow. She got up her will and ran forward, not letting her mind think about the consequences should she falter. She took a mighty leap off the building, and within moments she was tumbling across the lower roof. She came to a stop and gasped for breath; landing had exacerbated her bruised side.
Ozan knelt beside her. "You okay, Ari?"
She nodded and, after a few moments, stood. "You're crazy, Ozan," she said once again.
"Yes, I know," he said. "Now, come on, we can't be wasting more time." He walked over to the edge of the roof and climbed down using an old rug that hung off the ledge.
She followed and found herself standing on some wooden scaffolding. Ozan hadn't waited for her. He swung himself across a set of bars to the other end of the scaffolding. After the heights they had been at, being only one story high was almost comforting. She swung herself across the bar after Ozan.
The buildings here were close together, barely three feet separared the scaffolding from the next building.
"Think you can manage this jump?" Ozan teased.
"Ha, ha," she said as she stepped across the narrow gap.
The building they stood on now was on the edge of a cluster of buildings. Off to their left stood the palace, so very close now. But they had no place to go from here. The closest building had a large distance between it and them. The distance was too great for them to jump, and with not tall structures or planks stretching across the distance, they had no way to get to the other building.
"So, Ozan, where do we go from here?"
He pointed to the building across the gap, to the scaffolding that lined the wall. "That's where we're headed."
"And how are we going to get there?"
He walked her to the edge of the roof and showed her a taunt awning that was below them. "A running start, jump off of that, and it will bounce us across the distance."
"And you, of course, are going to be going first, right? To show how it's done," said Arianna, doubting it could be done.
Ozan smiled. "Yes, of course, Ari," he said, catching on to her doubt. He stepped back and, after calculating the distance, he took his running start. He jumped and hit the awning. The taunt fabric acted like a spring, projecting Ozan across the gap. He caught himself on the scaffolding and hauled himself up. "See?" he called back to her. "Easy."
"Yeah, yeah," she mumbled to herself as she turned her back to him for her own running start. She paused, steeling herself for another jump. At this rate, her fear of heights would be gone in no time. She ran to the edge and took her jump. There was a short free fall before she hit the awning. The direction of her momentum changed, sending her towards the scaffolding and Ozan. She reached out to catch herself on the scaffolding, just as Ozan had done.
But something was different with her jump. She hadn't gotten as far as Ozan, and she was already losing height. She frantically reached for something to stop her fall. She missed the scaffolding by mere inches.
Ozan saw the fall before she did and reached down and caught hold of her hand. She hung there a few moments as Ozan braced himself before pulling her up to the safety of the scaffolding. "That was a close call, Ari," he said.
She sat, leaning against the stone wall, shaking as the adrenalin pumped through her body. "Never again, Ozan," she said, trying to gather herself back together.
"Oh, don't worry, we're almost there," he said. "You just have to trust me, dear Ari. You trust me, right?"
She nodded.
He smiled and offered his hand, pulling her back to her feet. "We just have a little further," he said, nodding to holes in the brickwork of the wall. "Go first, I'll make sure you don't fall again."
She nodded a thanks and found a good hand holds, pulling herself up the wall and onto the roof. She took a moment to look around as Ozan joined her.
The palace was just across from them, between them, though, stretched the largest gap they had encountered.
"So, what's the plan for this one?"
"Remember this?" he said, pulled out one of the coils of rope from his pack.
"What do you have in mind for that? There is no way we can get that rope across the-" she stopped as he pulled an arrow from the quiver, tying the rope to it.
She had previously seen his firing power with that bow of his, and knew he could easily get the rope to the palace. He then drew his bow, and notched the arrow. He pulled back the bow string back, aimed, then released. The arrow sailed beautifully across the gap and embedded itself into the stone. Ozan tied the other end of the rope to an ornate wooden structure on the roof with them. He smiled and gesture for her to go first.
She sighed, putting her trust in Ozan and the knots he tied, and took hold of the rope. She hooked her legs up over the rope, and pulled herself hand over hand to the ledge of the palace. Once safely across, Ozan made his way over.
She carefully held herself against the wall of the palace, trying her best to keep away from the ledge. The window beside her was shuttered closed and beyond that, the brickwork had a few, small pieces missing, enough for them to climb up to the roof. She caught Ozan's attention, then nodded to the brickwork. Understanding her plan, he nodded back. She ducked under the window and crept along the ledge. Ozan started to follow, but stopped, staring at the window.
"Hold up, there's a voice coming from the window. I think it' Osman," Ozan whispered.
"What?" Arianna whisper back.
"I think-" he started, but he quickly stopped himself as the shutters of the window were pulled open. Both thieves pushed themselves against the wall, hoping that they were out of view from the person on the other side.
"Ah, there," said the man, "that's much better."
They heard him move away, and Arianna was glad that he couldn't hear how hard her heart was pounding. She glanced over to Ozan, who looked just about as panicked as she felt.
'That was him,' he mouthed to her, not wanting to make any noise and draw attention to themselves.
'Who?' she mouthed back.
'Osman,' he replied. They heard continued voices from the room beyond. They both scooted closer to the window and eavesdropped on what was being said.
Ask and you shall receive. I got a review today from someone saying that they were waiting for the next chapter, and I was planning on posting a chapter today anyways, so here you go. Good timing.
Sorry this took so long to get out, there was a lot I wanted to have in this chapter and I wasn't sure how I wanted to end this (I was trying to figure out how to cover the conversation they overhear, but after many attempts, I decided that it will be saved for next chapter).
So, there you go. We're almost through Stolen Hearts.
Feel free to review. Thanks!
P.S. For anyone who may be interested, I have started a World of Warcraft fanfic. It's based on my character, telling her back story. So, feel free to make your way over there. Thanks.