The Alabaster Staff Read online

  She turned the far corner just as she heard the guard reverse his pace. She thanked her stocking feet; she could never have moved that distance silently while wearing her boots. Even bare feet would have made a telltale pat-pat sound. She only hoped she’d wrung her socks out well enough, or that, if she hadn’t, the guard would not notice her small, wet footprints.

  She felt more safe. She was past the guards at the front door as well as the guards posted to watch the valuables. Any security she’d discover from that point forward would be traps, locks, or someone who happened by. Still, she wasn’t going to put her boots on until just before her escape. Out of sight, silence was her greatest ally.

  She pulled a match from her vest and struck it, using her body to shield its faint glow from the guards in the hall. She moved to the door to the room that had been marked on her map. It was a plain wooden door with a sign saying “Expeditionary Supplies.” Just down the hall, Kehrsyn glimpsed the glint of a metal chain and padlock securing the next door. She smiled. On her map, the door was labeled “Treasure Room,” and with a big lock announcing the presence of valuables just down the hall, why would anyone raid a simple door marked “Expeditionary Supplies”?

  Hiding in the playground, Kehrsyn called it. It was a trick she had learned as a kid: If you look ordinary, no one sees you. When she’d been spotted stealing and had gotten a decent lead on her pursuit, she escaped her pursuers by joining a group of kids in their play. Those chasing her raced right past, searching for a frightened, fleeing little girl, not a happy girl with a big smile playing at crack-the-whip.

  Kehrsyn, however, knew the ploy as well as those of Wing’s Reach. She tested the door to the expeditionary supplies and found that, true to the disguise, it wasn’t even locked. That had been her biggest fear, for she wasn’t confident in her lockpicking skills.

  She stepped in and closed the door behind her. A lamp hung from one wall, so she lit it and trimmed the wick to a mere glimmer. She looked around the room, searching for the necromantic wand. A badly weathered wooden case, Eileph had said. She poked behind sausages, wax-covered rounds of cheese, cooking tools, and coils of rope, until she found a plain, battered wooden box shoved to the rear of a bottom shelf and labeled “orc bitter tea.” It looked like it was the same size as the open box illustrated in Eileph’s drawings.

  Rather than pull the box out, Kehrsyn decided to play it safe. She cleared the other items away from it, pulled her skirt-cowl up to cover her nose and mouth, and undid the latch with her dagger. A quartet of long needles, curved like cobra fangs, lanced out of their hidden recesses, scything through the air where Kehrsyn’s hand would have been, had she been careless.

  She pursed her lips. Clearly, that was where the disguise ended. Opening the box could be even more dangerous. She found a small bolt of cloth tucked next to the cooking supplies. She leaned the cloth against the box as a sort of shield, then reached the dagger around to the side and pried the lid open.

  She heard a crack, a spatter, and a hiss. Acrid smoke wisped from the back side of the cloth. Kehrsyn pulled the cloth away, and saw some pungent liquid eating into the fabric. She shoved the cloth aside, held the lid of the box open with one hand, and used the dagger to pry the precious wand up from its crushed velvet bed. A razor sliced up from the side of the box, cutting right where her wrist would have been and nicking its own blade as it impacted her dagger.

  Once she’d scooted the tail end of the staff out of the box, she cut herself a square of the cloth to protect her hand as she picked the treasure up.

  “There now,” she whispered. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Demok moved at a steady trot through the city, an easy run that he could maintain for hours, with a short, balanced stride perfect for crossing treacherous terrain. The closer he got to Wing’s Reach, the more concerned he became about the lack of a trail left by the so-called messenger.

  When he reached the building, the first thing he did was check the perimeter. Though the footprints on the steps had been smeared almost entirely out by the passing of Ahegi’s entourage, he could still see the young woman’s tracks beneath the new dusting of snow. When she’d come to deliver the message, she’d walked at an easy pace from the alley.

  He noticed the twine tied to the shutter and followed its trail to spy a second set of tracks on the other side of the door. Though they were of stocking feet, he could tell they were the same size and weight as those of the boots. He followed them to the farthest window of the foyer. The shutter was closed, but it opened easily. The snow on the sill was crushed, showing that someone had indeed entered the building there. He stuck his head in the window and glared over at the two guards. They were gambling with sava, the incompetent buffoons.

  He flipped the other shutter open and jumped through, one arm on the windowsill for balance.

  “On your feet!” he barked.

  The two guards shot out of their chairs, fumbling for their weapons, shocked to see Demok back in the room, reappearing as if he’d been a ghost.

  “That messenger is a thief,” he growled. He stalked over to them, but his eyes roamed the room and its exits. “She snuck back in. You”—he spat the word—“let her pass! You, grab your khopesh, stand against those doors, and kill anyone you don’t recognize. If she gets you, make noise before you die.

  “You,” he ordered the other guard, “grab everyone in the main hall. Get lanterns, and post two at the foot of each stairwell. Bring the rest here and follow. Quietly.

  “Move!” he barked, and the two leaped to obey.

  Gritting his teeth against the mulish incompetence of the hirelings, Demok moved over to the stairwell nearest the open window. A careful look showed the slight glimmer of light reflecting off tiny beads of water and casting small shapes on the polished wooden staircase. He climbed, drawing a short sword with his left hand and transferring it to his right. While he generally preferred the long sword, the thrusting action of a short sword was better suited to the narrow confines of a building.

  At the top of the stairs, he spied the guard standing at the intersection. He snapped his fingers once, then twice, getting the guard’s attention. The guard peered toward the stairwell. Demok displayed his short sword. The guard nodded, drew his khopesh, and began scanning the halls. He also waved his free arm to pass the message to his companion across the hall.

  Demok’s keen ears heard the other guard stop pacing. He shook his head. Any thief worth her title would hear the change in the guard’s habit and know an alarm had been raised.

  Demok leaned down and studied the floor from a low vantage. He could see no marks of any water down the hall leading to the nearest guard. He moved down the short hall and lay down at the far corner to study the opposite long hall, and, visible in the lamplight, saw more damp footprints down one side. He slid to the door where they ended, paused, then lunged into the room.

  It was empty.

  He crossed to the window and opened the shutters, noting that they were not latched. He stuck his head out, looking up, down, right, and left. He saw that the shutters two rooms down were thrown wide open. He glanced at the narrow footholds offered by the ornamental carvings and whistled a low, appreciative salute to the thief’s daring.

  He dashed back to the hall, turned, and moved past the concerned guard. He saw the next door slightly ajar and just a trace of water against the wall. He gestured the guard to take the lamp and follow him. Below, he faintly heard the guards grabbing their lamps and weapons, and winced at their incidental noises. His sword held defensively in front of him, he stalked down the hallway toward the corner.

  Just as he reached the corner, he saw the thief running toward him, clutching something in one hand. Her eyes widened as she saw him, and he was likewise startled by the sudden encounter. His surprise slowed his reactions for the blink of an eye, but then he reached out to grab her collar.

  Naturally she tried to stop, but Demok knew she was too close, her momentum too fast. His wide
, powerful left hand reached for her clothes and gripped the material … and he was left holding nothing but a cowl, as the thief slipped on her wet stockings and fell to the floor.

  He glanced down at her, tossed the cloth aside, and began to reach for her again, only to see her pull her knees up to her chest and lash out with both of her feet. One foot caught him squarely in the pelvis, the other in the abdomen just below the diaphragm. The forceful blow knocked the breath out of him and propelled him into the guard holding the lamp. He landed awkwardly, and he deliberately dropped his short sword to avoid skewering either the guard or himself as he tumbled to the floor.

  The young woman turned around and lunged for the stairwell at the other end of the hallway. Demok regained his feet and charged after her in the dim corridor, drawing his long sword. When he reached the stairwell, he vaulted over the railing and dropped to the ground floor, landing in a combat-ready crouch.

  Two startled guards stared back at him.

  “What’s happening?” one asked.

  Demok snarled his frustration at having been outmaneuvered.

  “Upstairs! Follow me!” he ordered, and lunged back up the staircase, taking three steps at a time.

  He reached the third floor just in time to see the thief. She had already run back down the short hallway and entered the room one floor above where they had first encountered each other. He saw her open the shutters, climb through the window, and jump into the alley below. He ran for the window, and as he leaned out he saw the bale of hay on the ground, moved there by the thief herself. He saw no movement otherwise.

  He gripped the sill tightly in frustration and stared into the falling snow.

  “Grab a lamp,” he said. “Follow me outside. Leave those tracks untouched.”

  Kehrsyn had always loved the sensation of falling; it reminded her of flying. When she was a kid, she’d spent many hot summer days jumping off a high bridge into the river, trying to capture that evasive feeling. Since she’d become an adult, however, her flying and jumping and falling had all been associated with escaping danger.

  Funny, she thought, how much you can think of when you’re in serious trouble.

  Kehrsyn hit the bale of hay and rolled off to the side that concealed her bag. She snatched the bag’s strap and plucked her rapier from the earthenware urn as she ran for the corner of the building. Once around the corner, she flipped the strap over her shoulder, jammed the stolen scepter through her sash in place of her boots (twisting the wand around to create a sort of knot to hold it, for surety’s sake), yanked her boots on, and gripped the ties of her scabbard in her teeth. Then, with an unsettling feeling of déjà vu, she climbed up the side of the building across from her. She didn’t want to be followed in the streets, but she was also beginning to have uneasy feelings about the name Wing’s Reach.

  She fled across the snow-covered rooftops as quietly as she could, and dropped back to the streets when she ran out of houses. There she took a deep breath and relaxed her stance. She reversed her cloak so that the lining was on the outside, changing its color to white. At least, it used to be white, but years of use had made it an uneven beige color. She pulled her hair back and secured it in a ponytail, then took her dagger off her forearm and put it back into its hiding place on the bottom of her bag. She carried her bag openly on the outside of her cloak, for no thief would carry such a bulky item. She rested one hand on the hilt of her rapier, so that the end of the scabbard showed clearly through her cloak. That gave her the appearance of being a swordswoman, and everyone would remember that the thief of Wing’s Reach had been unarmed.

  She moved her pouch of coins to hang over the front of her right thigh, so that it jingled slightly. That would make people think she was either a fool to make her wealth known, or so confident in her abilities that it didn’t matter. The wand she moved to the rear of her sash, safely covered by her cloak. All of that together made her look like a person of a flagrant—and not at all a larcenous—bent.

  Her disguise in place, Kehrsyn moved through the snowy city streets. Her heart pounded with fear and victory, with trials conquered and trepidations yet to come. Yes, her future was uncertain, but she had penetrated Wing’s Reach cleanly, pilfered an item, circumvented several insidious traps, and escaped a chance encounter with a guard. With the staff in her possession, the blackmail of the thieves’ guild would be neutralized, and perhaps she might even find herself privy to some permanent lodging with the city walls.

  In all, she mused, the benefits of her success were covering over the threats and dangers that had loomed over her life—some old, like her paucity of food, and some new, like the threat of death, or worse. She took some time to watch the falling snow, forgivingly covering up the grime in the streets and providing the overcrowded city with a new garment of pristine white.

  Kehrsyn sighed with relief when she finally saw the gates of the Thayan enclave through the falling snow. Though she had just broken a vow that she’d kept for many long years, she couldn’t help but feel some tinges of pride at how she’d conducted herself. She’d planned well, allowed for complications, and kept her head when things turned against her. If she could just keep that up for maybe one more day, she’d be all right.

  As instructed by the guards, Kehrsyn knocked on the door indicated and pushed it open, letting herself into the room. Her heart pounded. She had never been in a mage’s study before.

  A large, low wooden table dominated the center. What little of the tabletop could be seen through the clutter of scrolls, tomes, and glassware was covered with scars and stains. A thin silver chain rose from the center of the table and reached two thirds of the way to the ceiling. A greenish phosphorescent flame burned at the end of the chain. It seemed as if the fire’s ethereal magic supported the chain against gravity. Kehrsyn could see no other means of support.

  A second large table sat against one wall, covered with a humanoid cadaver so thoroughly dissected that Kehrsyn could not even hazard a guess as to its species. Thankfully, a pot burning with heavy incense sat next to the bloody surgical instruments and masked the corpse’s dead-meat stink. Bookshelves dominated another wall, filled with thick, leather-bound tomes inscribed with arcane and sinister characters. A sticky pall of incense hung in the air, veiling the misshapen wizard Eileph, who sat on a wide, comfortable chair studying a book that sat propped up on a stand. The book was easily half as large as he was.

  Though that was all strange, it was the toad that made Kehrsyn stop in shock. A large toad, closing on a foot in length, sat atop Eileph’s nearly hairless head, its paws spread wide across the Thayan’s skull to grip his pallid skin in a tight embrace that seemed obscenely intimate. Its color was reminiscent of rotting leaves, and its grotesque and flaccid obesity stretched taut its greasy, warty skin. It had a wide, sagging mouth surmounted by two cold eyes the color of dead fish.

  Kehrsyn’s lower lip curled in disgust as the toad’s head swiveled slowly, just a small adjustment in her direction until it looked squarely at her. Its body pulsed, and its throat filled with an appalling amount of air. It let the air back out in a deep croak that sounded like a glutton’s belch. Perhaps, surmised Kehrsyn, it was.

  The toad opened and closed its mouth once. Kehrsyn pulled her lip back farther, disgusted.

  Eileph sat reading his book and as yet seemed unaware of her presence. Kehrsyn cleared her throat, and the toad responded with an even louder croak.

  The hideous thing opened its mouth again, stabbing its tongue into the air in the direction of an empty bench placed against the wall, then staring at her again. When Kehrsyn hesitated, the toad repeated the gesture.

  Kehrsyn cringed, closed the door behind her, and edged over to the bench, which sat close to the dissection table. As she put her bag down and sat on the edge of the bench, the toad nodded almost imperceptibly.

  As she sat and waited, Kehrsyn took the opportunity to pull out the magic wand, careful to handle it only through the square of cloth she had cut.
r />   At first glance, Kehrsyn thought that for Eileph to dub it a “necromancer’s staff” seemed far too grandiose. It measured less than a cubit, stretching from Kehrsyn’s elbow to her wrist, barely even worthy of being called a scepter. At its crown it was no thicker than a flute, tapering to the size of Kehrsyn’s finger at the other end. Despite what she’d been told, for some reason Kehrsyn had expected it to be made of some unusual or glowing substance, but instead it was a plain material, almost pure white, perhaps bone or some exotic wood. It looked so clean that one could easily believe it had been forged but the day before.

  Still, she thought, the necromancer’s staff demanded a name far weightier than “wand.” Its polished surface was deeply etched with pictograms of exquisite detail. Tiny stylized birds, eyes, hands, and other images covered the staff from one end to the other, minute and detailed enough to absorb the mind for hours, and with edges sharp enough to provide a satisfying, biting grip in the hands, even through the cloth. The interior portions of the relief work were inlaid with what looked like powdered gold. Viewed at even a short distance, the gold blended with the white to give it a unique color. The bronze band around the top had all of its luster, and was formed into delicate waves of flowing water and studded with smoky quartz. The bronze river whirled up to hold a large piece of black amber at the top, delicately carved. The staff was light and moved easily in the hand, yet it had an indefinable momentum about it that conveyed a sense of consequence.

  It was beautiful. Even were it not magical, it would be incomparably valuable, worth far more than anything Kehrsyn had ever seen in her life, let alone held in her delicate hands.