The Alabaster Staff (16 page)

Kehrsyn set her mouth in a grim half-smile. The man started to move closer, raising one hand to signal her. She turned and headed in his direction, intending to face the guild head-on and demand her full membership. However, she quickly discovered he was not signaling
to
her, but rather signaling to someone else
about
her. As she approached the hooded man, she sensed two large thugs falling in behind her. As she looked over her shoulder at one, the other clamped a heavy hand on her left arm, squarely over the burn. She screamed in surprise and pain and twisted away, the sudden noise and motion startling the thug into releasing his grip.

Kehrsyn felt the other thug grab her billowing cloak. She tried to wriggle out of the garment, but she had slung the strap of her bag over it, and she found herself entangled between the cloak, the strap, and a pair of large, beefy arms. A strong hand seized her chin and turned it up. She found herself face to face with the grim-visaged man. His
eyes no longer looked studious, but had grown weighty with judgment.

“Let me go,” Kehrsyn said with irritation. “I did what you asked me to do.”

“Doubt it,” said the man.

“Sure I did,” she said. “I got the staff just like you wanted and delivered it where you told me to. Now I want to join.”

The man raised one eyebrow and asked, “You got the staff?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Good. Now let me go.”

“No,” said the man with a smirk.

“Why not?” Kehrsyn asked, deeply affronted.

In answer, the man reached into his vest and pulled out a carefully folded knee-length skirt.

“This is yours,” he said.

He draped the skirt around her neck like a cow and untied her rapier from her hip. Her weapon safely in his hands, he tipped his head once, motioning his compatriots to move. The two thugs each grabbed an elbow with the grip of a crocodile and urged her along.

The foursome walked through the streets of Messemprar, their boss following behind. The only sound audible over the street noise was the wheezing of the thug on the right, who apparently had a bad lung.

Kehrsyn’s mind was awhirl as she let herself be led along. The man clearly lived or worked at Wing’s Reach. Who else but the one who’d snatched her skirt from her neck would think to return it there? He’d caught her, then, thwarting the guild’s plans. Yet why had he been watching her perform if he wasn’t with the guild? But if he was with the guild, why didn’t he just steal the staff himself? And if he wasn’t, how had he known she was at the Thayan enclave?

“Where are you taking me?” demanded Kehrsyn, hoping it might shed some light.

None of them answered, and a variety of scenarios ran through her mind, none of which seemed even plausible, let alone likely.

What are they going to do with me?

It all became clear. He
was
a member of the thieves’ guild, and had infiltrated Wing’s Reach. He had drawn the map of the house. The thieves’ guild recruited her, branded her, and used her for its dirty work, then their infiltrator “catches” her after she’d already made the drop to Eileph. Since she’s branded, the guild can sell her to someone else as a slave, to be carried off to a distant land on a trade ship. Conveniently, they turn a profit, remove the need to pay her for her services, and excise the chance that their part in the theft might be revealed.

Kehrsyn’s jaw dropped in horror and surprise.

No wonder the sorceress never told me her name, she thought. She figured she’d never deal with me again.

Her heart began to beat faster. She knew she had to find a way out of her situation. She walked along placidly for a short distance then pulled hard at her captors’ grips, trying to escape. She accomplished nothing save perhaps bruising her muscles. Their grips were as iron bands.

“I’m not a slave!” she growled as she continued her futile struggle.

Kehrsyn felt the hand of the leader clamp firmly across her neck at the base of her skull, fingers pressing into the soft spots behind her ears.

“Quiet,” he said.

Kehrsyn relented in her struggles but still kept an eye peeled for an opportunity.

Partway across town, she saw a familiar group of faces, three in number. She had just enough time for a desperate gambit before they passed by.

“You!” she called out, straining against her captors.
“Tell these men to unhand me! I have the protection of Tiglath!”

The outburst brought both groups to an immediate halt.

One of the Tiamatans, a man with a bulbous nose and a high forehead topped with pale brown hair, stepped over to Kehrsyn, his eyes narrowed. Kehrsyn couldn’t tell if it was distaste for her bluff or a posture of anger to cow those who held her prisoner.

“Morning,” said the man from Wing’s Reach, his tone indicating that he was not cowed in the least.

“Olaré,” replied the Tiamatan. “I am Horat of Tiamat. What is going on here?”

“Justice,” said the leader. “She’s a thief.”

The Tiamatan studied Kehrsyn’s face for a moment then asked, “A thief?”

“Almost pinched her red-handed,” came the immediate reply, which, Kehrsyn noted, made no mention of her having leveled him with a kick. “Tracked her to the Thayans. Got her just now.”

“Do you have others who will stand witness, mister …?”

“Demok of Wing’s Reach. Yes, I do.”

The Tiamatan’s eyebrows went up and he said, “Wing’s Reach, you say? Very well. Now we know … where to inquire after her welfare.” He started to turn away but paused for one last moment. “Tell me, if you would,” he asked, without turning back to face Demok, “what was it that she stands accused of stealing?”

“That’s private,” said the other.

“Really?” said the Tiamatan, with evident interest. “I see. Olaré, thief,” he said as he glided away to rejoin his compatriots.

“Make them let me go!” implored Kehrsyn. “Tiglath gave me her protection! Are you going to let them handle me this way?”

The Tiamatan stopped and turned back around slowly. He held up two fingers, as if giving absolution.

“No,” he said, waving them side to side, “Tiglath gave you her
sufferance
in a moment of weak whimsy. Having once received mercy, one is unwise to test the bounds of one’s fortune again so soon.” Kehrsyn started to interrupt, but he cut her off. “However, I shall be certain to communicate your grievance to Tiglath when I return from my errands this evening … if she’s still awake, of course. I see no need to disturb her rest.”

He turned and left, his companions sniggering at Kehrsyn’s plight.

Kehrsyn hung her head and walked the rest of the way docilely.

Despite Kehrsyn’s apprehensions, they did not bring her to the slave market, nor did they take her to the Halls of Justice, where, with the tacit approval of the Northern Wizards, judges installed by the god-king Gilgeam still dispensed punishments in accordance with tradition. She breathed a sigh of relief, for she knew that it was a buyer’s market for slaves and a seller’s market for punishment.

Instead, they brought her back to Wing’s Reach, to the center of the third floor, where, she recalled from her map, the master had his rooms. They brought her to a small reception hall paneled in light wood, a fine room of the sort used for an intimate dinner with close friends. A series of pedestals ran along both side walls, each pedestal bearing a single piece of art, be it a sculpture, or a piece of pottery, or an ancient bronze helmet. She had been led in through one side door at the foot of the hall. Another door stood opposite her, and double doors stood in the other two walls, one pair the main guest entrance for the hall, and the other pair leading to the master’s study. A very ornate table and chair sat in front of those doors. That, then, would be the location of her interview.

They removed her bag and slung it aside, then took off her cloak and the skirt-turned-cowl, bundled them up beside the bag, and placed her rapier atop the pile. They positioned her in the center of the room facing the far door. A guard opened a small trapdoor at her feet that concealed a set of stout bronze manacles anchored to a ring sunk deep into the flooring.

As her escorts fastened the manacles to her slender wrists, Kehrsyn heard their gruff leader say, “Careful. She’s tricky.”

They clamped her in well and drew back to stand along the walls. She expected that she would be left there to sweat and dread for a while, but instead the far door creaked open almost at once and a man of average height and trim build entered the room. He took no notice of her as he entered but nodded to the various servants at either side and took his seat. The bald man, Ahegi—apparently a key advisor—followed him in and stood against the wall to one side, his arms folded across his chest.

Once he’d made himself comfortable, the seated man laced his fingers together, rested his weight on his forearms, and regarded Kehrsyn frankly. He sat like that for some time, studying her, and thereby giving Kehrsyn time to study him in turn.

He had curly black hair flecked with gray throughout, short except for a longer lock in the center of his forehead. A thin, closely trimmed beard stretched from ear to ear, though it did not extend far enough down his neck to conceal his pronounced larynx. He had thin hands that had clearly never done much, if any, hard work, though Kehrsyn did see the permanent stain of ink on the fingers of his right hand that indicated he was a man of letters. Piercing blue eyes beneath his high brows likewise gave evidence of his sharp intellect. He had a straight nose, severe without being truly hawkish, and his lips were squared, almost exactly the same thickness from one end to the other.
Kehrsyn could not decide whether that last feature was grotesque or compelling.

For several long minutes, the only sound to be heard was the slight clink of Kehrsyn’s chains as she shifted her weight. Despite the weight of scrutiny, she refused to drop her gaze.

The man spoke at last, with a rich, smooth baritone voice. “Here we find, amongst our number at last, the thief,” he proclaimed in High Untheric. Kehrsyn raised her eyebrows. The last time she’d heard High Untheric, it had been booming from the sanctuary of the Gilgeamite temple as she’d been sneaking through the back rooms looking for donations to steal. But then, she’d never dealt with merchant princes before. “By which name art thou called, miscreant?” he asked.

“Kehrsyn,” she said with far more confidence than she felt.

He inhaled through his nose, his linear lips pressed together.

“Hast thou an idea how I shall dispose of thee?” he asked, his voice and face devoid of emotion.

She narrowed her eyes and tried to cross her arms, but the chain prevented her from doing so. She settled with resting her hands on her hips.

“I suppose you’ll be having your way with me,” she said, bobbing her head as if trying to duck an invisible hand.

The corner of his mouth twitched, just once, a motion so slight that if she’d blinked she’d have missed it. She didn’t know if it was a twitch of lust, a smirk of amusement, or a simple sneer. He blinked and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. He looked carefully down Kehrsyn’s body, from her neck to her feet, then back up to her eyes.

“I see before me the vigor of youth, an untamed colt, a bud eager to blossom into full womanhood yet entrapped by hunger and privation. Witness the energy constrained as in a seine, eager to break free anon and swim the seas of
life. A year of hunger, and thy petals shall wither, their potential forever lost; a year of plenty, and the flush that even now graces thy body shall turn thy slender form into one of great loveliness. Thou hast height in excess of thy weight, and yet thou hast tamed thy awkward limbs. Thou shalt have a grace that makes even the great cats to weep with envy. The appearance of noble blood graceth thy face and carriage. Verily art thou now at the peak of thy desirability, where the delicate balance of beauty and anticipation, growth and ripening, is at its most precious: tilting, but not yet tilted.”

He let his hands slowly drop to the table.

“Yet I see in thy eyes the difference between ‘beaten’ and ‘broken,’ and there is a world of difference betwixt. I myself have once explored that terrible wasteland. Were I of the sort to dishonor a woman in thy unfavorable position, I do believe that I would be in risk of my longevity.”

He smiled slightly but sincerely. Kehrsyn shifted uncertainly and looked askance at the man.

She asked, “Then what do you want from me?”

“I should think that is self-evident. Thou hast perpetrated a crime upon this house.”

“I know,” said Kehrsyn bravely. “I figured you’d just either ruin me or kill me. Or both.”

He winced ever so slightly.

“Please,” he said, holding up one hand, “think thou more broadly. Execution I shall save as a distinct eventuality, but I shall hope to obviate its occurrence.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kehrsyn.

“Clearly, thou wert not alone in this misdeed, for this was a masterful, knowledgeable work. Confess thou thy crime, and make thou thy repentance by naming thy fellows. This shall see thee free.”

“I—I don’t know their names,” admitted Kehrsyn, “and I’ve only ever met one of them, anyway.”