“It’s certainly a hot night.”
Pelarus agreed. He could feel his underclothes sticking to him from all the sweat, and the guardsman armor he was wearing wasn’t doing much to cool him off. At least I don’t have to wear a helmet, he thought, leaning on his spear to shift his stance a little.
“I can’t remember the last time a night was this hot!” the other guard spoke again.
“Neither can I,” Pelarus responded dully. He wasn’t sure what to make of his new companion, Novian. He had never seen him before this evening and based on how this night was going, Novian either complained a lot, or just said whatever crossed his mind in an effort to avoid silence. Neither sat well with Pelarus, who felt that conversation was a distraction from the job.
Not that being a night guard is all that glamorous. It was slightly higher risk and one generally spent the rest of the following day sleeping it off, but the higher pay was nice. Pelarus only ever bothered with it if he felt like he needed the extra money, and he had some debts he needed to pay soon. In fact, this was his fifth night in a row doing this duty, and by now, he felt like he was getting a handle on it.
Pelarus and Novian guarded a door at the end of a long hallway. One the other end of the hallway was an arch that led outside to the castle’s vast battlements high above the ground. Occasionally a light breeze would make its way back to them, bring a little relief to the sweating guards, but none had come so far this night. Pelarus began thinking this shift was going to feel longer than the others.
The door behind them was locked and neither guard had the key, but Pelarus knew it was one of the smaller treasure rooms in this palace. He doubted any thief would bother with this room, as he knew the more valuable goods were kept in a secret room under the throne. However, his employer felt the need to be cautious regardless, and Pelarus didn’t complain. Work was work.
“Now I’m hungry,” Novian said, putting his hand on his stomach. It took some effort for Pelarus to not roll his eyes. He watched the other guard kneel down and pull around a satchel that was hanging from his waist.
“Stay alert!” Pelarus scolded.
“Oh, please. Nothing is going to come tonight. It’s too hot to do anything tonight, let alone steal whatever’s in there,” Novian rebutted, pointing a thumb to the door behind him. Pelarus snorted, then watched as Novian pulled out something that had been wrapped in very cheap cloth. When he opened it up, Pelarus saw that it was a few strips of dried meat. Pork or beef, he wasn’t sure.
“Would you like one?” Novian asked, taking a piece and holding it out. Pelarus did have to admit to himself that he was also a little hungry. Perhaps this fellow wasn’t so bad.
He was about to express his gratitude and take the offered meat, but his hand stopped halfway when he thought he heard something outside. He turned an ear to the arch, staring at it from the sides of his eyes. Novian noticed this and glanced at the arch himself.
“What is-” Novian started, but Pelarus shushed him. They both listened for a moment. There wasn’t any shouting or an alarm, but Pelarus could feel a shift of tension in the air. While he hadn’t been a guard for very long, he had more experience than Novian, so he felt the pressure of making the right judgements at times like these.
After a moment, there was a distant murmur of shouting, but it didn’t sound alarmed. Instead, it sounded like the chief guardsman was yelling at a new recruit or something. Novian sighed.
“I don’t think it’s anything,” he said. Pelarus hummed in agreement, and was about to turn and take the piece of meat he had been offered when a new sound echoed into the hall. This time, it sounded like stone scraping on stone, like a pebble had gotten loose and was slipping down a larger rock.
Then Pelarus saw something sliding on the ground toward them, coming to a stop about a foot in front of them. It looked like a large black coin, but Pelarus knew of no currency that looked like that. He wasn’t even sure if it was metal.
“What is that?” Novian asked in surprise. He put the meat on the ground and leaned forward to pick up the black coin.
“No, don’t-” Pelarus tried to shout, but his order was cut short when the coin suddenly blasted a bunch of white smoke into their end of the hallway. At once, he couldn’t see anything, and he coughed as he tried to get away from the smoke, backing up against a wall. He tried to rub his eyes to clear them and get a good view of what was happening, but when he opened them, he merely caught a glimpse of a fist before it punched him in the face, putting him on his backside and disorienting him thoroughly.
Pelarus knew he needed to get an alarm out, but his mind was swimming in pain, struggling to find the words to put in his mouth. The ringing in his head was so loud that he could barely hear Novian grunt like he had been hit in the stomach or the sound of metal on metal like a lock being picked. It took several seconds for his mind to finally settle down, and now that the smoke was dissipating, he could finally take stock of what happened and what to do next.
However, as he looked up, he saw a figure towering over him. He blinked a few times to get his eyes to focus, only to widen in shock. His attacker was dressed in black, with a belt for carrying tools, and holding a sack of treasures surely stolen while he was down, but the majority of his surprise was that the thief’s head was one of a fox, with pure white fur.
The White Fox! Pelarus had heard rumors of the great thief, but merely dismissed them as drunkard’s tales. Now, here was the infamous criminal standing before him, like something out of a dream. Speechless, he just stared at the thief, not quite believing his eyes.
The fox smirked down at him, then, in a burst of speed, ran back through the hallway, moving so fast that Pelarus barely caught a glimpse of a white tail before it disappeared from the arch’s portal.
He knew he needed to get up, but in the back of his mind, Pelarus knew the White Fox was surely long gone. Leaning on his spear, he made it to his feet, his head still reeling from the experience. He glanced at Novian, only to see him sprawled out on the ground, not moving, his dried meat scattered on the stone floor.
Pelarus then glanced at the treasure room door, which was still open. The lock had been expertly picked, but looking beyond into the room, he saw plenty of undisturbed sacks and chests of wealth. Thinking back, he remembered that the sack the thief was holding wasn’t very big, so it wasn’t just a plain robbery. The White Fox was after something specific.
In any case, he needed to shout an alarm, so he started heading toward the other end of the hallway. “Uh, uh, thief!” he shouted, coughing the words out. “A thief has broken into the East Treasure Room!” As his senses were returning, a sinking feeling grew in his stomach. Pelarus wondered if he would still have a job after tonight.
***
It was the worst kind of tavern. Noisy, dirty, old, and full of scum of all varieties, drinking and revelling with abandon. The only thing keeping them from destroying the place was the owner, One-Eyed Tack, being bigger than most of them and twice as mean. He wasn’t ever crossed twice, and those who did it once barely lived to tell the tale. Making fun of his eyepatch was cause for immediate and violent expulsion from his establishment.
However, the chaos that regularly thrived in such a place also provided great cover for shady business. In a darker corner of the tavern, the thief sat alone, arms folded, a cloak with a hood pulled over and down, waiting for someone to come. That someone was a little late, but not so much to be truly concerned. Still, the thief never liked to wait and was happy when footsteps finally approached the table.
It turned out to be two people. A pair of men had pulled themselves from the crowd and made their way to the thief’s table. The rogue had seen one of them before, an average looking man in cheap, gray clothes, a large, bushy beard, and hairy arms named Pazzium. If anyone wanted to do dirty business in the great city of Ramasa, it was usually through him. He knew all the right people and could find the right jobs, if you were good enough.
The other man was less familiar. He was blond, with a bright, handsome face, and very nice robes, red with an ornate gold trim. He was constantly looking around him as he came up to the table, like he had never been somewhere like this before. The thief couldn’t tell if he was delighted or scared by the revelry going on around him. Perhaps both.
The two men sat down at the thief’s table, dismissing the saucy waitress that had approached them by saying they didn’t want anything. After waiting a moment, the thief nodded, letting them know that they could talk.
“Do you have it?” Pazzium spoke first, staring directly at the thief.
“But of course,” the thief cooed in reply. This shocked the other man.
“The White Fox is a woman?” he blurted, smiling wide.
“Is that a problem?” the fox replied, sneering under her hood.
“N-no, no!” the man stammered, “Just surprised. There are so many rumors about you it’s hard to know what to believe!”
The thief turned to Pazzium. “Who is this?” she said, condescendingly.
“The client,” Pazzium answered quickly, cutting off the other man from introducing himself, which he seemed keen to do.
“I thought you said this was just a hand off! You know I don’t like it when a deal gets complicated!” she said, baring her teeth and clenching a gloved fist over the table.
Pazzium grimaced visibly, showing that he was also short on patience with this man. “He insisted on coming,” he said through his teeth. The thief then turned back to this man, glaring at him, who then took this as an opportunity to introduce himself.
“Ah, yes, that’s right, I’m the client. My name is Luke Ferring from the Irrister Academy in Shakka. I-” he started, but was cut off.
“Luke Ferring?” the thief interrupted. Now it was her turn to be surprised.
“Ah, so you have heard of me.” he responded, smug and smiling. She certainly had, though she wasn’t expecting someone quite so young. Luke Ferring was a fairly renowned scholar and wizard, growing up a prodigy and becoming the headmaster of the great Mavala Magic school when he was barely a young man, but that should have been at least twenty years ago. This man didn’t look like he was in his forties.
“Can we just get this over with?” Pazzium said, his patience clearly gone. The White Fox knew him to be a busy man, never wanting to waste time. Still, she kept staring at Luke, her eyes narrowing. What does such a famous scholar want with what I stole?, she wondered, but when she couldn’t think of an answer, she put the thought out of her mind.
The White Fox reached down beside her and pulled up the sack that was sitting on the floor. She placed it on the table, then lowered the sack to reveal the statue she had stolen earlier that night. It was made of bronze and depicted a man with an ornate headdress that raised up from his brow, his arms crossed in front of him against his body, his hands holding two scepters that looked quite ceremonial. He was naked from the waist up, wearing only a ceremonial skirt. His legs were together, and his feet were bare and not standing on anything. The statue didn’t have much detail, looking like something a child had carved out of a block of bronze, and it didn’t stand very well, so the thief wrapped the sack around it’s feet to keep it up.
Luke gasped with glee. “There it is!” he said in awe, nearly whispering.
“So it’s exactly what you wanted?” Pazzium demanded.
“Yes! I have been looking for this for years!” Luke said, reaching out a hand to pick it up. Reacting quickly, the White Fox wrapped the statue back up with the sack and pulled it to her side of the table, then nonchalantly stared back at him. Luke then looked over at Pazzium and saw that he was staring at him as well.
“The money,” Pazzium said, raising a hand up and wiggling his fingers as if to expect something to be placed there.
Luke gave an exasperated expression. “Ah, of course, the money. Heaven forbid either of you have any intellectual curiosity of what we’re dealing with here,” he said, reaching into his robes and pulling out a fist-sized bag. He placed it on the table, and it made a clinking noise. Pazzium immediately grabbed it, opened it, and looked inside.
“Give him the statue,” he said, after a moment. The thief then pushed her sack towards Luke who quickly grabbed it and opened it up to see the statue again. He made another swooning noise and his face lit up again. The thief turned her attention to Pazzium, who was reaching into the money bag. He pulled out about four coins, nice large golden ones, before handing the bag over to her. She looked inside and saw six more of the same coins.
“Steep cut,” she said, shooting another glare at Pazzium.
“For putting up with him,” Pazzium said, pointing at Luke, “you’re lucky I didn’t take more!” Then he stood up from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.”
At this, Luke finally looked up from the statue and said, “Wait, I have more business! I need something else.”
Pazzium shook his head. “I’m not working with you again. If you want more junk stolen, take it up with her!” he said, pointing a thumb at the thief.
Luke was offended. “What? ‘Junk’? How dare you! These are precious artifacts responsible for the origin of-” he started, but was cut off when Pazzium leaned over and put his face, beard and all, close to Luke’s.
“I. Don’t. Care.” he said, giving each word the weight of an angry bull. After a moment, Pazzium straightened up again and walked into the perpetually rowdy tavern crowd, disappearing from sight.
It took nearly a minute for Luke to gather himself from such a confrontation. It was clear he was not used to such treatment. He stared into the crowd for another moment before turning back toward the White Fox. He almost seemed surprised to see her still there. She had thought about disappearing herself, but the promise of more work intrigued her enough to see where this might go. She waited for him to start speaking.
It took him another beat before he could find his words. “Um, th-thank you for getting me the statue,” the now humbled Luke stammered out. “But, uh, I do have something else that I’d like you to get for me.”
“It costs nothing to listen,” she said coolly, leaning back in her chair.
Luke nodded his head. He took in a deep breath to regain his composure, put the bag with the statue in his lap, then rubbed his hands together. After another moment, he began to speak: “There is a scroll I need you to steal. It’s in the Wizard’s Tower, north of the town of Langry.”
“On the other side of the kingdom?” she asked.
“Correct. I’m sure the scroll is well-protected, so I hope you will be able to get in and grab it.”
The thief raised an eyebrow at him, which took Luke aback. She wondered if he wasn’t used to seeing such human emotions from a fox’s head.
“Uh, of course you can get it. I’m talking to you. Of course,” he rambled.
“What does the scroll say,” she asked, shifting her weight on the chair and letting her tail curl to the other side of her body.
“I don’t know, actually. That’s why I want it!” he answered.
“How am I supposed to know which one to grab?” she asked, slightly irritated.
“It’s a scroll of red paper tied with golden ribbon and stamped with a crest that has a lion on it. They keep on a pedestal in a room by itself in one of the middle floors,” he answered, speaking quickly to keep from angering the White Fox any further.
“‘One of the middle floors’?” she repeated, slightly disgusted from the vagueness of the information.
“Yes, now let me think” Luke answered, raising a finger to address the concern before he carried on. “Langry Tower has . . . twelve floors, I believe, so it’s probably on the sixth or seventh. I took a tour of the place about a year ago and I saw the scroll sitting on that pedestal in the middle of a room. I think they keep it locked up, but I happened to catch a glimpse of it as I was walking through their, uh, their library, which I believe is on the seventh floor. Yes, that sounds right.” He was looking away from the table now, trying to dig up the information from his memory.
“So you saw this scroll once, a year ago, and now you need to have it because it’s red and shiny?” she asked, a little incredulous.
“What? No, no!” he responded, laughing a little. “I have an inkling of what it says, but I want to see it for myself to make sure.”
“Why can’t you use your clout to get to it yourself? You’re not exactly a pushover,” she reasoned. This made Luke smile, but she figured a little flattery wouldn’t hurt. This job was sounding interesting, and she didn’t want to ruin it with bad conversation.
“Listen, Langry Tower has been the home of wizards for centuries. I’m sure all kinds of things have been discovered and recorded over the years. And wizards are quite fond of making sure such secrets stay secret. Having knowledge or techniques that other schools or towers don’t have is the way wizards maintain their power.”
“And you want to undermine their power by taking this away from them,” she added. smirking a little. This could be really big.
“Oh, nothing petty like that,” Luke protested, putting a hand on his chest. “I am a seeker of knowledge! I want to learn all the secrets of this world, and then share them with everyone! It’s my duty to serve the people!”
“So you want to level the playing field, then?” she suggested, trying to understand his intentions.
Luke shook his head. “I’m not interested in the politics. I just want to share the things I’ve learned with everyone, and that scroll is the second key to that dream.”
“Second?” she asked. Luke reached down into his lap and grabbed the statue from outside the sack, lifting it up for her to see and waving it a little. The thief stared at the statue, trying to figure out what the connection was, but ended up just shaking her head.
“Whatever. You can’t just convince these other wizards of your vision? You can’t even bribe them?” she asked.
“Why do you keep asking these kinds of questions? You seem like you don’t want to take this job,” he interjected. He leaned forward, putting an elbow on the wooden table, and looked at her with skepticism.
The thief raised her hands beside her head. “I just don’t want to take a job that’s not worth the risk. There’s no point in putting my life or my reputation in danger when other options are available. It’s just a bunch of wasted effort,” she said. Luke was about to speak a rebuttal, but she cut him off. “However, it seems like you have already considered these options, which sounds like trying to take this scroll on your own will make things worse, and resorting to risky tactics like dealing with thieves is your best idea. Since you seem eager to get this scroll, it also means that you’re willing to pay well,” she continued, smiling in the end.
Luke sighed, disappointed. “It all comes back to money for you people, doesn’t it?”
“It’s hard to eat and sleep on dreams and visions,” she retorted, smiling wider, showing all of her fanged teeth.
Luke shook his head. “Alright, you know all there is to know. How much do you want?”
The White Fox raised one hand in front of her, spreading her fingers wide. “Five thousand.”
Luke inhaled through his teeth in reaction, his lips grimaced in shock. Then he let the air out slowly, tapping his fingers on the table as his eyes darted back and forth. After another moment of clear calculation, he gulped, then slowly began nodding.
“Five thousand. Okay. That’s a deal,” he said, the words coming out slightly strained. “How long will it take before you can get it to me?”
“Three weeks,” she said quickly. She had already made that calculation earlier in the conversation.
“Three weeks,” he repeated, a little surprised. “I thought you were a quick thief.”
The White Fox pointed to her face. “It’s not like I can take the regular highways or paths, so it’s going to take me at least five days to get to Langry,” she explained, “And being a thief isn’t about just walking in and taking things. There’s going to be several days of planning and preparation, especially if it’s going to be a wizard’s tower.” It also gave her a bit of wiggle room in case her job gets leaked. At the very least, they won’t know exactly when she would be coming. Like the wizards, though, she had no intention of revealing all her trade secrets.
Luke rubbed his hands on his face to deal with this new shift in his plans. “Okay, three weeks. Where will we meet?” he finally asked, looking that the thief again.
“I’ll let you know,” she responded.
“That’s not good enough,” Luke insisted, feeling like he was starting to lose control on this deal.
“We’re not working through Pazzium this time. If this job is as big as I think it is, and I think it’s going to be big, then we need to do this on my terms to make sure that you get what you want without alerting any suspicions, which I imagine is something you want, right?”
Luke flared his nostrils in resentment, but then nodded, leaning back in his chair.
“Okay. I’m also going to need some of that money in advance for travel and supplies,” she said, starting to stand up.
This time, it was Luke’s turn to smile. “I believe you have enough already, don’t you,” he said, lifting the bag with the statue again. The White Fox then remembered the six gold coins she had just gotten. Clever, she thought to herself, narrowing her eyes at him. He’s at least put some thought into this. I will need to stay on my toes with him in the future.
The thief finally stood up, pushing the chair under the table. “I’ll send you a message when I have the scroll. A person of your status shouldn’t be hard to find, let alone contact.”
“Very well, then,” Luke answered in a resigned manner, then suddenly spoke up as she started to turn away. “Ah, one more thing?” She turned her head back toward him and waited. Luke then turned to look at the rowdy crowd of the tavern, which hadn’t subsided in the least during the whole conversation.
“Pazzium was kind enough to help me get through that rabble back there, but I don’t know if I can make it on my own. I’m not used to such places, you see.” He looked back at her with a hopeful look on his face.
The White Fox simply smiled. “I’m sure if you buy a round or two, they won’t kill you.” An expression of unpleasant concern crossed Luke’s face. He turned to look at the taverns usual chaos once again, only to feel a sinking sensation in his stomach. He looked back at the thief, about to ask if she wouldn’t mind guiding him through for some coin, but she was gone. Startled, he looked around to see where she had went, but her cloaked figure was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, I’m going to regret this,” he moaned to himself, standing up from the table and steeling himself for what was going to be a very unpleasant next few hours.
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