Night's Haunting (3 page)

He passed the pouch to Grayling, who took great care not to inhale the smoke streaming from it. Sliding the door open a fraction wider, she flicked the pouch down the corridor.

Inside the short passageway, one of the mercenaries was alert enough to notice the pouch as it slid along the floor. He took a step back, but the pouch suddenly puffed open with a low gasp, coating both him and the other guard in a fine white powder. The powder quickly sank back to the floor, but by then they had both inhaled it. The alert guard suddenly found his senses dulled, as his hearing fled, and the walls of the passageway seemed to bend into one another. He saw a short black form pacing menacingly towards him, but his throat would not co-operate as he tried to shout an alarm. He managed to get his hand around the pommel of his sword as blackness overtook him, and he felt as though he were falling a long way.

Entering the passageway, Lucius and Grayling saw the two guards succumb to the sleeping draught, slumping against the walls as they sank to the ground. Lucius winced as the mail armour of one scored a line in the plastered wall, causing a low grinding noise. Grayling, too, was concerned at the unintended noise, and they both froze on the spot as they listened intently, trying to detect any sign of alarm in the mansion.

There was nothing.

"Guards mean we are on the right track," whispered Grayling.

"So does this door."

Grayling had noted that the door seemed unusually elaborate when she had first seen it from the other end of the passageway, but she had put that down to a merchant's poor taste in interior decoration. As she looked now, she saw that the design was in fact an elaborate mechanism.

The centre of the door was dominated by four short swords, built into large metal dials, each surrounded by strange glyphs and markers. Each dial was linked to the others by shafts of steel and, from there, thicker shafts were driven into the surrounding door frame and, presumably, extended some distance into the wall.

Lucius sighed. He had heard of such doors before, though he had never seen one himself. Built by esteemed Vos craftsmen, such portals were used to secure the most valuable of possessions, and were rumoured to be only in the possession of the richest nobles and best-connected holy men. That de Lille had one made Lucius think he had underestimated the man's wealth by a significant degree.

The swords and dials, Lucius saw, formed an elaborate combination lock, with each sword being turned to face a number of markers. So long as you knew which markers each sword should point to, the door could be opened within seconds. Lucius did not know, as his research for this mission had not even hinted that such a door might be present.

"So, you wish you had stayed with Swinherd now?" whispered Grayling with a smile.

Chapter Two

Squinting down the wooden tube, Ambrose surveyed the doorway from the safety of the adjoining passage. Inside the tube, two mirrors had been precisely positioned so a thief looking at the mirror at the bottom end of the tube would actually see the world from the vantage of the one at the top. As the tube was a foot long, this made it an ideal tool for peering over walls or, in this case, around corners.

Ambrose could not remember exactly what the device was called, so he called it his jerriscope. As impressive as his jerriscope was, however, the doorway that blocked their progress was a great deal more elaborate.

"Passage is clear, but we have a problem," he told Swinherd.

Swinherd peered through the jerriscope, and whistled quietly.

Before him, the width of the passage was blocked by a wall of glass. Set into the panes was a single door, with an exposed locking mechanism. As Swinherd broke from cover to better view the obstacle, he could see that the glass was as thick as his smallest finger.

"Force the lock, you smash the glass," Ambrose said. "Clever. I would guess the glass has been stressed so the whole lot will come down. Very noisy."

Swinherd snorted and reached for his belt, bringing up a small leather pack as he crouched down in front of the lock. He unrolled the pack on the floor, revealing a selection of finely crafted lockpicks, a collection that had cost him four months' income.

"But there is a flaw," he whispered. "By setting the lock in glass, I can see half the mechanism. I'll be through this in less than a minute."

Ambrose had already set his glass cutting cup to the door, just a few inches above the lock.

"No," he said. "You are looking at a false mechanism, designed to lure a thief away from the tumblers. You'll think you have it, force the lock, and then break the glass. Look..."

Frowning, Swinherd reconsidered the lock.

"No, I don't think..."

With a slight crack, Ambrose withdrew the cup, then popped the circle of glass free. Reaching inside, he pulled the latch, and carefully swung the glass door inwards.

"Swinherd, my friend, you may be adapting to the locksmith's trade quickly, but you still have a lot to learn about being a thief."

Before exploring the junction, Grayling flattened herself against the wall, using the back of her arm to wipe the sweat from her brow. Lucius had finally lost patience with the combination lock, and focussed fiery magics that had, eventually, melted the mechanisms, allowing him to pull the securing bars free, one by one. It had taken time, and Grayling thought the back draft of heat would boil her alive. Her hair was sodden, sweat ran freely down her face, and her bodysuit was growing more uncomfortable by the minute.

For his part, Lucius seemed less affected by the heat, but the directed concentration of such powerful magic had left him breathless. Their prize was close, however, and the combination door seemed to be the last obstacle barring their way into de Lille's inner sanctum.

On the original architectural plans they had studied before launching this assault, the small complex of three rooms and their adjoining corridors had lit up like a beacon. All interior rooms, with no windows, they were perfectly situated to house valuables - all approaches could be trapped or sealed, unless you could tunnel through walls.

Along the corridor, mounted on wall brackets at regular intervals, were strange orbs, glowing with a yellowish light. Lucius had never seen such artefacts before, but he had heard of them. Crafted by the wizards of the Three Towers in Andon, also known as the League of Prestidigitation and Prestige, the orbs were magical, needing a simple touch by their owner to dull or brighten them. That de Lille could afford to light his entire inner domain with them was further testament to his wealth.

Grayling tapped his arm.

"Two more guards," she whispered, indicating one of the passageways leading from the junction. "The rest are clear."

"We have our target then."

"You have more sleep powder?"

He shook his head. "No. This one we'll have to do the old-fashioned way."

"I'll go first."

"On your word."

Slowly, Grayling drew her short sword from across her back, the scabbard lined with cloth so the weapon slid free without sound. Behind her, Lucius did the same, but also plucked a dagger from his belt. Grayling padded around the corner at speed, arrowing straight towards the mercenaries and the oaken door they guarded.

Lucius' dagger flew over her shoulder to sink into the throat of one man, causing him to gag while blood flowed between his fingers as he fought to stem the flow. His cry of alarm was little more than a low gurgle.

His partner was taken fully by surprise as Grayling charged him, her canvassed feet making little noise as she quickly closed the distance. He managed to draw his sword and flail blindly, batting aside Grayling's disembowelling thrust by luck more than skill. Grayling winced as the swords met and a metallic clang rang clear, impossibly loud in the tight, quiet passageway.

Changing grip on her weapon, she forced the guard's blade up, over their heads. Seeing the man begin to recover his wits, she jabbed a knee hard into his groin. Air exploded from his lungs, and her face was showered in the man's spittle. He bent low, allowing Grayling to smash her forehead into his nose. She heard the crack over the guard's moan of pain as he tried to draw breath. With one arm, Grayling pushed him back against the wall and rammed her sword into his stomach. He twitched as the weapon entered him, and Grayling clamped a hand over his mouth as she slowly laid him on the floor.

She looked up at Lucius, who was casting anxious glances behind them.

"Did that betray our entry?" she asked.

"I can't hear anything," he said after a moment. "What about within?"

Placing her ear to the door, Grayling concentrated, trying to pick up the slightest noise. There was nothing.

She tried the door handle, and found it was locked.

"You sure this is the right room?" she asked. "Wouldn't put it beyond our man to use a decoy."

Lucius shook his head. "I thought about that. De Lille
is
paranoid, but everything we've seen here tonight suggests he likes his luxury. It's the largest room in this area. I can't see him at ease anywhere else."

Grayling shrugged. It sounded plausible. She inspected the lock, wondering if her own skills in lockpicking would suffice or whether they would have to wait for Swinherd. Hearing Lucius rummage through the guards' mail coats, she glanced behind her.

Finding nothing on the guard Grayling had silenced, Lucius crossed the passageway to check beneath the mail of the other man. Reaching under the guard's chin, Lucius wrinkled his nose as his hand became coated in blood. He then grunted with satisfaction, withdrawing a cord looped around a key.

"Too paranoid," Lucius whispered. "Our merchant feared someone would somehow circumvent the guards altogether, thus he gave them a key so they could come and rescue him at his call. Just makes our job easier though."

Lucius turned the key in the lock slowly until they heard a quiet click. Looking at Grayling to ensure she was ready, he entered the room beyond.

Inside, the room was illuminated by the lighted orbs, but they had been set to a dim glow, barely casting their light across the soft rugs that littered floor. The walls to his left and right were lined with overcrowded bookcases, and a single desk covered with stacked sheets and discarded quills stood in the centre of the room. On the far side, behind gossamer thin veils, was a wide bed. Lucius could just make out a motionless form lying beneath the sheets. De Lille.

Waving Grayling in, Lucius padded to the desk, the thick rugs aiding his stealth. Carefully, he began to search for their prize. Grayling, meanwhile, started to work through the bookcases.

Finding nothing of note in the desk, though raising his eyebrows more than once at the figures he glanced on the sheets denoting the value of some of de Lille's recent transactions, Lucius crossed to the bookshelves to aid Grayling.

After a few moments, he started to get nervous. Their entry into the mansion would not remain secret for much longer, as a patrolling guard would inevitably happen across the open window or blasted door, and Lord alone knew what Ambrose and Swinherd were getting up to. Added to that, de Lille could awake at any minute, and if they were caught in his room, they would have to either retreat or kill him; neither of which was the desired objective this evening.

A sniff from Grayling caught his attention and he looked around. The small thief had apparently abandoned her search of the bookcases out of frustration and had started lifting rugs. By the desk, right were Lucius had been standing, she pointed to the floor beneath a large bearskin. Set into the wood was a small metal safe.

Nodding, Lucius prompted her to open it, and she quickly drew a pick from her pack, then began probing. A thought crept into Lucius' mind, a feeling that something was not quite right, and he frowned as he tried to detect what was wrong.

The location of the safe seemed right; hidden, yet easy to access while de Lille worked at his desk. The lock seemed fairly rudimentary but, like that of the door they had just entered, it seemed as though the merchant was confident that no one would get this far into his home.

So what was it? He watched as Grayling flicked tumblers, one by one, working further into the mechanism. Giving up on his search, Lucius instead called the threads of magic to his aid, ready to shape and twist them to face whatever threat was to be unleashed.

In his mind, he saw them, pulsing cords of magical energy, each a different hue, each containing a different potential that could be caught, separated and shaped to his whim, allowing him to conjure fire, give himself inhuman strength, suck the life from another living being, or any one of a multitude of actions.

He noticed then that several threads had started to bend and twist of their own volition, and he frowned. The threads of magic always curled and twisted around one another, making the process of separating and using them difficult without practice and training, but here they appeared to be curving around
something
. He had seen that effect before, but only when in the presence of another mage, such as Adrianna. This did not look quite the same. It was more... subdued, somehow.

Grayling felt the last tumbler click and, with a satisfied smile, placed her hand on the safe's lever, ready to wrench it open.

Lucius hissed, stopping her instantly. She looked at him quizzically.

Waving her back, Lucius crouched down and studied the safe intently. He saw nothing unusual but, closing his eyes and focussing on the magical streams, he saw them split and curve far more acutely.

Opening his eyes, he saw Grayling looking at him with concern.

"Trapped," he mouthed to her, causing her to frown in puzzlement. She shrugged, ready to accept his lead. After all, she was well aware that he could sense things she would never be able to see.

Turning his attention back to the safe, he gently placed a palm flat on its surface and closed his eyes again. This time, the obstacle that forced the threads to split and curve was obvious. He saw a small nest of crackling magical energy resting in his mind's eye, its presence forcing the threads to avoid it. He knew that nest represented the safe or, at least, the magics bound within it.