Den of Thieves. David Chandler
Knowing that was important. When he made his escape from this place, he would need to know where to run to first.
Wherever he was, though, he had to admit he was very thirsty. He lifted the lid and sipped carefully at the contents, thinking it must be some medicinal draught—but in fact it was only small beer. A drink fit for children.
“You like that, boy?” Bikker asked.
“I’m not an infant,” Malden said, taking a long drink. “I’m almost twenty. Please stop calling me ‘boy.’”
Bikker smiled broadly, showing off the gaps where some of his teeth used to be. “You going to try to run off again, boy, as soon as you can stand? Or are you going to talk to me now?”
Cythera glanced around the room. Whenever her blue eyes passed over one of the staring patrons, they flinched and looked away. “Bikker,” she said, “we need more privacy than this. Where should we go?”
“I’m tired out after chasing this cur,” Bikker told her. “I like this place just fine. You lot, out now. Barkeep, you can go, too.”
“By Sadu’s eight elbows, I will not,” the barkeep told him. “Just run off like a scolded brat, and leave you here with my till and all my stock?” She snorted in derision.
Bikker shrugged hugely. Then he reached behind him and drew his sword.
It made a strange slick sound as it came out of its scabbard, and when revealed, was not the shiny length of steel Malden had expected. Instead it looked like a bar of iron, three feet long, with no real edge. The iron was pitted and rough, like something that had been left in a tomb for centuries before it was picked up again. It looked a little slick, too—and as Malden watched, bubbles formed on its surface, then congregated in thick clots until it looked like the sword was drooling. A drop of the clear fluid ran down the sword’s edge and dripped on the dirt floor, where it hissed and smoked on the packed earth.
“You may wish to move aside,” Bikker said to Malden, who jumped off the table quickly, ignoring the throbbing pain in his face and head. Bikker swung the sword around in a wide arc that brought it crashing down on the oak table. With an explosive hiss like a dozen angry snakes striking at once, the blade sank through the thick wood and through the other side. The table fell in two halves, split clean down the middle, against the grain of the wood. The wetness of the blade—it must be vitriol, Malden realized, of some very potent type—gave off foul vapors that stung his nose. For a moment he could do naught but look at the sundered table. It was still bubbling and dissolving wherever the acid sword had touched it. Then he looked up and saw that everyone—patrons and barkeep alike—had fled the room.
“There,” Bikker said. “Privacy.”
Cythera sighed deeply, though there was an affectation to the sound that made Malden think she was accustomed to being annoyed with Bikker’s antics. “They’ll be back soon enough. And they’ll probably bring the watch.”
Bikker shrugged. He sheathed his sword. Malden saw that the interior of the scabbard was lined with glass, no doubt to keep the acid from burning its way through. The big man said, then, “So let us speak quickly to the boy, and then we can all be on our way. Boy,” Bikker called.
“Malden. At least use my name.”
“Boy,” Bikker said, walking over behind the bar and pouring himself a pitcher full of strong ale, “you are a thief, is that correct? This wasn’t the first time you ever cut a purse. Judging by the way you scampered up those rooftops, I imagine you’ve done this sort of thing before.”
“Listen,” Malden said, “the silver I took from you, it’s all—it’s here somewhere.” He reached down across his chest and realized that his sling and his fake arm had been removed. Looking up, he saw that Cythera held them—and his bodkin, too. “I’ll give it back, right? And everything else I took today, you can have that as well. Just let me go.”
“Bugger the silver! There’s plenty more where it came from!” Bikker shouted. He lifted his pitcher and drank lustily from it until foam drenched his beard.
“We don’t wish to punish you,” Cythera said. “We wish to hire a skilled thief for … well, our purposes must remain unspoken, of course. We wish to hire a master thief for a certain job.”
More where it came from, Malden thought. More silver. Enough the brute didn’t even bother keeping hold of the pittance he’d had with him. More. “Are you?” he said. “Well, luck is with you, for I—”
“Can you recommend anyone like that?” Cythera asked.
“I—I can indeed,” Malden said, and raised himself up to his full height. “I know a thief with no equal in the Free City. One more than up to whatever task you set him.” He gave her his most dashing look.
“Yes?” she said patiently.
“Milady, I am at your service.”
She frowned. “No, I mean, what is his name, this paragon of thieves?”
“It’s—well, me.”
Bikker laughed so hard he spilled his ale. Cythera’s face didn’t change, but her icy blue eyes looked Malden up and down and then flicked away.
“We don’t want a pickpocket, boy! We want a thief. A … a burglar, a … second story man, a—”
“And I tell you, you’ve found him.” Malden brushed past Cythera—she gave a short gasp as he nearly touched her—and over to stand before Bikker. He had to look up to meet the swordsman’s gaze but he held it. “Why, just the other day, Cutbill, the master of thieves, expressed his deep admiration for my skills. He listened to the story of how I stole plate and silver from Guthrun Whiteclay’s house and said he’d never heard of a finer scheme enacted so skillfully. And he should know.”
“Cutbill.” Bikker glanced across at Cythera. “You’re one of his crew?”
“Indeed,” Malden said.
“Only—we need this to stay between us. It can’t get back to him, or the world will know our business. At least, it will if it has the coppers to buy the information.”
“Discretion is my watchword. Though it does cost extra.”
Bikker shook his head and quaffed more ale.
“You’ve seen how quick I am,” Malden insisted.
“We did, at that,” Cythera agreed. “He would have gotten away from you, Bikker, if I hadn’t been there to distract him. And the man we need will have to know how to climb. He showed us that as well.”
The swordsman hunched his shoulders. He was half convinced, Malden knew, and he already had Cythera on his side. Time to close the deal, before Bikker could reconsider.
“For this job I will require the sum of one hundred and one gold royals,” Malden announced.
Bikker smiled. “You haven’t yet heard what it entails. We might be getting a bargain for that price.”
A bargain at one hundred and one royals? More silver where that came from, Bikker had said. How much more? “Of course, that does not include incidentals, the fees of the dwarf who makes my gear, bribe money, hazard bonuses, surcharges for quick resolution, gratuities—”
Bikker leaned back against the bar. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Malden.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The sorcerer Aelbron Hazoth lived in an imposing four story edifice where the Lady’s sacred parklands abutted the city wall, most of the way downhill from the palace, in the district called Parkwall.
It was not the safest district in town, though it had its recommending features. Like the Ashes, it had originally been a residential district for the poor until it burned down in the Seven Day Fire. Unlike that wasteland, Parkwall had been laboriously cleared, the remains of the