《The Thief and the Warlock》


 The Full Moon

    ¡°Careful tonight¡± Runa cautioned as she handed him a steaming cup of something purple. ¡°Oops, hoold on,¡± She spun around, fingers and nose twitching, until she settled on a strange orange blossom that was growing from a particularly devious-looking purple vine. She plunked a few petals into his drink, which promptly turned a bright fuchsia.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to be careful if you¡¯re good,¡± Sven retorted, inhaling the minty fumes of his Elemental Protection Potion. Runa called it ¡°sweater potion¡± for its ability to keep its drinker warm and dry, even in the worst blizzard. Sven would need that warmth tonight. The temperature had dropped steadily as the night had settled and the misty haze that had descended around them had already soaked him thoroughly on his way over.


    He saw the slightly wounded look on her face and quickly recalibrated his tone. ¡°I¡¯ll be careful¡± he said, more softly. He downed the remnants of the potion, grateful for the tingles of warmth that had already begun to spread to his icy toes. He threw her a meek, boyish smile and made a mental note (for the millionth time) to be more ¡°mindful¡± (a Runa word for sure) of her sensitive nature in the future. It was the elf in her.


    Her mere existence forbidden, Runa had endured the same outcast status that Sven, as an orphan, had long experienced. Family was everything here; no name, no bloodline, no status. He knew he should be more patient with Runa, she was, as it were, his oldest and closest friend. His only friend. Her tendency to assume a maternal tone was irritating, but he knew that he should be thankful that there was someone to worry. ¡°What difference does a moonphase make in the scheme of things anyway?¡± He fiddled idly with the ring on his left hand, and then the one on his right, betraying to his old friend the true state of his nerves.


    ¡°Full moons are great and powerful forces¡± Runa replied, forwarningly, her childlike features so stern and serious that Sven had to turn an escaping giggle into a cough.


    ¡°You know¡­¡± Sven told her, leaning back in his chair to gaze at the strange pots and herbs that Runa had strung across the ceiling of her tiny, warm cottage ¡°MOST people don¡¯t keep track of things like moon phases. If we were in a horror movie, you talking about moon phases would be a dead giveaway that you were the one axe-murdering everyone¡± He shot her a rye, crooked smile to let her know that he was only teasing.


    ¡°What a ridiculous human trope,¡± Runa murmured, half pouting, half bewildered, as if humans were a baffling and adorably mysterious to her, despite the human father that had given her half of her genes. ¡°Anyone with half a brain knows that full moons are omens of great and powerful change¡±.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°Hopefully that change tonight is my stomach going from empty to full,¡± He stopped fiddling with his rings and planted the feet of his chair back, firmly, onto the ground. He exhaled noisily and closed his eyes for a second, gathering his thoughts before he rose from his chair. Now was the time.


    As a frosted wind rustled through the trees above him, Sven crouched silently in the boscage about fifteen meters from his mark. He was closer to home than he¡¯d like, but the end of the year cold had come in fast and unforgivingly this year, and he needed something to line his belly other than what little small game he had managed to snare thus far. The Thieves¡¯ Hamlet was communal in name only; there it was every man, woman, and child for themselves. Need a partner for a job? Sure, but you better be willing to fork over fifty percent of your loot. Some venison for your stew? As long as you had a few Self Flying Arrows you were willing to part with. Favors and handouts were not a thief''s way of life. The cold had come too soon and the jobs had been too scarce this year. Heavy crackdowns on thievery by the Council meant that the ratio of risk to reward had a taken a sharp turn for the worse.


    And so here he was, only a half a day¡¯s walk from Thief''s Hamlet and alone. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, picturing his target in his mind¡¯s eye, walking himself through each step of his plan of attack. The changing of the guards should be any minute. Even through their layers of coarse wool coats,Sven could tell that the hired hands patrolling the secluded castle felt tonight¡¯s chill. He could see the snowy crystals forming on their collars and eyelashes as they shifted back and forth between feet, trying to keep blood flowing in their no-doubt numb toes; he made a mental note to be sure to use some of any spoils from this job to get Runa some of that weird tofu gook that she loved. Thank dragons for her sweater potion, or else the guards would have discovered him in tomorrow¡¯s daylight, a Svencicle in the snow.


    He¡¯d been watching Castle Bhatt for three weeks (or one cycle of the moon- if you wanted to be axe-murdery like Runa, Sven thought, suppressing a chuckle) and had seen enough to know that not even the rumored hoards of riches that the Castle Bhatt held could persuade the incoming guards to rush into the winter air and leave their warm meals and space heaters behind in the guard quarters. The current patrolmen were in as much in a hurry to get out of the cold as their replacements were uneager to get into it; which usually left a six minute gap as the next group slowly shuffled their heavy boots into the snow. Watching the first eager guard turn to head homeward, Sven pulled the watch from his pocket, setting the timer. Six minutes, if he was lucky. If he wasn¡¯t, well, there wouldn¡¯t be much to worry about- because he¡¯d be dead.

 The Castle Bhatt

    The castle stood before him, a hundred feet tall, turrets towering, flags whipping in the wind, a hundred black windows gaping back at him, seemingly just as impressed with the formidable-looking palace. Sven was no stranger to castles, they littered the realm, but most of them had ¡°modernized¡±, or ¡°re-modernized¡±, or whatever: fancy light and water shows danced about in extravagant fountains and pools, grey walls were painted with elaborate murals and colors (He was pretty sure that the current go-to was a particularly horrendous shade of magenta.), and, of course, a staff of Magicians kept on the grounds to keep the many rooms lit, the plumbing running and the Self-Sweeping Brooms sweeping.


    Divit Bhatt, the mysterious sole occupant of Castle Bhatt, save for the eight guards that he employed around the clock, had seemingly embraced the downfall of ¡°technology¡±. His fortress stood, tall, dark, foreboding, and mercilessly ¡°medieval¡±. Sven compulsively spun the ring on his left hand, and then the one on his right, before taking a deep breath and emerging from his place in the shadows, his footprints already filling with the wet, heavy snow, erasing any evidence that he had been there at all.


    He knew exactly where he was going, his surveillance had been through and very rewarding: besides the six minute gap in guard shifts, he had also managed to snag a copy of the ¡°Coming and Goings¡± schedule that hung in the guard house when on a particularly lucky day when the occupants had spent the night before (and most of the early morning) at the tavern in town, rendering them VERY unaware of their surroundings when they managed to stumble themselves home and into bed.


    Today and all of tomorrow Master Bhatt was informatively marked as ¡°Out and Not To Be Bothered¡±, as opposed to ¡°At Home and Not To Be Disturbed¡±. Sven gathered that he was a man whom valued his privacy. After he managed to slip through the gap in guard coverage (two minutes to spare, the night was looking up) he carefully made his way to the posterior side of the fortress, gingerly making his way through the drifting snow in the way that would leave the least evidence of his visit. He was pretty sure, very sure, that no one had seen him come and if he had it his way, his exit would be just as smooth, but it was strictly against the Thief¡¯s Code to ever be certain of anything, so he took precautions all the same, dragging a small piece of a pine switch behind him in the snow. He stopped in front of a small wooden door, perfectly inconspicuous to the untrained eye and with a final look over his shoulder for trouble, he removed the Master Key from the leather pouch on his hip.


    The Master Key was a peculiar piece of equipment; it looked rather like what a swiss army knife might look like mated with a screwdriver and a combination lock. It was about the length and width of Sven¡¯s index finger at the moment, though he was busying himself pulling and flipping it this way and that and it was rapidly expanding to the size of his forearm.You would be hard-pressed to find a stranger-looking tool, or one more helpful for his line of work. He had procured it when he had managed to get his hands onto a decent set of forged work papers and had enjoyed a short-lived stint as a locksmith¡¯s apprentice. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    He had quite liked the work, it had been fun to be PAYED to break into things for a change, but the Council had cracked down on forgeries only a couple of months later and he had been forced back into his life of breaking into places against their owner¡¯s wishes, but not before he managed to snag the locksmith¡¯s very rare tool. He felt bad about that sometimes, stealing it from a man who had shown him only kindness and patience, but it was always better to feel guilt than to feel hunger (another kernel of wisdom from the Thieve¡¯s Code).


    As far as he knew, this was one of the only Master Keys not held in the realm¡¯s vault for Unapproved or Unidentified Magical Material , or ¡°UUMM¡±, and he had to admit, this was not without good reason. He had yet to meet a lock that the Master Key could not pick; he shuddered at the thought of it in the wrong hands, and then, reassessing his situation, felt a sheepish red glow creeping on his face that was definitely not from the cold. Fine, then, wrong-ER hands.


    He set his sight on the very well disguised, very modern lock on the door and pressed the Master Key to it, hooking the stethoscope earpieces that had emerged from it into his ears and listening intently to the internal ¡°tick tick tick¡± ing of the lock. He had felt both impressed and exhilarated when he had first noticed that this inconspicuous door had actually been outfitted with the most complex lock system on the market. He knew that this would be very much worth his while the second he had registered that lock; you didn¡¯t drop that many Qyiri on a lock for your average, nothing to hide, definitely no treasure basement.


    Sven, after his first week of surveillance, had deduced that the guards were either unaware of this door or too cocky in their assumption that no one would ever get passed their front patrol. He guessed it was probably the former, simply because that¡¯s what he would have done: don¡¯t tell the guards what they don¡¯t need to know, don¡¯t hire a snoopy, stuck-up Magician to cast any fancy Spellwork, just buy the best lock money could buy, one that had never successfully been picked, and sit back to enjoy his very safe and very secret treasure. He suspected that Divit Bhatt shared his mistrust of all other creatures.


    ¡°And with good reason¡± he thought to himself as he watched the numbers on the Master Key¡¯s middle spin rapidly, around and around.


    It took longer than usual for the Master Key to work its (literal) magic, which he had suspected would be the case with a lock of this caliber, but the extra minute felt like an eternity to Sven. At exactly the moment he had simultaneously become sure that both the Master Key had failed and that the guards had discovered some carelessly left bootprint and were about to come around the corner to discover him standing there, defenseless, the numbers on the Master Key finally clicked into place and the unpickable lock clicked open, the door unlatching with a reluctant groan. Sven took a deep breath, and quietly slid himself into the dark hallway that had appeared in front of him, making sure to reset the lock behind him as he flipped and folded the Master Key back down to size and slipped it back into his purse. He had absolutely no idea what was so carefully and secretly locked away here, but he was really hoping it wasn¡¯t a dragon.

 Behind Door Number Two

    Sven had followed the dark hallway for some time, sensing all the while that he was traveling deeper under Castle Bhatt with each twist and turn. He had managed not to get a face full of wall by using the Expandable Unsnuffable Torch that he had received as payment for the last big job he had helped with. His lock picking skills were pretty legendary in Thieve¡¯s Hamlet, though no one knew about his secret weapon, and until the law crackdown four months ago had made big scores too risky, he had been the go-to guy for group jobs that involved a door that couldn¡¯t be conquered by brute force.


    Now he seemed to have come to the end of the winding tunnel and his reward appeared to be a second door. The lock on this one was not nearly so well hidden, nor so modern; it was a bizarre-looking contraption about the size of Sven¡¯s fist and located directly above the handle of the door: for one thing it was shaped in an intricate pyramid, seemingly made up of thousands of tiny pieces, all interlocking perfectly, and for another thing, it appeared to be made entirely of solid gold.


    Sven shrugged and removed the Master Key from his purse once more, flicking out attachments and pulling the Key into it¡¯s full, extended shape before again placing the earbuds in his ears and putting the Key to the door. He twisted the pyramid one way, and then the other, spinning it 360 degrees in both directions. He shifted, uneasily, from one foot to the other and carefully readjusted the Master Key, removed it, vigorously rubbed its surface, and replaced it. There was no sound.


    Okay, so, no numbers, no letters, no sound, no apparent signs of Magic (This seemed way too subtle for a Magician¡¯s handiwork, they were all about flair and signatures, which this simple piece lacked, and nothing smelled of vanilla, a scent which always lingered around Spells and Magical items.), no keyhole. Sven rocked back onto his heels, Master Key in hand, and then, on a whim, packaged away the Key and attempted to pull the pyramid from the door altogether. The bottom two corners lifted easily, but the top two remained attached to the door. He looked at his hand, holding it half-aloft and laughed aloud as he realized he was holding a door knocker.


    So childlike and delighted in his discovery, Sven let the knocker fall hard against the door without a single thought about the possible consequences.


    ¡°Crap¡±. Every possible result of his thoughtless actions came to him in the next second, and there were very few good (as in not ending in death via a thief''s hanging, so setting the bar pretty low) outcomes. Lacking a better plan, he simply pressed himself flat against the wall of the tunnel, holding his breath. There was a sudden whirlwind of movement that even his lifetime as a cynical criminal had not prepared him for. Whatever this was, it was moving faster than Sven¡¯s eyes could comprehend. He felt a tight, pinching pressure on his shins and looked down to see they had been completely covered in a dark rope. Confused, he looked up from his shins to see the whirlwind halt and slowly become a recognizable figure. A bony finger came into focus as it stretched toward his incapacitated legs. There was a quick, surprisingly powerful shove, and then, before he had figured out what was happening, he was falling backwards.


    ¡°Imp¡± was his last thought before his head collided with the stone floor of the hallway and blackness enveloped him.


    * * * * * * * * * *


    It was cold. That was the first sign that something had gone very, very wrong. He shouldn¡¯t be able to tell that it was cold. Runa¡¯s sweater potion should have been keeping him from feeling any kind of way about the surrounding temperature. The Elemental Protection Potion had a lifespan of close to a day and a half, and he was cold. Accounting for the travel time to Castle Bhatt from Runa¡¯s cottage and all of his (conscious) activities there, he should still have had plenty of time left. He had been out a long time.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    Sven¡¯s eyes spung open as the full understanding of his situation finally settled on him. He sat up and shook his head, trying to straighten out the jumble of thoughts that were scrambling around his skull. Waves of realizations were followed by waves of panic as his brain struggled to keep up with itself. He must have hit his head very hard. His thoughts felt separated, like there was some kind of invasive obstacle between understanding his situation and understanding what his situation meant.


    He was sitting on a huge, sturdy table, located in the center of a well-lit room. The table appeared to be the only piece of furniture in the entire room, but the walls were absolutely covered in bizarre objects that Sven could not even begin to guess the function of. Some of them certainly looked like they could be weapons of some sort, various sharp points and chains hung haphazardly off of objects, but they were like none he had ever seen. One wall held only glass vials, a motley assortment of sizes, that held a rainbow of colors inside: some a glowing gold that seemed to emit light, some a dark, swirling purple, others a deep, murky black. Potions, maybe? Although Runa was the most accomplished Potions Master that he had ever even heard of, and she and her thin, leather-bound recipe book probably could have only managed to fill a tenth of the vials on this wall. Sven could be sure of three things at this point: the first was that whomever this room belonged to was practicing Magic; the second was that and they had gone to pretty awesome lengths to ensure that nobody found that out. The third thing of which he could be absolutely certain of was that neither of the first two bode very well for him.


    Just as his thoughts had finally begun to run linear again instead of in dizzy circles of panic, there was a thud and the metal scrape of a heavy door latch being lifted. Now he was remembering. He was thinking straight again and had the sudden, terrifying remembrance that he had not, in fact, been alone in this room. There had been another presence when he had entered, and, if he had not hallucinated it, that presence had been an Imp.


    Imps were notoriously solitary and private creatures. Although he had encountered the occasional Imp in the Thieves Hamlet, Sven had never heard any of them emit more than a grunt to indicate they needed a refill of grog, or a mumbled utterance of annoyance when someone blocked their way (they only stood three foot tall, so this was a fairly common problem for them). Originally Imps had been great and powerful creatures that served as Magical assistants to a Warlock. They sometimes lent their powers to their Master if they meant to cast a particularly draining or difficult spell, and often were expected to perform some of the more ¡°mundane¡± Magics in a Warlock¡¯s household that were necessary to keep the hedges trimmed and the dirty dishes from piling up in the sink.


    Over the years, as Magic had waned and Warlocks had become scarce, Imps had become more and more ostracized from both the Magical world and the human one. Humans began to fear them and their power; what had once seemed insignificant in comparison to the great Wizards and Warlocks that had populated the land had suddenly become the most powerful beings around. The Magical world had long rejected them; they had spent too many years living and working amongst humans. Though a Magical Creature might spend the odd night in a human-run inn, or do occasional business with a nearby human tradesman, it was considered in bad taste to familiarize themselves with any human persons, even the ones that had some understanding of Magic. While casual relationships were frowned upon, romantic ones were strictly forbidden, which explained Runa¡¯s forbidden existence. By working for a human Master, Imps had fallen to the very bottom of the hierarchical order. When Magic had begun to peeter out of human life, Magical Creatures had followed its lead, retreating back into the shadows. Imps had done their best to follow suit, but had ultimately found themselves stuck in an uncomfortable limbo; outcasts of both societies.


    There were quite a few reasons why you didn¡¯t want to find yourself on an Imp¡¯s bad side. The lingering dislike of humans in general aside, Imps were not only capable of small Magics, but they, themselves possessed Magical qualities. Endowed with ferocious speed and near-immortal, an Imp was a terrible enemy to make. And Sven had certainly not made a good first impression. Suddenly, there came the distinct sound of metal hitting wood. The door knocker. The door swung open, and Sven turned to face his fate.