Night's Haunting (30 page)

Lucius did not believe their influence would stretch that far, but the possibilities were interesting.

For his own part, Lucius had finally accepted leadership of the thieves. He still maintained that it was not something he wanted but there had been no one else he trusted. A very long conversation with Wendric had left him with the impression that the Lieutenant had risen as far in the guild as he ever intended. Wendric liked the authority he carried as the guild's second, but did not want the responsibility that went with overall leadership. He wanted to be the man behind the master, not the master himself. That left Lucius.

Deep down, Lucius had told himself that he would stay just a few years and abdicate when someone better came along. Until then, there was plenty of work to be done and the idea of shaping the guild to his own personality had an appeal.

"Good riddance to them," Grennar said, pronouncing her judgement on the Vos soldiers as they began to wind their way through the north gate.

"What is the word on the streets?" Lucius asked.

Grennar shrugged. "The people seem optimistic. Not sure why. Our new masters may not be that different from our old masters."

"Pontaine has a different way of doing things," he said.

"We will find out soon enough," Grennar said. "Their army will be here before the evening."

"That soon?" Adrianna asked.

"You don't think Vos just picked a random day to leave the city, do you? They wanted to keep their claws in the city for as long as they possibly could."

"Any rumours on this Baron?" Lucius asked.

"More than rumours. We have already had an audience."

Lucius and Adrianna turned to face her, brows raised.

"How did you manage that?" Lucius finally asked.

"It's my guild now, thief. We are doing things my way, and I always thought Sebastian limited himself by only having agents within the city walls. I simply... expanded things."

Again, Lucius chuckled.

"Impressive," Adrianna allowed. "How did your contact with the Baron go?"

"Well, by all accounts," Grennar said. "The... situation in the city was explained to de Sousse, and he has requested a meeting with the three of us."

Adrianna and Lucius glanced at each other briefly, thinking the same thoughts. It was Grennar that spoke them out loud.

"It seems the Baron de Sousse is an intelligent man. He recognises who has the power in the city and he is willing to do business with us."

Lucius smiled. "That is good work, Grennar."

She gave him a mock curtsey.

They returned to the battlements, each now lost in their own thoughts and plans as they watched the last Vos soldiers leave the city and start the long march back to the Empire.

Lucius knew he would have trouble with some of his thieves, particularly those that had been in the guild the longest. And the assassins, of course. They all knew about his Shadowmage abilities, and not all were comfortable with a wizard among their ranks, especially as they had learned how Elaine had died. The resentment would only get worse when they found out he had also pledged himself to renew his magical training under Adrianna's direction. That, of course, would carry its own dangers, but the recent events had convinced him that he could no longer turn his back on his heritage. For better or worse, he would be both thief and Shadowmage.

So, he thought, there was a new age coming for Turnitia. It might never be the free and independent city it once was, long ago, but if this new Pontaine lord was prepared to deal with guilds on the fringes of society, life was about to improve.

The world was opening up with possibilities.

THE END

Matthew Sprange

With a solid history in roleplaying and miniatures game design, Matthew Sprange has written over three dozen gaming books, including the
Babylon 5
and
Judge Dredd
roleplaying games, and has won two Origins Awards for his miniatures games.
Night's Haunting
is his third novel.

Now read the first chapter of the next exciting novel in the
Twilight of Kerberos
series...

ENGINES OF THE APOCALYPSE

Mike Wild

COMING SOON...

Chapter One

The world was plunged into darkness. There was a scream.

The scream in question came from one Maladorus Slack, entrepreneur and guide, hired only hours before by Kali Hooper after he'd approached her in the
Spider's Eyes
claiming to know the location of a forgotten passageway leading directly to the fourth level of Quinking's Depths. It was an audacious claim, and it wasn't every day that Kali trusted the word of some drunk in a backwoods tavern, but there had been something in the way Slack made it - with wariness, rather than greed, in his eyes - that had made her take a gamble on its veracity and hand over fifty full silver for the privilege of having him share it with her.

As it turned out, her money had been well spent. Slack guided her at twilight to a cave in the hills above the remote town of Solnos and deep within, pointing out an overgrown cryptoblock defence that he swore - once unlocked - would enable her to bypass the Depths' first three levels and find treasure of such value that she might, as he so colourfully put it, "come over all tremblous in the underknicks." Kali had had a word with him about this, pointing out that it was
her
business what went on in her underknicks and, far more importantly, that she didn't do what she did for the
money
. Most of the time, anyway.

She felt a bit bad now, about having pinned him against the wall. Especially considering the man's fate. Not that it was her fault - or his, really. For one thing, Slack's nervousness had threatened to make him come over all something else in the underknicks and he had stuck to her like a limpet even though she tried to shoo him away, and for another there was no way either of them could have anticipated what was going to happen once they had found what lay within the Depths.

Perhaps, though, she should have done. Perhaps the way things had gone she should have realised that the whole thing was going to go tits up.

"This cryptoblock," Slack had said as she had begun to work on it in the cramped conditions of the cave, "It is some kind of puzzle, yes?" He was crouched awkwardly between the skeletal remains of previous adventurers who had found there way there, trying to ignore the fact that every one of their bones was completely, utterly shattered.

"Not some kind of puzzle," she replied. "A very specific kind."

"You have seen such things before?"

"Once or twice. Cryptoblock defences are typical of an ancient race called the dwarves."

"The Old Race, you mean? With the pointy ears and bows?"

Kali sighed but took time to set him straight because Slack had at least heard of the Old Races, which was more than could be said of most people on the peninsula. "No, the other lot. The noisy ones with axes and blood pressure."

"Bows, axes, what does it matter?"

Slack sniffed the kind of sniff where you could hear the contents of his nostrils slop against his brain, and Kali grimaced in distaste. But as she once more felt his hot, alcoholic breath in her face, the man seemed to accept the truth of what she was saying.

"I remember. These dwarves were supposed to have been masters of deadly traps, yes?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Then this door is such a trap?"

Kali glanced at the skeletons on the floor of the cave. "Either that or these guys succumbed to a very bad case of the jitters."

Slack glanced fearfully around the cave, looking for hidden devices.

"You won't see a thing," Kali advised. "They were master engineers, too."

"Then I hope you know what you are doing!"

"Wish I did," Kali said. She was working on one particular area now, concentrating hard, tongue sticking out between her teeth between responses. "Trouble is, each cryptoblock is different... springs, balances, counterbalances... you just have to feel your way around." She suddenly pulled back with a gasp as something
sprang
inside the cryptoblock and one of its component parts snapped into place where she had delved a moment before. "Farker!" she cursed, shaking and sucking her fingers, then almost casually grabbed Slack's sleeve, pulling him aside as a solid stone fist the size of an outhouse punched down from the cave roof onto the spot where he had stood, reducing what remained of the skeletons to dust. With a grinding of hidden stone gears, the fist retracted, and Kali returned to her work, leaving Slack where he was, white-faced and with a small stain spreading on the front of his pants.

"Sorry about that," Kali said. "Getting somewhere, now."

She continued to work diligently on the puzzle for the next few minutes, Slack staring warily around himself, below and above all the while, flinching or emitting a little whimper each time there was the sound of something clicking into place in the cryptoblock. But at last there was a sound that was different to the others - somehow
final
- and Kali stood back with a sigh of satisfaction.

Slack regarded her and the cryptoblock with some puzzlement, because at first nothing seemed to happen. Then each part of the cryptoblock that Kali had repositioned retracted into another adjacent to it, which in turn retracted into adjacent parts. Other components of the cryptoblock automatically moved up or down, enveloping their neighbours or moving in or out. This reordering became faster and faster, the size of the cryptoblock diminishing all the time until Slack found himself staring at a small cube where the cryptoblock had been. For a second it simply hung there, and then Slack jumped back as it, too, retracted - this time, into itself. Nothing remained of the cryptoblock - nothing at all.

"I do not understand," he said. "It is gone. How can it be gone?"

Kali looked at him, smiled. Questions, always questions. "The corporeal stability of the cryptoblock has been transfeckled," she said, adding in response to his puzzled stare, "It's a dimension thing." She hoped it sounded convincing because, frankly, while having cracked a few of these things, she really hadn't a clue. There was no way, however, that she was going to let Slack know that.

Thankfully, Slack wasn't interested in deconstructing her statement too deeply. Because his attention had been sidetracked by other things, namely the glittering ore in the wall of the passageway revealed by the vanishing cryptoblock. It was only triviam, all but worthless, but its glittering held the promise of greater things, and as Slack wiped sweat from his lips with his arm, Kali frowned. There was a growing air about the man that suggested while he'd been happy to guide her to the entrance, he'd never really expected her to
open it
, and now that she had was maybe having second thoughts about who deserved the treasure beyond. Her suspicions were confirmed as Slack raced ahead of her into the opening.

Cursing, Kali threw herself forward and grabbed his tunic from behind, just in time as it turned out. Slack was already skidding helplessly down a sharp incline and Kali fell onto her stomach with an
oof
as she was wrenched in after him. Her dark silk bodysuit tore at the waist and rough stone grazed her torso as she skidded down in his wake, but then she hooked and jammed her feet against the sides of the narrow passageway, tearing away loose stones and crying with the effort as she applied pressure to slow their progress. They continued to slide for a few more seconds but at last came to a stop. Slack was now a dead weight on her arm, the man dangling above a dark and seemingly bottomless abyss into which the disturbed stones poured around him, clattering echoingly ever down.

Kali heaved him up. "Looks like I'm going to have to keep an eye on you in more ways than one," she chastised.

"I was - I was checking it was safe," Slack protested, breathlessly.

"Yeah, right," Kali said. She positioned herself on a safe part of the ledge, rubbed her stomach and cursed. "There are rules to this game," she added, "and rule one is watch
every
step."

A flash of resentment crossed Slack's face as he dusted himself down, but then he turned to stare into the dark, shaken by the end he had almost met with but staring with undisguised greed. Kali joined him at the edge of the abyss, wondering fleetingly whether it might be easier if she just shoved him off, but considering what it was they faced it was obvious Slack could do nothing without her.

As always, through her research, she had known roughly what to expect when coming here, but as always the expectation never quite did the reality justice. The two of them were staring into a vast natural cavern that must have extended beneath three or four of the hills surrounding Solnos, a huge expanse barred with immense stalactites and stalagmites with a pillar of azure twilight streaming down from somewhere above at its distant centre. The pillar of light was the only illumination in the darkness, and picked out an isolated column of rock, maybe six feet in diameter, whose base disappeared into the abyss below. It was clearly unreachable by conventional means but was nonetheless Kali's destination. She bit her lip and studied her distant goal. At this distance, she could not make out the details of what she knew lay there but her above average eyesight could at least discern the motes that danced in the pillar of light did so slowly, in an almost dreamlike way, as if something beneath them was affecting the reality where they hung. Something that itself played with reality. Something magical.

Kali had no doubt that she'd found what she'd come for. All she had to do was reach it.

"There?" Slack observed incredulously. "But there is no way across!"

"Rule two," Kali answered, pulling a small object from one of the pockets in her dark silk bodysuit. "Plan ahead."

Slack stared at a small, carved piece of stone Kali held in her hand, then watched her move to the rock wall, brush away some lichen from a small area and then insert the stone into a niche revealed behind. She tightened her grip on the stone and then, with a grunt, turned it solidly to the right, to the left, and then twice to the right. Something grated behind the niche and then below, in the darkness, something rumbled. Slack watched in amazement as, continuing to rumble, a rock column rose slowly from the abyss, shearing thick cobwebs, dust and the detritus of ages from itself as it came. The top of the column stopped level with the ledge on which they stood, some hundred feet out into the void.