Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [34]
Elminster watched the jewelry rise and fall, ever so slightly, with her slow and even breathing. If it was like others he'd seen, the spider could be unclasped to be worn alone as a cloak-pin.
If… a touch, just so-a wiggle to be sure it was caught… and now so was he (This had to work, or he'd be left with a stick twice as long as a man stuck to the breast of a naked woman who'd not stay asleep for very long)… and a little lift, up and back, so. Don't brush her nose with it, now… with infinite care and patience El brought the reachers back out of the window.
When he dropped the jewels into the bag and jerked the rope for Farl to pull him up, he felt that the spider was still warm from her breathing. Elminster smelled the musky scent clinging to it, sighed soundlessly, and wondered fleetingly what women were like…
*****
"With those, we can live like idle rich blades for five tendays, at least," Farl said, eyes shining in the dim light of their hovel hideaway.
"Aye," Elminster said, "and get noticed in three evenings. Just who d'ye think we think we can sell that spider to in this city? We'll have to wait for a discreet merchant-who's got something to hide an' knows we know it-leaving the city, and sell it to him then. Nay; we sell the ring with the emerald this night, before word gets out; no marks there to say it's hers for certain. Then we lie low-back to hanging around the Black Boots waiting for hire as dockhands and errand-runners."
Farl stared at him for a moment, mouth open to protest, but then closed it in a smile and nodded. "You've the right of it as usual, Eladar. You've the cunning of an alley cat, to be sure."
Elminster shrugged. "I'm still alive, if that's what ye mean. Let's go discover some place that serves drink to young blades with dry throats and loose purses."
Farl laughed, slid the bag back into the hollow stone block, clambered up the ragged stones of the crumbling chimney, and shoved the block the full length of his arm back into the dark, hollow space between floor and ceiling. Withdrawing his arm from the splinter-edged hole, he replaced the dead, dangling, half-eaten rat they used to deter searchers, and slid back down the chimney to the floor.
Around them, the gloomy back room of the shut-up cobbler's shop stank from its occasional use as a toilet by cats, dogs, drunks, and stray street folk. The cobbler had died of black-tongue fever early in the spring, and sane folk made no plans to disturb the place until at least a season had passed. Then it would be smoked to clear disease-vapors and torn down; by then,
Farl and Elminster planned to have a new and better loot-cache among the ornamental roof-spires of the proud houses near Hastarl's north wall. They had their eyes on a tall residence whose roof sported crouching, snarling sculpted gargoyles; if one could be beheaded and hollowed out without anyone in the grand house beneath noticing, they'd have an ideal place. Aye, 'if.'
The two youths nodded to each other, knowing their silent thoughts had skulked along the same alley. Farl peered out the watch hole and after a moment waved Elminster on. He stepped unconcernedly out into the narrow, dark passage outside, and slipped away. Farl followed, dagger drawn-just in case. It was a full breath later before any of the rats dared come out into the open to get at the moldy slab of cheese the young thieves had thoughtfully left behind.
*****
The Kissing Wench was a loud, crowded press of goodfolk- ribaldry and slapping and pinching, pursuit of a night's lust, roared jests and tossed coins, and reckless chase of wine-soaked oblivion. Farl and Eladar took their tankards to their favorite dark corner, just off the bar, where they could see who came in but be seen only by the night-sighted and the determined.
Their spot was occupied already, of course, by ladies whose names they knew