Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [34]
The recollection whispered away.
Demascus blinked. Where’d that been? He’d had his scarf. And that was the second memory he’d recovered where he’d had that overly large runesword, the glittering ring, and the charms in his hair. But unlike the previous recollection, instead of wearing a panoply of silver armor, he’d been draped in leather armor so black it might as well have been sewn from night itself.
“Hey,” whispered Chant. “Lost you there for a moment. You all right?” The pawnbroker glanced at him nervously.
“Sorry. Yeah, I have a little skill at skulking, or at least getting past locks. But I don’t have my tools.”
“You remembered something?”
“Just a flash. I may have once possessed passable skills as a lockbreaker. And better fashion sense.” He fiddled with the design on one of his cuffs.
Chant studied him a moment, as if suddenly wondering whether Demascus was of sound mind. The pawnbroker apparently decided Demascus wasn’t about to lose the rest of his mind then and there because he said, “I hope your body can recall what you cannot. We’ll approach along the left side of the street. Stick to the shadows.”
Chant advanced, and Demascus followed. The pudgy man impressed Demascus with the loose ease of his gait and his ability to slip in and out of the light. Demascus attempted to do the same.
After a few paces, he found he could replicate Chant’s stealth nearly move for move. The darkness was like a cloak he could pull across himself, almost at will. A wave of pure enjoyment swept through him, and he had to concentrate not to grin like a madman.
When they reached the side of the tower, Chant raised a hand.
“What?” whispered Demascus.
Chant shook his head, and tapped his ear.
Demascus listened. Very faintly came the merest intimation of a regular sound from the tower. Not so much a boom, but a vibration through the stone. Each beat corresponded with a flicker of light from the shuttered windows high above them.
The pawnbroker dashed forward, darting into an alcove along the tower’s side Demascus hadn’t even noticed.
Demascus followed, and found the pawnbroker huddled over the lock of a small service door. The hook and wire in Chant’s hands were akin to the ones Demascus had seen in the vision of himself, if a bit rustier.
He lowered himself so his eyes were even with Chant’s. He couldn’t quite recall the name of the little metal sliding parts inside the lock, but his hands moved in sympathy with the pawnbroker’s. He grinned.
The lock snicked. “We’re in,” Chant said. He stowed his picks in their cloth case and rolled it up. Then he inched open the door and peered in. A beat later, he pushed into the space beyond. Demascus followed and quietly closed the door after.
They stood in a dingy pantry lit by a flickering taper held by Chant. By the dim light Demascus saw shelves stacked with provisions of every sort. The neatly organized chamber appealed to him, but he felt suddenly nervous.
“Chant,” he whispered. “How is it that by picking a single lock on a service door, we now stand inside a wizard’s tower? Seems too easy.”
“You were expecting a magic ward, or a guardian drake maybe?”
“Uh, something like that, given how you’ve described Chevesh.”
The pawnbroker nodded and dropped his picks into his satchel, one that hardly seemed big enough to contain the bundle. He said, “The thing about Chevesh is that he’s really crazy. Word on the street is that he doesn’t guard his tower because that means he can pretty much do what he wants to people stupid enough to break in here—of course, the thieves of Airpur know this. Everyone gives Chevesh’s tower a wide berth.”
“What do you mean, ‘do what he wants’?”
Chant shrugged. He said, his voice hardly more than a whisper, “That’s the question,