Luthien found the sights and sounds heartening in a strange way, a confirmation that his conclusions of Greensparrow and the unlawful and ultimately evil kingdom were indeed correct. He sympathized with the folk who lived in that hidden bowl west of the city’s splendor, but their existence gave him heart for the fight.
Oliver tugged on his cloak, stopping him.
“Close enough,” the halfling whispered, pointing up to the side of the palace, looming dark and tall not so far away.
“Here now!” came a bellow from the wall, a guttural, cyclopian voice, and both friends dropped into a crouch, Luthien pulling the hood of his cape over his head and Oliver scampering under the folds of the magical crimson garment.
On the wall, several lanterns came up, hooded on three sides to focus the beam of light through the fourth. Luthien held his breath, reminding himself repeatedly that the cape would hide him as the beams crossed the field before him and over him.
“Get back to your holes!” the cyclopian roared and from the wall, several crossbows fired.
“I would like it better if the one-eyes could see us,” Oliver remarked.
The barrage continued for several volleys and was then ended by a shared burst of grunting laughter from the wall. “Beggars!” one cyclopian snorted derisively, followed by more laughter.
Oliver came out from under the crimson garment and straightened his great, wide-brimmed hat and his own purple cape. He pointed to the south, toward the towering palace wall, and the pair moved on a few dozen yards.
Oliver went right up to the wall, listening intently, then nodding and smiling at the sound of snoring from above. He pushed his cape back from his shoulder and reached into the shoulder pouch of his “housebreaker,” a harness of leather strapping that Brind’Amour had given him. Oliver wore the contraption all the time, though it was hardily noticeable against his puffy sleeves and layered, brightly colored clothing. It seemed to be no more than a simple, unremarkable harness, but like Brind’Amour himself, the looks were truly deceiving. This harness was enchanted, like many of the items it contained: tools of the burglary trade. From that seemingly tiny shoulder pouch, Oliver produced his enchanted grapnel, the puckered ball and fine cord. But before he could unwind and ready the thing, Luthien came over and scooped him up.
Oliver understood; the wall was only eight feet high, and Luthien could hoist him right to its lip. Quickly, the halfling looped the grapnel openly on his belt, within easy reach, and then he grabbed the lip of the wall, peering over.
A parapet ran the length of the wall on the other side, four feet down from the lip. Oliver looked back to Luthien, a wicked grin on his face. He put a finger over pursed lips, then held it up, indicating that Luthien should wait a moment. Then the halfling slipped over the wall, silent as a cat—a little cat, not the kind they had heard roaring earlier.
A moment later, while Luthien grew agitated and wanted to leap up and scramble over, Oliver came back to the wall and held out his hand to his friend. Luthien jumped and caught the lip of the wall with one hand, Oliver’s hand with the other. He came over low, slithering like a snake, rolling silently to the parapet.
Luthien’s eyes nearly fell from their sockets, for he and Oliver were right between two seated cyclopians! The startlement lasted only a moment, stolen by the simple logic that Oliver had been up here and knew the scene. On closer examination, Luthien realized that neither of these brutes was snoring any longer. Luthien looked to Oliver as the halfling wiped the blood from his slender rapier blade on the furred tunic of one dead brute.
Barely thirty feet away, the other group, the ones who had fired at the companions, continued a game of dice, oblivious to the invasion.
Oliver slipped under Luthien’s cape and the two started off slowly, away from the dicing band, toward the looming wall of Princetown’s palace.
They had to slip down from the wall and cross a small courtyard to get to the building, but it was lined with manicured hedgerows, and with Luthien’s cape helping them, they had little trouble reaching the palace. Oliver looked up at the line of windows, four high. Light came from the first and second, but the third was much dimmer and the fourth was completely dark.
The halfling held up three fingers, and with a final glance around to make sure that no cyclopians were nearby, he twirled his grapnel and let fly, attaching it to the marble wall beside the third-story window.
The marble was as smooth as glass, but the puckered ball held fast, and after testing it, Oliver scampered up. Luthien watched from below as the halfling again went to his harness, producing a suction cup with a wide arm attached. Oliver listened at the window for a moment, then popped the cup onto it and slowly but firmly moved the compass arm in a circle, against the glass.
Oliver came back down a moment later, bearing the cut glass. “The room is emp—” he began, but he stopped and froze, hearing the approach of armored guards.
Luthien stepped up and swooped his cape over Oliver, then fell back against the wall, the halfling in tow.
Half a dozen cyclopians, wearing the black-and-silver uniforms of Praetorian Guards, came around the corner in tight formation, the one farthest from the wall carrying a blazing torch. Luthien ducked low under his hood, bending his head forward so that the cowl would completely block his face. He held his confidence in the enchanted cape, but could only hope now that the brutes wouldn’t notice the fine cord hanging down the side of the palace wall, and hope, too, that the cydopians didn’t accidentally walk right into him!
They passed less than four feet away, right by Oliver and Luthien as though the two weren’t even there. Indeed, to the cyclopians, they were not, purely invisible under the folds of the crimson cape.
As soon as the brutes were out of sight, Luthien moved out of hiding and Oliver jumped to the cord, climbing quickly, hand over hand. Luthien braced the rope for a moment, allowing Oliver to get up to the second story, then the young Bedwyr also took a tight hold and began to climb, wanting to be off the ground as quickly as possible.
It seemed like many minutes drifted by, but in truth, the two friends were inside the palace in the space of a few heartbeats. Oliver reached out through the hole in the window and gave three sharp tugs on the cord, freeing the puckered ball and pulling it in behind him. Gone without a trace—except for the circle of cut glass lying on the grass and the image of a shadow, a crimson shadow, indelibly stained upon the white wall of the palace.
Luthien settled himself and waited for his eyes to adjust to the shift in the level of darkness. They were in the palace, but where to go? How many scores of rooms could they possibly search?
“He will be near the middle,” reasoned Oliver, who knew his way around nobility fairly well. “In the rooms to one or the other side of the dome. That dome signals the chapel; the duke will not be far from it.”
“I thought the cathedral was the chapel,” Luthien said.
“Duke-types and prince-types are lazy,” Oliver replied. “They keep a chapel in their palace home.”
Luthien nodded, accepting the reasoning.
“But the dungeons will be below,” Oliver went on. He saw the horrified look crossing his friend’s face and quickly added, “I do not think this Duke Paragor would put so valuable a prisoner as Katerin in the dungeons. She is with him, I think, or near to him.”
Luthien did not reply, just tried hard to keep his breathing steady. Oliver took that as acceptance of his reasoning.