“Why are we bringing the moklek? You didn’t want a monkey. Surely a moklek is no better?”
“It is a very smart moklek,” said Mister Fitz. “As opposed to a particularly stupid monkey. And it may prove useful. As I said, its presence provides an opportunity. One that may be lost if we don’t procure the ivories quickly.”
Sir Hereward sighed, hefted his dagger, and sidled through the open doorway and along a short corridor into the countinghouse proper. He had expected this large chamber to also be dark, but it was filled with moonlight, courtesy of a large, ragged round hole in the eastern wall where something sorcerous or immensely acidic had melted through a three-foot thickness of good red brick.
The person presumably responsible for this absence of wall was in the middle of the room, opening drawers in Montaul’s trading desk, a massive piece of powerful but ugly furniture that had dozens of drawers in great columns of polished mahogany on the left and right of the actual writing surface, a slab of Perridel marble characteristically veined with gold.
She whirled around as Hereward took another step though he thought he’d been extremely stealthy, and, in the next instant, he had to parry away not one but two thrown daggers, which flew clattering to the wall and the floor. She followed that up by jumping to the desk and then to the ceiling, running along it upside down by virtue of Ikithan spider-slippers, dropping on Hereward from above in a move that he fortunately recognized as the vertical shearing scissor-leg attack of the long-defunct but still influential warrior nuns of the Red Morn Convent, and so was able to adopt the countermove of swaying aside and delivering two quick punches to the head as she descended. One of the punches was with the pommel of his dagger, and so particularly efficacious. The thief, as she must be, dropped to the floor long enough for Sir Hereward to press a knee on her back and place the point of his dagger in the nape of her neck, angled so that it would strike through to the brain with little effort.
“Move and you die,” he rasped. “Also, we are not guards, but visitors like yourself, so there is no profit in employing any unusual stratagem or sorcery you may be considering.”
“You are trespassers, then,” said the woman coolly. She was dressed in thieves’ garb, entirely in dark grey, a single suit of it like a cold-weather undergarment, complete with a padded hood. Even prone, she was clearly tall and lightly built, but as evident from her jumping, made of corded muscle and sinew.
“As are you,” said Sir Hereward. “What are you looking for?”
“Trespassing against the guild, I mean,” said the woman impatiently. “I have bought the license to steal here. But if you release me and go now, I will not take you to the Thief-Mother’s court for the doubtless inevitable separation of thumbs from hands.”
“Ah, a professional thief,” said Mister Fitz. “We are not, however, here to rob Montaul. We are reclaiming stolen property.”
“Oh,” said the woman. “You are agents, then?”
Sir Hereward grew still and his grip on his dagger tightened, ready to drive it home. A human’s brain was so less well protected than a moklek’s as he knew well. It would be an easy and quick death. Not that his and Mister Fitz’s occupation was necessarily secret, it was simply that only their enemies tended to know who they were.
“Agents?” asked Sir Hereward, his voice flat and dull.
“Of the Barcan Insurance? Or the Association of Wealth Protection?”
“Insurance agents,” said Mister Fitz. “Yes … but from far away. We have been tracking a stolen cargo for some considerable time. Now we believe it has arrived here.”
“Then we can come to an agreement,” said the thief. “My name is Tira, Thief of the Seventh Circle of the Guild of Thieves in Kwakrosh, Lesemb, and Navilanaganishom. Who might you be?”
“I am Sir Hereward,” said Hereward, though he did not ease off with his knee or remove his dagger. “My companion is known as Mister Fitz. Where are the guards from the courtyard outside, before we get to talking about agreements?”
“Asleep,” said Tira. “I sprinkled Nighty Dust down on them from my shadow-stilts, as they gathered to gossip about tomorrow’s battlemount races.”
“And the wall here, was it dissolved with a spray of Argill’s Discontinuance of Stone, or something else?” asked Mister Fitz.
“Argill’s,” confirmed Tira. “And the wall of Arveg’s menagerie across the courtyard, though I must confess that was an error. The mixture was stronger than I thought and the wind came up. But the creatures are docile, I presume made to be that way. There is nothing to fear from them.”
“You have invested considerable coin to enter here, on stilts and dust and dissolving,” said Mister Fitz. “You seek some particular treasure?”
“Montaul is known as a very warm man,” said Tira.
“Please answer the question,” said Sir Hereward.
“The new ivories,” she said, after a moment’s pause. “The guild has a buyer for them. But I guess that’s what you are after, too, is it not, arriving so soon on their heels?”
“Yes,” said Sir Hereward. “But not all of them. Only fourteen are … covered by our contract. You can have the others. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Tira.
Hereward removed his dagger, leaned back, and stood up. Tira rolled over and looked up at him. Her hood was drawn close about her face, and though her skin was dark, her nose and cheekbones had also been painted with a grey stuff almost the same color as her curious garment, to dull any shine. As far as Hereward could tell, she seemed fair, or as fair as could be without facial scars, and she looked younger than he had expected. Her eyes were hidden behind a strip of a dark red gauzy cloth loose-woven with hundreds of tiny holes, allowing her to see while offering some protection against such things as a basilisk’s gaze, unless it got nose to nose, by which time its petrifying properties would be of the least concern. The fact she was wearing it suggested that she had not spoken the truth about dissolving the wall to the menagerie by accident.
“I could have got free, you know,” she said.
“Doubtless,” agreed Sir Hereward politely, though he thought quite the opposite. “Where are the ivories?”
“Not here,” said Tira. “Or so I had just discovered when you came.”
Sir Hereward looked around the room. Apart from Montaul’s trading desk with its drawers askew, there were three lesser perching desks for his clerks, a cabinet whose doors were open to show the papers and parchments piled within, and a great chest with its padlock awry and its lid back. Mister Fitz was already inside the chest, rummaging around.
“Nothing of consequence,” said the puppet. “A fallen coin or two in the corners. I should say it was emptied in some hurry. Hereward, go and see if Montaul is in his rooms upstairs.”
Hereward nodded and ran up the circular stair in the corner, returning a scant minute later with a shake of his head.
“Chamber’s empty. Like a monk’s cell up there, thin blanket and all. But our watchers … they were supposed to blow their screech-whistles if anyone left, damn them!”
“Oh,” said Tira. She made a motion with her fingers, indicating the sprinkling of dust. “They were your watchers …”
Mister Fitz jumped out of the chest and went to the door that led out to the gatehouse, his back bent from the waist, his round head close to the ground. At the door itself, he sniffed the ground, dust swirling around his papier-mâché nose, though its carefully molded nostrils did not inflate.
“One of the godlets has begun to manifest,” he said shortly. “Some hours ago, I judge. We must presume it now controls Montaul’s actions and follow before it can fully emerge upon this plane and ease the way of its fellows from the pantheon of ivories.”
“Godlet?” asked Tira. “What godlet?”