When she reached the front door, the golden surface rippled like a molten pool and a sculpted arm emerged clutching a knocker ring. Amarelle flicked a collapsible baton out of her coat and used it to tap the ring against the door while she stood aside. There was a brief pause after the darts had hissed through empty air, and then a voice boomed:
“WHO COMES UNBIDDEN TO THE DOOR OF THE SUPREME SPELLWRIGHT IVOVANDAS OF THE HONORABLE PARLIAMENT OF THERADANE? SPEAK, WORM!”
“I don’t take shit from doors,” said Amarelle. “I’m flattering your mistress by knocking. Tell her a citizen of Theradane is here to give her a frank and unexpurgated opinion on how terrible her aim is.”
“YOUR ATTITUDE IS UNDERSTANDABLE AND NONETHELESS THOROUGHLY OFFENSIVE. ARCS OF ELECTRODYNAMIC FORCE WILL NOW BE APPLIED TO THE LOBES OF YOUR BRAIN UNTIL THEY ARE SCALDED PULP. TO RECEIVE THIS PRONOUNCEMENT IN THE FORM OF UNIVERSAL PICTOGRAMS, SCREAM ONCE. TO REQUEST MORE RAPID SENSORY OBLIVION, SCREAM TWICE AND WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS.”
“The name is Amarelle Parathis, also known as the Duchess Unseen. Your mistress’s stupid feuds are turning a fine old town into a shitsack misery farm and ruining my card games. Are you going to open up, or do I find a window?”
“AMARELLE PARATHIS,” said the door. A moment passed. “YOUR NAME IS NOT UNKNOWN. YOU PURCHASED SANCTUARY FROM THE PARLIAMENT OF THERADANE TWO YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS AGO.”
“Attadoor,” said Amarelle.
“THE MISTRESS WILL RECEIVE YOU.”
The sculpted hand holding the knocker withdrew into the liquid surface of the door. A dozen others burst forth, grabbing Amarelle by the throat, arms, legs, and hair. They pulled her off her feet and into the rippling golden surface, which solidified an instant later and retained no trace of her passage.
6. The Cabinet of Golden Hands
Amarelle awoke, thoroughly comfortable but stripped of all her weapons and wearing someone else’s silk nightgown.
She was in a doorless chamber, in a feather bed floating gently on a pool of liquid gold that covered the entire floor, or perhaps was the entire floor. Ruby shafts of illumination fell from etched glass skylights, and when Amarelle threw back her covers they dissolved into wisps of aromatic steam.
Something bubbled and churned beneath the golden pool. A small hemisphere rose from the surface, continued rising, became a tall, narrow, humanoid shape. The liquid drained away smoothly, revealing a dove-pale albino woman with flawless auric eyes and hair composed of a thousand golden butterflies, all fluttering elegantly at random.
“Good afternoon, Amarelle,” said the wizard Ivovandas. Her feet didn’t quite touch the surface of the pool as she drifted toward the bed. “I trust you slept well. You were magnificent last night!”
“Was I? I don’t remember … uh, that is, I remember some of it … am I wearing your clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t I have a hangover?”
“I took it while you slept,” said Ivovandas. “I have a collection of bottled maladies. Your hangover was due to be the stuff of legends. Here be dragons! And by ‘here,’ I mean directly behind your eyeballs, probably for the rest of the week. I’ll find another head to slip it into, someday. Possibly I’ll let you have it back if you fail me.”
“Fail you? What?” Amarelle leapt to her feet, which sank awkwardly into the mattress. “You have me confused with someone who knows what’s going on. Start with how I was magnificent.”
“I’ve never been so extensively insulted! In my own foyer, no less, before we even adjourned to the study. You offered penetratingly savage elucidation of all my character flaws, most of them imaginary, and then you gave me the firmest possible directions on how I and my peers were to order our affairs henceforth, for the convenience of you and your friends.”
“I, uh, recall some of that, I think.”
“I am curious about a crucial point, citizen Parathis. When you purchased sanctuary from the Parliament of Theradane, you were instructed that personal threats against the members of said Parliament could be grounds for summary revocation of sanctuary privileges, were you not?”
“I … recall something with that flavor … in the paperwork … possibly on the back somewhere … maybe in the margins?”
“You will agree that your statements last night certainly qualified as personal threats?”
“My statements?”
Smiling, Ivovandas produced a humming blue crystal and used it to project a crisp, solid image into the air beside the bed. It was Amarelle, black-coated and soaked with steaming magic rain, gesturing with clutching hands as she raved:
“And another thing, you venomous milk-faced thundercunt! NOBODY drops a dead vorpilax on my friends, NOBODY! What you fling at the other members of your pointy-hatted circle jerk is your business, but the next time you trifle with the lives of uninvolved citizens, you’d better lock your doors, put on your thickest steel corset, and hire a food taster, you catch my meaning?”
The image vanished.
“Damn,” said Amarelle. “I’ve always thought of myself as basically a happy drunk.”
“I’m 310 years old,” said Ivovandas, “and I learned some new words last night! Oh, we were having such fun, until I found myself personally threatened.”
“Yes. So it would seem. And how were you thinking we might, ah, proceed in this matter?”
“Ordinarily,” said Ivovandas, “I’d magically redirect the outflow of your lower intestine into your lungs, which would be my little way of saying that your sanctuary privileges had been revoked. However, those skills of yours, and that reputation … I have a contract suited to such a contractor. Why don’t you get dressed and meet me in the study?”
A powerful force struck Amarelle from behind, knocking her off the bed, headfirst into the golden pool. Rather than swimming down she found herself floating up, rising directly through the floor of Ivovandas’s study, a large room full of bookshelves, scrollcases, and lacquered basilisk-skin paneling. Amarelle was suddenly wearing her own clothes again.
On the wall was an oil painting of the bedroom Amarelle had just left, complete with a masterful rendering of Ivovandas floating above the golden pool. As Amarelle watched, the painted figure grew larger and larger within the frame, then pushed her arms and head out of it, and with a twist and a jump at last floated free in the middle of the study.
“Now,” said Ivovandas, “to put it simply, there is an object within Theradane I expect you to secure. Whether or not your friends help you is of no concern to me. As an added incentive, if you deliver this thing to me quietly and successfully, you will calm a great deal of the, ah, public disagreement between myself and a certain parliamentary peer.”
“But the terms of my sanctuary!” said Amarelle. “You got part of my tithe! You know how it works. I can’t steal within the boundaries of Theradane.”
“Well, you can’t threaten me either,” said Ivovandas. “And that’s a moot point now, so what have you got to lose?”
“An eternity not spent as a streetlamp.”
“Admirable long-term thinking,” said Ivovandas. “But I do believe if you scrutinize your situation, you’ll see that you’re up a certain proverbial creek, and I am the only provisioner of paddles willing to sell you one.”
Amarelle paced, hands shoved sullenly into her coat pockets. She and her crew needed the security of Theradane; they had grown too famous, blown too much cover, taken too many interesting keepsakes from the rich and powerful in too many other places. Theradane’s system was simplicity itself. Pay a vast sum to the Parliament of Strife, retire to Theradane, and don’t practice any of the habits that got you in trouble outside the city. Ever.
“Have some heart, Amarelle. It’s not precisely illegal for me to coax a master criminal back into operations within the city limits, but I can’t imagine my peers would let the matter pass unremarked if they ever found out about it. Do as I ask, and I’ll gladly smash my little blue crystal. We’ll both walk away smiling, in harmonious equipoise.”