“This doesn’t make sense,” Ulin said. “If thieves did this, why is Lysandros so eager to help the council? Why does he want a sorceress like Lucy to be sheriff?”
“Because the Thieves’ Guild had nothing to do with this,” Notwen replied. “It was an outside job, and the captain is furious. He would split Kethril in half with that sword of his if he could find him.”
“Why? For horning into his territory?”
“No! For putting the town into such a crisis! The Thieves’ Guild here may be sticky-fingered and greedy, but they would never do something to endanger the entire town. They live here, too.”
“Hmm …” Ulin squatted in the doorway and tossed a pebble into the dark pit where the floor had been. “How did they pull this off? In the city hall of all places. Weren’t there guards?”
“Of course, we posted guards outside. They never saw a thing until the room blew up in their faces.” Notwen pushed his spectacles back on his nose, leaving a smear of soot from his grimy fingers. “As for the theft, I can’t say for certain how they did it. I can only go by the clues. Take the pit, for example. There is no lower level beneath this section of the barracks, so I have surmised Kethril and his cohorts dug a tunnel beneath this room and removed the contents a little at a time. The tunnel apparently collapsed in the explosion.”
Ulin lifted a single eyebrow. Whether he liked it or not, he found himself intrigued by the gnome’s interpretation of the theft. It was a heinous deed, but the machinations behind it were interesting. “What was in here? Ingots? Loose coins?”
The gnome peered down into the pit. “Mostly loose coins and odds and ends like jewelry, plate armor, swords, a few fine daggers, things like that. This town has to scrape up every bit just to meet Malys’s demands. My guess is Kethril only had a few men to help and it took several nights to remove the pile. I think, in order to keep us fooled, they replaced the valuables with fakes.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Someone on the council came in here every day to add deposits or check the inventory.” Notwen patted the wall beside him. “I noticed these walls are spattered with bits of fool’s gold and lead,” then he pointed down at the hole. “If you look carefully you can see broken glass and bits of cheap twisted metal in the rubble.”
“Fool’s gold … good gods,” Ulin muttered. He didn’t have to ask what would have happened if the theft had gone unnoticed until the city council presented the false coin to Malys’s collector, Fyremantle. Red dragons were anything but understanding. A slow anger began to simmer in Ulin’s gut. What kind of a man could put his own greed before the safety of an entire town?
“Is there any chance this Kethril got caught in his own explosion?” Ulin suggested.
Notwen scratched his head. “I don’t think so. We looked through the debris, and we only found the bodies of the guards and two thieves. There was no trace of anyone else.”
The young man stared deep into the darkness of the hole. “What if Kethril set off the explosion to kill his cohorts and mask his escape with the treasure?”
“We thought of that,” Notwen sighed. “I just don’t know. The explosion happened down there in the tunnel, and its blast started the fire, but I haven’t discovered yet what set it off or why.” The words were barely out of his mouth when his face suddenly brightened. “I’ve taken some samples to my laboratory. Would you like to see?”
Ulin hesitated. He was hot, tired, still feeling out of sorts, and most gnome labs usually involved noxious smells, clouds of odd gases, and the imminent danger of an explosion. And yet … the puzzle of the treasury piqued his interest. He had studied the effects of explosives at one time, and his interests leaned toward alchemy these days. Why not take a quick look at Notwen’s samples? Solving that puzzle could prove useful in the future if Lucy decided to stay. Besides, if the lab proved too dangerous, he could always leave.
“All right, thank you,” he replied.
“It’s this way,” Notwen said. He led the way out of the barracks, skirted the docks, and trotted up the path that climbed the slope of the promontory called the Rock.
The road was wide enough for handcarts, donkeys, and pedestrians, though it was little used any more by anyone other than the Vigilance Force, who maintained a constant watch from its height. After the first time Malys leveled the buildings on its top, a few stubborn people tried to rebuild the Saltbreeze Inn and the lord of Flotsam’s manor, only to see their efforts destroyed in seconds during another of Malys’s visits. Since then the Rock had remained bare in deference to the Overlord’s opinion. Even the Force’s lookouts stayed concealed behind a camouflaged observation post.
Ulin remembered the stripped and wind-blown surface of the Rock from his previous visit, and he wondered where Notwen could possibly hide an entire laboratory.
The little gnome led him past the crest of the path and to the side of the headland where the rock bulged out like the belly of a pregnant woman. A level, bare space and some stones were all that marked the foundations of Toede’s old manor and its walls.
Ulin stopped and stared around, his arms crossed. A sea breeze stirred his chestnut hair. “Now what?” he asked, too curious to be annoyed.
“OverhereUlinIfoundthisayearafterToededied.”
Ulin held up a finger. “Wait. Wait, slow down again.”
“Oh, sorry. Sorry. I do that when I get excited.” Notwen’s blue eyes were vivid against his golden-brown skin. He waved a small hand and headed to the edge of the ruined building where a few shattered blocks of stone were scattered over a layer of dirt and sand. “Stand back,” the gnome warned, and he pushed one stone about a hand span to the left to reveal a weathered bronze lock. Pulling a key from his pocket, he inserted it and turned.
A loud rumbling, grating noise erupted from the ground at Ulin’s feet, and he leaped back in alarm. Dust rose in clouds around him. The sound grew to a roar, and suddenly a huge block of stone lifted out of the dirt.
Notwen watched proudly. More rumbling, creaking, and grinding of stone on metal thundered around them. Slowly and noisily, the block of stone lifted straight up until it was clear of the old floor. Still the noises went on, louder than before. The huge slab lifted ever higher until a three-foot gap yawned underneath the massive weight of the stone. The sounds ground to silence, the stone halted in place, and the dust settled slowly around the hole.
Ulin stared, amazed. The slab, nearly one-foot thick, had been lifted horizontally out of the foundations by what looked like four columns, one at each corner of the slab. He glanced at Notwen questioningly.
“Hydraulics,” the gnome grinned. “I’m working on a way to lift the slab completely out of the opening, but I haven’t completed all the calculations to compensate for its thickness and weight.”
Ulin had to admit he was impressed. He’d never thought much of gnomes. Tinker gnomes were notorious among the other races of Krynn for building large, overly complex machines that failed more often than not. Although they were often bright, curious, and endlessly imaginative, they were cursed by the god Reorx so they could never master the inventive genius of their quick minds. And yet, Ulin remembered hearing a tale about a group of gnomes who had been freed of the curse at the end of the Chaos War. They came to be called thinker gnomes, and they scattered across the world seeking wisdom and knowledge. They did not look different from their tinker cousins, yet they were master inventors and perfectionists whose smaller, less flashy constructions usually worked.
The mage watched Notwen walk to the slab and disappear into the dark depths underneath, and he wondered if indeed this bright-eyed fellow in the orange tunic was a thinker gnome.