He had certainly helped in one fashion. A dank, thick fog rolled over the city from Lake Ashane, turning the darkness into a solid mass. Only the aughisky, bred in the black waters of Ashane, seemed at home in the dense wet air. He picked his way unerringly through the streets at Teza's direction, past the Huhrong's towering palace, and into the gentle hills of the wealthier section of the city, where the houses were larger and surrounded by their own ornate walls.
The water horse turned at Teza's cue onto a path that led between two high walls and down a steep bank to a river. The river was a small one that wended its way to Ashane from the east, just slow enough and deep enough for pleasure craft. Many of the houses built along its bank had docks or boathouses.
Lord Duronh's residence had one, too, although the lord had gone one step further. He had dug a cavern into the high bank below his house and built a dock for his crafts, where they were protected from all but the most frigid weather.
Teza thought this underground boathouse would be her best entrance into the house. Any guard left standing over one small back door on a night like this would not be expecting trouble.
As silent as a black shadow, the water horse carried her downstream through the fog to the broad opening of Duronh's boathouse. Teza shuddered at the sight of that dark river lapping at her knees, but the aughisky made no attempt to drop her or carry her into deeper water. He worked his way around the lord's small boats and deposited Teza on the wooden dock. With a sigh of fervent relief, she patted him and eased farther along the dark dock toward what she hoped was the stairs.
The darkness was absolute in the cavern, so Teza silently opened a small bag she wore buckled around her waist and pulled out her most useful thieves' tooclass="underline" a pair of night glasses. She had bought them from a wandering wizard for a horrendous sum, but they had paid her back a hundredfold with their usefulness. She slid them on, and immediately the night slipped into focus. Although the glasses made everything look red, their vision was remarkably clear.
Swiftly she found the stairs leading to the rear of the house and mounted them to the entrance. The door was a heavy affair of oak and iron, but its lock yielded easily to the pick Rafbit had loaned her. Just inside, she saw the first guard leaning against the wall. As she had hoped, he dozed over his weapons.
Teza drew another useful item from her belt pack: a small circle of fabric permeated with a fast-acting sedative. She rubbed a little spit into the cloth to activate the drug and, before it could affect her, stuck it to the skin of the napping guard. In seconds he slumped into a deeper sleep.
From there, the rest of the job was easy. A friend of Raf-bit's had told Teza the floor plan of the house, enabling her to slip through the night-darkened halls, past two more guards, to the second floor, where the library stood at the end of a long corridor. Teza's glasses saw nothing amiss. No watchdogs, no statues enspelled to shout an alarm, no traps, nothing. Lord Duronh must not consider his books very valuable, Teza told herself.
Her suspicions proved correct when she entered the library. It was a small room-cold, damp, and musty. Sheets covered the furniture, and the books were layered with dust.
Teza wasted no time. She knew the book she needed was tan-colored, fairly large, and labeled with a wizard's rune on the spine. Silently she ran her eyes along the shelves lining the walls, along row after row of old manuscripts, scrolls, and bound books. Half an hour later, she found the one she wanted, crammed on a bottom shelf beneath a stack of moldy vellum sheets.
Teza pulled it out and nearly dropped it in surprise. It was much heavier than she had expected and was bound with something much smoother and softer to the touch than leather. She hefted it. It seemed to be the right book. It had the sigil on the spine and the tan-colored binding. It must have belonged to a wizard at one time, but what was it doing here, and what was so important about it that someone would pay to have it stolen?
Teza tried to open it, but discovered something else very odd. Someone had attached hair to the book from top to bottom along both edges of the cover. The hair was then braided, tying the book closed to casual view. The braid lay soft under Teza's fingers, as soft and fine as human hair.
Without quite knowing why, Teza grew angry. She began to have the feeling Rafbit had not told her every thing she ought to know about this book. She tucked the tome under her arm and fled noiselessly back the way she had come, to the cavern where the aughisky waited for her.
She had planned to meet Rafbit and his customer before dawn, but first, she told the water horse to take her to her bolt-hole. The hole, nothing more than an abandoned shack at the edge of the city, was her hiding place in time of need. Obediently, the aughisky carried her to the old hut. As she dismounted, he neighed impatiently and slammed his hoof on the frozen ground. Teza knew the signs. He was hungry.
"Wait," she asked. "I will be quick. Then you may go."
Carrying the book, she slipped into the old shack. Her cold fingers fumbled with the flint and steel over a lamp she had left there. When the flame was burning, the woman laid the book on her lap and carefully began to unbraid the hair. In the light, she could see now the hair was red, a deep coppery hue that gleamed in the lamplight. Softly it flowed through her fingers until the book fell open on her knees.
Teza stared in delight. Full-length illustrations, beautifully illuminated with delicate traceries, bold colors, and bright gold leaf, covered each page. There were no words or letters or even runes, only exquisitely detailed pictures.
Teza turned the thick pages to the beginning. She could not read, yet she did not have to to understand the story. The pictures portrayed a romance between a lovely red-haired woman and a dark-haired, serious-looking young man. They met in a garden of peonies and roses, and the illustrations continued their tale in a series of scenes from a dance, a hunt, and a picnic, as the couple's passion grew deeper.
Then the atmosphere of the pictures changed. The drawings became harsher; the colors shifted to hues of red and black; the expression on the lovers' faces turned to anger and sadness.
Teza sat enthralled by the drama unfolding on her lap. She was so engrossed, she did not immediately notice what began to happen. As she studied one picture of the man and the woman in a gloomy room, the figures shifted slightly on the page. The man's face turned down into a scowl, and the woman took a step back.
Teza suddenly gaped. Before her eyes the small painting of the man strode forward and viciously backhanded the woman. She fell backward against a stone wall.
Teza's fingers tightened on the cover. "You nasty little-" she began, without realizing what she was talking to. Then the tiny woman climbed to her feet. She wiped blood from her mouth, tore a ring off her finger, and flung it at the young man. No words were spoken, but Teza could see the fury on the woman's face, and the devastation on the man's. The painted lady turned to leave, when in one swift movement, the man grabbed her long, braided hair. His hands lifted in a strange movement, his lips mouthed silent words, and in a brilliant flash of silver light that made Teza blink, the woman disappeared. When Teza looked again, the young man was alone, standing as still as before and holding a large tan book.
"What is this?" Teza muttered irritably. She flipped back to the other pages, but none of the remaining pictures moved. Finally she turned past the man and his book to the last page. The last illustration was the strangest of all. In the upper left was a small portrait of the woman, her oval face filled with pleading and her large green eyes brimmed with tears. The center of the picture revealed the book with its binding of red hair unbraided. A dagger pierced the pages, and blood dripped off the binding. At the bottom right, another portrait of the woman showed her joyfully happy.