“Say to your master,” Raffalon said, holding up the carved box, “that something he is expecting has arrived.”
The apparition issued a sigh and faded in the direction of the manse. The man and woman waited, batting away the hedge’s mindless inquiries, until the gatekeeper once more semicoalesced in the air before them. “Follow,” it said.
The vines shrank back and the ghost led them along a path of luminous flagstones to a pair of tall double doors in each of which was carved a great contorted face. It was only when they reached the portals that Raffalon, seeing the wooden features move as the faces turned his way, realized that the panels were a pair of forest elementals enthralled by the thaumaturge to guard his entrance.
The doors opened at the ghost’s further approach; the man and woman stepped into the foyer, a place clearly intended to disorient the senses. The thief closed his eyes against the onset of dizziness, and said, “We will not endure ill treatment. We will leave now.” He turned and groped blindly toward the doors, finding Erminia’s hand and leading her behind him. Eyes downcast, she demurely followed.
“Wait,” said a commanding voice. The thief’s giddiness abruptly ceased. Raffalon reopened his eyes and saw that they had been joined by a short, wide-bellied man clad in a blood-red robe figured in black runes and a tall hat of complexly folded cloth and leather. His expression was impassive. He said, “What have you brought me?”
Raffalon reached into his wallet and brought forth the puzzle box.
Bolbek’s eyes showed a glint of avarice. “What of Fulferin?” he said.
“He accepted an invitation to dinner,” said the thief. “In Vandaayoland.”
The thaumaturge’s face showed a brief reaction that might have been regret. Then he said, “And in the box?”
“Fulferin said it was a god of small luck,” said Raffalon. He smiled a knowing smile and added, “so to speak.”
The greedy glint in Bolbek’s eyes became a steady gleam. “Bring it to my workroom,” he said.
Raffalon stood still. “First, we must settle the issue of price.”
Bolbek named a number. Raffalon doubled it. The mage gestured to show that chaffering was beneath him, and said, “Agreed. Bring it.” He turned and exited by a door that appeared in the wall as he approached it.
The thief was concerned. Sometimes those who agreed too easily to an extortionate price did so because they had no expectation of having to pay it. As he and Erminia followed the thaumaturge, he was alert for sudden departures from his plan.
The room they entered was of indeterminate size and shape. The walls appeared to recede or advance depending on whether they were viewed directly or peripherally, nor could the angles where they met floor or ceiling be depended on to remain static. Raffalon saw shelves and sideboards on which stood several items he would have liked to examine more closely. Indeed, he would have liked to take them away for a leisurely valuation, followed by a quick resale.
But Bolbek gave him no time. The thaumaturge bustled his way across the stone floor to a curtained alcove. He pulled back the heavy brocaded cloth to reveal a work in progress in two parts. One was a cylindrical container of white gold, on whose sides were drawn in shining metal a string of characters the thief could not decipher, though he had the sense that one of them replicated the unreadable symbol on the puzzle box. The ideograms must be a cantrip of considerable power, he thought, seeing them glow rhythmically against the gold, like a slowly beating heart.
The second part of the project was man-shaped—indeed, shaped very much like the man who had made it. It was a wire framework fashioned from gold and electrum, connected to the cylinder by thick, braided cables of silver. The framework was made in two halves, hinged so that the thaumaturge could open it and then stand within, completely enclosed by whatever energies the cylinder would presumably generate.
Bolbek cast an eye over the double apparatus. Apparently satisfied, he turned to Raffalon. “The box,” he said.
“The price,” said the thief.
A flash of irritation animated the mage’s bland features, then he spoke two words and made a complex motion of one hand. A leather pouch appeared in the air before the thief, then fell to the floor with a sound that said it was well filled with Port Thayes double mools.
Raffalon handed over the box and stooped to pick up the purse. Then he turned away, as if to examine the contents in private. As he did so, he reached into a fold of his garment, out of Bolbek’s line of sight. His hand closed on something concealed there. Now he tucked the coins away while sending a meaningful glance Erminia’s way.
The woman, who had so far been at pains not to draw attention to herself, began to drift toward one of the sideboards. She fixed her eyes on a glass-topped jar full of blue liquid in which swam a short-limbed homunculus with enormous eyes of lambent yellow.
Meanwhile, the thaumaturge had set the box on a small table next to the cylinder of white gold. He moved briskly to take from a drawer in the table a pair of gloves that he now pulled on up to his elbows. They were of a shimmering, scaly leather, iridescent in the room’s diffuse light, as if they contained rainbows.
With clear evidence of excitement, Bolbek now turned to the box. He found the entry point on one end and slid aside the little piece of worn wood. Then he took a pin from the drawer and inserted it into the hole. His former lifeless expression had transformed into a mask of intensity and his breath came sharp and fast.
Raffalon heard the click as the box unlocked. He looked to Erminia. The woman had reached the sideboard. She now turned so that her elbow struck the jar. It wobbled and almost toppled, the lid coming free and blue ichor splashing out, with a harsh sound of glass on glass.
Bolbek’s head snapped her way. “Idiot! Get away from—” he began, but at that moment, Raffalon swiftly brought the little effigy of the luck god from concealment and touched it to the bare flesh of the thaumaturge’s neck. Instantly, the mage stiffened. Cords stood out in his throat and his eyes bulged. His lips writhed as he struggled to speak a syllable. To be sure he didn’t, Raffalon pinched the man’s lips together.
The thief was impressed at how long the spell-slinger was able to resist the god’s power; his own enthrallment had been almost instantaneous. But finally the struggle ended. Bolbek’s body relaxed, though his eyes spoke of inner misery.
“All well?” the thief said. He kept the idol pressed against the man’s neck.
“I am still examining the contents of the memory,” said the god through the thaumaturge’s vocal apparatus. “Remarkable.”
Erminia came forward. “What would this have done to you?” she said, indicating the apparatus.
“Dissolved me, taken my power, infused it into Bolbek.” A moment’s pause. “The cylinder already contains six imprisoned deities. My entry would have allowed this fellow to take the final step to leach us of our energies. Then the mana would have been transferred to the cage, to be incorporated into his own being.”
“He would have become a god?” said the thief.
“No. The procedure would have failed. They always do. But he would have had a very interesting few moments before the cataclysm obliterated him, his house, and the neighborhood.”
Raffalon examined Bolbek’s eyes, saw rage and despair. “And yet, somehow,” he said, “I do not think that he would thank us for intervening.”
“He would not,” said the god within the thaumaturge. “You had better bind him well, including his fingers. And gag him thoroughly. He knows spells that need only a single syllable, and he is resolved to use them on you.”
“There’s a wizard’s gratitude for you,” said Erminia. She went and found cords, chains, and cloth, then set about rendering Bolbek harmless. She even tied his toes together. When he was comprehensively immobilized, Raffalon removed the effigy from contact with the mage’s skin and set the little god on the table. “Now what?” he said.