Serendipitously, the same skills were perfect for a housebreaker. Or, as they called it in the narrow streets of the Tannery, thieving.
Ahead was the high shuttered window that had first drawn Gage's attention from the neighboring roof. He sidled along the ledge, moving with increasing confidence.
No light escaped from between the shutter slats. He pried a wooden strip away from the sill and saw the reason—behind the shutters, the window was completely sealed with brick and mortar.
He rubbed his nose, considering. The thief had reconnoitered the warehouse yesterday. This window was the only entrance not under constant scrutiny. Sure, he could probably engineer a ruse that would allow him to slip in the front door. But the time necessary to design and implement a plan subtle enough to penetrate the lair of Sathra of the Shadow Tongue would be onerous. And boring.
Actually, the bricked-up window might work in his favor. How could any of Sathra's stooges predict the resources Gage could bring to bear against simple mortar? He doubted whatever lay beyond the sealed window was guarded. Gage cautiously pried a few more slats away from the shutter.
He pulled his gauntlets from his belt and slipped them onto his hands, clenching his right hand as if squeezing something lest it wriggle from his grasp. The gloves were warm, almost hot to the touch, and his chilled fingers tingled. The eye on the back of the left glove opened and blinked up at him. A muffled voice groaned. Gage brought his right fist up to his face and whispered, "Quiet. We're on a job."
He unclenched his fist, revealing a disturbingly realistic mouth in the palm, complete with lips bordering a dark cavity where none should be, in which a too-sinuous tongue squirmed, dripping venom. The glove whispered, "I will eat your soul."
It always said that.
"Eat rock instead." Gage responded.
He turned the muttering palm toward the mortared wall and pressed, achieving complete contact. The eye on the other glove blinked stupidly, but the demon physically bound in the fabric of the thin gauntlets knew what he wanted.
The wall seemed to shrink away from his touch. A moment later, every brick in the sealed window shivered and pulsed, each pushing away from the other in defiance of the mortar that held them. Gage pushed forward and the bricks dimpled, parted around his silhouette, then closed over after him. He was inside. Behind him, the bricked window settled back into perfect solidity, hardly any worse for wear. Not a trick he could pull very often.
Gage carried many hidden advantages—a half-dozen throwing knives secreted about his body; a broad leather belt stitched with pockets containing a spool of stiff wire, a petite oil tin, several miniature abrading files, a flask of pitch, and an assortment of alchemical mixtures; and of course, his catlike grace and exceptional mind.
All these tools and talents paled in comparison to his gloves, despite their penchant for sneaking out in the middle of the night and getting up to mischief. Not for the first time Gage thanked the Queen of Air, Akadi, on his good fortune in acquiring the gloves. A year ago, he'd taken a commission to pilfer a tome called Glyphs and Griffons from the library of the mage Tenambulum. Once he'd secured the book, he'd been unable to resist looking around Tenambulum's sanctum. The absent mage had a reputation as a demon catcher. Most of a day later, shivering and bleeding, Gage had emerged wearing the Hands of Paymon. Almost all the days since then had proved his choice a good one. Though he'd learned it was dangerous to rely on the gauntlets too entirely . ..
He stood in the cluttered interior of a small, nearly pitch black room. A storage closet of some sort? He produced one of his alchemical oddities—a clear glass vessel that produced light nearly equal to a candle when shaken. He shook. Crates, barrels, and boxes jumped into visibility, jammed and jumbled together. A fine layer of dust covered everything. No one had opened the door into this room for some time.
He sidled up to the door, under which wan light peeked. He pressed an ear to the wood and held his breath. He heard nothing save the beat of his own heart.
Unless the silence heralded an ambush, he'd penetrated the lair without alerting the occupants. Although "penetrated" was perhaps too optimistic a spin on the depth of his entry into Sathra's domain. Metaphorically, the closet was more like a ledge to which he clung by his fingers.
He sincerely doubted the prize he'd come to claim resided in the jumble of crates and barrels.
Nonetheless, he examined the contents of a wooden container; old habits were hard to break. He found dried fish—and it had gone bad. He crinkled his nose and replaced the barrel-head, careful not to touch the rancid contents. A foul smell could betray him as easily as too much noise or straying into a sentinel's peripheral vision.
Back to the door. The hinges were chancy. He pulled the oil tin from his belt and dripped the lubricious fluid onto the two brass fittings. He stowed the canister, waited a moment for the oil to penetrate, then eased the door open a finger's breadth.
A hallway. Not very wide. Stairwell at the far end. Two other doors stood in view besides the one he peered from, one of which was ajar. A hanging lantern, its wick turned low, burned from the hallway's center. Both ends of the passage were thick with night shadows. Good.
Gage stowed his light and emerged from the storage closet. He eased the door shut and merged with the darkness. He crept down the hallway, approaching the glimmering lantern and the doors that stood across from each other. Brighter light danced from the slightly open door.
A raucous laugh told him the room was occupied. The laugh was followed by a hoarse shout, several jeers, and a draft redolent with stale pipeweed and vinegary wine.
He stepped up to the partially open door and squinted into much brighter light. Caps, overcoats, gloves, and cloaks lay in disarray on the floor around a large table. Six or seven hardbitten figures sat under a crude chandelier of lanterns. They were absorbed by a game of cards. Probably Sathra's low-brow muscle, off duty from their tasks of intimidation and loan collection. He studied the amounts being wagered. A lot of copper, some silver, and a gold or two proudly glinting from a few players' stakes. Not worth making a play for.
He glided across the hall to the other door. It was unlocked. He risked opening it a sliver. The room served as a billet, currently empty, but with enough cots for ten or so men. He closed the door, considering.
Gage had options. He could flit past the card game and down the stairs, leaving the players none the wiser. But if he met trouble he couldn't deal with quietly at the bottom of the stairs, the card players would come running.
He could launch a surprise attack into the chamber and try to take out as many players as possible before they subdued him. Gage was certain he could knife a couple, and the blinking eye of his left gauntlet could probably put the fear of hell into one or two more—leaving the remaining few to beat Gage into the floorboards. He was at his best when his foes were not aware of his presence. Inviting a pitched battle was a risk he wasn't stupid enough to take.
He could try the special alchemical concoction he'd been saving—a nasty fluid that vaporized into a gas on contact with air, and brought sudden sleep to those who inhaled it. But the game room might be too large. The gas might not reach the farthest players before they raised the alarm.
Gage decided on a trick he'd employed on a couple other occasions with moderate success. He ran his finger down the pockets he'd sewn in his wide belt, and stopped at the one etched with two lines side by side. He pulled out a narrow tube filled with the gooey pitch he normally reserved for high climbs. Pitch had so many uses.