"Stop right there," Zandria whispered in a deadly voice. "You will not show that parchment to anyone else."
"Then allow me to show it to you," Jack replied. "Bring me your bottle of Maidenfire Gold."
"That brandy is worth a thousand gold crowns," Zandria replied. "I am not going to let your larcenous hands get within ten feet of it."
"Then you might as well cut my throat right now!" Jack roared. " 'At the center of all the thirty-seventh!' Do you want to know what that means or not?"
The mage eyed him coldly. Thinking, then she spun on her heel and stormed out of the room, returning a moment later with the ancient bottle, almost black with age. She set it on the table in front of him without another word.
Jack took the parchment and spread it flat beside the bottle. "See this exquisite border work? Leaves, vines, a curiously undwarven design? Why do you suppose it is there?"
Behind him, the swordsman shrugged. "Cedrizarun was a distiller and vintner," he said. "Not all dwarves work in stone and steel."
Jack took the sheet of paper on which he'd copied the rubbing and turned back to the bottle. " 'At the center of all the thirty-seventh, encircled by these leaves of autumn."' He looked carefully at the bottle; it was spun glass that had been shaped while warm, pressed and sculpted with a relief showing dimly a field or farmland. The same design was repeated four times around the bottle's circumference-the field under winter snow, spring plowing, summer with high waves of grain, and autumn reaping. The sun shone down over each scene. " 'Mark carefully the summer staircase."
Using the sun over the summer scene as his starting point, Jack wrapped the parchment clockwise around the bottle. The distance that the sun stood over the field he used as the rise of the winding.
The inscription fit exactly three times in circumference. And it inclined just enough that the bottom border overlapped itself, revealing a faint line of dwarf-runes concealed amid the leaf design. "Bring me some sealing wax," Jack said softly, holding the parchment in his hands. Zandria stirred and retrieved a block of red wax from her work desk, muttering a small cantrip to soften it. "Now adhere the sheet to itself at just this position. I will hold it steady." The mage did so, frowning in concentration as she worked around Jack's hands.
Gingerly, Jack released his grip and stepped back, leaving the bottle standing on the table in its parchment wrapping. He bent low to study the runes without touching or displacing them, Zandria's face just beside his.
"Another message," she breathed in wonder. "Ten paces south. Speak 'kharaz-urzu.' Raise the sevenstone."
Jack stood up straight and grinned in delight. "Shall we discuss terms?" he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They settled on two of eleven shares for Jack, which was better than he had expected. Zandria's adventuring company included five other full partners, each entitled to a full share. She claimed three shares as the leader of the band. The remaining share was set aside to split between several men-at-arms and specialists retained by the Company of the Red Falcon in order to shore up its numbers for the recovery of a major hoard from the depths of lost Sarbreen. Zandria was willing to assign Jack one share for solving the puzzle, but refused to consider more than that until he promised to share in the company's risks and labors by participating in the expedition.
Even then, Jack thought that the mage agreed too quickly. Upon leaving the company's headquarters, he went straightaway to Anders and Tharzon and began planning the operation by which Zandria's band would be relieved of the burden of managing their newfound wealth. And he also set the Northman to watching Zandria's band night and day, expecting that she would be tempted to use the knowledge he'd provided without actually observing every detail of their agreement. In Jack's experience, a quick assent in any negotiation of this sort meant that the other party had decided they could get what they wanted by more expedient means.
That attended to, he returned to his apartment to prepare for the day's more significant event-the exchange with Elana. He'd been thinking of her more and more frequently as this day approached, until he found himself almost shaking in nervous anticipation as sunset neared. He bathed and dressed with care, selecting clothes that marked him as a serious professional, a man confident in his own abilities, a man who got what he wanted by hard work and hard choices.
Elana was a trained swordswoman, a woman versed in discipline and confidence; she had no patience for fops or dandies, but a fellow thief, daring but not boastful, businesslike but not mercenary… who knew what might happen?
"After all," Jack told himself in the mirror as he shaved, "it would be a matter of common sense to make it as easy as possible for the lady to uphold her end of our arrangement."
Jack dressed in plain black with a padded doublet of glossy leather and well-brushed boots that matched handsomely. He disdained any flamboyance, covering his head with a simple cap and sheathing both rapier and poignard on his left hip in the Vilhonese style. Then he disarmed the numerous traps he'd set over the Sarkonagael's hiding place, wrapped the heavy tome in plain burlap, and stuffed the whole thing into a leather pouch secured to his shoulder.
He sallied forth an hour after sunset, turning up his face to the fine mist that hung in the air. More spring rain-a sign of turbulent weather to come. Yellow lanternlight gleamed on the wet cobblestones, and Burnt Gables was quiet save for the occasional carriage clip-clopping by in the damp night.
"How perfectly suited for clandestine meetings and secret doings," he said with a laugh. "An auspicious start to the evening's festivities!"
A ten-minute walk brought him to the Cracked Tankard. The place was unusually crowded, choked with crewmen from two Chessentan galleons that had tied up at the city's wharves earlier in the day. Jack threaded his way through the crowd, elbowing a space at the bar. No fewer than three barmaids plus the barkeep Kirben were manning the rail tonight; they rushed back and forth, serving draughts as quickly as they could draw them. Jack dropped a silver talon on the countertop as the tavern-keeper stomped past.
"Ho, Kirben! Perchance have you a message for me?"
"Ho, yourself," the barkeep snapped. Kirben swept the coin into a pocket of his apron and handed Jack a small envelope sealed in red wax. "Don't say I never did anything for you."
Jack broke the seal and scanned the note inside. The Storm Gull, Aldiger's pier. Make sure you lose any tails. Don't leave this message here. Skullduggery and dark doings, he thought. A dangerous prize and a lovely lady!
"I won't be back tonight," he told Kirben, stuffing the note into his pocket. Then he headed out into the night again, winding his way through the city toward the harbor neighborhood known as Silverscales.
He turned south on Blacktree Boulevard and followed it to the harbor, pausing at the intersection of Blacktree and Fishleap to look for any signs of pursuit. A man in a dark cloak about twenty yards behind Jack casually halted and began to inspect the goods displayed in a store window; Jack ducked out of sight into a dark alleyway and worked a minor illusion that altered his appearance, taking the form of a hulking half-ogre longshoreman with stooped shoulders and long, powerful arms that hung almost to his knees. Adapting a drunken sway to his walk, he stepped out of the alleyway and roughly shouldered the black-cloaked man aside.