“How did you manage that?” Cael asked. “I’ve always heard minotaurs are headstrong brutes, incapable of following a human master.”
“Yes, they are a great deal like freelance thieves,” Oros returned. “Yet they have their own code of honor. This one, his life I saved. He swore to serve me in exchange. But his tale is woven with the contents of this cabinet,” the Guild captain continued as he unlocked the sea cabinet. He threw wide the doors and stepped back to display its contents.
To Cael’s great disappointment, there was no fabulous pirate-won treasure inside. Instead, the cabinet contained a finely wrought model of a three-masted Palanthian galleon. The skill and care with which it had been carved showed in the warm glow of its planks and the careful detail of its ornaments and rigging.
“This is the Mary Eileen,” Captain Oros said, his chest swelling with pride. “She was the best command I ever had. A fast ship, a trim ship, the best ship in the Palanthian fleet, and I the youngest captain ever to earn so prestigious a command. I sailed her for five years, the best years of my life, but I drove her aground in a storm west of the Teeth of Chaos, and before I knew what was happening a pirate galley crewed by minotaurs was upon us. I lost all hands, and was myself captured by the minotaurs and chained to an oar. After a weary three months, the minotaurs were in turn rammed by a warship of the Knights of Takhisis, near Port Balifor. I was able to free myself and my bench companion from the chains and escape the sinking ship. The Knights took us captive, but my family paid my ransom, and I was released. I paid for the release of my bench companion, for we had become close mates in those three months aboard the minotaur galley. That companion was Kolav, and he has been my servant to this day.”
“She’s a fine ship,” the elf agreed as he eyed the model. “It broke my heart to lose her,” Oros said. He grew quiet, and spent quite a long while staring thoughtfully at the model. Suddenly, he laughed, and reaching into the cabinet he pulled the model out and placed it atop the table where they had dined.
“Look here,” he said as he pointed at the crow’s nest at the top of the main mast. There, carefully balanced on the lip of the basket, stood a tiny gull made of carefully folded paper. The paper was old and yellowed, as though the toy gull had stood there for many years, Wings poised for a flight that had never begun.
“Alynthia placed that there,” Oros chuckled. “By the gods, it must have been twenty years ago. She took three voyages aboard the Mary Eileen, she and her father. I had a bosun’s mate aboard the ship then. He used to thrill Alynthia with his little animals, which he made by folding scraps of paper. Poor old chap. He went down with the ship. I was just glad Alynthia wasn’t aboard that day. I haven’t been to sea since.”
At these words, the door jerked open. Alynthia appeared there, a scowl darkening her face as if she suspected she was the subject of the conversation she had just interrupted. She stepped back, motioning to the elf. “Come with me!” she snapped.
Draining his glass to the lees, Cael clunked his glass to the table. He wiped his lips.
“I am ready,” he said.
Chapter Twelve
So what did you two talk about?” Alynthia snarled as she led the way down the hall. It was the first words she had spoken to Cael since they’d left Oros’s chamber. About twenty silent minutes had passed, minutes in which he could feel the tension seething within her. She walked in front of him, her back as stiff as a ramrod.
Cael began to suspect she was leading him in circles. Though the hall was bare of any identifying ornaments, a couple of doors looked familiar, as though he had passed them several times before.
“Nothing much,” he responded.
“Did he tell you why you were summoned?” she asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
They continued on in silence for a while, passing another familiar-looking door. Cael grew impatient He stopped. With- out seeming to notice, Alynthia continued down the hall and vanished around a corner. He stood for a moment, irresolute, listening to her footsteps fading away in the distance. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, he hurried after her.
As he turned the corner, he tripped and fell sprawling to the floor. Alynthia stepped on his back and pinned him to the floor. Her lips twitched with anger. “You will follow me without question, even if I choose to lead you in circles!” she snarled as she ground her heel into his spine.
“Yes, Mistress,” he groaned, trying to squirm free of her boot.
“And you will call me Captain, do you understand?”
“Aye, Captain,” he answered.
“Now get up!” She stepped aside and allowed him to stand. He dusted the knees of his trousers and waited for her to lead on. She stalked away, her heels pounding on the stone flags of the floor.
“Never question my orders,” she continued, turning the same corner for perhaps the fourth time. “As a freelance, individual initiative has served you well enough, but in the Guild it is a dangerous habit. There are people in this city who pay handsomely for protection.”
“Meaning they pay you to not rob them,” Cael said.
Alynthia ignored him. “Only the Guild captains know who they are, so we can’t have you going off on a lark. You hit who I tell you to hit and no one else. Understand?”
“Aye, aye, Captain, sir,” Cael barked like a theatrical pirate.
Alynthia stopped beside a low door, turned, and fixed the elf with a cold eye. “Do try not to be such a buffoon,” she said as she opened the door. Beyond, a staircase led down into shadows.
“Where are we going?” Cael asked as he followed her down.
“Didn’t I tell you not to ask questions?” she barked. “Your only concern is to follow me.”
Cael reluctantly obeyed. They reached the bottom of the stair and stepped into a low, smoky, torchlit hall. By the damp, heavy stone of the walls and arched ceiling, Cael guessed it to be deep underground.
Unlike the other parts of the Guild house that he had seen, this section was alive with activity. Young men and women scurried about, tending to duties that at first glance seemed bewildering in their variety. Two burly chaps strained to carry a heavy iron door, while a girl of no more than ten summers followed them, holding a large basket of sparkling black plums. Three men bearing double jars of oil squeezed through, careful not to spill a drop. A little further down the hall, a pair of dull-eyed Kalamanites tended the torches lining the walls, replacing old, smoking torches with fresh new ones. Suddenly, a half dozen youths bolted past in hot pursuit of a young girl clutching what appeared to be a merchant’s money belt, while a peg-legged instructor hopped after them, shouting to the girl that she had damn well better not let them catch her, or else she’d receive a right smart hiding. He bobbed and smiled to Alynthia as he passed, then continued on his way, loosing a string of curses at the pursuers, promising double punishment if they couldn’t catch a young strip of an girl like that.
Alynthia led the way down the hall. Soon they passed doorways opening both to the right and to the left. In one room, a band of black-clad thieves were performing a series of acrobatic exercises that made even the agile-footed elf stare in amazement. In another, a meal of common but hearty food was being served to a small group of brown-robed senior apprentices. They conversed in whispers. Through a third door, Cael saw a startling variety of Palanthian citizenry, from waterbearers to sailors to bejeweled and perfume-pomaded nobles. An elder master thief stalked among them, eyeing each sweating apprentice with deliberate care, and delivering praise or correction, or, when necessary, a punishing thwack of his stick to each deserving student of the arts of disguise.
“Today you shall begin to learn the discipline of the Guild. You’ll forget your independent ways and learn to appreciate the company and camaraderie of fellow thieves,” Alynthia explained as she led the way.