“What is that?” Cael asked, amazed.
“Slingers,” Alynthia answered with a smile beneath her mask. “That’s our Guild for you. There are slingers on every roof. And now…”
She paused. A larger and louder flash, almost an explosion, burst upon Jenna’s shield, spinning her around, adding to the look of frustrated rage on her face.
“…the crossbowmen.”
“Impressive, but what good are they? She is protected against both dart and slinger’s stone,” Cael said.
“Yes, but look how they distract her,” Alynthia commented. A bolt crashed against the shield just before Jenna’s face, drawing an instinctive recoil from the sorceress. “We escape while she swats flies. Follow me, Cael!”
She kicked one leg over the roofs battlement, grasped the rope, and swung over. Cael watched her rappel down the wall as expertly as any mountaineer. When she touched the ground, she shook the rope for Cael to follow.
“Wonderfully light, she is,” Rull said as he held the rope’s end in his iron grip. “Over you go.”
Cael swung over the battlement and lowered himself hand-over-hand to the alley below. He had no skill such as Alynthia’s for rappelling down ropes in the black of night. As soon as his feet touched the cobblestones, the rope came slithering down after him. He almost swore aloud, thinking the thief had tried to drop him.
But no, Alynthia quickly wound it into a remarkably small coil and stowed it in a large flat pouch at her belt. “In case we need it for further escapes,” she explained. “Let’s return to our safe room and stow these black clothes. We can’t walk about Palanthas dressed like this.”
“I should say not,” a voice said behind them. They spun around, Alynthia drawing her dagger, Cael gripping his staff.
Before them stood a small man draped in heavy robes of gray. His face was thin and pale, his eyes small and black and ratlike. They seemed almost to glow red in the darkness of the alley.
Alynthia took a step toward him, but he halted her with a warning, “Ah, ah, ah! I wouldn’t do that.” His robe parted slightly, revealing a drawn hand crossbow. “You’d be dead before you took another step. You may drop your illegal weapon now.”
Reluctantly, Alynthia let the weapon slide from her fingertips. The man’s ratlike eyes then swiveled to gaze at the elf. “Cael Ironstaff of… Where is it you are from anyway? No matter. You and your accomplice are under arrest.”
“By whose authority, and on what charge?” Cael growled.
“Why, the charge begins with burglary, though I am sure I can conjure up a few more capital offenses if need be. As for me, I am Sir Arach Jannon, Knight of the Thorn and Judge of the Law in Palanthas. My authority here is unquestioned.” So saying, he placed a pair of spidery fingers to his thin lips and sounded a piercing whistle.
“More Knights will be here shortly to take you away. In the meantime, I think a small spell to immobilize you would be in order. You thieves are notoriously slippery. Besides, it is not often that I get to try my magic against living subjects these days.”
Alynthia turned quickly to face Cael, her eyes twinkling. Reading her meaning, Cael stepped toward the Thorn Knight, his staff gripped crosswise before him.
Sir Arach jumped back and held up one hand, palm forward. “Halt! I command you!” he shouted in a resounding voice. His outstretched hand glowed with silver light, and a shimmering cloud of tiny silver stars descended upon the two thieves.
Cael froze, waiting, but nothing seemed to happen. Sir Arach smiled and relaxed, turning away to see if his guards were nearing. Cael looked at Alynthia, who merely shrugged.
Cael took another step toward the Thorn Knight, who spun round at the sound of his footstep, surprise and contempt in his rodent eyes. The Knight whipped his still-cocked crossbow from his robes and held it tremblingly pointed at Cael’s chest. “No closer, thief,” he warned.
In a flash Cael reached out and cracked the Knight’s hand with his staff. Bones crunched, and the crossbow went sailing over their heads, loosing its bolt into the night. Sir Arach staggered back, startled by the speed of the elf’s attack. He sucked his broken fingers for a moment, then spun and fled down the dark alley, his gray robes flapping.
Alynthia pushed past Cael and snatched her dagger from the cobblestones. In the same movement, she reversed it with a flip and raised her arm to throw, but Cael caught her by the wrist.
“He’ll raise the alarm!” she hissed.
“Kill a Lord Knight, and not even Mulciber can protect you,” Cael calmly stated. He held her wrist a moment longer, then released it. She jerked away from him, then turned and watched the Thorn Knight vanish around a corner.
“You’re right,” she said reluctantly. “We’d better go.” Without turning to see if he followed, she stalked away. She paused at the alley’s end, glanced over her shoulder, then slipped around a corner into the night.
“You’re welcome,” Cael called as he dashed after her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They paused an hour later and looked behind them. A hundred feet back, the gray-robed Thorn Knight appeared from a darkened alleyway. Surrounding him were six other Knights of Neraka, their swords drawn and gleaming in the moonlight.
“Damn,” Alynthia swore. “We’ll never lose him. He uses magic to follow us, I’ll warrant. However, I know just the place to elude him, if you have nerves of steel.”
“Where you lead, I shall follow, be it even unto the gates of the Abyss, Captain,” Cael said theatrically.
His chest heaved, his lungs burned. They’d been running in circles for what seemed like hours, trying to elude the patrols of Knights. They had taken to the sewers, only to be forced back into the streets and alleys to avoid being captured by a veritable legion of torch-wielding city guards.
“Follow me,” Alynthia ordered, as she took his hand and tugged him along.
The dusky-skinned thief led him along a winding path, down alleys and streets, keeping to the evening’s deepening shadows. Ahead, there loomed a larger shadow, darker than the surrounding night, and as they neared it, Cael realized that it was a grove of trees. A chill wind, not born of the mountain heights but of fear and death, blew from it. Alynthia’s hand in his began to tremble, her steps faltered, but her eyes dared him onward. He followed, feeling an unaccountable abhorrence and loathing fill his very soul.
Finally, they stopped, unwilling or unable to go further. Before them, the Shoikan Grove sighed as some inner wind stirred its branches. This legendary place had once guarded the fabled Tower of High Sorcery, but now the tower was gone, vanished from the face of Krynn for almost forty years. The grove itself was said to have been created during the Age of Might, when the wizards of the Tower, besieged by public hatred and prejudices inflamed by the reign of the Kingpriest, abandoned their Tower, surrendering it to the Lord of the City rather than battle the citizens of Palanthas in a war that could only end in destruction. But as the Master of the Tower placed its keys in the hands of the city’s greedy lord, a black-robed mage appeared on the Tower’s highest balcony. He leaped into the empty air and impaled himself on the gates below. With his dying breath, he cast a curse on the grounds, and from that curse was born the Shoikan Grove, to protect the Tower from all trespassers until the Master of Past and Present returned.
In time, the master did return and claim his own, but the grove remained, ever a watchful guardian. When, almost forty years ago, the Tower vanished, still the grove endured and even now stood guard over the empty, eerie grounds.
Now, Alynthia and Cael stood in its moon shadow. High above, the pale white moon of Krynn shone down in all its full radiance upon them, but its rays could not penetrate the shadows beneath the trees. Even Cael’s elven sight failed to function in that awful place. He looked away, settling his gaze on Alynthia. Beads of sweat stood out on her quivering lip.