“As I was saying I tried to grab it, but it was already out of my reach, and something was holding me firmly in the water, I looked back over my shoulder, and what do you think had happened?”
Cael would have ventured a guess, if the gnome hadn’t talked on unabated. “The self-extending ladder, or laddapult as I call it, extended right through the sides of the pack inside the monster’s mouth and ripped her clean in half like a loaf of bread. One side was pinned to one wall of the sewer and the other side pinned to the other and, crikey, but I was in an even worse spot than before. Let me tell you I nearly drowned before I was able to wriggle free of my pack.
“I nearly died anyway under the indelicate care of the gully dwarves who found me, a pox on all aghar and their fumbling ministrations, it is a wonder I survived them. I think I might have fared better in the belly of the beast!”
“But you lost your foot.”
“Mechanical one,” the gnome grinned through the mat of his beard. He wiggled his booted foot for the elf to see. It creaked. “This one needs oil but it’s better than the original in many ways and I have several ideas for further improvement, detachable toes for one thing, and…”
Cael smiled and looked up, but his smile quickly faded. Gimzig followed his gaze, his voice trailing away.
Dark Horizon was gone.
Cael stared at the empty mooring for a long while, his face grim. The gnome shook his head in dismay.
“Gimzig,” Cael said at last. “Can you get me back into Thieves’ House?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Alynthia stood before them, her head sagging against her chest, tears of frustration streaming down her face. A tight gag muted her sobs, and her arms were bound cruelly behind her back. Her seven fellow Guild captains glared silently at her across the dimly lit room. The pale-eyed captain from Sancrist wore a grin of triumph, while sadness etched the features of the raven-tressed Abanasinian captain.
Alynthia cared little what the others thought. What broke her heart most was the man sitting directly before her.
“Shall we begin?” Oros uth Jakar asked.
They stood in the same high vaulted room where Cael had been judged and doomed. Captain Oros sat upon his thronelike seat, his back rigid, hands tightly gripping the arms of the chair. To his immediate right stood an empty chair that had once belonged to Alynthia, to his left was the dark alcove where shadows brooded. Alynthia glanced up into that black niche, feeling the customary presence, a pair of unseen eyes that burned her with their gaze. Or did she see something else? She blinked, wondering if a shift in the deep shadows of the alcove were not a trick of the dim light.
“What are the charges?” asked a voice from the alcove. She shuddered involuntarily.
Slowly and with a show of reluctance, Oros removed a roll of parchment from his breast pocket and opened it He read aloud, “Disobeying a direct order of the Guild. Endangering the Guild by needlessly risking capture while carrying out an unsanctioned entry into the dungeons of Palanthas. Assisting in the escape of a prisoner of the Knights of Neraka. Harboring a fugitive wanted by the Knights of Neraka. Sharing Guild secrets with the uninitiated. Failing to report her activities and location in a timely manner. Illegal and unsanctioned entry, theft, and wanton destruction of a protected entity, namely the Lord’s Palace of Palanthas. Illegal and unsanctioned entry of a Guild property on two occasions, namely my own abode, as well as the ship Dark Horizon. And the most serious charge of all-aiding and assisting in the escape of a freelance thief under interdict by the Guild.”
He rolled up the parchment and slipped it back into his pocket.
“These are indeed serious charges,” Mulciber intoned from the shadowy alcove. “We have been sorely disappointed in the actions of Captain Alynthia Krath-Mal. She knew full well our temper concerning this elf, and bore with her the price of his doom should she allow him to escape. That she aided in his escape and that her action indirectly cost us the life of one of our most beloved members, the minotaur Kolav Ru-Marn, pains us. She has forsaken her duty to us, and we cannot forgive her.”
There followed a long grave silence.
Mulciber continued, “Since she has been found guilty of these crimes, she is not allowed to speak in her own defense. Will no one now rise and say a word in her favor, before I pronounce her doom?”
No one budged. Alynthia looked into the faces of her fellow captains and saw each turn quickly away. They know, she thought. They know and they say nothing. They are afraid.
Her gaze settled on her husband. She wanted to be looking into his eyes when Mulciber pronounced her sentence.
“Very well. It is the command of the Eighth Circle that Alynthia Krath-Mal should die,” said the voice from the alcove.
Alynthia tried to break free and rush at her husband, screaming unintelligible curses through her gag. Her guards easily caught her and dragged her back.
She’d seen his lips move. As she had gazed intently at her husband and listened to her sentence, she had seen his lips move ever so slightly, forming the words that Mulciber spoke!
Oros rose from his chair, and said with a voice choked with grief, “Take her away.”
Mulciber spoke again from the alcove, halting the guards before they’d reached the door with their prisoner. The cracking, ambiguous voice seemed changed somehow, less old and weary, less like stone grating against stone.
“As master of the Guild I exercise my right to commute the sentence of this woman.”
All but the captain from Sancrist leaped up in delight at these words. Oros spun and faced the alcove, his eyes narrow slits of alarmed suspicion. “What trick is this?” he growled.
A figure stepped from the shadowed alcove. A gasp went up from the gathered thieves. Not one of them had ever actually seen their dread leader. But he appeared exactly as they had always imagined him-ebon robed and heavily cowled, leaning on a staff as black and mysterious as himself. The hand that gripped the staff was pale and long fingered but looked young and strong. As one, the Guild captains fell groveling on the floor. Alynthia’s guards released her and joined their leaders in prostrating themselves. Only Oros remained standing, Alynthia behind him, dumbfounded.
“What is more,” Mulciber said from his hood. “I accuse you, Sir Oros uth Jakar, disgraced Knight of the Rose, of betrayal, subterfuge, and obfuscation.”
“Get up, you lot of fools!” Oros shouted at the others. “This isn’t Mulciber. This is an impostor. It has to be!”
“Why must I be an impostor?” Mulciber asked. “He will not tell you, so I must.” The Guild master drew back the cowl of his robe, revealing the pale red-bearded face of Cael Ironstaff.
“Because there is no Mulciber,” the elf said.
With a scream of rage, Oros drew a dagger from his belt and rushed him. Cael easily parried the blow with his staff and sent Oros staggering backward.
The other Guild captains had regrouped. Half seemed indecisive, the others looked ready to attack the elf. Alynthia’s guards scrambled up, hands nervously gripping their weapons but taking no further action, awaiting orders.
“It was you who betrayed the Guild to the Knights of Takhisis. Alynthia and I discovered Oros last night in league with the Lord Knight of the City and Arach Jannon,” Cael said.
Angry mutterings sounded from the gathered Guild captains. Alynthia’s guards shifted uncomfortably.
Oros, half recovered from his knock on the head, said thickly, “I was only acting under the orders of Mulciber.”
“There is no Mulciber!” Cael shouted. “If Mulciber were real, would he allow me to impersonate him? Wasn’t he just here pronouncing Captain Alynthia’s doom, and didn’t I just step from his alcove? Shouldn’t he be striking me dead with his magic for my effrontery?” The elf turned dramatically to the dark alcove.