"Thief" by Dewi Morgan

Geldo of the Thief awoke from his half-hour nap. He had now memorised all the necessary spells, and was ready for anything. Looking out of the window, he saw that dark was falling.

He dressed only in a loincloth, for the night was hot and clammy, then blacked his face, strapped on his burglar's leathers and took up his rope and grapple and his tools in his pouches of fine leather.

Various spell items were then hidden in secret pouches about his person, as insurance against incarceration, were he to be caught.

"Well," he said to himself. "There's no going back now. A wizard's tower, that's a new one even for you, Geldo. But this one's for Zandar. No-one kills me mentor, my friend, without learning a few things about cost. And this is one murder that will cost him dear."

With that he put on his dark, camouflaging cloak. This had itself been stolen from the shoulders of another mage-thief who had not paid his guild duties, and was therefpre fair pickings for the paid-up members. He left the pay for his last few weeks' rent on the table, again produced from one of his hauls. This prize, however, had been of little use, and after a few days playing with the hidden compartment in the exquisitely crafted, bejewelled idol, he decided to use it to pay for the room - after all, he thought, he might want one of the landlord-fence's services again, someday.

As he went from the room, he looked back. The room was as bare as when he arrived; all his posessions were on him.

He walked as silently as a cat, as invisible as the night in his footpads and his cloak, until he came to the tower, rising scornfully from the streets, tall, black and windowless to the third story, and looking like a pin through the wing of a still-living butterfly.

The door, an imposing structure of studded wood, was the obvious way in, but was no doubt trapped with all manner of terrible devices. Instead he had chosen a window on the third floor which, by dint of considerable lengths of time watchiine through a telescope he had determined to be the evil wizard's study-laboratory. He looked up, and smiled happily; the window was dark and curtained. The wizard must be asleep, true to schedule.

He removed the (also stolen) matte black, padded metal grapple from it's cover, and hinged out it's arms. He swung it aroud his head, and let it fly upwards in an arc, straight towards the windowsill of the study, only to be repelled by some form of magical protection. It landed with a dull thud on the cobbles.

"Ah, well. Worth a try, anyway," he muttered. He repacked the grapple and rope carefully and reached into a pouch in his belt, withdrawing a foul-smelling potion which he unstoppered and drank with difficulty and a grimace. "Sometimes I think I preffer the spider, but the ritual is just too much to stomach."

Quickly, knowing that he did not have much time before the spider-climb spell wore off, he placed his hands against the glass-smooth black wall and hauled himself up to the window. He tied the rope to teh window-bars, threading it through rings in his harness until he washeld firmly to the window. He sighed with relief, feeling his feet slip as the spell wore off.

Next he concentrated on the bars. As he had thought when looking from the street, they were real metal, not that stone rubbish that shattered under a simple hammer blow. The bars were on a metal frame, itself fixed to the glassy black stone by metal spikes, two at the top, two at the bottom, doubtless driven for a good couple of feet into the walls. They would also, no doubt, be protected by miscellaneous wards and charms from cutting or burning. He smiled, and drew out a small phial, very solidly stoppered and sealed. He put two drops on each of the top and bottom left spikes.

Whilst waiting for the acid to do its work, he carefully replaced the phial, and ajusted the ropes. Then, when both spikes had been eaten through, he hinged the bars away, the two remaining spikes acting as very serviceable hinges. He, tied to the bars, swung out also, but he swung around them again to deal with the windows. Taking out a nut-sized lump of a black resinous substance on the end of a string, he stuck it to the glass, tying the other end of the string to the bars. He then used a ring on his finger to scratch a circle around the lump until it fell inwards, and he pulled it carefully back out with the string, leaving it dangling from the bars. Then putting on a thick leather finger-guard, he pushed his finger through the hole to hold the glass in place while with the other hand he cut around the edges of the plate with the ring.

Eventually, he pulled out the glass pane, tied it to the bars, and left it, too, dangling. He untied himself, crept in, and closed the bars, pulling the dangling glass in behind him. From the street, the window now looked undisturbed.

Looking from behind the curtain, he assured himself that the place was empty. Then he went through the room, rifling everything; some interesting papers he kept, the rest he placed on the fire, smiling in pleasure as years of the wizard's study went up in smoke. Next he looked at the items; some devices and sparkling gems took his fancy, but the money he just flicked, coin by coin, out of the window and over the city. Glass tubes and jars he carefully wrecked with the ring, to prevent noise.

Metal equipment he squandered many drops of the valuable acid on, subtly but thoroughly destroying everything he didn't take for himself. He grabbed a pile of wooden stirrers and artefacts, placing them in the blaze of paper and quietly stirring them to make sure all the pages were burned.

Looking around when he had finished, after a mere three minutes of frenzied but silent activity, he saw that the study was not much different from when he had arrived. Perhaps a little tidier than before: fewer artefactws and papers strewn everywhere. But the wizard would only realise the true extent of the damage when he went to use any of his apparatus.

A merry smile lit on Geldo's face. He knew that the real work in this room was now to begin, so he set about it; every box, drawer, panel and inch of floor and wall had to be minutely inspected to find any secret compartments. however, either the wizard was overconfident in his defences, or he was very good at hiding things, for Geldo could only find one place where something might be hidden - the leg of the main table had a hollow ring to it that could not be attributed to woodworm. Checking it, he found a hairline crack running in a square near the top; a door, perhaps. He loked for any extrnal signs of a trap, but could find none. Remembering his mentor's advice "lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack," he instead split the leg from the other side with his knife. Sure enough he found a hammer held away from a phial of doubtless harmful liquit, which he threw down the drain unopened. Anything to help clean up the city's sewers, he chuckled to himself. In the compartment, he found some information on the Wizard's more nefarious doings, some powerful spells, and a curse, that would most likely kill him outright if he read it. The spells were too powerful, the information boring, and the curse too dangerous, so he disappointedly dropped the lot in the fire.

The next room was the livingroom, which provided no treasure, but plenty of opportunity. He went on, smiling as he thought of what would happen the next time the wizard sat down.

And so it continued, trapping many rooms, looting all of them, and placing poisons in the food that would ive the wizard many embarassing ailments should he sample them. Trapping the privy caused him no end of mirth.

Finally, there remained just te bedroom and the strongroom. Common sense forbade entering the sleepingplace of a master mage, so he went to the strongroom, instead. It was, after all, his main target.

The door was probably as valuable as the contents of the entire rest of the tower, inches thick solid steel. the only mark on it being the outline of a hand. Doubtless all the mage had to do was place his hand on the mark, speak a command word, and it would open. But for someone else, the method of opening it would be more complex. There was not enough acid left to affect the mechanism. The hairline crack around the door was useless for jimmying. There was no keyhole, and no visible hinges. There was no airduct.

But he was a mage, as well as a thief, and had things better than acid up his sleeves. He pulled out a rope and laid it against the door, and placed a charm around his neck. As he rubbed the charm, the rope rose of it's own volition, up to about twice his height, and a portal opened at the tope, half embedded in the door. He climbed up the rope through the half of the portal, pulling the rope in behind him and looked into the vault through the half of the portal on the other side of the door, feeling quite pleased with himself.

The vault was empty, except for a plinth in the centre of the room on which rested a gem, sparkling dully, and looking much like any other gem. Except for one thing: the soul of a powerful sorceror is not usually tied up in a normal gem.

He cast a spell, and to his eyes a hundred parts of the room all glowed brightly, as the magical traps revealed themselves. He climbed down and moved cautiously across the near-blemishless floor, avoiding traps both magical and, with some effort, mechanical as well. Finally he reached the plinth. He circled around behind it, seeing that the magic around that made it impossible for him to take it undiscovered.

He paused momentarily, then withdrew an insect's leg from a pouch. Muttering some arcanities and moving his hands with practiced ease through the motions of the spell, he snapped the leg. Thus prepared, he stood on the far side of the plinth and leapt over it, grabbing the jem as he went. Instantly, the plinth flamed up in a swift-growing fireball, and the ceiling grew spikes as it fell.

But Geldo's leap carried him onward, to the top of his rope. He swung up and hauled it up behind him. There was a momentary flash of heat as the fireball hit, cut off almost before it started by the falling ceiling which sliced off the last couple of feet of rope as it fell. He threw it down the other side and leapt down it and over to the stairwell. He heard a noise behind him as he slid down the bannister, avoiding the trapped stairs, and ducked instinctively as a lightning bolt flew over him. The wizard had awoken, and fast! He slid further down and around the corner, out of the wizard's line of fire for the moment. His momentary sigh of relief was interrupted by a faint click of a catch under him, and blades glinted ahead of him. Frantically, he leapft off the rail... and fell down the stairwell. He was within four feet of the ground by the time his feather fall incantation was finished. He leapt to the door, hauled it open, and slid off into the night, losimg himself in the network of twisting alleyways he called home.

Later that night, on his way to the safehouse to dispose of his loot, he saw a cloaked and hooded man standing with his back to him, looking through a fence at a fight. The belt of his cloak held a pouch, bulging invitingly. He put on his fake armsling and joined the man to watch the fight, his 'broken' arm slipping out of it's sling holding a tiny razor to liberate the pouch.

The world exploded in an agonizing firework display as the man brought a cosh down on Geldo's head. The cloaked and hooded "back" had been a man facing him, waiting for thieves to try for the pouch!

As he fell, his last vision was of the gem flying from one of his pouches and shattering on the ground. His magic attuned senses saw the spirit being released, and dissipating, killing the sorceror with no hope of salvation or resurrection. He thought he heard a last, despairing scream from the wizard, or it may have been himself, before the ground met him, too, and darkness fell.

He awoke. His headache was like a thousand dwarven blacksmiths smiting in unison on the anvil of his head. He groaned, and looked around. He was in some sort of prison, a very boring looking place, with only his bracelets and loincloth. Checking in his loincloth and under his bracelets, he was reassured that many of his spell components remained undiscovered.

Another groan broke the silence, and his face lit with a grin. Perhaps incarceration wasn't going to be boring after all, if there was company. "Hello," he called out. "My name's Geldo, but you can call me Backstabber. We're in prison. Isn't it fun? I've never been in prison before. Well, except to visit the cousins, of course."

The groan repeated itself, but sounding even more miserable, if that were possible. "Bad enough we lose everything and enslaved. Was that not enough? Why, oh Gods, do you inflict us with the curse of a halfling for company?"