So...I was asked to share a story I wrote and I couldn't find the original short I was going to put on here, but enjoy this full chapter from a project I started, got two or three chapters in and then got sidetracked by other things. It's relatively recent (just from this past July) and I actually had a lot of fun working on it. Enjoy!
The Apocalypse Thief
Chapter One
Gareth headed down the street, keeping his head down as he
looked up at the house – two stories. It was roomy, with lots of windows and an
inscription over the stone doorway, probably some sort of incantation to keep
out troublemakers. A light burned upstairs – someone (probably the noble) up
studying late, just as the informants said. He looked back and forth, but the
guards were nowhere in sight. They wouldn’t be here for another ten minutes.
He held up one hand and muttered an incantation under his
breath – a very basic spell that could disable magical defenses. The
incantation at the top of the doorway glowed briefly, then sparked and
sputtered, as if it was going out. He nodded to himself and stepped through,
into the house’s courtyard, with its quiet fountain and green trees. Definitely
one of the wealthier noblemen, then. Space was at a premium in Rushreed City.
He leaned against the wall almost immediately, sticking to
the shadows as much as he could. Just around the corner, he saw two guards,
sitting by the door, drinking and playing cards. The information was accurate,
yet again. He slipped quietly past them, and then behind in an awning, before
he found what he was looking for: a large, heavy rock. He slid up right behind
him and brought it down squarely on the guard’s head, denting his helmet and
sending him to the ground unconscious.
The other guard scrambled to his feet, but Gareth moved
fast. He tumbled to the ground as well. They were rookies, in any case. All of
the real warriors – soldiers, whatever – had been commandeered by the King for
the war.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “You’re both going to have a really
nasty headache when you come to.” He reached down and took the key from one of
the guard’s pockets and hung it around his neck. Then he walked over the large
cask of ale sitting by the door, filled the tankards several times…and poured
it all over them. With luck, people would think they were just drunk when they
came to and tried to tell everyone about the mysterious thief who had knocked them
both out with a rock.
“Sorry,” he whispered and then unlocked the door, and
slipped inside. He gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, before
looking around. It was a nice room, with thick carpets, easy chairs and some
thick leatherbound book on a table, apparently a tome about magic – or maybe of magic – going by the looks of it.
But, as he had learned, it probably wasn’t worth anything. No sane nobleman
would leave his most valuable (or powerful) possessions sitting around, for
just anyone to find. Plus, it wasn’t what he was here for anyway.
He left the book alone, and then pulled out a magic scroll
he had purchased from a reliable source: a tracking spell, though only of
limited duration. He muttered the words. The scroll crumbled to dust. Nothing
else visible happened but he immediately felt his gut tug him down the hallway.
He hadn’t forgotten the nobleman at the end of the hall – he’d made sure to pay
the manor cook generously to put a sleeping draught in the man’s tea.
He reached a doorway, all of his senses tingling now. What
he wanted was just beyond the door. He quickly muttered the dispelling
incantation – really, the only spell he actually knew - just in case. A brief
moment, the spell started to fizzle, but then began to glow with hot, red
light. He bit back a curse and ducked into one of the nearby rooms, just as a
solid sheet of fire blazed through the hallway. It left the wood and
furnishings untouched – it was magical fire, and would only burn intruders.
The spell died away and he let out a long sigh of relief. He
was safe. The spell needed time to recharge. He pulled out a lockpick from his
pocket and set to work on the door. It creaked open a moment later and he
stepped into a room. A lantern burned from a window, and a man – he looked like
he might have been in the second half of middle age, but not quite old enough
to be called elderly – snored at the desk. A cup of tea sat next to him, half
drunk and Gareth suppressed a smile. Still, he wasn’t quite out of the woods
yet.
He glanced around, and then stopped at a cabinet, his senses
going wild. The pendent was in the cabinet. He thought for a moment – if the
door and the fire blaze was any indication, the magical defenses here would be
far stronger than anything his basic dispelling could counter. There was always
a way around it. He glanced over at the snoring noble – defenses (or, at least,
halfway decent spells) could distinguish between friend and foe.
So if the noble was the one to open the cabinet, or maybe
just touch it.
He shouldn’t wake up,
he thought. That sleeping powder’s strong – more than a pinch and you’re out
for a month.
He strode over, and pushed the nobleman’s chair over to the
cabinet and then quickly used his hand to pull it open. He held his breath, and
then used the noble’s hand to disable the defenses around a small box of gold
and faint pink lacquer. A small pendent had been placed lovingly inside, with a
chain of silver and a ruby shaped like a teardrop.
He tentatively picked it up, careful not to touch it with
his bare hands, in case there were more defenses. He stowed it in his bag and
nodded at the man.
“Thanks for your help,” he muttered. The noble snored,
unaware. Gareth smiled slightly, and headed back the way he had come, walking
quietly down the stairs and out to the gardens again. He felt a very slight
twinge of unease as he stepped outside.
That had been remarkably easy to pull off - maybe a little
too easy. He had long since learned to trust his feelings about stuff like this;
it had proven useful in the past. He slid into the shadow of the gateway,
before the street. It was deserted. He frowned, and then glanced up at the
bright moon in the sky and then back at the gray street, still unable to shake
the feeling that there was something very wrong here.
He stepped out into the street. And immediately, a beacon of
light burst from his satchel – from the gemstone – into the sky. He cursed,
this time not bothering to be quiet about it and immediately yanked the pendent
from his bag. But it was burning hot. He yelled in sudden pain and dropped it,
where it spilled onto the pavement…and promptly dissolved.
He started to run, hearing heavy booted footsteps behind him
and knew almost instantly: he’d been had. The mysterious client, the way he’d
been able to break into the house with little help…it was a trick to catch him.
The real pendent was far better defended than what he’d been expecting and what
he’d been told about it.
Guards – real guards, this time, professional soldiers in
the employ of the King – ran into view, swords drawn.
“Right,” he said. “Do not want to meet them.” Behind him,
the pendent still blazed with red light. He took off running, glancing at the
still stinging brand on his palm. He wondered briefly if it was magical – it
was probably a tracker. He’d heard rumors of the new spell developed by the
court mage, now used to track criminals and prisoners.
He muttered his dispelling incantation again, difficult as
it was to focus while he sprinted down the street, guards in pursuit. He felt a
pins-and-needles sensation in his hand, but the brand didn’t disappear. He
hadn’t expected it too. This was strong magic, and it needed a proper mage to
actually get rid of it. Or maybe…
If they think I’m just
going to lie down and surrender, they’re sorely mistaken, he thought. They’re going to remember tonight.
He ran over a bridge, which overlooked the broad Rushingleam
River, and then jumped over the side, into the water. He looked up, just in
time to see the guards point arrows at him. He dove underwater just in time,
risking another glance at his hand. The brand was starting to fade now, as he
thought. Enchantments had a chance to be washed away in running water,
especially if newly cast.
Not a commonly known fact, but a useful one still. He
surfaced again. Unfortunately, he now had other problems. Such as the fact he
was stuck in a fast-moving current, rushing through the city. At least nobody
saw him – that would definitely attract attention. The guards would undoubtedly
be looking for a man fished from the river.
He treaded water for a long time, trying to remain as
inconspicuous as possible while the shores of the city slid by. Once this was
done, he decided to make it a point to never accept offers from the spotlessly
dressed man in solid white, or, for that matter, anyone that couldn’t be
vouched for on the streets. His one mistake, really his only mistake. Well, not
really his only mistake. But all the
same…
The gray bulk of the Great Temple passed him by.
A ghostly
light appeared ahead of him, riverboat. He dove underwater again, holding his
breath for almost as long as he could bear, trying to swim out of the ship’s
way. It passed by painfully slowly, and then stopped. He heard a distant splash
and an explosion of bubbles as the anchor plunged into the bottom of the river,
dragging against the mud.
He couldn’t stay under forever. He would just have to hope
the darkness would conceal him and he came up, gasping for air. Just in time to
see the soldiers with crossbows, and a captain, standing here, his scarlet cloak
billowing in the breeze. A young mage stood next to the man nervously – his
robes hanging loosely on a very skinny frame.
“Well, well. If it isn’t the great Gareth Calistone. Clever
trick, getting rid of the tracking spell by jumping into the river. But really,
it was only a matter of time.”
He gestured to the mage who murmured an incantation. Gareth
winced, it was as though someone had driven a hook into the small of his back.
He was yanked clear out of the water and onto the deck, sopping wet.
“Nice to see you
too,” he said.
