Twilight's End

Part 3 - The Job

Vessa crouched in darkness beside a red-brick wall veined by creepers. Around her the merchant prince's garden trembled in the faint breeze, a wild profusion of flowers that spiced the humid night air with cloying smells. Something slithered through the grass near her, and Vessa stamped her foot, hoping to drive whatever creature it was away. Probably nothing poisonous, but she had grown up in a land where even the most harmless-looking lizard or snake could kill with a single bite, and the flowers filling this garden looked to have been drawn from distant realms. Perhaps the beasts were as well.

A shadow emerged from behind the gnarled trunk of a dwarf banyan. "Vess," Del hissed as he hurried to her side. "This is the spot?"

"Yes. Even you should be able to climb the wall here without breaking your neck."

Del gripped a vine and gave it an experimental shake. "Seems strong."

"It'll hold. Now, you're sure the Eye is on the other side?"

The outline of Del's head bobbed in the darkness. "Aye. I got a better look at the roof a moment ago, and it's definitely peaked, as Sahm said. There's also some very nasty sorcery threading this wall – if we tried to climb over now, we'd burst into flame when we dropped to the other side."

"Is it any problem for you?"

"Shouldn't be. But I can't be sure until I try and pick the wards apart."

"Well, have at it."

Del released the creeper and placed his palm flat upon the brick wall. Vessa glanced around, half expecting just this simple touch to summon forth some guardian wraith.

"Hmmm, quite complex, really," Del murmured to himself, then fell silent.

Vessa waited patiently, trying not to disturb her partner while he worked. A nocturnal songbird chose this moment to commence its warbling, and Vessa gritted her teeth at the sound, wishing she could put her dagger through its feathered breast. Del had explained to her that what he did was akin to untangling the most complex knots imaginable and that pulling the wrong string or hesitating too long would often alert the sorcerers who had set the ward that someone was tampering with their creation. It was a dangerous game, and more than once they'd had to flee when the magics involved had ended up being too difficult for Del's talents.

But those instances were few and far between – he was very good at what he did, maybe the best on the Shattered Coast. Del had grown up an initiate of the Weavers, the sorcerous spark within him nurtured and fanned in the hopes that one day he would contribute to the shimmering, magical tapestries that filled their hidden monastery. But Del's prodigious gifts had proven unsuitable for creating . . . rather, his great talent lay in destruction. He was a Raveler, not a Weaver, and so he had found no place among those who worked the celestial looms. His mere presence, in fact, threatened their divine mandate, and so he had been cast out, sent from the monastery with only the robes he was wearing and enough provisions for a fortnight.

Luckily, he was a rather resourceful lad and had a refreshing lack of scruples when it came to liberating objects of value from their privileged owners.

Del stepped back from the wall and let out a shuddering sigh. "Done, I think."

"You think?"

"Unless there's a layer here I can't sense – which is possible, I suppose."

"How likely?"

"Very unlikely."

"That's excellent. You go over first."

Del squatted beside her, his head hanging in what she suspected was mock exhaustion. "I'm tired. And there may be flesh-and-blood guards waiting on the other side. More your specialty, I think."