Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2)

  Thief

  Ratcatchers, Book 2

  by

  Matthew Colville

  This is a work of fiction. Any relation to actual living persons, alive or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012-2014 by Matthew Colville

  Cover design copyright 2013 by Tim Denee

  First edition self-published by Matthew Colville in 2014

  All rights reserved. No rights to distribute or retransmit are granted.

  Visit facebook.com/ratcatchers for early drafts of the sequel!

  Find a typo, let me know, come back and see your name below.

  Brock Heinz, LIz Steinworth, Raymond Lukes, Silvano Matthews

  Dedication

  Melody Anne Colville

  “I got the horse right here!”

  Special Thanks

  Once again, the inestimable Tim Denee supplied the amazing cover!

  Beta Readers

  In every instance these volunteers provided critical feedback that led to significant edits. The book within would be very different without them.

  Aaron Contreras, Roland Cooke, Denise Harwood, Kurt Klockau, Raymond Lukes, Zane Lyon, Tamerlane Mohammad, Arthur Monteath-Carr, John Petersen, Shao Qu Zi, Jaime Sue, Manny Vega

  Thief

  The Players

  In this city of Celkirk, in this nation of Corwell, blessed by Cavall and his greatest saint, Llewellyn.

  The Hammer & Tongs

  Heden – The Arrogate. A quasi-official agent of the church. Owner of the Hammer & Tongs

  Vanora – A trull. Sentenced to death for demonic possession. Saved by Heden.

  Ballisantirax – a cat.

  The Church

  Conmonoc – Bishop and Hierarch of the Church of St. Llewellyn, the Valiant.

  Gwiddon – His attaché. The man sent to spy on the king for the bishop.

  The Abbot – A secretkeeper

  The Special Watch

  The Castellan – Master of the citadel. Enemy of organized crime. Also known as the ragman.

  Aiden – A newly minted special watchman.

  Fandrick & Rayk – Veterans of the special watch.

  The City Watch

  Domnal – A captain of the watch in one of the city’s wards.

  Teagan – A watchman under Domnal’s command. Formerly a ratcatcher.

  The Thieves

  The Count – Master of the Guild of Blackened Silk.

  Garth – His fixer.

  Brick – Master of the Cold Hearth.

  Aimsley Pinwhistle – His fixer.

  Calvus – The Hearth’s alchemist

  The Truncheon – Master of the Darkened Moon. Also known as the Midnight Man.

  Roderick Tam – An alchemist.

  The Rose Petal

  Miss Elowen – Owner and proprietor.

  Bann – A demi-urq and Miss Elowen’s muscle.

  Martlyn – A trull.

  Caerys – A trull.

  Special Guests

  Hapax Legomenon – Occultus quaesitor for the Lens, a wizard’s order

  Zaar – A blacksmith and former ratcatcher.

  Richard – King of Corwell.

  Prologue

  The last green holly berry bled out its color, turning a pale milky-white.

  Bishop Conmonoc looked at the seven white berries, twirled the sprig in his hand. He tossed it onto the massive oak desk.

  “I want you to leak word of this to the king,” he said.

  Gwiddon took a deep breath, brought himself back to reality.

  “Easily done,” he said, trying to read the bishop’s face. “What am I leaking word to him about?”

  The bishop sat quietly staring in the direction of a bookcase for what seemed to Gwiddon an unnatural length of time. He felt he could see the gears whirring in the old man’s head. Finally, the bishop turned to him and took a deep breath.

  “Tell him the north is no longer secure. Tell him to prepare for invasion.”

  Gwiddon nodded. “I can do that,” he said. “I can point his men in the right direction, they’ll find out about the Green, learn about their duty, what happened to them. Convincing him an invasion is coming might be harder.”

  “But well within the scope of your talents,” the bishop said, nodding deferentially to his attaché.

  “It’ll be easier once we know more,” Gwiddon said. “Once Heden returns to the city. He’ll need to be debriefed.” He looked at the centuries-old sprig of holly, once immortal, now dead. “There’s too much we don’t know about….”

  “You will not wait, you will leak this information immediately. Already one town has been destroyed by forces rampaging out from the Wode, without benefit of the protection of the Green. More will fall. The king must do something.”

  “Already one…,” Gwiddon said. “You know this?”

  “I do.”

  “Llewellyn told you this?” Gwiddon asked. He wasn’t sure why he was asking, something didn’t feel right. The bishop’s information covered strange territory and omitted much.

  “He did,” the bishop said.

  “Your Grace,” Gwiddon began, “Did Llewellyn tell you what happened to Heden?”

  The bishop sniffed. “He did not think it important, neither do I. I understand he is your friend….”

  Gwiddon took a measured breath, smoothed the front of his silk shirt, dared to interrupt. "He is an agent of the church, your grace. He was reluctant to go and I convinced him. At your request. He may now be dead, and I manipulated him into going."

  "It is your job to manipulate people. And if he is dead, he died redeeming himself," the old man nodded at the holly berries.

  Gwiddon was briefly overwhelmed with anger. “I wasn’t aware, your grace,” he recovered magnificently. He wished someone was here to watch his performance. Someone besides the bishop. “That Heden was in any need of redemption.”

  “Don’t you see?” the bishop said. He appeared genuinely surprised that Gwiddon didn’t find this all obvious. “Heden is,” he paused and nodded a concession to Gwiddon, “perhaps indirectly, responsible for the collapse of our power.”

  Gwiddon looked around the bishop’s private office, situated in the heart of the massive granite cathedral of St. Llewellyn. The largest building in all Vasloria. “When you say, ‘collapse…’”

  “You lead a charmed existence,” the bishop said sadly, but not without affection. “In your capacity as my royal attaché, you enjoy the privilege of ignoring how far we’ve fallen since Aendrim.”

  “You’re talking about the deathless.”

  “I’m talking about our growing irrelevance in a world without them. The world Heden delivered us into. I intend to restore our standing.”

  Gwiddon nodded. He understood. The church’s two great briefs were protecting Corwell from deathless and fiends. Fiends, more powerful, but far more rare. The church performed many mundane functions across the lives of the followers of Cavall and his saints, but these functions did not require a massive granite cathedral. Or a bishop.

  “I will do as you ask,” Gwidd said. “The king will learn of the fall of the Green and I will plant the idea that the wode and its denizens are a threat.”

  The bishop was pleased.

  “It might speed matters along if I knew what reaction we want King Richard to have to this news.”

  “Well, ideally, he’ll send the Hart into the north to investigate,” the bishop said. “But I’ll be satisfied if he comes to the inevitable conclusion that the church’s martial brief should be expanded to protect the people.”

  “That last, I think is reasonable. But he will not
send the Hart,” Gwiddon said.

  The bishop frowned. “He will want first-hand knowledge of what happened in the Wode, who better to send?”

  “The Hart are the king’s only way of exerting power in the city,” Gwiddon explained.

  “What of the castellan?”

  “The castellan does not work for the king.”

  “He was appointed by the king!” the bishop said, his ignorance of local, temporal affairs showing.

  “Appointed for life. Before this castellan, that meant three years typically. This one’s been running the city for nine. Best to think of it like this; the king governs Corwell. The castellan runs the city.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” the bishop said, with a deferent nod to Gwiddon’s knowledge. “In any case, I will hold out hope Richard will deploy the Hart. It’s not critical either way.”

  “Why the interest in the Hart? What do we gain?”

  The bishop waved a wizened hand. “A tactical advantage,” he said. “Nothing more. Only one piece on the great board.”

  “A game of shere,” Gwiddon said. “That’s all this is. You maneuvered your piece, now you expect Richard to do the same.”

  The bishop smiled, mistaking Gwiddon’s criticism for admiration. “He will do the same, and he will choose the Hart, and this is a game of shere, and I intend to win!” the bishop said with some little glee. Exactly as though he was playing a game.

  He noticed Gwiddon’s apprehension. “I must say, I expected you to see this more clearly. You are my first confidant in this plan. I thought you would appreciate it.”

  It was clever, Gwiddon admitted, and it would probably work. He couldn’t tell the bishop his real reason for being concerned, but could not directly lie.

  “I’m concerned about my friend,” Gwiddon explained. This was true.

  “As I recall,” the bishop said with humor, holding up a wizened, bony figure, “you said we should not be concerned for Heden. We should be concerned for the Green Order.”

  “I was,” Gwiddon said. He looked at the holly.

  “But they’re dead.”

  Chapter One

  In was easy. Getting out….

  He reckoned three days. The ragman liked prisoners to stew for a while, wind themselves up before pressing them. Any longer than that and Alret would spill what he knew.

  That meant a lot of talking, drinking, trading favors. He didn’t think of it as a three day job, he thought of it as three months. The time he’d have to pay on the back end for all the favors he’d owe.

  He needed to know shift times, that was easy. A few drinks. He needed to know where Alret was kept, but getting that information direct meant blackmail and he didn’t have that kind of time. So some educated guesswork.

  First he needed a plan of the citadel. Probably Brick had one, but he couldn’t use it or ask for it, or Brick would know what he was doing and that defeated the entire purpose of the Fixer. If he was caught, the ragman would string him up, but it ended there. If Brick could in any way be connected with this, it meant the whole guild going down.

  A plan of the citadel wasn’t hard; it just required some lateral thinking. The place needed repairs, like any other. There were seven masons could be trusted with the job, so he burgled them all. That only took a few hours. Plans of the citadel wouldn’t be labeled, which actually made them easier to find. He’d have to return them later, but later he’d have plenty of time.

  The composite sketch he was able to build from the burgled plans wasn’t complete, it wasn’t a perfect system and not all unlabeled jobs were secret repairs for the castellan’s secret jail, but it was good enough.

  The place was huge, much larger below than above, and some of the rooms were oddly shaped. Probably their geometries affected whoever was held inside. That kind of thinking gave him a headache.

  Alret wasn’t that kind of threat, which meant a cell in the first three levels, the mundane prisoners.

  Now he just needed a catalog of who had been admitted, released, and when and this was by far the most arduous part of the job. But he was in his element. It meant talking to criminals, men who’d been inside. Most had no way of knowing exactly where they’d been held, but each had a piece of the puzzle.

  After three days horse trading, he had a pretty accurate map of the first three levels, pretty accurate data on which rooms were currently occupied, and which were free the day they bagged Alret. He was looking at three rooms, all on level three. He gave the map one last look, ripped it up and tossed the pieces into the sewer grates as he walked up the road to the Tower, the entrance to the citadel.

  Time to get to work.

  Chapter Two

  The process of unlocking the door took some time, there were gears and switches and a vial of quicksilver and other things Alret didn’t understand. The whole process just gave him time to wind himself up. Sooner or later the door would open and it would be the ragman come for him and that would be it.

  He was just about pissing himself when the door finally swung open, revealing…not the ragman, nor the jailor with his food.

  “Pinwhistle!” Alret said.

  “Right first time,” Aimsley Pinwhistle said, congratulating himself. The small blonde polder took a step into Alret’s cell, looked around, and said “Come on.”

  “How did you…,” Alret said, looking at the door. “How did you get in here?”

  “In was easy,” Aimsley said. “Getting out…,”

  There were three bodies in the corridor. Guards. They looked….

  “Did you…?” Alret stepped gingerly over them.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Aimsley snapped. “Blackout balls and knockout gas,” he said.

  Alret nodded. Even the infamous polder fixer from the Cold Hearth wasn’t going to kill the ragman’s watchers.

  The long corridor emptied into a square room with three other doors. The polder walked to the door opposite, pulled. Nothing happened. He stopped, pulled again, nothing.

  He looked at the door. He looked at the floor. He went to the other two doors. He went to the open door they’d just come through, he looked at the floor, where the door would be if it were closed. Got down on his hands and knees, blew on the floor for some reason.

  “They floated the floor,” Aimsley stood up, grimacing.

  “What?”

  “They floated the floor so the door won’t…., doesn’t matter. Go grab one…grab two of the bodies in the corridor. Come on!”

  Alret was thin, wirey, and not well, but he dared not disobey the fixer.

  He dragged first one, then another body into the room.

  “There,” Aimsley pointed at the door opposite the one they were trying to exit. Alret deposited the bodies.

  “Ok, let’s go,” Aimsley said. This time the door opened smoothly. Alret wasn’t sure what had just happened.

  They passed the stairs up.

  “We’re not going up?” Alret said.

  “Nope,” Aimsley said.

  “Why not?”

  “The stairs know how many people come down and go up.”

  “They…they know?”

  “Told you getting out was the hard part, come on.”

  A random section of the hallway past the stairs, and Aimsley Pinwhistle stopped.

  “We’re running out of time,” he said. “You ready?”

  Alret was more scared now than when he thought the ragman was coming to question him. “F-f-for what?”

  Aimsley shook his head. “You’re not going to like this part,” he said, mostly to himself.

  “This part?!” Alret squeaked.

  “Thought about mirrors,” Aimsley said, pulling an egg from his pocket. Alret frowned at it. “Would have worked, but the only imager I know is pissed at me.”

  He cracked the egg and something green and slimy slithered out and onto the floor.

  “Plus there’s all sorts of heinous shit comes after you in here if you use arcanism,” he said casually as the thing o
n the ground grew. Alret couldn’t make it out, it was like a green worm. But it wasn’t…it wasn’t complete, it writhed and pulsed. It seemed part of the floor, like it had grown into the floor since the polder had deposited it. And it was much larger now. There were white protuberances….

  It was a mouth. They were teeth. It was a rapidly growing, green, snarling, pulsing mouth. Black within, a snaking red tongue sometimes flicked around the edge. Even though it was flush with the floor, it seemed to be seeking, searching. But there was no throat, only blackness.

  “So, demonism,” Aimsley said, palm held out, offering the writhing, snarling, toothed maw as an example. It was now almost as wide as the corridor.

  “Fuck me!” Alret said.

  “It’s sniffing for me,” Aimsley explained. “Won’t close and swallow until I jump in. You first,” he said.

  “What!?”

  Aimsley sighed. “They’re coming for you, you realize that right?”

  “What?!”

  “You want to wait for the castellan’s men to find you? I get paid either way,” this was his mantra, it was not literally true, they both knew.

  “You want me to jump in that!?”

  “Ah…yeah, basically. Nothing to it, really. You won’t feel a thing. I’ll be right behind you. Better than a mirror. Don’t have to carry around a big, fuck-off silver frame everywhere.”

  “I can’t do it!” Alret said, looking furtively behind him.

  “Sure you can,” Aimsley said.

  “I can’t! I can’t I can’t I can’t!” He was getting hysterical.

  Aimsley shrugged. “Ok,” he said. “The guards are here anyway,” he pointed behind Alret.

  Alret looked behind him. There was no-one there. Before he could spin back around and stop the fixer, Aimsley had grabbed his belt, kicked his feet out from under him, and pushed the skinny man down and into the huge maw gulping in the ground.