promising him acceptance from the Terrarchs. Perhaps it was a threat, that without her help the humans would always be his people.
Or perhaps she simply knew him better than he realised, for he suspected that even if he was accepted into a Terrarch clan, the humans would always be his people, to the Terrarchs and more importantly to himself. His sympathies would always lie on that side of the fence. Or maybe she meant something else entirely. Maybe she was simply referring to the nation of Talorea and its people. Things would not go well for them, he realised, if they were conquered by the Dark Empire.
A question he had to ask himself was, did he care? His upbringing on the streets of Sorrow told him the best thing was simply to look out for himself, to grab what he could get, and pay only as much attention as was profitable to the upcoming struggle.
He was surprised to find within himself not just rage, but a rage for justice. Part of him was concerned with the greater situation, even if it was only to resent the Terrarch dominance of the world. Even there, he suspected, he might be doing himself a disservice. A part of him wanted a better world, a fairer world, and not just for himself.
He smiled. Maybe it was just that he realised that without a better world for all, a better world for himself was unlikely. In this world, wherever he went, whatever he did, he was always going to be an outsider. He was never going to be safe or secure. Things would have to change, and he would have to do his part to change them.
“When will you start teaching me how to use magic?”
“If you survive your trip to the Tower.”
“Don’t you think teaching me something before then might help me survive?”
“It would if I could, Rik, but magic is not something you can learn in a few minutes like the words of a song, or the name of a thing. It takes months to even begin to understand the basic principles and that is an amount of time we don’t have.”
“What do we have?”
“We have these maps of the inside of the Tower — have you memorised them?”
He looked at the papers she indicated with one long, perfectly manicured finger, at the small maps of the Tower’s interior, segmented by level. These were much more beautiful than the sorts of sketch maps he had become used to as a burglar, but they were the same sort of thing. He was sick of the question and let his weariness show in his reply. “Yes.”
“Is there anything else you think you will need?”
“The livery of one of the Tower servants might be useful, or the uniform of a Tower Guard.”
Asea nodded thoughtfully. “That should not be too difficult to procure.”
He considered. “Weapons, a spidersilk line and a grapnel, preferably one warded by concealment spells. I own one, it’s in my gear.”
“You are obviously the right man for this job.”
“Let us hope so. I doubt we will be getting a second chance.”
“It might be best to avoid anything ensorcelled,” said Asea. “The Watchers on the gates are extraordinarily sensitive to magic, and if the spells are not good enough…”
She did not need to finish that sentence.
Rik left Asea’s chamber dissatisfied. He was going to be putting his life on the line, and soon. Granted he was going to be doing something he had done before, breaking into a heavily guarded location, but he could not help but think he had never attempted a theft as daring as this one, or gone into a place so well protected.
What was Asea not telling him about it? There were too many secrets here, and too much danger. Surely there must be something the Realm could offer Ilmarec. Even a sorcerer so mighty could not be mad enough to believe he could defy the Queen’s will forever, could he?
Perhaps he could. Queen Arielle could ill afford to expend the manpower needed to take the Serpent Tower by storm, if that were even possible. But without control of the Tower, and of Morven and Princess Kathea, the war was lost. If worst came to the worst Azaar might have no other option but to attempt to storm the place or to return home. Rik could not see the famous General expending his troops on so mad a venture as that. And without Kathea they had no figurehead to rally the Kharadrean nobles behind. Khaldarus would get his throne by default.
It was certainly a puzzle. He considered again his own options. His life was at risk, but if Asea kept her promise, from his point of view the rewards would be commensurate with the stake. The thought that he was missing something important nagged away at him. There must be something he could do to move the odds in his favour. There must be some advantage he could gain. Surely there must be an easier way to get himself inside the Tower.
He glanced up at the awful structure, with its glass-smooth walls and its aura of Elder world horror. How could he set himself against that and its master. How could he succeed where countless others had failed? The words of his one-time master, Koralyn, came back to him. There is no such thing as impregnable mansion, boy. There’s always a path between a thief and a treasure. You just have to find it. Of course the old master thief had been caught and hanged.
Just then Weasel and the Barbarian entered the courtyard. Weasel lifted his hand in the Thieves Sign that told him everything was arranged. It looked like he would be going in today. It would be best that way, less time for anyone else to discover their plans. He wondered at the wisdom of letting those two know even part of the plan but there had been no way around it. They knew Tomar and he knew them, and there had been just too many things for him to do himself.
Fear grabbed his guts and twisted and no matter how hard he tried, it simply would not let go.
Chapter Twenty
Rik lay in the secret area of the cart beneath the piles of salted beef carcasses. The smell of meat filled his nostrils. It felt as if fatty residues were clinging to his skin and hair. He held his breath for as long as he could and then breathed shallowly to try and avoid taking in the overpowering stink.
In his mind’s eye it was difficult not to picture the Tower looming closer and the gaze of the strange gargoyles about to fall on him. He tried to keep calm, to avoid thoughts of what would happen to him if he was caught. The best he could hope for if he was found out was to be shot as a spy, the worst was torture and bizarre sorcery.
He cursed his own folly for agreeing to do this. All the reasons that had seemed so clear and strong earlier now simply seemed like folly; his anger with Rena, his fear of Asea and the Nerghul, his lust for wealth and position, his desire to prove himself. The only thing he was about to prove was that he was an idiot. He stifled the surge of self-pity.
It was not too late to change his mind, he told himself. All he had to do was tell the drivers he could not go through with it. He could run off down the hill and hope no one on the wall would shoot him. Of course, then he would have to deal with Asea’s vengeance and the consequences of his previous actions at Achenar, and he would need to elude the Nerghul too.
Every turn of the wheel, every bump in the road, took him closer to those glassy walls and the sentries on them. Worse, it took him closer to being within the tower itself. Those walls were the jaws of the trap. Once inside, he was committed irrevocably. He was doomed if he was caught and he was entirely on his own. There would be peril at every step.
As ever, he felt fear, but the old excitement had started to flow too. He would be inside the Tower, where it would be death if he was caught. What of it, the thief of Sorrow thought? That was the way it had always been. The penalties had never been any less when he burgled the mansions of the rich. The reward of the captured thief was always the same. He was doing something he had done for much of his life, and something he was very good at.
His heart raced, but now it was as much with the thrill of the coming escapade as with outright terror. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. He knew then, as the ghosts of old emotions gripped his soul,
