dead.'
Keeping an eye out for Red Axes, Gray Blades, and female rangers, carrying the saddlebag hidden beneath his cape, Aeron strode on into a little cul-de-sac crammed with various commercial endeavors. A tinker's grindstone whined and spewed sparks as he sharpened a hoe. A small-time slave trader cried the virtues of his half dozen shackled human and goblin wares, who sat around his feet in apathetic misery. Hooded falcons stood on their perches, the bells on their feet chiming when they shifted position. The Whistlers, one of the city's smaller and less successful gangs, had stolen the birds at midsummer and were still trying to dispose of them at bargain prices. Unfortunately, the average citizen of Oeble didn't know how to hawk and had no interest in learning.
Aeron, who likewise lacked any experience with the fierce-looking raptors, playthings of noblemen and merchants with lordly pretensions, crept past the perches a little warily, slipped into a tower, and climbed a corkscrew flight of stairs. Somewhere in one of the apartments, a baby cried. In another, bread was baking. The appetizing aroma filled the shaft and made Aeron's mouth water.
Burgell Whitehorn lived on the third floor. Aeron tapped on the gnome's door, then positioned himself in front of the peephole. After a while, three latches clinked in turn as someone unfastened them. The door swung open, and Burgell frowned up at his caller.
Skinny and flaxen-haired, his skin walnut brown and his eyes a startling turquoise, Burgell stood half as tall as Aeron and had to climb up on a stool to look out the peephole. Like most habitations in Oeble, that particular tenement had been built for humans, and smaller residents coped with the resulting awkwardness as best they could.
But at least the relative largeness of the apartment gave Burgell room to pack in all his gnome-sized gear. The front room was his workshop, and it contained a bewildering miscellany of tools: hammers, chisels, saws, lockpicks, tinted lenses, jeweler's loupes, and jars of powdered and shredded ingredients for casting spells. A fat gray cat, the mage's familiar, lay curled atop a grimoire. It opened its eyes, gave Aeron a disdainful yellow stare, then appeared to go back to sleep.
Despite the jolly reputation of his race, Burgell's welcome was no warmer.
'What are you doing wandering about, in broad daylight, no less?'
'Hulm Draeridge more or less asked me the same thing,' Aeron said, 'but I won't get any business done hiding in some hole. Can I come in?'
'I don't think so. Look what happened to the last wizard who helped you, and that was before you angered the tanarukk.'
Aeron sighed and said, 'I'm sorry about Dal, but he knew the risks. I'm not asking you to take the same kind of chance. I just want you to do your usual kind of job. You won't even have to leave home.'
'Why not do it yourself?'
'Because it's not my specialty, and this particular chore calls for an expert.'
Aeron had had enough of discussing his business in the stairwell. He pushed forward, and the little gnome had little choice but to give ground. Aeron shut the door.
'All right,' Burgell said. Irritation made his tenor voice shrill. 'Do come in by all means. But you know, I don't work cheap.'
'So I recall, from all the times you've bled me dry,' Aeron replied as he extracted the steel case from the saddle bag. The gray metal gleamed in the sunlight streaming in through the open casement. 'Whatever's inside this is valuable. I'll cut you in for one part in twenty.'
'One part in five.'
'Greed is an ugly thing.'
'You'd know.'
Aeron grinned and said, 'I might at that. One part in ten.'
'Done, but I'll need some coin on account. Just in case the box turns out to contain something you can't sell.'
'Trust me, whatever it is, I'll find a way to turn it into cash. But if this is what it takes to stop your griping and set you to work…'
Aeron opened his belt pouch and extracted several gold coins. In so doing, he nearly exhausted his funds. It was a strange thing. Though no gang chieftain or lieutenant, he was a successful thief by most standards. Yet the profits refused to stick to his fingers, and it wasn't only because his father's pain-killing elixirs and poultices were so expensive. Maybe he spent too many nights carousing in the taverns, bought the house too many rounds, 'loaned' too much gold to needy friends who never paid him back. Yet why risk his neck stealing coin if not to enjoy it once he had it? When it ran out, the solution was simply to steal some more.
Burgell bit one of the coins, a Cormyrean dinar, then dumped the clinking lot into the pocket of his shabby dressing gown. He gestured to a stubby-legged work table that, like the rest of the furniture, was sized for little folk, not men.
'Put the box down there,' the gnome said, 'and tell me what you can.'
'It was in this saddlebag when I first laid hands on it. I was invisible at the time, but even so, the pouch screamed a warning and painted me with light.'
'Faerie fire.'
'Whatever you call it. Anyway, it hasn't done that since, so I guess it was a one-time spell. But when I tried to pick the lock of the coffer itself, it boomed like thunder. The noise actually hurt.'
The wizard nodded and muttered, 'Layered protections. Never a good thing.'
'Truly? Is that your expert opinion?' Aeron teased. 'Look, here's where we stand. I don't know if the thunder will sound a second time or what other wards may lie in wait behind that one, but I need you to dissolve them all.'
'Any sign of purely mechanical traps? Spring-loaded poison needles, finger-snipping pincers, or the like?'
'I didn't see any, but I wouldn't rule anything out.'
'All right,' the gnome said. 'Stand back.'
Taking his own advice, Burgell muttered a cantrip then he pointed his finger at a brass key lying on the workbench. The yellow metal oozed in a way that baffled the eye, as if changing shape and size from one moment to the next. The key floated up into the air and inserted itself in the strongbox's lock. It jerked, trying to turn, but evidently it couldn't shift the tumblers.
Thunder crashed, painfully loud in the confines of the flat. Aeron couldn't help flinching, even though he'd known what to expect. A framed diagram, depicting the interplay of the primal forces of the cosmos or some such gibberish, fell off the wall. The gray cat leaped off the spellbook, dashed for cover, and vanished behind a wooden chest.
'The sonic ward is still active,' Burgell said.
'Is that the only way you had of finding out?' Aeron asked. 'I could have done that. Come to think of it, I did.'
'You're lucky you didn't shatter every bone in your arm. Noise can hit like a mace, if properly focused. That's why you need someone who can manipulate his tools without touching them to do the poking and prodding.'
'Just try to poke more quietly.'
'Why is it that folk go to the trouble to hire a master, then insist on telling him how to practice his art? Hush, and let me work.'
'Fine.'
Aeron sat down on a divan. It was where he customarily sat when consulting Burgell, but as usual, he heeded the impulse to lower himself cautiously and make sure the miniature couch would still bear his weight
The gnome stuck a jeweler's loupe into his left eye and examined the lockbox from every angle. Eventually he drew himself up straight, slashed his left hand through the air, and rattled off a string of words Aeron couldn't understand.
Magic blared like a dissonant trumpet fanfare. Blue light pulsed through the air in time with the notes. The strongbox jumped, spun like a top, and crashed back down on the table, still closed. The brass key popped out of the lock.
'Shadows of Mask,' Aeron swore when the commotion had run its course. 'Quietly, I said. What in the name of the Nine Hells is wrong with you today?'
'Nothing. You brought me a special problem. I'll solve it, but it's likely to put up a bit of a fuss in the
