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."
Vessa snorted and approached the wall, running her hands over the vines to make sure there weren't any hidden thorns. "And how will you feel if you're wrong, and I explode into flame?"
"Mildly guilty."
"Mildly guilty," she repeated under her breath as she pulled herself up. She hesitated at the top, pushing aside the thought of what might become of her if Del hadn't succeeded in fully unraveling the ward, then swung herself over and dropped down.
Vessa didn't combust when she landed in the long grass, and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. The garden on this side was more sculpted, with tiled paths wending between low hedges and tidy beds of faintly glowing moonblossoms. She put two fingers to her lips and trilled a rough approximation of the songbird she had heard earlier, and a few moments later an even worse rendition echoed back.
While Del scaled the wall, Vessa crept closer to the manse, alert for any sign of movement. There were no guards that she could see, which seemed a trifle odd given the value of what the Night Brotherhood had stolen. Perhaps they placed all their faith on the wards woven into the garden wall – Vessa had found that those who were not sorcerers themselves sometimes put too much trust in the efficacy of spells.
Del completed his awkward-sounding descent with a thump and a pained grunt, and Vessa held up her fist for quiet. Moments later he came up beside her, limping.
"Are you all right?" she whispered.
"Ah, I suppose so. Twisted my ankle when I fell – I thought there would be vines on this side of the wall as well to hold on to."
"No vines. No guards, either. How about more wards?"
Del paused for a moment and cocked his head, as if listening intently. "Not that I can sense. There's an odd resonance coming from the manse, but it doesn't feel protective in nature."
"Might be the Eye. Can you tell where it's located?"
"It's a bit muddled but I think it's coming from the second story."
"Then let's start there."
They skirted the manse, keeping to the deeper shadows pooled by the garden's hedgerows. Vessa watched the windows carefully, but she saw no flicker of light or any other indication that someone was inside. Vessa nudged Del and pointed at a balcony hanging over an arched portico. After he gave her arm an answering squeeze, she dashed across the grass and pressed herself flat against the wall.
With a grace honed from countless similar escapades, she pulled herself up the wall and slipped over the balcony. She peered through a pair of open wooden doors into the manse's shadowed interior, and although darker shapes hinted at various bits of furniture – a few high-backed chairs, a large chest, perhaps – she couldn't with any confidence say what lay within. Vessa uncoiled the rope she had brought and dangled it down to where Del waited below, bracing herself.
Soon he joined her on the balcony. She had a suspicion, despite his heavy breathing, that most of the effort of pulling him up had come from her own back and arms. City life had certainly softened him – when Vessa had first met Del, he had been but a scrawny boy, winnowed to bone and muscle by a decade of hauling water up steep mountain paths for the Weavers. Not anymore.
Vessa began moving towards the open doorway, but Del laid a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head. She knew why: almost certainly another set of wards infested the interior of the manse, and for that reason Del brushed past her, creeping forward with what little stealth he could muster. A floorboard creaked before he had gone more than a half dozen steps into the room; Vessa winced, and Del froze at the sound.
It was so faint she willed him to continue, certain no one could possibly have noticed, but oddly enough he stayed unmoving. Then she realized why, and her heart leaped in her chest. He hadn't made that sound – it had come from the other side of the wall closest to him. His eyes were fixed on a patch of deeper black that she assumed was a door, and Vessa tensed, half expecting it to swing open and for armed guards to burst through screaming the name of their dark god.
That didn't happen, but something else did. Behind Del, what looked to be a man-sized window suddenly became illuminated. It was a mirror, but the room it reflected was drenched in light. And it was not the spectral radiance of a swollen moon that filled the room, but a blazing midday sun. The shadow-draped furniture became clear, at least in the mirror: chairs clustered around a desk, and thick, ancient-looking grimoires filled floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Yet despite the brightness infusing the mirror, none of that light spilled into the study where Del waited, motionless, unaware of the strangeness resolving behind him.
A trap. Vessa tensed, preparing to rush into the room and haul Del back to safety, but hesitated when she saw in the mirror her partner rise from his crouch and start walking forward in unhurried, measured strides. Where was he going?
Tingling cold washed over Vessa. Del's reflection swelled larger, as if he were approaching the glass . . . yet in the darkened study, his back to the mirror, the real Del hadn't moved. What sorcery was this?
The image of Del did not pause as it passed through the mirror, sending tiny ripples scurrying across the gleaming surface, like a pebble dropped into a pool of still water. A slim dagger that looked to be a twin of the one that Del kept strapped to his forearm materialized in the reflection's hand, held sideways in the same Beloshi knife-fighter style her partner favored. In another moment it would be close enough to plunge the dagger into Del's back.
No time to try and figure out what was happening. Vessa lunged into the room, ripping her swords from their sheaths as she charged the creature. The reflection of Del whirled towards her, and even though its face was hidden in darkness, she imagined she saw surprise as she slashed its neck, careful not to fully sever its head from its shoulders. It reeled away from her, dropping its dagger as it clutched at its torn throat. Vessa followed, wrapping her arms around the reflection and guiding it as quietly as possible to the floor, trying to ignore the hot pulses of blood soaking her tunic and the thing's slippery fingers as it weakly attempted to push her away. The mirror-image made a ragged gurgling, then a shudder passed through it and a moment later it went limp.
"Vess!" the real Del hissed, twisting around. "Are there more guards? Look at the mirror!"
"I see it," Vessa whispered, then yanked the image's corpse into a sitting position and turned it towards the glowing silver surface.
Del gasped softly. "Gods! That looks like me!"
"It was you. It came out of the mirror." A shiver of unease passed through Vessa again as she studied the bright reflection. It showed her clutching Del's ravaged corpse, its eyes wide and staring and its face drained of blood. Overcome with revulsion, she lowered it to the floor . . . and the Vessa in the mirror did the same. She raised her hand, holding up three fingers, and the reflection copied her perfectly. Had the mirror expended whatever sorcery it contained? Or was her own likeness waiting for her to turn her back so it could creep through the glass and slay her?
The door she had noticed earlier in the room swung open. Without hesitating, Vessa rushed the shape that filled this patch of deeper blackness, grabbing handfuls of cloth and smashing the man – it was a man, from the grunt of surprise and pain – into the wall and then throwing him to the floor. She put her boot on an ample belly and set the tip of her sword under his chin, pushing it into the dark bramble of his beard. "The Eye," she snarled, "where is it?"
"Who . . . who are you?" he asked, fear cracking his voice.
"No one. I've come for the Eye of Aradeth. You have until the count of five to tell me where it is. If I don't know by then, my sword is going to slip and my partner will have to find it on his own. Which he will. He has a nose for this sort of thing."
Vessa loosened her grip on the hilt of her sword, letting it drop fractionally. "One."
"Wait! We can come to some arrange –"
"Two."
"Aghh! Ow! I'm bleeding!"
"Yes, that's the point. Literally. Three."
"Ah . . . ah . . . all right, all right. In this room. On my desk in a small golden box."
"Any traps?"
"N-nothing. Now can I know –"
"Be quiet."
The fat man fell silent, though his belly still heaved with panicked gasps.
"I have it." There was a click as something snapped open. "Gods, Vessa. Yes, this must be it. There's ancient power here . . . great sorcery."
The fat man underneath her boot moaned. "Oh, my lord will be so angry . . ."
"Should have thought of that before you stole from Aradeth," Vessa said, sheathing her sword and hurrying back towards the doors that opened onto the balcony. Before she slipped outside, though, she glanced one final time at the mirror, studying it carefully. Her reflection's movements echoed her own perfectly, and she snorted. She was getting paranoid.
"Come," Del Amoth said, brushing past her. "Let's make haste. I already died here once tonight."
"That's true," Vessa replied, following him out into the darkness. "I killed you."