Pantros didn’t like anything about the meeting. Everything seemed slightly off. The older man with the black hair and fancily trimmed beard seemed familiar to Pantros, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen him before. Sitting in a taproom that wasn’t his sister’s made Pantros a little nervous as well. He didn’t like being hired for jobs. He knew his profession wasn’t a complete secret but his nightly activities were not common knowledge either, at least he hoped they weren’t.
“Would you like some wine?” the man sitting across the table offered, sliding a scuffed brass goblet across the table.
Pantros Phyreshade shook his head. “Drink dulls the reflexes and the wits. You didn’t send me that letter to get me drunk and I recall a very large sum of coin was promised.” The letter had been signed only with a ‘D’. Pantros didn’t ask what the ‘D’ stood for. As a rule, the less he knew about clients, the better.
“My father used to say exactly the same thing about drink,” the man said. “I’ll get right to business then.” He leaned across the table, sliding the wine aside. “I need something stolen.” He set a leather pouch the size of two fists on the table. The weight of the bag caused the table to shake, splashing a few drops of wine from the goblet onto the table.
Pantros glanced around, but only his potential client and he sat in the taproom that afternoon. Not even a barkeep or doorman could be seen or heard. The weight of the bag seemed right for the sum of coin that the letter mentioned. “Usually I get paid when I am finished with the job. You can pay me when I bring you whatever it is you want me to bring you.”
“I don’t want to see you again,” the man said, gazing away from Pantros. “I just want this item, a large gem, removed from a trader named Darien.”
Pantros nudged the sack of coin back towards the man. “I know the name. He’s a guest at The Haughty Hedgehog. I don’t steal from my sister’s Inn.” Darien had arrived the night before with four overly muscled large men and two under clothed women. “No one steals from my sister’s Inn. It’s one of the perks that allow her to charge premium rates.”
“I’ll triple the payment.” The man reached under the table and pulled out a lockbox and set it on the table. The table creaked from weight. “You’d never have to work again.”
“Thieves like me work for the challenge, the thrill of the accomplishment, not the money,” Pantros said. “I said no and I meant it. What item can be so important that you’re willing to part with so much money and yet you don’t even want it?”
The man reached into his shirt and pulled out a folded piece of black leather. He set it on the table and unfolded it. “This.” He said as he revealed a glowing red gem the size of a plum. The stone actually emitted a dull light.
Pantros admired the gem for a moment then looked the other man in the eyes, looking for reason. Had he just asked him to steal that?
“I can see your confusion,” the man said. “I’ll explain. In four hours I will meet Darien in the Hedgehog and give him this gem. Once I do, he will leave and a great evil will have transpired. He cannot be allowed to have this gem.”
Pantros stretched out his hand, placing fingers on either side of the gem. “But you’re going to give it to him? What if I just stole it now?”
“I’d hunt you down and kill you. I’d have to. Darien ensorcelled me to obtain this for him and I will do everything in my power to fulfill that requirement.”
“You’re that confident that you could kill me? I am a fair hand at swordplay and can throw knives better than anyone I know.” Pantros tilted his head to see if the man wore a sword. His potential client wore only a dagger, but it wasn’t a utilitarian knife, it was a weapon. Pantros had three throwing knives, one strapped to each arm and one under the back of his belt. He was too close to throw anything.
“You don’t know me. And you wouldn’t see it coming,” the man said, plainly.
Pantros could barely tell he’d just been threatened. “And if I just stole your gold?”
The man laughed. “Assuming you could carry half your weight in gold fast enough to get away, I’d let you live. I like you. The gold is yours, whether you take the job or not. But, I trust you to return my kindness and remove this gem from Darien’s possession before he leaves your sister’s Inn.”
“And I keep the gem and the gold?” Pantros asked, seeking verification. The man across the table scared him but seemed trustworthy. It was a combination Pantros couldn’t reconcile.
The man in blue spun the gem on the table and said, “Yes, the only vitally important detail is that Darien never possesses this. He can use this for more evil than you could imagine.”
“You’re so talented at killing, why don’t you just kill him?” Pantros asked.
“You are more inquisitive than I thought you’d be,” The man said. “My talent lies deeply in knowing my limits. Let’s just say I hired you because you can do it without being caught.”
“And how do I know that you won’t just kill me afterwards?” Pantros asked.
The man leaned over the table, uncomfortably close. “You look at me like I’m familiar, but this is, what, your seventeenth summer?”
Pantros nodded, resisting the urge to back away from the man’s face as the man continued, “We’ve never met, but, how should I put this. You don’t know me because I’m far older than you, of a far different generation. But, trust me, we are kin. We are both Phyreshades. I’m family. I won’t kill you.”
Pantros said, “You just said you would.”
“If you took the gem now, I wouldn’t have a choice, but I won’t because you won’t.” There was confidence in the man’s voice.
“If we are kin, tell me your name,” Pantros said. His mother and father were both Phyrshades, though of different grandparents. His parents were the last living Phyreshades before Tara was born, or so they’d told him.
“My name wouldn’t help. The one I use is not the one I was born with, but I will give you neither. You don’t need them and you don’t really want them. I’m almost sixteen hundred years old. I know it doesn’t look it, but I have some Abvi blood in me. My mother was from Melnith.” The man tightened his lips and sat back in his chair. “Ah, now you’ve got me telling you more than you need to know.”
Abvi didn’t frequent the city, but Pantros had seen several. They looked a little different than humans, but the man across the table had none of the Abvian traits such as pointed ears or glimmering eyes. Supposedly, they lived for thousands of years.
“Enough about me, and enough about you, Pantros. Time is growing short and I have a man to meet about a gem.” He folded the gem back into the black leather and tucked it into his shirt. “So do you.” The black haired man stood up and walked out the front door of the tavern, leaving Pantros with a chest of gold.
There was something guarded about the way the black haired man talked. Pantros could tell there were things about Darien and about the gem the man wasn’t telling him, and wouldn’t tell him. Still, Pantros was going to take the money and at least contemplate the job. If it would be easy, if he could do it without his sister finding out, he’d do it. He might not trust the black haired man, but the black haired man trusted him.
Carrying so much gold even the few blocks back to his sister’s inn exhausted Pantros. The lockbox was conspicuous, forcing him to take a longer route down alleys and through a rope weaver's storehouse, but he made it home to his sister’s inn unseen.
He entered through the cellar door and set the lockbox on the floor. He then moved two barrels away from the wall. Half way up the wall was a stone the size of a man’s torso. Only it was thinner than a man’s finger. Pantros removed that stone and set it gently on the floor. His new chest barely fit inside his stash with six other chests of similar size. He replaced the stone and the barrels and exited the way he came in.
He wondered if he had enough gold to build his castle. He didn’t know much about buying or building castles, but he knew he wanted one. He was pretty sure, with three other stashes in the inn and another few scattered around the city, that he had more gold than any other man in Ignea.
Walking around the block, Pantros returned to his sister’s inn from the front. The sign above the door was brightly painted and showed a porcupine standing on its hind legs wearing a fancy doublet and drinking from a mug. It seemed like it had been years since he had seen the front of the Inn in daylight.
§
The taproom of the Haughty Hedgehog was packed with people. Pantros only saw the inn so full when a particular bard passed through town. Sure enough, the crowd hushed and he heard the strum of fingers across a lute. He had to stand on his tip-toes to see over the crowd, but Sheillene was sitting on the Hedgehog’s tiny stage playing a song. Pantros looked for the large guards Darien had with him and spotted them standing around the corner booth. Darien and the black haired man sat at the table. Pantros wiggled through the crowd to get a closer look and barely managed to catch a glimpse of the folded black leather being passed across the table.
The next booth over was occupied by four women who came to the taproom often. They were friends of the cook. Pantros invited himself to sit with them. They were intently focused on the bard and barely glanced at Pantros.
Darien opened the leather briefly and glanced inside. A smile came to the gem merchant’s lips as he folded the leather again and placed it into crude but heavy iron chest on the seat beside him. Pantros sighed when he noticed the lock, or lack thereof. A sigil crossed the lid and the chest. The lock would be magical. That was something Pantros was unprepared to deal with. Who would put expensive magic on such a crudely welded chest? Possibly the magician who’d enchanted it had built it himself. Certainly no craftsman’s hand was involved. Even the hinge pins showed slipped hammer strikes in their dimpled iron heads. Seeing his plan become possibility, Pantros simply waited.