‘I could watch you do it all night’ said Lethe casually, then added in an irritated whisper, ‘But I’d rather just go in and rob the place, you know?’
Jay rattled the padlock in frustration. For the last fifteen minutes at least, she had been fighting with the pieces of wire stuck into the keyhole. No matter how hard she tried, the lock just wouldn’t budge. The lower wire wouldn’t turn despite how careful and precise she tried to be with the other one, searching for tumblers hidden in the fat metal body.
‘I can’t see very well ‘complained Jay. The only light she had was the brass oil lamp that illuminated the door. Yet the lock she was holding in her hand was at the very edge of the light’s reach, hidden by the shadows of latches and locks above it.
Lethe groaned.
‘Kid, this is the easiest lock there is. You should be able to open it with your eyes closed and one hand stuck up your arse.’
Jay rattled the padlock again. There was no point in doing that at all, but by now she felt frustrated. The shank of the padlock remained steadfastly locked, that horseshoe-shaped piece of metal mocking her every effort.
‘Keep at it, kid’ said Lethe. He was sitting on top of a tall crate next to the door, turned half towards her, half towards the end of the alley. As she was struggling with the lock, he was keeping both eye and ear out for anything that would approach from the direction of the street, be it a guard on his rounds or a drunk coming home way too late.
Jay pushed one piece of folded wire with her thumb, trying to put pressure on the barrel while she poked and prodded for the tumblers. Nothing. Even though she could most certainly feel the little pieces of metal moving inside, the barrel remained motionless.
Another groan from Lethe.
‘I know that in this trade you need to be patient, but I’m now sick of waiting. Here, let me take a look.’
He jumped off the crate and looked at the stubborn lock.
‘You’re putting too much pressure on that. Try this way.’
He adjusted the position of Jay’s finger over the wire. He wore fingerless leather gloves and Jay could feel how warm and nimble his fingers were, despite their thickness and the black nails that looked hard enough to chip bricks.
‘Now stick it in’ he said, still holding Jay’s hand. She raked through the tumblers again and her heart almost leaped when she finally felt the barrel move. The shank gave a soft ‘click’ and moved to the side. Lethe let go of Jay’s hand and grabbed the shank, twisted it and pushed it back in. The padlock was closed again.
‘Hey!’ protested Jay.
‘What? I can’t hold your hand each time you want to pick a lock. Do it again. On your own this time’ he said and returned to his place atop of the crate.
Jay sighed but did as he said. She re-adjusted the wires, remembering the position and tension that she had to maintain on the lower one. She prodded the tumblers again and again. Was that barrel moving? Yes! Just a few prods and the padlock clicked open again.
‘Finally’ said Lathe throwing his arms up. ‘Somebody give the kid a medal. Now open all the rest.’
It was Jay’s turn to groan, but nonetheless she moved up, grabbing the next padlock in line.
‘The owner of this shop thinks he’s got security with four padlocks on his door. Too bad they’re all the same shitty ones everybody else is using.’
Jay nodded while manipulating the wires. A minute or two and the next one was opened too. Her heart leaped. She was really doing it!
‘Good. Keep going’ said Lethe from his perch.
Jay worked the locks, thinking that each one needed a little less effort to convince to givie in. And then the door stood open. Jay went in first and Lethe closed the door behind them.
It was warmer in here, but almost as dark. There was another lamp burning somewhere within- a nightlight that many shops kept on during the night, so that patrolling guards could look inside and immediately spot if there was someone that had no honest business being there.
‘Now, what can we have here?’ said Lethe.
Jay looked around. Even in fairly low light of the lamp, she instantly recognized that they were in an alchemist’ shop. The big bottles of liquid, that were a trademark of the alchemy shops, stood patiently in the big front windows giving off a soft, colourful glow and swirling with magic-enriched liquid. Towering shelves and racks lined the walls, holding boxes, amber-coloured bottles, jars and drying herbs. Locked behind glass cabinets, ready-made potions glowed with gentle light. In one of the corners a beast of a mechanism stood, a pill-making machine with its brass funnels and cranks and gears shining with reflected light. Under the back wall there was a counter of dark wood- well polished with use. Beyond it, a cabinet with drawers ran alongside the counter, each drawer bearing a label with neat scribbles, and Jay thought that they must bear the names of medicines that were contained within. A strange smell permeated the place- the sweet scent of herbs mixed with the bitter smell of chemical compounds and, over all of it, a burnt whiff of expired magic.
But Jay’s attention was drawn to another object: a cherrywood-and-brass register that stood atop the counter. It was beckoning her with the promise of money. Lethe noticed her gaze.
‘Be my guest’ he made an inviting gesture.
He didn’t have to tell her twice. Jay slipped behind the counter and reached out to the register’s lever. She gave it a pull and the register opened with a hiss of a released pressure and a gentle tinkling of the bell. Eagerly, Jay peeked inside, expecting to see a pile of coin looking back at her. The register was empty. Empty, save a single copper coin. Jay reached in, picked it out and stared at it, completely dejected.
Lethe laughed softly.
‘Ah, don’t feel bad kid. They always clear out the register at the end of the day. Just to make life harder for the folks like us.’
Jay pocketed the coin nonetheless.
‘Now what-‘ started Lethe but he suddenly fell silent, listening for a split second like a deer sensing the approaching hunter.
‘Guard! Hide!’ he hissed.
Jay looked around frantically. In a box? In a cabinet? She wanted to ask Lethe but he wasn’t there. Just wasn’t. Finally, she dropped to the ground and squeezed herself under the counter through a narrow gap in the boards. The boards were badly fitted and through a chink between them, Jay could see light pooling into the shop and could hear the steel-capped footsteps of the night guard. The light intensified. The footsteps rang louder. ‘He can’t see me! He can’t!’ Jay repeated to herself silently. She had a clear view on the window and she could now see the bright globe of a magically-supported lantern and a head in a night watch helmet, peering inside.
He stood there forever. Or at least it seemed to be forever to Jay, who became more and more convinced that the man could pierce wood with his gaze, and knew she was there, stuffed between the boards like a rat trapped among the dust and dirt.
He moved along, clearly satisfied with the lack of movement inside the shop. The magical light of the lantern ebbed slowly. Jay only felt brave enough to crawl from under the counter when the place was once more illuminated only by the warm glow of the night lamp.
‘Good. It always pays to have a hiding place scoped in wherever you enter’ Lethe emerged from the shadows. Jay still had no idea where he had hidden or how he had been able to hear the guard coming. Perhaps Kou hearing was better than hers?
‘Alright. No money- so what else is worth taking here?’
Jay thought. It was an alchemy shop after all.
‘Magical equipment?’
‘Sure, a place like this should have a magic injector, dripper and an infuser at the very least’ said Lethe, then shrugged. ‘But that’s all heavy stuff and also hard to shift. No point of taking something like that without a cart and a potential buyer. What else?’
Jay took a second to wipe cobwebs from her face before answering. They stuck to her hair too, making them even more entangled than usual.
‘Magical supplies? Vials and stuff like that?’
‘Yeah sure. Should be back there’ Lethe pointed at a door that seemed to be leading to the back of the shop. Those were padlocked too. Jay thought that he’ll make her open those, but he did that himself- Jay barely had a chance to take two breaths before the door stood open.
They went inside. In the backroom, a windowless place, darkness reigned.
‘Close the door’ said Lethe.
As soon as the door clicked behind Jay, a spark appeared before her. Then a flame. Lethe lit a small lantern, one of many that lined the wall, his yellow eyes shining with reflected light.
Jay could now see the room clearly. There was a cauldron standing on a hearth in the corner. The ashes were dark but still warm; Jay could feel them radiating into the cold air. A long table took over almost the entirety of the room. It was laden with equipment. Glass tumbles crowded thin crystal vials and triangle-shaped flasks surrounded flat-edged trays. Cooling spirals rose toward the ceiling, upheld by the clawed hands of their stands. Brass-plated mechanisms with quartz-cut bellies and wooden levers rested in their cradles, next to racks of armoured syringes and a vicious-looking apparatus that looked like an inverted funnel ending with shiny claws at its mouth. Other devices that were similar in build but with different shapes and sizes populated the rest of the table. Most of those Jay couldn’t name, their origins shrouded in the mystery of the alchemical arts.
Lethe passed those without sparing them much more than a glance. His target stood deeper in the room, in the very corner- a dark, wooden cabinet with its door reinforced by strips of riveted iron. There was a tough-looking lock sunk deep into an iron handle that was taking almost the entire single door of the cabinet.
Lethe tried the handle. It moved but the door remained closed.
‘Never hurts to check first before you roll out the serious stuff’ he explained.
He looked at the lock itself.
‘Deadbolt’ he said. ‘And not even a touch of magic on it. Is this guy even trying?’
He reached into one of his pouches, fishing out some items in a canvas cover. After he flipped the cover Jay could see that it housed a set of strange hooks, pointed pieces of metal and something that looked like tiny forceps. He picked out two of those but then he paused and looked back at Jay.
‘Hey kid, you want to have a try with those?’
Jay inched forward.
‘It’s really not that different than two wires’ said Lethe. ‘Stick this one low like you’d do with a piece of wire.’
He handed her a piece of steel that had its tip bent at a right angle.
‘Use this one to feel for the tumblers’ he gave her the second piece. This one was flat and had a tip that was just slightly bent.
‘This lock is too big for the wires’ he said. ‘But it should be no problem with lock picks. Put a little more arm into it, this is a tough bastard. Not too much because- oh shit.’
There was a crack and now Jay was holding just a half of the pick, the other one was stuck in the lock itself.
‘I’m sorry’ she said.
‘Alright, alright’ said Lethe shrugging. ’It might be too much for your first time. We’ll practice later. Now just let me get to the stuff inside.’
Jay moved aside, letting him work. He took another flat lockpick from the set and stuck it into the lock’s hole. A few jiggles and pushes and one hearty ‘move you bastard’ and the cabinet door creaked open.
Inside, there were rows and rows of small bottles. Each bottle was wrapped in a metallic cloth, snuffing out most of the glow that was leaking through the crystal glass. At the bottom shelf there were leather bags. Lethe took one and opened the flap. Inside, Jay could see more of the metallic fabric lining the bag.
‘Put those in’ said Lathe. ‘Just be careful. You don’t want to drop any of them. One spill and we both grow horns on our teeth or cocks on our faces, or worse.’
Jay reached into the cabinet and started taking the bottles and loading them into the bag. Each time she wrapped her fingers around a bottle, she could feel the concentrated power pulsating within. She worked on placing them into the bag one by one, feeling the padded inside slowly swelling with the fragile content until it was full. Lethe took another bag and Jay continued her work. Soon the cabinet was empty.
Lethe gave her one bag and slung the other over his back. He went up to the door to the front and cracked it open a bit, looking out in case the guard decided to have another pass by the shop. It must have been all clear because he opened it wider and motioned Jay to follow. Jay blew out the lamp and followed him.
‘Since we’re here I might do a little shopping for myself’ said Lethe, eyeing the cabinet with the drawers. ‘They always have the best stuff at the top.’
He opened a lower drawer and then another diagonally from it. Jay watched as he climbed on those, then opened more drawers higher up, creating a strange staircase leading him to the drawers that interested him the most, directly under the ceiling. He opened those too and started rummaging. Soon paper packets, leather pouches and canvas satchels tied up with string started to rain down.
‘Pick them up for me, will you?’
‘What are those?’ asked Jay when she had an armful of things that smelled like an entire herbal garden.
‘You think I’d buy supplies when I’ve a chance to get them for free?’
‘You know alchemy?’
‘Dabble a bit’ said Lethe dropping to the ground. ‘Comes in handy. Not the magical stuff. Just the normal, good, old-fashioned potions, poisons and pick-me-ups mind you.’
He started taking the supplies off Jay and distributing them all over his numerous pouches and satchels.
‘Time for us to beat it’ he said, finishing his task. ‘Before that ironhat comes back this way.’
They left as they entered- through the side-door and the alley. As they emerged on the streets, the cold dampness of the air made Jay shiver. The fog was already rolling in, billowing in the alleys, slithering over the pavement and gracing the streetlamps with milky-orange halos. It curled and swelled above the rooftops where the sky was already tinged green and yellow with the vapours from the magicworks, where the machines would be working all night to condense magic for commercial use. Jay breathed out a cloud of steam and watched it join the fog all around her.
Lethe motioned for Jay to follow him. As they walked the streets of the sleeping city, the fog sheltered them from any eyes that would pry into their business.
Their passage was unobstructed until they got to St. Garret’s Bridge. Three guards stood across its stony width, clad in iron and leather, their cloaks drooping over their arms with the moisture of the fog.
Lethe pulled Jay into a deep gateway, then peeked out towards the bridge.
‘Shit, shit, shit’ Lethe wasn’t hiding his displeasure. ‘There shouldn’t be that many on this bridge; usually it’s just one who’s drunk already. Something must have gone down. An escape from Ostrah Gate?’
Jay eyed the guards. There was no way to sneak past them. And trying to just walk past with a talking Kou and two bags of stolen magic to boot? Insanity.
‘What now?’ she asked. ‘Should we go to St Crow Bridge?’
Lethe thought for a moment. ‘Nah’ he said finally. ‘It would take hours to walk there and then double back. Besides, I bet St Crow is guarded as well.’
Lethe picked up a loose cobblestone. He flicked it from one hand to the other, measuring its weight.
‘Well, there is one way to do it’ he said and took the bag with bottles off his shoulder. ‘Hold onto this. The moment they move, you bolt.’
‘Lethe!’ Jay cried out. ‘You don’t think… That’s nuts!’
‘What?’ he said and grinned widely. ‘You’re afraid that they’ll catch me? In this fog? Think again.’
Lethe peeked around the corner again.
‘Take good care of our little ‘eggs’ ’he said. Hide them somewhere safe. I’ll tell you what to do with them later.’
Jay wanted to say something more, but Lethe was gone. She stood there alone, glued to a brick wall, listening, waiting. She was listening to her heartbeat, pounding hysterically in her chest, and to the silence of the street in the night.
The silence was soon no more. There was a great crash of a breaking window nearby. Then hollering and catcalls.
‘Ey! Goat fuckers! Yes, you on the bridge! Waiting for your mommies to take you home? Too bad because they’re all busy fucking sailors down in the docks!’
The silence on the bridge was as thick as cotton.
‘What’s the matter? Your cocks went all floppy? Afraid of a little fog?’ sounded again alongside a round of nasty laughter.
All of the sudden the street reverberated with the sound of ironclad boots. The guards rushed past her with such speed, she barely had time to flatten herself to the wall. As soon as they were gone, Jay emerged from the gateway, hell-bent on running until her feet fell off. Just before she started running, she took another glance at the bridge. It was not empty.
A solitary guard was left standing in the middle. Jay looked as he paced back and forth across the span, not stopping for even a moment.
Instead of running straight ahead, Jay veered to the left, crouching between the stone pillar at the entrance to the bridge and the rough-hewn barrier that was supposed to separate the street from the river.
‘Now what?’ she thought, staring at the stalwart shape of the guard. With his armour and cloak she could probably outrun him, but not laden with two bags full of volatile, concentrated magic. What if he caught her? What if she tripped!
Jay almost sighed with exasperation. If only the man moved to the right and stopped for just a minute! She could sneak past him in this fog. Still, he wouldn’t stop for long enough, continuing to pace back and forth.
‘Just one shift’ she heard him muttering. ‘One peaceful shift is all I fucking ask for.’
Jay ran her hands over the ground. The barrier here was damaged, eroded from years of too many carts pressing against it during the traffic jams at the bridge. Some crumbling pieces of masonry littered the ground. If only she could persuade the guard off the bridge…
She picked up a piece of masonry and aimed it as far away from herself as possible. The stone flew and hit the wall on the other side of the bridge, next to the opposite entrance marker. Jay saw the guard’s head snap in the direction of the noise, but he continued to walk. Angered, she picked up another stone. This time the throw was off and she heard the stone land in the water with a loud splash.
The guard stopped his pacing.
‘Who goes there?’ he cried out into the darkness. He stopped, but wouldn’t move in the direction of the sound, wisely not wanting to leave the circles of yellow lights from the bridge’s entrance ark lights. Jay knew that if she didn’t do something, he would go right back to his pacing. She picked up another stone and threw it, hoping that the third noise would finally make him move. The guard stood motionless.
‘Go!’ thought Jay. ‘Go and look! It might be something trying to creep up on you!’
The ironhat kept staring into the darkness. Jay wanted to scream with frustration.
‘Ah, sod it’ mumbled the man, but instead of moving back to his post, he started to fumble with his trousers. Soon Jay heard a steady stream of urine hitting the nearest balustrade post.
Jay’s heart leaped. Now! He wouldn’t turn around while he was busy pissing! Jay emerged from her hiding place and as quickly and carefully as she could, slipped past the turned back of the guard. Before he had put his trousers back in order, Jay was half-way over the bridge, melting into the still-thickening fog.
