Telling Time

This short story was originally written on 12th June 2022.

“Mother of darkness, mother of night. Cease your shadow. Herald of the new day, steward of the coming morn, unfold your path before us free of brume, forgive our infringement within your pure totality,  rid the way of obstacles as we dare journey through your domain. If we falter… Ah… If we falter, give us… No, that’s not it. When we fail, find our… Ah. Dogs. I’ve forgotten it. Hold on… Let me start again.

Mother of darkness, mother of night-”

“Will you shut up?” Sidgur’s command echoed through the cavern. Its ardour buried the incantation still reverberating on the walls, stifling the perpetual hum that had been filling the damp cave. His frozen fingers trembled, clutching a slender pick between them. Squinting in an effort to absorb the full benefit of his companion’s torchlight, he pressed his face closer to the moss-shrouded chest before him, probing its keyhole with his pick, searching hopelessly for the pin’s resistance. He toyed with a spare lockpick as he worked, pensively pushing it between his teeth with his tongue.

The water was up way beyond his shins now, rising slowly with each passing moment, soaking his breeches as he crouched lower in front of his task. His boots had long since filled to their brims and now each reshuffle of his footing was made all the more taxing by hauling his sodden footwear with him.

Behind him, Cathal had unfastened a leatherbound pocket-tome from a belt hook, and was holding both it and the torch at uncomfortable, raised angles in an effort to keep them away from the churning wash of the rising water. “Somewhere… Here!” he whispered, awkwardly flicking through the tome with the thumb of the same hand that held it.

“Fuck!”

The pick had leapt from Sidgur’s hand and dived into the inky water. His blind fingers chased it, groping around the flooded floor in vain. He plucked the spare from between his teeth. The final pick. His eyes narrowed into slim lines of determination. Water lapped at his hands as he worked. The wash rose in a steady, ominous march. It wouldn’t be long until the lock itself was submerged, and then he’d need a true miracle to crack the chest.

“Aha, okay. Here.” Cathal crouched behind his companion, pushing the torchlight close to both the lock and the water’s surface. His other hand maintained a firm grip on the small book, along with a delicate chain entwined around his closed fingers, from which a small silver crescent swayed like a pendulum.

“Mother of darkness, mother of night. Cease your shadow.”

“It’s biting… First pin’s biting.”

“Herald of the new day, steward of the coming morn, unfold your path before us free of brume,”

Sidgur felt a heavy click travel up his arm as the first pin slipped into place. The lock had resisted stubbornly, as if even the mechanism too was crafted of ancient stone.

“Forgive us our infringement within your pure totality,  rid the way of obstacles as we dare journey through your domain.”

Knuckles white from his grip upon the pin, Sidgur felt as if his head was boiling. Despite the cavern’s biting chill and the water’s encroaching embrace, sweat bubbled upon his brow. Adjusting his grip to perfect the balance between litheness and pressure, he teased the second pin toward its home. Another click. 

“Disperse the faultless shroud so we may pass through your markless realm,”

Sidgur’s pick searched limply within the lock, pressing against the seemingly immovable final pin. “I’d be having more luck picking this with a rat’s dick,” he mumbled through gritted teeth.

“If we falter, give us respite,”

The pick lurched, nearly firing from his slippery grasp. He pinched it between his nails, quavering as he fought to maintain his hold on the implement.

“When we fail, lend us light!”

On the final word of Cathal’s invocation, an explosive gust echoed through the desolate cave. The sound burst forth from the torch as it sputtered with new life, the flame growing double its size to grace the cavern in a comfortable and vital glow. The two men stared at each other with wide eyes twinkling in the torch’s gleam. Laughter ruptured from both of them, ricocheting off the walls, filling the cave with a chorus of chortles, lending it an atmosphere at once like both a packed tavern and a vacant crypt.

Returning his attention to the lock, Sidgur shifted to exploit the light’s full benefit. He scraped the pick through the keyhole, straining to coax out the final click.

“These locks, much smarter than anything we make these days,” he murmured, mostly to remind himself. “Often times… they need a twist.”

And with the final word his hand followed, flicking the lock round, causing it to spit out its loudest click thus far. As a grin warmed his gnarled face, he gently retrieved the pick and tucked it into the compartment sewn in his sleeve. So enraptured was he by his success, he scarcely noticed that the water had risen to nearly consume the keyhole. From under the chest’s jacket of lichen came a gentle blue glow, twisting and pulsing along the eroded carvings that coated the box, only visible now thanks to their arcane lustre.

His tired eyes spread wide. “Warding glyphs…” he whispered in disbelief. He lurched bolt upright, snapping the torch from his companion’s hand. “Right. Time you made yourself useful. Get to work. And sharp. Unless you got anything in that book that’s gonna get us breathing underwater.”

Cathal hadn’t stopped leafing through his volume since he’d finished the last incantation, but now he seemed content with the page he’d landed on. Folding the book and tucking it under his armpit he rubbed his palms together, before interlocking his fingers and flexing outward, cracking his joints. He had the chain folded around his knuckles like a brawler’s wrap. Now he crouched before the chest, drifting his hands around the body of the box, hovering them just an inch from its surface.

“Mother of darkness, mother of night, guardian of those who shift in the moon, lend us your wisdom, lend us your cunning.

Bind the arms of arrogance, remove the tongues that twist the aether against us.

Herald of the new day, dispel the curse that blocks our path!”

The glowing shapes crackled and steamed like a hot poker plunged into water. The pale gleam drifted from the carvings and up into the air in an opalescent smoke, before their colour faded and the wisps shifted into dispersing shadow.

“You fucking diamond. You champion. Gods! You cleared it! You actually did it!” Hints of laughter worked back into Sidgur’s voice as the elation enveloped him. Regaining composure in a snap, he shoved the torch toward Cathal, freeing his hands. “Right. Let’s shift this lid.”

He crammed the tips of his leathery fingers into the miniscule gap under the lid. A new fear rose up within his ribs; he hadn’t considered how heavy the solid stone may be. The rising water was lapping at his hands, now utterly soaking up to his wrists as the water rose past the chest’s opening. With an immense, strained thrust, he forced his fingers a fraction of an inch further, narrowly finding purchase up to the first knuckle under the crate’s weathered lid. Squatting low in preparation for an upward heave, the water’s foam embraced as far as his shoulders. He craned his neck back to keep the spume from splashing up at his mouth. He inhaled. Tensed. Weight on his toes, preparing to rend the lid.

An almighty crack filled the cavern. A torrent of water launched from the cave’s ceiling, as mighty as any downpour. Cathal had narrowly reacted fast enough to avoid having the deluge extinguish the torch.  The small opening that was previously admitting but a steady trickle of some unseen subterranean river had suddenly given way, and now water came gushing like an untamed tide into the cavern. Jetting from the fissure above their heads, the torrent threatened to bury the entire cavern in a dark, freezing flood within mere moments.

“Leave it!” Yelled Cathal, voice almost engulfed in the roaring cascade.

“Not happening,” retorted Sidgur, spitting water from his lips. “Can’t leave without it.”

With a deep gasp, he plunged his head under the rising froth, returning to his squatted stance under the surface.

Cathal’s eyes darted nervously to the cavern’s egress, a narrow opening atop a flight of sloping steps that had been carved into the stone aeons past.

Sidgur burst from the water empty handed, curses flying from between gritted teeth. The water was lapping at his stomach as he stood. Cathal’s feet edged toward the stairs on their own anxious volition. The eruption was deafening now, crescendoing with each moment as echo piled upon echo in a thunderous chorus. Sidgur had to locate the chest with his boots. The sable froth hid everything beneath its surface. Reaching hands within, his fingertips met the moss atop the crate. Craning his neck back to gulp down one final breath, he slipped his grip back under the lid. He plunged. The water swallowed him whole, no trace visible through the violent roil. Only moments remained before the lower recesses of the cavern would be consumed entirely, the crate along with it. Their task would soon become unfeasible, their prize lost forever to the cavern’s clutches.

A flurry of bubbles blistered at the water’s surface. Slowly, Sidgur’s head emerged, rising inch by inch. He roared as he rose, his voice battling against the torrent’s clamour. Every strained tendon, each sinewy muscle looked fit to tear apart under the strain, but miraculously, he was rising with the lid gripped firmly. Without hesitation Cathal flung his spare hand into the depths, scrambling until his fingers found something within the water; rough, soden fabric answered his rummaging. He snapped his arm back out just as the lid was released from Sidgur’s grasp. They allowed only a moment to inspect what had been retrieved; a simple cloth sack, sealed tight. Prize in hand, the pair scrambled for the stairs.

What began as a sprint for the stairway swiftly became a frantic swim. Cathal flailed awkwardly in an attempt to propel himself through the rising wash whilst keeping overburdened hands, now containing bag, book, and torch, way above the water’s reach. He ventured a searching foot before him, hunting within the depths for the first step, pressing carefully to ensure steady footing upon the slippery, misshapen stone. He rose, panting, sodden, stumbling up toward the rough-hewn opening.  Sidgur trailed close behind, scrambling up the steps beast-like, using hands to propel him faster. He rose as he reached the final paces. A sudden gasp left him. His heart shot up his neck. Grazing the final step, his left foot launched out beneath him, slipping on the edge of the sodden rock, sending it twisting under his calf. His ankle rolled with a spasm of pain that spiralled through his leg. In an attempt to break his fall, he clattered his elbows on the final step, charging the cavern with a sailor’s oath. As he fought to find his footing he let loose another curse, searing pain wringing his ankle each time he dared chance even an ounce of weight upon it. Hooking the book back upon his belt and tossing the cloth sack through the mouth into the passageway beyond, Cathal wrapped an arm under his companion’s and yanked, slowly dragging him the remaining distance to the opening.

At the landing they could finally let exhaustion wash through them. Both slumped now they had reached relative safety. From their vantage point, Sidgur watched the ferocious water devour the lower reaches of the cavern, the chest long since lost in the murk. The torrent’s vigour abated somewhat as the water level reached the fissure, and now the gloom was content to simply churn and swirl within its conquered portion, chasing the pair no further.

“Gods alive!” groaned Sidgur through gritted teeth, hands pressed around his ankle. “Fuck me dead, thats bad.” Removing his boot to assess the damage proved quite the task. Crafted of a thick, matte leather, it was fastened not only with an elaborate tangle of laces crossing the tongue, but also a series of broad straps and sturdy iron buckles. The boots were a masterwork, and unlike his rust-kissed chain shirt and the fraying tunic that covered it, they had been kept in pristine condition. With each inch he teased the shoe from his foot, his face contorted further, stifled hisses sliding from between his teeth.

“Let’s see… I think I might have something in here…” Cathal had crouched alongside, casting the torch’s light on his pocket book, leafing through once more.

“You might? You fucking might?” Sidgur let out a yelp as the boot slid off. “Fucking might? Gods what a useless clod they shackle me to. Isn’t a Oath Mage alive who can’t purge disease before they even leave the fold yet I get stuck with the only one in the known world that can’t fix a fucking twisted leg! You better hope your god of knives can heal bones because I’ll be wringing your neck if you keep fucking with me lad!”

Unflinching, Cathal extended an arm, pendant hanging from his fingers, swaying above Sidgur’s pale, swollen foot. 

“Mother of darkness, mother of night. Watcher of the shadows and ward of day’s end, extend the full moon’s new light,”

Deafened by his own groans, Sidgur was heedless of the incantation’s following lines, but relaxed his clenched eyes at the very moment a faint, twilight glimmer graced his leg. He shuddered as he watched  the pale gleam drift through his twisted foot like some luminous fog, before he slumped breathlessly on to his back. An icy, but not unpleasant embrace rested on the site the pain once burned. He could scarcely notice the throbbing any longer, but the new sensation still inspired a curious unease.

Back flat against the cold stone, eyes fixed on the ceiling, chest rising and falling in deep heaves, he finally let relief find him.

“It’s not fixed,” spoke Cathal, securing his pendant round his neck before tossing the cloth sack to Sidgur. “It won’t hurt. But it’s not fixed. It’ll need a lot of rest when we get out.” He squeezed water from his breeches, tightened the straps on his tunic, and readjusted a belt of short daggers that hung across his chest from one shoulder to the opposite hip. Turning his head to gaze at his companion, Sidgur noticed the man looked suddenly sallow. It was as if an unexpected tiredness had assailed him from the darkness, sinking his eyes into shallow black pits, and draining the vigour from his youthful face. Sidgur presumed the cave’s shadows were playing tricks on his eyes.

“Ha!” he wheezed, as if only now hearing Cathal’s instruction. “I plan on getting a lot of rest lad, believe me. If this ain’t a sign I don’t know what is. Hanging up the boots for good after this one.” He rolled on to his side, gazing blankly at the black pool that filled the cavern, a once thrashing threat, now quite serene. “Go on, give us another one. Has the great moon queen got anything in there for getting tired old bastards out of caves?”

Cathal frowned, but indulged the jest with a polite reply. “No more incantations. No, I’m afraid I can’t muster that. But a humble prayer never hurt a man.” Sinking to his knees, he raised both palms upward, and lowered his head in a reverent bow.

“Mother of darkness, mother of night. Let us gaze upon a new day once more. Let us perish not, here in darkness before our time. Let us feel dawn’s warmth against our flesh again before our final day.”

– – –

Faint torchlight licked the tunnel’s walls. Echoes of Sidgur’s tired footsteps and laboured breaths preceded the pair through the passageways. Whereas he was wearing the mark of the day’s travails, his more fortunate companion seemed quite composed. Whilst Cathal’s face was still taught with the hints of that remote, uncanny fatigue, his strides remained purposeful, his demeanour collected.

It had been some time since they’d hurried from the flooded cavern, and the monotony of the labyrinth was feeding a creeping claustrophobia. The spirit of discovery that had propelled them into the caverns had been replaced now with only a feverish urge to breathe the cool air of the surface world again. A sense of dread crawled from the very stone itself, threatening to trap the pair within the bowels of the earth.  Sidgur wasn’t about to admit his unease, but he inwardly hoped his young companion shared it. He drummed his fingers on the hilt of the hand axe that hung from his belt. His dry lips were red from being chewed. He pressed on, following the light of his companion’s torch, traipsing through the depths.

“What is it?” Cathal’s question crawled along the walls of the tunnel before bouncing back, an echo answering itself twice from both directions.

“What?” came the wheezing reply from behind him.

“In the bag. What’s in it?”

“Ahhh,” murmured Sidgur coyly. “And you didn’t think to check for yourself?”

“They said I mustn’t. Help retrieve it. Avoid touching it. Avoid holding it. That was the instruction. Mustn’t peek what’s inside.” He turned to flash a sly smirk. “But they didn’t say I couldn’t ask.”

Sidgur rolled a chuckle in his throat. “Aren’t you well behaved? I didn’t know they had you under the thumb like some common apprentice.” He laughed at his own jibe. “You can peek, lad, last thing I am’s a snitch.”

“I wouldn’t suggest you are. But keeping one’s wits costs nothing. Trust is both a virtue and a vice.”

“Cheeky fucking prick,” snarled Sidgur. “A man has nothing but his word and you reckon mine’s worth naught? Reckon I’m here to spy on you, is that it? Watch to see if you play it by the book?” The corners of his lip raised, a hint his ire was not so genuine, but Cathal wasn’t facing the man to see. He was trudging on, blithe and determined.

“Not so. Not so at all. ‘Even the rats of the Footsteps have ears.’ That’s how the saying goes, isn’t it?”

“That’s it, aye. That’s an old one. A very old one. Long before you. And it’s true, I suppose. Pays to watch your back among the Boots. Hey, who’s to say I’ve not been sent to double cross you?” His question was chased by a mischievous grin.

“Don’t take it personally, boss. I have my instructions. I’m following them. I don’t intend to look. And if you won’t tell me, then so be it.”

“Well, well.” Sidgur whistled through his smile. “Trust an Oath Mage to be so obedient. But I bet the priests really beat that into you.”

“Good thieves are seldom rogues among themselves.”

Another laugh erupted from Sidgur. “Honour among thieves! Now there’s a novel idea. Oh, they’ll like that. They’ll like that a lot, lad. You’ll earn your boots in no time.”

The tunnel’s shadows continued their slow encroachment. The torch’s light began to concede defeat. The pair paused within the darkness as Sidgur plucked a new rag from Cathal’s pack. Crouching, he doused it with oil from a small stoppered flask. The sound of the liquid sloshing within was faint. The flask was nearly spent. A grimace braced his lips. The idea of completing the journey to the surface in darkness was one that didn’t bear thinking about. They’d need to maintain their haste. He arose with a new torch lit, hobbling forth on his mangled leg. As Cathal had promised, the pain had vanished, but that didn’t alleviate the challenge of balancing his weight upon the twisted limb.

“That’s the ambition,” spoke Cathal, snapping Sidgur out from his taciturn anxiety. “If we make it back alive, prize in hand, with fortune, they might decide I’ve earnt a pair.”

A smile warmed Sidgur’s face, his spirits enlivened by his young companion’s naivety. “Hah! Yeah, maybe lad, maybe. I wouldn’t bet on it, though.”

Approaching a fork in the tunnel ahead of them, Cathal hovered the torch along the walls, searching for the chalk mark Sidgur had left on their descent. The maze was riddled with splits and crossroads, quarried in a seemingly thoughtless array by the folk who had cut the tunnels, far back in those most distant reaches of the past. Each time the pair had found themselves at one of these forks during their descent, Sidgur had fished a stub of chalk from his belt pouch, and consulted a scrap of folded parchment. Cathal had presumed the scrap bore a kind of complex map or description of their route, but was astounded to notice that it featured nothing more than a column of scrawled letters, most of them L or R, with a few As mixed in for good measure. Scratching the triangle on the tunnel that had deposited them, Sidgur would pocket the chalk and scrap once more, until the next branch appeared. For the cost of slightly extending the journey down, the technique was greatly expediting their ascent. It was all that stopped them from becoming utterly lost within the cavern’s tangled limbs.

“Here,” Sidgur muttered, pointing out the small white triangle scribbled on the edge of the tunnel to their right. Hurried steps carried them along.

“So,” the young man continued, once more leading the way, “If helping you grub through the dirt to get your hands on something so valuable they won’t even let me glance at it isn’t going to get me initiated, surely nothing will?”

Sidgur slapped a friendly palm on his companion’s back. The young man’s piety was irritating, and he wasn’t the best thief he’d ever met, but if nothing else, his innocence was worth a good laugh. “Patience, mate, patience. They make a hefty bet when they let you don the boots. They like to be certain. Besides, it’s all well and good mumbling your prayers and getting her upstairs to do the hard graft. But they’ll be looking for more than that. You’ve got to start getting your hands dirty.”

Cathal frowned, following another chalk glyph down a left-leading passage. If the constant jibes at his faith were bothering him, his face hardly showed it. Besides, his talents thus far had proved vital to the pair’s success, and the certain smugness derived from the fact probably served as a decent enough shield against the constant quips.

“And that’s what you did presumably, got your hands dirty?”

“Well…” A slow silence swept through the tunnel, hanging in the air for a moment. “That was moons back now. Been wearing my boots since you were still clinging to your mother I reckon.” He ground his teeth. “But aye. Got them dirty alright.” If Cathal had turned, he’d have seen his ageing accomplice fight off a grimace. “They had me stick a fella for ‘em. Decent bloke he was, too, saved my hide on a few jobs. Nothing but good to me. But…” He pushed a slow exhale through his teeth. “He got too big to handle, don’t think them up top were too pleased. Good thieves control their variables. Used to be the case that the fellas behind the curtain really made an example of old dogs that couldn’t toe the line. Nasty stuff.” 

Now Cathal turned, brow rising, gaze wide, awaiting the rest of Sidgur’s tale. Spotting the surprise dance behind the eyes of his accomplice, the old thief quickly shifted his tone, forcing a reassuring smile across his face. “Long time ago though that, like I said.  They don’t have us go after our own any more, not unless someone really pisses off the big boys. Can’t say I’m proud of it. Can’t say I’m proud of much I done to be fair with you, lad.” Sidgur let his head slump, a shred of buried shame doing what exhaustion had been attempting for some time. He stared at his boots as his feet shuffled ahead. “But hey,” he mumbled to the ground, “A man’s got to play with the cards he’s dealt, hasn’t he?” Cathal could scarcely hear his muttering, but it made no difference; Sidgur’s question was for himself.

Sidgur was ripped from his stupor with a jolt, ambling into Cathal’s back. His gaze rose, then landed upon what had caused Cathal to stop so suddenly. The tunnel they had been tracking had deposited them upon a narrow ledge, looking down into a small cavern. Sidgur recalled scrambling up the ledge on their inward journey. This room had been one of the first they’d come to, after a long and winding trail from the surface. Only now the cavern was nearly unrecognisable. Lapping at their feet was a familiar obstacle; water, opaque in the cave’s darkness. The entire cavern had filled with this dark lake, and thus so too had the egress sat at the cavern’s base. Their route to the surface. Flooded entirely by some unseen twist of fate, another distant rupture in the rock.

Cathal muttered a crisp prayer. Glaring blankly at the motionless pool, Sidgur drew upon all his remaining resolve to not sink to his knees in defeat. “Come,” he spoke bitterly, “There must be another route to the surface.” His blind hope might have convinced his companion, but Sidgur failed to convince himself. He turned on his heels and trudged back down the passageway, reckoning with the dawning reality that he might well starve to death, deep in the dark pits of the ground. To imagine one’s own death is a common sport among thieves. He’d seen himself impaled on a guard’s spear, choking on poisoned ale, throat slit in the night by a displeased creditor. But to see it like this, this was entirely new. There was no fight, no fire, not a shred of excitement nor glory. It was just he and his end. Fate’s impassive, boring hand, closing in around him without ceremony.

Since turning back from the flooded exit, Cathal hadn’t ceased muttering. In his free hand he played with the crescent that hung from his neck, twirling it gently. There was a sense of anxiety in his movement, certainly not unwarranted, but his voice was calm, repeating his prayers with poetic cadence. Sidgur walked alongside him, his injured leg trailing more limply with each step. He pointed out a chalk triangle as they came to a split in the tunnel. The pair ignored it, opting instead for the path that lay opposite. The symbols were useless to them now, marking a route with nothing but flooded, unnegotiable caverns at either end. Now each chalk sign they disregarded, and stepped instead into the unknown. If this method still left a choice of more than one egress, they’d opt for whichever seemed to tilt more toward the surface. So often however, would they come to dead-ends, sheer drops, and unnavigable narrows, it soon became quite impossible to tell if they’d taken a given route before, or if they’d began to travel in circles.

Sidgur slapped an open palm upon his forehead. A groan crept out of him, grinding through the caverns, the first noise either of them had spoken in quite some time. He turned to Cathal, his brow wrung by despair. “A different symbol!” he panted, lifting the chalk from his pocket. “We could have just drawn a different bloody symbol! We should’ve marked the dead ends! Oh for the love of the gods! We’re going to rot to the bones down here! We’re going to rot to the bones because I’m a fucking witless bastard!” He swung the cloth sack above his head, smacking it against the stone in time with each of his last three words. He stormed ahead, practically steaming, leaving a trail of curses in his wake. Either he didn’t notice that he was marching into the shadows without the guidance of Cathal’s torch, or he didn’t care. Regardless, he could hear the young Oath Mage quicken his pace to keep alongside.

Sidgur allowed a little rage to subside with each stamp, until once more within the grasp of exhaustion. Their aimless trailing was taking its toll. The air in this part of the cave system was thick and hot, and even as he slumped against the wall panting, he felt as if he was sucking in breaths through mouthfuls of wool. He guessed the heat might be thanks to the fact the tunnels they now traversed were dirt walled as opposed to stone, but in truth, he had no idea if that sort of thing made a difference at all. It sounded likely though, he thought. His eyes drifted along the opposite wall and up to the ceiling. It hadn’t occurred to him to ever ask his superiors what exactly the subterranean maze was. He had his task, he had his instructions, he hadn’t needed anything else. Not for the first time he was lamenting his lack of curiosity. Sidgur was presuming, nay hoping, that the complex was some sort of ancient mine, as one might hope that a mine would possess multiple exits, but he was becoming less certain of this fact with each passing moment. The walls were rough, dotted with nicks and marks that could have been made by pick axes. But didn’t mines normally have timber beams? He hadn’t a clue. It certainly wasn’t a crypt. There weren’t any corpses. Not yet, atleast. The long-past crafters of the expanse had left few clues.

The torch’s light was shrinking. It cast little more than a few feet of orange through the caverns. Beyond that lay seemingly eternal darkness, stretching and winding through the earth. Despair was chipping at their spirits. Hope’s faint flame was going the way of the torch. Even in the face of this looming threat, their steps dragged, grew listless. 

Sidgur flashed Cathal a creased smirk so feeble that it could hardly be called a smile at all. He had his hand buried in the cloth sack. “Here. Gods know you’re too tightly buttoned to ask again, but I can see you’re itching lad. Can’t have you dying wondering.” He yanked his hand from within the bag, and proudly displayed what had sat within. Gripped between his fingers, hanging in front of the torch’s dying glow, was a single black glove. Domed silver studs capped the knuckles, and an intricate embroidered pattern of dark threads twirled across the palm and around the digits, forming a string of illegible glyphs.

Cathal’s mouth slowly dropped open as his glimmering eyes widened, drifting from the glove to Sidgur and back again. 

“A… glove? I’m down here… for a glove?” He spoke in a calm whisper, but his astonishment was plain.

Sidgur’s smile spread, exposing a mosaic of crooked teeth. He basked in his companion’s bewilderment. One had to find simple pleasures in times like these.

“Haha. Well, yes. But it’s not your humdrum leather mitt mate, I’ll tell you that much for free.” The glove seemed to have its own lustre, the material was black as night yet held a deep, shifting gleam, and its delicate embroidery looked to be twinkling in the light of the flame. Sidgur pressed his face toward Cathal’s till their foreheads nearly brushed, the glove held up between their noses. His gaze burned into Cathal’s eyes, and he spoke in the husky whisper of a poet, as if a loud noise might turn the glove to dust. “The thief that gets his hands on this is as good as untouchable, son. Blackboots, Moth Wings, even the Raven’s Circle, the things they’d do, things they’ve done, trying to be the first to find this beauty… You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He snapped the glove back into the bag. “Right. That’s your peek. Come on. I want to find a comfortable rock to die on.” Slinging the bag over his shoulder, steady strides carried him up the tunnel’s incline.

Cathal’s mouth twisted round an uncertain question. Sidgur could see the effort shift across the young man’s face as he searched for his words.

“One must wonder then,” he finally began, after much deliberation, “if this glove is so coveted, such a prize among thieves, how can they be certain you wouldn’t keep it for yourself?”

A wheezing laugh escaped Sidgur. “Oh they can be certain. I’d be a bloody fool.” He paused, almost stopped in his tracks, now his face knotted with an internal debate. “Ah sod it. We might rot down here, what difference is it if you know my business. They’ve already got their beady eyes all over me lad. My bet is that even if we did get out of here, they’d be scouts tracking us all the way back to Merchant’s Hithe. You may trust the talent, but not the man. You heard that one before?”

Cathal shook his head.

“Well they trust my talent, lad. Yours too, hence their insistence you tagged along. And, I’ll admit, with good reason. Wasn’t too keen when they started stuffing the ranks with mages but you’ve earned your keep today, I’ll tell you that.” His mouth hovered between a grimace and a smile. “Where was I? Do they trust the man? Well… Thing is, lad, I’ve lifted me fair share of the guild’s goods. It’s hot water. Hot, hot water. This prize here is only just going to clear what I owe them.” He waved the cloth sack in front of him. “In truth… If it weren’t for the fact there aint a man in the city knows locks like me… they’d have got rid of me long ago, I reckon.” A hushed sigh slid from his lips between sentences. Cathal stared at him with the wide eyes of a child enraptured in some fable. “Never get too greedy, son. Know when you’ve got enough.” He’d ground to a halt. His head shook slowly, gaze drifting wistfully down to his feet. His boot glistened slightly. Ever so faintly, the cap of the left shoe glimmered a gentle mote of light. Not the sickly yellow of the dying torch, but pale white. The pale white of a morning’s sun. He swum his hand in front of him, and now he could see it. A thin beam, the breadth of a thread, descending from above. He plucked his hand through it as if it were the string of an ethereal harp. Their gazes traced it upward. And there they found the source. A miniscule opening, just above their heads. There lay freedom. A tiny gap amidst the compacted dirt and rock, admitting only the tiniest kiss of sunlight.

“Fuck me. Fuck me blind. We’re going to live, lad! We’re going to fucking live!” Some new found life launched Sidgur’s arms around his companion in a rough embrace for just a moment, before he composed himself. “Right. Onwards and upwards.”

He reached a grimy hand toward the opening as if it were an animal he was attempting to tame. He poked at the gap, tentatively at first, but then with a rising fury. He shovelled loose dirt and stones away, letting them topple to litter the ground around his feet. Light poured in from the expanding exit, but not enough, not the gleam expected of the light of day. Sidgur felt the air drop out of him for just a moment. He wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Sidgur shifted Cathal through first with interlocked hands under his foot, before lifting himself upward with the aid of his partner’s outstretched arm. Light reached from above to grace them, but its radiance was far from complete. They found themselves in the base of a towering, stone-walled hollow that stretched skyward like a colossal tube, terminating in a sizable aperture that hung perhaps a hundred feet above them. Were the walls not of such rough, uneven rock, the passage could have been a long abandoned well. The men had their heads craned toward the exit, letting the sun’s glimmer wash over them, savouring it for the gift it was. Cathal had taken on the appearance of a child in the midst of a pleasant dream; mouth curled into a serene smile, eyelids only just touching. He began to whisper a muted prayer, when he was startled out of his near divine calm by a sudden, rhythmic sound that had begun whipping next to him. Sidgur stood with one leg on either side the opening they’d crawled through, a steel claw swinging rapidly by his side. He spun his right hand in a tight circle, the slack of the rope hanging from his left palm. The hook launched skyward, arcing toward the light above. Both men inhaled sharply. Waited. The hook did not return. Sidgur gave the rope a sturdy pull. It shifted a foot, then held. Another tug followed, harder this time, for good measure. The rope didn’t budge. The broadest grin his mouth could manage squirmed across Sidgur’s face. “Let’s be heading home, lad.”

With some trepidation, Cathal began to deposit his weight upon the rope. Neither man could be entirely certain the hook would stay lodged in whatever hold it had found, but the pair had few options left beside take their chances. Working his way up like an insect wriggling up a plant’s stem, Cathal moved with impressive litheness. Sidgur was surprised to see the young man execute the climb of a professional thief with such effortless form. He doubted the priests of Mykrya had much rope hanging around the temple. The lad had clearly already gleaned a good deal in his short tenure with the Blackboots. A strange sense of pride buoyed up in Sidgur as he watched his companion shimmy up the rope, pulling with the arms, raising the knees, wrapping the feet around the slack, clamping the ankles together, lifting, shifting, repeating. Sidgur grabbed the rope to follow, began the same routine; pulling, raising, wrapping, clamping, searing, searing pain, burning, hissing.

Sidgur snapped his mouth shut, face contorted in agony. A sickening, dull pain pulsed up his leg and rattled through every bone. His foot throbbed with violent spasms. Wrapping the rope round his leg for purchase had brought his abused ankle to its limit, and now his foot hung lifelessly at the base of his leg, flapping from side to side like that of a puppet. The pain that had been lurking unfelt had suddenly leapt to the forefront once more, refusing to be ignored any longer, not by magical means, nor sheer force of will. The climbing technique that all good theives mastered before they as much looked at a lockpick would be of no use to him here. He clenched his jaw with the strain, attempting to lift himself with his arm strength alone. It felt as if each fibre of his shoulders were on fire. But he’d manage. He was certain he’d manage. Surely no more than eighty feet to go.

Propelled by puffs, pants, and a slew of obscenities, Sidgur was succeeding in edging his way up the rope. At a point he reckoned was halfway, he wrapped the line around his forearms, using the tension to hold himself in place. The rough fibres raked his flesh raw, but he needed the respite. The grating on his arms was easily a better alternative to falling, exhausted, to a nasty demise.

“All’s well?” called down Cathal from above. Sidgur nodded vigorously through strained panting, before setting off upwards again. Each muscle in his upper body felt as if it were being drawn to its limits, as if any moment they’d shred to pieces and his arms would rend in twain from the effort alone. Hand over hand he climbed. Vision waning, he chased his ally higher up the tunnel, with each heave, drawing nearer to the pale, heavenly light that rained down upon them. His grip lurched. The rope slipped from his grasp, ripping through his hand and firing upward as he tumbled. The entire rope swung wildly as he launched his left hand to snatch it, the cord carving a nasty gash deep into his palm from the friction generated as he suddenly snapped to a stop.

His gasping reverberated up the shaft.

Stillness.

Then, they both dropped, the cord staggering, sending them both downward by a handful of feet. The rope bounced, snapped taut again. The hook had slipped. The pair shot their eyes upward, glaring at the rope, waiting for the claw to inevitably lose its grasp, to send them tumbling to their deaths.

But it didn’t.

They hung, stupefied, stunned, grateful. But thanking the gods wasn’t going to get them out. They resumed their climb, hurriedly scrambling up the final few yards.

Swinging a palm over the lip of the opening, Cathal hefted himself out to the surface with a deep grunt. Sidgur watched his companion drift from view, before his head reappeared, gazing down the hole at him. Reclined on his stomach he threw an arm forward, stretching his fingers toward his associate. Sidgur briefly considered stubbornly refusing help from a lad still so wet behind the ears, but that notion dropped from his mind as swiftly as it appeared. He reckoned if the tunnel had been as much as a yard taller, he’d never have made it out. Cathal strained his fingers a hair’s breadth further. He was just within reach. Sidgur gripped the rope in one hand, stretched upward from the other. He could feel the strap of his pack drifting off his shoulder.

“Ah, shit. The pack first lad,” he wheezed, “grab the pack”. Slinging the cloth bag off his side, Sidgur tossed their prize up to Cathal, before readjusting his grip, preparing for one final heave. He reached his arm skyward, looked up to find Cathal’s grasp. He did not find his companion’s hand outstretched. Rather, Cathal’s hand hovered in front of him, grip wrapped around a dagger. He had the knife tucked under the rope, grazing it with the finesse of a barber wielding a cut-throat razor. He dragged the blade across the threads gently. Sidgur’s hand still reached upward, frozen. Only a hoarse whisper drifted from his open mouth. His eyes begged for answers to the questions he was unable to utter.

“Sorry boss,” muttered Catahal, his voice totally dry, mouth fixed in a narrow line that shared only a fragment of regret. “You know the Blackboots aren’t keen on old dogs who don’t toe the line. Need to control our variables.” He pulled at the rope again, lifting it upward with the knife. Sidgur watched as a handful of threads frayed and snapped. “Besides, got to start getting my hands dirty.”

A confused wheeze drifted from Sidgur as if it were forced from him. “But…,” he whispered, “Good thieves? Seldom rogues among themselves…” The final sentence drifted into nothingness, as if he’d lost his belief in his own question before he’d finished it.

“Hah. I’ll tell them you came up with that one. They’ll like that. They’ll like that a lot.”

Cathal’s hand lurched. The blade ripped through the rope. The breath in Sidgur’s lungs sprung upward as he dropped. The air of the tunnel whipped around him as the light above him shrank. The floor arrived much sooner than he expected. It met him with an obscene, damp-sounding crack. Bones shattered against stone.

Darkness crept at the corners of Sidgur’s vision, reaching across to cover his eyes. He peered through the fog. Hovering high above him sat a tiny white circle, barely discernible through the encroaching shadow. He could do nought but gaze upon it. He willed himself to move, but nothing answered. His eyelids drifted together. He thought he saw something drifting at the edge of the circle, a tiny mark, perhaps someone staring down at him. Then it was gone.

He lay almost motionless, save for the occasional twitch that shuddered through him unbidden. His eyes drifted across the small opening to the surface. The pale light was stronger now. He gazed upon a new day once more. He closed his eyes and let the distant sun beam upon him. He felt dawn’s warmth against his flesh.