The Rogue

The Rouge

By Adrian Berg

Prologue

    Footsteps. Thundering like drums, drawing closer by the heartbeat. He could hear them. The temptation to steal a glance, to confirm what his ears told him, was great. However he resisted the urge, afraid to risk his bright blue eyes reflecting the torchlight and giving away his position. His resolve was too trained to allow such slips. His plan was perfect, as the execution of it needed to be. An unsuspecting guard moved about his patrol, using a torch to guide his way in the unlit corridors. The thief, cleverly concealed by the shrouding darkness of the shadows, waited patiently for the guard to pass, oblivious to his presence. The footsteps stopped. For a sliver of moment the thief held his breath, thinking that his doom had come, that he, in carelessness, had been spotted. The telltale sound of a hairy hand scratching an equally hairy behind told him that the guard’s stop has been naught but for his own benefit. The footsteps continued, and the thief listened keenly as they were reduced to nothing more than mere distance echoes off the hard stone walls.
    He emerged. Had the guard seen him where he now stood, in plain sight in the centre of the corridor, he might still not have seen him at all. The thief was a shadow, both in mind and in appearance. His onyx hair, stark black garb, coupled with skin as dark as the abyss left him little more than a shade in the light-wanting complex. His entire visage revealed nothing of his true nature, though the occasional glance of a pointy ear, protruding from beneath the folds of black hair, did more than hint at his elven heritage.
    Silent as death the thief continued, following in the trail of the lone guard. Like a shadow he moved along the wall of the winding hallway. Coming to a corner he peered gently past, revealing another empty stretch. In between his position and the next corner the revealing light from under a door told him he had come to his objective. He darted ahead, coming swiftly and surely to the door. With a gentle touch he pushed the metal knob, testing it. Weathered metal groaned against weathered metal as the knob was turned, emanating treacherous sound, though not enough to alert the guard. The knob gave way, but the door was locked nonetheless. Right according to plan. From a pouch in his equipment belt the thief produced a small fold of brown cloth. He put it on the tiled floor and wrapped it open with sureness owing to frequent use. Inside the cloth was an assortment of tools, no doubt for lock picking and the like. Three picks of various shape, a pair of long metal pins, an oversized tweezer-like object and dirk. Suddenly the thief stopped. Even when focusing on the task at hand his senses were alert to his dark surroundings. The echoes of footsteps seemed to be growing more intense. The guard was coming back. The survivor in him screamed with all his might that he had to retreat. That the wisest, and truly the best course of action was to run away and wait for a more opportune moment. Usually the thief would not have been so brazen as he had been acting up to this point, but the uniqueness of this job, as well as the tremendous payout that awaited him upon it’s successful completion more than weighed up for the unnecessary risks. He grabbed one of the picks and a pin, and quickly went to work on the lock. He recognized the workmanship immediately. He had worked on this type of lock before. With just enough force he entered the pick into the slot, immediately moving it into position to stimulate the tumblers in the correct order. The metal pin quickly followed, both to steady the lock and to keep the first pick in place. The echoes had changed to definite sounds, removing all doubts that the guard was indeed returning from his patrol. The thief located the tumblers, finally moving them into place. He could hear the guard dangerously close. Quickly, with a bit more force than necessary, he turned the pin, turning the lock with it, but breaking it in the process. He cursed under his breath. He was cutting this one too close. The thief, now ready to abandon all discretion to get out of plain sight grabbed his tools in one hand, opened the door with the other and slipped in, leaving no visible signs of his passing. Behind him the guard rounded the corner just as the door closed with a click. The fact that the guard yawned as he did probably saved him from detection, though apart from his obvious luck the thief knew nothing of this.
    He found himself in a brightly lit and extravagantly furnished room. The centre of it was occupied by a large oaken table, set with golden plates and cups. Even the candelabra seemed to be made of gold. Along two of the walls, these being the ones to the left and right of the entrance; were lined with mid-sized cupboards, no doubt holding items of equal or greater grandeur of those on the table. The walls held pictures of wizards and noblemen unknown to the intruder. Their elaborate frames might fetch a nice price though. He moved past all of these baubles. Had he broken in here on a whim, or on his own behest he might have been so ignorant as to help himself to these menial trinkets. The grand price that the thief was after lay yet a bit further into the belly of the beast. He had been hired to break into this compound, this veritable palace. Belonging to a respected, and in many circles feared, wizard this was no place many common rogues dared to enter. The fourth and last wall held a single bookshelf, filled to the rim with various tomes and scriptures. The thief, which at this point seemed to know exactly what he was doing; located the third shelf, counted twelve books in from the left edge and came to rest his eyes upon a crimson-colored hardcover book with silver letters reading “the apprentice wizard”. Apart from the other books this one had a worn rim, indicating that it had been removed from its place in the bookshelf a lot. In fact, it could seem to be the only book in the shelf that had ever been touched. With a smile that could only mean the thief considered himself near his quarry. Or rather, he tried to ply it out, but it being fastened securely at the back it ended up being dragged halfway out before pulling itself back into its socket. A triumphant click sounded behind the bookshelf, and once again all was silent. The thief waited embarrassingly long before acting, wary of any movement outside the door, or any traps that might descend upon him. After a while, when no treachery revealed itself, he applied pressure to the object in front of him. It gave way, spinning around its own axis, opening up the secret passageway beyond. The dark clad form stepped out of the uncomfortably bright light into the near pitch black illumination that existed in the secret passage. It was a stairwell, winding down into the blackness. Once again the thief reached down and opened another pouch on his equipment belt, seemingly prepared for this obstacle as well. This time he pulled out a rolled up scroll, bound together by a wax seal and red linen band. With a slight application of pressure he broke the wax and rolled open the scroll. It was too dark for him to be able to read its contents, but he had anticipated as much and taken the time to memorize on beforehand. With a soft, melodious whisper he recited the runes, and thus invoked the scrolls dweomer. A weak light flared to life all around the thief, stemming from the body itself. With a thought the light grew more intense, illuminating the stairwell in front of him. He smiled once again and descended into the darkness. The magical light didn’t clarify more than a yard or two in front of the thief, even though he was no stranger to the dark. Seconds, minutes; several minutes went by, uneventful.
    For a while it seemed to the thief that there would be no conclusion to the seemingly endless staircase. The end however came so abruptly that he would have missed it even if it had been brightly lit. Expecting another step beyond the one he was stepping on the thief stumbled and nearly fell. He had reached the bottom and there were no new steps to decline upon. More than just intuition told him instantly that something foul was at work. The room was dark, impossibly dark. The light he had summoned halved in size as soon as he entered the room, even though he was mentally ordering it to double. Despite knowing that he should go back, or at least locate a more conventional light source, he pressed on. The dilemma with the light was quickly solved, as a pair of torched, one on each side of him, flared to life as soon as he stepped into the room. The torches burnt intensely, but still did not light up any more than to the next pair of torches. From what he could tell the room was shaped as a rectangle, with an unnecessarily high ceiling. The walls were not made with ordinary stonework, but stone shaped with wizardry. The floor was laid with black tiles, forming a chess pattern of marble-like tiles and course stone tiles. Had it not been for the torches he would have a hard telling the two types of tiles apart the thief absently thought. As he continued forward the torches he had left extinguished and a new pair lit in front of him. The cycle continued with the path behind and in front of him being shrouded in darkness, with only his immediate surroundings dimly lit in the warm light.
    Suddenly, as another pair of torches mysteriously flared to life, a small elevation of stone at the end of the room was made visibly. In front of him was the elevation, with a large and ornate wooden chest placed fittingly in the centre of it. The thief, wary of traps, checked the bottom and top rim of the slab of stone. He found nothing. But knowing a thing or two about magic he knew that didn’t mean there were none. From his ever surprising bag of tricks he pulled forth a small glass marble. He turned it over in his hand, using only his nimble fingers to manipulate its movement. It was a pretty little thing. He had bought it, and several more like it, the day before from a little girl. She was selling them as toys, but the thief had a much more practical usage for them. With a flick of his thumb he sent it flying onto the elevation. It flew unhindered, but as soon as it hit the stone hundreds of bright rays, like unstoppable lightning bolts, shot out from some unknown location above it and assaulted the tiny, fragile marble from every conceivable angle. It lasted only an instant, and when this display of magical superiority was over the marble was completely evaporated. The thief produced another marble, and sent it flying the same way as the first one. This time however nothing happened. The trap had obviously expended its usefulness. Typical magic, the thief thought, lasts only long enough for a single shot. Not wanting to unnecessarily lose another marble he retrieved the second one he had thrown, and proceeded then over to the chest, his true goal of this so far exiting excursion. As he had done with the elevation the thief took his time to check the chest for traps. He hadn’t lived this long as a successful thief by taking too many chances. He couldn’t find any conventional traps on it, but as with the slab of stone he was standing on the trap might be more sinister than any ordinary trap he had ever disarmed. Unfortunately there was nothing the thief could do to make sure. After all he could not throw pebbles at the chest and hope to disarm any magical trap on it. The fact that it did not seem to be locked either gave him even greater concern. Very unlike him, the thief risked it all and popped open the unlocked chest.
    Nothing happened. The chest was, strangely so, not trapped. Inside was a small collection of baubles and garbage. Distractions. The thief began digging through expensive looking scrolls, gilded jewelry and magical-looking rods and scrolls. At the very bottom of all these things he found what he was looking for. A small piece of wood. Had he not have been specifically instructed to retrieve this particular item, and nothing else, the thief would have never even considered taking this thing, this splinter, along. If he was to be honest with himself he would have looted most of the valuables he had seen on his way here and been out in a jiffy. However, as his employer had explained, that was a part of this places insidious security system. Nothing he had seen was truly valuable, and most of the objects would have been his doom had he tried to take them. The thief tucked the wood in a hidden pocket on the interior of his dark clothing and turned to leave.
  A warning, sounding from the very back of his mind had him stop. He found himself questioning if the torches would alight on his way back, or if they would stay dark. His cowardly intuition had saved him before, and he wasn’t about to ignore a potential savior now. He kneeled down at the very edge of the slab, so that he could examine the tiled floor. From the same pouch as the marbles, his trap detection pouch, the thief pulled out a small metal dice. A tiny weight. He placed it softly on and ordinary stone tile and instantly recoiled, expecting something to happen. Nothing. Perhaps there was no trap like he had feared. Although he started to feel it was unnecessary he picked up the dice and put it down on the shiny marble-like dice. Had he leaned forward just an inch more he would have been killed. A twisting black vine of unshapely mass shot down from the ceiling, nearly grabbing the thief by his hair, but instead it darted past, down to the dice. He saw the black thing wrap around the metal cube for a sliver of a moment before both shot back up towards the ceiling. Had that been his head, he silently concluded, he would have been dead now, his neck broken and his body dangling from the unnatural vine. Feeling some strange curious urge the thief held his palms facing each other, slightly apart in front of him. Manipulating the dweomer that he had summoned earlier he drew the light magic out of himself, forming a glowing white orb in between his hands. When he was satisfied with it, he ordered the hovering thing to fly up and reveal what was beyond the complete darkness that he saw. It flew slowly, being a very weak spell; but eventually it reached its destination and fulfilling its purpose, to the thief’s ultimate shock. From the ceiling of this room dangled hundreds of black tentacles of unknown making, forming out of a slimy black blob. They twisted and twirled, seeming almost alive where they were suspended. In between the black vines the thief could see the occasional corpse, skeletons of others who had made it as far as him, but no longer. It was at this point that he realized that the reason the roof was so shrouded in darkness wasn’t the lack of light, but the intimidating presence of the black unidentifiable mass. Despite the almost impassible obstacles that lay in his way, the thief knew his path. He had the item he had come to steal, the hard part was over. Now he only had to get out. Unfortunately, that involved traversing the heavily trapped room that separated him from the exit.
    The orb of shimmering light flew steadily down from its aloft position, joining up with the thief. He took one step onto the tiled floor, making sure to land on the stone tile and not the trapped marble tile. If his assumptions were correct, following the rough tiles would, or should, take him safely over to the other side. Even the wizard who created this device needed a failsafe. Right? He stepped onto another tile, then another and another. So far he had been correct. No vines had shot down from the ceiling to deal him a quick death, but no torches had alighted to help him along his way. The devious trap was meant to guide unwelcome visitors safely in, but not back out. With each step the thief grew in confidence, until he leaped agilely from tile to tile, always landing on the correct one. Only four more yards to go. He could do it in two strides if he leaped far enough. Overconfident he stepped off with one foot, gliding gracefully towards the next tile. In the last moment the light from the magic orb reflected off the tile, showing it to be a marbled one. In desperation the airborne thief managed to guide his leading leg onto the adjacent tile, though the move cost him his balance. Sheer terror gripping him he began to fall sideways, unable for all his twisting to save himself from his predicament. Utilizing mobility unknown to human-kin he tucked a leg under him, kicking off from a tile. A slimy black claw of death shot down, narrowly missing his leg that left the tile a fraction of a moment before. It was a crude leap, and even before it begun the thief saw it fail. As the ground closed in on him swiftly he brought an arm up in front of him to soften the impact. It was only by a cruel twist of fate that he noticed, right before his palm connected, that he was sailing for a marbled tile. Soundless another vine shot down from the ceiling, this time connecting solidly with his belt. Being somewhat heavier than the dice he wasn’t yanked as forcibly upwards, giving him a single moment to redeem himself. Acting purely on instinct the thief ripped his dagger from its scabbard, whipping it across the buckle of his belt, freeing it from his body. Just as the vine shot back towards the ceiling, an obvious action designed to instantly kill any unlucky victim, the thief fell back towards the floor, one belt poorer. Once again taking advantage of his agility he managed to twist himself around and last on what little safe ground there was, at long last bringing himself over to the other side. To safety.
    He literally ran up the stairs, ignoring the fact that the slow speed of his only light source would have him running in the dark within a very short amount of time. The thief stumbled more than once before finally reaching the top. The secret door had automatically closed when he was down below. In his folly he almost rushed ahead and opened it. Just as he placed a hand on the handle to unlock the device he heard a sound from inside the room beyond.
    “Milord? Are ye in here? Sir?”
    The guard had discovered the unlocked door. In his haste he had not covered all his traces. Luckily it seemed that the guard thought it had been his master, the wizard, who had unlocked it, perhaps even left it unlocked by accident. A long moment went by, the guard was probably listening for a reply. With none forthcoming the guard turned around and left, signaling his departure by loudly slamming the door. On cue the thief opened the secret door and slipped out, this time taking care to close it behind him. Once again ignored all the false treasures of this room he moved over to the door, placing his ear against it, listening for footsteps. They were moving away, to the left, in the opposite direction of where the thief was going. Once he was secure that the guard was out of the way he slipped out and began creeping along the sheltering shadows of the walls of the corridor. The wizard, out of paranoia most likely, didn’t like to light torches in his palace. Practically an invite to any experienced thief. The thief met no others guards as he made his way out, unseen and unheard, like a shadow, a whisper upon the wind.
    A true rogue.