The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn Read online

  The tools were like sensors to her, passing vibrations to her fingers. Her ears took in each sound as the picks rattled against the inner workings of the lock. Quarrah assembled the information in her brain, creating a mental model of the lock’s insides.

  A brief moment later—snick!—the lock was sprung and she pulled the door open, storing her tools as she slipped from the hallway.

  It was drafty behind the door. She was at the top of a long, narrow stairwell that descended, presumably, to the dungeon where the painting was supposedly being stored.

  Quarrah pulled the door shut and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Her eyesight wasn’t as sharp as it used to be. Sparks, she was supposed to be in the prime of her life!

  There was a dim glow at the bottom of the long stairwell. The two delivery Reggies would probably be spending the night near the Lemnow painting. She’d have to act fast.

  Quarrah moved down the steep stairs, sliding her hands into a pair of thin gloves. The gloves were her own design, modified over the last four years to fit her needs.

  They were fingerless, save for the middle finger, which housed a tiny fragment of Slagstone in the tip. At the base of her thumb, a slim pocket was filled with a pinch of Light Grit. She might not need to use the gloves, but it was better to have them ready so she wouldn’t waste time fumbling in the dark.

  Quarrah reached the bottom of the stairs and leaned cautiously around the corner. The dungeon was a simple stone room with no windows, the far side barred into two cells. Through the closed bars, Quarrah could see the large wooden crate the Reggies had unloaded from the covered wagon. The box had a red cloth draped over the top, likely to protect the contents from settling dust. The painting would be inside, wrapped in fabric, probably nestled into sawdust to keep it dry and padded.

  The two Reggies Quarrah had expected were nowhere in sight. That would clean up her task considerably. She hated dealing with people. Especially the ones trying to stop her from taking what she wanted.

  Quarrah moved quietly toward the locked cell. She was almost there when the sound of a boot scuffing on stone caused her to reel. One of the Reggies was on her in a moment, a huge man with arms that wrapped clear around her torso, yanking her feet off the floor.

  An ambush cleft! She cursed herself for not anticipating it. These old dungeons often had a small cleft built into the wall. Invisible from the stairs, the space made an ideal hiding spot for a dungeon guard. Many a criminal jailbreak had been thwarted by a heavily armed guard concealed in an ambush cleft.

  Well, Quarrah thought, at least he didn’t shoot me in the back of the head.

  The Reggie hefted her even higher. Sparks, the man was strong! There was little chance of her wriggling free or reaching her boot dagger.

  Quarrah brought her hand up, reaching blindly for the man’s face behind her. Craning her neck, she could see his sneer from the corner of her eye. He was wearing a knit hat to ward off the dungeon’s chill. With any luck, that hat would catch fire.

  Quarrah slammed her gloved middle finger against the Reggie’s forehead. The piece of Slagstone in the fingertip reacted to the impact, throwing a shower of sparks across the bridge of his nose. The man shouted, shaking his head. Swinging around, Quarrah threw her weight, bring both knees up and slamming her feet down against the man’s thighs. At the same time, the back of her head butted into his face.

  He dropped her, finally. Quarrah hit the stone floor, rolling to avoid igniting the delicate Grit bags on her belts. She was lucky the Reggie hadn’t detonated any of them with his python grip.

  Quarrah rose into a defensive crouch as the Reggie ducked back into the ambush cleft. Behind her, the stairs were wide open. Now was the chance to flee. And leave behind a poorly guarded Lemnow? It was only one Reggie. Quarrah pulled a teabag of Barrier Grit from her belt. She could take him.

  The big man emerged suddenly, a clay pot in his hand. She flung the bag of Grit at the man’s feet. It ignited just inches in front of him, instantly throwing a detonation cloud six feet tall.

  The man was enveloped, but just barely. He dropped the detonation pot, but the clay exterior didn’t strike with enough impact to break or ignite.

  “You won’t get the painting,” he grunted. His nose was bleeding from their skirmish, and he was now helplessly trapped behind the invisible shield of the Barrier cloud.

  “Watch me.” Quarrah strode past the detonation and approached the locked cell. She’d have to work quickly now. The Barrier Grit would only hold the Reggie for about ten minutes. But Quarrah Khai was accustomed to working under pressure. She actually found the rush of a deadline quite thrilling.

  Wait a minute. What kind of blazing lock was this? It looked like a piece of pipe, about the length of her forearm, but larger in diameter. It hung straight down from the gate latch, a loop of iron keeping the cell locked. The trapped Reggie chuckled when he saw her surprise.

  Quarrah dropped to her knee and peered up into the pipe. Too dark to see. And she wasn’t about to go reaching into something she didn’t understand.

  She positioned her left hand a few inches below the pipe lock and snapped her fingers. As her gloved middle finger slapped against the pouch at the base of her thumb, it detonated a pinch of Light Grit, instantly casting a glowing orb around her hand.

  Quarrah slowly pulled her hand free, the movement not affecting the perfectly spherical shape of the light. The nature of all Grit was to detonate in a spherical cloud. Detonations often appeared domed, as igniting them against the ground or other hard surface prevented the bottom of the sphere from forming. And of course, some detonations could be contained in boxes or lanterns. But the Grit’s natural shape was always a sphere.

  The bright orb hovered just below the pipe lock, Quarrah stooping to peer inside. Now properly illuminated, she was glad she hadn’t reached in. The interior of the pipe was lined with short needles, their sharp points all angling inward. At the top of the pipe was the locking mechanism itself, an ordinary thing that wouldn’t normally pose a problem for someone with her skill.

  “Increased security for the Lemnow tour,” announced the Reggie from behind. “The pipe is welded around the lock, and the needles are coated with a tranquilizing agent. No better way to catch a thief.”

  Sparks, Quarrah thought. Was he actually boasting? Didn’t he know that such language only prompted her onward, daring her to tackle the impossible?

  The pipe lock wasn’t impervious. It was just designed to make things difficult. That Reggie’s big arm could probably slide past the needles if he was careful. Using one hand to open a lock with a key was easy. Picking a lock with one hand, however … This was going to be a challenge.

  For a moment, she considered employing a less discreet tactic. Quarrah could easily fill the pipe with Blast Grit and light a fuse from behind the safety of the Barrier cloud.

  But what if the explosion was too strong? It might blow apart the cell gate and hurl hot pieces of metal at the crate. Lemnow’s painting would be far less valuable with a hole through the canvas.

  Quarrah removed one of her gloves and rolled her sleeve up to the elbow. Couldn’t risk snagging the fabric. Her tools were out in a heartbeat, two in her right hand as she carefully reached up the pipe.

  Unlike the mortise lock at the top of the stairs, this one would take all her senses. Her eyes focused on the needles, and in a moment, she had both slender tools driving into the locking mechanism.

  It was maddening, keeping her arm perfectly still while one hand did the work of two. And all the while, the Reggie behind her seemed to be breathing heavily through his mouth in an obnoxious manner.

  Quarrah felt a click. That was good. Then a series of clicks in quick succession. She held perfectly still. Sparks, her hand was cramping! The lock was nearly sprung. All she needed to do was twist one of the instruments …

  There!

  She slowly withdrew her hand, stowing the tools and donning her glove. More than half her time was
up, and the Reggie inside the cloud knew it just as well as she did.

  Quarrah slid the pipe lock free of the latch and set it aside, quickly pulling open the cell gate. As it swung on creaky hinges, she saw something in the illumination of her Light Grit. It was a string, unraveling quickly as the cell door opened.

  Her foot shot out, bracing against one of the cold metal bars and stopping the gate from opening farther. She traced the string, one end tied to the bottom of the gate. From there, it trailed across the floor toward the covered crate. She drew her boot dagger, stooped, and cut the thin string.

  Quarrah slipped into the cell and crossed to the covered box. She’d heard the painting was large, but this packaging seemed excessive. The crate was square, the top just higher than her waist. She gripped the corner of the cloth covering and pulled it free.

  Resting atop the crate was a crossbow, previously concealed by the red cloth, pointing at the entrance to the cell. The weapon was loaded and ready, a Grit bolt nocked. She saw now that the string was tied off to the crossbow’s trigger. Had it drawn tight, the weapon would have shot.

  Quarrah removed the crossbow bolt and stowed it on one of her belts. It would fetch a nice Ashing if she didn’t decide to use it for herself. Lifting the crossbow, she set it on the floor beside the crate. She’d take it, too, if the painting didn’t prove to be too cumbersome.

  The crate itself was secured with a simple latching mechanism. Good thing, too. If she wanted to remove the painting without facing that Reggie, there probably wasn’t time to pick another lock.

  Quarrah flipped the latch, grabbed both sides of the crate’s lid, and slid it open. Before she could move, a hand reached out of the crate and seized her firmly by the wrist. The Slagstone hammer of a Roller clicked back and the gun barrel pressed against her abdomen. A man slowly rose from where he’d been sitting cross-legged inside the crate.

  “I appreciate your timeliness,” the man said. “I don’t know how much longer I could have sat in there. My leg was cramping something fierce.” Quarrah began inching her free hand toward her belt. “I don’t think so, Quarrah Khai.”

  The man shoved the barrel of the gun tighter against her stomach. This whole thing was a setup? Lemnow’s painting was not in the crate. Was it even coming to Lord Wilt’s manor?

  Behind them, the Barrier cloud flickered briefly, and then snuffed out. The large Reggie strode into the cell.

  “You knew I was coming,” Quarrah said. Obviously. They knew her name; they knew her skill set. They had lured her to the dungeon. “A lot of effort to make an arrest.”

  “Oh, we’re not here to arrest you,” spoke the man in the box. He pushed her gently backward into the waiting arms of the big Reggie. The shorter man holstered his Roller and climbed out of the crate.

  He wasn’t dressed like a Regulator. Instead, he wore a stylish leather vest and billowing white shirtsleeves. He was undeniably handsome. Square jaw and a skiff of stubble across his chin. “My name is Ardor Benn.”

  Ardor Benn? Flames! The man standing before her was Ardor Benn? Don’t say anything, Quarrah told herself. Act like you’ve never heard of him.

  “So this is a setup?” she asked. Had Ardor Benn already stolen Lemnow’s painting? Looking to remove competition?

  “Don’t think of it that way,” said Ardor. “Think of it as … a job interview.”

  “Which you passed,” added the big man holding her. “Like a dragon’s slag.”

  Quarrah wrinkled her face at the rather crude analogy. “What is going on here?”

  The man before her smiled warmly. “I’m Ardor Benn,” he said again, arms wide, as if repeating his introduction should mean something. It did, of course. The ruse artist had been making waves in the criminal community for years. And if Ardor was the man speaking, then the big fellow holding her must have been the one people called the Short Fuse, though there was nothing short about him.

  “Don’t think she’s heard of you, Ard,” said her captor.

  “Come on, Raek,” he answered. “Don’t be naïve. Quarrah Khai is a celebrated thief. She couldn’t run those circles without my name cropping up. Everyone’s heard of our famous exploits.”

  “Exploits?” Raek responded. “Are you referring to those harebrained escapades where we barely got away with our heads intact?”

  “Exploits,” Ard insisted. “The dagger of Alpana, the chalice of serenity, Felmann’s viola … Do you think those items just walked off on their own?”

  “So you’re a ruse artist,” she said. He was the ruse artist, but Quarrah was determined not to say anything that would play to his ego. She glanced around the small dungeon. “The painting isn’t here, is it?”

  Ardor shook his head. “Of course not.”

  “Was there even flooding in Tosbit?” she asked.

  “That part is true,” he affirmed.

  “And we didn’t even cause it,” added Raek.

  “A good ruse has a handful of true facts scattered throughout it,” Ard continued. “When Tosbit flooded, we knew they’d have to relocate the painting. Raek and I reached out to Lord Wilt and asked if he would be willing to host a short exhibit here. He accepted, of course. But we knew he’d want to verify our generous offer.”

  “At that point, Lemnow’s painting was on its way to Gilram to wait a week for the next exhibit,” Raek added.

  “It was a simple matter of closing the road outside Smona, which rerouted the painting and its entourage through Clind,” continued Ard. “Meanwhile, Raek and I got a duplicate wagon and headed down the closed road to meet with Lord Wilt’s messenger. We verified our own story—that Lord Wilt had been selected to host the painting for an exclusive evening—and then followed the messenger here.”

  Quarrah stared at the man. What he had just described was genius, or madness. “So Lord Wilt is just a victim of your little ruse?”

  “He wasn’t a victim. More like a beneficiary,” Ard said. “We installed a new grate over the culvert below the kitchen.” He smiled. “Free of charge.”

  “But you didn’t get the Lemnow,” she pointed out.

  “Neither did you,” Ard returned. “Still, I’m impressed with your skills. I need someone like you. Fast, adaptable, and as it turns out, rather fierce.” He gestured at the dried blood on his companion’s upper lip.

  “You set all this up to test my skills?” It seemed a bit elaborate, even for Ardor’s reputation.

  “I set this up for two reasons,” he explained. “First, to make sure that your skills are up to the level we need.”

  “And the second?” asked Quarrah.

  He shrugged, a little smirk on his handsome face. “To prove that I’m good enough to pull a ruse on you.”

  “But not good enough to get the painting,” Quarrah said again.

  “That wasn’t …” He sighed. “This ruse isn’t about the painting.”

  “Then what’s the payout?”

  “You are,” answered Ardor.

  “Was it worth it?”

  He shrugged. “Depends on if you say yes to my job offer.”

  “This must be some ruse you’re planning,” Quarrah remarked, “if it took a ruse of its own just to bring me on board.”

  “Oh, this is just the beginning,” Ard said. “I’ve got a lot more tricks up these billowy sleeves.”

  “How long are you going to keep me guessing?” she asked.

  “About the job?” Ard clarified. “This isn’t the kind of job you talk about in the dungeon of some lesser lord’s manor.”

  “If you expect me to join you without knowing the details, then you’re even crazier than all the stories I’ve heard.”

  “Ha!” Ard pointed at Raek. “I told you she’d heard of me.”

  Quarrah opened her mouth to protest, but there was nothing to say. He had her. Words had a way of betraying Quarrah Khai, and this conversation had finally caught up to her. Ardor Benn certainly seemed as pompous as she’d heard in the stories. His laughter died, and the
ruse artist suddenly became very serious.

  “Two hundred thousand Ashings.”

  Quarrah didn’t mask her surprise. Sparks! With that sum of money, she could buy anything she wanted. She could buy an estate in Beripent’s wealthiest quarter. She could practically retire! Though who was she kidding? The money was compelling, but even a sum that large wouldn’t stop Quarrah from thieving. It was her way of life, not simply her employment.

  “And you both stand to make as much?” Quarrah asked.

  “Double,” answered Raek from behind her.

  “If we’re to be completely honest.” Ard shot him a disapproving glance.

  Quarrah quickly did the math in her head. That was a million Ashings among the three of them! Who could afford to pay such a sum? What had Ardor Benn gotten himself into? Sounded like trouble. Trouble that Quarrah would rather stay out of.

  “I work alone,” she finally said.

  Ardor Benn looked flustered, turning to his big companion. “You said two hundred thousand Ashings would be enough to entice anyone.”

  “Don’t put this on me,” said Raek. “Some people have an insatiable greed.”

  “Well, I’m not willing to offer any more,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to find someone else to help us steal the king’s crown.”

  “The … what?” Quarrah blurted.

  Ard lifted a hand to cover his lips. “Oh. Did I say that out loud?”

  “The crown?” Quarrah stammered. “As in, the Royal Regalia? You’re going to steal it?” Her mind was suddenly swimming. Quarrah had stolen some pretty significant items in the last few years. That tapestry from Lady Burgot’s palace. Lord Ermit’s favorite breeding horse. She had even managed to swipe the Far Peak Diamond. But the king’s dragon shell regalia … That would be the pinnacle of all thievery. Two hundred thousand Ashings aside, pulling off such a theft might finally leave Quarrah feeling satisfied.

  “So much for secrecy,” Raek grumbled. “I thought we weren’t going to tell her any details.”

  “A slip of the tongue,” Ard said. “I’m sure she won’t mention it when the king’s regalia goes missing.”