Tasman offered them a much-needed bath at the Dwelf that second night, and afterwards, Oliver and Luthien donned their better clothes again and went to the place that they could now rightly call their home.

Bare walls and a rough wooden floor greeted them. Oliver had at least purchased a new lantern, and they had retrieved their bedrolls from the stable.

"Tomorrow night, we begin our furnishing," the halfling announced as he crawled into his bedroll.

"How fare our funds?" Luthien asked, noticing that Oliver's pouches seemed to be getting inevitably smaller.

"Not well," the halfling admitted. "That is why we must begin tomorrow night."

Then Luthien understood, and his expression aptly reflected his disappointment. Oliver wasn't planning on buying anything. They were to live the lives of thieves from the outset.

"I had planned a burglary on a certain merchant-type's house," the halfling said. "Before events put me out on the road. The merchant-type's guards remain the same, I am sure, and he has not moved his valuables."

Luthien continued to scowl.

Oliver paused and stared at him, the halfling's mouth turning up into a wry smile. "The life does not please you," he stated as much as asked. "You do not think thieving an honorable profession?"

The question seemed ridiculous.

"What do you know of the law?" Oliver asked.

Luthien shrugged as though the answer should have been obvious-at least as far as stealing was concerned. "To take another man's property is against the law," he answered.

"Aha!" the halfling cried. "That is where you are wrong. Sometimes to take another man's property is against the law. Sometimes it is called business."

"And is what you do 'business'?" the young Bedwyr asked sarcastically.

Oliver laughed at him. "What the merchant-types do is business," he replied. "What I do is enforce the law. Do not confuse the law with justice," Oliver reasoned. "Not in the time of King Greensparrow." With that, the halfling rolled over, ending the conversation. Luthien remained awake for some time, considering the words but uneasy nonetheless.

They made their way across the rooftops of the grand houses in Montfort's upper section, Luthien in his cape and Oliver wearing a tight-fitting but pliable black outfit and the harness Brind'Amour had given him underneath his purple cape. Cyclopians, mostly Praetorian Guards, walked every street, and a couple were up on the roofs as well, but Oliver knew the area and guided Luthien safely.

They came to a waist-high ledge, three stories above the street. Oliver smiled wickedly as he peeked over, then he looked back to Luthien and nodded.

Luthien, feeling vulnerable, feeling like a naughty child, glanced around nervously and pulled his crimson cape up higher about his shoulders.

Oliver took the small puckered ball and the fine line out of his shoulder pouch, stringing the cord through his hands as he went. He popped the unusual grapnel against the ledge and pulled the cord tight.

"Be of cheer, my friend," Oliver whispered. "This night, you learn from the master." Over the side went Oliver, slipping silently down the cord. Luthien watched as the halfling stopped in front of a window, opened another pouch, and took out some small instrument that the young man could not discern. He figured out what it was soon enough when Oliver placed it against the window and cut a wide circle, gently popping out the cut piece of gla.s.s. With a quick look around, the halfling disappeared into the room.

As soon as the cord came back out, Luthien slipped over the ledge and eased his way down to Oliver's side.

The halfling held a small lamp, its directional beam focused tightly. Luthien's eyes widened as Oliver shifted that light about the room. Though his father was an eorl, and well to do by Bedwydrin standards, Luthien had never seen such a collection! Intricate tapestries lined every wall, thick carpets covered the floor, and a myriad of artifacts-vases, statues, decorative weapons, even a full suit of plate mail armor-littered the large room.

Oliver placed the lamp on the chamber's sole piece of furniture, a huge oaken desk, and rubbed his plump hands together. He began an inspection, using hand signals to Luthien to let him know what was most valuable. The trick of burglary, Oliver had previously explained, was in knowing what to take, both by its value and its size. One could not go running through the streets of Montfort with an open armload of stolen goods!

After a few minutes of inspection, Oliver lifted a handsome vase of blue porcelain trimmed in gold. He looked at Luthien and nodded, then froze in place.

At first, Luthien didn't understand, and then he, too, heard the heavy footsteps coming down the hall.

The friends got to the window together, Luthien inadvertently stepping on the circle of cut gla.s.s that Oliver had laid to the side. Both cringed at the sound of the breakage and looked back nervously to the door. The vase still under his arm, Oliver jumped out to the cord and swung to the side.

Luthien had no time. He looked to the door and saw the handle turn-and only then remembered that the lamp was still perched upon the desk! The young man leaped across the room and blew out the flame, then fell back against the wall and stood perfectly still as two cyclopians entered the room.

The brutes sniffed the air as they moved in, milling about curiously. Only their own lantern offered Luthien any hope that they would not detect the smelly wick of the extinguished lamp. One of the brutes actually sat on the desk barely two feet from Luthien.

Luthien held his breath, put his hand to the hilt of his sheathed sword, and nearly drew it out when the cyclopian turned toward him.

Nearly drew it out, but did not, for the brute, though it was obviously looking right at Luthien, did not appear to notice him at all.

"I do like the pictures of cyclopian victories!" the one-eye laughed to its friend, and Luthien realized that he was standing right in front of a tapestry depicting such a scene. But the cyclopian, though it continued to stare, did not seem to notice any incongruity within the picture.

"Come on," the other cyclopian said a moment later. "No one's here. You heard wrong."

The cyclopian on the desk shrugged and hopped to its feet. It started to leave, but glanced back over its shoulder and stopped suddenly.

Peeking out under the cowl of his hood, Luthien realized that, as chance would have it, the brute had spotted the broken gla.s.s. The cyclopian slapped its companion hard on the shoulder, and together they ran to the window.

"The roof!" one of them cried, leaning out and looking up.

Again Luthien reached for his sword, but his instincts told him to hold back and avoid a fight at any cost.

The cyclopians ran out of the room, and Luthien went for the window-to be met by Oliver, swinging back in. The halfling slipped down and pivoted on the rope, gave three quick tugs on the line, and hauled in the magical grapnel. He started to set it on the windowsill so that they could slip down to the street, but the sound of more approaching footsteps stopped him.

"No time," Luthien remarked, grabbing Oliver's arm.

"I do so hate to have to fight," Oliver replied, cool as always.

Luthien moved back to the wall, pulling Oliver with him. He flattened his back against the tapestry and opened his cape, indicating that his little friend should slip under its camouflage. Oliver found little choice as the door began to open.

Luthien peeked from under the cowl, Oliver from a tiny opening in the folds, as a wiry man in a nightshirt and cap, obviously the merchant, and several more cyclopians, all bearing lanterns, entered the room.

"d.a.m.n!" the man spat out as he looked around and spotted the lamp on the desk, the broken window, and the empty pedestal where the vase had been. He went to the desk at once and fit a key into the top drawer, pulling it open, then gave a relieved sigh.

"Well," the man said, his tone changing, "at least all they took was that cheap vase."

Luthien looked under the neck of his cape, and the halfling, glancing up at him, only shrugged.

"They did not take my statue," the merchant went on, obviously relieved, looking at a small figure of a winged man perched upon the desk. He dropped a hand into the drawer and the friends heard the tinkling of jewels. "Or these." The merchant shut the drawer and locked it.

"Conduct a search of the area," the merchant ordered the cyclopians, "and report the theft to the city watch." He looked back over his shoulder and scowled; both Luthien and Oliver held their breath, thinking they had been bagged. "And see to it that the windows are barred!" the man growled angrily.

Then he left, taking the cyclopians with him, even obliging the friends by locking the room's door behind him.

Oliver came out from under the cloak, rubbing his greedy hands. He went right for the desk-the merchant had conveniently left the lamp sitting upon it.

"That drawer is locked," Luthien whispered, coming up beside the halfling as Oliver fumbled with yet another pouch on the harness. The halfling produced several tools and laid them out on the desk.

"You could be wrong!" he announced a moment later, eyeing Luthien proudly as he pulled open the drawer. A pile of jewels awaited them: gem-studded necklaces and bracelets, and several golden rings. Oliver emptied the contents in a flash, stuffing them into a small sack, which he produced from yet another pouch in the incredible harness. The halfling was truly beginning to appreciate the value of Brind'Amour's gifts.

"Do get the statue," he said to Luthien, and he walked across the room and put the vase back where it belonged.

They waited by the window for half the night, until the clamor of rushing cyclopians outside died away. Then Luthien easily swung the grapnel back up to the roof, and away they went.

The light in the room had been dim, and the friends did not notice the most significant mark they had left behind. But the merchant most certainly did, cursing and wailing when he returned the next day to find that his more valuable items had been stolen. In his rage, he picked up the vase Oliver had returned and heaved it across the room, to shatter against the wall beside the desk. The merchant stopped his yelling and stared curiously at the image on the wall.

On the tapestry, where Luthien had first hidden from the cyclopians, loomed the silhouette of a caped man-a crimson-colored shadow somehow indelibly stained upon the images of the tapestry. No amount of washing could remove it; the wizard the merchant later hired only stared at it helplessly after several futile attempts.

The crimson shadow was forever.

Chapter 15.

THE LETTER.

Luthien sat back in his comfortable chair, bare feet nestled in the thick fur of an expensive rug. He squirmed his shoulders, crinkled his toes in the soft fur and yawned profoundly. He and Oliver had come in just before dawn from their third excursion into the merchant section this week, and the young man hadn't slept very well, awakened soon after the dawn by the thunderous snoring of his diminutive companion. Luthien had gotten even, though, by putting Oliver's bare foot into a bucket of cold water. His next yawn turned into a smile as he remembered Oliver's profane shouts.

Now Luthien was alone in the apartment; Oliver had gone out this day to find a buyer for a vase they had appropriated three days before. The vase was beautiful, dark blue in color with flecks of gold, and Oliver had wanted to keep it. But Luthien had talked him out of it, reminding him that winter was fast approaching and they would need many supplies to get through comfortably.

Comfortably. The word rang strangely in Luthien's thoughts. He had been in Montfort for just over three weeks, arriving with little besides Riverdancer to call his own. He had come into a burned-out hole in the street that Oliver called an apartment, and truly, after the first day or two of smelling the soot, Luthien had seriously considered leaving the place, and Montfort, altogether. Now looking around at the tapestries on the walls, the thick rugs scattered about the floor, and the oaken desk and other fine furnishings, Luthien could hardly believe that this was the same apartment.

They had done well and had hit at the wealthy merchants in a frenzy of activity. Here were the spoils of their conquests, taken directly or appropriated in trades with the many fences who frequented Tiny Alcove.

Luthien's smile sank into a frown. As long as he looked at things in the immediate present, or in the recent past, he could maintain that smile, but inevitably, the young and n.o.ble Bedwyr had to look farther behind, or farther ahead. He could be happy in the comforts he and Oliver had found, but could not be proud of the way he had come into them. He was Luthien Bedwyr, son of the eorl of Bedwydrin and champion arena warrior.

No, he decided. He was just Luthien, now, the thief in the crimson cape.

Luthien sighed and thought back to the days of his innocence. He longed now for the blindness of sheltered youth, for those days when his biggest worry was a rip in his fishing net. His future had seemed certain then.

Luthien couldn't even bear to look into his future now. Would he be killed in the house of a merchant? Would the thieves guild across the lane grow tired of the antics, or jealous of the reputations, of the two independent rogues? Would he and Oliver be chased out of Montfort, suffering the perils of the road in harsh winter? Oliver had only agreed to sell the vase because it seemed prudent to stock up on winter supplies-and Luthien knew that many of the supplies the halfling would stockpile would be in preparation for the open road. Just in case.

A burst of energy brought the troubled young man from his seat. He moved across the small room to a chair in front of the oaken desk and smoothed the parchment on its top.

"To Gahris, Eorl of Bedwydrin," Luthien read, his own writing. Gingerly, the young man sat down and took quill and inkwell from the desk's top drawer.

Dear Father, he wrote. He smirked sarcastically to think that, in the span of a few seconds, he had nearly doubled all the writing on the parchment. He had begun this letter ten days ago, if a scribbled heading could be called a beginning. And now, as then, Luthien sat back in the chair, staring ahead blankly.

What might he tell Gahris? he wondered. That he was a thief? Luthien blew a loud sigh and dipped the quill in the inkwell determinedly.

I am in Montfort. Have taken up with an extraordinary fellow, a Gascon named Oliver deBurrows.

Luthien paused and chuckled again, thinking that he could write four pages just describing Oliver. He looked at the small vial on the desk beside the parchment and realized he didn't have that much ink.

I do not know why I am writing this, actually. It would seem that you and I have very little to say to each other. I wanted you to know that I was all right, and doing quite well.

That last line was true, Luthien realized as he gently blew upon the letter to dry the ink. He did want Gahris to know that he was well.

Again came the smile that dissipated into a frown.

Or perhaps I am not so well, Luthien wrote. I am troubled, Father, by what I have seen and what I have learned. What is this lie we live? What fealty do we owe to a conquering king and his army of cyclopian dogs?

Luthien had to pause again. He didn't want to dwell on politics that he hardly understood, despite Brind'Amour's emphatic lessons. When the quill ran again over the rough parchment, Luthien guided it in a direction that he was beginning to know all too well.

You should see the children of Montfort. They scramble about the gutters, seeking sc.r.a.ps or rats, while the wealthy merchants grow wealthier still off the labors of their broken parents.

I am a thief, Father. I AM A THIEF!

Luthien dropped the quill to the desk and stared incredulously at the parchment. He hadn't meant to reveal his profession to Gahris. Certainly not! It had just come out of its own accord, the result of his mounting anger. Luthien grabbed the edge of the parchment and started to move to crumble it. He stopped at once, though, and smoothed it out again, staring at those last words.

I AM A THIEF!.

To the young Bedwyr, it was like looking into a clear mirror, an honest mirror of his soul and his troubles. The image did not break him, though, and stubbornly, against his weakness, he picked up the quill, smoothed the parchment again, and continued.

I know there is a terrible wrong in the land. My friend, Brind'Amour, called it a canker, and that description seems fitting, for the rose that was once Eriador is dying before our very eyes. I do not know if King Greensparrow and his dukes are the cause, but I do know, in my heart, that any who would ally himself with cyclopians would favor the canker over the rose.

This infestation, this plague, lies thick behind Montfort's inner wall, and there I go in the shadows of night, to take what little vengeance my pockets will hold!

I have wetted my blade in the blood of cyclopians, but I fear that the plague is deep. I fear for Eriador. I fear for the children.

Luthien sat back again and spent a long while staring at his words. He felt an emptiness in his breast, a general despair. "What little vengeance my pockets will hold," he read aloud, and to Luthien Bedwyr, who thought the world should be different, it seemed a pittance indeed.

He dropped the quill on the desk and started to rise. Then, almost as an afterthought, amply wetted the quill's tip with ink and scratched a thick line across the letter's heading.

"d.a.m.n you, Gahris," he whispered, and the words stung him profoundly, bringing moisture into his cinnamon-colored eyes.

Luthien was fast asleep on the comfortable chair when Oliver entered the little apartment. The halfling skipped in gaily, a bag of golden coins tinkling at his belt. He had done well with the vase and was busy now thinking of the many enjoyable ways he might spend the booty.

He moved toward Luthien, thinking to wake the young man that they might get to market before all the best items were bought or stolen, but he noticed the parchment lying flat on the desk and slipped quietly that way instead.

Oliver's smile disappeared as he read the grim words, and the gaze he leveled Luthien's way was sincerely sympathetic.

The halfling sauntered over to stand before the troubled young man, forced a smile once more and woke Luthien by jingling the coins in his face.

"Do open your sleepy eyes," the halfling bade cheerily. "The sun is high and the market awaits!"

Luthien groaned and started to turn over, but Oliver grabbed him by the shoulder and, with surprising strength for one so little, turned him back around. "Do come, my less-than-sprightly friend," Oliver bade. "Already this northern wind carries the bite of winter and we have so many things to buy! I will need at least a dozen more warm coats to be properly attired!"

Luthien peeked out from under one droopy eyelid. A dozen more coats? his mind echoed. What was Oliver talking about?

"A dozen, I say!" the halfling reiterated. "So I might properly choose which among them is most fitting for one of my reputation. The others, ptooey," he said with a derisive spit. "The others, I discard to the street."

Luthien's face screwed up with confusion. Why would Oliver throw perfectly fine coats out into the street?

"Come, come," the halfling chattered, moving impatiently toward the door. "We must get to market before all the rotten little children steal away the goods!"