The Theft of The Heart of The World, Part IV: Dark Memories

[It's been an awfully long time since we last saw Arbor Vulpa, The Greatest Thief in All Otherwhile.  That's an omission I'm going to correct by continuing the story of The Theft of The Heart of The World.  Those of you who are new to the story might want to read Part I, Part II and Part III first.  For those of you who can't be bothered with all that, here's a quick summary: Arbor Vulpa has set out to commit The Greatest Theft in The World; to this end he has made his way into The Tower of The Heart within The Palace of Days, where he discovered (much to his surprise) an enormous forest and received advice from a darkly-dressed man more long than tall, after which, he swam deeper into the tower through a water-filled tunnel, from which he emerged into a darkened room.  As to what happened in that room, well, let's find out, shall we?]

It was bad enough that Arbor had been caught but the fact that he had been caught by a vegetable made it all the worse.  Even in the dark, he was sure that the sticky cords pinning his arms to the floor must be the product of a colony of spider spindles.  He could picture the tangles of fungi around about him, grey-white fingers protruding from the earth.  The idea made him think of corpses and graves; he turned his mind around and set it walking rapidly in the opposite direction while, at the same time, his free hand reached cautiously for his blade.

It had been a long time since Arbor had found himself trapped like this.  One of the privileges of his skill was that he had only ever been caught once, and that when he was a child, begging and thieving in Farla's marketplace.  And as for the one who had caught him: Arbor prided himself that she was the one being in all the wandering world whom he could never have evaded.  Even as he lay trapped in the darkness of The Tower of the Heart, even as his hand searched for the blade at his belt, he could recall her sudden grip upon his wrist, firm as fear, and how she had looked down at him with a smile, even as he struggled to get free.

Arbor returned his thoughts to the present.  While his mind had wandered, his hand had found the instrument he needed: a short-bladed, stub-handled dagger.  Moving as slowly as he could, conscious that any vibration might cause the fungus to release more of the silken cords, he brought the blade towards the densest part of the sticky tangle and attempted to cut. The result was, he had to concede, disappointing: the fibres, rather than yielding, instead clung to the blade, so that it cost Arbor some effort to wrench it free. Whoever it was that had stationed the fungi here in the darkness had a turn of mind that he might have found pleasingly devious, if only he hadn't become its victim.  It was time to think again.  He would not panic; inspiration would come, it always did.  And as he waited for it, he would send his thoughts back to the marketplace, and to the woman who smiled down on his struggles.

"Don't be downhearted, young one", she had said, her grip still firm, "none have come so close to picking my purse in more years than you can imagine".  Then she had raised her free hand up to his face, opening it to reveal a small mound of glittering powder in her palm.  It had fascinated him, the specks and sparks of light holding his attention even as the woman had bent down to him and blown the powder into his face.  What had followed, almost instantly, was sleep.  When next he had awoken, he was in the deepest cell in all of Veresh, hundreds of leagues from Farla and utterly alone.

"At least this time I'm at home", he told himself.  The thought was less comforting than he would have liked.  He had escaped the dungeon in Veresh not just through skill and strength but through a child's inability to contemplate defeat.  Here, in this cell within The Tower of The Heart, defeat seemed all too real a possibility.  At least, back in Veresh, there had been light.

And then Arbor remembered the second of the three things and one more thing that the long, dark-dressed man had told him in the forest: "A man who can kindle light in Otherwhile's darkness is liable to go far", he had said, "you'd do well to remember that when the time comes".  Arbor was suddenly sure that the time was now.

Keeping a careful grasp on his blade, Arbor stretched his arm out once more, letting his fingers caress their surroundings light as snowflake-fall.  At first he found only the fleshy digits of the fungus, feeling them tremble even at the whisper of his touch, but further, oh-so-gentle, exploration found his hand touching the stone tiles of the floor.  He kissed his outstretched finger against it for a moment, grateful to fate, then slowly turned the blade in his hand, at the same time raising his free arm as high as he could before plunging it down again with a great roar.

The cry had immediate effect: though he could see nothing, Arbor could feel the air around him fill with the spider spindles' webs.  At the same time, his blade struck the stone tiles, sending up a spray of sparks.  He had read once of how the people of Shende used the silk of the spider spindle to kindle their fires even in the face of that island's eternal rains.  It seemed that Shendefolk were wiser than their reputation suggested: the touch of a single spark was enough to cause the sticky cords to burst into flame as they arced above Arbor's web-wrapped body.  Within a moment, the air was aroar and the room was a ball of white fire.  Within a moment more, the flame was gone and the room was empty, the spider spindles and their webs consumed; only Arbor, his hair singed, his skin red and raw from the brief flame, was left behind.

He coughed and raised himself unsteadily on to all fours.  He had escaped, just as he had done in Veresh, all those years before.  In Veresh, though, he had found the woman waiting for him, wearing that same smile, and she had taken him once more by the wrist and led him away to her home deep within the mountain walls and his life had changed forever.  This time, or so at least he hoped, there would be no-one to greet him as he stepped through the door of his cell.

Arbor made his way on into the darkness.

***

[To be continued]

The Theft of The Heart of The World, Part III: A Matter of Trust

[Part I of this story can be found here and Part II here. In summary, Otherwhile's most able thief, Arbor Vulpa, plans to carry out the Greatest Theft The World Has Ever Known. To this end, he has climbed the walls of the Palace of Days and made his way into The Tower of the Heart, where he was much surprised to find himself not between four stone walls but rather in the middle of a large forest. After getting thoroughly lost among the trees (Arbor is a city boy at heart), and discovering a ramshackle hut with what appeared to be the skeletal arms of a giant monkey poking out from underneath it, he met a dark-dressed man more long than tall, who assured Arbor he wasn't planning to kill him.]

Arbor pressed on into the tunnel, the flames of his torch licking the walls that pressed in upon him and breathing dark smoke on the ceiling under which he was forced to crouch.  The dark-clothed stranger had been as good as his word: offering advice and explanation aplenty and, as far as Arbor could tell, not once trying to kill him.  Such honesty was, in Arbor's experience, increasingly rare in these troubled times.  It felt uncomfortable to trust it.

Equally uncomfortable was how little Arbor had been able to understand of what the stranger told him, but then Arbor wasn't entirely sure that the existence of an apparently unending forest within tower walls he could walk around while holding his breath was a thing that could be easily comprehended by anyone.  And as for the cottage that stood in the middle of that forest, or the gigantic, skeletal arms that protruded from beneath it ... such things were as far beyond his understanding as was the idea of seeing a heavy purse without trying to lighten its load a little.

No, Arbor had satisfied himself with nodding and smiling at the stranger's words, paying attention instead to the stranger's face and movements, looking out for the possibility of either a threat or a lie.  Neither had come.  Instead there had only been the various incomprehensible explanations and enough advice to make Arbor's nodding and smiling worthwhile.  In all he had learned three things and another thing from the stranger and from those things he could deduce several more.

The first thing Arbor had learned from the stranger was the location of this tunnel.  From this Arbor could deduce, or at least reconfirm, the stranger's familiarity with the forest, which led Arbor to believe that the stranger might have been speaking the truth when he said that the trees and birds and small, swift-moving creatures that roamed across the undergrowth belonged both to another place and to another time, however strange the idea sounded.  After all, what could be more implausible than the idea of a gutter-beggar of Farla rising to a place where he could commit a crime that would send shivers through History itself?  Yet that was exactly what Arbor proposed to do.

The thought gave him added urgency.  Much, not least the prospect of his neck continuing to play its favoured role linking what he liked to think of as his noble head to his finely-hewn body, depended on his plans being executed swiftly.  How long had he spent wandering among the trees?  The stranger claimed that time meant nothing in the forest and that, as soon as he left it, Arbor would arrive back in the Tower of the Heart, just a moment or two after the point he had first slipped within its walls.  But how far could the stranger be trusted?

Arbor would have a better idea when, if, he reached the tunnel's end.  If the tunnel led to the inner staircase of the Tower, he would know his informant was a speaker of truth and one who wished him well.  If, on the other hand, the tunnel ended in a dead end, or a deep pit, or the lair of some beast, or some other direct route to pain and probable death, Arbor would be less inclined to think kindly of the stranger.  Indeed, Arbor felt he might well use his dying breath to curse all dark-clothed strangers more long than tall and all those who put their trust in them.

He was dwelling on this thought, rolling it round in his mind as a man rolls a half-full cup of warm drink between cold hands, when the near-silent pad of his feet was replaced by a sudden splashing.

Arbor looked down at the puddle beneath his feet and saw how it stretched out to meet the sides of the tunnel.  "How deep?" he wondered.  He thrust out his torch, watching as, below him in the water, his twin did the same.  Both of them looked forward and saw how, at the very end of the torch's light, the roof of the tunnel bent down to join with its reflection  It seemed like a very good time to begin cursing.

Ten minutes later, Arbor was tired of hearing his voice echo along the tunnel and conscious that some of the epithets he was flinging at himself, at the long, dark stranger and at the world in general were beginning to repeat.  With a sigh, he knelt at the water's edge.  There were, it seemed, only two choices.  He could go back to the forest and resume his wanderings, lost in the wrong time and place, with only the hope of encountering the stranger and doing him some very severe harm to sustain him against the consciousness of failure.  Or Arbor could trust that beyond the water lay the tunnel's exit and, beyond that, the prize he sought.  In truth, there was no choice at all.  He began to strip down.  Shortly afterwards his clothes and gear were bundled tight in oilcloth and he was stepping out into the water.

It was cold like a knife in winter and he gasped long and loud before seeking warmth in a few choice oaths.  He ducked his head under the water, rose, swore again, ducked, rose, swore once more.  And then he paddled out to the point where the tunnel itself plunged downward, took a deep breath and followed suit, striking out with arms and legs as he dove down into the darkness, gambling his body and breath against the rock above him and the water around him.

A stroke and a stroke and a stroke, then another and another and another as he followed the passage down.  And all the while the cold eating into his body, trying to stiffen his muscles and steal the breath from his lungs.  Again, a stroke and a stroke and a stroke.  He let his body rise a little as he swam.  A stroke and a stroke and then rock striking his head.  He swam on.  A stroke and a stroke and a stroke and the ever-growing need to breathe.  A stroke and a stroke and a stroke and again he rose and again struck stone.  He began to think his gamble was lost.  A stroke and a stroke and a stroke and now the passage beginning to rise with him.  But would its rise be swift enough?  A stroke and a stroke and a stroke.  And now his lungs screamed and his heart ached and his lips longed to part and drink deep.  A stroke and a stroke and then a frantic burst from his limbs, spinning, twisting, pushing him forward even as he turned his face upwards.  A stroke and a stroke and then one last stroke, one last rise.  And then he was tumbling and gasping and falling through not water but air, air which he sucked deep into his lungs even as he fell against the hard tiles of the floor.  He was alive and unharmed and within the Tower of The Heart once more.

"Safe", he thought.  And then the first sticky cord fell against his wet and naked arm and then the second and then the third and then he did not feel safe at all.

***

The Theft of The Heart of The World, Part II: A Meeting in The Forest

[For Part I of this tale, see here]

Arbor Vulpa was giving serious thought to the idea of becoming annoyed.  Normally he prided himself on his ability to keep his emotions in check, a vital skill for any thief with ambitions beyond brief bursts of petty larceny and long spells in the Carcer, but his current situation was insistently tickling the ever-thinner skin of his patience.

He had been walking through the forest for more than an hour, his steps silent amid the rustle of leaves in the wind, the scurryings of small creatures in the dark and even - Arbor indulged a small and bitter laugh at the thought - the distant howling of a wolf.  And all this in a space which should have been filled not with trees and beasts and leaf-litter but with the solid furniture and heavy tapestries appropriate to the highest tower of the Palace of Days.

At this very moment, he should be making his way to the tower's lower levels, skipping lightly past the many wards, springing traps and picking locks with a devilish smile on his lips, always making his way closer towards the glittering prize at the tower's centre.  Instead, he was standing in the middle of an impossible forest, his feet quietly burying themselves in the mud of a track which should not be there.  And now there was this ...

(image from an original by thesuperaliceflickr)

It was a cottage, or rather the remnants of a cottage: its timber frame was cracked, its one small window was obscured by an old nest and the thatch of its roof divided its time between being moss-ridden and altogether absent.  It was a small monument to time's victory and hope's death, which added to Arbor's dislike of it.  More disquieting, the cottage sat at an angle upon the ground; propped up at its middle on what appeared to be the skeletal remains of two gigantic, not quite human, arms, which stretched out from below its doorway as if trying to grasp some fleeing guest.  Arbor had an urge to kick something.

"Not the cottage: you might wake it.  Or its mistresses, which would be worse".

Arbor was too experienced a thief to spin round.  Instead of tensing he let his body relax and instead of turning he towards the speaker he chose words of his own, selecting a voice that mixed honey with a hint of sharp spice.

"You know", he said, "I really wasn't expecting to meet anyone here".

And now he turned, sundial slow, to see who had joined him in the forest.  It was a man: slim rather than thin and somehow long rather than tall.  His tunic, cloak and trousers were all dark, just as were Arbor's clothes, lending the pair of them the air of talking shadows.  The stranger's dark hair was shot through with white and his eyes were wolf's-hide grey.  There was something in the way he held himself that suggested he would not be easy to fight or to run from and he loped past Arbor towards the ruined cottage with confident ease.

"I wonder why she brought it here?" the stranger began, "No choice, perhaps, or maybe ... ".  The thought drifted off with the breeze and the stranger cupped his chin and examined the two long arms.  "Monkey, I should say, though I've never known what type".

Arbor couldn't help himself.  "Large?" he offered.

The stranger offered him a small smile.  "That I'll grant you.  It hardly matters in any event".  He moved back towards Arbor.  "What's important here is you".  There was another smile, this one not altogether kind.  He placed a firm hand on Arbor's shoulder and another on his arm, guiding him a little from the cottage, towards a little, open fire which Arbor was sure had not been there a moment before.

"Let's sit", the stranger said.

Arbor hesitated; since entering the Tower of the Heart the balance of his life had been tilted much more heavily against him than he was used to, and now he sought to add at least one consoling weight to his own side of the scales.

"I realise it's awfully impolite to ask", he began, "but I did wonder whether you might perhaps be planning to kill me".

The stranger shook his head.  "Oh no, I'm planning to help you", he said.  Arbor relaxed a little.  The stranger poked at the fire, then turned his face back towards the thief,  "Let's leave the killing you to others shall we?"

***

[UPDATE: Part III of this tale can now be found here]

The Theft of The Heart of The World, Part I

[This story is rather different in style to some of the others that have appeared here, less folkloric and more old-fashioned fantasy tale.  It concerns Arbor Vulpa (whom you may remember from A Brief Survey of Otherwhile), a notorious thief and future king.]


Arbor Vulpa braced his back against the bricks behind him, his legs against the stones opposite and looked down. In the dark streets below, torches moved hither and thither as their bearers hurried about their business, like fireflies skittering above an inky pond. As far as Arbor could tell, not one of them even considered looking up.

“The trouble with you people”, he thought to himself, “is you never raise your sights. It shows a worrying lack of ambition”. He was, truth be told, a little drunk. He needed to be: he was about to carry out the greatest theft in the world.

Arbor shook his head, then turned his gaze towards the roof of The Palace of Days. With a grunt he began to ease himself upwards once more. Fifteen minutes later he was resting his head on the parapet and breathing hard, while the chilly fingers of the wind massaged his sweat-soaked back. Worryingly, the climb had been the easy part. The next stage ... Arbor felt his thoughts sliding away from him like hound-chased sheep. He took a firm grip on the wall he was resting against and raised himself to standing. The cure for his problems was action. He turned towards the lonely turret in front of him, The Tower of The Heart.

“The door or the climb?” Arbor asked himself. The theft had been long and carefully planned but it was always important to leave some elements to discretion. Arbor liked to give himself room to flex under the weight of chance, he also liked to give himself room for art. Just as he was about to allow himself a self-indulgent smile at the thought, an icy gust prodded viciously at him. The decision was made. A moment later, the little door’s lock was picked and the door itself was swinging to behind the thief.

The dark staircase on which he crouched ran, Arbor knew, directly from the roof of the tower to the Palace’s main guard room below, giving no direct access to the rooms within the tower itself. This, Arbor felt, showed a tragic lack of trust on the part of the designer. He would not let it dishearten him, however. Instead he padded up the stairs towards the roof.

It did not take him long to break out. The red powder that had cost him so much ate its way through the wooden rafters in just a few minutes, just as the fat-faced robber of a merchant had claimed it would. After the powder’s work was done, it was easy for Arbor to remove the tiles above and pull himself up and out into the cold night air. Without pausing he moved a little higher, towards the roof’s centre and applied the same process in reverse, allowing the starlight to fall for the first time into the much-legended inner rooms of the Tower of the Heart. It was, he felt, a considerable improvement on the building’s original design.

His charming new skylight before him, Arbor reached into his belt pouch, pulling out a flint and one of the dried wisps of candle blossom he had helped himself to while the fat-faced merchant was busy overcharging him for the red powder. Soon a spark was struck and the blossom was descending slowly into the dark below, a tiny star falling to earth, its glow illuminating the room about it. Satisfied, Arbor swung his slim legs into the hole he had made, letting them dangle in the void for a moment. This, he knew was the point of no return. The prize he was seeking was very rich; all he could be certain of was that the wards around it would be strong and subtle and perhaps even surprising. Generally strength, subtlety and surprise were gifts he preferred to give rather than receive.

He whispered a brief “Ah well” to the night and, in the same moment, thrust himself down into the darkened room. He landed in a crouch, his feet, which were braced for hard stone, striking something altogether more yielding, his right hand touching not rock but ... ... could it be grass? Somewhere – somehow inside the room but far more distant than the dimensions of the tower should have allowed – an owl called. Arbor stood up with the careful grace of a stalking cat and took in the dim scene around him.

“A forest”, he thought, “Well, at the very worst this is going to make for a most interesting death”.

He padded on into the trees.

***

[UPDATE: Part II of this tale can now be found here]