Issue #70: Gold and Glory
(Part 5)
Though not celebrated for deep, philosophical thought, Princess Cynthia was well aware that the relationship she had with the Sneak Thief was not an equal one. No matter how well they got on, she was still heir to the throne and he was still a commoner and a brigand. One word from her would land him in the dungeons for the rest of his days.
Moreover, he was just a mortal man. A skilled one, yes. One who had access to exotic alchemy and diverse training from all over the world, yes. But all of that paled in comparison to having the Amulet d’Fac’smil.
Devices varied in power and came in a variety that make it shocking that the all shared a common origin. Cyn had met a woman who unwittingly bound with one that made all the hair on her body fall out and never grow again, and a man whose skin changed color with his moods. On the other end of the scale, there were Devices like the Crown of the Codex, which was immensely powerful in the right hands, or the Hammer of Damascus, which required only a little knowledge to make it formidable.
Some regarded the Amulet d’Fac’smil as possibly the most powerful Device yet discovered. While changing one’s shape wasn’t as flashy as calling lightning, the important bit was the manner in which she could change her shape. With her Devices, the Princess could alter every iota of her living body down to the most basic level. She didn’t merely assume a shape, she became that thing or the best possible facsimile of it.
In fact, she didn’t have to keep a specific shape in mind. By the same means, she’s regenerated fingers and healed wounds, even cast out poison and illness. In theory, she was eternally youthful and effectively immortal. No matter what tricks the Sneak Thief might have to distract or impede her, he could never actually bring her to harm. And until an hour ago, it seemed that he never would have wished to.
It was this understanding: that he was in no way a physical threat to her while she could annihilate him at will, that made her pause with her arm pressed to his throat, locking him back against one of Melissa’s shelves of jars.
“And why should I believe you’re not the ‘real’ thief?”
He squirmed uncomfortably in her hold. “I’m going to take it as a given that you’re not going to accept ‘I got stabbed instead of paid’, so how about this: I know me.”
Cyn increased the pressure she was putting on his neck. Now she could feel his Adam’s apple bobbing even though the cloth over his neck. “I thought I did. That’s a lame excuse and you know it.”
“You didn’t let me finish.” he croaked. “What I meant is that you know how I am. I’m cocky, I show off. Breaking into Castle Freeland; past the guards, the magic the Sorceress and her apprentices have laid down—actually penetrating the most secure vault in the most secure fortress in the land—that’s a very big feather in a thief’s cap, even a thief as good as me. Do you really think I wouldn’t take credit for it?”
“Maybe not.” the Princess admitted, but didn’t let him go. If anything, her gaze grew more cold. “But the question is if you’d be dumb enough to admit it when I could kill you where you stand.”
Melissa stepped forward. “He’s my patient and he’s under my protection, Princess. If you so much as pop one of his stitches or aggravate his condition, your mother will hear of this.”
“She sent me to retrieve the Neo-Device he stole.” Cyn said. She raised her free hand and sprouted claws. “She was unspecific as to how.”
The Sneak Thief stopped struggling and looked her n the eye. “You’re not going to kill me.” He stiffened, waiting for her to put pressure on him again as he added, “And it’s not because I’m me. See, I know you too and that’s not you. Maybe If I attacked you, but you’re not going just rip my throat out here and now while I’m stitched up and at your mercy.”
Reticent, Cyn held position. “If you were hurt that badly, she wouldn’t have stitched you up; her Device would have healed you good as new.”
“Not the point.” He spread his hands out to his sides. “You’re the one that’s got my satchel, so you know I don’t have any tricks left.”
He was damnably correct, Cyn realized. She’d killed enemy soldiers and brigands, but that was in battle and in defense of her person. Angry as she was, she wasn’t going to murder for it. Nor could she carry out her threat to torture him to find out where the Neo-Device was. It was unlikely to tell her anything helpful for one, and for the other, that wasn’t who she was. To say nothing to the fact that, even in the face of treachery, she didn’t have to stomach to hurt him much at all now that she and he were face to face.
Apparently sensing the sea-change in her, Sneak Thief grinned under his mask. “I knew it. Besides, admit it: you like having me around to pull your pigtails as much as I like doing it.”
His words hit a brick wall in the form of a gold-eyed glare.
“This is very much not the time.” Cyn said, her voice low, calm and not just a little bit frightening. “Someone has their hands on a Neo-Device with enough dangerous knowledge in it to topple all of May and probably many of our neighbors. This isn’t your friend talking right now. The Cyn who might in some tiny way enjoy your games and quips isn’t here right now; the knight errant in the Queen’s service is here instead.”
Her words hit a similar wall in the form of a glimmer in the Sneak Thief’s eye.
“Ah, so now you want to know what I was trying to tell you in the first place? Ironic.”
“What did I say about games?” Cyn growled, but it was more of a frustrated noise than threatening one.
The grin under his mask got larger. “That you don’t enjoy them, which hurt my feelings. Danger or not, I’m still going to be myself. You should take that to heart, Goldilocks; it might just save your life one day. Stress is bad after all.”
“Thief!” Cyn snapped. “Are you going to tell me who stole the Scion’s Neo-Device or not?”
“Hmm…” he leaned forward and to her surprise and utter confusion, touched his cloth covered lips to the tip of her nose. Beneath the mask, the grin turned into a smirk at her expression. “You know, I tick you off mostly because no matter what form you’re in, you’re always pretty when you’re mad or just plain confounded.”
Melissa was standing by, watching the whole thing unfold. “You’re not the only one confounded. Cynthia, I know for a fact that your mother and Sheriff Liedecker both have bounties on this man’s capture.”
“And yet you haven’t listened to the rumors.” Sneak Thief mused.
Heat bloomed on Cyn’s cheeks, but her golden skin didn’t show outward signs of the blush. “We’re getting side tracked again. Thief, who stole the Neo-Device and where are they now?”
With her no longer holding him against the shelf, the Sneak Thief deftly slid from between it and Cyn. “It’s a bit of a story—for true this time, not just to make you angry.” Cyn motioned for him to hurry up and he rolled his eyes. “You normally love my yarns. Very well then:
“As you know, despite your mother’s efforts, even the capital city has its share of strife and crime. As a result, there are plenty of good people pushed to the lowest rung of the ladder by circumstance. As you also know, I’m their dashing folk hero and champion.”
Cyn folded her arms. “Can we continue on to the parts I don’t already know? Why even tell me things I already know?”
“You’re also not usually this terse about my stories.” Sneak Thief pouted. “In any event, this gives me eyes in ears in the city and I hear things not even Sheriff Liedecker and Captain al-Utt wouldn’t know anything about. I say this because I need your promise—your oath on that amulet of yours—that no nobles or other folks of authority will hear this.”
“Have I ever passed along information about you before now?” Cyn asked, indignant.
It was the Sneak Thief’s turn to be serious. “That’s only when it comes to things that might put me in the dungeon. This might put a lot of folks in worse if the Merchant’s Guild or the more proactive members of the city watch hear it. I need you promise.”
“Fine. I promise.”
“I’m not joking here, Cyn.”
She sighed and lifted the Amulet d’Fac’smil from her chest with a thumb and forefinger at the edges. “I swear on my Device and it’s function that I will never reveal what you’re about to tell to anyone who might use it to bring you or your allies harm or… well justice.”
Sneak Thief gave her a flat look and she shrugged. “I suppose that’s the best I can ask of you. Mistress Healer?”
“Please, I live on the edge of the wilderness and never gossip.” Melissa said.
“Can you also not tell her about…” Cyn paused and looked at Sneak Thief, then silently motioned between him and herself.
Melissa stared at her. “Cynthia, your mother was never anything less than a genius, then she bonded with a Device that not only makes her smarter in general, but gives her perfect memory and the ability to come to logical conclusions base don what she knows with incredible efficiency. I would wage my own bones that she already knows.”
At this, Cyn paled in the most literal fashion possible. Reacting to a sharp spike in her emotions, the Amulet d’Fac’smil turned her skin bone white. She noticed immediately and forced it to return her to her auric hue. “Not the time to think on that.” To Sneak Thief, she added, “We’ve both promised. Now continue.”
“Very well. There’s a man among the drudges by the name of George; very old, very well respected. He doesn’t have a Device, or any magic we know of, but he knows things. Things he couldn’t know even if he were really a spymaster. When they flood hit the riverfront, George warned the homeless to head to higher ground days ahead of time. When Liedecker’s men launch a raid, he tells folks where not to be. Last night, he sent me a message: a confusing one. Very confusing, I’ve dealt with the old man before, but I’ve never heard him talk in prophecy.”
An uneasiness showed on Melissa’s face. “Prophecy? Exactly what did he say?”
The Sneak Thief shook his head. “Like I said, it was confusing and I can’t remember the mess of it perfectly. He mentioned an old wizard’s tower to the north and east of here, said that it was ‘becoming a canker in the flesh of our world’. And he said there was something wrong with you.” He looked Cyn in the eye, “That you were both yourself and not. That I needed to help you.”
Cyn gave him an incredulous look. “You heard a prophecy that you needed to help me, and you still felt the need to jerk me around?”
“I usually don’t traffic with prophecy; too many false ones and too many that seem to be conveniently averted when the prophet’s agenda is met or his purse is full. There wasn’t much supporting this, even after that man last night—until you came here now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He frowned under the mask. “You look at me as if you can’t decide if you like me or can’t stand me, you’re using your Device… strangely. Normally, you have to touch it to change, but you just changed color without thinking at all. And you talk strangely—what does ‘jerking you around’ mean?”
Cyn took a step back from him, confusion swirling in her head. “I… have no idea.” She had when she’d said it, but now, whatever meaning it had was lost. “Something’s…” But that wasn’t important. She needed to track down the Neo-Device. “Whatever. You said there was a man. That was the real thief?”
Sneak Thief nodded. “George said that in order to get you back… whatever that means, I needed to go to Castle Freeland. When I got there, I saw him. I doubt anyone who isn’t skilled in skulking like myself would have even noticed, but I picked him up straight off. He climbed out of the window on the keep’s fifth floor and jumped all the way down to the stable yard.”
“Five floors at the castle is over seventy feet.” said Melissa. “No one could survive that without a Device or magic.”
“He survived it, but not well.” said Sneak Thief. “The sound when he hit was sickening: bones cracking, wet bits Splattering. I was sure he was dead—but then he stood up again and the sound then was even worse. I’d swear on my mask that every broken bone and ruptured organ put itself together again as he stood. It wasn’t re-shaping like Cyn can do, it was… as if he was putting the pieces back in place. Once he was back together again, he jumped the wall around the stable yard—something like twelve feet—without an issue, and ran into the city.”
“And you followed him.” Cyn supplied.
Sneak Thief nodded. “He jumped right past me when he went over the wall. I saw what he was carrying: an iron casket the size of a large squash and marked with the Royal Seal. Outlaw or not, I’m still loyal, if not to the Queen, then to you. Plus, I can’t have another thief in this city who goes into the places I won’t. So yes, I followed him. I’m no fool though: I knew I couldn’t match him in a fight—not at first at least.”
“What does ‘not at first’ mean?” Cyn asked.
He shrugged. “Hard to explain, but as he ran, he started getting clumsy, uncoordinated, like the healing he did from the fall didn’t take. By the time he reached the city’s wall, she wasn’t so much running as shambling fast, and there was glowing, yellow dust coming off him and out of his mouth when he breathed.”
Folding his arms, he studied the floor briefly. “It would be nice to keep this information to myself, but I suppose you should know: there’s a hidden door in the city wall, probably where you found that,” he indicated his satchel. “He opened that and met a man on a horse at the bottom of the hill. The rider took the casket and was riding off before I reached them.
“Still, I thought I could learn where the casket was bound from the thief, especially given how weak he looked. So I ambushed him at the bottom of the hill, used a flash bomb and went to grab him but…” He suddenly groaned and held his head.
Melissa hurried over to him. “What? Is your wound acting up?” She shot a nasty glare at Cyn.
“No.” Sneak Thief muttered. “It’s my head. Every time I try and remember… Something was wrong with him, Princess. He wasn’t…” Another groan and he put a hand out to steady himself on the shelf. “Are there Devices that can hurt you for remembering things?”
“There are Devices for everything.” The three of them stopped and stared when they found the Sorceress standing in the middle of the room, her cloak tight around her except for an arm that was extended to hold her staff. “And failing that, there is always the ancient magic.”
Melissa cast her just as hard a glare as she’d just given Cyn. “How did you get in here?”
The Sorceress drummed her staff once on the floor. “A sorceress is always invited if she means to enter.” She said enigmatically. “The others will be knocking in a bit, but I sensed virulent power here and thought the Princess might be in danger.”
“No, that would be me.” said the Sneak Thief. “Pleased to meet you. I don’t suppose you can unmagic me could you?”
The Sorceress frowned, cocking her head to the side as she examined something only she could see. “What affects you isn’t magic as I know it, or even the kind of power a Device might have. It is akin to…” Her spine straightened and she failed to stifle a sound of alarm. “To the Scion’s Neo-Device. The one that was stolen.”
“Impossible.” said Sneak Thief. “If that was what the casket contained, it was gone by the time I waylaid that man who—” He groaned again.
“Akin does not mean ‘the same as’.” The Sorceress stepped closer to him, bringing her staff’s head to his temple gently. “I cannot lift it, but I can cancel the effect for a time.” A warmth washed through the Sneak Thief’s head and the pain ebbed away as it did.
“Try remembering now.”
Sneak Thief closed his eyes tightly as he did as told. “He… wasn’t human. Not a living one anyway. When he turned toward me, I recognized him, a man from the riverfront who died only a few days ago. They buried him in the pauper’s graves outside the city. He turned to face me, and… his face was still in rigor. There was no blood in his veins or in his skin.”
He shifted uncomfortably at the vision before his mind’s eye. “They bury folks in the pauper’s grave with a knife. I don’t know why, never asked—but that’s what he used to cut me up. Weak as he was, clumsy as he was, he was fast and fearless. Nothing I did to him fazed him. He just kept slashing and cutting and hitting until…”
Even through the mask, his surprise at the next memory came to him. “Until he fell apart into yellow dust. And blew away.”
About Vaal
Landon Porter is the author of
The Descendants and
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Fantasy IS my first love – I only got into superhero fiction by finding works such as your own on the internet – so if there was any re-imagining of the Descendants that would catch my attention… I’m intrigued with where you’re going with this. 😛
The missing piece of the classic adventuring party is of course the audience-relatable plucky* youngster with no relevant skills or abilities who constantly endangers everyone with their pluckiness but whom everyone recognizes as the greatest hero of the group after they save the day through sheer blind luck and ridiculously contrived circumstance.
[* Dictionaries define ‘plucky’ as meaning brave or spirited, but nowadays it’s mostly used to mean an annoying liability. If you ever meet a person described as plucky in real life, run for the hills and hope they don’t follow.]
close, but no cookie I say.
We’ve got the dps, the rogue, the mage… we need a tank! Enter the Honorable Sir Kane, Knight of the Alloyed Whips
I suppose I show my D&D influences when I say that I saw the party as fighter, rogue (actually a ranger, but close enough) and mage, meaning the last member would be a cleric for that perfect quatuor.
Trying to imagine Melissa as a fantasy character makes me laugh.
That’d work too… work amazingly… we’d probably get some sort of Granny Weatherwax approach to healing. ‘I’ll make you feel better. I won’t make you feel welcome’
It’s just I’d be shocked to have a Cyn focus without Warrick 😛
Kura?
“The Tank is DPS! The Tank is DPS! Fifteen bucks a month to put up with this mess.” ~ Nhym
So glad you guys are on board with this. I was slightly worried I’d wake up to an inbox full of ‘WHAT DID YOU DO?!’ :p
Getting a feeling like when I watched Buffy the Musical – don’t quite know what’s going on, but expect it to be a lot of fun.
I really like it. Lots of subtle reveals going on too.
We get to see lots of warm fuzzies about Cyn and Laurel and assuming the powers work the same way despite being artefacts, we get to have a few more insights on the mystery that is Facsimile
It cool. I like this re-imagining of This Descendants.
Words are very
Unnecessary
They can only do harm.
Nonetheless, there’s a plan.
(Apologies to Depeche Mode.)
Oh my gosh! Le twist!
I’ve always wanted to do this:
dun dun DUN
I think I’m the only one not liking the medieval thing. The story itself is interesting, but I’d rather you didn’t obscure the actual plot behind the imaginary setting. It just feels extremely unnecessary. And Willow being relegated to a background role is just insulting to her character. If it has to be anyone, why not Melissa? She’d have useful healing “fieldcraft”, and be snarky enough to make conversations interesting. In the real setting, of course it’d have to be Zero, but making her less a sidekick than an occasionally useful servant is just wrong.
I understand your issues and I can promise you that they will all be addressed. Not to give too much away, but there’s more to this tale than meets the eye initially, and Wil is most certainly not going to relegated to the background.
I actually expected more people to have problems with this because I don’t usually do something this… weird… but I hope you’ll stick with it because I feel it has one hell of a payoff.
Oh snap! Cyn is an idiot, letting her emotions get the better of her, as usual. And this time even Melissa told her to listen!
Seems to me Melissa was more of an idiot there to just talk about ‘listening to his story’ without any mention of anything relevant like “it wasn’t him” which apparently was the main gist of the story. The fact she didn’t mention a convincing reason why his story would matter essentially implies there isn’t one.
Every villain has some sob story about why they’ve done whatever, and there’s always someone soft-hearted who’ll accept it as an excuse.
I’m more partial to ‘evil speeches of evil’ [Where the villains asserts why it’s totally okay to be evil] than sob stories.
Yeah those are cooler, but sadly not every villain has one of those prepared.
Is Cyn going crazy? She was slipping in and out of her fantasy character for a minute there. I’m assuming this is the payoff that was mentioned, but that threw me for a minute.
It’s a bit more complex than that. If I posted the name of Part 2, I think it would explain a lot.
And that name i[REDACTED]
Next Issue: Descendants #71 – Yellow
“…a zweihänder in a concealed crossbow.”
Can’t be sure with all the gunblades and whatnot in media these days, but I think that should be and.
“… the blade sheered through…”
Sheared is the one you want there. The two are confused almost as often as hoard (stockpile) and horde (large group of irate nomads).
“…above the earth, heat the call…”
Heed.