40. The heist
40
THE HEIST
Later, when their flyer returned, Ris, Claw, Kaibren, Jaemeh, and Gwydinion waited. Gwydinion was grinning wickedly.
“Did it work? Did you get it?” he asked before either Sicaryon or Anahrod could say a word.
Anahrod stopped. “You.”
The boy smiled harder. “Wouldn’t take much to make a herd panic so close to a major storm.”
Ris ruffled the boy’s hair. “I’m so proud of our son.”
He rolled his eyes as he ducked away from her hand. “I’m not your son, you know.”
“Oh, no,” Ris said. “I’ve adopted you. It’s already decided. I’ll be letting your parents know later.”
“A famine in the land, a feast on the table, yet the lady calls for a song,” Kaibren said.
Claw barked out a laugh. “He said: You got the key, didn’t you?”
Anahrod pulled Gwydinion’s folding box out from under her mantle, unfolded it, and removed the stolen blade.
It looked ancient. Like something that should indeed be hung up over a mantel rather than ever being used for violence. It looked far older than the hundred years that Ris claimed, eaten away by the magic it empowered.
“That’s what we need?” Jaemeh asked. He frowned. “Why do we need this, again?”
“Because it’s the key,” Ris explained, “to opening a very special lock.” She was grinning with maniacal intensity, something in her eyes suggesting that it would be a terrible idea to be someone who might try to stop Ris at that moment. Nothing was going to stop her.
Nothing and no one.
“So… what happens next?” Jaemeh asked.
“The fun part,” Ris said reverently. “Let’s rob that bitch blind.”
Kaibren made them uniforms.
Anahrod hadn’t expected uniforms, but he’d used the same template for everyone, to make his job easier.
The outfits covered them fully, from gloves to a thin gauze over the eyes, all designed to keep them from baking to death. The only variation was in color.
Ris’s was deep maroon, Claw’s a dark gray, Kaibren’s indigo, Sicaryon’s dark violet, Naeron’s bloodred, Gwydinion’s teal, and Anahrod’s green. Kaibren had put both her and Sicaryon in their skin-paint colors, although she couldn’t say whether that was a sign of respect or mockery.
The steam vent was a circular pit fifty feet in diameter—easy for an average dragon to enter, verging on impossible for someone like Tiendremos.
Yagra was volcanic, as were several of Seven Crests’ mountains. Legend had it that the pact between humans and dragons involved a promise of protection against the volcanoes. Anahrod believed it, since the volcanoes that dragons called their homes had a curious tendency to either not erupt or do so in only the gentlest and most well-behaved ways. She suspected artificial vents such as this one existed to release pressure, but the dragons weren’t in the habit of confirming such suspicions.
Jaemeh, Kaibren, and Naeron had snuck over to Neveranimas’s estate earlier in the day, hammering in pitons and leaving ready neat piles of rope under tarps. Now all they had to do was show up, uncoil it all, hook in, and drop down.
Anahrod tried not to think about the length of drop down.
She failed.
If Anahrod had been under any illusion that she’d concealed her anxiety, it broke quickly as Ris put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to be all right?”
Anahrod nodded. “Don’t even have to drop until you’ve already unlocked the door. It’ll be fine.”
“Really?”
“Do I have a choice?” she whispered back. “You’re not telling me everything, are you?”
Ris glanced in Jaemeh’s direction, but he was busy clipping in his ropes.
“Peralon will tell you what to do.” Ris kissed the tips of Anahrod’s gloved fingers.
“If you two are done flirting, can we get on with this?” Jaemeh snapped. “We’re on the clock, you know.”
His annoyance engendered in Anahrod a fervent desire to pull her mask off and really kiss Ris, but he also wasn’t wrong. They didn’t have time.
Anahrod double-checked Sicaryon’s lines to make sure he’d tied them off correctly, checked her own, and waited for the others to drop.
There’d never been a Seven Crests child who didn’t know how to climb a mountain, and Ris and Naeron seemed comfortable enough. Sicaryon was the most at risk, which is why Anahrod planned to spot him the whole way.
Claw and Kaibren lowered themselves first, followed by Ris, Gwydinion, and Naeron. Ris carried all five swords, although “carry” in her case meant telekinetically lifting each one in the air behind her, like some kind of beautiful dark war goddess.
“Push!” Ris cried out from below. “To your right, push!”
For a good thirty seconds, nothing happened, then Ris shouted, “It’s open. Come down.”
Anahrod dropped over the side.
She didn’t feel warm, but that just meant Kaibren’s inscriptions were doing their job. She rappelled down until she reached the lock itself.
And that was it. All she needed to do. The whole thing took so little effort that she was left reeling, not by her phobia, but purely because it should’ve been some sort of epic, fantastical feat or gesture.
Little victories, she supposed.
The lock was much prettier than she’d expected. Beautifully crafted, for no reason other than aesthetics. Arabesques and traceries curling outward, flower-like, surrounded the five slots in the wall—the perfect size to sheath five large talons or swords, embossed into the rock itself. The angle was such that neither a human nor a dragon could see it from above.
Ris placed a sword in each slot. The five chosen people grabbed a hilt, and all five rotated their hilts in the same direction.
A single black doorway appeared in the rock face above the lock. Anahrod didn’t think it had been visible before, and suspected it wouldn’t be visible to a dragon using the lock either.
That strongly implied that either Neveranimas never exited her vault this way, or the door would automatically shut behind them.
That was fine. They wouldn’t be exiting this way either.
The door being so close to the top increased her fall potential. If someone cut her rope, if she should plummet… A wave of dizziness overcame her.
“Stop it,” Jaemeh hissed at her. “Don’t you dare lose your nerve.”
She shook herself and continued lowering herself downward. “You know just what to say to a girl.”
Below her, Sicaryon chuckled. “Yeah, a real charmer.”
Jaemeh ignored them both.
The dark doorway led to a hallway and stairs, all just tall enough and wide enough for a single person to walk. Sicaryon and Anahrod both pulled out the light lockets that Kaibren had made for them, while Jaemeh surrounded a hand with electricity, the blue arcs lighting the air.
Anahrod had not given sufficient thought to how many stairs there would be. She stopped counting flights, only telling herself to be grateful they didn’t have to leave this way. It was a toss-up who fared best in descending the stairs. Sicaryon and Anahrod seemed in better shape than Jaemeh, but he was better adjusted to the thinner air.
[Are you all right?] Peralon asked.
[Fine,] she thought. [Just descending the endless staircase.]
[Good. Ris was worrying.]
The light up ahead stopped bouncing off the narrow tunnel walls and diffused: they’d reached the end of the tunnel.
[We’re here.]
They debouched into a marble-lined room—medium-sized for a dragon and enormous for a human. Shelves lined the room, upon which rested the dragonstones that Neveranimas officially collected. Most of them were amethysts, but a few other stones were also present, including a few oddities like marble or rainbow feldspar. On the far side of the room, a large archway led to the Hall of Death and the “official” front entrance of the vault. A pattern of intertwined star shapes framed the archway from ceiling to floor. A section along the floor deactivated the traps.
She also noted the section that reactivated the traps, closed the doors, reset the locks (except for the Five Locks’ secret door, which reset automatically). Fortunately, it was high on the archway and not easily triggered.
“We’re looking for the fifth—” Anahrod pointed. “Fifth bookcase on the right. There it is. We need to push it toward the archway, and that should unlock the secret vault.”
“Nice,” Jaemeh said.
All three of them pushed the bookcase. It moved easily, making only a faint scraping sound. The room beyond was smaller, but again, small for a dragon was not small for a human.
However, that wasn’t the problem.
“Where are the fucking diamonds?” Jaemeh asked.
Anahrod stepped forward, frowning.
What lay beyond looked less like a hoard than a museum. Each piece had been meticulously organized, labeled, and displayed. Certain items were elevated on plinths or pedestals for better display.
But Jaemeh was right. No diamonds.
There were gems. One pedestal contained a bowl filled with bright uncut rocks that might’ve been sapphires, emeralds, and other corundum. She didn’t think they were diamonds—besides being exceptionally vivid, they didn’t have the right eight-sided shape. Something about these stones seemed artificial and somehow creepy, although she couldn’t explain why. She put a rock back in its bowl and kept looking.
There were daggers and a wicked-looking black sword. She noted an odd, silvery rectangle that looked like a failed attempt to make a mirror, but any time she looked away, it seemed to shift. Human-style books filled another set of shelves, some crumbling, and others pristine. One book was bound in rune-covered black metal, with a screaming skull on the cover. She noticed a blood-soaked set of clothing, sized for a child.
“If I may be so bold,” Sicaryon said, “what the fuck?”
[Anahrod,] Peralon whispered in her mind, [you’re looking for a dragonstone. Probably amethyst, but I can’t guarantee it. It will probably be in this room. Once you find it, take possession of it and under no circumstances allow Jaemeh to have it.]
[A dragonstone? You realize that’s what she hoards, don’t you?]
[This one won’t be just a book.]
“No kidding, what the fuck,” Jaemeh agreed with great depth of feeling.
“Keep looking,” Anahrod said. “We’re missing something.”
Right, she thought, like the fact there aren’t any diamonds. She cursed Ris. Had there ever been any diamonds?
This was exactly the sort of thing Ris should’ve trusted her to know.
She kept looking. She found a mangled gold necklace sized for a dragon, set with rubies. Crowns, both dragon- and human-sized, peasant shirts, maps written on vellum, a globe with another map carefully pasted to cover it completely. She did not see a dragonstone.
Jaemeh picked up a book, flipped through the pages, and then dropped it as though it burned.
“What was that?” Sicaryon asked him.
“A hymnal to Zavad,” Jaemeh answered. “I don’t understand this. She’s a Zavad worshiper?”
“I don’t think so.” Anahrod eyed a large crown, then blinked as her perception shifted and she identified it as a dragon’s ring. What she had taken for rust was blood, long since dried to a powder. Now that she thought about it, almost everything in the room was damaged or defaced in some manner.
Almost everything.
“So, what’s the theme?” Sicaryon asked. “Dragons always collect to a theme, right? What is this—stuff people wore when they died?” He was examining a wall covered in different styles of armor.
“Huh. I wonder what this is doing here instead of in the first room?” Jaemeh said.
Anahrod whirled around. Jaemeh stood on the other side of the room, holding a large amethyst dragonstone with both hands.
Of all the unlucky… “Any more of them over there?”
He shook his head. “This is the only one.”
She tried to stay calm as she held out her hand. She didn’t know why Peralon wanted the damn thing, but if she had to weigh her trust for Ris and Peralon against her trust for Tiendremos and Jaemeh, the winner was obvious. “May I see it? It is odd that it’s the only one in this room.”
“Haha!” Sicaryon shouted as he did something with a giant helmet, and a wall slid away. The room beyond glittered with gems—some cut, some uncut, some white, but others in colors of champagne, pink, red, green, or even blue.
Piles and piles of gemstones.
[Peralon, we found the diamonds.]
There was a pause. [That’s wonderful. Do you have the front path open? I’ll tell Ris to start sending everyone down to pack the folding boxes.]
Anahrod swallowed. She knew, knew as soon as she felt the delay, that he hadn’t really known if the diamonds would be there. None of Ris’s floor plans had hinted at a third secret space…
Secret…
Anahrod pulled a paper book down from the shelf. She flipped it open and found neat rows of numbers and notations written down the side. Meaningless to her, but she bet someone out there would’ve killed to keep anyone from seeing it.
“She collects secrets!” Anahrod called out. This made perfect sense. In this room, Neveranimas had collected evidence of murders, affairs, thefts, heresy, larceny, and every shame experienced by human or dragon. Neveranimas probably kept patent recipes and inscription designs, too.
“That’s great,” Jaemeh said in the condescending tone of someone who didn’t care and thought it silly that Anahrod did. “Now, will you please help us load these boxes?”
She gave the bookcase a longing glance, but since they didn’t have time to waste, hurried over to help him dump diamonds into an open folding box. She wondered if they’d have enough boxes, despite the extras Kaibren had crafted.
Claw was right: they were about to become very rich.
Sicaryon was the first to finish, folding his box back to a smaller size and lifting it with visible effort. He laughed. “You may not want to load these up as heavy,” he warned. “They don’t lighten weight, do they?”
Anahrod shook her head. “No.” She glanced at where Jaemeh had set down the dragonstone, but she couldn’t see it.
“You’ve shut off all the traps, right?” Sicaryon asked.
She nodded. “Hall of Death is clear.”
“Then I’ll be right back with everyone else.”
Jaemeh gave a distracted nod and continued shoveling diamonds.
[Peralon, Jaemeh found the stone before I did.] She could almost hear the dragon equivalent of cursing on the other side.
[But he hasn’t used it yet, has he?]
[No, I don’t think so. Why?]
No answer.
The others started trickling in, but Anahrod didn’t want to leave Jaemeh alone, so she handed off a box to Claw and continued working. Jaemeh did the same, each working faster as a result. She still couldn’t tell what Jaemeh had done with the dragonstone, though.
Because the boxes were heavy, it took longer to leave than to return. There came a point where Jaemeh and Anahrod were alone again.
“We’re almost done,” Anahrod said. “Just these two boxes left.”
[Peralon, tell the others to stay put. We’re bringing out the last two boxes.]
“Nice.” Jaemeh started closing his box.
Anahrod kept her voice friendly, nonchalant. “Hey, where’d you put that dragonstone?”
“This one?” He reached behind him. He’d been sitting on the damn thing like an egg. “You wanted to look? I haven’t had a chance to, yet. I forgot I had it.” He rolled the stone over to Anahrod.
She picked up the stone. It looked exactly like the dragonstone that Peralon had given her, except it was an amethyst.
She wondered why Peralon had been so insistent that Jaemeh didn’t see it. The warning seemed unnecessary. Jaemeh hadn’t even tried.
Just before she slipped into the stone’s memory space, she glanced up at Jae meh. He stared back at her with a grim expression on his face, one of iron determination.
She realized she’d made a mistake.
This wasn’t like the ride back from the Crimson Skies —Tiendremos didn’t need her anymore. She’d served her purpose. Anahrod tried to abort the attempt, drop the stone.
But it was too late.
Her universe vanished, replaced by Neveranimas’s.