The Thieves Guild
by Jake Kerr.
Episode 130:
The Wand and the Red Dress.
Relan had a plan for escape, but it wasn't using the lockpicks.
With no guidance on how to use them, he had fumbled about with the door to his room
for hours on end.
By the time he gave up, he was no closer to understanding how to use the
accursed tools and no closer to opening the door.
The last straw was when Relan thought he heard a guard snickering on the other side.
He probably had imagined it, but it was still enough.
He needed someone to teach him how to use the picks or, at the very least,
give him guidance on which ones to use and how to hold them.
They were Pietro's, so he respectfully put them back in the soft bag
Rebecca had placed them in and left them on the desk in the library.
That was what Relan was calling the room attached to Pietro's living area, and
it was an apt description. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books
and a cozy fireplace marked the room, and the soft chair and gas lamp in
the corner completed the picture.
This was a place for study and contemplation of the tomes surrounding the reader.
Raef would have been in heaven had the books been readable.
At that point, Relan had browsed dozens of the books and they were all the same,
written in some kind of indecipherable script that somewhat looked like the figures he
was taught when he was little, but seemed just different enough to be effectively
a foreign language. The interesting thing wasn't actually the handwriting,
it was the same precise letters in the first book on the bottom shelf on the left
as the last book on the top shelf across the room on the right, it was the
age of them. All of the books were bound paper, an unbelievably
expensive thing, for not only was the bounding rare and expensive, the
paper itself was of high quality and thick.
Yet the books on the lower left were yellowing and appeared very old.
The script was precise and thick and measured.
The last books on the right had a very light touch and there were
imperfections as if the hand writing them wavered or shook as it
wrote.
There didn't appear to be any dates on the books, although each one had a
frontispiece that had some kind of long and detailed title.
When all was said and done, and Relan sat at the desk, he realized that it would
take someone many years to write so many volumes and the content would
encompass an almost unbelievable amount of subject matter.
But what was that subject matter?
It was sitting down and looking over the walls of books that led to Relan settling
on his escape plan.
Rebecca didn't return for two days, but when she did, he was
prepared. "We should talk."
Rebecca had asked about his efforts with lockpicking, but he dismissed her questions
and pointed to the library. He escorted her in, unable to pull his
attention from her elegant stride and the gentle swaying of her red dress.
He waved to one of the reading chairs next to the fireplace, and with a bemused
smile, Rebecca sat down, smoothing her dress before resting her
hands in her lap. "I am all ears, Guildmaster." Relan
sat in a nearby chair near the fireplace and leaned forward.
"You are not here to talk picking doors, chests, and drawers."
Rebecca didn't reply as Relan motioned vaguely around the room.
"I have unlocked something far more important." Relan pointed to the empty
display box. "I know where the Guildmaster's wand is hidden."
This was his escape plan.
Relan was certain that Old Pietro felt pity for his daughter, trapped as she
was in Gautland, and told her fantastical stories about his past in the
Thieves Guild, built in part at least on the truth and its hidden history,
but mostly comprised of flights of fancy.
The wand was certainly part of those fantasies.
Relan even knew the source, the well-known tavern named The Golden Wand
near the Golden Triangle in the Upper Quarter.
It was frequented by the wealthiest and well-known residents of Ness, including
Relan and Lassen's father. The wand was a joke, like the goat
horn mounted above the entrance of a pub in the flats named The Goat's Horn,
and the tavern in the Old Quarter ironically and amusingly named The
Wretched Retreat.
But Rebecca wouldn't know it was all part of the longstanding history of amusing pub
names.
She would hear about a wand mounted on a wall and her eyes would go wide.
At least, Relan hoped as much. To Relan's disappointment,
Rebecca barely reacted. After an awkward silence, she nodded.
"Go on." "Pietro was well traveled and well loved in
Ness. He frequented every quarter and knew everyone.
I believe he hid the wand in plain sight."
Relan badly wanted to get a reaction from Rebecca, so he stopped and waited
for a response. "Go on?"
At this point, Relan wasn't sure his plan would work after all.
Rebecca didn't show any enthusiasm at all.
"There is an old tavern in the Upper Quarter called The Golden
Wand,""Above the bar is a display box very much like that one."
Raylan pointed to the box above the fireplace. "In that box is a wand.
It is dark wood, not golden, which to my mind is a good indicator that it is the
Guildmaster's wand. If it were truly the golden wand of the tavern's name, it would
actually be golden."
"So, your belief is that a tavern that just happened to be named after a wand sits
in a city that does not believe in magic, and that this conveniently named tavern
also conveniently had a display box where Pietro could sneak in
and place a new wand?"
Raylan felt deflated. Rebecca clearly didn't believe him.
"Yes."
"And you are saying that the tavern owner would see his golden wand replaced
overnight
with a dark wood wand, and would simply overlook it or ignore it?"
Raylan didn't have an answer for that, so he simply nodded his head.
"I daresay that your scenario sounds ridiculously unbelievable.
I think it far more likely that Pietro established the tavern himself
solely to hide the wand, as you say, in plain sight, and that the wand
you saw in that display box
existed from the moment of the tavern's opening."
"The tavern is hundreds of years old."
Rebecca shrugged.
"The important thing is that in both of our unbelievable scenarios,
Pietro's motivations were the same: to hide the wand in plain
sight."
Rebecca stood up.
"We shall leave for Ness tomorrow."
What? Did she actually believe him? As Raylan scrambled to
his feet, and before he could even fathom a reply, she crossed her arms.
"To answer your obvious question, no.
I do not believe this tavern knickknack is the Wand of the Guildmaster, but I have no other
leads to where it may be. And without it, all this..." She waved
her arms around the library. "Is closed to us.
In short, Raylan, I am desperate."
Raylan appreciated her honesty. "Perhaps we can visit with my guild
historian. He will know more than me." Raylan didn't think he could get
Rebecca into the Thieves' Tower, and where he could presumably have Philos
guarantee his freedom.
"My dear Raylan, I would like nothing more than to visit that
majestic tower again, but we have more important things ahead of us."
She laughed as if reading his mind and knowing his motivation, and then
turned, her red dress swirling out in a wide circle behind her.
"Again?" Raylan thought as she walked to the door.
When had she previously been to the Thieves' Tower?
"One more thing."
She turned and smiled at Raylan.
"And that is?"
"You cannot wear red."
Rebecca frowned. "What a presumptuous and insulting thing to say.
I will wear red."
"As you wish, but the citizens of Ness will flee from you.
Most people believe that the dyes that create the color red are poisonous."
"You can't be serious."
"You could test them, and perhaps if they flee, it will be because of you and not
what you wear."
To his surprise, Rebecca laughed.
"I am becoming quite fond of you, Raylan.
You, at least, don't run from me."
She shook her head and looked vaguely out at the stacks of books.
"What were you thinking, dear Grandfather?
Having them hate us doesn't serve anyone but your old bitterness."
Focusing on Raylan, Rebecca looked thoughtful.
"So, my dear Guildmaster, what color should I wear?"
"Why, black, of course."
(dramatic music)
A Podcast Alchemy production.