After they met up with the rest of their party Kira retold her story while they ate their evening meal, cold, as Fenrir did not want to risk a fire this close to the capital. After she finished there was a silence of several moments.

  Eventually Katari spoke. "My lord, if I may ask, what is your hold upon Safara? You did not seem concerned that she may betray you, and yet Kira has told me that she was only several short weeks ago working directly with the Cult. People do not change easily, and few Light-races seem capable of letting go of their hatred for our kind."

  "Put simply, when she met me, she believed all Dark-races barely sapient, monsters whose very nature it was to maim and destroy. I opened her eyes to the truth, and her own sense of justice reproached her most fiercely for her previous actions and beliefs. She has since been remarkably willing to view Dark-races as just another people with their own customs and beliefs, strange perhaps, but not necessarily evil. In addition, several things she has said, or perhaps more accurately let slip, indicate that she feels she owes me something. Beyond that, my intuition tells me that by this point she serves me because she wants to, not because of any fear of consequences for disloyalty," Fenrir replied. "Of course, I did tell her to do whatever it took to keep herself safe, so we should probably not assume that our presence will remain entirely secret. I do not however believe that she will knowingly betray any of us. The greater danger lies in that she may unwittingly divulge information better left unrevealed."

  Katari nodded in acknowledgement, her face clearing somewhat.

  "So what are we gonna do, boss? You're not going to just leave her in there if I know you half as well as I think I do, so what's the pn?" Kira asked, her face pale with concern, but the unworried expectance in her tone left no doubt of her faith in Fenrir.

  "Well, first things first, let's see what her books can tell us about this Thief's Betrayal. Chellise, hand me that bag, will you?" Digging through Safara's pack which Chellise brought him, Fenrir found the book he sought, and he began flipping through the pages in search of the relevant rune circle. It struck him briefly that while this book was clearly not written in English, he could understand it nonetheless, and he spared a grateful thought to Carnachias and Menoche that they had thought of such small but vital details in his reincarnation which he had not. 'No matter which way you slice it, not being able to read is a pretty significant handicap, so I'm gd they gave me that base level knowledge because I didn't even take the time to consider that the people here might have a different spoken nguage, let alone think about their written one.'

  Finding what he sought, he examined the rune circle closely, committing every detail to memory. It was a multi-ring circle, three rings intersecting in fashion simir to a Venn diagram, with the usual gracefully swooping lines connecting the various runes along the edges of all three circles. While not the most complicated circle in the Index, it was nonetheless daunting, requiring all Fenrir's powers of retention to ensure that even his near photographic memory would be able to recall all of its detail. Once certain he would not forget it, he moved on to its description.

  He found little here he had not already known from Kira's account. The extra details of the cost ratios per square foot of ground protected, while interesting, was not particurly useful at present. One detail which had not been mentioned was useful, that being that the pass emblems had to be drawn using runic chalk or a special ink which shared the same properties. Beyond that, the only information he could glean from the book was that without a mage of at least middling power, keeping the circle charged would be difficult. 'Except they'll undoubtedly have numerous mages strong enough to keep it charged by themselves, so that's not very helpful either. At this point, it looks like the only way I'm getting onto the Cathedral grounds undetected is if I somehow get astronomically lucky. Well, I'll do some reconnaissance myself under cover of darkness, assuming of course that I can find a way into the city, and even if I can't get her out I may be able to open a line of communication with her somehow. Not much of a pn, but it's the best I've got right now.'

  He looked up from the book at the faces which surrounded him. "You all stay put, and get some rest. I'm going to investigate the city and what I can of the Cathedral. I may not be back until after dawn. Make sure to keep a sentry; this close to the city, I don't trust even this secluded gde to remain unvisited forever."

  "Did you find a way in, then?" Chellise asked.

  "I have found several potential entry points, but I have not as of yet tested them. But rest assured I shall find a way inside. I'll see you in a few hours." He wrapped his cloak about him, hesitated briefly over his axe before deciding that he would be better served leaving it behind for a mission of this sort, and vanished into the surrounding forest.

  Before long, he approached the point in the wall where he had left it some hours earlier. The great wolf took up his examination again, the clouds which covered the moon allowing for swifter movement without risk of detection. He found that the small postern gates were no longer guarded, but the bars which blocked passage would not be easily or inconspicuously forced. The rger gates were not only closed but also guarded, as he had expected.

  He had almost reached the river Phoebe before he found another potential entry point, his sensitive nose alerting him of the proximity of sewage. The canal which served as a moat for the city was fed by a much smaller river which flowed from the mountains to the west, redirected centuries ago by the inhabitants to add to their defenses. The city's sewage system did not connect to this canal as he had hoped, but it did empty into the Phoebe through its own tunnels at a point about a quarter mile below the city. Following his nose, he soon came to the giant culvert and was relieved to see a narrow ledge along either side of the roughly circur tunnel, raised slightly above the level of the water. Stepping down into the outlet, which was about twenty feet in diameter, he started up one side of the passage.

  About fifty feet in, he came upon a massive grate which barred further progress. A small gate allowed passage for those with the correct key, but as he closely examined the old lock, Fenrir concluded that this door was rarely if ever opened. He extended his cws, and sliding one into the crack between the door and its jamb and another into the keyhole itself, attempted to undo the tch. A few moments of fiddling rewarded him with success, and he swung the small gate open on screeching hinges. 'Not much of a lock. You'd think that with how well defended the rest of the city is, the sewers would get something more secure than this, but apparently not. Maybe they thought that the smell alone would keep this avenue safe from infiltration. Not without reason either, I'm already afraid my nose may never recover and I've barely started.' He paused, noticing the condition of the door. 'Oh, hang on, I didn't open the lock, I just broke the tch. It was almost rusted through. Shoddy maintenance, then, not a substandard lock.'

  He was about to step through the gateway when his eye caught a white line, barely visible even to his enhanced vision in the stygian bckness of the tunnel. It ran across the ground just inside the gate, and upon closer examination, Fenrir concluded that it had been drawn with runic chalk. He followed its progress to a ft sb on the wall, where through the bars he could just make out a rune circle, one he partially recognized. 'Ah, that's more like what I'd expect. Magical and mundane defenses. But what is this circle? That part looks a lot like the circle I was learning just st night that reacts when magic is used in its vicinity, but it's not quite the same. This rune, and this one, and these are all different. Wish I'd brought Safara's book along.'

  By comparing the circle before him to the circles he had already learned about as well as the different runes with which it was made, he eventually came to the conclusion that the rune circle was designed to send an arm if it detected magic. 'Luckily, I think I can test my hypothesis without triggering the arm.' Taking off his cloak, he folded it into a tight bundle and extended it towards the line which blocked his path. At about six inches the runes began to glow slightly, and he pulled the cloak back again. Putting it down, he extended his empty hand towards the line. There was no reaction. Carefully he stepped as close to the line as possible. No change. He picked up the cloak again, but as it approached the boundary the runes once more began to glow.

  'Damn, it's as I thought. Even without being active, the rune circle on my cloak triggers the enchantment. It could be worse, I suppose; looks like I myself can get through no problem, but I'll have to leave the cloak here. Pretty clever of them though, any normal detection enchantment would have to be periodically recharged, but this one just tries to take magic from the environment through its leylines, and if it finds magic to take it tells the other end about it, which is presumably in a guardroom somewhere. Most people who can get through the gate would have at least one enchanted item on them or be using magic, for a light source if nothing else. I wouldn't be surprised if opening the gate with magic would trigger the circle as well. And it looks like they have a closed circuit rune here, or whatever Safara called it, so it can't just be erased either, they'd know.'

  He eyed his cloak mournfully. 'Guess I'll have to leave you here, at least for now. That puts a bit of a wrench in my pns, but hopefully it's te enough that the streets will be mostly deserted, and I do still have Shroud.' Pcing the cloak in as inconspicuous a location as he could find, he stepped across the line with bated breath, one eye on the rune circle on the wall. As he had thought, it gave no reaction to his passage sans cloak, but he still breathed a sigh of relief at the confirmation.

  Pulling the gate closed behind him to at least give the illusion of its still being secure, he started up the passage, breathing through his nose as little as possible to try to lessen the smell. It took him about half an hour to find a way back above ground, but eventually he found himself standing in a small cul-de-sac behind an inn not far from the southern wall, the small manhole by which he had come once again closed and partially covered with debris. Swiftly but with the utmost caution he picked his way towards the north and west, sticking to alleyways as much as possible and avoiding light where he could. He refrained from using Shroud for the moment, keenly aware of its limited uptime and hefty cooldown. 'Better to keep it in my back pocket for the present,' he decided. 'I only have an hour's worth of it, and this scouting trip could easily stretch significantly beyond that timeframe. Besides, I don't actually need it right now; there isn't much in the way of nightlife in this part of the city.'

  Down towards the docks he could faintly hear more activity and so he deliberately angled towards the west and the residential areas. Pausing occasionally to avoid the odd guard patrol, he made it to the Cathedral grounds in good time. The neighborhood was obviously a wealthy one, the buildings reminding him somewhat of English townhouses from the eighteenth century. Climbing easily and noiselessly to the mostly ft roof of one, he made his way across the rooftops to a point directly opposite the Cathedral's main gate.

  Below him across the cobblestone street golden gates blocked the way, two guards standing in a pool of light cast by hanging braziers in front of the entrance to the Cathedral proper, in easy view of the gate. The wall which bounded the compound would not be overly difficult to scale, Fenrir noted, but he had not forgotten the Thief's Betrayal. Dropping back to the ground, he followed the wall around to the right while avoiding the streetmps which bathed portions of the street in a yellow light, searching for any method of slipping past the enchantment. 'This was a fool's errand. My magic expert being the one on the other side of the spell I need to circumvent is just about the worst possible luck, and it doesn't much look like there's any way to determine where she is from out here, let alone communicate with her.'

  He took a moment to closely examine the wall itself. Solid brick about two feet thick rose to waist height with pilrs of the same material about fifteen feet in height at regur intervals. In between these, and atop the waist high wall, bars of bck steel in the same fanciful designs as the main gate rose to the level of the pilrs. 'May as well be ankle height for all the difficulty it presents me, but it's not like they need the wall to stop me. Their enchantment does that very effectively, at least until I'm willing to abandon stealth.'

  Nevertheless, he kept walking, carefully examining as much of the grounds as he could see from without. It appeared to be mostly gardens and shrubbery, the Cathedral itself dominating the front half of the grounds, but several other buildings, looking smaller beside the massive temple, also covered a considerable portion of the grounds behind it.

  At the back right corner of the compound, Fenrir came upon a small side gate which began opening slowly as he approached it. Instantly he dodged into the shadows, watching closely. A moment ter a man's head appeared, looking up and down the street. Satisfied that it was deserted, the head withdrew, and the door opened fully to admit the passage of the man's body. With a final gnce about, the man pulled up the hood of the pin bck cloak he wore and started off towards the east. There was a certain stealthiness in his manner which instantly intrigued Fenrir, and he followed, taking care not to be seen.

  They proceeded across the city to the east, the strange man scrupulously avoiding guard patrols, which only solidified Fenrir's suspicion that he was up to something illicit. Activating God's Eye, he examined the strange figure closely.

  Janus CarrowMale HumanLesser Priest Lvl 14Status: Worried, CautiousAbilities: Lesser Heal, Minor PurificationKinks/Fetishes:sadist, enjoys rapeDisposition Towards User:N/A

  'Not very useful, but if he's a priest he most likely has the pass emblem. I'll have to see if I can find a way to relieve him of it.' Fenrir thought, pausing in the shadow of a stack of boxes as the priest gnced backwards. At this point they were less than a mile from the docks, and Fenrir could smell the river when suddenly the man ducked into an alleyway between two warehouses. Rather than follow him directly, Fenrir instead scaled the building beside the alley and trailed his quarry from above. At the far end of the alley, another man, this one masked as well as hooded, waited. Fenrir immediately examined him with God's Eye as well.

  Grivor TatumMale HumanRogue Lvl 11Status: AnnoyedAbilities: Sneak, AssassinateKinks/Fetishes:hardcore sadist, gore, enjoys killingDisposition Towards User:N/A

  The priest made his way directly to the other occupant of the alley, who pulled down the cloth covering his nose and mouth as he was approached. Fenrir paused above them, listening intently so as not to miss any of their conversation.

  "You're te," the rogue growled, his voice unusually rough and gravelly, as though he made a habit of gargling rocks.

  "We had a guest and I couldn't get away until te." The priest's voice was higher pitched and oily smooth.

  "You think I give a damn about why? We've got merchandise to move."

  "Not tonight, or for the next few days. Our-"

  The rogue cut in abruptly. "The hell you mean not tonight? The merchandise can't just sit around forever. The longer it waits, the more chance we get discovered, and then you lose your nice little sideline, not to mention your other 'perks'."

  "I said not tonight. Our guest is an elvish noble. It's too risky to move merchandise through the Cathedral while she's there. If you want to move it, you'll have to go through other channels until she clears out."

  "Damn it, you know as well as I do that the princess has been sniffing around. The Cathedral's the only channel that's still completely open."

  "Well, for the next few days you can consider it closed. I'll contact you by the usual method once we're clear to move again."

  The rogue spat to one side. "Get rid of her as soon as you can. I've got some rare pieces burning a hole in my pocket right now. The sooner I can move them, the better."

  "Nothing I can do about it right now. You have my money from the st package?"

  "Here." A heavy coin purse changed hands.

  "Oh, and by the way, make sure you secure the next package properly. The st one nearly got loose."

  The rogue merely grunted, and then the two parted, the priest heading back towards the street while the rogue vanished into the maze of alleyways. Fenrir, his mind racing through the possible implications of the exchange he had just heard, followed the former back in the direction from which he had come.

  TheBestofSome