There is a pulse in the air calling to Renik in the night. Not a hint of aurora in the sky, a cool breeze coming in from the south. Bass beats mixed with synth rattle the crystal tower just down the street. Partiers spill out into the street giggling like fools. He slips into the shadows created from the marble bases of the towers.
Aedris is a city of glowing green crystal towers stretching up toward the heavens above. Nine meter tall marble bases ward against opportunistic infiltration specialists such as himself. His eyes drifted with practiced subtlety as he passed parked cars. He dragged his fingertips across the handles of locked apartment doors whistling to himself. He had to follow that pulse, that hidden signal in the vibes of the city, that rhythm that called him forth to his prescribed destiny.
A hundred thieves were caught to his right and to his left. Some were imprisoned somewhere no one ever saw them again. Others were sent out into the outer dark. He personally had witnessed the best of the best get caught up. Yet in the midst of all this he had never been close. Once he had stolen the glowing necklace off the first lady of Aedris on the Bastion steps while she was being interviewed live on radio top ten without anyone even noticing him passing.
If you were to ask Renik how he managed to do what he did without a single record with his name written at the top, he wouldn’t be able to articulate his fortune. It was fate or destiny that led his steps. That and very slippery fingers. It wasn’t that he didn’t ever run into trouble, he found trouble plenty but only among his peers. He had plenty of bruises and a very square jaw as reward for his distinguished reputation. He won as many of his confrontations as he lost.
How could he possibly explain the vibe he got when he was in the vibe? He pondered this often as his silent feet hit the sidewalk. Was it his soleless boots, the way he was able to slip from shadow to shadow like a breeze sifting through the leaves of a tree and coming out the other side. Was it his clever eyes spotting instants in time, or his quick hands that caught the gems as they passed naked through the air into a man’s pocket? He considered this as he stuffed said gem into his own pocket carefully.
The only possible answer was that he was born gifted. A treasure among thieves. One day he would pass on his skills, make an apprentice of some ambitious youth. For the time being he would capitalize on his extraordinary skill.
The vibe pulled him left suddenly. He followed it like a perfume on the wind. He nearly second guessed it when he found himself standing at the edge of the darkness. He looked over his shoulder, but no one was watching the invisible thief of Grande Ave. He almost wanted someone to notice their missing pocket watch or their extra gem. He waited for someone to cry out patting their pockets.
Instead, silence swallowed around him at the edge of the green light cast by the city towers and the streetlights. He wished for just a flicker of Aurora to flash overhead and show him a shadow of what lay out in the blackness. His eyes strained against the inky black for the slightest shimmer of movement or a faint reflection of light off a predator's eyes.
He cursed himself and spit as no reasonable warning to turn back came. The dark itself should have been warning enough but he was far too hardheaded to accept that as an excuse. So instead, he stepped across the line of green light that divided the living from the prey. If he couldn’t sense how near the trick was, he wouldn’t be half as bold, but something lured him forward, promising it was just within reach.
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His normally silent footfalls were like hammers on anvils out in the dark. His breaths like storm winds through his nostrils. Had anyone ever stepped into the black without holding out a charged crystal? He nearly laughed at the thought but caught himself in time. Still his eyes flashed side to side as if he had been so foolish.
It is said the blind supplement their lost sense by heightened hearing, smell and touch. Renik proved this as the cold black closed over his flesh. Sounds as small as a scratch or a distant cracking limb carried to his perked ears like sirens. His nostrils flared wide bringing him news of scorched stone and cooking dogs from the forgotten.
His feet screamed each time he found the sharp edges of a stone. He began to doubt his sense of direction all over again. Did he really know the slow drum beat of destiny? Was he wrong in assuming all had paved a route at his feet? What was it really that led him to Kaelen? Was he reading too much into their mutual prosperity? Surely there were others like them stumbling from happenstance to fortunate happenstance. Yes, he should turn back.
His foot struck stone. Smooth stone. He swept his foot from left to right. Then stepped again. He stumbled down several equidistant steps. He caught himself with both hands on the walls that surrounded him. He prodded forward with his unshod foot feeling the edge of the step and the one beneath it. He swallowed a boulder and sweat fiery ice. There is no way there could be a place so close out in the dark that no one had found, right?
He hated and cursed the cord of fate that pulled him downward into a dark pit, yet his feet carried him from step to step. His eyes strained behind him as if he could pick out some slinking form in this utter darkness. He despised his gut for never being wrong before. He disowned the day he was born when he found a door at the bottom of the steps. He pissed a little when it swung open.
It was enough risk for him. He risked pulling his gem from his breast pocket and held it out to light a long stone hall in dim green light. A quick flash behind him to the steps that his mind had refused to believe were real, then he slammed the door shut. He bit his lip at the sound of the stone on stone.
What was this place? Etchings on the wall like amateur pictograms. Gem tipped stone obelisks snatched a flicker of light from his own gem and lit up a large circular room. At the center rested an onyx box. This was a grave, an ancient grave.
Renik pressed in, his silent footfalls as loud as crashing stone on the tiled floor in the empty chamber. He needed to turn back. He needed to retreat to the light of the city. He needed to fall back, he needed to see what was inside the box. He was standing before the smooth stone sarcophagus in a matter of breaths.
He clutched onto the stone lid and shoved it aside then flashed his eyes around the room at the sound. Assured he was alone he peered inside. There lay a body, a kings’ body. Wrapped in cloth the ancient king clutched tight an artifact. Something like an artifact from Kaelen’s shops yet unlike anything he had ever seen. It was more ancient and more advanced than anything Renik knew existed.
His fingers twitched as they hovered over the object. It was so small yet so intricate. He snatched his hand back; he had done many deplorable things in his life but never had he robbed a dead man.
He examined the gaunt features of the dead man’s face. He looked terrified. He looked as if he were screaming into the darkness. He looked locked into his last fearful desperate clutches before death. Renik tried to imagine what would scare a man this much at death. There wasn’t a creature alive that Renik knew of that could do this to a man. It made his skin crawl. It made his bones quiver. It made his breath shallow.
He looked again at the artifact. It was built to hold a premium cut gemstone. It had gears so fine and well interlinked he had to wonder if imps were involved in the assembly. It wrapped around the dead king’s hand from finger to finger and stood off the inside of his wrist like vines searching for light. It was made from gold and cut with veins of silver. It was a wonder of artisanship. It was too holy and wondrous to take, so Renik slid it free with the utmost respect.