It seemed to me that there could be no harm in telling Garrett. The old Thieves Guild master might be prickly, but I trusted him. And what’s more, he knew a thing or two about getting into places unseen. If I was lucky, he’d have an idea that might help.
So I told him everything, from the theft of the scepter to the arrival of the Sorcerer’s army to Jackoff cutting my throat.
This provoked a third bout of laughter, so prolonged I was starting to regret telling him anything at all.
Then, he pulled himself together. “So, what are you going to do about it? Once you’re done cleaning the puke off my floor, I mean.”
Ignoring the unsubtle hint, I said, “Actually, I was hoping you might be able to help.”
“Oh no. I’m done helping you. Helping you is what got me here.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“And yet, I’m still dead.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about that, is there?”
“Actually,” he said, “that’s not entirely true. You say you’re here to get Chucky boy – that is, King Charles – back to the Realm. Well, if so, why not me too?”
I thought about that for a moment, and then shrugged. “Sure. I mean, I don’t think there’s like a headcount limit or whatever. And – well, the Thieves Guild can probably do with you being back.”
“I know,” he said grimly. “I’ve seen too many of my people show up since I’ve been here.”
I cleared my throat, eager to move on from the topic. “Right. Well, before we can get you out of here, I need to figure out how to get across the wall.”
He chuckled. “Not by climbing it, I can tell you.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious. Do you have anything that can actually help me – us?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
I tried not to let any relief show in my expression. He didn’t need that satisfaction. But I was relieved. Damned relieved. As much as I hurt at the moment, I didn’t want to think of what might happen next time if I kept winging it.
“There are four gates into the Sector of Ascension. You were actually pretty close to the first one. But they’re invisible to us.”
“Invisible?”
“You know how the wall looks like it gets taller as you look at it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, they use a similar enchantment to hide the gates from the undesirables.”
“Undesirables like us.”
“Exactly. But, I know where they are.”
Despite myself, I grinned at that. Of course he did. Reconnaissance was the old bastard’s forte. Well, along with planning in general. And stealth. And – well, now that I thought about it, everything, really.
I shifted uncomfortably. Suddenly that 99 stealth I was so proud of seemed pitiful by comparison. I felt like an amateur next to him. An acolyte again.
“Are you listening?” he prompted.
“What? Oh, sorry.”
He grumbled something I didn’t quite catch. Then, “I said, the gates are set equidistant from each other, so all I needed to do was find one, and then I found the rest. Turns out, they’re at the four points of the compass, but offset exactly two degrees.”
“I didn’t bring a compass,” I admitted.
“No, but I have one.”
“Okay. Good.”
“I’m glad you think so. But it won’t do us any good, not without the Cloak of Kharon.”
“Kharon? You mean, like the…” I’d barely got the words out when an apparition sprang to life. A silvery figure, seeming very bright in the darkness.
The AI guide himself.
“You summoned me, Kaej?”
“No,” I said. “Sorry. I was just – we were talking about something else.”
“What?” Garrett asked, glancing around the room as if in search of whomever I might be addressing.
Kharon and I ignored him. “Ah,” the AI said. “The Cloak of Kharon.”
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I blinked. “How did you know that?”
“Know what?” Garrett asked.
I waved a hand to hush him. “I’m not talking to you.”
“I know everything you say or do, Kaej. I am with you at all times.”
“Oh,” I said, nonplussed. “You mean – everything?”
“Everything,” he confirmed. “But, if you are concerned that I may be indiscreet with my knowledge, my programming forbids me from sharing details of your particular journey with anyone. Even the keepers of this place.”
That took me by surprise. “Really? Even when – I mean, if – I do something…not quite following the rules?”
“Indeed. My job is to present you with information, and guide you as best I can. But I am not to make your choices for you, or to make it more difficult for you to make poor choices.”
“So, theoretically, if I asked you how to do something quasi-illegal, you’d tell me what you knew?”
“I would.”
“Huh.”
“My adaptive learning algorithm predicts that you desire to know about the Cloak of Kharon. Is this accurate?”
“Uh…yeah. It is.” What the hell? The gig was already up, so if I was in for it, well, might as well make it worth the trouble.
“Do you desire to know the uses of the cloak, its history, its location –”
“Location,” I interrupted. “And, how one would go about acquiring it. One, let’s assume for the sake of argument, who doesn’t exactly have permission.”
“Theft? I see. Very well. Adjusting parameters. To begin with, the cloak is located in the Hall of Holy Relics.”
“Is that like some kind of museum or something?”
“It is a vault.”
“Oh.”
“Containing a number of artifacts that cannot, for a variety of reasons, reside in either other sector.”
“Hold on,” I interrupted again, “are you saying the Cloak of Kharon can’t enter the Sector of Ascension?”
“I am not. The cloak is used with some regularity by messengers between the realms. It is, therefore, stored in the vault as it is the central locale.”
“Ah. Right.”
“To purloin the relic will prove no small feat,” he went on. “I am not privy to the security measures enacted in the vault, except in a general sense. I know that there are paladins, and automatons –”
“Robots?”
“Of dwarven design. Very fast and very efficient.”
“Efficient? At what?” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer, but I supposed I needed all the facts.
“At executing trespassers.”
“They’ll kill me?” I asked.
“Without a doubt. And you will suffer excruciating torments the entire time they are killing you. Painful demises are, of course, excellent deterrents for the criminally minded.” He said this as if torturing someone as you killed them was the most natural thing in the world.
“Right. So, umm, question…”
“Of course.”
“Say someone – not me, but someone – was to break into this hall, or vault, or whatever is. And say they got caught by these dwarven automatons.”
“They would die, a prolonged and agonizing death.”
I wondered briefly if it was my imagination, or if I really had picked up relish in his tone. I cleared my throat. “Yes, well, once they were done with the suffering and dying part, then what?”
“Then, the automaton will dispose of the biological waste.”
“The body?”
“Just so.”
“But what happens to the person? You know, the dead thief?”
“Well, they are dead.”
“You mean, they don’t – I don’t know, get another chance? Get more time tacked onto their sentence and have to start over or something?”
“Oh, certainly not. Any vagabond wicked enough to break into the Hall of Holy Relics has shown himself quite beyond redemption.”
“I see. So it’s a permanent thing.”
“Quite permanent.”
“Huh.”
“Is there any further information I can supply?” Kharon asked, his tone chipper and carefree.
“Yeah. For curiosity’s sake, has anyone ever actually gotten away with it? Robbing the Hall of Holy Relics, I mean.”
“I’m afraid I do not have that answer.”
I frowned at the AI. “What do you mean, you don’t have the answer? I thought you said you’d tell me anything I asked.”
“I will, insofar as I know the answer. As I say, I do not. That data is classified.”
“You mean, hidden, even from you?”
“I do not need to know it,” Kharon said. “Therefore, I do not.”
“Huh,” I said. “Okay. Thanks Kharon. That will be all for now.”
The AI shimmered out of existence, and I found myself alone in the room with Garrett once more.
“Talking to your AI assistant, I presume?”
I nodded. “And he gave me good news and bad news.”
“Oh?”
“The bad news is, if we screw up this cloak thing, we’re done for. No second chances.”
“That is how death works. At least, how it’s supposed to work, before this afterlife business interfered.”
I paused for a moment, half tempted to delve into that particular tangent. What did he mean, how death was supposed to work? And how could the afterlife interfere – and with what?
But we had a cloak to get. At least, I was pretty sure we did. That would be a good place to start: confirmation. So I asked instead, “This cloak, you’re sure we need it?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. I mean, unless you want to work your way up to the Sector of Ascension. How many hundreds of years did they give you, by the way? Or was it thousands in your case?”
I ignored the question. “Okay. So we need it. Which brings me to the good news. I’m pretty sure getting it out is possible. Risky, absolutely. But possible.”
Garrett eyed me curiously. “Your Kharon told you that? Mine said he had no data.”
“He didn’t say it, exactly, no. It’s more what he didn’t say. See, he told me the same thing about the data. But that’s my point – if it was certain death, why would they hide the data from him? They told him about the robots.”
“The saw blade bots?”
I shuddered. “Saw blades? Shit. That’s barbaric.”
“I think that was the idea.”
“Anyway, they told him about the bots. They told him we’d be gone for good if we got caught. They told him everything that would deter a potential thief.”
“But nothing that wouldn’t,” he finished.
“Exactly.”
“Huh.” He chuckled – and for the first time since I’d woken up, he wasn’t laughing at me. “I forgot that there was something in that head of yours, when you chose to use it.”
So much for that.
“Well, I’ve got good news too,” he went on. “I’ve got a plan.”
“Already?” I asked. “How long have I been here?”
He snorted. “I’ve been working on it since the day I died.”
“Oh.” I frowned. That was some time ago. More than enough time to steal something. “Then why haven’t you got the cloak yet?”
“Because I like to make sure I have a foolproof plan. So no one gets hurt.” I pretended to miss the edge in his tone. “And anyway, it’s a two-man job. I was waiting for the right person to show up.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m flattered.”
He snorted. “Don’t be. I was waiting for Artemus.”
“Bollocks. If you were waiting for Artemus, you wouldn’t offer me the job.”
“Sure. If I didn’t mind waiting another thirty or forty years. But I’m tired of toiling. So I’m willing to take my chances, and hope you don’t screw up.”
I braced for impact. Sure enough, he followed it up with a, “This time.”
For better or worse, I thought, death really hadn’t changed him.
“Well let’s get to it, before we die. Oh wait.”
Worse. Definitely worse.