Although the library was vast, its lack of occupancy was as if its towering double doors were seen by my eyes alone. But the volumes were just the beginning. Treasures hid in unlit rooms and behind cobweb draperies. A stout ladder would able me to chisel out ornate tiles covering the dome ceilings, and just a few of the paintings neglected in the great hall would feed a frugal mouth for years. In a mansion this size, the possibility of finding jewels, heirlooms garnished in guarded drawers, and glorious hidden vaults was worthy of a most thorough reconnaissance.

  I hadn’t always posed as a butler. I’d been a rent-boy. I’d waded foulness itself having briefly been a grave robber. But, I was always meant to be a burglar. There are essentially two challenges in my current profession. The first: acquisition of a worthwhile target. Worthwhile doesn’t always mean the score.

  I—

  —wait, let me go at this from a slightly different angle.

  Everybody squawks on about Do-Gooder’s Row—its monstrous white inhabitants and what have you. If you are weary of hearing about them, I assure you your weariness pales in comparison to my own. But perhaps for different reasons. It seems I’m of the select few to take notice, but doers like Zaderyn the Poor Swimmer are in desperate short supply when it comes to finding heroes of the people in this vile city. While the Zaderyns populated the first few columns, the deeds and doers diminish as an admirer heads east, ending at the feet of heroes like the vigilante citizen who reported his overly masturbating neighbor to the nearest Chapwyn temple.

  I reckon if you’re around a Rehleian long enough you’ll hear a peasant’s calendar based off when this statue was being carved a necklace or that statue began showing its gauntlets. But perhaps I am no different—a Rehleian after all, and even a Nilghordian, though I admit that last part with the utmost reluctance. So you will have to pardon my provincial ways. It really is the best way moving forward, and, besides, not all of us were born and bred in Pelliul.

  With this in mind, during a stint in the Rat’s Nest, I shared straw with a couple of thieves. The Do-Gooder statues were all chiseled down to the knees; three-quarters built if you were fortunate enough to study mathematics. We were talking about target acquisition, and those two told me a tale that had with it an unorthodox but long-lasting moral.

  At the time, I was rather preoccupied by my draconian arrest. How is it that the more laws made for the greater good, the greater the prisons swell? These two fops—their comical arguing and tragic story captured my interest.

  Apparently they’d staked out what they thought was an appraisal loft. Under an assumption that the lavishly garbed old man was the owner, one night they made their entry. Much to their misfortune, the old man was guarded by a colossal dog. To add to their dilemma, the Metropolitan Ward was at the doorstep in a time unseen before by either crook. Naturally, once in the Ward’s custody they received a volley of new bumps and bruises. Worst yet, they broke into a loft that wasn’t meant to appraise coin and old silverware.

  Any committed burglar would suffer a vicious dog to score a worthy prize, but as they took turns being mauled, they noticed no hanging scales or appraisal-loft displays of any kind. The poor fools—out-of-work botanists the moment our land cracked down on a growing list of herbs said to degrade the fiber of the working class—had broken into a bungalow of a Scepter, and the valuables they saw being carried in were gifts to congratulate him on his landslide victory over his mysteriously vanished competitor. In numerous portraits, their would-be victim loomed over them imperiously, or so they described when not choking one another.

  Paying attention to the happenings of the city, getting in tune with Nilghorde’s heartbeat, led to future successes. Failing to do so led to gallows and grain ships. When I confirmed who the old man was, reality washed over them. That was the reason why the Ward had made it in record time—hell, for all we know, homing pigeons fly to their stations when men of monetary or political importance are in distress.

  As I have said, the statues at Do-Gooder’s Row back in those days were three-quarters built, which meant the Conqueror’s macho quest, over somewhere closer to twenty. Once he’d declared peace in Rehleia, he was, and is, henceforth called The Municipal One.

  The Municipal One brought about such wonderful things as new roads, new heroes, and a sea of graves as the goodhearted had a chicken in every pot. With all this came the new laws. Burglary soon came with a life sentence—said to serve as a deterrent, but around the Municipal Dungeon’s twelfth or fifteenth grant for another sub-level, the deterrent speeches ceased in the public square. The two who loped into one of the many homes owned by a man such as Scepter Macudden…well, they didn’t face a life sentence. They faced what was reserved for unrepentant blasphemers, murderers of the rich, and the rarity: a convicted necromancer.

  I try to look for the good in all things. I was eventually released from prison, and in their story learned the valuable lesson of due diligence.

  The second challenge of any burglary is dealing with the residents of the target itself. In the case of the Rogaire mansion, I had figured that out like the cleverest street performer. It had been years since I retired from duping spent clients or cleaning out their hotels. I found through careful study that homes were the most lucrative risk to take. The exhilarating joy of standing in an unoccupied dwelling surrounded by the fruits of your soon-to-be labor is mouthwatering. Besides, escalation is the sign of improvement.

  I’d been staking out the Rogaire mansion for close to a year. I know you wonder: why wait so long? Why not just get the goods and scamper off? Many would follow your instincts, and there was a time I did as well. That jumpy impatience, however, only results in a minimal score—and, after all, it’s the score we all do it for. I shiver at the thought of the money I left in unsearched nooks, mattresses unslit, and rooms behind mirrors. I reckon if I had the patience then that I have now, I would be long retired. Maybe buy a flock of young Suelan boys and live out my days in Pelliul, attending reenactments and theater.

  Regardless, I had just about reconnoitered that behemoth place, more a small castle than a mansion. Still, there were locked doors and inconsistencies under floor planks yet to be pried. I had solved almost every riddle, save for the location of a few keys and a peculiar noise I’d regularly hear coming from outside my bedroom window. Besides, despite the high number of reasons that would make any sane person wish to leave, I wasn’t leaving until I knew where the vault was, how to get in, and how to gallop off in un-pursued glee.

  The denizens of that dreary house were as familiar with my face as they were the gargoyles that stare down from the cornice. It is impossible to repress a smile. Every day getting dressed in the mirror, fixing my bow tie and sash. I am not a big man, lean with shoulders that insist on a mild slouch. My hair, forever blond, now combed over a nagging bald spot. Yet despite such a modest frame and a face referred to as “birdish,” I possess the bluest eyes in all Mulgara. Vain? Well, Dear Heart, in two of my careers it was a sad dog that didn’t wag its own tail, or know when it could sleep next to the fireplace rather than in a gutter.

  —

  Dressed for duty, I tightened white gloves over learned hands and proceeded from my chambers.

  —

  “Tymothus, bring us the rabbit,” Morlia said, sighing into the hand propping up her chin. Her breath fogged a jewel on her brooch the size of a ripe plum. “The venison has a salty flair.”

  “Yes, Mum.” I went back, past her lounging armored goons, through the steam, and fetched the rabbits from anticipating cooks. By now our local calendars revolved around the Big Two: Maecidion having been dead a decade—bringing rites and gatherings to the hills and forests and graves that had to be vanquished by our ever-faithful Metropolitan Ward—and the completion of Do-Gooder’s Row. Yes, the dearest latter was only a widely rumored two weeks from being finished. I believe the final brilliance to extract from the marble were the bootless toes of some beggar who’d fallen into a puddle right before a Lotgard or Ouvarnian cart had to cake its polished wheels in Nilghordian street mud. As was the standard, the rabbits were in an array of poses, some caught in flight while others in cartoonish gestures of nobility.

  For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why that family insisted on using trenchers. They had the money to fund the forging of a hundred golden dinner plates without a care. It must have been the late Rinlot’s doing, the former master of this ill place. He had been of the southern green hills. An Oxghordian. Those southern voices, with that hilarious booming accent, a continuous melodic blend of aristocracy and farmhand idiot. No matter how long ago a group relocated to the city, they maintained several imperishable southern traditions. He’d been a hunk of a man, the warden of the Municipal Dungeon. As large as a pit fighter, he embraced a regal masculinity in contrast to his rather simple mind.

  The lady of the house, Morlia Rogaire—well, I can’t recall the maiden name of that redheaded, bejeweled harpy—her family came from the quarter on the shores of the Thunder Bustle and was probably forgotten by her own decree. How those two ever met and married was the grandest of juxtapositions.

  He was the one who filled their hidden vaults—wherever those infernal things were. The formidable and overpaid position of Warden didn’t explain the wealth. I’ve seen crazier things in these lands. Although jewels jangled at the bottom of their pockets, they’d never been fully accepted by the Nilghorde elite. The few Ouvarnias who lived in Nilghorde barely acknowledged their existence, and the Lotgards had only invited them to one party.

  She, on the other hand, was from the cannibal streets. She still wore her hair tied up for quick bathing and still wore her makeup with the gaudiness of an aging prostitute. A whore, that’s my best guess anyway, and it would fit all the better that she sensed an opportunity to capitalize on male dimwittedness.

  Once draped in the excesses of wealth, you’d have thought Morlia was an empress from some far-off land. Her knack for barking orders and her eternal dissatisfaction with everything led to miserable dinners and crucified slaves. Rinlot had been a southern boy turned middle-aged man, still hazardously trusting and gregarious. Her eyes carried a keen maliciousness, and her intentions seemed to mimic my own. Yes, she had to have been a prostitute; her cunning business approach to the prize of emerald-covered templets and ruby brooches was, in my best mood, admirable.

  With Rinlot now dead, the mansion had only three residents. One was Morlia. Another was her and Rinlot’s only child, that damned boy Rinmor, or as Morlia insisted for some blasted reason, “Morden.” As spoiled as the meat that miraculously always found only the plate of the Lady; his incessant pranks were only dwarfed by his odd behavior. When not trying to trip me with string, I found him staring for hours at the moon.

  Last and least, through some intertwining of two family tree’s most low-hanging and moss-ridden branches, a cousin of Rinlot’s crawled onto their steps years before I took employment and, to my humor, never left.

  Werlyle Rogaire-Qell was a humble sight, even for a Qell. I recall from boarding school dreary parchments about their House. Nearly a century had passed since the feud between the House of Qell and the House of Ouvarnia had ended. The regal horse masters of Ouvarnia massacred the House of Qell, sending them scampering to every corner and down every hole in Rehleia. Most now huffed swamp air with the Rehtons down in Amden. A prolific drunk, only his high forehead resembled anything of his much fairer cousin, on the whole short and stubby and always looking down. If he was indicative of the rest, I can at best give them credit for even mustering the gall to challenge anyone in armed conflict.

  Werlyle’s presence was like an indomitable itch under Morlia’s girdle. Since Rinlot was no more, showering Werlyle with insults, often in front of company, had no response other than a few curses and spittle. Half in a bottle of Bleeding Anna on most occasions, his retorts while head down on the dining room table were their own lessons in hilarity. It took every fiber of my being to avoid dropping the tray of exotic slugs when he went into a slurred sonnet. Cobwebs on the chandelier was all the symbolism he required. That and twiddling his nubby finger at her, yelling “loins,” and flicking his tongue at the guests who nearly fainted.

  “Ah, this should do,” Morlia said, as I presented the first batch of posing rabbits. The dinner guests were Morlia’s usual entourage, a faceless lot of acquaintances with names I never bothered to remember. “Is there any of that wine left? What was the name of that one? Not that sickly brand from Quinnari; those people truly have no taste for such things.”

  “Yes, Mum, believe we ha—”

  “I remember. That wine we had when—”

  She continued her ramble as I thought out the night’s rummaging. There was a room in the East Wing whose lock was giving me some real trouble. If the opportunity presented itself, I’d get into her master bedroom. That meant keys. Keys meant vaults. Vaults meant—

  Maybe the bitch would pass out from the Grest she was presently going on about. Better yet, one of those sycophants would bed her down in a corner for a few hours.

  “Good butler, go find a bottle or two.”

  “Yes, Mum.” I made my way to the wine cellar, chuckling as I heard the predictable foulness from Morlia to Werlyle, whom last I saw devouring his plate at the far end of the table.

  When I returned with a bottle of Grest on a silver platter, both worth more than many denizens of Nilghorde made in a year, the fight was in full swing.

  “—Leave me alone, you old bat.”

  “Old bat! That’s what you call the woman gracious enough to allow you to stay in her home? You do nothing for us, unless you consider tugging your pecker a chore.”

  Some of the newer guests smiled through their discomfort, while those who’d grown accustomed to the exchange—perhaps even came to the dinners because of it—laughed loud and chimed in louder.

  “No really, cousin,” she insisted, “what do you do all day?” To her nearest cheering section, “You see what I have to deal with here? Wer-lie-all, such a prole name.”

  “Same as you, sit on my ass and squander someone else’s fortune.”

  “He really is a boorish type,” a man dressed like a poet said.

  “You know what Rinlot said about you?” Morlia said.

  “Leave me ’lone, bitch. You can entertain these opium heads and cocksuckers with a trip on your broom.”

  “Is something funny, butler?”

  “No, Mum.” I snapped to, like a soldier.

  “I didn’t think so,” Morlia said. “I didn’t think so because I know you are aware of the stakes in the outer bailey…and their purpose.”

  That damned Werlyle was going to get me killed. I had to find a reason to excuse myself, and quick. To my good fortune, Werlyle stunned us all.

  “I doubt Rinlot had a chance to tell you much of anything,” shoveling in his meal, “seein’ as you killed him and all.”

  An air of silence filled the room, palpable and thick. Guest’s forks clattered against the table as they excused themselves.

  —

  I suppose I have gone into a good deal about the others in this particular tale, but perhaps too little about myself. You must excuse me, I am one who looks toward the future voraciously and views the past as burned leaves. Yes, but you are right, sometimes it is necessary to delve into the past. Not to paint the past in gold or fondle one’s self with nostalgia, of course not, but rather to make understandable things that are not always apparent—in this case, the alleged interplay between Rinlot and the House of Ordrid, the unalleged interplay between Rinlot and me, and how I came to this wretched mansion.

  As I have mentioned, I was an orphan. The orphanage I spent my early years in changed names so many times I’ve forgotten what to remember it by. Names mean and do little. You may not remember the name of someone or something, but you’ll most certainly remember the contents of your interactions. The staff came and went in an ugly merry-go-round of snarls and abuse. A safe haven for just about every form of human depravity, it was also an academy for finding the vulnerable parts of the human body. When not being whipped by the disciplinarians, you had to contend with the older, stronger boys. I learned quickly the frailty of knees when engaged from the right angle, and the sensitivity of eyes when met with a twig.

  No birthdays stick out, save one. The fog of early childhood memories unglue themselves. In the spaces between them are swish-swashes of disciplinarians disappearing to fight in the last stages of the wars in Rehleia, and armless and legless veterans hobbling in to replace them. Then came my seventh birthday, clear as summer. The Suelan cooks made me a muffin, shaped like a star with a little yellow candle.

  Some of the other boys found it an atrocity they hadn’t received a star muffin. After being pinned down, I watched the leader among them, already as big then as your average dockman, stroll up and devour my present.

  I got to keep the candle, which I jammed in the eye of the boy who had held down my arm just a moment before. If you push hard enough and hold in place, you can feel a squish followed by a nauseating give. It became a specialty of mine, you could say.

  This boy flailed on the ground next to me as the disciplinarians broke through the ring. A man that looked like a shaved carnival ape, known for his heavy-handedness, barreled through, a closing wake of silent children behind him.

  I was sent to the cellar, and after his trip to the infirmary the other boy joined me. We were stripped of our clothing and had our hands bound above our heads. For what must have been hours we both just stood there on our toes like pigs at the butcher. He was sobbing into his bandage while I tried to free my hands from the binding leather. With no signs of success, I stopped my squirming as we heard the eminent footsteps echoing down the stairwell. The other boy must have already experienced the cellar. His fidgeting was only outdone by his pitiful squeaks.