Sneak Thief (Pt. 3)

Freezing his body in place, Sylvis reaches to his good luck amulet out of habit, touching the raised spot on his tight-knit shirt where he can feel it through the fabric. Suddenly it is very light on his chest.


“Put down whatever you've got and turn around. Now.”


Sylvis puts the envelope back down on the desk, carefully closing the flap and running his fingers over the obviously expensive, woven paper before letting go. Taking a deep breath and putting his empty, black gloved hands out to either side, he turns around.


Standing in the doorway is an old male elf, but short by elf standards. Maybe five and a half feet tall, he's not a very imposing person in stature, but in presence he fills the room. Immediately Sylvis knows that this is the man he's been told to steal from, Enoch Wallisarn. It can be no one else but him, standing there with his back straight and his hands in his pockets, no weapon drawn nor any worn, he must be very confident in his abilities to challenge as he does, even as his skills are belied by his shaggy grey hair and tanned, wrinkled face. Shit, it's just some old guy. What do I gotta be worried about? But he knows that's not exactly true and he can feel all the blood run away from his face.

“Yep, I don't need a weapon to hurt a pip squeak like you, though I don't really got a mind to, yet. Tell me what yer here for boy, and who sent ya, and make me believe it, and I'll let ya on your way.”

Sylvis looks at him and concentrates on keeping calm, keeping his story straight. “I just saw the big house, ya know? Biggest one on the street, it was, and I thought, I'll go there, ya know? Figured you had all kinds of old, valuable--”

His words and his breath are cut off as one. Moving in a blur across the room the old elf pushes Sylvis down on the desk, slamming him on his back and sending baubles crashing to the ground and papers fluttering down in a mess. One of Enoch's hands is wrapped tightly around the his throat and the other is holding a long dagger that Sylvis can feel pushing against his abdomen, pulsing an intense aura of heat from its blade as it's held with just enough pressure to be felt but not wound. Quicker than his eyes could perceive it, the elf has pinned him and he can feel his head getting light. Stars begin to appear at his periphery, but he struggles not to fight, to hold still. The old elf looks down at him with an odd, bemused expression. Almost smirking, he grips tighter until things are just starting to go black before letting go and pulling away, letting Sylvis fall to the floor, grasping for breath and flailing his arms.

“So boy, you still wanna play?”

Sylvis grasps the edge of the desk and pulls himself up, noting that the dagger is no where to be seen. Catching his breath, heaving while bent over, he touches his stomach and feels the drops of blood where the blade barely pierced his skin, cutting a tiny slit in his shirt.

“It. . .” Gasping, he grabs his throat and can feel the heat where it is bruised. “It was just a -cough- contract! A stupid sneak job!” He leans heavily against the solid wooden desk.

“A big one I bet. And they gave it to an amateur like you. They must think I'm getting old.”

“They just said, they said to get the green envelope with the House Cannith crest on it and get out,” Coughing, it's hard for him to go on, but he does his best to stand and look defiant. “They said it would be like stealing candy from a halfling.”

Enoch laughs and in his laugh is the sound of cogs turning with no lubricant. It is the laugh of a man who has seen life and death in equal measures, finding neither much more interesting than the other. “And was it boy, was it?”

“Well, you said you'd let me leave if I told you. . .”

“Yeah, yeah I will. Course they'll kill you if you come back without the envelope.”

Suddenly Sylvis' attention is fixed back on Enoch's face, watching his eyes. He's no longer laughing. “Why. . . ?”

“Boy, they're like as not to kill you even if ya come back with it. My guess is this whole thing is about destroyin' evidence. Startin' with that offer, that letter there in the envelope.”

Maybe I don't want to be in the big time after all. “Please, just let me take it and I'll take my chances.” Sylvis has never been one to beg but seeing the old elf move like he did before, bringing him closer to death than he's ever been, has humbled him a bit.

“Yeah, I'll let you have it. No use to me anymore. They coulda' just asked for it, but that ain't how they work. They don't kill you boy, you be careful of them you working for. They don't play nice.”

“So I can have it?” He makes a half turn toward the desk, picking up the envelope gingerly, watching Enoch all the while.

“Go for it. Aren't you curious what it says?”

Holding the large green envelope, running his fingers over the gold filigree of the House Symbol on its cover, he realizes that he is curious for the first time why they would send him, offering so much money no less, to do nothing but take an envelope the old man would've given away. “Maybe. They said bring it back without opening it though . . .”

“Ha! You won't go far in this world with that kind of thinking.” He pauses, looking at the younger thief there by his desk, still shaking a little from being held so tightly 'round the neck. “Listen kid, I'll give ya some advice for free, and I don't do much for free. Go back to picking pockets. This kinda work ain't for you. Ya don't know it, but you're playin' a bit role and don't nobody cry when they loose a pawn to the other side's knight.”

Looking down at the envelope, he suspects Enoch is right and suddenly he wants nothing more than to be out of here, out of the Skyway, and back to running errands in the lower districts.

***

He's riding in the back of a taxi again, wearing his nicer clothes and halfway back home when his curiosity gets the better of him and he opens the envelope. Lifting back the flap he pulls out a sheath of papers on very high end paper, the House Cannith letterhead emplazoned atop it.

“Enoch, I have a favor to ask of you...”