Honor Amongst Thieves

Chapter 3– Silent Night, Silent Wishes

“And yet another night falls on Tyro,” said Artemis wistfully, looking out the window into the street. Ever since this afternoon’s escapade, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of Raven, her hair, her eyes, her smile, although he had to admit, he hadn’t tried very hard to stop.
“What’s falling on the city this time? Last time a dragon fell, and the pickpocketing in the crowd that gathered was legendary,” interrupted Jerrie, coming out of the room where he and Rumple had been experimenting with the guild’s new treasure, though Artemis wondered how many tests he could have thought of, to take up 4 hours of time. Given by the slightly sweaty look of his hair, there had been a different kind of experimenting going on as well.
“Night’s falling,” repeated Artemis.
“All of it?”
“Yep.”
“Damn, we should probably find some shelter, then,” replied Jerrie with a smirk. Artemis retuned the smile slightly, then turned back to the window, knowing that somewhere, out in the darkness, was Raven, and he wished he was there.
“You ok, Arty? You seemed out of it before the job, and now you’re out of it again. Anything wrong?”
“Yeah, I guess something is, in a manner of speaking. Someone isn’t here.”
“Whoa there, do you mean that the unsatisfiable Artemis has found someone? Details, quickly!”
“Yeah, I guess I have,” said Artemis, smiling as his heart told him he had, indeed, finally found someone. “I mean, I just can’t stop thinking of Raven.” Only after he said it had he realized the double blunder he had made.
“You mean that guy from the other guild? Wow. Explains why you never seemed happy with women. Hey, I’m ok with you going that way, but really, Arty, you guys are enemies. It’d be best to put him from you mind.”
Artemis mumbled something.
“What?”
“I said, Raven isn’t a guy, alright? She was the girl we took the ring from this afternoon.”
“Oooh, ok. Hmm, nice choice.” Then the full implications slapped Jerrie in the face. “Wait, we got the description of Raven from Terni before you saw us, and he got it from you. You LIED to Old Terni?! How could you? Why would you? He’ll have your hide! He’ll have my hide for letting Raven get away! Oh, Arty, what have you done?”
“I don’t know,” sighed Artemis, exasperated. “I just couldn’t tell Terni that I let Raven get away from the job, not because I was looking for an opening in defenses, but because I kissed her. You know him, he’d never take that as an excuse. I already feel guilty, Jerrie, I don’t need you to pile more on.”
Jerrie sighed. “Yeah, you don’t, do you? If it’d been me in that room, and Rumple suddenly showed up, and I’d never seen her before, it might’ve turned out the same. But still, she’s on the other side, whoever this other side is. Considering how rarely truly important jobs like the ring one come up, and how random your encounter in the house was, you’ll probably never see her again.”
“I know that Jerrie, don’t think I’m that naïve. Besides, she was probably just toying with me to get at the necklace without a fight.”
“Yeah, that’s probably true, but then why didn’t she pull the trigger on the crossbow, it would’ve been easy, one would think.”
Artemis glanced at Jerrie, somewhat annoyed. He said in a cool voice, “I think I’m going to head up to the roof, start planning my next side job.” With that Artemis raised himself to his feet and walked out of the room, his body showing mixtures of anger, pain, confusion, and sadness all at once. Just as he left Rumple came into the room, yawning and readjusting her clothes. Her hair was a mess.
“What’s wrong with Arty? We just pulled one helluva job.”
“Remember Raven? The guy we’re looking out for? He is in fact a she, the same she we got the ring from this afternoon, and Arty, poor guy, fell for her on the job he pulled the other night.”
“Nah, he couldn’t have!” At her lover’s nod of confirmation, Rumple looked at the door Artemis had been exiting as she had come in. “Artemis, what have you done? Oh Goddess, no one deserves that.”


Wow, I’ve NEVER seen Lanthander that mad before. Raven had retreated to the rooftop of their guild to escape the rage of the guildmaster. When he had heard that she had failed in her mission to bring her the ring, he had gone ballistic. It was just a ring. Sure, it had a little magic, it could have been helpful, but overall, it wasn’t much. I’ve seen others fumble much bigger jobs and get off far easier. It must be stress from coming here. After all, since we were forced out of Nycris rather quickly, he’s had to come up with a new town, a new guild hall, and new equipment from almost nothing. Still, there’s something different about him , and it was there before the move, back in Nycris. Oh, hush Raven, you’re just giving into Thieve’s Paranoia. What would Artemis say? Where is Artemis?...

Her thought line having made its 180 degree turn, she stared off into the darkness of the rooftops, the canopy of the jungle that was the city, and sighed. Yes, where is Artemis?

“Heya Raven!”
Raven started so badly she almost fell off the roof.
“Whoa, I’ve never been able to sneak up on you before. I must be one of the best sneakers in the guild now!”
“Don’t let yourself get a swollen head, Hadren,” she replied, with half of a grin on her face. “I’m very distracted at the moment.”
“Ah, deep thought for the deep night. How…cliché.” With this last part he dropped himself down on the roof beside her. Raven turned to look at the young, handsome lad that had black hair and a bright smile and rolled her eyes. Hadren was easily the oldest apprentice in the guild, for, although he was sixteen, he had joined the guild when they had arrived here, and had not crossed over from Nycris. The only reason they had let him in so old was that he showed a good deal of natural thief talent, if he could ever keep his mouth shut, and that frankly no one had the heart to turn him away. He might still have been able to make it to full-fledged thief by now, with his talent, if he didn’t keep slipping away to his home on the outskirts of the city to visit his family and his new girlfriend.
Relationships. All they do is complicate a simple job. Raven smiled sardonically at herself. Guess I should practice what I preach.
“So I came up here to talk to you, pretty much as an excuse to not have to talk to the tornado that is Lanthander right now, but it looks like you’ve got your own troubles. Any way I can help?”
“Probably not. Course, you’ve got one up on me in terms of relationships, so maybe.”
“No way, Raven, Mistress of both Nose and Grindstone, has a boyfriend?”
Raven sighed. “I don’t know what I have.”
“Ah, it’s like that.”
“You know what I’m talking about?”
“Of course I do. Back home I’m the go-to guy for relationship troubles. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard some variation of any relationship trouble there is possible to have,” he said, mock-proudly. “Now then, to the task at hand, as you say whenever you try to shove some info through my skull. Do you love him?”
“WHAT?”
“I said, do you love him? It’s a pretty essential question when it comes to relationships. You’d be surprised how often people say no. Now then, answer?”
Raven thought, and realized how stupid a way that was to answer the question and felt. She truly inspected her emotional self, which had been fairly constricted over a lot of her life, to help her with her job, and was surprised at what she found.
“Yes. I must be crazy, but yes, I do love him.”
“Why is that crazy?”
Raven sighed again, letting her head rest on her fingertips. She mumbled loud enough for him to hear, “Because I only met him last night, and have talked to him for a total of about five minutes. Ow!” she said, startled more than hurt at the light smack he had given her arm.
“Silly Raven! Five minutes is an eternity when finding love. That’s the way it works. It compresses a whole bunch of time into a few seconds, so that the strongest connection possible in this world can form quickly. Unfortunately, it takes the compressed time from the rest of time spent with that person, which is why, when you’re with them, time seems to move too quickly.”
Raven stared at him, then burst out laughing.
“What?” he injected into the space taken up with her laughing. “I’ve thought over this long and hard, and this is the best explanation I can come up with.”
“Ahhh, I wasn’t laughing at you, Hadren. I was laughing because it makes perfect sense.”
“Of course it does. I’m a genius.”
This only made Raven laugh again, and Hadren joined in. Eventually they got themselves back under control, and Hadren resumed his questioning.
“Now then, does he love you?”
“I don’t know, I think so, but we haven’t talked enough for me to know.”
“What does your heart think?”
“That he does.”
“In that case, we work off that assumption. Now then, you love him, and he loves you. Therefore, there is another obstruction, something keeping you from seeing each other, am I correct?” Raven nodded, and he continued. “Physical or otherwise?”
“Both.” At this, Hadren’s eyebrows arched. “Physical, in the fact that I don’t know where he is, or where he lives at all, for that matter. Otherwise, in the fact that…” Raven hesitated for a split second before resuming, “if he knew I were a thief, he’d have nothing to do with me.”
Hadren eyed her curiously. “Work and lack of info, eh? Two tricky obstacles alone, but together…wow.”
Raven sighed. “Yeah, I know, that’s why I came up here to think.”
Hadren concentrated, then sighed a little as well. “I don’t know what to tell you, Raven. I can help on the lack of info, though. If a guy’s met you and fallen in love with you, he’s bound to tell someone, it’s the way of things, especially with someone as pretty as you.” Raven blushed and was about to remind him he had a girlfriend already when he threw his arms up. “Hey, purely objective statement. I have some contacts outside the guild, friends of mine, some in the outskirts, some in the center of Tyro. I’ll tip them off to keep an ear open for anyone describing you with a bit of love thrown in. It’s still too general though. Do you have anything else you know about this man?”
“His first name is Artemis,” she told him, hopefully.
“Artemis? Good. Not the least common name by a long shot, but it’ll help. I’ll get the word out. As far as the job thing goes, I can’t help you, I’m sorry. But if this IS true love, I doubt Salion up there with his dove chariot will let it slip away. He dispenses it rarely enough, you know,” Hadren finished with a smile. “Now, come on, I think what you need is a friendly game of Queen’s Knife, or whatever you call it with Trien and the gang. You know, there’s a game like that here, called King’s Cup, maybe it comes from before Nycris and Tyro had that war…”

Raven let her attention wander away from Hadren as she followed him back towards the roof entrance. Yes, you’d BETTER let this thing work, Salion, or I’m personally coming after you, don’t think I won’t! Oh well, he probably can’t hear me, doves are noisier than people think. Still, I wish I could see Artemis again. Suddenly a small fleck of light caught her vision and then was gone. Hadren turned around.
“See something?”
“Yeah, a very small flash of light.”
“Must have been a lightbug, we get them here. You get them back in Nycris?”
“Yeah, a few.” Must have been a lightbug. Still, she couldn’t help but glance in the direction she had seen it one last time before going through the hatch, and couldn’t help but feel that it was somehow a sign from Salion that Artemis was thinking of her. And she smiled.


Artemis always enjoyed the cool darkness of night, compared to the hot, oppressive loudness of day. At night all the colors were muted, the sounds were unobtrusive, even nonexistent, and it was a perfect time to relax.

Which is why he was mad at himself for not relaxing.

Just give her up, idiot. You’ve had fancies before, and you gave them up easily enough.
Yeah, but this is different! he replied to his own argument.
How? She’s just a woman.
No, she’s more than that, and you know it. Before, it was purely a physical reaction, easily identifiable as a physical reaction. With her, though, it’s everything. Heart, soul, body…everything. Except the stupid brain, curse you!
There’s no way it can be love. You’ve talked to her once, seen her twice. It doesn’t work like that.
“But why can’t it?” Artemis asked aloud, softly, to the night.
“You should not talk to yourself.”
If it had been any other voice, Artemis would have jumped. Instead he just said “Greetings, Rane.”
“Greetings.”
Rane had sat down beside him completely unnoticed. That was what Rane did. He was the guild’s master of stealth. At six foot five, 255 pounds, with a muscular build and that large, brown mustace he insisted on cultivating, it was hard to believe, but a younger Artemis had once bet Rumple 20 coins that Rane could not walk across a room covered in broken bottles without making a sound. The poorer but more respectful Artemis sat at Rane’s side now.
“How badly does it hurt?”
“You’ve talked to Jerrie?”
“Yes.”
“Like I’ve been split in half, and the two halves are making war on each other, complete with fire arrows and lances.”
“That is bad.”
“Yep.”
“Can I help?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Want a mug of ale from Adrian’s?”
“Yeah, I think I could do with one right now.”
“I’ll buy.”
“Thanks.”
It is sad that few women seem to be able to comprehend when two men talk, thought Artemis. To them, probably even to Raven, that talk would seem cold, heartless, and completely unhelpful. Artemis sighed as he headed back towards the hatch that lead back into the guild, feeling much better, as it seemed that Rane had a firm idea of what Artemis was going through, and was there to support him totally. It didn’t solve the problem, but it helped with the pain, at least for the moment.
“Oh, and Artemis?”
“Yes?”
“You should put some darkpowder on the hilt of your sword. It’s probably reflecting moonlight in all directions.”
“Hmm, true. Thanks, Rane,” said Artemis, climbing into the hatch and closing it behind him.

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A/N: Glad to see people enjoying the tale. Post any thoughts and comments you may have, or email them at Foeofthelance@yahoo.com