There was a half moon high in the heavens that night which dispensed just enough light to see – and be seen – in the streets of Eskemar that were lacking lamplight. Pros and cons, as always, thought Terchin.

  The House of the Paper Traders occupied a corner lot the size of half a city block; it was a stately three-story building with bays delineated by broad arches on the two sides that faced the streets, capped by a hipped roof clad in clay tile, devoid of dormer windows. No access from the roof, then. The windows fitted under the arches on the first floor were set behind wrought iron bars, while the upper windows were all shrouded at night (and often during summer days) by louvered shutters latched from the inside. No light emanated from any of the windows, giving a thoroughly deserted aspect to the edifice – that may or may not prove truthful. The exposed corner of the building featured a projecting turret on the second floor with an incongruously detailed oriel window that provided an excellent view of the intersection, and this turret was supported by a caryatid that was carved with a rather impassive expression on its face. Terchin suspected the caryatid was imbued with some kind of power to surveil the vicinity and perhaps even serve as a scrying device for a remote observer, but of this he could not be sure. In any event, just in case they would not be approaching within line of sight of those stony eyes.

  In the middle of the main fa?ade an ornate escutcheon - the only other splash of architectural fancy - was engraved with the formal title of the place, which was “Asset Exchange of Eskemar”, a name only used by those who had dealings there and steadfastly disregarded by the majority of the populace. Below it was a short but formal set of stairs leading to the main entrance, and a more-or-less alert guard stood in the recessed doorway, partially supported by his jagged poleaxe. No one else could be seen anywhere in the vicinity.

  Naturally, Terchin had carefully observed the establishment the entire day before, as he did so sporting the guise of a fishmonger who trundled a cart of mussels up and down the street, with the occasional half-hearted attempt to hawk his wares.

  Kesset had advised sneaking up on and then knocking out the guard and following this up with a quick frontal strike whose daring and directness would enable them to be in and out before any effective resistance could be mounted, but Terchin had ruled this out. Another strategy they discussed would be for one of them to create a suitably engrossing diversion, and in the ensuing chaos gain entry and slip in unnoticed, but Terchin ultimately turned this alternative down for the same reason: he wanted to, if at all possible, not only get in and out without being detected, but also to accomplish the intended theft without anyone realizing anything was missing – at least for quite a while, and thereby minimize the chances of retaliation to him, or more importantly, to his daughter and son-in-law. In short, he aimed to achieve total stealth, from the commencement to the conclusion of the operation, extending even to the aftermath – the true gold standard of burglary. Not easy, certainly. But worth a try.

  After a minimal amount of hemming and hawing, Kesset had acknowledged the merits of the plan and agreed, much to Terchin’s relief. His old partner in crime was one of the few people he could not only trust in such an endeavor but could rely on for sufficient skill as well. And it wasn’t coin or the prospect of loot that was motivating him, it was only friendship…and admittedly maybe the yearning for some excitement. Having Kesset’s support, therefore, not only increased his odds of success but buoyed his spirits immensely.

  Terchin shook his head one last time before committing to his course of action; all this risk – not for flawless jewels, or an enchanted artifact or sacred idol, but for a few sheets of paper! He dimly sensed that somehow in the last few years his world had changed without him realizing it.

  But enough of that – total attention was required for the task at hand. With a curt nod to his comrade, Terchin sidled along the edge of the street on the side of the Exchange, keeping to the shadows that clung like leeches to the facades, until he got to the alley that allowed access to the side of the building, where he and Kesset turned. If they kept going, he knew there would be a service entrance and a small courtyard in the back, surrounded by a wall of moderate height with a gate. But he also knew that the rear entrance would certainly be the most difficult to breach unseen and wasn’t even considered as an option.

  After carefully walking about a dozen paces, they stopped and Kesset crouched down on the cobblestones. Both of them quietly rifled through the packs they carried with them. Terchin licked a finger and tested the air one last time (it was still), then retrieved a small glass bottle. It was taken from his dwindling stock of helpful magical accessories he had amassed years ago and contained a restless greenish liquid that seemed to squirm within. He broke its wax seal and imbibed the liquid in one gulp, making a brief frown at the horrid taste.

  After a few moments his form began to shift, his edges blurred and billowed, and as details began to melt away he took on a transparent quality. In another few moments, the spot where Terchin had stood was now occupied by a small cloud of gas, barely discernible even to Kesset’s keen eyes, and only because he had known where to look.

  As Terchin the Gas Cloud began to sink to the ground, Kesset brandished the bellows he had brought with him (that he had “borrowed” from a smithy a street over from his home) and began to vigorously work them, sending jets of air directed upward from just above the street. These puffs of air bore Terchin aloft, and he began to rise steadily higher and higher, Kesset standing up again as he did so, continuing to squeeze the bellows as quickly as he could fill them with air. In less than a minute, Terchin had risen to the level of the window directly above.

  In his gaseous form he was easily able to penetrate the gaps between the slats of the shutters and the casement windows - cracked open slightly for ventilation – and in no time he was inside. There, he patiently waited several minutes for the effect of the potion to wear off, resuming his normal shape in a crouching position in one corner of the room, which proved to be a small office. As anticipated, the office was vacant, and its door was shut, so Terchin stood up and opened the casement window all the way inward and unlatched the shutters, gently pushing them open. He reached into his pack again and took out a rope that he draped over the stone muntin between the pair of windows and tied the ends of the rope together to form a continuous loop. He threw it to Kesset below, who now used it to scale up the side of the building and heave himself over the sill into the room with him. Kesset pulled the shutters in behind him. They looked at each other and grinned. So far, so good.

  Every sense alert, his skin tingling as if it had just been frosted with pixie dust, Terchin listened at the door while Kesset lit a small hooded lantern they could discretely use to aid them in navigating the dark interior. When he was ready Terchin opened the office door and peered out of it, seeing what appeared to be a long corridor lined with many similar doors, only a pale glow from a window at the far end giving any ambient illumination. On the doors nearest to him, he could see placards upon which were painted the names of various trading houses, the most prosperous merchants of the city, and market administrators.

  The second floor was reserved as office space for various trading entities, so they could conduct their mercantile affairs in private and have ready access to the activities of the Exchange below. From what he could gather from casual conversation and see through the diamond-paned windows, Terchin had learned that the first floor was mostly open, with a large trading pit at one end, and on the other a bullpen consisting of lines of desks for various scribes and clerks, who recorded transactions, deeds, inventories, forecasts, updated prices, and drafted contracts. Below that floor was the undercroft. But rather than be used for storage, during the day it was occupied by runners and messengers who scurried to and from the docks, moneylenders, and the warehouses in a frantic effort to keep traders up to date on the state of the market and compile running lists of information that could be deemed useful for investors. During the day it was as noisy and chaotic as it was still and quiet during the night. There was no way the records were kept in a place that not only was continuously damp but was accessible to so many people of low status throughout the trading sessions. That left the third floor.

  Terchin hadn’t been able to find out anything about the third floor. Which obviously meant it held something of import. So, that was their destination, and they were already halfway there.

  After cautiously making their way to the far end of the hall they discovered a marble stairway that went down and a timber one, somewhat narrower, that went up. To Terchin’s eye, the joinery looked done in a way that allowed quick disassembly – or maybe even collapse if the correct pins or dowels were removed. Wary of a trap, he studied the framing he could see, motioning for Kesset to shine the lantern back and forth over its exposed length. Finding nothing suspicious, Terchin lead the way up the stairs, which felt solid and emitted not a sound. As they climbed to the third floor, Terchin noticed it went higher than he had thought was the height of the second story – perhaps there was an interstitial space? He filed that notion away; maybe if they didn’t find what they were seeking he might resort to prying up floorboards, though that would be a last resort, an act of desperation. Doubtless, this edifice contained some precious confidential matters, but what he was looking for was hardly privileged information or trade secrets. He doubted any serious delving would be required, which was just as well as he wanted to leave no trace of their passing.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  At the top of the stairs was a stout door of oak, with a double lock of sophisticated workmanship. Finally, a bit of a challenge! Kesset tugged at his elbow. Terchin nodded his assent and stepped back a step on the landing while Kesset drew forth his set of lock picks and expertly selected two and inserted the fine instruments into the keyholes without making a sound. Then the clicking and sliding of small metal parts could be heard as Kesset manipulated them this way and that, like a surgeon conducting a major surgery.

  After several moments an audible “clack” produced by his efforts coincided with the bolts set in the jamb and floor sliding away and retracting into their recesses, and Kesset wrenched the door handle down and opened the door without resistance. Kesset wore an expression of triumph, but he bowed in a parody of courtly grace and extended his away over the threshold. “After you, milord,” he said in a low but jocular voice.

  This progress did not allay all of Terchin’s concerns, and he duly felt lightly about the lintel and jamb of the door to check for traps. Finding none, he ventured through the doorway. They found themselves in a short corridor with walls of wooden paneling that offered both sharp right and left turns. Shrugging, Terchin took the lantern from Kesset and picked left, because – why not? He kept the lantern low, at the level of his knees out of habit, knowing there was less chance of people outside detecting light coming over the level of windowsills if he did so.

  The left turn was followed by a right, then a non-descript door, then another corridor, and another right. Then more doors came into view. Terchin selected the first one and they continued.

  After a quarter of an hour had passed a suspicion began to occur to Terchin that something was not right in this portion of the building. Why were all these apartments so featureless? What was their purpose? For a building that served the practical pursuits of business, this was an odd use of space! And when a half-hour had elapsed that suspicion had curdled into a sense of dread. The Exchange did not have that big of a footprint; they should have covered almost its entire area by now, even at their methodical pace. Was this some kind of labyrinth, intended to frustrate and confuse intruders? Still, Terchin had been in one or two mazes over the years and knew if he kept his head and persevered, maintaining caution, they would win out eventually. The proper mindset coupled with his finely developed sense of spatial direction and memory for just these sorts of circumstances gave him an immense advantage. So they pressed on.

  After another quarter of an hour Terchin stopped and looked sharply at Kesset. “We just made three consecutive right turns, yes?” he said quietly. His companion nodded gravely, clearly also sensing something was amiss.

  “Then if I open this door here,” Terchin continued, gesturing with the lantern, “it should show that small square room we were in before.” He tried the door and it opened smoothly to reveal – a gently curving corridor. He let out a long hiss between his teeth while Kesset muttered an expletive.

  “It’s changing on us somehow,” Terchin declared. “As soon as an area we pass through leaves our line of sight, the walls and doors seem to be rearranging themselves.”

  “How? Any mechanism so elaborate would at least make a lot of noise - unless they were magically silenced somehow.”

  Thinking quickly, Terchin replied, “Right, but that would silence us as well if we were in the area of effect. But I believe that there IS some magic going on here. And until we can grapple with it we won’t make any further headway.”

  Putting the lantern down on the floor, Terchin opened his pack and took out a slender cylinder of tarnished silver. He twisted one end of it until it came off, showing it to be the case for a scroll. He extracted the paper from its case and unrolled it directly in the lantern’s beam. Kesset caught a glimpse of strange blocky characters arranged vertically on the creamy sheet of parchment.

  Terchin began reading aloud from the scroll, a strange chant that had a loping cadence. As he read, the scroll began to emit its own argent radiance, becoming bright and brighter until it outshone the lantern. As the last of the eldritch words were uttered several things happened at once:

  First, the characters on the scroll melted away, leaving only a blank leaf of paper behind. Second, the glow immediately vanished. And third, all the walls around them totally faded from view. This last occurrence was not immediately apparent, as their eyes took a while to readjust to the resumption of the ambient darkness. Eventually, however, they were able to discern that they now occupied a large, empty space.

  “Not the first time a ‘dispel magic’ scroll proved vital in pulling off a job, eh?” Terchin said wryly.

  “Fight fire with fire, I always say!” Kesset responded, “and not the first time I wished I had taken the effort to learn to read any of them magical languages, either. What next?”

  Terchin had already located the original door at the top of the stairs and reasoned that going in the opposite direction was the most prudent course of action. In just under a minute they saw dim rows of small compartments stacked floor to ceiling that filled the entire length of the rear exterior wall. They were filled with stacks of papers, many with wax bullae of varying colors hanging from them. Each compartment was labeled with a letter above it and a numeral to one side. A grid system for efficiently storing and retrieving files, clearly.

  Terchin had seen trading houses use similar systems before, so he was not mystified. After a modest amount of searching, he found the documents he was looking for, filed under his son-in-law’s name. He stuffed them into his pack. Let the jackals try to hold Anniock to their predatory schemes now! Scanning the array of documents, he had to stifle the urge to cast the lantern into their midst and ignite them all in a glorious pillar of fire. Only his original goal of stealth restrained him.

  “Got them?” Kesset asked. Terchin nodded. “Then what are we waiting for? We’ve tarried too long as it is, let’s be off!” And with that, he briskly set off back across the now-cavernous chamber to the door at the stairs. Terchin belatedly followed, lagging behind a bit as he turned thoughts over in his mind.

  As Kesset got within several strides of the door he suddenly pitched forward and disappeared as he somehow passed directly through the floor. Terchin immediately halted in amazement as he heard a wet crunching noise, then noticed the area of floor directly in front of the exit, roughly the size of a wagon, shimmered and dissolved, revealing a shallow pit. A secondary illusion?

  He cautiously approached the edge of the pit and looked into it, dreading the worst.

  Terchin stared down in total shock. Kesset lay face down in a shallow pit lined with sharp spikes as long as a forearm. One protruded from the left side of his back, another from his right thigh, and a third from the back of his skull. A faint gurgling sound could be heard - some involuntary death rattle mixed with weak spasms of gushing blood that formed a slowly growing pool at the floor of the pit. Then absolute silence reigned.

  So the floor was an illusion initially possessing substance that held them up as they passed over it the first time on the way in? And why wasn’t it dispelled by his scroll – was that because they were far enough away that this illusion was outside the area of effect? Or was it because the scroll only was capable of dispelling one enchantment? If such was the case, what had dispelled it now? What was the trigger? Were entrants into the room required to recite a magic password as they left? When he removed the documents did he somehow inadvertently prime the trap, causing the support to vanish but the camouflage of the fake floor to remain for intruders? Only the one who devised this insidious arrangement knew for sure.

  One thing was clear: this was the work of a powerful illusionist. And to have any hope of determining who this spell caster was and exactly HOW powerful, he had to enlist the aid of a specialist in magic. But first things first. There were decisions to make.

  He made them quickly. It pained him greatly, but he left Kesset’s body as it fell. Attempting to retrieve the remains would be foolhardy. If anything, leaving it behind – and undisturbed - might throw people off Terchin’s trail, leading them to falsely believe that there was only one intruder and that he had got what was coming to him without managing to steal anything. Terchin knew Kesset would understand this tactic. Nonetheless, it still hurt. His comrade deserved better.

  Now that the pit was revealed, it was a simple matter to hop over one corner of it onto the threshold of the door and take the stairs back down. Making his way back to the second-floor office that he had used to gain entry into the building, Terchin used the rope to lower himself out of the window (closing it as much as he was able as he did so) back down into the alley, whereupon he undid the knot that held the loop together and pulled the rope down and quickly coiled it and stuffed it back into his pack. As far as he could tell, the escapade had still not attracted any attention. Standing up, Terchin set his mouth grimly and made his way into the night, successful in achieving his goal and making good his escape, but deeply unhappy.

  He felt like he was slowly but surely running out of friends. It was a feeling he had experienced before, though not in quite some time. There were still one or two left, however. He would no doubt have need of them in the days to come.