The map moved several times that morning, first to the library, then back to the exercise hall, and then finally finding a temporary home on the dining room table. It seemed like quite an important object suddenly, being the source of the first real revelation we'd had concerning these thefts, and I wanted to keep it somewhere that I could see it . . . perhaps stare at it long enough for another insight to happen along.

After getting far less sleep than was healthy, I found myself once again looking at the map, eyes lingering over the tented bits of colored paper, each bearing hand-written details of what it was meant to represent.

I heard the clack of a cup hitting a saucer and I looked up. I saw Cyrus, and realized that he'd seated himself at the table without me noticing. It probably hadn't been hard – I was sleep deprived, I was sneezing miserably, and I had the beginnings of a truly alarming cough. That, and I hadn't had nearly enough tea yet.

“Well Cyrus, what do you figure?” I asked, reaching for my own cup and bringing it to my lips. It was empty, I remembered, like it had been the last two times I'd performed that gesture. I pretended to drain my cup with a loud sip so that I wouldn't look stupid, putting it back down carefully on the saucer.

“Figure, Milord? Well, the first thing we should probably do is either get you back into bed for a few more hours or get some more tea in you, as you appear to believe yourself capable of drinking air,” he smirked. “That can't be a good sign.”

“Oh hush. You've never been distracted, I suppose? No, what I mean is, what is our plan for this evening? We've got a few options open to us, now that we have some idea regarding what will happen next. What other things do we need to consider?”

“Well Milord, the attempt may happen tonight, but then it may happen tomorrow night or the evening after as well. I'm assuming you'll be out there again, like last night?”

“Ye-aaablchoo!” I sneezed, practically hitting myself in the face with the napkin I held. I sniffed. “Yes, I will . . . provided I can get some herbs for this chill I've got. Wouldn't exactly be a good thing if I sneezed and got noticed by Blackstaag's knights. Again. I'm also thinking that a certain other Lord wishes to accompany me tonight. We'll split up to cover more ground, monitor things from both sides. Speaking of, how are you at scuttling from rooftop to rooftop?”

“Dreadful,” Cyrus admitted, making a face. “I think it would be very wise if I were to find some other way to be helpful.”

He was honest, though sometimes his own modesty about such matters cast doubt on the validity of his admissions. I'd once asked him if he knew how to play roc'la, and he'd responded by indicating that he could play “tolerably well”. It wasn't until later that I learned he occasionally played in tournaments down at the great library, and had a fearsome reputation among some of the scholars who had all but made a career of the pastime.

Still, if he used the word “dreadful” to describe his skulking ability, I'd do well to believe it. I had no doubt he'd attempt a spot of climbing if I asked him to, but his choice of words clearly indicated he thought the idea ill-advised.

“Well, there's always holding down the keep, watching over the rest of the things in the vault. We're still guessing at this point, and those other Lords haven't just gone away just because I've been stolen from - we're probably just as likely to be broken into tonight as we were any other night this week. There's lots of things to keep busy with, though it won't be as glamorous as . . . well . . .”

“Standing in the rain?” Cyrus said with mock helpfulness.

“Is it still raining? Gods, I thought it'd be done by now. On top of everything else I've-”

The door to the kitchen swung open, and Talia emerged wearing a lavender dress and a look of serene indifference, walking up to the table where Cyrus and I were sitting.

“Talia? Could you please ask Mosond if he could perhaps brew some more . . . oh!” I said awkwardly, watching as she poured me a fresh cup of pungent tea from the ornate kettle she was carrying. “Uh . . . thank you, Talia.”

She smiled another of her patient and ingratiating smiles at me, the only kind I'd been seeing since our talk.

I cleared my throat a little.

“You're looking wonderful today, Talia. Is that . . . dress new?” I asked, distressed at how lame my words sounded to my own ears even as I spoke them.

She beamed at me as she finished pouring, her smile doubling in intensity.

“Would Milord like anything else?” she said sweetly, her eyes wandering over the contents of the table and eventually finding the cup in front of Cyrus.

“I'm . . . uh, no thank you Talia. Though . . . thank you for the tea. It's funny, I'd just been about to ask you to-”

“Milord,” she said, bobbing her head respectfully before turning to Cyrus. “Captain? More tea?”

“No thank you, Talia.”

“Well if either of you should need anything, please do let me know. Mosond is preparing eggs this morning, though he's calling it something foreign-sounding and dreadfully hard to remember.” Talia gave the room a smile and a small curtsey before exiting briskly.

Cyrus caught my eye as she was leaving and mouthed the word “idiot” at me. I sighed.

“Okay, so let's look at some of the tactical considerations,” I said, hurriedly shifting attention back to the task at hand. I didn't know how long this new behavior of Talia's was going to last, but I already found myself looking forward to a day where everything had returned to normal. “Let's say you've received word that several of your knights have spotted me skulking about. You're quite certain that I intend to rob you. What do you do?”

“That depends on what you're asking, exactly. Are you wanting to know what someone sane and reasonable would do, or what Blackstaag would do?”

“Well, that doesn't exactly sound promising.”

“Milord, in Garmuth things are done a bit differently. Same style of government, more or less, but the frequency of 'accidents' is at least tenfold that of what happens in Harael. Mostly it's because Lords there don't simply rob from each other and then return the items via some small ceremony to impress the other Lords.”

“No? What happens?”

“Well, usually when something gets stolen it's made obvious who did it, and it's kept as a trophy until the original Lord manages to steal it back. It's pretty nasty sometimes too – oft times items are stolen just so that their owner will get killed attempting to recover them.”

“Ugh. And how well has he adapted to Haraelian society?” I asked.

“Well enough, Milord. Blackstaag's got a temper, and while it appears that he's familiar with our rules and tends to abide by them, he will sometimes react in a manner consistent with a Garmuth Lord and claim ignorance to our ways when it's to his advantage to do so. And, of course, he sneers at the 'gentle and effeminate' way that Haraelian Lords do things.” Cyrus shrugged. “Maybe he's just bitter because the Prince has reduced the size of his holdings every year for the past five.”

“Yeah, maybe he's not actually adapting all that well. What do you think he might do, considering?”

“Well there's two possibilities, really. He could increase security and try to thwart the robbery attempt, or he could resort to a more traditionally Garmuthian approach and go on the offensive.”

I frowned. “Steal from me before he gets stolen from, you mean?”

“Not really. Once a Lord in Garmuth suspects he's targeted for a theft it's considered cowardly for them to prevent it, or make it more difficult to be stolen from. Some Lords make it easier in fact, as if daring you to take something so that they might steal the item back from you to prove that they're better, or so that the thief might be cut down while attempting to abscond with it. 'Offensive' refers more to the presence and temperament of his knights, who may have been given additional instructions regarding what to do if you're seen, or where to look for you.”

“Oh bliss,” I snorted unhappily, closing my eyes. “So, if this had been a Haraelian Lord, we might have been in better shape because they'd likely increase their security to keep me out, but in this case I've actually made it easier for whoever's trying to steal stuff?”

“I believe so, Milord. It may not happen exactly like that, but it could.”

“So, if I'm also understanding things correctly, me leaping about Blackstaag's territory is an activity that is a little more dangerous than it was yesterday. Joy.”

“Quite, Milord. You may also wish to let Lord . . . uh,” Cyrus hastily looked about, realizing he'd been about to call Theo by name, “let that certain other Lord know about the possibility as well.”

“I'll do that, yes. By the by, what time would you guess it to be?”

“I'd place it just after ten bells.”

“Damn, we have a meeting . . . best not to keep that 'other Lord' waiting,” I said, standing up from the table. “I've got to brush up on my climbing as well, make sure that I'm not making mistakes and falling all over myself again. I have a feeling that slipping up this evening might be distinctly more fatal than I'd like. Meet you down there?”

“Milord, I'm afraid there's someone I need to meet with shortly. Most of what you'll want to talk about is regarding what you'll be doing tonight, and if I'm staying at the keep and watching over things it probably won't matter if I'm not there. I may need to talk to you later this afternoon though, depending on what I've learned.”

“Oh?” I said, intrigued. “Who are you meeting up with?”

Cyrus looked a little troubled for a moment, and then performed a slight shrug with his shoulders, probably unaware that he'd even done so. “A fellow named Randav, the head of Lord Blackstaag's security detail.”

I sat back down after a few seconds.

“You're meeting with the Knight-Captain of a Lord who has probably told his knights to kill me on sight?” I asked, bewildered. “Have you been brushing your teeth too hard, Captain? Perhaps driven one or two of them up into your brain?”

“It's actually done quite regularly, Milord - talking to other Knight-Captains, settling disputes between knights of different houses without bothering Lords with the details. Sometimes it can be used for other things, returning property covertly, whatnot. I've requested a meeting with Randav this morning, and he's agreed to attend.”

“And you'll be discussing what, exactly?” I said, trying very hard not to sound as alarmed as I felt.

“I thought I might hint a few things regarding what is going on,” he said, looking pensive. “It's hard to explain, Milord, and I don't know exactly what the conversation will be like until I get there. I was going to politely suggest that he double the security at his Lord's vault this evening, and perhaps the next two as well. It's an uncommon sort of thing to bring up at a meeting like this, and I think it might have the desired effect.”

“Which is?”

“Randav probably suspects much as his Lord does, that you're attempting to steal from them. If I request a meeting in private, and gently ask him to increase the security around his Lord's vault, well . . . that's not exactly consistent with the idea that you wish to rob him. Best case, he actually does suggest to Lord Blackstaag that security be increased, but at bare minimum it should at least plant the seed of doubt that you're responsible, should something actually be stolen tonight.”

I pondered that, nodding a little.

“Right, I suppose that wouldn't be a bad sort of idea, all things considered. Cyrus, these meetings you mentioned – do the other Lords know about them?”

“Not many do, Milord.”

“I see. And if I requested that you inform me of the contents of your conversation with these other Captains?”

“I'm afraid I'd have to refuse, Milord,” Cyrus said, setting his jaw the tiniest bit. “That, or I would have to stop attending meetings such as these entirely.”

I pondered how I felt about this unexpected development as I looked across the table at him. Cyrus was hard-working, forthright, and about as loyal as anyone could expect another person to be.

There had been moments, some of them as recent as half a year ago, where the idea of somehow not possessing every single scrap of information regarding what went on around me would have been maddening. I hated not being in control of things, and nothing was more out of your control than things you weren't even aware of in the first place. The very possibility of someone sharing information that I would prefer be kept secret . . . did I wish to allow that?

Trust is an unusually complicated thing sometimes.

“Alright Captain,” I said, nodding slowly. “I believe that you have my best interests at heart when conducting yourself. You need not inform me of such things, unless you yourself consider it prudent to do so, or find that a conflict of interest is imminent.”

“Thank you, Milord,” he said simply, nodding to me as we both stood up from the table. “As I said, if I find out anything of import I shall let you know before you've left.”

I briefly stopped by the kitchen and arranged for breakfast to be delayed and sent down to me via the kitchen's dumb-waiter. Then I headed to the stairwell that led to the booby-trapped hallway of my exercise room, attempting to imagine meetings between Knight-Captains and what sort of things they might discuss. I suppose that on some level I knew that things like that went on . . . not everything I'd ever stolen had been returned to their respective Lords through embarrassing public spectacle. A couple of times I'd done it simply to let a certain Lord know that I could, and had arranged to have it returned to them anonymously. I'd just always assumed that Cyrus knew a guy who knew a guy, something like that.

Theo was waiting for me, stretching his torso and wearing a black climbing outfit. He also wore an expression of muted anxiety, and held himself awkwardly – acrobatic feats not directly related to swinging a sword about were not exactly Theo's strong point. There was no shame in that, as I'd often told him, but it didn't seem to keep him from acting pensive when about to begin.

“Done stretching? How about we fence a little to get the blood pumping first? You mentioned something about showing me how to time a beat-parry with an off-hand attack?”

His stretching stopped, and his expression changed to one of good cheer and excitement.

“I did. Let me get my foil, just one sec,” he smiled, walking over to the bag he'd brought with him. “I'll run you through the basics when you're stretching, and then we can try a few passes in tandem when you're ready. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” I smiled back.

It seemed silly to me that Theo became so uncomfortable at times like these, doing something physical that I just happened to be better at. One day I discovered that he became much more relaxed receiving instruction after he'd just given instruction himself. Maybe he just needed to be reminded of his prowess as a swordsman before doing something that makes him feel inferior in some way. Whenever seeing him looking uncomfortable or anxious about something I was going to show him, I would always suggest a bit of fencing first. The change in his attitude is miraculous, and as far as I can tell he doesn't even notice when it happens.

Am I sneaky, or what?

We spent about an hour working up a sweat with the blunted foils (Theo showing me a few new tricks, as always) and followed it with twenty minutes or so of live blade practice, ending with a good half-dozen freestyle dueling bouts with protective gear and various combinations of weapons in the main and off hand. In the entire time that we've been doing it, I've only ever managed four touches on Theo during these mock duels, and two of those touches were due to a sudden noise, such as Cyrus opening the exercise hall door, distracting him.

Soon we had put the foils away, and after a little preparation we found ourselves on the wall, gripping the uneven stone surface of my exercise hall in an attempt to climb from one wooden outcropping to another. We had started from a different area than was usual, and moved sideways onto the more familiar climbing spot once we'd reached the right height. Theo's improved mood resulted in some casual conversation about ten minutes or so into our climbing.

“So, Cyrus is coming by later once we're done here?”

“No,” I said, kicking my legs up enough to wind my foot around a length of rope hanging from the ceiling, grunting slightly as I pulled it closer. “He's got a few people to talk to, and he'll possibly be learning a bit more about what's going on or what we can expect later. How are you feeling, by the way? You okay with creeping around Blackstaag's property with me tonight?”

“I'll be okay. I just have a hard time when danger isn't coming at me in the form of a blade, or someone screaming my name in anger. Have I mentioned that I've got a terrible fear of falling?”

“Yes, you have. I've always found that to be a bit strange. Me? I love falling,” I said, grunting with effort once more as I grabbed the rope with my free hand and began to climb up it. “Falling is fun. I have this terrible fear of landing.”

“Heh . . . a point,” he laughed. “So what do you think it'll be like tonight, Vince? What sort of stuff will you be bringing?”

“The usual, mostly. I'm definitely bringing some tea this time though. I've also had a few lengths of knot-rope made up for you, provided that you've actually located a harness that fits you.” I pulled myself closer to the stone ledge that I'd been slowly climbing towards, about forty feet or so above the floor.

“Yup, been meaning to tell you actually. Found it just the other day, fits like a-” he began, patting his chest proudly with his hand, but twisting his grip awkwardly as he did. Cursing, he clawed both hands against the wall and managed to maintain his hold, pressing himself flat against the irregular stone surface.

I stifled a chuckle.

“-glove,” he finished, lamely. “So I should be okay. Knot-rope? Don't you use break-rope?”

“Yeah. Break-rope is quicker and more handy, but weight is a key issue. If it's built too strong, you end up suspended in the air, just hanging there. Too weak and, well-”

“Yeah, and I admit that's a fine reason to go with knot-rope in and of itself,” he grinned up at me. “I'll just have to remember not to panic if I'm using it, or let too much go at once. Do you think we can practice some repelling with knot-rope once we're done this?”

“Certainly, or we can do it later tonight perhaps. Of course, we should finish up what we're doing here first . . . I was just about to introduce you to your next lesson,” I said with a smile, climbing up further and stepping onto the ledge about five feet above his head. “Are you ready?”

“Lesson? What lesson?” he asked.

“Okay, you've been going good so far, faster than usual. I want you to stop thinking about speed for a second and climb slowly, and carefully. This lesson is called . . . wet rock.”

“What?” yelled Theo, panic in his voice.

“In case you haven't noticed, it's raining outside. And one of the key things about rain,” I said, kicking one of the water buckets perched on the ledge so that it spilled over towards the rocky surface of the wall, “is that it's wet.”

I heard some truly foul curses from below, ones that not only suggested some frighteningly improbable things about my lineage, but that also contained some equally improbable things that I was suddenly being invited to do to myself.

“Such language! Just focus, Theo. You're looking for the same sorts of things in the rock that you were before,” I said, kicking a second bucket over as I spoke, watching Theo closely as the water trickled down the side of the wall towards him. “Look for presentable rock, something to use as a handhold, and pull on it carefully while keeping a firm grip with your other hand. Same with your feet when you look down. It's slow, but that's the point. When it's wet, you don't want to rush things. That's how accidents happen.”

Theo responded with a fairly unlikely statement concerning a theoretical relationship I might have with someone's mother.

“Good,” I said as he grabbed on to a new patch of rock, testing it thoroughly before pulling himself up a half-foot or so. “Exactly like that. Concentrate on doing the same exact thing as you were doing before, only slower. Honestly, this will also probably improve how comfortable you are on dry rock as well.”

It was a few minutes of precarious effort (not to mention some completely foul accusations about my character) but eventually I saw Theo's hand appear on the top of the ledge I was perched on. His slightly ruddy, panicked, sweat-drenched face appeared over the lip a moment later, and his chest heaved with effort. Theo is not a small man, which makes things such as climbing even more of an effort for him than it is for someone like me, even with the both of us being in excellent shape.

I offered my outstretched hand with a grin. I won't even begin to tell you what he told me to do with that . . .

A few minutes later we were both sitting on the ledge, and Theo had the back of his head pressed against the wall as he breathed deeply and evenly, exertion gradually fading from his cheeks. He lazily pivoted his head to look at me.

“Asshole,” he rasped breathlessly, with the tiniest smirk.

“You did great, Theo. That was excellent. In truth, the first time my dad pulled that trick on me I didn't do nearly as well. Also, I'm glad to see that those swearing lessons are beginning to pay off,” I grinned, rising up from my crouch.

“I was halfway up the wall - I could have fallen, you jerk!” he said, swatting my shoulder gently with the back of his hand just as I was getting to my feet.

Gods know I shouldn't have done it, what with all the stress of recent days . . . but I couldn't help it. I'd been thinking of doing it ever since I'd prepared the wall that morning.

“Hey, it's no- whoa!” I cried, making as if I'd slipped. I gently rolled shoulder-first over the lip of the precipice.

“Vince!” I heard him yell.

I landed on the thick grey padded mats I'd placed on the floor earlier, making a gentle 'phwmmph' noise. Theo's panic-stricken face appearing over the edge coincided with my sudden burst of laughter.

“See?” I yelled up to him, still lying on my back and slapping the floor-colored safety mats with my hand. “Falling is great! It's the landing that you have to worry about.”

He spent a good minute reciting several of the blistering curses I'd heard earlier. I spent much of that same minute laughing up at him. Soon the curses being hurled down at me were accompanied by a good-natured smile and rueful chuckle.

(Don't feel too bad for him . . . some days it seems like I'm forever trying to get him back for the cherry custard thing he pulled when I was seventeen.)

Eventually I was able to persuade Theo to jump down onto the mats himself, explaining that I would never knowingly put him in jeopardy, assuring him that he'd been safe the entire time. I also managed to talk him out of disemboweling me by offering him breakfast, though it was nearly lunchtime.

Breakfast consisted of hen eggs, as Talia had mentioned, sent down to us after being cooked into large and impossibly thin squares, folded a half-dozen times, carefully stowed in individual steaming trays and served with about thirty different silver bowls of various toppings that could be added before folding the whole thing in half again and allowing the contents to warm. I spooned my usual five ingredients on (two kinds of mushrooms, steamed redfish, soft butter-cheese, and some yellow stuff that I don't know the name for), and Theo did likewise with his usual three.

We decided to eat at the card table, and not the shallow tables in front of the couch. Aside from the occasional sound of me sipping some hot lemon, nothing was heard but the scrape of knife against plate for a few good, long minutes.

“There's still one thing that I don't quite get in all of this, Vince,” Theo said around a mouthful of ham. “Why the dog?”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Sorry, I guess I should give you some sort of hint regarding the whereabouts of my thoughts. The dog statue you gave me, and the other two smaller items that the thief took. Why were they stolen?”

“I hadn't really thought about it, actually,” I said a moment later, putting my utensils down so that I could tent my fingers, chewing thoughtfully. “And for the record, it really looked like a wolf when I bought it. You're positive these things went missing that same night?”

“Absolutely,” he nodded.

“Well, I can't really say. Maybe they want to set you up? Leave a couple of your items lying about someplace awkward.”

“That's kind of the thing, Vince – none of those three things were marked. There's nothing that ties them to me aside from the fact that I kind of want them back. If they were to show up at the scene of one of these thefts or left as evidence in a Lord's keep somewhere, I could shrug and say 'So?', and there's nothing anyone could do. No, I've thought about it for a while, because it stuck me as quite odd . . . those three things and my sword.”

“Where were they kept, in relation to the sword?” I asked him, intrigued. “Were they nearby?”

“Not really. The brooch was in my desk drawer, the letter opener on my desk, and the statue was on the end of my bookshelf. The sword was pretty much at the opposite end of the room to all three.”

We both chewed in silence for a while.

“Then why were they stolen?” I asked.

“See?” Theo smiled. “I knew it was a good question.”

“And why just with you? With all the thefts we've heard about lately, this is the first one where other things were stolen at the same time, isn't it?”

“Uh, Vince,” Theo said, giving me a skeptical look, “what we've heard concerning these thefts is mostly rumor and speculation. Right now the streets are probably abuzz with word that my sword has been stolen. I doubt that my jade brooch with the bent filigree would be considered quite as juicy a rumor. Even with how well informed we are, something like this could easily have not made its way to our ears.”

“True. So has this happened before? One hugely important thing gets stolen, in addition to a few things of no consequence? Why? And why would it happen to you and not to me?”

“Well, did you check all of your nick-knacks in your study after the theft? Unmarked stuff, things of no relative consequence? Maybe it did happen to you, but compared with your father's journal the items stolen were so inconsequential that you didn't notice,” he said, taking another bite.

I stopped chewing.

“Theo?”

“Mmmph?” he asked.

“I hate it when you're smarter than me,” I said, wiping the corners of my mouth with my napkin and standing up from the table. “I'm going to go and check my study, see if anything small and unmarked has gone missing from there. If so, then we may have found another piece of the puzzle.”

“A piece that means what exactly?” Theo asked around another mouthful of food.

“Don't know, but that's the thing about a puzzle, Theo. Sometimes you don't even know what you're looking at until you've got enough of the pieces arranged in front of you.” I wiped my fingers with the napkin and tossed it onto my plate. “Let's meet back here two hours or so before dusk so we can prepare for tonight, make sure you're comfortable with emergency use of knot-rope. Bring everything you figure you'll need, and if you're missing anything critical I'll make sure you have it before we head out.”

“Good idea.” Theo used his own napkin in a similar fashion and regarded me from the table. “I'll do some more pondering as well, maybe grab a quick nap before coming over.”

I left Theo to finish his breakfast . . . suddenly finding myself in a great hurry to get upstairs to my study and check a few things out. It was odd how well Theo and I worked together sometimes - him seemingly able to see what I could not, and vice-versa. If I had a blind spot regarding certain matters, Theo was unusually adept at catching them and pointing them out to me.

A few moments later I was reminded that Cyrus seemed to have a knack for pointing things like that out as well, once I saw the map.

I'd noticed something different about it as I was walking past the kitchen. Moving closer, I saw that there were now some ten or twelve additional pieces of paper sitting upon it, laying flat instead of folded into tents. They were a violet color, and each square had a question-mark drawn on it.

I lifted one to see what it covered. It took a bit of studying, but eventually I determined that the paper marked the location of Thornhill Keep. Thornhill was a quiet Lord who kept to himself and ran his territory as best he could. His territory was limited to a couple of city blocks and an unremarkable keep.

After about three seconds of pondering, I realized there was something remarkable about his keep after all - it was directly in the path of several tented pieces of paper, ones that were placed to mark where a high-profile robbery had occurred. Directly in the middle, actually, as if the thief had blown right by it to get to the next target.

Quick inspections of the other pieces of paper turned up similar discoveries, one of them being a fairly prominent and well-to-do Lord whose Keep resembled a simple one-story house, but in fact contained a basement that was a veritable underground mansion of rooms and hallways.

What Cyrus was asking was obvious – why not these Lords? Why did these relentless, daring thefts target some Lords, leaving other Lords in the area unmolested?

Or had they been stolen from as well? Had these other Lords also been victimized, the items stolen from them not remarkable enough to merit gossip in the streets? I was immediately struck by the similarities between that and what Theo and I had just discussed. What was the connection? Had I stumbled upon another piece of the puzzle?

Another thing I've noticed with puzzles - when you have many pieces but none of them seem able to fit, the more pieces you end up finding, the more bewildered and frustrated you're likely to become.