Her hand slipped. Hujaghur was stretched out on the side of the glass dome two hundred feet above the ground; slipping was not an option. She had paid that damn mage Malzire more than necessary for the weirding to give her the lizard-like ability to grip onto smooth surfaces. It had got her this far, but if it wore off now, the job, and quite possibly she, would be finished. She flattened her palm and pushed it further up the curving surface, pulling herself after it. There was grip, but only just.

 

It had been a routine climb up the tower for a thief of her experience; she had scaled more challenging escarpments bordering the steppe of her homeland. The iron claws she had strapped to her boots and calloused palms had helped her grip the carved lapis slabs that formed its curved walls. The great stained-glass dome that crowned it was a different matter.

Removing the claws and boots, she wedged herself into the bronze trough that encircled the edge of the dome, which served to channel rainwater. Hujaghur opened the sheepskin-lined pouch where she kept the vial of powder that had cost her thirty gold talons. After removing the stopper, she held it long enough for the air to mingle with the sea-coloured powder, then, cupping it to her nose, inhaled the rapidly forming gas.

There was a moment of intense pain behind her eyes, followed by a fit of giggles, before she regained her senses and watched the fine ridges begin to cover her palms, fingers, and the soles of her feet and toes. Placing her hand on the glass brought a smile to her lips. It had held tightly to the surface. After securing her boots to her bag, she inched across the dome, not convinced that the leaded panes would support her weight.

 

Now, she was at the top of the dome, and the lizard-like grip was clearly beginning to loosen. But she had achieved her goal: the triangular panes that opened to vent the air inside the dome. There, directly below her, on the floor of the dome, was the unconscious form of Druna Thral.

 Lying naked in a narcotic stupor amidst the silks and pillows of a sleeping platform, the slender figure looked almost lifeless, with his usually swarthy skin unnaturally pale. Hujaghur had never seen this sorcerer but knew from descriptions that, despite his youthful appearance, he was unfathomably old. She also knew from her informer that Druna Thral slept the drugged sleep after performing his necromancies, a rest he needed to restore his body and mind because of the terrible toll of his sorcery.

Drugged he may be, but Hujaghur hadn’t survived this long by simply trusting.

She slowly unwound a dark thread from a reel, lowering it towards the skull-like head with its long, dishevelled copper-coloured hair resting on a satin pillow. When she judged that the end of the thread was just above the pale, slack lips, she took another vial from her pouch and dripped a black ichor onto it so that it began to flow towards the figure below.

Distilled from the stamen of the purple lotus, it would induce a sleep of nearly death-like depth. She watched as it slowly crept down the thread and prayed to the gods of her people that her grip on the glass would not slip.

The black drops fell onto the open lips and trickled across pointed teeth. Druna Thral let out a small moan in his sleep, then fell silent.

Hujaghur rewound the thread and produced a thin, knotted rope, which she tied around the frame of the second vents that were not directly above Druna Thral. She lowered it carefully and then swung into space to descend the thirty feet to the polished marble floor.

Next, she needed to locate the ring, the item she was commissioned to secure. It had been described as twin serpents coiling together, one in amber and the other in jet.

It didn’t take much searching; it was there, on the left index finger of the unconscious Druna Thral. Ah, joy… But that was why she was paid a premium.

She slipped her boots back on in case she needed to run, then knelt on the cushions beside the sorcerer.

Carefully lifting his long-fingered hand, she grasped the large ring and gave an experimental tug. It slipped easily off the finger, as if it were an adult ring on a child’s finger. Her informant had said that the occult practices left Druna Thral a wasted shell. That was, she guessed, the problem with magic – it took just as much as it gave, and the cost looked terrifying. Furthermore, it was untrustworthy. She placed the ring into her pouch with a shudder at the realism of those tiny snakes.

Back up on the dome, she pulled up the rope and prepared to descend carefully to the trough.

Was that a movement in her pouch, a kind of writhing? No, it couldn’t have been…