Honor Among Thieves by Elaine Cunningham Read Free Book Online

warning in her eyes.
    “Not entirely,” he said.
    His crew exchanged glances. “Then you know what we
could be walking into.”
    Stories echoed in the silence, tales they’d all heard
of how the adepts wrested Sevrin from the sorcerer who’d ruled it
longer than any living human could remember. Muldonny had played no
small part in that victory. His art was fashioning liquids with
terrible properties: Fire that could not be quenched, fumes that
killed anyone within twenty paces, and solvents that ate through
metal armor.
    Muldonny kept stores of these liquids beneath his
manor and in armories scattered around Stormwall Island. Cutting
through the wrong wall could result in a deluge of flesh-dissolving
sludge, or send liquid fire speeding along the tunnel.
    “Let me study on it,” Delgar said. “We’ll break off
now and come back at it tomorrow.”
    The dwarves eyed him for a moment before responding
with curt nods. They gathered up their tools and disappeared into a
narrow side tunnel.
    Among elves, such behavior would be seen as beyond
rudeness and well into the realm of mutiny, but Honor knew the
Stone Folk’s ways well enough to recognize the deference they paid
the young dwarf.
    The Carmot dwarves, like most of the other Old Races,
put great store in their ancestry, but dwarves of common birth and
exceptional talent were known to attract fame and followers.
    Honor had no idea what Delgar’s lineage might be, but
he possessed gifts that could inspire other dwarves to take up
tools, and perhaps weapons, at his direction. That made him useful,
but it also made him dangerous.
    She watched as Delgar moved into the tunnel opening
and placed one hand on either wall. He closed his eyes and began to
sing.
    The song started out as a pleasant bass chant, but
the melody descended until the notes sank beyond the reach of
Honor’s hearing. She could still feel them, though. Deep vibrations
hummed through the stone and echoed in her bones.
    A thin, irregularly shaped layer of stone peeled away
from the wall near the tunnel. Delgar caught it as it started to
fall forward and moved it over the tunnel opening. It fit as snugly
as a peel fits an apple.
    Honor ran her fingers over the place where the tunnel
door once stood. The rock wall was seamless. If she hadn’t seen
Delgar hide the tunnel, she would never suspect it was there. The
young dwarf’s skill at stoneshifting was nothing short of
astonishing.
    “You didn’t tell them about the Thorn,” Honor
said.
    Delgar sank down on a boulder and wiped his sleeve
across his face. “If I had, they would have dug through a live
volcano to get to it.”
    The elf sat down beside him. “How is it,” she said
hesitantly, “that someone of your ability cannot sense the dagger’s
presence? That much carmite should be drawing you to it like a
loadstone draws iron fillings.”
    “Several possibilities come to mind,” the dwarf said.
“Top of the list: Muldonny doesn’t have the Thorn.”
    “It was stolen from my people. He bought it from the
thieves.”
    “You’re sure of this.”
    “They confessed it before they died.”
    This was not exactly what Rhendish had said, but
Honor suspected her version lay closer to the truth.
    Delgar accepted it with a nod. Dwarves, like elves,
had pragmatic views on how to deal with enemies and thieves.
    “Second, he’s keeping it somewhere else.”
    “That’s a possibility,” Honor said, “but what place
would be as secure as the fortress that has successfully guarded
the entrance to Sevrin for a dozen human lifetimes?”
    “True. The third possibility is that he has cast
magic to hide its presence, same as you elves do.”
    “He’s an adept. They don’t use magic.”
    “That’s what they say. That might even be what they
believe. But some of the things they make are magic by another
name, and no one can tell me differently.”
    Honor saw no reason to dispute this. “So Muldonny has
created an area filled with some sort of