Shadow Prowler

Of course, this item was expensive. It’s no easy thing to get hold of the rope that’s used by the dark elves’ spies.

I swung the cobweb and the free end went flying off toward the roof of the gnomes’ bank, as if there were a heavy weight tied to it. Holding the other end in my hand, I waited for the miracle of elfin magic to attach itself somewhere up above and lift me well away from the ravenous creatures. The first zombie was already finishing the meat, and I regretted that I had taken so little with me. The second had drawn level with the first, but he didn’t stop to join in the feast, he continued stubbornly moving in my direction. He walked like a drunk in the Port City—as if he was about to fall over at any moment. But the dead man didn’t fall, he kept coming toward me with the persistence of a gnome delving into the body of the earth.

I felt a sharp jerk, and the magic rope began pulling me upward.

Breathing heavily, I threw one leg over the granite cornice that ran the full length of the bank just below the roof and pulled myself up onto it with an abrupt movement. I turned over onto my back to examine the night sky. There were just over two hours left until dawn, and the stars had already paled in anticipation of the morning that had not yet awoken but was very close.

The Archer was already sinking behind the horizon, the Stone had lost its magical brilliance, Svinopas had moved close to the moon. There were still constellations in the night sky, but they were gradually growing dimmer, advising me to make haste.

I stood up and detached the rope, which had taken a grip on the roof like a hungry leech from the Crystal Dream River. Then I rolled the rope into a tight coil and attached it to my belt. I put away the knife, which had not been needed, and looked around.

The moon was flooding the entire world with its magical silvery light. The roofs of the houses lay exposed to my gaze. There was nothing up here to cast any shadows, and a silver glow enveloped everything around me, transforming the roofs into a fairy-tale plain of tiles, rusty chimneys, and broken weather vanes. The houses were set very close to each other; the distance between them was so tiny that even a cripple could probably have jumped from one to another without falling and breaking his bones.

I was about to move on, when I spotted a really large hole in the roof, about twelve yards from the spot where I was standing.

So time had done what all the thieves of Avendoom had been unable to do. It had created a breach in the bank’s reliable defenses. And I was immediately tempted to go down into the bank and discover if the Hirgzan clan was as rich as the rumors claimed it was.

But just at that moment money would only have been a hindrance to me, and I didn’t really feel like climbing into the black mouth of that hole, especially as the roof beside it was probably no thicker than a moth’s wings and could collapse under me at any moment, dispatching unfortunate Harold into dark oblivion.

“Well then, the next brave soul who decides to pay a visit to the bank will be very lucky,” I muttered, and continued on my way.

Time was the most precious thing I had now.

I took a run and leapt onto the next building. Took a run and leapt. Took a run and leapt again. After two blocks I was breathing like an excited wild boar.

Once some poorly secured tiles slipped out from under my feet, but by some miracle I managed to grab hold of the cornice and hang there with my hands. Sagot be praised, I managed to scramble up.

Another time the sloping roof of one of the houses began crumbling under my very feet. I put on a burst of speed as I felt everything shifting and heard the rumble of the roof collapsing behind me. I pushed off hard and jumped across onto the next building, my boots knocking out several longish, bright tiles that had not darkened with age.

I made it.

I watched rather gloomily as the ancient dust rose up from the site of the house I had just been standing on. Swirling feebly in the moonlight, it began taking on the form of a gigantic skull, and I decided not to wait to see how all this would end, but hurried on to the Street of the Magicians, which was already close at hand now.

On my travels I caught a few more glimpses of zombies strolling lethargically along the Street of the Sleepy Cat. Fortunately the vile creatures didn’t raise their heads to admire the full moon, and so they didn’t see me.

I thanked Sagot once again that I had decided to cover the rest of the distance over the roofs and not along the street—if I’d run into that many of the walking dead, I would have been hard put to get away from them.

One final high leap, and I was on the roof of a building with a façade overlooking the Street of the Magicians. The goal of my nocturnal expedition was already close at hand. But the problem now was that there were no more houses anywhere nearby. It was as if some gigantic tongue had licked them clean out of this world. Empty black squares where there ought to have been buildings.

And that was all.

I leaned against an old chimney that had turned dark with age. I had two options for making further progress. The first was to go down and risk my skin by ru

Despite the risk involved, I found the second option more to my liking. I was already certain that it was much safer to stay up high—ru

To reassure myself, I tugged on the cobweb rope several times to check its strength. Now all I had to do was commit one of those acts of insanity that were already a habit with me. To be precise, jump off a building, go flying through the air, and end up on the house opposite. I had done something of the kind a couple of times in my life, but that had been when I was a lot more stupid.

A step off into the void . . . The surface of the street came leaping up toward me, and then I was flying above it, holding on tight with both hands to the rope, which suddenly seemed too thin and insecure.

The wall of the building with the dark holes in it was approaching with catastrophic speed, threatening to flatten me into a pancake. I instinctively put my feet out in an attempt to soften the blow, but the cobweb thread stiffened and was suddenly, incomprehensibly transformed from a flexible, pliable rope into something completely opposite.

The straight, stiff rod hung there in the air with me holding on to it, and then began slowly swinging toward the building. But the moment my feet touched the gray wall, the rope’s stiffness disappeared; it became its usual self again and pulled me gently upward.

“That’s over, then,” I said, examining the palms of my hands.