Honor Among Thieves by Elaine Cunningham

He’d darkened
his red hair with a black dye that Avidan swore, and Fox dearly
hoped, was temporary.
    The guard waved them through and pointed them to the
visitor’s entrance.
    As they walked through the bailey, Fox kept up a
steady stream of last-minute instructions.
    “You’re sure you remember the signs.”
    “Do not concern yourself. My memory has been trained
to retain copious amounts of information.”
    “Copious. That’s good,” Fox murmured as he scanned
the courtyard. “What do you do if I scratch my ear?”
    Avidan sighed. “I stop talking about the subject
currently under discussion.”
    “What if I touch my mouth?”
    “Then I am to echo what the speaker said, in a manner
likely to encourage him to continue in that vein. In short, I am to
elicit more information.”
    Fox nodded. “The host gift is offered after you’ve
had the wine or tea or whatever Muldonny offers. Not before.”
    “And if I find the refreshments insufficient
recompense for the gifts?”
    To Fox’s astonishment, the alchemist wore a wry
smile.
    “Was that a joke?”
    “Not a successful one, apparently.”
    “Huh.” Fox studied the alchemist. “You look . . .
better.”
    “Than what?”
    “Usual.”
    Avidan shrugged. “It is good from time to time to
remember who you once were.”
    Thanks to his resemblance to the Veldooni alchemist,
Fox had a pretty good idea what that was. It shamed him a little
that he’d never thought to inquire into Avidan’s history. He’d
assumed that the alchemist was one of many students driven mad by
the study, and that he’d found his way into the tunnels fleeing the
inevitable result of not conforming to the adept’s vision of
Sevrin. That, in and of itself, had been reason enough for Fox to
accept Avidan into his inner circle.
    But now his curiosity was aroused.
    “As for protocol,” he said in a casual tone, “just
follow whatever rules the Veldooni go by. Do you remember
these?”
    “Yes.”
    An unspoken “Of course!” resounded through the
alchemist’s terse response.
    “You looking so much like this Shavin Insa’amid is a
fortunate coincidence.”
    “Fortunate, perhaps. A coincidence, almost certainly
not.”
    They came to a stop before the second gate. Another
human guard checked Avidan’s papers and his letter of invitation
before unlocking the gate and turning them over to the clockwork
guard.
    To Fox’s eyes, the design of Muldonny’s guards
recalled an earlier era. Unlike Rhendish, whose clockwork
constructs looked more and more like humans with each new
innovation, the Adept of Stormwall Island surrounded himself with
machines that resembled armored knights of centuries past.
    They followed the animated knight into the fortress
and down a corridor that opened into a grand hall. Muldonny bustled
forward to meet them.
    Vishni’s description of Muldonny as a human squirrel
hit very near the mark. His gray robe draped his pot belly and
equally broad posterior. It reached below his knees, making his
short legs appear even shorter. A jittery energy surrounded the
little man, and his large dark eyes darted here and there as if
expecting to see a lurking cat or the shadow of a giant raptor.
    The man lacked only a fluffy gray tail to complete
the picture.
    Fox raised one hand to his mouth and coughed to
disguise a smile.
    He stood back and looked appropriately servile as the
two alchemists went through the formalities. Avidan handled himself
surprisingly well. By the time they arrived in Muldonny’s workroom,
Fox’s worry began to ebb.
    The room was like most of the alchemist shops Fox had
infiltrated, cluttered with books and bottles and metal and leather
and a dozen projects in various stages of completion. Of particular
interest to him was the shell of a clockwork knight, identical to
the one that stood outside the workshop door, lying on a
worktable.
    Muldonny gestured to a trio of large vats in an lcove
off the main workroom.
    “These are some of my more effective