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Fem stared at the cold dank ceiling. It dripped, and the cell smelled. She didn’t really like her name and was trying to think of a new one. Julia or Jackie sounded nice. Her mother had only been somewhat literate. So when she saw the word “female” she had decided to name her daughter Femalé. Oh well, coming up with a new name wouldn’t get her out of jail. She swung her legs around so that she was sitting on the cot.

Her cell mate, a rather ugly fellow if she did say so herself, was still crumpled on the floor. The large brute had not expected the petite woman to put up much of a fight. He had learned that your expectations were often wrong. Fem was used to this attitude; being four foot ten with short mousy hair and blue eyes tended to make one have a “come ravage me” look. Fem rolled her eyes and surveyed her cell. It looked like the classic cell, piece of cake. Sweet gods that sounded good, better not to think of food. She pulled out the picks inside her boot sole and set to work on the lock. At that moment a guard hauled another prisoner down the steps. Fem quickly hid her picks. The guard stopped at her cell.

“Sweet gods what did you do to him?” she asked.

      “He got too friendly.” Fem didn’t want or have to go into details.

      “Well then, I’ll trade you.” She shoved the other man into the cell and Fem dragged big and ugly to the door.

“Nice doing business with you,” Fem told the guard. She merely smiled and dragged the lump off to another cell. She was stronger than she looked too. Fem turned her attention to the heap on the floor. Or rather man on the cot with his feet propped up. He saw her looking, “Cozy.” She raised her eyebrows and looked pointedly at the small puddle of blood on the floor. Actually that wasn’t her fault, the lout had broken his nose after he fell. Oops. Anyway, the scoundrel on the bed got the point, so he asked

“What ya in for?” He had a ring with a pair of picks crossed, with a crown around them. It was a mockery of the King’s Guard that the Thieves Guild used to identify its members. Fem had one herself.

      “Stole from one of the king’s favorite pet nobles. You?” The trading of stories was actually fairly common. Especially among those from the Guild. Maybe that guard wasn’t smarter than the rest. What a shame.

      “Oh I stole from the king. Raided his closet in fact,” he seemed rather calm about the whole thing.

      “Oh, did they get your stash?” she was hopeful now.

      “No, you?” he was also latching on to an idea.

      “No,” she was actually going to get out!

“Fifty, fifty,” he suggested.

      “Done.” Fem raised her hand to shake on it but he threw a punch instead.

Fem easily dodged and knocked him out cold with a blow to the jaw. Now to wait. Fem sat on the bed in the same manner that the man had. The guard came back up from her rounds. She took one look at the man on the floor and rolled her eyes. However she didn’t open the door. She was smart! That could be trouble. Dumb guards were easy and fairly common. Smart ones could and frequently did screw up escape plans. Fem nudged the man on the floor with her foot, “It didn’t work.”

“Damn, a smart guard.” He didn’t like them either apparently.

“What’s your name,” she had suddenly she didn’t even know the guy. Bad move.

“John,” he said absently. He was already surveying the cell. This guy was thorough.

“Fem,” she was surveying the corridor. “Hey, by the way I got picks.” He gave her an annoyed look, but motioned her forward with a bow. She curtseyed back and took out her picks again. This time she managed to get the door open. They even managed to make it to the stairs. Then it all went down hill. Apparently big, tall and ugly had woken up, and was none to happy.

“Escape,” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. Actually it was more like a shriek. John gave her another annoyed look. As if it was her fault! They could already hear the clatter of boots on the stairway. The two thieves dashed back to the cell. John just managed to get the cell door seemingly closed when the guards thundered by. Whew, that was close thought Fem. However ugly hadn’t made a sound, which made Fem curious.

She peered into his cell and found him with an almost equally unattractive dagger sticking out of his chest. Fem gave John a grateful look. In return she got a look saying “ you should have done it yourself.” Oh well, one couldn’t be perfect. The two dashed up the steps again. They found the guard room empty. Fem and John took a few minutes to retrieve their personals and to relieve every single inhabitant, guard and prisoner, of their purses. I should do this more often she thought, as they exited the jail.

“What do you say we grab our separate stashes and meet at the Guild for dinner,” John really was full of good ideas. Fem felt obligated to tell him as much. This got a laugh out him. They shook hands and went to gather the stash of the century. He really isn’t that awful looking, she thought with a smile. He was a full five ten, easily dwarfing her, but what did that matter. Only men really cared about height. His eyes were a light gray, which his black hair complemented nicely. No not too bad.

Fem strolled along the streets of Podar towards the deserted tower in the Park District. It had been abandoned years ago. It was where the rightful Queen of Podar had been pushed to her death by the current king. Jax really was a spoiled child when it came right down to it. Jealous of his sister’s power he had begun to buy off or threaten the nobles of the Queen’s court. Eventually he had had enough power to confront her. When she had refused to give up the crown he pushed her from the tower in a childish tantrum.

Since the crown could only be held by a woman, on pain of a magical death, and the Queen had no daughters, Jax had become the regent of Podar. His daughters met with unfortunate accidents before the age of one. The crown was actually still hanging around one of the spikes of the fence encircling the tower. Fem thought of the tower as the perfect headquarters. No one ever came here and it had lots of space. She ducked though a gap in the bars and entered the tower. Immediately something small and furry scampered up her arm, chattering.

“Hello Jeb,” she laughed. Jeb was a small monkey that had lived with her since she was a small girl. In fact he was the reason she had become a thief. Fem had come across Jeb in the Market District when she was five. He was in a cage, underfed and had an owner that shook the cage with a stick to make him move for customers. She had committed her first theft right there. Or rather she had dashed up, opened the cage and let the monkey out.

The owner had been enraged, turning a nice shade of chartreuse, so naturally Fem had run as fast as her legs would let her. She had forgotten the monkey. The monkey had come to the tower later that night; with food. They had hit it off right then. She taught him how to pick pockets and locks. In return he was a constant friend. The small red vest that most people thought was a cute ornament actually contained a vast array of picks that Jeb had stolen himself. The small monkey perched on her shoulder as she went to gather her loot from that night.

It was inside one of the many chambers that the tower consisted of. There were five floors total, with about three rooms per. The stairs ran along the inside of the chambers; eventually spiraling to the top. The first level however was one big room, which Fem used for melting the precious metals that she “collected”. The fireplace gave the room a faint yellow glow. Covering the floor were all sorts of debris, meaning guards in chain mail would have a hard time running; doing anything for that matter. The second floor housed Fem’s store house of “collectables”, her assorted “collecting” tools, and her food storage. The food storage was the room that the stairs passed through, so Fem had a hard time keeping her mind on the task. She walked through to her armory. Grappling hooks, rope, grease, pitons, etc.. Fem hung up her gear from the robbery from that night and passed on to the treasury. Jeb had been the one to bring the loot home, while she got carried off by the guards. Naturally Jeb couldn’t carry all the gear.

The room was lined with chests of all sizes. Fem walked to one on the far side that looked like it hadn’t been opened in a while. She pulled out the key and snapped the lid open. Inside lay gold and silver necklaces, rings and coins. She stuffed all of this in a bag and set it on the stairs. Before she went to meet John she needed to change clothes. Walking around in your “collecting” clothes was not a good idea. It just shouted “Arrest me!”

Fem plodded up the steps to the next level. This one had served as a residential floor. So instead of opening on a room it  opened on a hallway. Fem didn’t use this floor or the next one, there was no point to it. That is except to use one of the restrooms in each of the rooms. That was the nice thing to living in the ex-Queen’s ex-residence; indoor plumbing. Fem opened the door to the top rooms. There were only two on this floor. One served as a sleeping room and the other served as Fem’s own private shrine to the god of thieves. Changing clothes quickly, much to the chagrin of Jeb, she made a quick offering to the god and rushed down the stairs. There was no need to lock up so Fem left straight for the Thieves Guild.

 

۞

It was a large marble fronted building that was located about one block from the Palace. Right across from it was the Companions Guild. People in that line of work always have to gussy up their name as well as their bodies. A few blocks down was the Assassins Guild. They didn’t have enough power yet, so they weren’t going to move that close to the Palace. They didn’t fell the need to tempt fate just yet.

Fem met John in the Thieves Guild pub. He was sitting in the farthest corner facing the door; he also had a small bag. What a coincidence. She sat down at the table and put her bag on the floor next to his.

      “Nice to see you,” he greeted her.

      “Same to you,” she responded. A maid walked up and put a tankard of beer on the table, along with a plate of beef, bread and cheese. Yum. Now was the time to think about food. Fem took two slices of beef, cheese and bread, making a sandwich that she immediately wolfed down.

      “Hungry?” John had a bemused look on his face.

      “You try jail rations for five days,” she said through mouthfuls of sandwich.

“Five days, really?” he was baiting her. She made a rude gesture. He laughed, he did that a lot. He had a nice laugh. “Let’s get down to business. All my loot is silver or gold, how ‘bout you?”

“Same. Do you have a smithy where we can melt it down?”

“You might say that,” he smiled slyly. Fem suddenly got a really bad feeling. It must have showed. “Miss Fem, let me put this simply,” he cleared his throat. “You may be familiar with the association I work for.” He held out his hand, on the palm was engraved the sigil for the Royal Peace Keepers. Now why hadn’t she seen that in the jail.

“Okay, okay I get the point, you can loose the drama.” Just what had I gotten myself into, she asked herself.

“Sorry, we had to make sure that you weren’t some sort of drama enthusiast,” he smiled. “We were wondering if you would like to join our little solidarity.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Your life.”  Fem stopped chewing.  Jeb climbed down her arm and grabbed a piece of bread. John spared him a glance and then continued to look at Fem. He wasn’t smiling. She swallowed.

“My life?” This was getting serious.

“You have stolen from a prominent noble, and conspired to use money stolen from the king, your chances are not good.” He looked smug, she hated smug. However, her back was against the wall.

“What do you do?” This whole honest job thing was new to Fem.

“We basically answer to no one, but we risk everything to keep a king everyone hates on the throne,” he told her.

“So I won’t be on the top ten for popularity.” There goes living to a ripe old age.

“No, but no one has to know who or what you are,” he conceded. “We mostly deal with messages in the middle of the night.”

“I think I’m going to like this job.”

“I’m glad you think so.” The symbol of the Keepers began to slowly engrave itself into Fem’s hand.

 

Reviews

[AaronPhobia]

good good good =D

keep writing again lol