Page 25 of Astarion

Why is this my life? More people ought to be hiding and listening to me walk by.

Click…click…

The mastiff stopped. Astarion was afraid to even blink for fear the beast could hear the scrape of his eyelids. Go on, go on, keep moving…

On the other side of the door, the shadow beast lowered its head and snuffled at the threshold. The sound of air being sucked into its nostrils seemed as loud as a dragon’s wingbeats.

Then it made an explosive huffing noise and lifted its head.

Click…click…click…click…

Astarion reflected on the indignity of owing one’s safety to pigeon shit. He waited until the sound of the mastiff’s nails had faded before he slipped the blade out again. It showed a black smear of shadow retreating down the hall, then vanishing as it descended the staircase there.

If it’s patrolling the whole building, I should have…let’s see, about four minutes before it comes back this way. Plenty of time. Probably.

He oiled the hinges and the doorknob because he was pretty sure the owner didn’t care if they squeaked. The knob turned easily beneath his hand, probably more easily than it had since the day it was installed. Astarion slipped out, closing the door behind him, and went to the spell-locked door.

A glance was sufficient to tell him that he couldn’t pick it. That was fine. Wizards tended to trust far too much to magic, in his experience. Someone could fit the most incredible lock in the world and have it blessed by everyone from Mask to Mystra, but it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good if you could just pry the hinges off.

In this case, you could not pry the hinges off. But there were doors on either side of this one with locks that were frankly insulting. Astarion laid a hand on the nearest one and felt the definite repulsion of a private space. Hmm, the new owner might have an office here. Or a room where he takes naps.

The far door, fortunately, had no such prohibition. Astarion popped the lock in the space of two breaths and scanned the room beyond.

Ah, I see I’ve found the dust and cobweb storage area.

There was magic there, making the hair on the back of his neck prickle, but it clearly hadn’t been disturbed in ages. The last set of tracks in the dust were made by a style of sole that hadn’t been popular for twenty years. Astarion shut the door behind him and made his way between old crates, chairs groaning under the weight of boxes, and what appeared to be a harp made out of dragonbone, carved into the shape of a wyrm. It was definitely magical, but he had his doubts that it would fit in his pocket.

The wall that the room shared with the one behind the locked door was beam and plaster, and on the fourth floor, the interior would almost certainly be filled with plaster, not stone. If noise hadn’t been a problem, Astarion could have gone through it in thirty seconds. As it was, it took him more like twenty minutes, and he dulled a knife hacking at it. Every few minutes, he had to stop and wait as the shadow mastiff passed by, clicking.

Eventually, however, he had chopped a hole large enough to wriggle through. The plaster was old and brittle and should have been redone decades earlier.

And there it was, a small windowless room that probably had been a broom closet at one point. The blue glow of the spell-lock reflected off half a dozen objects arranged on shelves—vials, jewelry, and a folded cloth so covered in dust that it was impossible to make out its original color.

Once he’d wiped away the grime, he saw that the vials were labeled in spidery handwriting. The second one he took down read Unicorn Blood.

Astarion smiled down at the vial. “What a worthless thing you are…and what does that make me, taking so much trouble to obtain you?”

Still, since he was here, he might as well help himself. He pocketed two rings and a necklace and gave a wide berth to what looked like a tiara made of spider legs that had an attached label reading Cursed.

No, really? And it looks so friendly, too. The folded cloth felt like spidersilk and did not leap out and attempt to smother him. He pocketed it as well, decided he’d pushed his luck as far as it could go, and crawled back out through the hole in the plaster.

“And that is a good night’s work,” he murmured to himself. A good night’s work for a skilled thief, if not a master. And with an endless life ahead of him, was mastery not within his grasp? Astarion grinned, did a triumphant pirouette, and turned to stroll toward the door.

The edge of his too-long cloak flared out as he spun, and it brushed a string of the dragonbone harp.

A ripple of music filled the air, softly at first, then gaining volume. Green light crackled up the strings.

“Oh no,” Astarion whispered.

The carved wyrm’s head flexed, turned, and opened ivory jaws. An explosive glissando of notes erupted from the strings as the wyrm inhaled.

“Ohhhhh, gather round, lads, and I’ll tell you the tale—”

“Stop!” Astarion hissed. “Stop, stop! Cancel! End! Neshanas! Stop!”

“—of a dragonborn lass with a come-hither tail—”

“Shit, shit, shit!” He snatched a dustcloth off a chair and tried to cram it into the wyrm’s mouth. It spat out the fabric and snapped at his hand, still singing.