I stared at Zivan. It wasn't just the magnitude of our task which had upset him, he was genuinely distressed.
"What's the matter?" I asked him. After his scoffing at my refusal to fight, it seemed unthinkable that he would feel any remorse - hardened warrior that he was - but nonetheless, something was eating at him.
"Was it the kid?" I asked.
"Yes," he sighed. "I didn't know they executed minors here..."
"Come on," I said softly, "What's done is done. We can't bring him back. It's horrible, but there's nothing we can do. We have to put it behind us and carry out the mission."
"I guess you're right," he sighed. "So, what do we need to do?"
"Gather information," I replied. "Find out a way to get in, get around and take back what we need before they know what's happened."
Disguised as a beggar I sat by the side of the road, watching casually as a griffin-cart drew up to the rear entrance of the castle. The realm was very backward, the King having a loathing of modern technology, and it had not been difficult for the griffins' union to impose a ban on all motorized vehicles. The driver of this cart was a merchant, a guild-member who would bring supplies to the palace via the tradesman's entrance.
In the guard's mind I could see that he arrived every Monday at about 10am. This would be very useful.
Behind me, another guard was approaching, about to move me on. I looked up at him and his eyes unfocused.
It was a little trick Snell had taught me... modifying the surface thoughts before they could be committed to memory. Obvious in hindsight, although it would take some practice to be as proficient at is as Snell was. So far I could only make it work with the mind in a certain state, and of course it would never work on a shielded mind. The guard ignored me and walked past.
That night I entered the dreams of the merchant. One possibility was to prevent him from waking, and to steal his identity for a day. In his clothes and form I could take the griffin-cart into the castle myself, but things would be ill for him if I made a mistake and angered the palace. I wasn't sure I wanted to risk another head in the square next to the kid's. Gently nudging his dreams to the morning's delivery, I saw where he went, and from this I was able to sketch out a map of the back entrance, at least as far as the kitchens.
Entering the dreams of some guards helped flesh things out still further. I found the mind of one who patrolled inside the castle itself, and thus built up a plan of the interior, as well as I could remember it.
Meanwhile, Zivan had not been idle. On the pretence that he was doing a study of religions, he managed to obtain some rather interesting information.
The official faith of the realm was Ronakism, and in keeping with the realm it was extremely harsh and puritanical. The sole exception to this was the day on which it was held that their god, Ronak the Creator, rested after creating the material universe. Hence, the faithful would hold wild orgies every sabbath while their god was not watching.
Asking about the Order of St Kelnar brought forth a stream of propaganda which the panther positively lapped up. It seemed that King Ordros had a particular hatred or jealousy reserved for that order, and he had in fact commanded a special celebration on the success of the raid. Some of the choicest treasures which he had managed to liberate would be placed upon public display for the whole of the sabbath.
"Well, I think it's good as a backup plan," he said, "but I still want to take on the palace."
"Are you nuts?" I replied, aghast. "You want to take on the most heavily-fortified building in the realm? And then come back to steal the rest, assuming the celebration even still goes ahead after whatever happens during our attack? Assuming that we're both still alive, come to that?"
"Yes," he said, and the steely edge to his voice left no room for any doubts.
The passageway was some kind of underground river, ending with a dock. It may have become hidden as the castle was expanded and rebuilt over time, or it may have been part of the original design. Either way, it was long-forgotten and the only people who remembered it were the King and his advisors, who viewed it as a secret escape route, and the few guards posted to thwart any potential intrusion were the concealed entrance somehow rediscovered. It was through the dreams of one such guard that I uncovered its existence, although the entrance took some finding as the season had changed since last he had been there.
I was still not happy about the approach we were taking, but Zivan had been most insistent. What finally won me over, albeit grudgingly, was the realisation that we wouldn't be able to get all of the treasures we needed. The ones scheduled for display had already been moved to another location, but the rest remained in the vault. Best to try and take those by stealth first.
Alas, we bungled the entrance... a loose footfall knocked a stone off the docks and into the water with a splash. Fortunately there was only one guard on duty at the time, a raccoon whom we managed to subdue before he could call for help. Zivan rushed to him, and prepared to end his life.
"No... more... killing!" I spat, pushing the angel aside. "Have you forgotten the wolf so quickly?"
"But he was only a kid," Zivan pointed out angrily, picking himself up.
"Compared to us, so is he!" I pointed at the raccoon. "Anyway, he's only doing his job!"
"...which just so happens to include killing us," he shot back.
"Fine," I said, wrapping one of my tentacles around the raccoon's throat and squeezing. He clawed at it for a few moments and then slumped to the ground. As he did so, I relieved him of his weapons. "Happy?" I asked. "Or do you want to kill an unarmed, defenceless man?" The panther simply glowered back at me.
"Look," I pointed out. "If he doesn't report back he's going to be missed and then we'll have the whole damned castle searching for us. What we need to do is this."
I shook the guard awake. He promptly found himself staring into the cold eyes of an incubus, which did not sit well with him. Covering his mouth to prevent him from screaming, I bored into him, eating his fear and erasing the last three minutes from his mind. When it was over I used Snell's trick to prevent him from seeing us, and led him shakily back to the point he had been guarding. Silently we slipped behind him, disappearing before the last of my holding spells could wear off. We were inside the castle.
As we snuck around the corridors, it amused me to think that I was now breaking into the palace of an evil despot in much the same way that a young weasel Being had broken into mine some centuries past. As I remembered what had happened to him, a sudden thought struck me. If the King is a Creature, we're dead. I kept it to myself.
We headed first to the vault, to make sure that the dreams I had seen were true, and not fantasy. It was not uncommon for a person to dream, for example, of a secret door in their home or place of work that they had never opened before, and it was not always possible for a 'Cubi to tell if what they were seeing was real or pure imagination unless they were familiar with the person or the place of which they dreamt.
"Well, it was an off-chance," the angel said unhappily as he probed the lock. By the sound of it he had been hoping they'd forgotten to lock it or something. I tried a few spells, and even the tentacle-morphing trick of Snell's, but it was no use - we were going to have to get the key itself if we wanted to get in.
The sound of footsteps made me panic for a moment, but it was just a regular patrol and we managed to conceal ourselves. I was still amazed that we had got as far as we had without interception, especially given the Angel's affinity for light magic. Were he a demon, he would be at home with the darkness, even able to vanish into the shadows. As it was, we relied largely on my concealment abilities and the shadows in the deeper parts of the castle. Things would get trickier as we approached the higher floors, since it was about quarter to ten in the morning and the sun was high in the sky.
"Can we break into it?" Zivan asked, for what seemed like the seventh time.
"No, we'll need the key. For all the King's loathing of technology, that's a damn fine piece of locksmithing. It's binary coded and we'll need a punchcard with just the right pattern of holes in it. And before you ask, there are eighteen billion billion combinations, so no, we cannot brute-force it."
His face fell. "And the King has the keycard, doesn't he?" he added.
"I think he does. Fortunately for us, he should still be in bed."
"Are you mad?"
"Says the person who seems obsessed with retrieving treasure for some kook religion! But yes, if my information is correct he will still be asleep. And if we hurry, I think we can keep it that way."
King Ordros, a somewhat overweight Dalmatian, lay snoring in a sumptuous four-poster bed. I gazed wistfully at his still form... it would be so easy. Just a quick jerk of his soul and he would die peacefully in his sleep. Remembering the harsh laws he had enacted, that was probably far better than the fat bastard deserved. Still, those would be easy to fix once I had taken his place. We were both canid so even the body-language would not be a problem. Once the body was safely disposed of, no-one need ever know that the King had died...
Shaking my head, I drew myself back to the present. From what I had learned, the King's habit was to sleep until around ten, when his chief advisor would come to wake him. This would not now happen since that particular advisor had been stunned, tied up and stuffed in one of the many cupboards in his bedchamber.
As I used my powers to make the King's sleep deeper and keep the guards posted outside in a state of mild stupification, Zivan hung a 'do not disturb' sign outside the door, which I magically locked to make things easier. Then the pair of us were free to begin sacking the room in earnest, notwithstanding that we were still trying to keep things as quiet as possible. The panther went into raptures of delight over a set of small statues which he had found in a sock drawer, but the motherlode was in one of his robes, a wooden keycard with a combination set into an eight-by-eight grid.
He gave a muted whoop of delight, and as he did so knocked an exquisite porcelain vase onto the fireplace.
The King waxed wroth.