Solo Cut and Counter Pt. 2

[Caspian]

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50 Summer 522

It’s a good thing he’s alone.

That’s not a sentiment one hears often; it’s usually the opposite, hearth and home and breaking bread on long tables, bumping elbows and hands squeezing shoulders, and the person opposite you ready with a smile. But Caspian doesn’t know what that’s like; knows, only, that in his line of work one’s a lot better off if they aren’t bogged down. Other people mean other opinions, surplus movements, a tenfold increase in anxiety that anything – not even of anyone’s own fault or input – could go wrong.

The only exception is his sister, but Taalviel’s practically a walking – something squawking – shadow. Weightless, slippery, as exacting as a needle.

And if she were here right now, she’d definitely have something to say about that extremely awkward half-aborted somersault he’s just pulled.

Like a crippled pill bug, he thinks unhelpfully; like a crustacean shaken out of a net and left on the deck with its broken back to flop.

But he’s got the stolen keys in hand, now, and that’s what really matters.

Quietly – still just as awkwardly – he unfolds himself, unsticks his elbow from where it’s crumpled beneath him, eases his knees and hip free from where he’d twisted them. Cats made these floor acrobatics look so simple. He needs to watch them more closely, he resolves; they move like they’re boneless, like they’re water. Anatomy isn’t his area, but surely their spines are just built differently than a person’s, though they’re all mammals; or maybe it’s just that simple for felines because they simply don’t care if they look like fools.

It seems risky to turn one’s back to the woman, so when Caspian rises to his feet he’s taking a step backwards – decides it’s safer to go sideways, gaze flicking between the sleeping old biddy and the cabinet with the goblet he’s been sent here to steal.

One step – holding his breath. A joining of the second foot, to meet the first. Another step, a careful passage through the air, not too high off the ground that he loses his balance, but also not trailing across the floorboards either, which would only create unnecessary noise. His second foot joining the first. This pattern repeats a half dozen times, and then he’s at the cabinet again.

The woman’s body is wracked with little twitches, and she’s muttering a bit more furiously. Caspian waits silently, breathing as shallowly as he can. Eventually, thank heavens, her most recent fit subsides.

And then it’s just him and the handle of the cabinet, the locks on the doors that mock him, and the keys in his hand.

If only there weren’t so petching many.

So far he’s held the whole thing by its ring, limited the suddenness of his movements so as to keep them from clanking together. It’s in his dominant hand; he passes it to the other. Both his hands will have to work together, and seamlessly, if he’s going to keep from making an excess of sound. The locks on the cabinet door are quite small, so that rules out the heavier brass and iron keys that are as long as his digits. Who knows what they’re for – the cellar, perhaps, or, he’s imagining, some great wooden chest.

Word count: 541

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[Caspian]

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A great wooden chest.

Now there’s an idea.

This ring of keys he’s holding – it’s not just power, it’s opportunity, whole droves of it. The golden chalice is what he’s here for, but why stop there? Why limit himself when his imagination’s already running wild, sending his heart racing in excitement with it?

And no one will know what he takes for himself. This isn’t a terribly big job – his stepfather Taaldros made sure he was aware of the fact that something requiring, according to him, real caliber is beyond him – and he’s more than certain there’s no eyes on him. His stepfather wouldn’t waste the time or the resources. So anything he, Caspian, might skim off the side for himself today – it’s just a bonus, which he frankly deserves, because at the end of the day all he’s making off this is a scant amount of coin.

It’s not really about the coin, he reminds himself, a thing he wouldn’t say out loud but Taalviel knows about him all the same. It’s about –

He pauses, keys still aloft.

Would sigh out loud if it wouldn’t risk waking the person whose house he’s robbing.

It’s not so much about the money, he knows. Family was the reason he chose to come back to Sunberth, because at the end of all things – and he’s so many ends – that’s all he has left. The only and final cornerstone, the sole anchor in a cascading sea. Taalviel, it seems, had been right all along, that this is where he belongs, that these are the people who truly know him for who he is, who won’t shame him for being who he was meant to be. She’s so right he’s alarmingly devoid of shame about being wrong. And it wouldn’t make sense to glance off the subject, of family; would be a waste of time for himself and everyone involved if he half-assed this, moved to the city and then expended a futile mountain of energy trying to avoid them. So he had walked right up to his stepfather’s door, to the shamble of a townhouse where he had been raised through his teenage years and beyond, and let himself through. At the family’s disposal, electing, now, to be at their behest.

And so far he hasn’t regretted it.

His thoughts zip back to the present. It would be a lot more expedient if the keys had been arranged in any particular order, ideally by size, so he could rule out some latter half or third. But he’s just got to eyeball the keys out of the mess that seem like they would fit either of the two locks on the double doors of the cabinet before him.

He selects on half the length of his index finger. It seems as good a place to start as any. It’s gold – was gold, once, but now it’s smudged with something blackish and unpleasantly greasy. It doesn’t fit in either lock at all. He tries another, a brassy one around the same size, and half the teeth stick into the lock, but the whole thing stops there.


Word count: 521

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[Caspian]

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Three more keys pass without success. When he gets to his baker’s dozen, and it goes all the way in but refuses to turn, that’s when he mentally flinches, feels his resolve begin to crumble. It is of course entirely possible that the key he needs isn’t on this ring at all. And if it’s, say, tucked up in the old woman’s bosom, there’s no chance he’ll be able to slip the thing out without waking her.

Speaking of –

He glances over his shoulder. Her head has lolled to the other side since he last looked at her, but other than that there’s no visible difference.

But this isn’t a dead end; he reminds himself there are still plenty more keys, and until he tries them all, he can’t say for certain that this is a complete failure, aka a waste of time.

The man he knocked out upstairs will wake up eventually, though. As will the woman in the rocking chair, no matter how much she’s had to drink today. The house also has more rooms than two. Do other people live here? And if so – are they just asleep, or will someone eventually return home and find him here?

He’d better hurry, then.

He tries another key, the length of approximately half his thumb. It’s silver, like the lock. He realized a few keys ago that he should have gone for the silver ones first, the ones that appear to be made of the same metal as the lock itself. Anything could be possible, anything could happen, the stochasticity of the universe still stands – but it’s the logical approach. The next two do nothing, and he’s gritting his teeth – he’s becoming somewhat afraid that he’s accidentally tried certain keys at least twice. But the following key –

He knows it’s right the second it’s in his hand. It’s an invisible thing, as all feelings are, but there’s something about the weight of it, the abbreviated length, the tarnish on the silver, that practically scream out at him in their correctness. It slips right into the lock as if it was made to be there – because, as he dares to believe, it was – and when he turns it he feels the teeth grab and the components shift and his wrist rotates in full motion. The full ring of keys is fairly heavy, and now it’s all dangling from the key that’s stuck in what is undeniably its lock, and he places his other hand on the handle and gently eases the door open.

But it squeaks, alarmingly loudly, and creaks and makes itself in all ways resistant to what he wants to do. Heart beating hard in his chest, he looks over his shoulder at the woman in the rocking chair. She’s shifted again, the firelight illuminating the deep trenches of wrinkles in her visage, the flour and fat staining her apron. Her untrimmed nails are black underneath.

And, yet – she snores on.

The sliver he’s opened of the cabinet door is about an inch wide. Maybe an inch and a half, if he rounds up. It’s enough to slip his hand in, but not nearly enough for his wrist, and the chalice is resting towards the back of its shelf. In any case, he’ll have to open the cabinet door considerably more to get the chalice out.

Word count: 558

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[Caspian]

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The other aspect here that’s wont to make noise is the damn ring of keys. The problem here is he’s getting overwhelmed. More than one factor in this situation is going awry, and it had started with that man he’d knocked unconscious, whose body is hopefully still lying in one of the rooms upstairs. This house was supposed to be empty, that’s the intel he was given about the job. And one not just one but at minimum two instances has this information proven to be very false.

He should have just stabbed the man.

That’s what Taalviel would oh-so-helpfully point out if she were here. And again, she’d be right on the money in her assessment. The simple fact of the matter is that if that the man were dead and not just sleeping – if Caspian had had the guts to move forward with the simplest of solutions – he wouldn’t be what he is now, which is excessively anxious with each passing second.

He’s fretting about situations and scenarios that haven’t even occurred. Is that healthy? Naivety is his other option; winging it has its charm but that’s not how he got here, not at all the reason he’s gotten this far with all of his limbs and teeth intact, and all of his organs where they naturally should be.

But petch this jingling, jangling noise maker. That’s an issue very much in the present, right in his face. He grabs the ring with his left hand, plants his right on the cabinet door and eases the key out of the lock. Carefully, quietly, he bends forward, lets the ring rest on the ground. It’s impossible to do it completely soundlessly, but he tries his best, and it makes about as much noise as a few coppers would in his pocket. The woman slumbers on. Straightening, he scowls at the very noise cabinet door. The hinges needed to be greased a decade ago, and obviously no one has bothered. It seems a funny, incongruent thing, to house something as splendid as a golden chalice in a cabinet that’s about as sturdy as driftwood. But that’s Sunberth for you. The scant firelight reaches into the furthest corners of the cabinet, just barely, but it’s enough to illuminate the goblet. It twinkles, it gleams. It calls out to him.

What else is there to do but try?

He takes the cabinet door by the handle, eases it open. Very, very slowly. It resists him still, and he’s seeing all the rust on the hinges now. It’s like this thing was left at the bottom of the bay and had just been fished out. He pulls harder. The noise it makes is, at least, a dull one. A sound of any higher frequency, he feels intuitively, would be all the more likely to wake the woman. A quick check over his shoulder tells him he might try again. So he does, and now he’s got two, maybe two and a half inches open.

But the diameter of the chalice’s rim is at least five inches. And the thing is unfoldable, unflappable, not something he could ever in reality physically squeeze through.

Word count: 529

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[Caspian]

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There’s nothing to do save keep doing.

Whatever the woman drank tonight is indeed soporific, for her snoring doesn’t change pace even when he tugs the door open past a certain spot on the hinges that very much did not want to comply. Now he’s got four inches open, and because he’s impatient and excessively curious, he sticks his arm in, over dusty porcelain tea cups planted on unevenly crocheted doilies, and flowers long since brittle and dried, and grabs the chalice by the handle. It’s cool to the touch, and the entire object is of a reassuring weight, as if confirming by touch alone that this had been worth the entire job.

Eyes could deceive. So he pulls back with the chalice, all the way up to the partially opened cabinet door. And it’s just as he suspected – he needs at least an inch, maybe two, to clear it.

Petching petch.

What now?

He could keep going with this same cabinet door and hope it stays just not-loud enough to get him through the remaining distance.

Or –

And he wants to slap himself upside the head for not thinking of this sooner.

There’s a second door to this cabinet, the identical one on the left, and it also has a lock, but from his experience it’s usually the same key that opens both. Stooping, he takes up the ring of keys from where he’d set it on the ground, and eases back up and smoothly as he can to avoid jangling it. Thankfully, he remembers precisely which key he needs, and as silently as possible unlocks the other cabinet door. When he pulls the door open, it does begin to creak and squeak – but he’s already swung it open an easy three inches, and it’s all more than enough to get the chalice out.

There’s a line of pretty porcelain tea cups right beside the chalice. Truth be told, he’s had his eye on them ever since he first spotted the cabinet. They have gold around the rims, and said rims aren’t your typical level curve, but kind of fluted, ending in soft petal-like shapes. Someone has even gone so far as to paint dark pink flowers on them, and the vines extend around the delicate handles. Unable to help himself, he picks up one of the tea cups. It’s in surprisingly good condition, given the state of the rest of the house, and again, how ramshackle the cabinet is in which it’s held. How many can he fit in his pockets? Priority is the chalice, though. And it’s hefty in his hand, would partially fit in one of the pockets of his pants if he sort of forces it. Petch, he really should have brought a bag or knapsack, because now he’s going to be walking around with it openly in his possession for everyone to see. Awkward pocket-tuck it is, then?

He’s got the chalice in one hand and the bonus tea cup in the other when the man he’d knocked out suddenly appears at the top of the stairs.

The man utters a swear, calls out what much be the sleeping woman’s name – one hand still pressed to his bleeding head – and hurtles down the stairs. The woman snort-snarls herself awake, looking in blurry bewilderment between Caspian and her acquaintance. She trips on her skirts on her way out of her seat. Without thinking too much about it, Caspian hurls the tea cup – a shame, really – towards the man. It misses him, shatters on the wall just beyond him, but the suddenness and the noise is enough to disorient him. Must have knocked him rather hard on the skull, if that’s enough to throw him. But Caspian doesn’t have time to feel very sorry about it, for he’s sprinting for the front door, flinging it open, and throwing himself out into the darkened streets.

Word count: 648

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[Caspian]

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With evident triumph, Caspian plunks the chalice down on the rickety kitchen table.

Zhassel, who had just sauntered into the kitchen and now has a bit of dried meat hanging between her teeth, raises an eyebrow at it. “You got that done quicker than expected.”

“No offense, Zhassel, but at this moment I’m only accepting opinions about my work from the people who actually delegated it to me,” Caspian replies. Normally he wouldn’t even bother, but he’s still riding his high from having absconded with the target, and with minimal casualty.

“Delegate?” Zhassel repeats, feigning a pompous accent and rolling her eyes towards the ceiling. “If you mean who gave you your shift, you’re looking at her.”

Caspian narrows his eyes.

“You wish I was screwing with you,” Zhassel says, mouth split in a wolfish grin.

“I’ve never once wanted that in my life.”

The two of them could go on feinting this way for hours. Days, even, depending on the severity of the slight. But it was usually Zhassel who inevitably gave herself away, unable to contain her laughter, which in taking after her Hound’s form resembled a mix of breathless yips and hair-raising howls.

Every now and then, with a nauseating pang, Caspian remembers Zhassel sleeps with his (step)father.

He tries very hard not to picture what might constitute their pillow talk.

“Don’t look so hurried, Custard. Not like you’ve got places to go or real important people to see.”

At the nickname, Caspian’s eyes narrow even further. He’d never liked it, the connection to his real name linguistically tenuous at best. “Cut the shyke. So it wasn’t Taaldros who wanted this goblet? How do you figure, given the fact that he’s the one who asked me to go after it?” Something occurs to him – the pessimistic kind of something, because when anything involves his family it’s a safe assumption to make. “Please tell me this is at least real gold, and not some hunk of buffed up bronze you all thought would make a great joke.”

“Oh, it’s gold alright, and it’s mine.” Triumphantly, Zhassel plops onto a chair, props her feet up on the table, and drags the goblet towards herself. Another predatory, scum-sucking grin, and this time Caspian notices the blackness around her gums, the slight protrusion of her lower lip. “Hate that old biddy” – the one who was sleeping in the rocking chair? – “and needed to knock her down a peg.” Snatching up the goblet, her body tenses – and then she spits something black and web-like, letting it pool at the bottom.

Caspian doesn’t make an effort to conceal his disgust. “You can’t be serious.”

“And when I fill this sucker up, you’re breaking back in and putting it right back in the cabinet where it belongs. Can’t wait for her to knock it over when she’s dusting the thing come the holidays.”

At this, Taalviel appears in the doorway. The siblings lock eyes, and wordlessly, the stench of chewing tobacco persistently sticking in his nostrils, he follows his sister out of the house and down the lane.

Word count: 514
Total word count: 3,311

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