Episode 4: Ghost Stories

It was the dead of night in Hallard when two figures ghosted along a cobbled backstreet.





It was the dead of night in Hallard when two figures ghosted along a cobbled backstreet. The soft light of the street globes illuminated their passing; phantoms phasing between worlds. The air was heavy with the settling smog from the daytime’s industry.



One of the figures darted into a side alley and crouched in the shadows. The other followed and stopped, panting.



“I must say Nilon,” the first said, “You’re out of practice.”



“I’m fine, my friend,” Nilon replied. “I’m just not quite as fit as the great Blind - the King of Thieves.”



“Don’t call me that,” Blind chuckled.



A shadow passed across the entrance to the alley. Blind pulled Nilon further into the gloom. He noticed his friend wince as he did so.



“Sorry,” Blind whispered. “Still sore, huh? You did take quite a beating.”



“Yeah, and it wasn’t even worth it. I couldn’t stop them stealing our stuff.”



“Well,” Blind said. “Tonight, we’re taking it back.”



The friends crept to the other side of the alleyway and peeked out. Across the street, the roof of an opulent villa jutted above an imposing Archanium wall. Endangered palm trees dotted the grounds. Blind scanned the street. He focused on the buildings that overlooked the complex.



“Are you sure that this is our guy?” he said.



“I’m sure,” Nilon said. “Counsellor Thoren is an artefact collector. Hiring thugs to mug scavengers is exactly his style.”



Blind was on the verge of asking his friend how he knew so much about Thoren, but it wasn’t necessary. He knew well enough.



“I trust you Nill,” Blind said. “Ready?”



“Ready. Boost me over the wall.”



Blind saw the steely glint of determination in his friend’s eye. He had seen it many times before.



Without another word, Blind slipped out of the alleyway. He sprinted across to the metal wall, keeping an eye on the security camera perched on top.



From the safety of the darkness, Nilon watched the camera pan left and then right. The window of opportunity was small. He saw that his friend was ready with his back against the wall, but he hesitated. The camera panned left again. Blind hissed something that was lost to the night. Nilon took a deep breath. The camera panned right.



Blind was beginning to think that his partner had bottled it when Nilon broke cover. He swept across the cobbles and bound into his friend’s interlocked palms. Blind surged his companion upwards and on to the top of the wall.



“Oh shit,” Nilon muttered to himself. The wall was narrower than he’d hoped.



His momentum carried him over. He dropped down on the villa side and managed to absorb the impact with an inelegant roll. He listened, motionless, for a few seconds. Only the gentle rustle of the palm trees and the murmur of the outside pool greeted his ears. He couldn’t see any guards.



“Are you okay?” Blind whispered through a manufacturing slit in the wall.



“I’m alright,” Nilon replied. “Don’t worry. The landing was a little heavy, that’s all.”



“Okay. I’ll be with you in a second.”



Blind had already calculated his route. He slunk over to the Grand Emperor Hotel. It was an imposing building of polished stone and austere metal that only the wealthiest of traders could afford to stay in. An intricate metal sign loomed over the street below. It depicted the Holy Emperor Drugun spreading his arms wide in welcome.



Blind slipped around to the back of the hotel and shimmied up a drainpipe to the tiled roof.



I’ve got to learn how to do that, Nilon thought.



The young climber dropped without a sound on to the sign. His balance never wavered. He edged along it, crouching, until he reached the furthest point from the building. He was no more than a couple of metres from the villa’s wall. For a few seconds, the eagle eyed his target.



Then he sprang.



Nilon held his breath as his friend soared through the air. With relief, he watched Blind grab on to the wall, scramble over and drop into a bush.



“Impressed?” Blind whispered to his friend as he stepped out of the bush, dusting himself off.



“Eh, not bad I guess,” Nilon replied. He shook his head in admiration.



“Steady on Nill, you’ll make me blush,” Blind said, grinning.



“Let’s find a side entrance,” Nilon said to his partner. “No doubt the main door will be alarmed.”



The friends circled the building, their eyes peeled for movement from inside. They encountered a simple stone arch leading to a nondescript door. It was perfect. Nilon tiptoed towards it.



He started as a strong hand gripped his shoulder. He turned to his friend. Blind’s face had turned as white as his knuckles.



“Listen!” Blind implored.



Nilon obeyed, but heard nothing other than the trees, the pool and a faint humming. A humming! The sickening realisation dawned on him. The archway was filled with a powerful electric security field. If he had walked into it he would have tripped the alarm and received a few thousand volts for his trouble.



Nilon thanked his friend and set about studying the field. A simple lever deactivated it, but it was only accessible from the other side.



“What do we do?” Blind whispered.



“It’s too risky to look for another entrance. What about the sound suppression tech that we scavenged a while back?”



Blind was unsure. The friends had tested the device in their hideout but never used it on a heist. Nilon saw the doubt in his friend’s eyes.



“I know, Blind, but we’re not going back empty-handed. It’ll work.”



Blind shrugged his acceptance. He dug out the palm-sized device from his backpack and placed it on the ground next to the field. At the press of a button, a translucent bubble swelled into existence. Nilon stepped into it, electric drill in hand.



Blind held his breath. Nilon started drilling. Inside the bubble, the drill’s screeching was almost unbearable. To Blind, the security field's faint humming was the only sound.



When Nilon had drilled through, he groped for the switch and flicked it downwards. The humming stopped.



The friends passed through the passageway to the external door. Nilon saw that the lock was of a basic pin and tumbler design. He took out his trusty lockpick and tension wrench. He applied the necessary torque and used the pick to push each pin in turn out of the cylinder.



Seconds later, the cylinder turned and the pair of thieves entered the villa. They found themselves on a white marble floor blanketed by a plush rug. They could just make out abstract paintings adorning the clean walls.



Nilon froze and grabbed his friend’s arm. There was a figure standing in the corner, motionless. Blind patted his companion’s hand and smiled. His keener eyes had already spotted the statue. He had also noticed the empty glass tumblers all over the floor.



“Careful,” Blind mouthed to his friend. “Party.”



Nilon and Blind evaded the minefield of discarded glasses and snoring bodies. They crept further inside and soon found the artefact room. The vast space brimmed with ancient devices and oddities from the Golden Age, many of which the pair had never seen. In one corner, awaiting display, sat the items that had been stolen from them.



“Let’s grab our stuff and see what else we can find,” Nilon instructed his friend.



When their backpacks were full, they weaved their way out of the villa. They reached the grounds without incident. Blind arrowed towards a palm tree which drooped towards the Archanium wall.



“After you,” Blind gestured towards the tree.



Nilon clambered up the rough bark and heaved himself on to the wall. He hung by his fingertips then plummeted on to the cobbles below. Blind flew up the tree, hopped on to the wall and dropped down next to his friend.



“I don’t know how you do that,” Nilon said.



Blind grinned. He looked over Nilon’s shoulder and the smile evaporated. A gravelly voice boomed from the darkness.



“You’re the same kids that brought us those artefacts in the Parchlands, aren’t you? Counsellor Thoren was right to ask us to keep an eye out.”



Nilon turned and saw the heavy set speaker emerging from the shadows across the street. The man was covered in scars and dressed in a thick leather tunic. He carried an Archanium baton. The friends immediately recognised him: the leader of the gang who had stolen the artefacts from them. They looked both ways down the street for an escape route, but the other gang members had emerged.



“That belongs to Counsellor Thoren,” the gang leader said, “Not some dirty street brats. Hand over the rucksacks and maybe you’ll be able to crawl home to your hole tonight.”



Loud guffaws rent the darkness. The thieves pressed themselves against the outer wall.



The trap continued to close in. Blind’s eyes darted between his friend’s calm face and the sneering thugs. He noticed that Nilon was fiddling with something behind his back.



“Be ready to hold your breath,” Nilon muttered out of the corner of his mouth.



He looked to the left. Blind followed his gaze.



“And run,” Nilon whispered.



In one swift movement, the thief whipped out two metal globes from behind his back and dashed them on to the cobbles at the feet of the gang members. From each, a choking cloud surged out.



Nilon and Blind sprinted away but the gas spread too quickly. Tears stung their eyes. Choked yells of confusion and anger churned around them.



They collided with a thug. The ruffian seized a fistful of Blind’s shirt. Nilon drove the back of the thug’s knee into the ground. He crumpled to the cobbles with a shriek of agony.



The thieves broke out of the gas cloud, spluttering and blinking away the pain. They tore down an empty street, but two more armed thugs appeared at the opposite end.



Nilon nodded towards a building covered in scaffolding half way down the street.



“Up there!” he cried.



The friends dashed towards the scaffolding, but the thugs reached it at the same time. Nilon and Blind scampered up the poles to the horizontal wooden plank. The brutes scrambled up a ladder after them.



Before the pursuers could reach the top of the ladder, Nilon kicked it away from the plank. One of the men thudded on to the cobbles below, the other clung on to a pole.



Nilon and Blind flew up a second ladder on to the rooftops, but another pair of thugs had also reached the high ground. Their livid eyes were streaming, and the sneers had been replaced with snarls.



The friends danced away from their pursuers across the rooftops. They could hear the thugs laboured grunts behind them.



The thieves reached a gap between street blocks. Blind put on a spurt of speed and leapt like a salmon over the abyss.



Nilon launched himself into the air after his friend. The sole of his right shoe scuffed the edge of the far rooftop but didn’t grip. His leg began to sink. The roof tile scraped down his shin. Nilon’s adrenaline froze into fear.



“Not down there,” Blind gasped. He grabbed his friend’s arm and heaved him up on to the roof.



The friends looked back. One of the thugs had stopped and was shaking his head. The other was eyeing the gap.



Dread gripped both of the friends. Blind hauled his partner up and they lurched away. They didn’t look back. Behind them there was a thud and a grunted curse. A repeated scraping sound followed. It became wilder and more desperate. The scraping stopped. A blood-curdling bellow filled the air, followed by a sickening crunch.



The gang member on the rooftops filled the chilly air with profanities.



“You were ruthless out there, Nill,” Blind panted when they had made it back to his hideout.



Nilon shrugged, but Blind observed that the label made his friend uncomfortable.



“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got,” Nilon said.



Blind emptied out all manner of fascinating artefacts from the Golden Age. Many he would sell on the black market, but some he thought could be of use on heists.



Nilon waited for his friend to finish. He then took out a smooth silver sphere, about 15cm in diameter, with a flattened base. With great reverence, he placed it on a table.



“Look what I came across,” Nilon announced.



“What is it?”



With a twinkle in his eye, Nilon took out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Blind. His friend’s eyes widened as he read. Then he laughed.



“Brilliant!” Blind said. “You stole a recording sphere, and you even remembered the manual!”



Nilon and Blind fiddled with the sphere. They managed to activate it. As instructed, they both placed their hands on the smooth surface.



Nilon felt every sinew in his body strain. Blood rushed to his head. His eyes were forced closed as a vivid, dynamic scene swam before his mind’s eye.



The recording showed a garden bursting with colour. Children and adults chatted and smiled around a long table. It was adorned with enticing foods, much of which Nilon didn't recognise. Metallic humanoids filled glasses and served the people. In the far background, a vibrant city hummed with life and technology. Spectacular skyscrapers pierced the horizon.



A voice asked the gathering to look at the sphere. The humans all looked at Nilon. Their eyes glistened with happiness.



A chill shivered through the young thief. He was watching ghosts. Their eerie contentment threw the troubles of modern life into sharp focus.



The recording ended. The friends’ eyes snapped open to their dim hideout. For a while, they stared at each other in wonder. Blind poured himself and his friend a drink.



“To the Golden past, filled with wonder!” Blind said as he raised his glass.



“And to a long-lasting friendship, filled with adventure,” Nilon replied.