On the Shoulders of Giants and Other Stories (Warhammer Age of Sigmar) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Dark fantasy (FMT)
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2024-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

The Manse of Mirrors

Nick Horth

I don’t do break-in jobs, as a rule. The crucial thing about my line of work is that it involves searching for items of incalculable value and historical significance. Relics of a lost age, the sole remaining cultural evidence of civilisations ground down by time and damned by the gods. It is one of the immutable laws of existence that such precious things tend to fall into the hands of the realms’ very worst people.

So I remain unsure as to the exact reason I agreed to break into the manse of Phylebius Crade, noted master of amethyst magic, former high thaumaturge of the free city of Lethis, and by all accounts one of the most dangerous men you could ever wish to meet. Fortunately, he’d been dead for something approaching fifty years, so running into him seemed an unlikely prospect.

As usual, Rhodus gave me the hard sell. Over a glass of overpriced Cyphian amber in an overpriced private room of the Silvermoon tavern, he massaged my ego and played upon my desires as only a merchant of the Ivory Circle could. Our meeting place was a fine, if rather gloomy establishment, its walls and chairs fashioned from polished black wood and decorated with all manner of gewgaws: dreamcatchers, rope-charms and brass tintinnabula that tinkled unsettlingly in the breeze. A lamp filled with whale tallow burned softly above our private table, releasing a strange, blue-white glow. The Lethisian aesthetic was not one I particularly admired. It felt as though I were drinking in a gigantic coffin.

Rhodus signalled a cadaverous member of the serving staff to refill my glass, and I made no objection. I never pass up an opportunity for free food or drink. The life of a roaming treasure seeker is one of dramatic highs and frequent, penurious lows, and currently my resources were worryingly meagre. It had not been easy to gain passage to Shyish; at great cost I had booked a berth upon a trade fleet out of Excelsis that had passed through the Lixian Realmgate, carrying vast quantities of augur-stones for the Raven City’s markets. That journey had taken a season and more, and had drained the last of my coin. I was weary and broke. The perfect mark for a rogue like Rhodus.

‘No one’s heard a whisper from the place since the old wretch passed,’ Rhodus was saying. ‘And you must have heard the rumours. By the time Crade died he had gathered himself a hoard of Stygxxian relics, the sort of treasures that would bring in a cog-fort’s worth of Azyrite coin on the shadow market. Now don’t tell me that doesn’t strike your fancy, because I know you better than that, Shevanya Arclis.’

He leaned back on his chair, his legs swinging ridiculously like those of an overeager child.

I took a long, slow drink, trying to mask my interest. It never pays to let someone like Rhodus know he’s got his hooks in you. I had an inexplicable fondness for the

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