*

Rolling his newly drawn map across the scratched varnish of the ancient table, Keet waited patiently (but not unirritatedly) as his human friend studied it blankly.

“Well?” Getting up from his perch on the table, causing it to creek, he walked round to his puzzled companion. His movement stirred up months of dust and grime and he had to fight the urge to sneeze.

“Well what?” queried his short partner uncertainly from his seat on the only decent chair in the room, which he had drawn up to the table.

“What do you think?” He asked Sam proudly, tasting the dust that filled the air as it forced its determined way into his mouth. He drew himself up to his full height, which was quite tall (consequentially bumping his head on the lone, covered light hanging from the low ceiling.)

“Well, it’s a map of a house!” Sam knew he was on firm ground there; it was definitely a map of a house. However Keet sighed exasperatedly.

“Not just any house dimwit, it’s Crole’s manor!” His tone turned dramatic, and was very impressive up until the point he sneezed.

“Er…it’s very well done” Well, it was! It had all the doors marked on and everything!

“Oh, for goodness sake…” The elf checked himself as he started to raise his voice.

“O’ course it would ‘elp if I could see the thing.”

Keet paced around the cluttered room restlessly. “It’s supposed to be secret, we got to dim the lights. Have you learnt nothing in the three years you’ve known me?”

“Oh.” He squinted at the map for a time. “What’s secret about a map of a house?”

“Idiot.” Snapped Keet. “It’s the house we’re going to rob next.” He stopped his pacing and turned sharply to face the man with his eyes watering (this was because he’d just hit his knee on the table leg.)

Sam sat in silence for a while

“Why?”

“Because we’re robbers!” He hissed angrily, all the more annoyed because of Sam’s calmness. (And his leg was hurting, but he daren’t rub it while Sam was watching.)

“But Keet…”

“Don’t call me by my name stupid, someone could be listening.”

“Well, person-with-no-name, we still got plenty of stuff from the last time we…” Sam tried to point out.

“So! Why should that matter? We haven’t to get out of practice.” He dismissed the argument with a wave of his gloved hand. “Now Crole is supposed to be very clever, so this should be a challenge.” His eyes gleamed, even in the dimness of the room.

“But I thought you’d made friends with Crole, wouldn’t it be kind of betraying him to…”

“Oh, for goodness sake, were thieves! You know, the ‘bad guys’?”

“It would be easier to…”

The elf and the man talked and argued until after midnight. The short one never moving out of his seat at the table, while the tall one impatiently paced about the room, occasionally perching on the edge of a table or bench. Once he even sat down on a rickety chair for ten minutes before he was up and pacing again (which was just as well for the chair fell apart a moment later), but by the morning they appeared to have reached a decision.

*

The next night there is more activity in the flat with the conspicuously dimmed lights, and two people in black clothing slink off into the inky moonless night. See them dart from one shadow to another, between orange puddles of flickering light, as insubstantial as liquid in the shadows. Eventually you see them come out of the Protian City Flats, and across the border into High Prote City, where they dart between elegant mansions and palaces, three times as high (and 33 times more expensive) as any building on the Flats. See them stop beside a greenly illuminated palace, (Prote never did go for subtlety,) surrounded by tall curving white walls. The palace was circular, and looked rather like an over-decorated wedding cake, with one circle above another circle, each getting smaller and ending with a square tower on top (don’t ask!). Look closely and see two patches of shadow scale the outer wall, (with a slight pause as the shorter shadow fell off,) and cautiously make their way across the short expanse of grass to the base of the first tier. The shadows then proceed to climb the outside wall, and as they do this you will also notice that the circular mansion isn’t made of smooth circles after all, but rather the walls are filled with lots of niches and crannies. (This doesn’t seem logical, but then Prote city has less logic as a steering wheel in a train.) The shadows used these cracks as cover from the eerie green light.

*

Keet climbed in the window and looked around; there was the circular safe in the middle of the bare tower like it was supposed to be. It had the look of a place that would screech if a piece of dust even got near it, you could smell the polish from outside the window, and that’s when it was closed, (the fact that there wasn’t anything wooden in the tower to polish was a minor detail.)

“Right!” He turned to his comrade as he climbed in after him, holding his nose. “You go down there,” he pointed to the steps that led down to the level below, “and call up if anyone comes. Right?”

“Right Geet…berson-wi-do-dame” he corrected himself, holding his nose against the stench. Obediently the short, stocky man one-handedly descended the uneven steps carefully, trying (with little success) not to make them creek. Smiling to himself, Keet got to work on the safe. Pretty stupid of Crole really, to put the safe here, especially without locking the windows. And he’d thought he was supposed to be clever! Of course, most of the money would go to him; it wasn’t as if he was being disloyal to his friend, just missing out a few facts, that’s all. I mean, he’d never actually promised it would be a 50-50 split, and Sam would never have to know.

Two things happened: one he heard the safe click open; two, five bulky guards pored into the room, surrounding him with crossbows, followed by his dejected comrade.

“I’m really sorry.” He attempted to explain himself, staring at the floor. “But they found out who I was, an’ what we was planning, an’ they told me they would let me go if…an’ you said before it was ok to betray people, ‘coz we was the bad guys an’…I am really sorry...” His voice died away mournfully.

Keet just stood there stunned. He’d betrayed him. After three years, Sam had betrayed him, after all he’d done. He’d betrayed him with his own words and he thought that made it ok! Hadn’t he told him about honour among thieves?

“Why?”

The guards manhandled him outside. The journey down the endless winding steps took forever. Some burly zolf patrolmen were waiting. The whole thing was a set-up, he realised dazedly. Sam turned to go, a picture of misery and regret. Huh, too late now.

“Not so fast!” said one guard (not rally appropriate because Sam was walking slower than a snail, you got the impression he’d rehearsed his lines in front of a mirror.) “You’re not going anywhere!”

“But you said…” Sam looked panic stricken.

“I said? What did I say? Who cares what I said? The cops want ya”

“But…”

*

Now see two black clothed robbers being shoved into a cart. Hear the guards laughter as they retreat into the green wedding cake.

The next day the sun rose, penetrating the layer of smog that cloaked the city like a permanent shroud. Lord K’haz sat down at his old desk in his circular room at the top of the highest tower in Prote; people of all kinds bustled about their daily chores; boats jostled up the river; patrolmen continued their daily rounds through the gigantic sprawling city (unaccountably ending up at a nearby pub); life went on as abnormal as ever. The only difference was that two damp cells in the yard now had silent occupants, but nobody notices things like that. Not fair really is it?