Jede leapt over the rail of the balcony, hit the stone floor, and rolled to her feet. Readjusting her loose, black linen pants and tunic, she allowed herself the satisfaction of a grin. So far so good. The guards outside had been easily avoided, and Tarza Mir’s mansion seemed to be full of antique furniture and little else.

Antique furniture held very little danger for Jede.

Satisfied for the moment, she checked that all of her weapons were still in place, and slipped over to the shadows by the wall. The marble was cold on her back. Ahead of her was a high ironshod door, engraved with the bloody shield of the Miren. Her fingers found the slim daggerpoint of her lockpick as she approached the door. It stood twice as high as she did. The lock was pure copper, which made her wince a bit, but the slim lockpick did her work for her, sparing Jede the difficulty of touching the metal itself. The door swung open with a soft creak. Jede paused, looking around. The hall was still. She slid around the door and drew it closed after her. Moving as silently as she could, Jede walked carefully down the granite stairs leading to the maze of hallways on the lower level, her gloved fingers tracing along the wall. The map of Tarza’s mansion, memorized days before, unfurled before her inner vision as she followed a seemingly random pattern of turnings, deeper into the Court Mage’s home.
Bit labyrinthine, and a bit cold. He’d do well with some torches and a few patrolling guards. Anyone with a half decent memory can crack a maze.

Humming soundlessly, Jede counted steps and turns in her mind. It’s a zero-sum problem. Direction and magnitude… all turnings turn back on themselves and come back to the beginning… except one. Just a matter of logic, and mathematics...She came to a fork, and chose the right-hand hall. Her head turned, looking for the recessed passage to the left that should appear in twenty-seven steps… and smiled as the dark archway materialized out of the gloom. Jede turned, light on her feet, heading down the passage, drawn on by a dim glimmer ahead.

The only sound was the faint taps of her feet. Eyes closed, Jede counted her steps, staying always to the left side, her fingers walking ahead of her like spiders on the wall. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty- One of her feet slipped slightly and her toes curled over a sharp edge, inches away. She breathed slowly, calmly. Kyrenn was right about staying to the left. Jede inched forward, her questing fingers finding a turn in the corridor. Laying her hand flat against the wall, she measured three handbreadths. Her gloved fingertips encountered a small recess, and closed around a torch propped inside. She pulled the torch from its resting place and released it. She did not hear it hit the floor. Returning her fingers to the wall recess, she gripped the stone tightly. Jede took another inching step, steeled herself, and leapt.

For a moment she dangled in the air, holding to the wall only by the narrow torch hollow. Her eyes opened involuntarily, and she caught a glimpse of the deep, spike-lined pit guarding the entrance to the wide chamber at the end of the passage. Then the pivot-point of her fingers snapped her around the corner and her feet were on the other side.

I am going to give Kyrenn whatever the bloody hell he wants when I get out of here. Wall torches. He must have done a lot of work to find out how far apart they were down in this hole. Jede straightened up, reaching into the silk sash around her waist and finding her flint-and-steel. The sparks threw shifting light back onto her face, making her eyes gleam darkly out from her mask as she lit one of the undisturbed torches on the wall.

In the radiating light the room was high-ceilinged, the walls curving into a double-pointed arch. The paneled roof was inlaid with ivory and dark wood. In the center was a platform about as high as Jede’s throat. Made of some grey-flecked stone, it seemed to rise unbroken from the floor. Resting in a metal cradle on top of the platform was a slim blade, gleaming in the torchlight. The sword was shorter than a knight’s broadsword, though similar in shape. The steel glinted, inlaid with ivory and carnelian. Jede smiled and crossed toward her prize.

Bright purple flames shot out of the floor in a six-foot radius around the platform. Jede stifled a cry as she snatched back her foot from the shimmering wall of fire.

“Hellfire,” she cursed. “Wards. The bastard put up wards.” Jede stalked around the perimeter of the ring. The lines of the warding spell were visible now on the floor, traced in dust. Kyrenn didn’t say anything about wards, damn him. And these are diamond-dust, if I’m not wrong. I don’t have anything with me that will break a diamondward. Damn him. I’m going to have to do this the hard way.

Sighing, Jede removed a compass from her sash. Holding the compass out in front of her, she moved around the purple flames, burning now at around the level of her waist. The compass hummed softly when her back was to the western wall. Jede knelt, facing east, into the direction of dawn and opening doors. I hope Kyrenn has good taste in employers… if I don’t get paid in gold scepters for using blood alchemy to break these damn wards, I’m… I’m going to stab Kyrenn with that sword. Jede withdrew three small stoppered vials and set them out in front of her. She drew a black-bladed dagger from its sheath at her side, and stabbed it down into the rock of the floor. It melted into the stone as if the floor was only loose earth.

She pulled the stopper from the first vial. A faint smell of spices hovered in the air a moment. Carefully Jede tapped the glass, drawing narrow lines with the green granules it contained. Her teeth bit into her lip behind the silk mask as she worked, bent over, her eyes inches from the sigil-spell she was inscribing around the dagger.

Minutes dragged by, the only sound the soft fall of the grains onto the stone. The design looped in whorls, like the maze surrounding the chamber. Jede sat up, careful not to disturb the elaborate drawing. She arched her back, working out the cricks. Once the vial was stoppered and tucked away, Jede reached behind her head and unlaced the mask disguising her features. Her hair tumbled down around her, bright copper. She selected the second vial, and shook out two grains of blood-red sand into her gloved palm. Absently she set the vial aside, and tipped the grains into her mouth. Her eyes closed as they dissolved.

“Emrahai, Lady of Blood,” Jede whispered. “Open the east door to me.” She removed the glove from her left hand. Her right settled on the hilt of the dagger. “Bring to me the power of keys and locks, of findings and openings. Bring me the dawn and the new day. Bring me the open road, the widened horizon. Lady of Blood, give me the east.” She pulled the dagger from the stone. The sigil blazed up bright green, dazzling her eyes. Jede took a long breath, and placed the point of the dagger at her left wrist. Digging in, she drew a crimson line across her palm, curving between her index and middle fingers. The sigil flamed brighter. Jede pulled the stopper from the last vial, and shook a single grain of copper into the blood running down her palm. Pain raced up her arm, and she bit her lip to keep silent. The blood trickled down her fingers, glimmering as coppery-red as her hair. A drop hit the center of the sigil, where the dagger had stood, and the design flamed gold.

“Quiren!” Jede hissed, and the alchemic rune exploded forward, striking the purple flames of the wards. The bright gold pierced through them and plunged downwards, scattering the white dust that made up the wardlines. The flames sputtered and died.

Jede stood up, gathering her tools, and smudged the sigil with her foot. It had turned a scorched black. She scrubbed at it, but the stain had sunk into the stone too deep for her to remove with only a boot. Sighing, she rubbed at it until it bore as little resemblance to an alchemical spell as possible. Then she turned to the sword.

The blade gleamed invitingly. The air around it seemed to crisp along the sharp lines of its edges. Jede hovered over it, gazing open-eyed at the intricate inlays as she relaced her hooded mask and pulled on the black glove, wincing slightly as the fabric caught the fresh cut on her palm. Only after she was sufficiently covered did she touch the sword, wrapping it in a heavy swath of dark canvas. Slinging it across her back, Jede adjusted her sash and dagger to accommodate the new weight. Wearing a sword felt strange, unnatural. Her back was straight against its length, and if she thought about it, the edges of the blade seemed to press against her.

Smoke and legends. The Qalharym are just stories. You’re far too old to be worrying about bloodrinker blades, Jede. It’s a sword. Get out of here. She extinguished the torch and began to make her way upward into the light.