"Now, how are you going to do that?" she demanded.

"A test of skill. Any thief regardless of age, sex, or origin can join as long as he or she can pass a test."

Teza's eyes narrowed. "Does that include me?"

"Umm… yes," Rafbit hesitated. "It's only fair."

Teza jumped to her feet. "You ask me to join your little light-fingered squad, but you expect me to prove my worth?" she cried, her voice rising dangerously with every word.

"A mere formality!" Rafbit hastened to calm her. "It's really only to reassure our patron. He should be aware of your value to the guild. Just as I am."

The horse-thief stilled, her long legs apart, her arms crossed. "Patron?" she growled.

"Yes! He is our key to success. A judicial authority with a penchant for collecting rare gems. In exchange for any 'collectibles' we might find, he will be our ears and eyes in the Iron Lord's court."

Teza's glance narrowed in speculation. "I want to meet him first."

Rafbit shook her hand. "Done."

The meeting went better than Teza had anticipated. For one thing, she didn't really expect there to be a patron. But two days after Rafbit's invitation, she and the half-elf met a short, powerfully built man cloaked in rich snowcat furs and quiet self-importance.

The official acknowledged her identity with a lift of his thick eyebrow. They talked briefly. The man and Teza examined each other from head to boot, and both were satisfied with what they saw.

When the meeting was over, Teza turned to Rafbit. She was still wary of his motives in this venture, yet the pres ence of a patron in the Huhrong's courts put a different light on the matter. She was willing to take the next step and see what happened.

"What is the test you had in mind for me?" Had she not been watching her step in the muddy snow, she might have seen Rafbit's mouth move in the quick, hungry grimace of a stoat on the hunt.

"It's simple really. I have a customer who lost a particular item and is willing to pay for its recovery."

Teza did not accept other people's use of "simple" without explanation. "What, exactly, and where is it?"

"A book. In the library of Lord Duronh."

Teza stopped in midstride. "Are you serious? A book? That's ridiculous. I'm a horse-thief! You're the burglar."

"If you are going to be my officer," Rafbit explained patiently, "you need to excel in many skills. Your ability to steal anything four-legged is legendary. So is your talent with disguises. You've also been known to pick pockets, purses, and bags. But can you break into a house and steal something useful? That is your test."

Teza, ignoring the flattery, conceded he had a point. Yet she couldn't help asking, "Who's testing you?"

To her surprise, Rafbit's pale face turned whiter and the gleam went out of his eyes. "I have already been tested," he growled, and he would not say any more.

That was why, three days later, in the deep of a cold, still night, Teza rode the aughisky into the quiet streets of the city. She breathed a silent prayer to Mask, the god of rogues and thieves. Her enterprise that night would be to the god's advantage, so she hoped he was paying attention.

He had certainly helped in one fashion. A dank, thick fog rolled over the city from Lake Ashane, turning the darkness into a solid mass. Only the aughisky, bred in the black waters of Ashane, seemed at home in the dense wet air. He picked his way unerringly through the streets at Teza's direction, past the Huhrong's towering palace, and into the gentle hills of the wealthier section of the city, where the houses were larger and surrounded by their own ornate walls.

The water horse turned at Teza's cue onto a path that led between two high walls and down a steep bank to a river. The river was a small one that wended its way to Ashane from the east, just slow enough and deep enough for pleasure craft. Many of the houses built along its bank had docks or boathouses.

Lord Duronh's residence had one, too, although the lord had gone one step further. He had dug a cavern into the high bank below his house and built a dock for his crafts, where they were protected from all but the most frigid weather.

Teza thought this underground boathouse would be her best entrance into the house. Any guard left standing over one small back door on a night like this would not be expecting trouble.

As silent as a black shadow, the water horse carried her downstream through the fog to the broad opening of Duronh's boathouse. Teza shuddered at the sight of that dark river lapping at her knees, but the aughisky made no attempt to drop her or carry her into deeper water. He worked his way around the lord's small boats and deposited Teza on the wooden dock. With a sigh of fervent relief, she patted him and eased farther along the dark dock toward what she hoped was the stairs.

The darkness was absolute in the cavern, so Teza silently opened a small bag she wore buckled around her waist and pulled out her most useful thieves' tool: a pair of night glasses. She had bought them from a wandering wizard for a horrendous sum, but they had paid her back a hundredfold with their usefulness. She slid them on, and immediately the night slipped into focus. Although the glasses made everything look red, their vision was remarkably clear.

Swiftly she found the stairs leading to the rear of the house and mounted them to the entrance. The door was a heavy affair of oak and iron, but its lock yielded easily to the pick Rafbit had loaned her. Just inside, she saw the first guard leaning against the wall. As she had hoped, he dozed over his weapons.

Teza drew another useful item from her belt pack: a small circle of fabric permeated with a fast-acting sedative. She rubbed a little spit into the cloth to activate the drug and, before it could affect her, stuck it to the skin of the napping guard. In seconds he slumped into a deeper sleep.

From there, the rest of the job was easy. A friend of Raf-bit's had told Teza the floor plan of the house, enabling her to slip through the night-darkened halls, past two more guards, to the second floor, where the library stood at the end of a long corridor. Teza's glasses saw nothing amiss. No watchdogs, no statues enspelled to shout an alarm, no traps, nothing. Lord Duronh must not consider his books very valuable, Teza told herself.

Her suspicions proved correct when she entered the library. It was a small room-cold, damp, and musty. Sheets covered the furniture, and the books were layered with dust.

Teza wasted no time. She knew the book she needed was tan-colored, fairly large, and labeled with a wizard's rune on the spine. Silently she ran her eyes along the shelves lining the walls, along row after row of old manuscripts, scrolls, and bound books. Half an hour later, she found the one she wanted, crammed on a bottom shelf beneath a stack of moldy vellum sheets.

Teza pulled it out and nearly dropped it in surprise. It was much heavier than she had expected and was bound with something much smoother and softer to the touch than leather. She hefted it. It seemed to be the right book. It had the sigil on the spine and the tan-colored binding. It must have belonged to a wizard at one time, but what was it doing here, and what was so important about it that someone would pay to have it stolen?

Teza tried to open it, but discovered something else very odd. Someone had attached hair to the book from top to bottom along both edges of the cover. The hair was then braided, tying the book closed to casual view. The braid lay soft under Teza's fingers, as soft and fine as human hair.

Without quite knowing why, Teza grew angry. She began to have the feeling Rafbit had not told her every thing she ought to know about this book. She tucked the tome under her arm and fled noiselessly back the way she had come, to the cavern where the aughisky waited for her.