Aleks knelt on the surprisingly clean floor of the most fantastic fortress he had ever seen in his life. For starters, it was inside of a giant cave which had a river flowing out of it. There was a port set up along the shore below. Ramparts lined the walls, at least five layers of them. Aleks' floor must have been second or third from the ground. And that wasn’t even touching on the tunnel system.
On a dais nearby, a man stood authoritatively. At least, of all the men on this platform, he alone was idle. In Aleks’ experience, that meant he was in charge.
"We found this intruder lurking in a corridor," some lackey with a sword was explaining. The boss looked sternly into the middle distance and said nothing.
Aleks liked to learn people's real names, but he had been having a rather hard go of it, and he was being very brave despite the difficulties, so he decided that he would cut himself some slack, just this once.
"He tried to pretend that he worked here," the lackey continued, "but the beast he was leading around wasn't on any of our import paperwork."
The stern-faced man looked up, past his subordinate, to the place where fifteen or so other guards had finally managed to tie Ceph down. In hindsight, Aleks probably should have made him stay outside.
"He was also carrying a weapon without authorization," the lackey said, and he handed over the thunderblade.
The stern man held it up to the light of a nearby lantern and squinted down its length. "I don't recognize the style—no Glaevor made this." Tilting it, he ran his fingers over the working of the handle.
“Don’t touch that!” Aleks blurted, just as the man reached the safety latch.
Turning to stare at him, the man held intense eye contact as he felt over the area. Soon enough, Aleks heard the click of the safety turning off.
Nothing else happened. He must have forgotten to turn the power on in the first place.
Sheepishly, Aleks broke the staring contest. “Sorry,” he muttered, “I really did expect that to do something.”
Without a word, the stern man stepped down off the raised dais where he had been standing, sword in hand. It was time to try another tactic.
Aleks cleared his throat and put on his most formal voice. “Also, good sir, we need to put down our weapons and speak like gentlemen for a moment. What in the name of the endless sea is going on with your outfit?”
The man actually stopped in his path, eyebrows raising almost imperceptibly. “My outfit?” he said. He reminded Aleks of his father’s great bloodhounds whose noses wrinkled whenever a maid accidentally brushed soot from a fireplace into their face.
“Precisely,” Aleks said. “You are wearing work boots, leather pants, and a white frilled shirt. Are you going to a dance or to feed the cows? Pick an aesthetic.”
The man smiled. “You have never dealt with sea bandits, have you?”
“My potential experience is irrelevant,” Aleks said. “You are wearing silk gloves. My mother wears silk gloves, and that's fine, because she's a middle aged woman and not an aspiring bandit overlord.”
Passing the sword to his other hand, the man’s grip on the handle changed. He had been holding it like anything before. Now it was an instrument, a tool, and he the skilled artist. Aleks had grown up near enough warriors to recognize when someone knew what they were doing.
In that moment, he had exactly the wrong kind of epiphany. If the sword malfunctions, the wizards’ note had said, place it back in the case and return it to us for repairs. Opening the box, he had wondered why the ever practical wizards had thought to line it with such fine fabric. He was beginning to understand now.
The man wearing the silk gloves was stepping forward again.
“Wait,” Aleks said, too distracted to think of anything useful, “Sorry, just—could you hang on? I'm having second thoughts about my fashion analysis.”
“Any last words?” The man said.
Aleks bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”
“No no,” the man said, “It’s too late for that.”
“But I can't help feeling it,” Aleks said, looking up again, “You have this entire epic underground fortress, full of soldiers and merchants and servants. Thousands of people run around all night working to fulfill your every whim—and nobody loves you.”
Lowering his sword, the man stepped back. “Okay,” he said, “I changed my mind. Death is too good for you.” Turning to the head lackey, he handed the Thunderblade back into his care. “Take him down to—”
The minute his hands made contact with it, the lackey yelped and dropped the sword. Aleks was moving before it hit the ground. He was ready for the jolt that would come through the floorboards, but the men holding Ceph were not. While they startled, he yanked a dagger from the nearest belt and set to cutting Ceph’s bonds.
The stern man barked an order, but it was already too late. In a rush, Ceph burst free.
Aleks felt a kind of a lurch in his stomach, like the one that happens when you step off of a staircase only to realize that there were one or two steps more that you had forgotten about, and your feet don’t quite catch your insides in time. The next thing he knew, he was being dragged up towards the ceiling of the cave, Ceph’s fore-leg wrapped around his waist.
In the growing distance, he could see the bandit’s stern leader staring after him. For just a moment they made eye contact, and Aleks got another kind of funny feeling.
“You know,” Aleks said, “That guy was less of an idiot than normal—though the gloves were probably just lucky.” Then he remembered that Ceph would never be able to hear him over the wind his wings made.