It wasn't really cold. His brain assured Wen of that. But the rest of him wasn't convinced. Somehow the damp air of early morning got inside you, penetrated to the core of your bones. The fog wasn't helping, either. Jīn-sè Mèn may have called itself the Gate of Gold, but no gold ever chilled this badly.
"I'm pretty sure this is the right hill," he said to Lum as they climbed the road, still muddy with last night's rain. "But I won't know for sure until I see the mansion. In this fog I can't even be sure we're still in Fusang."
"Pity your eye doesn't work well on land," Lum said. He was still smiling, though. He'd been inordinately pleased to learn that One-Eyed Lum had a reputation in the Jīn-sè Mèn underworld too, and while it seemed subordinated to that of Bloody Sheet Wen, it was still enough to generate awe in the nervous band of would-be brigands following Wen and Lum up the hill.
"Do you see light?" Lum tugged at Wen's sleeve.
"I do," said Wen. "Two lights, to be precise." Should there be lights at this time of day? It was the second hour; not even watchmen would be on this hill at this hour. Assuming they were on the right hill. "Only one thing to do, Lum: let's keep going."
The lights were lanterns, one hung on either side of the gate to what was, indeed, Chin's new mansion. Whomever the lanterns had been lit for was not in evidence, though, and it was an easy matter for Wen to scale the wall and unlock the gate from inside. Still, those lit lanterns were unusual enough that Wen decided it would make sense to employ a bit of extra caution. Though it would make the job of removing the treasure that much more difficult, he ordered one of the new gang to stand by the gate, and to make a bird-call as a warning should anyone approach the mansion from the street.
"Where do we go?" whispered Lum. "I can't see a thing."
"That's why I spent so much time delivering things to this place," Wen said. "I knew I was going to have to find my way around here in the dark. At this point the fog doesn't make any difference."
Had the mansion been occupied there might at least have been snores issuing from the men's quarters. But the compound was completely silent; not even insects were making noise tonight. On the one hand the silence made Wen painfully aware of every boot-scrape or scuffle his men made as they followed him—evidently the really successful thieves had already been spoken for when he was recruiting this gang—but on the other he was able to reassure himself that a few stray noises wouldn't make any difference, because Chin was obviously out tonight, slaughtering someone or stealing their rice.
The grain store was locked and barred, but after having come so far Wen wasn't going to let that stop him. One of the first spells he'd asked Yin Fengzi to create for him had been one to melt the interiors of locks—pirates being more likely than the average man to encounter locks that had been shut against them—and Wen had long since committed it to memory. The spell never worked as well when he spoke it as when Fengzi did, but it worked well enough that eventually, with a rap or two with the pommel of his sword, the lock fell apart. After that it was an easy matter to force the blade of his sword between the door and its frame, and lift the bar.
Once inside the storeroom Wen allowed himself the luxury of a light. Again, it would have been better had Fengzi been with him, because her lights never flickered or blew out an inopportune moments. But Fengzi wasn't in a mood to help him, and that was that. A fat-soaked twist of hemp cord would have to do.
The storeroom was mostly empty. Where, wondered Wen, are all those sacks I moved in here the other day? Oh, well. It just made the secret entrance a lot less secret. "You wait by this door," he whispered to Lum, "until I know exactly how much treasure we're going to have to move." He walked across the empty room, startling a drowsing mouse or two, and carefully pulled at the piece of false wall in front of which he'd found the silver armor plate the other day.
Inside was even more damp and dark than outside, and Wen realized that he was looking at a tunnel cut into the side of the hill. This will go down, then, he thought, if only because Chin built into the top of the hill and there's nowhere else to go.
Motioning Lum to wait, Wen stepped into the tunnel. Nothing happened. Can't you idiots be quiet? he silently begged his new gang. They weren't talking, but just the sound of their breathing raged in his ears inside this confined space. Ahead, the tunnel curved into darkness.
There were only a few steps down, and as the light from his impromptu torch reached it, Wen was gratified to see the burst of that light reflecting from hundreds of silver scales. Got you, he thought.
Oh, hells, he thought next. I don't. "Lum, get out!" he shouted. "Now!" The silver suit of armor was moving toward him at an unearthly pace—wrapped as it was around the large person of General Chin Gwai.
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