Creative Writing The Hand in the Dark

Cheap title there.
Anyway, this is a short story I wrote not long ago set in the same world as the one you'll find filed under "Happy Fun Novus Writing Time!", although you can hardly tell because it's not anywhere near the same place, and is about an entirely different character.
This here is the tale of the Phantom Thief Zero (a character who a lot of my friends back home have already grown to hate), and one of his many capers. If I manage to survive the month, I'll probably write another one.

Night fell on Shadowspire. By day, the city would be bustling with students, merchants and craftsmen, going about their daily routines, but now, all was quiet, dark, still. Silent. Perfect.
Extending my hand the thin rope stretched across the gap to the next building. With a tug it retracted, pulling me across. I could see my target up ahead now: the High Library, at the heart of the university. I had not much farther to go.
In the alley below, I heard a soft scraping of metal: one of those new sentry golems installed to protect the city and its inhabitants from thieves, murderers, thugs and other criminals. People like me. No golem could stop me, though. I knew the guardian could probably not even see me. I was the Phantom Thief Zero, and I had been within feet of similar guardians in the past without them so much as knowing I was there.
Without paying the golem any more heed, I swung my rope once more. Within minutes I was on the wall outside the library, at about the fifth floor by my estimate. There were no windows on this level. For some architectural reason I did not care to remember there were only windows every ten floors, other than on the first. That was fine by me, however, since it reduced the chance of any late-night readers spotting me in my ascent.
My toes on a tiny ledge, I clung to the wall with one hand, using the other to return my rope to one of the pockets of my vest, into which it vanished instantly. Out of another pocket I withdrew two spined gauntlets, appropriated from some noble or other back in the Empire, and placed them carefully on my hands. With ease I began to scale the wall, expending no more effort than if I had been crawling along level ground.
Finally, I had reached my destination: the tenth floor. My actual goal was still two floors up, but I would have to make my way there from the inside. Finding a nearby window, I quickly glanced through. Luckily, there was no one seated at the desk facing it. With ease I removed the lock and slipped through.
Now inside the library, I was faced with shelf after shelf of old, musty-smelling, dust-covered books, some likely older than the university itself. Some distance away I could see the great spiral staircase which wound up to the next floor and down to those below. There was very little lighting inside, but coming in from the dark night even the simple candles interspersed throughout the room were an improvement. I knew, however, that someone must be around somewhere, or the candles would have put themselves out.
Ducking behind one of the shelves, I removed the gauntlets and stashed them back into my vest. Creeping between shelves, I began to make my way towards the stairs.
I had reached the end of the bookshelves. The stairs were across a short group of small desks. All were unoccupied except one, at which there sat a young elven girl, if indeed one of that race can be called young, reading silently from some ancient tome by the light of a candle. She seemed very engrossed in her work, and I probably could have walked right by her without her even looking up, but I could not take chances.
Whispering a series of unintelligible syllables and focusing my mind, I felt energy stir around me and suddenly vanished from my own sight. My spell in place, I silently stepped across the expanse to the stairs.
No sooner had I put my foot on the first stair than I heard clanging metal coming up the stairs: another guard golem, no doubt coming to make sure that no trespassers were lurking around the premises. Moving quickly, but still taking care to remain unheard, I mounted the stairwell. From below I heard the golem step onto the tenth floor. I was almost in the clear. I continued up to the stairs, reaching at last the twelfth floor.
There were no candles lit on this floor, so I knew no one was here. My thief’s instinct reminded me, however, that as soon as I stepped off the stairs the lights would come up.
My eyes adjusting quickly to the lack of light, I catapulted myself on top of a nearby bookshelf. I vaulted to the next, and then the next after that, and noticed I was getting deeper and deeper into darkness as I moved along, the light from the now-distant stairwell becoming fainter and fainter. Another jump and I was now in total darkness.
A tap to my eyes and my vision was restored, the enchantment in my mask kicking in, illuminating my field of view with a bright green glow. Momentarily disoriented by the activation of the magic, I paused, taking in the new brightness. Up ahead I saw more shelves, a few desks, and another golem, standing dormant in the centre of the tables. One false move and the guardian would spring to life, and my career would be over.
I could not see my objective; my inside source had informed me that it was hidden from vision by powerful magic. There were many such rooms in this library, mostly storing rare tomes, ancient scrolls or historic texts of great importance. It was one of these that I sought.
Being unable to see the room would make this next bit difficult, but not impossible. The presence of the golem, on the other hand, complicated things immensely. It also presented an opportunity. I knew these golems were built with top-of-the-line sensing magic build into their otherwise empty helmets. If I could disable it, finding the hidden room would be easy.
Reaching again into my vest, I procured two small, round objects: an explosive Bead of Blasting I had purchased during my last trip to visit my brother at the Guild in Gariland, and a smoke ball I had acquired from a former accomplice of mine.
First, I tossed the smoke ball at the golem. It exploded in a thick cloud that blinded even my enhanced vision. I tapped my eyes again, disabling the enchantment. I knew the golem would now be blinded as well.
Next, I hurled the explosive, which lit the room for an instant with a brilliant light. Following the explosion, I leaped for the golem, landing on its back. With a twist at its neck and a metallic snap, I had separated the helmet from the rest of the body. They didn’t make these things like they used to.
Springing back to a bookshelf with the helmet in my hands, I heard the golem’s body fall to the ground. The candles promptly lit up. I knew I would have to work quickly, for it would not be long until another patrolling golem came by to check up on the newly-lit floor, and upon discovering the decapitated golem, the entire library would be sealed off.
Momentarily fiddling with the inside of the helmet, I managed to remove the optical bits of the guardian’s head. One of the lenses was too damaged from the explosion to be of any use to me, but the other was more or less intact. I held the lens up to my eye and scanned the room for anything previously hidden. Sure enough, I saw the glowing outline of a door on one of the walls, behind a large bookshelf.
Still holding the lens, I slipped off the shelf and began to silently walk towards the hidden door. When I stood in front of it, I dropped the lens and reached out for where I had seen the doorknob. I felt its cool, smooth surface and turned. The door was unlocked. The enchanter must have figured that his spell would have been enough to keep out most intruders. Nevertheless, I suspected some kind of warding magic to lie behind the door, so I opened it slowly.

 

The door open, I could now see the small room beyond. Piles of books lay about the floor, some stacked taller than me. In the centre of the room there stood a large altar of smooth, grey stone, an immense volume sitting closed on its surface. There were two unlit candles, one on either side of the book. A more petty thief would have grabbed the candlesticks in an instant, as they were fashioned of an ornate gold and gem design. The only source of light in the room was the little bit that filtered through the doorway.
Since it seemed unlikely that my prize would be left unguarded behind the door, I picked the lens up once more and tossed it experimentally through the door. Sure enough, upon touching the floor it crackled with a blue spark of electricity, then lay still. This would be easy enough to avoid.
I simply jumped onto the altar, landing in a crouched position. Blowing dust from the cover of the book, I read its title, “The Book of Sarda” written in old elven script. The prize was mine at last. I lifted the book from the altar and slipped it into my vest, where it instantly concealed itself. Vaulting back through the door, I was in the library again.
As I was about to close the door and leave, a sound from back within turned me around. The altar had begun to shake, and the two candlesticks fell on their sides. A red light suddenly began to pulse from above, and a sharp, clear sound began to blare.
I do not know why it did not occur to me that the altar itself would have been trapped. At that moment, all I knew was that I needed to get out of there fast. Even a rookie knows not to be caught at the scene of the crime.
The shortest way out would have been back down to the tenth floor and out the window, so I decided to head that way. I ran to the stairway and began to ascend. From above there were sounds of clanging and footsteps: more golems coming to apprehend me. I bolted onto the tenth floor and saw a full complement of golems waiting for me. Quickly, I turned back to the stairs, but was greeted by the sound of more golems coming from the floors below. It seemed I had my choice of ends, either from above, below or in front.
I decided my best chance would be the front. Across the room, I could see a window, my only chance out of here. There were about ten golems between me and there, and there were more trying to circle me, closing me in. For a few seconds that seemed like minutes, the golems and I just stood there, looking each other over. As I stared into their lifeless eyes, a short sword formed in each guardian’s right hand.
“Surrender or be destroyed,” one golem boomed, its voice thick and low.
Underneath my mask I smiled. In spite of their talk, I knew what they were doing: they were waiting for me to make the first move. Guardian golems are always the same that way. If I knew these things, which I was sure I did, I still had a chance. When I moved, they would attack. If I stood there long enough, I was fairly confident that they would just stand there until someone came by and moved them.
Of course, I didn’t have that kind of time, even if that was really an option at all. Reaching into my vest, I withdrew another smoke ball. As soon as my hand had come back out of my pockets, the golems had raised their swords to ready position.
“Okay,” I said. “I give up.”
I held out my hands as if to surrender, keeping the ball concealed in my palm. One of the golems stepped forward to grab me. This was my opportunity.
The smoke bomb slipped from my hand, striking the floor and exploding in a cloud of smoke. It was not enough to blind all the golems, but was enough to distract them momentarily.
Grabbing my prospective apprehender by the torso, drove all my weight into it, knocking it off-balance and sending it reeling into some of its cohorts. With a quick leap I launched myself at one of the other guardians and drove a flying kick to its head. It fell into another golem and the two crashed to the ground in a heap. Jumping onto this pile, I flipped myself over the rest of the guards and made for the window. I was nearly in the clear.
As I ran I pulled my rope out of its place in my vest. Just before I could dive through the window, the elf girl I saw earlier stepped in front of me.
“Stop, thief!” she sqeaked, her voice small and panicked.
I chuckled to myself as I dove, driving her through the window with me. She screamed as we fell, but I saw no reason to let her die.
With one hand I grabbed her by the back of the robe, and with the other I swung my rope at the nearest building. When we had swung to the rooftop, I set her down, but her robe tore from the force of the fall and the swing back up. Bewildered, she just stared at me.
For a moment I paused, admiring the view. Some of the golems were assembling in the window, staring out, trying to find me. Seconds later I was gone, swinging back out of town, building by building.

A week later, I was seated back in my office, flipping through the pages of my newly-acquired text.
“Let’s see him top that,” I said, smiling.