Virtue, dear audience, is defined by those who wield it. Yes, just as morality is but what constraints we choose to impose upon our desires, and just as the powerful force their morality upon those below themselves and call it Law to part "good" from "evil", so does virtue take the shape agreed upon by the tyranny of many – or the few. Is that not right, beloved Lord of Alabaster? Truly, you have claimed dominion over the virtue of Diligence and fashioned it into your Porcelain Visage. You hold court over our toiling and find it good, for only the harshest labor – devoutly and painstakingly conducted in your name – could ever set us free. We exist to please you, every subject, every retainer and lowly supplicant fulfilling the purpose you have vested upon them for your glory. Ah, White Lord of Alagadda, how it fills your heart with mirth to hear the stories that I, your most faithful tale-weaver, deliver under the black stars to enlighten the ignorant masses.
But tonight, you have a guest most illustrious, I see. A visitor to our White Court, an exalted royal from a land beyond! Ah, Crownless Emperor of the Realm In-between, Two-Fold Abdicator, Bearer of Forbidden Color, we are honored by your presence. Few dare speak your name here, and those of us who do are forever haunted. Yours is a virtue alien to us, yet still unnervingly familiar, for on our soil your Silver Mask proclaims fellowship, kinship woven out of blood and dream. Indeed, I could tell your story, the one entombed in the deepest Vault beneath this city, where no one – not even our dear Ambassador – dares set foot. For you see, devout listeners, there once was a God who wished to be a–
URKH!
… if it would so please our White Lord, I could perhaps tell a different story for tonight, if only he would liberate my throats?
Ah, you have my undying gratitude, Diligent One. I mean no offense to our esteemed guest. My most sincere apologies. Prudence, it seems, is also tonight's virtue.
Our story, however, finds a much different definition of what virtuousness is. Though we most deal in the divide of the wicked and the righteous, there are those who would see themselves beyond this dichotomy, creatures who wish to carve their name in history not by way of stale values, but through sheer skill alone. Excellence is their virtue, and it is one beyond moral reproach: the honing of an ability into immaculate artistry, into supreme perfection. Who can question one who has achieved such mastery of their craft? Who can bind a true artist with rusty chains of domination, or subjugate them under the yoke of obsolete ethics? No one can, though there may yet be stranger ways a virtuoso can meet their demise.
There once lived a thief named Griscai, skilled like no other. He roamed the Ways from here to Yesod, stealing and cheating and backstabbing, wronging nobleman and commoner alike. His pulse was so firm (for you see, most mortals have a beating heart to pump their blood through their frail forms, and this constant thrumming oft impedes their skill with their hands) that he could stab a needle through a fly's head without spilling its innards, and his touch was so subtle that he would not set off even the most delicate of traps. No lock was there he could not pick, no pocket escaped his creeping fingers, and no vault could hope to keep out his greed. Had he ever found his way into the Library, he would have plundered every shelf in his wake. Truly had Griscai seen the great wonders of the Tree of Life and taken from them all he had wanted.
But all things come to an end, and so did Griscai's career crumble under the weight of his ever-growing infamy. Caught, trialed and sentenced to hang, the former lord of thievery was thrown into a dark, damp dungeon below the Market-City of Tibsom, wrists bound and ankles chained, to wait for his time to enter the Brothers' Hall. He could have escaped, no doubt, had the locks that bound him not been thrice blessed, thrice cursed and thrice wrapped around his flesh. The Lemurs of Tibsom had had them tailor-made for him, for they knew that even with his hands and feet immobilized, still Griscai was the greatest, most virtuous thief and lock pick to ever plague their kind. And so they left him to rot, and swore to think of him no more until the noose was wrapped around his neck.
As the day of his execution dawned over Tibsom, Griscai cursed and writhed, trying to pick the cell's lock with only his forked tongue. As he struggled to free himself, a voice – barely a whisper – crept upon his ear like spider on its web.
"You fear death, my friend, and wish to escape it, to steal yourself from the Brothers' grasp. I can save you from the noose's snapping embrace, but only if you pay my price."
Griscai looked around for the voice's owner, but there was no one else in that cell. That is, no one but the thing waving at him from atop his right shoulder, the imp in the guise of a tiny man dressed in silken clothes of exquisite make, its head crowned by a hat as large as its own body.
"What manner of thing are you?" Griscai asked, rattling his chains in shock.
"What I am is not important," the imp retorted. "What I now offer you is. I can deliver you from the clutches of Death and take you very far away. But a deal must be struck, a debt agreed upon. Hear me now if you so fancy; else I shall be on my way before the guards come fetch you."
"Speak, then," Griscai demanded. "Tell me what it is you wish from me."
"Your hands are skilled, friend; swift and precise. Mine are not as blessed," the imp said, and it extended its limbs for Griscai to see. They were shriveled hands made of pathetic, frail fingers that would no doubt break at the smallest strain, trembling incessantly against their owner's will. "Too shaky, too weak. They are no good for picking locks, for snatching treasures from the bountiful and the rich. Lend me one of your own, then and again, and have your life saved in exchange."
Lending a hand was not too high a price for his life, so Griscai accepted the imp's deal without further delay. The miniature man smiled a crooked smile, snapped its trembling fingers, and disappeared.
Morning came, and Griscai was marched to the gallows, the noose set around his neck before a cheering crowd of Lemurs. But as the executioner pulled the lever, as the multitude roared for blood, Griscai's form vanished into thin air, the imp's promise come true.
Griscai found himself in great a room filled to the brim with riches beyond his wildest dreams. He saw precious stones that shone with all the colors of the rainbow, torn from the earth's womb; radiant fabrics fit to be the bedsheets of an emperor; artifacts plundered from the temples and palaces of cultures unknown and unknowable; and enough gold and silver to make any man want for nothing ever again. This was truly the spoils of ten thousand thefts, a treasure accrued over many lifetimes. The imp stood atop a stool exquisitely carved from a nigh-extinct species of tree, and grinned at Griscai with yellow teeth.
"I have honored my end of our bargain, and now you must honor yours. You are a master thief – a king amongst your ilk – but now you must serve me, for he who steals a life from the Brothers Three owns it."
Griscai protested, for though he had agreed to serve in exchange for his life, he was still a master – not a slave. It was his skill, his virtue that the fiend needed, and it had been only through his own volition had he bound himself to the foul creature. That minuscule pest, that impudent imp, could not possibly hope to force him to do anything he did not agree with.
But the imp simply continued grinning and licked its blackened lips as if savoring its triumph.
"Ah, you are proud in your skills, friend, and rightfully so. No one but you could have ever cracked open the Red Vault of Syhelia, or whisked away the Crown of Nij-Kanur from his tomb. But as virtuous as you are in the art of taking what is not yours, so am I gifted in taking that which has been promised to me."
The imp snapped its fingers again, and Griscai felt unspeakable pain, an agony unlike any he had ever experienced. With wild eyes, he gazed at his right hand – the hand that did the deeds of his craft – and saw the pale skin twist and stretch, tearing itself apart as the bone and sinew beneath became separated from the rest of his arm. It was as if someone had made a clean cut with a great and terrible cleaver, expertly severing his thieving hand and leaving behind a bloodless stump that nonetheless exposed his tender flesh and marrow for him to see.
With a moist thump, the hand of Griscai the thief fell before the imp, who eagerly slithered its own withered limb into it as if it were an oversized glove.
"Perfect," the imp crooned, and it used the hand's digits to skitter about like an insect. Then it turned to Griscai, who limply held his new stump in quiet horror, and spoke with a voice like moth-eaten silk:
"Worry not. I shall return it to you once I am done for the night. But be warned, friend: this will not be the last time I call you forth to deliver on your promise, for like you I thirst and I hunger for all that is not my own. Many thanks for lending me a hand."
And it cackled and snapped the hand's fingers and vanished.
From then on, many kings and princes and ministers throughout the branches of the Tree found their vaults sacked, the thief gone without a trace. Even the best locksmiths were powerless to stop the robberies, and all that the rich could do was pray that their hoards were modest enough that they would not incite the thief's greed. Such was the imp's rampage through the Ways, as it had occurred countless times before with the assistance of innumerable helping hands. For you see, the memory of those with mortal lifespans is a fickle thing, and they did not recall the afflictions of their own ancestors a few generations over, so the familiar thief was as a new horror that had only now drawn its first breath.
As for Griscai, I hear he has retired in modest comfort, and is now left-handed – he knows it is best not to rely too much on that which one does not possess always. Should you, dear audience, ache to find a lesson to this story, seek no further: be not too overly virtuous, lest you capture the attention of one who truly appreciates your talents.