Thieves' World: Turning Points Read online

  "I… think you are right," the bigger man said mildly, while judiciously reserving all comment on Lone's lack of parentage.

  Lone slammed a fist down on the counter. "That blag-dagged blaggard! This is—this is—you said his words exactly, Aris?"

  "Absolutely! D'you think I would say such a thing to you?"

  "That blag-dagged bastard!" Lone spun about as if in hopes that someone would hurry to pick a fight with him, or that he could find an excuse to assault someone. Anyone.

  No such opportunity knocked.

  "I can understand that you are not amused," Aristokrates said. "Let me pour you something."

  Lone wheeled back to him with such speed and such a stormy face that the other man bethought himself of the thick hardwood club he kept under the counter. But Lone proved not the sort to take out his anger on the message-bearer.

  "Not tonight, Aris. Damn! Damn him for an arrogant blaggard!" Aristokrates considered that his wisest course was to say nothing.

  "Shit!" the young man snapped, face still writhing, and with a swish of cloak dark as midnight he whirled away toward the door. "Oh, Lone," the man behind the counter said. "Wait a moment. He did bid me give you a few words of

  council when you were about to leave."

  Dark clothing did not rustle despite the speed of Lone's turn. Wickedly menacing eyes met those paler ones of Aristokrates. "Council?" "He bade me do you a favor," the proprietor of The Bottomless Well reported. "I'll just bet!" "Umm. He said to warn you not to enter Angry Alley." Lone stared. "Huh! That's all?" "Yes." Aristokrates nodded solemnly. "Hey, Aris! How about another mug over here!" That call sounded in a voice with a bit of surliness in it. Aristokrates waved a hand at the patron, one of several at his table. Two of them also signed for another.

  "Oh oh. Sorry, Lone. Uh… good night…"

  Lone did not return that ritual well-wishing as he glided to the door and in a second as much as vanished into the darkness outside. Naturally, being angry and more, being Lone, he headed directly for the dark, dark opening between two

  close-set walls—a passage that too often reeked of urine. Although he saw no one in Angry Alley,

  someone was. "The carelessness of rash-brash youth," a voice quiet as a tiptoe in shadow said, "is not bravery, Lone. The real Shadowspawn would not be so rash as to charge in when such a clear warning was issued."

  "Shadowspawn!" Lone gasped, cloak swept back and hand frozen to hilt. It was as if the darkness had

  spoken, for still he saw no hint of person or even movement. "The same. And well armed, and vexed at you with reason, but only talking instead of letting steel speak for me."

  Lone of the prickling scalp and armpits considered that, and swallowed, and actually devoted a few

  seconds to thought, and for once he answered from his brain, not his bravado. "You left word that I must stay out of this alley only because you knew I would have to accept the challenge!"

  "It was a safe assumption," the darkness said. "You have just restrained yourself. You must learn to do that much more often, which is to learn to think. Else you will die a very young man, and who could possibly give a damn."

  The final words were no question, really, but spoken flatly as a statement of fact. And once again Lone felt assaulted… and once again, somehow, he found discipline within himself, and exercised it. "I will try, Master of Thieves."

  "You do not make it easy, do you."

  "I have had no easy life, Lone. My mentor was hanged when I was only a boy, younger than you. I was a cocky little piece of cat shit, but I learned that I must learn, and so I tried, and I learned."

  Lone swallowed and, even in pitch darkness, blinked. It had not occurred to him that his idol was capable of such profundity.

  "Doubtless you think that was profound," the darkness said, in the shadow-quiet voice of the master thief of Sanctuary.

  Lone swallowed and managed to make no reply.

  "If you can learn, I know things that you don't and can still do things that you can't."

  As I can do things that you no longer can, poor crippled Shadowspawn, Lone mused, but again he strengthened himself to hold silent.

  Then it occurred to him that the unseen owner of the ever-challenging voice was also saying nothing, and he steeled himself to pronounce the simple words:

  "I can learn, Master."

  The man called Chance had not been so elated in a long, long time. But none of that was apparent in his shadow-quiet voice: "You must be tested. To begin with you have not I hope forgot the location of the home of the Spellmaster."

  "I remember," Lone said, trying hard not to sound sheepish. What an idiot I was, breaking into that mansion! What a friend such a man as Strick could be!

  "Good," the shadows said. "Then we will meet there. Your first test is to reach his door before I do."

  After a time Lone realized that although he had heard no sound of movement, he was alone in Angry Alley. With a slight smile, he began walking. Rapidly.

  With a fleet and eager horse hitched to the mule-cart and a pass to show any law enforcement types who might stop him, Samoff made very, very good time driving through the night to the home of his master. Simple matter to wait near the end of the alley Chance had specified, say nothing when the black-clad man appeared and climbed aboard, and set off. From time to time as he guided the more than spirited young horse through the night he heard a chuckle from the man seated behind him, and Samoff made a vow to ask Chance—at a more opportune, meaning safer, time—if he had wet his underpants in his gurgling glee.

  If the younger cat-burglar wet his pants that momentous night, it was not in glee. He was not short of breath but his legs were afflicted with spikes of ice when he reached the estate of the Spellmaster… and stared, blinking. Strick was right there outside, seated on the front steps of the carefully elevated house, apparently awaiting Lone's arrival. Moreover and far more awesomely, beside him sat a black-clad figure. That one threw up a hand as the other man in black approached on weary legs that he had pushed close to the limit of their endurance. "Lone!" Chance called jubilantly. "Good to see you at last, lad!" "Shit!" Lone muttered. Then, reprovingly as a schoolmaster: "You cheated!" "True! I used my brain instead of my legs!" While Lone ground his teeth, Strick spoke. "Not to mention a horse. Promise never to enter this house

  again unless invited, Lone, and we will go in for some refreshment." "I promise," Lone said. "I even… uh… I had something to prove." "Still have," Chance said, rising with the apparent aid of his cane. Lone heaved a sigh and nodded. He had aborted, saying, "I even apologize," because it was hard, so

  hard for him to say such words. They went inside, and Lone learned what it was like to have the

  wherewithal to have a fast runner fetch ice from the mountains down to Sanctuary. Or, in this case, for a certain old master cat burglar to find a way to relieve Arizak's runner of his burden and make a gift of such rich bounty to a friend…

  Ice weakened good ale a bit, but how good to a sweatily exercised man it was with a bit of coolth

  added! And then a bit more without the ice, as the three men talked. The woman present talked but little, as was her habit, but she gazed much on the cocky youngster working so hard to control his natural cockiness and truculence. What a fascinating boy! How strangely… akin to him she felt!

  Linnana knew already the story of Strick's nonpayment by Lord Arizak, even to the amount. Now she heard Chance lay out his desire to steal into Arizak's less than modest dwelling and relieve him of that exact amount.

  "Not a quarter-ounce of copper more," Chance said, one finger upraised, "and not a quarter-ounce less." "Yet," Linnana put in, "there is or should be the matter of interest…" Strick smiled. "I have little doubt that opportunity will one day arise for me to extract that from the great

  Arizak." She chuckled. Chance did not. Meeting the eyes of no one, he said, "How I long to do it! But my age and leg make me

  unable to undertake that exciting piece of ni
ght work…" "Your age and arm, you mean, Master," Lone said, lest Chance think the youth still believed that he was

  crippled in the leg, that the walking stick was necessary. "But the work will be done. I need only bethink myself of what I will need, and make a little list…" "You need make no list," Chance assured him. "I know exactly what you need, for in past I completed an

  almost identical mission."

  "Hmp," the Spellmaster said, without the hint of a smile. "Mission? Not on my behalf. Must have kept the swag to yourself!" His friend also did not smile. "Nah, nah. Gave it all to the poor and the Temple of Him Whose Name We

  Do Not Pronounce, I did!"

  Strick laughed with him, and continued to keep his peace about what he knew: his friend was indeed spawn of the shadows… or rather of the shadow god, Shalpa, usually referred to namelessly, as Chance just had.

  "By four nights hence," Linnana suggested into the laughter, "we will have full dark of the moon, surely the

  perfect time for such a wicked venture…" "But too easy," Chance said firmly. "By night after next the moon will be a mere tiny sliver—a fine working night for an excellent roach anxious to prove his talent and ability!"

  Lone shrugged and endeavored to look relaxed and, above all, casually confident. Whatever the Shadowspawn said. At last he had achieved his goal, and here he sat, in the company of the man he most respected and admired. Naturally a youth with such a goal considered himself lucky to be in the service of Shadowspawn, no matter how much in his shadow! The only aspiration of the orphan Lone was to be as exactly like his idol as he could make himself— which meant doing things Shadowspawn's way, however dangerous.

  "For one thing," Chance said, "you will need an archer." Lone cocked his head. "An archer?" "Someone good with a bow," Strick said, as if it were the meaning of the word that Lone did not grasp.

  "And arrows." Without taking his gaze off Chance, Lone said, "Oh." "An archer who can loft an arrow upward, trailing a rope," Chance explained. "That gets you over the

  Lord Arizak's wall, and maybe farther, as in higher." "Ah!" Lone bobbed his head, acknowledging something he had not thought of. "I, ah, know a girl who is expert with bow and arrow," Linnana said, and received strange looks from the

  men, all thinking: a girl?! Strick said, "Would that be that teen daughter of Churga and Filixia?" She nodded. "Jinsy, aye. She practices every day behind their house, and the girl is good.'" Chance was looking uncomfortable, and wishing he were having this meeting with his apprentice

  elsewhere, and just the two of them. "Uh… you sound like you're talking about a neighbor…" "Right," Linnana said, smiling brightly. "And very good friends. Jinsy will be thirteen next month." "Pardon me," Chance said, "but we are not going to use the child-daughter of well-off neighbors to help

  break into the keep of the lord of Sanctuary."

  "Their financial status has nothing to do with it," Strick said. "They are Ilsigi, and love Lord Arizak no more than you do." "Lone and I thank you," Chance said, "and we will recruit someone from within the Maze…" he broke

  off, and a little smile tugged at his lips. "Or maybe in what remains of Downwind relocated to the Hill. Remember: I come from there." Having tried to help and been rejected, Linnana and her almost-husband sat back and looked grim.

  "You will want to take rope with you, too," the master said.

  "And something to bring out the coins in," Strick suggested.

  Two experienced thieves gave him the sort of look he was not accustomed to: disdain. Strick and Linnana offered no more advice or help, and the plan was made. The offer was made and repeated, but the catwalker repeatedly turned down opportunity to spend the night in the manse. Then the man he had apprenticed himself to nodded and made the decision for him.

  "We thank you three times, friends, for such kindness. You have two overnight guests: Shadowspawn and Catwalker."

  Later, very quietly in a darkened room, Chance furthered the education of his apprentice: "We made them unhappy by accepting no help or advice from them. When people really want to do you a favor, let them if you can. That is doing them a favor. We are making them feel good by staying here tonight."

  "Thank you, Master. Ah… Shadowspawn… I need all such advice you can give me."

  "Here's another piece, then. Never call me that again."

  "Yes sir."

  Father Ils save us all, Chance thought, just before he fell asleep, for the ocean may go dry. Me, giving advice!

  Two nights later three men in dark clothing stood in the dark area below the wall of the lordly keep of the master of Sanctuary. Two were clad all in black, the third only a shade less somberly. He alone wore headgear, a soft cap of dark gray. The oldest among them had relieved the youngest of his cloak and sword, in the interest of better mobility. With Lone ready to set off on the mission that neither of them considered the least bit dishonest, the trio watched the arrow go up, and up, and a grin of pride rearranged the beard of the ragtag former soldier Chance had recruited. He had proved his mettle. It was a perfect shot or appeared to be: the shaft caught, and here dangled the rope for Lone's use.

  And no matter what plans the ocean might or might not have to go dry, Chance proved to have more advice to impart to his newfound apprentice. "If it's possible without overmuch danger," he counseled, "bring out the rope with you. Absolutely bring out the arrow, no matter what. And… Lone."

  The younger man was gazing up at the wall, and the place where arrow and rope had disappeared. "Aye."

  "Look at me."

  Instantly, Lone did.

  With the portentousness of master to assistant, Chance said, "You are going to be very proud, and you will want to leave some sign that you have been there. Do not."

  Lone nodded. "Aye. May… may I ask why… Master?"

  "Once in my weening pride I left proof to the man who then ruled this poor foreigners-saddled city, and after I was out it occurred to me that it was a bad idea to let him know how easily I could break into his palace, and out." "Ah." Lone's dark, dark head was bobbing. "And did ill come of that?" "No, except extra time and labor for me, for I felt obliged to steal back into the palace and remove the

  signal I had left of my presence… and then I had to get myself back out again."

  Lone smiled, and then chuckled, and apologized for laughing. Then he noted that his mentor was also chuckling… As the young man began to make his way sinuously up the rope, the watching Chance felt a touch at his

  sleeve. He turned to face his archer. "The rope's in place and there he goes, yer lordship," the bearded man said. "About my payment?" Chance pressed three coins into the waiting, grime-etched hand. The old soldier raised it to examine the

  contents of his palm, then gave his temporary employer a look.

  "That is half," Chance told him. "So far the rope has not worked loose or broken. When he tops the wall and we know the rope has held, you will have earned the full amount we agreed on." The archer looked crestfallen. "Aw…" "If you don't think you can trust me, come with me to a place called The Bottomless Well." Acorn-colored eyes shone in the darkness. "Are you buyin', yer lordship?" "We will see," Chance said. "And stop calling me that." He and the fellow, whose name he had given as Kantos, were on their second cup when through the

  doorway came a smug-faced young man all in black, in quest of his cloak and sword. Reaching the table, he produced Kantos's arrow and, with a flourish, handed it to him. Lone was reaching into his tunic as he removed his sword and cloak from a third chair and seated his smiling self with his mentor and the hired help.

  "Done," he announced. Chance shoved his mug over in front of his apprentice, who bobbed his head in gratitude. "Well done!" Chance said, and immediately diverted his attention from the pridesome youth. "Kantos, the

  other half of your payment for a job well done," he said, and pressed the coppers into Kantos's ready

  hand. "As a bonus, I am paying for your beer. Do have a good night." Kantos was smart enoug
h to recognize dismissal. "Thankin' ye both," he smiled, touching his forelock as he rose, and he all but louted out.

  When he was gone Lone withdrew from within his tunic a soft cloth sack that he had partially burdened with earth before he went up the wall. The purpose of that strangeness was to absorb the sound of clinking coins while he took his leave. With great pride and smugness he set it on the table before Chance. They both heard a muted clink.

  Chance directed his dark gaze into the dark eyes across the table from him. "The exact amount?" Lone nodded. "The exact amount."

  "Strick is going to crow! And what did you take for yourself, Catwalker?"

  "Well done. Did you have any trouble?"

  Lone compressed his lips and flared his nostrils with a sigh. "I did. I was on my way out when a servant appeared out of nowhere. Nothing I did had attracted him. He just happened along and there was nothing I could do about it. He saw me, but I had the scarf across my face. His mouth went wider'n his eyes, and I hit him, hard. He fell down and just stayed there. On his back with his eyes closed. I got out of there as fast as I could. He could never recognize me."

  Chance sighed and looked unhappy. It was the way of masters.

  Part of the problem had nothing to do with the fact that Lord A. now knew that someone had breached his keep. As disturbing to the man who so despised sorcery was the fact that this afternoon an unduly nervous Linnana had told him that she'd had an unfamiliar experience: for the first time in her life, she had Seen, in the way of the S'danzo. What she Saw had to do with Lone's entry into Arizak's keep: a man lying on the floor on his back, with his eyes closed.