by Alexey Pehov
It was hard to run, the fur coat kept getting tangled round my legs, and the tramping feet of our pursuer kept getting closer and closer. Bass was showing me a clean pair of heels and the distance between us was gradually increasing. I groaned in disappointment: I would have to abandon the fur coat that I had acquired with such a great effort. I stuck the purse in my teeth and started unfastening the buttons as I ran along. The warm coat slipped off my shoulders and fell into the snow. Immediately it was much easier to run—I strode out and caught up with Bass.
“Into the alley,” I shouted to him, and turned sharply to the right.
Bass followed me, and our pursuer, who was just about to grab me by the collar, went flying on past. Now we had at least a chance to disappear in the labyrinth of the Suburbs’ winding side streets.
“Oh, he’ll wring our necks!” Bass panted with an effort.
I didn’t answer and just speeded up even more, hoping very much that my friend’s prediction would not come true. We turned another corner, hearing the man threaten to pull our arms off. I was almost exhausted, but the cursed stranger didn’t seem to know what it meant to get tired.
Suddenly a pair of hands appeared out of some hidey-hole, grabbed Bass and me by the scruff of our necks, and dragged us into a dark, narrow space. Bass yelled out in fright and started flailing at the air with his hands, and I followed my friend’s example, trying to break free and give whoever had grabbed us a kick.
“Better shut up, if you want to live!” someone whispered. “Keep quiet!”
There was something about his voice that made us fall silent immediately.
Our pursuer went hurtling past, stamping his feet and setting the alley ringing with choice obscenities.
The man who had saved us still didn’t release his grip, he was listening to the silence, and I tried to take advantage of the moment to put the purse with the gold pieces away in my pocket.
“No need to bother,” said the stranger. “I don’t steal from pickpockets.”
“I’m not a pickpocket!” I protested, my teeth chattering from the cold. I was feeling the loss of the fur coat.
“Not a pickpocket? Then who are you?” asked the man who had rescued us.
“I’m a genuine thief!”
“A thie-ef! Well, well. I swear by Sagot that you might just become a good thief, with my help. Or you might not, kid. Let me have a look at what I’ve caught today.”
The man opened his hands, walked out into the light, and inspected Bass and me closely.
“Well then, who are you?” the stranger asked.
“I’m Bass the Snoop,” Bass said with a sniff.
“I’m Harold the Flea,” I answered, studying our unlikely rescuer.
“Well now,” the man said with a smile. “And I’m For. Sticky Hands For.”
* * *
“Harold, do you know this goon?” Hallas asked, rousing me from my reminiscences.
“Yes, he’s an old … friend of mine,” I muttered.
“Very old,” Bass said with a smile. “Glad to see you alive and well, Harold!”
“Likewise,” I said in a none-too-friendly voice.
“How’s For?” Bass asked, apparently not noticing my cool tone.
“Alive, by Sagot’s will.”
“Is he still instructing the young?” Bass asked with a smile.
“No, he’s a priest now. Sagot’s Defender of the Hands.”
Bass whistled.
“Listen, Harold,” said the gnome, whose patience had run out. “Maybe you and your friend could talk some other time? Thank you very much for the help, kind sir, but we have to be going.”
“Deler,” I said to the dwarf. “Give him his money back.”
Amazingly enough, the dwarf delved into his purse and handed Bass three silver pieces.
“Hey!” Bass cried indignantly. “I don’t want your coins. I was just helping a friend!”
“Everyone can always find a use for coins,” I said. “Keep well. Ah yes, if you’re interested, Markun is no longer in this world.”
“And is that all?” he said, spreading his arms wide in protest. “Aren’t you even going to talk to me? Are you just going to walk away when we haven’t seen each other for more than ten years?”
“No time, my friend,” I said curtly.
“How can I find you, Harold?” Bass shouted after me.
“I don’t think we’ll meet again,” I said, looking round at him. “I’m only passing through. I’ll be leaving the city soon.”
And so saying, I turned away and hurried after Hallas. Kli-Kli couldn’t resist asking: “Was that a friend of yours?”
“Yes … That is, no … maybe.”
“Brrrrr,” said the jester, shaking his head. “Is that yes or no? Make up your mind.”
“Leave him alone, Kli-Kli,” Eel advised the goblin.
“What have I done?” Kli-Kli asked with a shrug. “I only asked. Listen, Harold, are you so elegantly polite and considerate with everyone, or just the chosen few? I’m just asking to bear it in mind for the future, so I won’t be too surprised when you tell me to get lost in such frank and charming manner when we meet.”
“Chew your carrot!” I growled.
He grunted resentfully and took my advice, biting off a huge piece.
And just then we heard a loud howl ringing across the market: “Honorable sirs! Honorable sirs!”
“Does he mean us?” Eel asked, turning round just in case.
“Honorable sirs, wait!” shouted a decently dressed young lad, running toward us and waving his arms desperately in the air.
“He definitely wants us,” said Eel, and stopped.
“What in the name of the underground kings does he want?” Deler muttered, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
“Let’s go,” said Hallas, shoving his partner. “If we stand around waiting for everyone who starts shouting, we’ll never get to the barber’s before nightfall!”
“And if we keep walking, he’ll run after us, bawling his head off,” I objected reasonably. “That’s one piece of luck we can do without.”
“Uhu,” said Kli-Kli, sinking his teeth into the carrot. “Hallas, your sleeve has ridden up your arm.”
The gnome swore and pulled down the sleeve of his brown shirt to cover the tattoo of a red heart with teeth—the emblem of the Wild Hearts Brigade.
“Honorable sirs!” said the lad, breathing heavily. He was obviously worn out from chasing after us.
“What do you want, young man?” Hallas asked with a menacing frown. “Don’t you have anything better to do than go around yelling for all the town to hear?”
“I wanted to suggest—,” the young lad began, but Deler interrupted him again:
“We’re not buying!”
The dwarf and the gnome turned away and walked on, without even listening to what the poor panting fellow had to say. I shrugged. This youth was not going to sell anything to the gnome.
“Wait!” he shouted. “Aren’t you the one looking for a barber?”
Hallas froze with one foot in midair, then slowly lowered it and turned in our direction. The expression on the gnome’s face did not bode the young lad any good.
“How much?” the gnome asked, unfolding his fists.
“Free!”
That stopped our bearded friend dead in his tracks and set him thinking hard. He grunted, scratched the back of his head, and said: “I thought I heard you say that I can have my tooth pulled out absolutely free of charge. Is that right?”
“Absolutely right!”
“It’s nonsense!” Deler rumbled. “Nothing’s ever free!”
“That’s what I think, too,” said Hallas, giving the young lad another dark look.
“No, honorable sirs, I’m not lying! They’ll do everything for you at the faculty of healers in the university without taking a single coin. And they’re not barbers, but absolutely genuine healers. Luminaries of science. Professors!”
“Mm, is that
so?” Hallas asked, still suspicious. “And don’t these professors of yours have anything better to do than go around pulling everyone’s teeth out?”
“But this is examination week at the university,” the student explained. “The professors tell the senior classes how to treat ailments, and demonstrate at the same time, and then they ask questions to see how well we’ve learned it all. I happened to overhear your conversation with the barber.”
Hallas sighed, and thought, then sighed again, narrowed his eyes, and said, “Lead on.”
Naturally, they hadn’t sent a cart for us, let alone a carriage, so we had to trudge all the way back on our own two feet.
Suddenly Kli-Kli gasped in fright and tugged at the edge of my jacket.
“Harold, look! Heartless Chasseurs!” he hissed in a theatrical whisper, pointing at the soldiers.
There were five of them, dressed in white uniform jackets and crimson trousers, walking toward us.
“What are we going to do?”
I wondered if Kli-Kli was in a real panic or just playing the fool.
“Smile,” I hissed through clenched teeth, and stretched my lips out into an idiotic grin.
The Heartless Chasseurs walked past without even giving us a glance and Kli-Kli gave a sigh of relief.
“Phew!”
“Why were you so frightened of them?” I asked the goblin.
“Well, you know, after Vishki…,” Kli-Kli replied anxiously.
“Vishki? Calm down, Kli-Kli,” Eel said with a smile. “I don’t think the magicians have been broadcasting the fact that we escaped from them. They were up to no good in that village, and they’ll keep quiet to avoid attracting unwelcome attention. Take no notice of these chasseurs, they’re simply quartered in Ranneng and they don’t know a blind thing about us.”
* * *
The immense bronze gates of the University of Sciences were standing wide open in welcome to all who approached from the park that flourished between the Upper City, the university, and school of the Order. From a distance, we could make out an emblem on the gates, the mark of an ancient and venerable institution—an engraving of an open book, entwined with grape leaves.
The park in which the university stood was huge, magnificent, and beautiful. Once we were in it, I felt as if I had fallen into the magical forest of my childhood dreams where the oaks propped up the heavens with their green crowns the whole year round.
We followed our guide in through the gates and turned onto one of the shady stone pathways leading past the gray faculty buildings and into the heart of the university.
“Why aren’t there any people here?” Deler asked curiously, gazing around on all sides.
“The students are either at their practical studies or taking the final examinations, or they’ve already gone off for vacation, honorable sir.”
“And this—” Deler clicked his fingers, trying to remember the word. “—healing faculty of yours. Where’s that?”
“Ah. The healing faculty’s beside the morgue, so we won’t see any of the students until we get there.”
“Beside the morgue?” Hallas asked warily.
“That’s in case they get it wrong when they pull your tooth out,” Deler said to taunt the gnome. “So they don’t have to carry the body too far.”
“What are you croaking about, you ugly crow?” Hallas asked, and swore. “You dwarves are all like that, no good for anything but croaking misery and death. You croak away the centuries, and we dig the shafts and galleries for you.”
“You dig them for us? Why, you can’t make a single decent thing with your own hands. You’re born mattockmen and you die mattockmen.”
“That’s enough,” Eel barked. “Stop squabbling!”
* * *
A group of students was sitting on the grass under the trees and leafing lazily through their books.
“They’re from the literary faculty,” our guide said disdainfully when he caught my eye. “Bohemians.”
Kli-Kli grunted theatrically at the sound of that word.
“What are you grunting for?” I asked him.
“You don’t know what bohemians are!” Kli-Kli answered back.
“Believe it or not, but I do,” I disabused him. “My teacher’s collection of books could rival the Royal Library.”
“I don’t really believe that. An educated thief is an absurdity.”
“Oh, sure. Just like an educated goblin. What do you read in Zagraba apart from your Tre-Tre’s books?”
“The great Tre-Tre,” Kli-Kli corrected me automatically. “We have many ancient books, Harold-Barold. A lot more than you think! Many people would barter their souls just to get a glance at them.”
Through the trees we saw a yellow three-story building with a broad stairway, covered as thickly with students as the Field of Sorna was with gnomes.
“An examination?” Deler asked, gazing round at the students leafing through their books.
“Yes, today the second year have anatomy,” the young lad said with a frown. “Everyone who passes will go to the Sundrop to celebrate. So there’ll be a right royal carousal tonight!”
Deler chuckled as if he had already started celebrating: “Hey, my friend Hallas! You’ve gone rather pale. Not scared, are you?”
“Gnomes don’t get scared!” Hallas said proudly, and started climbing the steps on stiff legs.
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t faint,” Kli-Kli whispered to me.
We walked into the building, down a long corridor crammed with excited students, and found ourselves in a hall.
The floor here sloped steeply away toward a desk, beside which a gray-haired teacher was making about twenty students watch as he hacked through a body lying on a stone table with something halfway between a saw and a knife.
“Professor!” our guide shouted out. “I’ve brought him!”
The professor looked from his attempt to saw open the poor corpse’s skull and squinted at us short-sightedly.
“Well, at last! What a lot of them there are!”
“He’s the only one with a bad tooth,” Deler said hastily, pointing at Hallas.
Hallas shuddered and narrowed his eyes as he glared at the dwarf.
“A gnome? Hmm … Well, that will be instructive,” said the professor, putting down his saw. “Come on down, respected sir, come on down.”
“Go on, don’t be afraid,” said Deler, giving the gnome a push. “Harold, are you with us?”
“No,” I said, “I think I’ll just sit here on the bench.”
“That’s a mistake, think what a performance you’ll miss!” said Kli-Kli, skipping happily down the steps after Deler and Hallas.
I sat down on one of the benches and started observing from a distance as they sat Hallas in a chair standing beside the table with the corpse on it. The professor washed his hands and picked up something that looked like an instrument of torture.
“Who was that man, your old friend?” Eel asked as he sat down beside me.
“You mean Bass? Is there some serious reason for your interest in my past?”
Eel paused before replying. He’s the silent type, sometimes he doesn’t open his mouth even once the whole day long.
“Both, to be honest. It’s a strange coincidence that we ran into someone who knows you. You suddenly spotted an old enemy. And then, just a few minutes later, an old acquaintance of yours turns up. Just recently I’ve started feeling wary of any kind of coincidence or chance event. And, pardon me, but I don’t trust anyone but myself. I’m feeling a little concerned about this Bass who suddenly showed up out of nowhere.”
I knew Eel’s iron character—it was practically impossible to disconcert him with any sort of surprise—and so the words “a little concerned” on his lips meant a great deal.
I paused, trying to gather my thoughts, because I didn’t like talking to people about my life. The less other people knew about you, the better protected you were against all kinds of surprises.
&nbs
p; For had hammered that wisdom into my head a long time before, and as time passed I came to realize that my old teacher was absolutely right. No one in Avendoom knew about Shadow Harold’s feelings and attachments, and no one could put pressure on me by using my friends and dear ones. Because I didn’t chatter much and minded my own business, I wasn’t too worried about suddenly being stabbed in the back.
But I trusted the tight-lipped Garrakian.
Eel was probably one of the few people with whom I was not afraid of opening up and pouring out my soul, knowing that he would take everything he heard from me to the grave with him.
“We were friends ever since we were kids,” I began. “We lived in the slums of Avendoom, and we went through a lot together … hunger, freezing winters, raids by the guards.… We survived all sorts of things.… Bass and I looked out for each other and more or less managed to make ends meet until a master thief took us under his wing. His name was For.…
“That man taught us a lot.… For used to say I had a natural gift for thievery, and maybe he was right. Bass wasn’t quite so.… When were living on the street, I was the one who picked people’s pockets, not him. My friend had a different passion—cards and dice. For eventually gave up on my friend, and Bass got more and more involved in gambling.”
I frowned. I still found remembering this episode from the past as painful as ever.
“A couple of times he got himself into nasty situations when he was completely wiped out. Back then For was a major figure in the criminal world of Avendoom and he was able to get his pupil off the hook. But everything has to come to an end sometime. One day Bass got into really serious trouble—my friend found himself owing a large sum of money to Markun, a man who was the head of the Avendoom Guild of Thieves for a long time. Bass didn’t tell me or For anything about it. He just took our money and disappeared. He stole his teacher’s and his friend’s gold. Then the rumors spread that Markun’s lads had left him floating under the piers, but the body was never found. For these last twelve years For and I thought that Bass was dead. So you can imagine how amazed I was to see him in Ranneng, alive and well.”
“Yes indeed…,” Eel grunted. “Let’s hope that your meeting really was just coincidence.… You’re not planning to meet up with him for a talk?”
