by David Cook
"Stow your rubbish. A true killer makes no idle threats." The sense was there in what he gargled but the conviction was gone. "You'll wait your time with patience, and when the time's right you'll learn your job."
"I didn't come here to be your lap-boy," Pinch spat venomously.
"And it wasn't my idea to fetch you."
In his brain, the regulator seized on the statement. It was the first proof he'd been given that another mind stood behind the chamberlain's. His impulsive side, normally given to boozing and women, wanted to blurt out the question. Who had given the word? In moments like this, though, Pinch's cool heartlessness took hold. Calculating the reactions, he said nothing. The information would come to him, slowly and with time.
He made no show of noticing the old man's slip.
The door hinges creaked. "By this afternoon, I think."
And then he was alone.
A short while later, a shadow of wine-red velvet and white lace slipped past the bored guard beyond the door.
The salt-and-pepper-haired ghost padded through carpeted hallways, just slipping into dark doorways as stewards and ladies hurried by. They were blinded from the stranger's presence by their duties. Guards protected doorways, ignoring the arched halls behind them.
Pinch stayed to the darkest hallways, stuffed with their out-of-fashion trophy heads, past the servant quarters, along long avenues of interconnected halls. From the open windows that looked out over the courtyard where a squad of trainees drilled came the whiff of roasted sulfur and animal dung.
Trainees, he thought as he caught glimpses of the recruits bungling their drill. By rights, only the elite served here, but these amateurs bore the crest of Prince Vargo. These men were hasty recruits brought in as fodder to strengthen one princeling's hand. So it's come to this, each prince dredging the city for his own personal guard.
In the western wing, the search ended at a trio of guarded doors. That amused Pinch-the hopeless thought that his underlings would be challenged by a stand of overtrained watchmen. In this he was sure Cleedis or whoever was just naive; believing that only he was the threat, they underestimated the others.
It did not take long for Pinch to find a way to slip in unnoticed, and if he could get in, they could get out.
"He's fobbed you with a bale of barred eater-treys," the regulator chuckled as he sauntered off the balcony and interrupted Therin and Sprite's friendly dice game.
The game stopped in midthrow as the two twitched alert, their faces openly showing their native suspicion.
"Well, well. Doesn't need us for a damn, does he? Now look who walks in."
The halfling, perhaps with a better sense of caution, kept his mouth shut.
"You should know how things stand, Therin."
"Perhaps I do-Master Pinch. Or is it Lord Janol here?"
Pinch sidled away from the open window, just in case someone was watching. "As your prefer. Tell me, should I call you a fool?"
"Watch your prattling!" The dagger that suddenly appeared the man's hand reinforced his warning.
The regulator remained unruffled. "You really think I'd given you up, after I'd saved you from hanging in Elturel? It's a game, Gur, like those dice you hold. If they think you're worthless to me, then they'll not kill you to make me mind. Put your skene away and use your head."
The halfling gave a gentle restraining tug on the bladesman's sleeve. "Whether he's telling the truth or lying, he's right, Therin. Maybe we don't mean anything to him and maybe we do-but if they think we're a hold over him then we're all dead as a surety."
The master rogue nodded agreement to the halfling's words. "The game's to get them to think what you want them to think, not to play fair." He pointed to the dice in Therin's palm. "I'll wager you a groat you can't roll a five or a nine with Sprite's dice."
"I would never, not to my friends!" Sprite protested in his tinny voice.
The Gur eased back from his coil, slid his knife away and eyed the dice casually. "That might be," he drawled with particular serenity to make his point, "or maybe I've crossed him with a bale of contraries." He reached into his blouse and produced a pair of identical-looking dice. "That's how the game is played."
"Unfair! You've been figging me!" squealed the half-ling. He scrambled to gather up the winnings before anyone might stop him. Therin moved almost as quick, and there was a flurry of reaching and grabbing as the coins and notes in the pot vanished from the floor.
"Well played, high lawyer!" The release of anxiety welled up inside the regulator and translated itself into spurt of laugher.
When they were finished, Pinch settled into the softest chair in the room. Compared to his, this small bedroom was spartan; compared to the previous rooms of the lot, it was luxurious. The rascals had been given a set of three connected chambers, which gave them more space than they really needed.
"How fare you three?" the rogue asked.
"Well enough…" Therin was too busy counting his loot to be bothered.
"Can't say much for the rooms, but they made a fine breakfast."
Pinch wasn't sure if the halfling was being sarcastic or true to his nature. Whenever there was loot, Sprite-Heels was always squandering his on homey comforts and food, pretending to live the burghermeister's life. He'd talk about going home, describing a place of rich fields, rolling hills, and barrow homes where he could work an honest life and everyone was 'Uncle' or 'Grandmother' or 'Brother.' Contrary to this, a few times when he was truly drunk, the Hairfoot revealed another choice for his upbringing: an orphan's life in cold, wattled shacks along Elturel's muddy riverbank. Pinch could only wonder which, if either, was real.
"Where's Maeve?"
The Gur nodded toward the closed door on the left wall. There were three doors, one on each wall, and the smallish balcony behind Pinch. The door to the right was open, hinting at a room like this one. The door on the wall opposite was larger, probably locked, and a guard stood on the other side. That left the third door where Maeve was, in a room identical to this one. But not perfectly identical; from the outside only the center room had a balcony.
"She sweet-talked a guard for a couple of bottles of bub last night and she wasn't in a sharing mood. Sleeping it off, she is." Sprite pocketed his crooked dice and brushed his clothes clean.
"Damn Lliira's curse. Roust her."
The other two exchanged a wicked grin. "As you say!"
In a few moments, a splash followed by a shriek of sputtering outrage echoed from the other room. This was followed by man and halfling tumbling through the door.
"By troth, she's in a foul humor!" Therin's words were punctuated by a sizzle of sparks, green and red, that arced over his head followed by a billow of bitter smoke, a pyrotechnic display of her anger.
Pinch planted himself on the balcony and waited for Maeve's handiwork to clear.
Maeve emerged with eyes of red sorrow, her body sagging in the knot of nightclothes, wet with water dripping from her stringy hair. Spotting Therin, she fumbled into her sleeves looking for some particularly nasty scrap of bat wing or packet of powdered bone.
"Good morn, Maeve," Pinch interrupted as he stepped from the balcony.
Without missing a beat, the wizardess bowed slightly to the thief. "Greetings to you, Master Pinch. You sent these wags to soak me?
"I sent them to wake you. You were drunk."
The witch drew herself up. "Hung over. Not drunk."
"Drunk-and when I need you sober. Fail me again, and I'll cut you off." With that the rogue turned to other business, turning away from her in disdain for her temper and her spells. "What have you learned?" he asked of the other two.
"Damned little. It's only been a day."
"We aren't going to have many days here," the regulator snapped back. "Do you think this is a pleasure trip? How about escape-the ogre and the hounds?"
As he expected, the pair had done more than they allowed. "The hounds are kenneled in the southeast corner," Sprite began. "I don't know whe
re the ogre sleeps."
"Close by his pack would be the best guess," the Gur added.
"After that, there's three gates to the city. Counted those when we came in."
"What about getting out of here?"
"They keeps us locked in all the time, 'cept for meals and necessaries." The halfling scratched his furred foot. "Well, there's the balcony where you got in. The other two rooms got windows we can climb down."
"You maybe, you little imp, not me," Maeve sniped.
"You'll do as you must, dear. What about secret passages-Sprite? Therin?"
"None we found, Pinch."
The older man nodded. "I'm thinking there's one in mine."
"What do we do now, Pinch?"
The regulator laid a soothing hand on Maeve's damp shoulder. "Watch, wait. Whatever they want, it'll happen soon. I want the lot of you to get the lay of Ankhapur. Get yourselves into the city proper. Talk and listen. Nip something if you want, just don't get caught. Cleedis means you to be hostages, so you'd best be careful."
"Well, that means he won't scrag us," Therin said with morbid cheer.
Pinch looked to the other man with a cocked eyebrow of disbelief. "Just don't put him to the test. You've more enemies than Cleedis out there."
"Your cousins?"
The rogue tapped his temple. The man was right on.
"Why? Now's time we deserve to know."
Looking at their hard faces now that the question had come up, Pinch shrugged.
"They're Manferic's spawn. It's in their blood, I think. There's not a measure of kindness granted by them that doesn't pass unwaged. Their hate's like a snake, cold and slithery."
"So why do they hate you?" Sprite pressed.
"I ran away; they couldn't."
"This king of yours must have been the dark one's own kin." Maeve sniffed a bit, sounding positively touched. She'd always been like that, the softest touch for a story. "What'd he do to you, Pinch?"
Pinch glared at the intrusion. His past wasn't any of their business. But now he'd started down the path and, like the genie from the bottle, opening it was a lot easier than pushing all the vapor back in.
It was an impossibility to try telling them, though. There was no way to adequately explain Manferic's cold, manipulative heart. On the surface, he'd been raised with kindness and generosity, far more than was warranted to an orphaned boy-even if his father had been a knight and his mother a lady. He had no memory of them. Cleedis said his father had died on campaign, carried off by a swamp troll; his mother had died in childbirth. Manferic himself had taken the foundling in and raised him as one of his own.
When he was little Jan, as he was known then, he never wondered, never questioned. In his eyes, the king was kind and good, his "brothers" mean. He quickly learned their meanness stemmed from arrogance and jealousy. He was the intruder at their hearth, a thief of privilege duly belonging to them.
It was only later that he learned a harsher lesson: that kindness and love were only masks for cold self-interest. That was the day he learned the true reason that the old king had raised him with such care.
"He was… evil." It was what he meant, but Pinch couldn't say it with the conviction the word needed. Good, evil were no longer for him the sharp lines of separation they once were.
"Enough wasted time. There's more I want you to do. The three princes are likely to make trouble. An ear to the wind should give good warning of any moves." The rogue turned to his lieutenant. "There's three idiot courtiers in Throdus's camp-Treeve, Kurkulatain, and Faranoch. Make a conveyance to know them, Therin; they may be ripe informers."
"Sprite, find us a hole in the city." Pinch tapped his temple. "My memories are past use. After fifteen years, things change."
Finally he turned to the hung-over sorceress, who winced at every sound, and in his gentlest voice said, "Now, dear, I want you to dress your finest and make friends here in the court. Use your spells. Find out what these fine people are really thinking. I may need to know where everybody stands."
"Me? Out there with them? They's a bit above my rank, Pinch. I won't know how to behave like a proper gentry mort."
The rogue touched her reassuringly. "There now, you'll do fine. A little touch of makeup and some new clothes and you'll be sitting right beside them at their tables. You always were a quick doxy."
There were no more orders to be said. Each of his journeymen nodded off on their part. The roles were not new to them; each had the eye and skill for the part Pinch gave them. With no questions, Pinch went out onto the balcony again. Just before slipping over the rail, he added one last caveat. "Therin, mind your sword. There'll be no blood in the house. Sprite, mind where you filch, too. They draw and quarter thieves here without waiting for the start of term-time. And Maeve," he added lastly, "keep yourself sober. Drink despoils a lady."
And then, like a morning mist, the rogue melted through the rail and away.
8
Iron-Biter
"Well indeed, Iron-Biter, see who comes upon us."
The voice rang clearly through the hallways as Pinch made his way back to his apartment. It resounded from the smooth surfaces, as cold as the gleaming marble was even in the generous sun.
Pinch's first reaction was that the subject was someone else, and he could still divert his track down another hallway before he was made. There was no need to hide, no one had restricted his movements, but it was the natural urge of a man who has spent his life in hiding.
There was no place to escape. The click of boots on stone told him his captors were already there, coming upon him.
True enough, there ahead was Prince Vargo and a stocky dwarf. Vargo was every bit the lord of the manor, casually dressed in green hunting breeches, shirt, and riding cloak that was anything but casual. The material was brushed to a dazzling sheen so that if the day's light had managed to angle through the narrow windows and strike him he would have burned with the fire of a roman candle, flooding everything with reflected green.
The dwarf was a barrel overturned and given legs. His chest was broader than he was tall and carved to Herculean proportions, and his little arms could barely touch fingers in the center. The traditional dwarven beard and braids formed a golden-hued knot for a head. Here was a dwarf who probably cracked his dinner bones with his fingers just to suck out the marrow.
They formed an improbable couple, the lean and the tall, the short and the blocky.
Pinch hadn't noticed them because they'd been hidden behind a statue.
"Well, little Jan," Vargo hailed with unexpected good cheer, "it is a surprise to meet you here. Quite surprising, don't you think, Iron-Biter?"
The dwarf looked over Pinch, starting at his toes then moving upward, assessing every bone for its likely resistance to his marrow-popping fingers.
"An unexpected occurrence," the dwarf said after finishing his scan of Pinch's curled head, more interested in the cranium beneath the scalp.
"Iron-Biter, Master Janol. Janol, Iron-Biter. Iron-Biter's my right hand, useful in all manner of things. A master of useful trades. Janol is the late king's ward, Iron-Biter. I'm sure you've heard me speak of him."
The dwarf made a sharp, precise bow to Pinch. He moved far more gracefully than his squat little body should have allowed. "It is a pleasure. I seldom meet worthy adversaries."
"Indeed," was all Pinch could manage. Two lines into a conversation and already he was being challenged.
"Iron-Biter's just a little overanxious," Vargo purred. "We heard about your meeting with Throdus."
"Oh."
"Throdus is an idiot. He should not have wasted time talking to you."
"No?"
"If it had been me, I would have gutted you on the spot."
That got Pinch's bristle up. "If you could have."
Vargo examined the ceiling for a moment. Iron-Biter did nothing but glare at Pinch. Finally the prince said, "You remember our fencing instructor? The one you could never beat?
"Yes�
�"
"A month after you left, the fool irritated me. I ran him through at our next lesson. I still remember the look on his face when he realized it was no longer a lesson."
"It's been fifteen years, Vargo. Thing change."
"I've only gotten better," the prince replied with complete confidence. "Haven't I, Iron-Biter?"
The dwarf, who to that point had never taken his eyes from Pinch, spared the briefest glance toward his lord. "Certainly, Prince Vargo."
"I think, Jan, that you are not worth bloodying my hands. Iron-Biter, show him why I drag you around."
The dwarf barely acknowledged the insult. There was in him the devotion of a killer mastiff, the beast eagerly awaiting its master's command. A grim smile crossed his lips as now he got to perform. Gesturing to the statuary that filled the niches of the hall, he asked the rogue, "Do you like art?"
"Only for its resale value."
"Ah, a true connoisseur. So, which one has the most worth?"
Pinch smiled because he knew where this game was going. He would choose one and then there would be a crude demonstration of Iron-Biter's might, all to supposedly impress and terrify him. The Hellriders of Elturel had often used this clumsy ploy. It did have one good effect, though; it showed which enemy you should eliminate first.
"That one, I think." He deliberately chose one of lesser value-a large marble hydra, its seven heads carved into elaborate coils. The work was solid but unimaginative in pose and pedestrian in its craftsmanship.
The dwarf tsked. "A poor eye. Perhaps you're not the challenge I thought." Instead he turned to a small piece carved from a block of jade the size of a melon, a delicately winged sprite perched on the blossom of a fat-petalled flower.
The dwarf muttered softly while he gently stroked the statue. Slowly, under his gentle caress, the stone twitched. With a snapping creak the little wings fluttered, the head swivelled, the flower petals drooped. All at once, the clouded green sprite took flight, its wings clicking frantically to keep its slender stone body in the air.
