Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune

by Lynn Abbey

  “Yes, Driko. Then.”

  Twilight fell and great clouds of mosquitoes and gnats rose up from the swamp. And on its fringes and dragging the chest by one of its brass handles, Rogi struggled along the west bank of the White Foal, now and again forced into the racing water by a stubborn out-jut of reeds. And every time he had to do so, the rush of the current nearly tore the prize from his grasp. “Blathsted thwamp!” he muttered, his long, long tongue causing his incurable lisp. Often he stopped to swat at the “bloodthucking petht” buzzing about, and to pick off a leech or two, but at last he reached the end of the reeds, where he paused momentarily to rest. As he stood panting, he knuckled away sweat runnelling down his hairless left brow and into that eye; as well, he flicked sweat from his single, hairy eyebrow—the only one he had, and that over his right eye—and he looked at the rune-marked box. Some mere three feet long, two feet deep, and two feet wide, it didn’t look all that heavy. Still, Rogi recked that it was at least twice his own weight. And though the handles were brass and the bottom was brass plated, the bulk of it seemed made of gilded wood. Perhaps what was within was what made it so heavy, yet Rogi could find no lock nor latch nor lid nor anything else by which to open it. “My mathter will know how to get inthide.”

  After a short rest he took up the journey again, dragging the chest after. If the White Foal wathn’t tho thwift, I could float thith boxth nearly all the way to my mathter’th tower.

  But the waters of the ’Foal were swift, and so Rogi dragged the chest toward the ford. Reaching it at last, gasping and struggling, he hauled the box into the knee-deep flow, but halfway across he stumbled and fell, and lost his grip on the container, and it bobbed off downstream. “Oh, no, you don’t, you pieth of thsheep-thshite!” shouted Rogi, rising up and floundering after, falling—glug!—rising up again, falling once more, but finally catching the case in the swiftening current just ere it reached the narrows where it deepened beyond his head.

  Struggling, Rogi managed to gain the shallows, and, with water runnelling from him, he drew the floating box through the ford until he came to the upstream end of the crossing, and there he dragged it onto the bank and rested once more. At last, he took up the effort again, and began hauling the container overland, following the White Foal northerly, until he came to the trace that led toward Hâlott’s tower.

  At that juncture and in the darkening dusk, a young woman in a brown cloak going the opposite way came hurrying down the trail, and before Rogi could catch his breath and offer to let her see his dragon, she veered wide of him and shrieked, “Get away from me, you ugly little thing!” and fled toward town.

  Shrugging, Rogi grabbed a handle of the chest and dragged it along the faint path toward the tower. Finally he reached the door and pushed it open. Grunting, dripping, he hauled the box into the darkened chamber, then splopped about, his shoes squishing as he lit lanterns—for although Halott with his painted-on eyes seemed to need no light to see, Rogi was not as fortunate. And so he struck strikers and filled the dusty chamber with luminance, all the while shouting, “Mathter, Mathter, come and thsee what it ith I have dithcovered! It’th a thecret boxth! A thecret boxth! Come quick and open it!”

  When Rogi awakened the next day, still his “mathter” had not managed to find the way to open the chest. Hâlott had spent all night trying to discover the secret, yet he had failed. Even so, he had seemed overly excited when he had first seen what it was that Rogi had dragged in, if a tensing of his corpselike body could be said to be uncontained excitement. And he had traced the runes carven into the wood, or whatever it was the case was made of, all the while muttering in an arcane language under his breath, a language Rogi didn’t know, and given Rogi’s lengthy life’s experiences, it was rather odd that he hadn’t a clue to what this tongue might be.

  Finally Rogi, exhausted from his labors and unable to sustain the excitement of what might be in the chest, had left Hâlott to his unsuccessful attempts and had gone down to his dank quarters in the fourth sub-basement under the tower and had promptly collapsed into sleep.

  But that was last evening and now it was midday, and Hâlott still hadn’t managed to open the box, though somehow he had managed to get the heavy container up on a table.

  “Perhapth it takth a thecret word to open it, Mathter,” suggested Rogi, clambering up onto a stool to observe. “Have you tried a thecret word? I know theveral thecret wordth, and—”

  Hâlott made a sharp gesture of dismissal.

  “Did you try to thlip thomething under thomthing elth? I have thome thkinny knivth that we could—”

  Again, Hâlott made the gesture, only this time he whispered a hollow groan of sorts, a groan that Rogi knew represented a growl of rage.

  Still—“Did you try prething thomething and then thomething elth? I could preth on thomething while you preth on thomething elth and—”

  Hâlott’s whispered groan got louder.

  “We can alwayth thmack it with a thledge hammer,” suggested Rogi. “One really good thmack with a thledge hammer and I bet it would—”

  The necromancer whirled on the little hunchback, and how Hâlott managed to glare with painted-on eyes Rogi did not understand, nevertheless a glare it was.

  “Yeth, Mathter, I’ll be thilent.” Rogi got down long enough to fetch a piece of bread and a hunk of cheese from the cupboard. He was the only one of the two who seemed to take any sustenance, though he suspected that Hâlott did something with the corpses he seemed always to be cutting into or dismembering or flaying or draining of blood or raising up in a ghastly semblance of life. Maybe Hâlott drank the blood, or ingested some other bodily fluid to keep life flowing through his own collapsed veins. Regardless as to whatever it might be that Hâlott did, Rogi would just as soon dwell in ignorance than to truly know.

  Rogi waddled back to the table and clambered up onto his stool, and, in spite of his promise, as Hâlott pushed and prodded on the case, Rogi grunted and sucked air in between clenched teeth, and moaned, and fluttered his lips, and—

  “Rogi,” hissed Hâlott, jerking his head toward the little hunchback, dried muscle and sere tendon and ancient bone creaking like twisting rope, “You will go now into the woods and forage for the kastor ricinus.”

  “Thothe little brown beanth that made me thshite and thshite until I thought my thtomach wath going to oothe out of my athend … and I only ate one? Thothe beanth?”

  “Yes, those beans. Bring me a handful.”

  Rogi shuddered and sighed but said, “Yeth, Mathter.”

  He hopped down off the stool, and, stuffing the uneaten remainder of his bread and cheese into a pocket, he took up a small empty pouch and his blowpipe and poison darts, and he set off out the door and stumped ’round the tower and into the hills, heading toward the last place he had found the poisonous bounty.

  As Nadalya came into the chamber, the coterie about Naimun suddenly fell silent. She smiled sweetly at the various members, and then at her eldest son. Some among the group bowed, while others merely canted their heads, depending on whether they saw her as a lady of Ranke and wife of the current ruler of Sanctuary——as she was—or merely the fair-haired daughter of a well-to-do wine merchant and not of royal lineage, or as a degraded woman, degraded because she had become the number-two wife of an uncouth, Irrune outlander, king though he was.

  Fair-haired and handsome in a coarse, heavyset way, Naimun’s thick lips curved upward in a smile. “Mother,” he said.

  “La, my son,” said Nadalya, her tone merry, her hazel eyes atwinkle. “Take care, for if you and your group fall silent when one outside your circle enters the chamber, why, one might think you were plotting.”

  Even as she laughed in blithe unconcern, still her gaze took in every nuance of the group—Some of those fools actually looked away. But one of them, Nidakis, held his composure and stepped forward and deeply bowed. As the young man straightened and brushed his black hair from his dark eyes he said, “We were merely stunned by the light of
your presence, my lady.”

  “Oh, my, a flatterer, I see,” replied Nadalya, smiling. “Beware this one, Naimun. He is like to turn your head.”

  To one side, ginger-haired, freckled Caliti quickly glanced at Naimun and then looked down at the floor.

  “Mother, where are you off to?” asked Naimun.

  Nadalya sighed. “Your father seems rather pained by his leg this day, and I go to cheer him and to beg him to be at the courtyard gathering in two days to help us celebrate the visit of per-Arizak, the Dragon. Seldom does Ariz come down from the hills, and I would have him know he is welcome in his father’s house.”

  “Indeed, my dear lady,” said Nidakis, “an event that Lord Arizak should attend, can his health permit him to formally welcome his eldest son. And so, let us not cause you to tarry, as pleasant as that might be.”

  Nadalya grinned and tilted her head. “Naimun, ’ware my words, for this second son of Lord Kallitis is a wily one and likely to charm you blind.”

  With that she stepped on past the young men and into the corridor beyond, where her merry mood vanished, and her gaze grew hard. They plot to set Naimun on the throne, and therefore they plot against Raith. For that they will pay, though but one at a time. And Nidakis: the chief schemer, that one, his smooth words those of a serpent, a seducer of minds, including Naimun’s. Should Naimun gain the throne, instead of my beloved Raith, Nidakis would stand in the shadows and whisper in Naimun’s ear and thereby actually rule. Well, we shall see about that. Indeed, we shall see.

  In his tower, with a disgusted grunt—if a whisper can be said to resemble a grunt—Hâlott finally gave up on the chest. It was beyond his skill to open. Nevertheless, there were some in Sanctuary who might succeed where he had failed. He considered several:

  Tregginain? No, too incompetent.

  Dysan? Too young. No experience with puzzles and locks, I think.

  Spyder? Some say he moves like a cat burglar, but there is an aura about him that does not speak of thief. I will have to look into him one day.—Ha! Look into him. Hâlott’s blue-tattooed lips twitched in what was for him a grin at his unintended double entendre.

  Pegrin the Ugly might do, even though he seems to have given up his thieving ways, now working as he does for a steady wage at the ’Unicorn. Still, it might be that he will take on a commission, even though he seems appalled by my appearance.

  Then there is that young one known as Lone, though perhaps he is nought but a cat burglar.

  Ah, wait. There is one even better. I will send Rogi to fetch him.

  Satisfied with his decision, Hâlott patted the chest and then turned to the ruby ring. It was time to begin that commission.

  Rogi scrambled up the thorny slope and over the crest, and down into the grassy vale beyond. In moments he had come to the stand of kastor ricinus plants. At the first of them, a rather tall one, he pushed aside the large, bronzegreen star-shaped leaves, some of them with a purplish tint down their centers, and he looked for the spiny, seedbearing pods. Since the warm season was upon them, surely there should be some. Yet, after long examination, it seemed there were none.

  Rogi moved further into the stand of the smoothstemmed shrubs, and once more failed to find any bean pods.

  A bit farther in, he spotted a number of the spiky husks yet clinging to the inner branches, and Rogi pushed through to get them.

  He had nearly filled the small pouch, when he heard the sound of a horse coming over the rise and down into the vale. Rogi froze so as not to be seen, for oft had he been harassed by bravos looking for a bit of sport, but for Rogi it was maltreatment Of course, the moment they discovered that Rogi was Hâlott’s lackey, the torment immediately ceased, such was the regard for the thing Hâlott was, though no one was certain just what that thing might be. However, if there were a rider astraddle the oncoming horse, then whoever this rider might be, perhaps he did not know of Hâlott or that Rogi fetched for him. And so, Rogi remained concealed among the leaves and limbs of the kastor plants.

  When the horse and the man rode by—for it was a man on a horse—he passed heedless of the little hunchback within the foliage.

  Rogi watched, just in case he had to run, yet the rider seemed to be following something, for his eyes were focused on a point in the air. What that might be, Rogi didn‘t—Oh, wait, it’th a flying inthect of thome thort. Well I’ll be thshite upon; it’th a wathp or a hornet. Why would thomeone follow a wathp?

  Curious, Rogi slipped out from under the drooping branches of the kastor plant and, at a distance, trailed after.

  It was not long ere the man stopped beneath the limbs of a large, wide-branched tree.

  Rogi flopped bellydown in the tall grass.

  The man cautiously backed his horse away from the tree, and dismounted and tied the reins to a sapling. He then unlashed a small, latched wooden box from the rear saddle cantle and sat down beside the horse and waited. And as he lingered, he tied one end of the rope ’round the box and the other end to his belt.

  The scant remainder of the day slowly passed, and Rogi watched the man as the man watched the tree. As dusk descended, the man stood and took up the box and walked to the tree and looked up. After long moments, he somehow seemed satisfied and began climbing, one end of the rope yet fastened to his belt, the other yet tied to the box sitting on the ground.

  Rogi frowned in puzzlement, but kept an eye on the man.

  Finally, with the rope yet affixed to his belt, the man reached one of the large middle limbs and stepped onto the heavy branch and carefully sidled outward. He finally stopped and straddled the limb and warily moved a bit more outward. He then drew up the box and unlatched a hasp and opened the lid and cautiously raised it and swiftly—

  What the thshite? He‘th thlipping it over a horneth’ netht!

  The man quickly latched the hasp and then slowly lowered the box. As soon as it was on the ground, he swung down from the tree. In moments he rode away with his prize lashed to the back cantle.

  What the thshite did he want that for: a boxth of angry horneth?

  Shaking his head, Rogi got up from his concealment and, weighing the bag of kastor beans in his hand and deciding he had enough, he set off for the tower, hoping to arrive before dusk turned to dark … .

  He didn’t make it, and blundered in just ere mid of night.

  Carefully, Hâlott, down in his laboratory, twisted the minute augur into the minuscule denticle, barely widening the hollow running its length. Then he augured even tinier holes thwartwise through the sides of the tooth. Finally, he carefully rasped the widest end of the tiny, conical dent to flatness. He examined the work in total blackness, the lack of light notwithstanding. The bone was, in fact, the minute tip of a wee serpent’s fang, now no larger than the point of a pin with a tiny length of shaft, hollow end to end with three additional infinitesimal flutelike holes along the insignificant span.

  “Good,” he whispered in the darkness.

  “Rogi!” he called, though it sounded more like groan.

  There was no answer.

  “Rogi!” he groaned again, somewhat louder.

  There was still no answer.

  Hâlott went back up the stairs and began examining the rune-marked, gilded box. He was still prodding and poking it well into the night, when at last Rogi came stumbling in.

  “I wath lotht, Mathter,” he said in the dark, “elth I would have got here thooner.” Rogi began lighting lanterns.

  “Have you the kastor ricinus?”

  “Yeth. Quite a few, Mathter.”

  Hâlott held out his hand, and Rogi dropped the pouch into it.

  “There wath thith man, Mathter, and he put a large horneth’ netht into a boxth.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “No, Mathter. You told me to avoid being theen when I collect the beanth.”

  “Good.” Hâlott stepped away from the table and headed for the stairs to the lab. But then he paused and said, “I want you to go and find a man they call C
hance. He is a man with black hair and dresses in black and limps and carries a cane.” Hâlott seemed to glance at the box, though how Rogi could tell is a mystery. Perhaps he had come to know Hâlott’s ways through long association, for they had been together through many years and across many countries and through many escapes and flights from angry mobs and enraged rulers and other such. Regardless, Hâlott slightly twitched his head toward the box and said, “Tell him I have a commission for him. You might find him at the Bottomless Well.”

  “But Mathter, they throw me out of the Bottomleth Well.”

  “Tell them you are on my business.” Without further word, Hâlott turned and descended the stairs.

  With a sigh, Rogi got another chunk of bread and a wedge of cheese from the cupboard and then left, heading for Sanctuary, all the while mumbling about “having to thtumble about in moonthadowth with a bag of beanth, and nobody theemed to care that he needed retht and needed to get thome thleep, and what‘th more it’th the middle of the night, and robberth and muggerth would be lurking in alleywayth and …”

  Andriko stood in the light of the moon above and waited.

  A slim, dark figure came slipping through the shadows.

  “You have it, Driko?”

  “Yes, my lady.” He canted his head toward the latched box. “It’s a rather large one. White-faced hornets.”

  “White-faced? Not yellows?”

  “The whites are very aggressive, my lady.”

  “Well and good. I need them placed in the courtyard sometime ere the gathering, unseen, of course.”

  “Yes, my lady. The day after tomorrow.”

  “I need them to be unnoticed, and I need a means for loosing them wherein I will not overly suffer from stings.”

  Andriko frowned in puzzlement but said, “I will arrange for both.”

  “Thank you, Driko.”