by Mel Odom
“No,” the young man said, “I don’t.” His eyes narrowed in irritation. “I’m not a thief.”
“Oh.” That obviously leaves murderer or assassin. Wick wasn’t sure if either of those left him more comfortable than the other.
The door remained closed.
Feeling foolish, Wick jerked a thumb at the door. “Are you certain someone’s on the other side of that door?”
A frown lowered the young man’s arched brows. “Is this your first time here?” he asked.
“Yes.” Wick stuck out a hand. “Righty Lightfingers at your service.” Should I have said that in a gruffer voice? he wondered. The thieves in Drelor Deodarb’s tales always seem to be a scrofulous lot. He made his voice deeper and added a hint of bravado. “I mean, the name’s Righty. Righty Lightfingers.”
“I see. But weren’t you picking the lock left-handed?”
“A ruse,” Wick said, thinking fast. Why do I always get the ones with falcon’s eyes? It was enough to make him think being clever was not intended for him. Being intelligent, he’d found on several life-or-death situations, was decidedly different than being clever. Intelligence just didn’t turn away axe blows and arrows with the same sort of success craftiness did. Intelligence involved learning, and sometimes learning was a direct application of the trouble he got into. “If I used my right hand, I’d give myself away.”
“Most people,” the young man stated, “are right-handed.”
“Oh.” In his hurry to cover his gaff, Wick had forgotten that. Being intelligent also wasn’t a great defense when the other person was intelligent, too. Suddenly he felt like he was being taken to task just as he was by Grandmagister Frollo at the Vault of All Known Knowledge.
“Don’t you know the secret knock?” the young man asked.
Wick blinked. Secret knock? “What secret knock?”
“The one that gets the guard to open the door.”
“No.”
The young man let out a breath of disgust that fogged the cold air for a moment.
Wick held his head up even though he wanted to drop it and turn invisible. “I did say this was my first time here,” he reminded.
“So you did.” The young man regarded him even more intently.
“I came here looking for work. Lots of thieves come to Wharf Rat’s Warren looking for work.”
The young man just looked at him.
“What’s wrong?” Wick asked.
“You’re the strangest thief I’ve ever met,” the young man admitted.
“Maybe you haven’t met many thieves,” Wick suggested defensively.
“This is the place for meeting thieves,” the young man pointed out. “I’ve met any number of thieves. After all, this is the city of thieves, murderers, assassins—”
“And thieves.” Wick sighed.
The young man frowned. “I was going to say liars. There are a lot of liars here.”
He said that as if Wick should take note that he knew all about liars.
“Of course,” the young man went on, “lying doesn’t pay as well as any of the other work. And everybody comes to hate you because once you start lying it’s a hard habit to break. Once you start, you just sort of tend to forget you’re doing it.” The young man paused. “But it will get you just as dead. You might want to keep that in mind.”
Wick gulped, but kept that reaction hidden. He hoped.
“Are you sure you want to go in?” the young man asked.
Actually, Wick was certain he did not want to enter the premises. One of the rumors he’d heard about Wharf Rat’s Warren was that the Tavern of Schemes had a pit beneath it that allowed the disposal of bodies by way of an underground chute that led to the coastline only sixty yards away. Liars, cheats, and spies left the tavern with their throats cut and were given an impromptu burial at sea.
“Yes,” he answered, and hoped that the young man didn’t hear the momentary quaver in his voice.
The young man stepped to the door and banged on it with heavy-handed authority. The rapid syncopation of blows was answered from inside. Wick memorized both rhythms at once, in case he managed to emerge alive and ever had to go back to the Tavern of Schemes.
Then bolts slid and crossbars were lifted. The door opened and a huge troll shoved his blocky head through the space. He peered out with eyes large as a horse’s and with sickly yellow irises. Nearly eight feet tall, the troll stood half that across, looking surely too broad to fit through the door. His skin, visible on his face and massively-thewed forearms, was the color of butter fat, pale and putrid with a hint of an ochre undertone. His hairless head was as square as a tree stump slapped into place atop his short neck. Pig’s ears twitched atop his head, and the resemblance was carried out in his thick snout as well. Tusks in his lower jaw reached up past the outside corners of his eyes. He wore clothes fashioned from gray sealskin.
“Who is it?” the troll demanded in a voice even louder and deeper than a dwarf’s.
“Quarrel,” the young man announced. “You know me, Krok.”
Quarrel fits you, Wick thought, surveying the young human. Straight and sleek, no room for nonsense.
The troll leaned down over the young human and blew out his breath in a great gray fog that enveloped Wick.
Wick almost threw up. Trolls smelled bad anyway, but whatever this one had been eating had been truly noxious. The little Librarian clapped his hand over his mouth and used his thumb and forefinger to pinch his nostrils shut.
Quarrel remained standing, arms folded over his chest.
He’s got to be holding his breath, Wick thought desperately. There’s no way he can stand that stench.
“I know you,” Krok admitted. “You can come inside.” He moved sideways and Quarrel slipped through easily. Then the troll turned his attention to Wick and blocked the way again, halting Wick in his tracks. “And you. Who are you?” He thrust his face forward.
With the troll’s features only inches from his own, Wick removed his hand from his mouth, but he forgot to let go of his nose. His reply, “Righty Lightfingers,” came out sounding high-pitched and nasal.
“Righty Lightfingers, huh?” Krok glared at Wick.
Realizing that he was gripping his nose with the wrong hand, Wick changed hands. He was pinching his nose again, still sounding nasal, when he answered, “That’s right. I’m Right, er, Righty.” He removed his hand and tried not to breathe.
“So what do you do, Righty Lightfingers?” Krok asked.
“I’m a thief,” Wick said. “And a master assassin.” He added the last quickly.
The troll regarded him with fascination. “Is that so?”
Still not breathing, Wick nodded.
“A halfer who’s a thief and an assassin.” Krok smiled. “This should be fun.” He shot out a big, three-fingered hand, grabbed Wick’s cloak, and yanked him inside.
Wick had time for one strangled, “Eeeep!” before he was yanked into the dark interior of the Tavern of Schemes.
“Lookit what I found at the door!” Krok roared as he held Wick up and carried him through the tavern in one big fist.
“A halfer,” a man with an eye patch exclaimed in delight.
“Entertainment,” a man with badly fitting wooden teeth added. “Didn’t know there was going to be a sideshow tonight.” His teeth clacked as he spoke.
Another man rubbed his hand and hook together enthusiastically. “It’s been long enough since we had a halfer for sport. How many pieces do you want to cut him up in?” He leered in anticipation.
With the fear flooding him, thoughts of the cold water out in the harbor awaiting his body, Wick didn’t mind the troll’s stench so much. Actually, it wasn’t that he didn’t mind the stink, because he did, but it suddenly seemed like the sour odor was the least of his problems. He fought against the troll’s grip but couldn’t manage to get away.
“Don’t get caught,” Craugh had admonished Wick before they’d dumped him out of One-Eyed Peggie. “Don’t do
anything to raise suspicions. Do your best not to get noticed in any way. Slink. Skulk. Sneak. Act like a thief.”
Well, that wasn’t working out. And, at the moment, Wick would have preferred getting turned into a toad to ending up in chunks for the monsters out in the harbor. Toads still got to eat and had warm beds.
Krok thumped Wick onto the scarred bar at the back of the tavern. Gazing around the room, the little Librarian got the feeling he’d stepped right into the pages of one of Drelor Deodarb’s crime romances. Only Wick didn’t feel like one of the tough mercenaries or thieves or assassins Deodarb wrote about.
At least twenty men were in the room. All of them sat in shadows at tiny tables scrunched in between high-backed booths. Single candles barely illuminated the harsh features of the men seated there. All of their faces carried lines formed of misery and cruelty. Scars and missing limbs were in abundance. The reek of desperation swirled through the room.
Wharf Rat’s Warren divided the residents there quickly into winners and losers, with a subdivision of losers who died and those who survived with scars to show how close they had come. There were two other trolls and four goblinkin. With the darkness lurking in the room, the tavern seemed small. The low ceiling maintained that image.
“What you got there, Krok?” one of the trolls asked.
“Going to find out,” Krok answered.
Not knowing what else to do, Wick sat on the counter. He blinked and tried to think of something to say. If he’d been one of Deodarb’s antiheroes, he’d have pulled out hidden stilettos and pinned both Krok’s hands to the counter for him. Or a hidden short sword and lopped off one of the henchmen’s heads.
Even if he’d had stilettos, Wick couldn’t have found it in him to pin Krok’s hands to the counter. He didn’t care for violence at all. Despite that, sometimes violence seemed to follow him around. Most of the time, it chased him, waving a weapon or baring fangs, and threatening the most awful things.
“Says his name is Righty Lightfingers,” Krok said. “He’s supposed to be a thief and an assassin. Anybody heard of someone by that name?”
A chorus of “nos” ran around the room.
Looking back at Wick, Krok growled, “Nobody’s heard of you, halfer.”
“A thief and master assassin isn’t supposed to have a reputation,” Wick said in a small voice. “Except by those looking to hire him.” Thankfully he managed to say that without quavering. He tried to look fearless, but doubted he pulled that off sitting contritely like he was in Grandmagister Frollo’s study to accept a verbal drubbing. “Does anyone here want to hire a thief or an assassin?”
The tavern patrons broke out in laughter. It was undecided whether “A halfer thief!” or “A halfer assassin!” got the greatest response.
“Maybe he offers low prices!” someone else chortled.
“Or he specializes in little jobs!” another cried.
“In those hard-to-get-to places!”
Wick’s hopes of survival dwindled.
“Do you know how many people would want to hurt me if they suspected I was a thief or an assassin?” Wick asked, trying to find some way to excuse his anonymity. “I can’t just go around letting everyone know who stole the king’s crown or who poisoned an important merchant.”
Krok scratched his head thoughtfully. “That’s true.”
“And people I’ve stolen from don’t want to admit it. Who wants to admit they’ve had a fortune stolen by a dweller?” Wick went on.
“That’s true, too.”
“Or had someone they were supposed to be guarding assassinated under their very noses by me?”
“Of course it was under their noses. He’s a halfer.”
“You’ve done that?”
Wick started to say a dozen times, then thought the tavern crowd might not believe that and considered lowering the number, then figured he really needed to impress and—hopefully—throw a little fear in them. “Nearly one hundred times,” he declared, thinking that surely that was a respectable number of victims.
3
The Assassin’s Résumé
Laughter filled the tavern immediately.
“No way,” a grizzled mercenary said. “A little pipsqueak like you couldn’t have killed nearly a hundred people.”
“I didn’t do it with a blade,” Wick said. “They had to look like accidents. That’s what I specialize in. Trip wires on stairs. Snakes in beds. Death by horse—”
“Death by horse?” a man asked. “You hire the horse?”
“No,” Wick said, finding himself curiously drawn to his stories, which were lifted from various compendiums on assassinations he’d read. Grandmagister Frollo hadn’t exactly been thrilled about finding those on Wick’s personal reading list, either. Grandmagister Frollo wasn’t of the opinion that all knowledge should be saved. “You can put a burr under a horse’s saddle. Or poison it so it temporarily goes mad. Then you can just talk them into killing their riders.”
“Talk to horses?”
Too late, Wick realized that he’d selected a means that didn’t come readily to anyone other than elven warders. “I was taught the trick by an elven assassin.”
“An elven assassin?” The doubt was evident in the sailor’s voice. “Elves don’t take easily to that trade.”
“Not easily,” Wick agreed. “But sometimes the best solution to a problem is one corpse taken quietly so that ten others don’t need to be taken.” He paused. “Of course, the best tool of the trade is poison. I know how to make hundreds of poisons.”
“Poisons,” Krok repeated.
“Yes.” Wick tried to act nonchalant. “I once walked into a banquet room with an incense shaker and spread invisible poisonous dust over the meals of eight men whose deaths I’d been paid for. The first one was dying as I walked out of the room.” He shook his head. “Still, it was a near thing. The poison had acted much more quickly than I’d wagered.”
Silence filled the tavern, and most of the patrons pushed their unfinished plates away.
“Is this true?” Krok asked.
“Of course it’s true,” Wick replied, warming to the hope that he could emerge with a whole skin. He tried to act calm and detached.
In the corner, a quiet smile flirted with Quarrel’s lips. It appeared that the young man didn’t quite believe Wick’s tales. Thankfully, it seemed he was the only one who didn’t.
“Mayhap the halfer’s telling the truth,” someone suggested.
“We’d have heard of him here,” one of the men said. “We get to know everyone in that line of trade who come through here.”
“This is my first time here,” Wick said. “I didn’t want to be known to so many.” He paused. “I wasn’t exactly given a choice here today.”
“How did you keep us from hearing about you?”
Wick thought quickly and snatched at the first idea he thought was believable. “I’m really good at, uh, thievery and assassinations.”
Silence hung in the tavern for a moment, then the thieves, murderers, assassins, thieves, etc. started laughing. They slapped their legs and thumped on the table.
“Nobody is that good,” a slim man in black and purple clothing stated. He stood and touched his chest, filled with pompous pride. “I’m Dawarn the Nimble. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”
“You’re a burglar,” Wick replied instantly. “There’s a price on your head up in Kelloch’s Harbor, a job waiting for you in Hanged Elf’s Point if you decide you want it, and merchants in Drakemoor, Talloch, and Cardin’s Deep want you dead. Well, maybe not Merchant Olligar in Cardin’s Deep because he doesn’t think the warehouse fire was truly your fault, and it worked out for him. Oh, and the captain of Wavecutter still wants you to pay off on the percentage he was supposed to get for helping you in Bardek’s Cove.”
An instant hubbub of conversations started around the room.
Then, “You never paid off on that percentage to Cap’n Huljar?” someone demanded.
Dawarn inst
antly lost some of his pompousness, throwing up his hands to the crowd that suddenly bristled against him. “Hey! Hey! Stop snarling and snapping like a pack of wolves! I was going to pay him! I still am!” He frowned. “Things in Bardek’s Cove just got … complicated.”
“So complicated you stiffed Huljar?” someone said. “You don’t stiff Huljar. You’re lucky you’re still walking around breathing through your nose instead of your neck.”
“I’m not the one under suspicion here,” Dawarn pointed out, taking his seat again, no longer wanting attention. “It’s him!” He threw a finger toward Wick.
“Okay,” Krok snarled, turning back to Wick, “so you know Dawarn, and you even know some of the work he’s done. Including stiffing friends.” He threw a sidelong glare at the offending burglar. “That doesn’t mean you’re who you say you are.”
Wick gave the accusation consideration but didn’t see an immediate answer.
“Test him,” someone said.
Heads turned, all of them focusing on Quarrel. The young man sat at a table by himself. He’d unwrapped his face, revealing smooth-shaven, youthful features.
“He came in with you, Quarrel,” Krok said.
“No,” Quarrel replied. “He’s not with me.” He paused. “You let him in, Krok. If you want to make anyone responsible for his presence here, you have to take it. You could easily have left him outside.”
Krok scowled. “Anybody else here want to get identified?”
No one volunteered.
“Just because he knows faces and names,” Quarrel said, “doesn’t mean that he’s a clever thief or an assassin.” He regarded Wick. “You should test him.”
I hope you’re caught in whatever your next endeavor is, Wick thought. Anxiety thrummed through him.
“All right then,” Krok said. “A test. What kind of test?”
