Stealers' Sky tw-12

by Robert Asprin

  "Sorry I had to leave you so long, Notable," he was saying, "but Skarth can't be seen with that big red monster too many people already know is Shadowspawn's shadow. Here you-dammit, Notable, ease up, you'll spill the beer and me too!"

  He had to hold the bowl up while he squatted to restrain the cat long enough to get the bowlful of beer on the floor with the other hand. That operation was no simple one; Notable was large, heavy, and squirming like a barrel of worms. Released, he attacked the beer like an army of thirsty horses finding an oasis after days on the desert.

  Hanse, called Shadowspawn and more recently Skarth, stepped back and away, paused to set his sense of direction, and thrust his left hand up his right sleeve. That hand whipped up and back just past his ear as he spun. The arm snapped forward and a long flat piece of steel appeared with a thunk m the wagon wheel set up against the far wall. Getting the thing up here had not been easy, but it was perfect, a solid wheel of wood joined by wooden pegs, not nails. He had removed the iron rim. Now the wheel showed numerous holes and gouges, the marks of throwing practice with hiltless, guardless knives and stars. The hub was particularly chewed up, while the wall above and around the target was unmarked.

  "Damn. I was so concerned with getting beer for you and trying to be a limpy old man I forgot to buy anything to eat. Anything here or have you eaten it all? A couple of big rats haven't come in and emptied the larder, have they?"

  Notable glanced up from his bowl, whiskers dripping, and gave Hanse a cold stare.

  All in blue as ever, Strick sat alone. Before him on his blue-draped desk rested a small box and, on a scrap of parchment, several strands of human hair. Hair and casket had come to him from the hands of Shadowspawn, who had them from the privy chambers of Marype the mage. The hair was the puzzler; to a man of Strick's talents its aura was distinctly that of Markmor, and yet it was not brown or gray, but silverblond. Both Avenestra and his own examinations assured him that these hairs had not been dyed. The hair was Marype's. The ... owner seemed to be Markmor.

  "Impossible," the spellmaster muttered. "I saw him that night with Marype in Ahdio's back room. He was alive, talking, snarling at his apprentice and even told us all three his secret name-a valuable gift, if he'd been alive. But both of us sensed that he was not, not really. Marype had given him temporary life. Yet this is not dead hair. That is, it didn't come from a corpse; a revenant. It's Marype's. And Markmor's ..."

  From pale blue eyes he regarded the wall opposite without seeing itHis fingers moved over the strands they held, moved and moved while he contemplated. Since his arrival in Sanctuary he had made it his business to leam and leam, about the city and its denizens both present and past. Markmor had preceded him, and been one of the most powerful and dangerous wizards in this sad city just before the arrival of the Rankan governor. Markmor had been beyond competent, and everything Strick had learned indicated that his apprentice had not come close to learning all the master knew, or approaching his talents.

  Strick's big orange-yellow mustache writhed as his lips began to move. Almost inaudible words emerged. It was a practice that aided thinking, of gathering facts and matching them, piecing them together into hypotheses and conclusions. Or maybe it was just a habit.

  "For some reason Marype brought Markmor back. I know that; Ahdio and Cholly and I saw them both together, and Marype wasn't pulling strings. What does this tell me? That they are one?"

  He shook his head. "No."

  He stared longer at nothing, and abruptly those almost watery-pale eyes blinked and came alive. "Unless Markmor has taken the body of his aide! Oh, what a monster that would be; another Corstic to waste a young man's youth! But worse-not to destroy his body but to seize it, to use it ... By the Flame Itself, this is a very, very bad man and this poor staggering town cannot afford another such!"

  After a time he heaved a sigh from the barrel chest any fighting man would have been happy to gain. Now Strick of Firaqa was torn. His burden, the Price he had paid for his powers, was twofold. One part of that Price was forever hidden beneath the flapped skullcap he wore, always. The second part was that Strick cared, cared, because he must. He had to. He must help people, not harm them. That meant he wove the spells that people called white magic, and that only.

  "But ... isn't harming MarypeIMarkmor helping people? Does it serve good to-try to; maybe with Ahdio's help-to try to send an antisorcerous spell on MarypeIMarkmor?"

  In blue skullcap and tunic over blue tights as ever, Torazelan Strick ti Firaqa sat alone, and fought himself.

  "That you in there, Hanse?"

  "Thanks for keeping your voice down, Abohorr. You know-you must have less belly than any bartender in this town or any other!"

  "I'm startin' to put it on again," the man behind the Vulgar Unicorn's bar told him. "This work is ail standin', but hardly the work carpenterin' is. I'm a lot happier, too. You? Is that a disguise?"

  Abohorr couldn't see the roll of dark, dark eyes within the deep shadow of the large hat. "Must be. Here." A wrinkly brown hand stretched out to leave an imitation gemstone in Abohorr's thumbless one.

  He squinted at it. "Some of your skin seems t'be flakin* off, uh, Skarth."

  "Damned clay! Strick asked you to find out where somebody lives. That says he wants you to tell me."

  Abohorr nodded, but didn't look happy. "I understand. But I haven't found out. That fellow hasn't been in and my casual tries to find out anything about him got me nothin'. I'm sorry, Hanse."

  "Damn. Not as sorry as I am." He glanced around and paused to watch the girlish woman moving among the tables delivering cups and bowls and collecting coins. "Silky looks good. Odd; she's wearing more'n I ever saw on her! She working out all right, Ab?"

  "She's all right. Most customers leave her pretty much alone. Ah, she don't mind a pat on the butt now and agin, but she does hate t'be pinched. Broke a good jar over Harmy's head a few nights ago when he pinched 'er. Drenched 'im with beer and stretched him right out on the floor, she did! So she made an announcement-sure can be loud when she's of a mind to!-an' I did, and the boss sent over that sign."

  Abohorr jerked his head at the wall behind him. Hanse looked, and sighed.

  PINCHING HURTS. PINCH AND YOU'LL GET HURT WORSE. GUARANTEED.

  -The Management

  "Ab."

  "Hmm?"

  "What's it say?"

  Abohorr reared his elbows up off the counter and turned to gaze at the sign. "Pinchin' hurts," he enunciated slowly. "Pinch and you get hurt worser. Somethin'-I guess that word is 'signed'-the Management." He turned back to Hanse, who had made a chuckly sound. "That's Strick. An' me, I guess. I got to ask him ... do I call myself manager?"

  The large hat with the large droopy feather wagged. "Better ask him. Seen Gralis, Ab?"

  "You ain't heard? He tried to mug the wrong man. Him and several others-but I hear Gralis swears he was by hisself. Anyhow he got his collarbone broke."

  "Damn. I wanted to ask him to help me with something." Hanse thumped the bar with a wrinkly brown hand. "Got to go, Abohorr. Thanks. Pinch Silky for me."

  Abohorr stared down at a flake of brown wrinkle on his counter, then lifted his eyes to watch Skarth depart, banging that staff on the floor all the way to the door. With a wag of his head the new One-Thumb picked up his bar cloth to wipe away evidence of Skarth's apparent leprosy.

  The two youths accosted the old crip just as he was about to emerge from an alley onto the Serpentine. Teeth flashed as they grinned at the silly oldster who had to lean on a staff but still walked with a rolling limp.

  "Nice hat you got there, citizen!"

  "I'll have that feather, paw-paw. You don' need it."

  "This here hat is all I got in the world that I love," an old voice quavered from under the outsize headgear, "an* it ain't for sale. You two nice boys just git along now."

  They laughed. "Who said anythin' about buyin'," the leftward one said, moving in.

  "Got a shock for you, citizen," the other said, wit
h a chuckle that more resembled a giggle. "We ain't nice boys." He was moving in.

  "Well, y'oughtta be! Look atche-Synab's boy Hakky an' you're Saz's little brother Ahaz, ain'tche?"

  The youths paused to exchange a glance. "He knows us!" Ahaz whispered, high-voiced.

  "Shu'up," Hakky told him. "So we have to leave some work for Cholly the gluemaker, then."

  Each took a deep breath, fixed his gaze on the crippled man under the big hat, and again started toward him. Hakky's knife was in his hand.

  Their quarry underwent a miraculous cure, but rather than straighten up he remained stooped. Neither accoster recognized it as a combative crouch until he shoved his staff between Hakky's legs and jerked it up hard, and even while Hakky was sucking in an audible, high-voiced gasp of pain, the quarry danced back and gave Ahaz such a crack in the side of his shin that the youth squealed and went down. After bouncing off the alley's right wall.

  When they got their groaning selves together after a minute or so, their intended prey had vanished, seemingly into the shadows.

  "Damned old faker!" Ahaz whimpered. "What a mean trick! And us just boys, too!"

  That was when Hakky kicked him in his other leg.

  And cried out at the pain his violent movement sent sizzling into his bruised and swelling genitals.

  A few minutes later the damned old faker used his staff to poke aside several of the thirty-one dangling strands of Syrese rope hanging before the entry to that low dive called Sly's Place. He step-clonked in, glanced around at a fine big crowd of drinkers and babblers, and step-clonked down the single step into the noisy, odoriferous main room.

  Ouleh the man-killer sat on someone's leg, her Ouleh-stuffed blouse cut down to here, while a homely woman in a long heavy-looking skin waited tables and a gimp-legged youth bore pottery back to the counter, where a very large man in a linked-chain mail coat was laying a big pickled sausage on a little tray between two bowls of beer. Ever moving, watching his place and his help and his patrons, his eyes did not miss the advent of the gimped old fellow in the wild hat. Besides, he was making enough noise with that outsize staff of his on the floor of oiled wood to make a god cover his ears.

  He step-clonked his way to the counter.

  "Are you Ahdio?"

  The mailed man grinned. "Uh-huh. What do you want me to call you tonight-Notable?"

  Under the hat a black mustache moved, but was too full to allow teeth to flash in a rueful smile. "You know everything, don't you? You really a sorcerer, Ahdio?"

  Ahdio set a hamlike hand to his chain-scintillant chest and took on a sweet and innocent look-as much of one as that slab of face was capable. "Me? Are you a member of the Hell-Hounds?"

  Under the hat, Hanse snorted. "Call me Skarth. I live in the Maze. You've known me for years. Draw me a beer and I'll leave it for Sweetboy."

  "Nice of you," Ahdio said, moving for the beer, "but that cat hit a rat like a lightning strike this afternoon and ate everything but the viscera and the contents of its bowels. He always leaves those for me. Catsl Anyhow he's been sleeping it off for hours and probably couldn't even be bothered to stick his tongue into a bowl of beer. How's Notable?"

  "Not that sleepy," Hanse assured him, "ever! Thanks." He slid his hand into the handle of the unglazed mug Ahdio set before him, watched a wrinkle or two flake off, and made a snarly noise. "You find out what Strick asked you about?"

  "I did. That individual lives in Downwind." Ahdio leaned forward and lowered his voice, although that hardly seemed necessary, in the lowest and noisiest dive in the city and probably on the planet. "Brick, painted blue maybe twenty years ago, four stories high, on Happiness Street. Backs up to an alley just across from a small barn that looks more like a stable and used to be. He goes to sleep to the sound of goats, I reckon. His room's on the fourth floor, in back."

  "Perrrfect," Hanse purred. "Top floor rear, hmmm? Just perfect. Look around, Ahdio. You see anybody who looks trustworthy?"

  Starting to look, Ahdio snapped his gaze back to the man in the hat. "Where do you think you are, the Golden Oasis?"

  Hanse chuckled. "Put it this way, then: I need someone who's strong enough and willing enough to help me with some night work and who I can trust to keep his mouth shut at least until tomorrow."

  Ahdiovizun was frowning. "You aren't thinking of killing a man, are you, Hanse?"

  "Absolutely not." A wrinkled brown finger rose between them, wiggled. Ahdio leaned closer to listen to what Hanse did plan to do. Suddenly every ounce of flesh on the tall, heavy man's form was jiggling with his seismic laughter. He was at least a minute letting that laugh run its course, and easing his belt. and wiping his eyes.

  "Skarth, that-that's irresistible." Ahdio glanced over and called his limping helper, too often called "the Gimp" and supposedly Ahdio's cousin's son from Twand. "Throde! C'mere a moment, lad," Ahdio lifted his head, "Frax! Come 'ere a moment, will you?"

  Thus it fell out that Strick's bodyguard served as manager ofSly's for a few hours, while Ouleh and Nimsy helped Ahdio's wife tend to business, and Hanse, with a cloaked and hatted Ahdio and Throde, drifted down into that lowest of low ghettos of poverty and stench. Downwind. There the other two learned that under his robe Hanse wore black, black, black, and knives. Both of them recognized the working clothes of the cat burglar called Shadowspawn. He had a lot of good strong rope, too.

  Shadowspawn and Throde, wall-climbers both, had to work together: although Ahdio was mighty big, they got him up the side of the building.

  Linza was the best thing that had happened to Tarkle in years. He could never understand why he wasn't more popular, among people of both sexes. Oh, no one had ever told him he was handsome or cute either, but what were looks after all when a man was bigger than big and could handle anybody, anybody at all, and really did try to be likable? He had bought beer, ale, even wine for more than one girl and a couple of women, but somehow or another before That Time of Night came around he had somehow or another alienated them and they somehow or other abandoned him to go home alone. Tonight he counted himself really lucky. Oh, true, Linza's eyebrows met in the middle about like those of that bastard Hanse, and under those brows-or that brow-one of Linza's eyes looked ahead and one sort of looked off to the side, and her nose wasn't so good (but only when looked at from the side) and she sure wasn't fussy about washing her hair either, or doing much of anything with it. And he wasn't too crazy about her voice. But after all what were those; just imperfections. The point was that she had a really good body and was willing to share it with Tarkle. That was what counted, after all.

  Besides, she had run out of any kind of wherewithal whatever and didn't have anyplace to stay tonight.

  So, holding her close as they climbed the stairs and sort of letting his hand slide up under that big soft bosom of hers so that he could feel the restless pendulum's warmth on the edge and back of his hand, he escorted her to his place and up the three flights to his room. They didn't talk much, but Tarkle wasn't too good at talking anyhow and by now Linza was lurching quite a bit from all those mugs of beer he'd bought her at the Vulgar Unicorn. This was a wonderful night, he thought, as he steered her leftward at the top of the steps, and it was going to be even wonderfuller. Plenty of bed-bouncing tonight! He was about to drownhappily-in big soft restless pendulums'

  He knew Linza would like his room. Tarkle was big enough so he didn't have to worry about anything even in this neighborhood, but the fact that his room was on the fourth floor would make her feel safer. He had a pretty good chair and one not quite as good, and two rugs, and that nice piece of wood on the wall, and a good big window-with curtains, even-and a good large, padded sleeping pallet, and a table and even a washbowl. All that luxury was in addition to the two beer barrels he had stolen and cut in half, so that one made a lamp table and the other a nice seat or footrest or whatever it was a person might need. His clothing and the few valuables he kept here were in the big heavy press standing in the far comer.

  "A
h, locked up tight," he said, and Linza with her arm around him squeezed his waist and made a sound somewhere between a giggle and a chuckle and a hiccup, and Tarkle congratulated himself on his good fortune and again counted himself really lucky to have her here with him.

  He got the door unlocked and, with a sweeping gesture, pushed it open and swung his arm wide in welcome,

  Linza started into the moonlit room, and shivered against him. "Quite a breeze comin' in that window," she said. "You ought to have curtainshey! Is this a joke er somethin'?"

  Tarkle was staring into his room. His whole stomach felt as if it had sunk into his crotch but a great big lump had come up in his throat and despite the draft from the curtainless, open window he was hot, hot, prickly and sweaty in the armpits.

  His room was empty.

  No curtains. No rugs or cut-down beer kegs. No table and no chairs. No sleeping pallet. No piece of wood nicely mounted on the wall. No lamp and no washbowl. This was impossible; he'd had to plead and bully the aid of two other strong men to wrestle the big tall and very heavy clothespress up here and into his room, and even it was gone!

  It simply was not possible. He was staring into a bare room without even a scrap of string. It looked larger, empty this way; and so lonely, so pitifully bare, so clean; and as a matter of fact even the floor seemed to have been swept clean.

  One article, one of all his worldly possessions save what he wore and carried, remained. A pair of winter leggings lay neatly arranged on the floor with the bottoms of the legs pointed neatly toward the doorway where he stood. The legs were well apart; the leggings had been sliced all the way in half right up the middle, right up the crotch.

  It just wasn't possible, Tarkle thought, just as his knees buckled.

  They celebrated relatively quietly in the back room of Sly's Place, whoever Sly was or had been. Audio's wife Jodeera was not happy with some of what she heard from him and the other two jovial triumphants;

  she muttered, "Boys, just big overgrown boys," now and then, and gave her husband dark looks. Others were directed at that bad influence named Hanse and called Shadowspawn. Yet now and again she had to laugh along with this trio of night-stalkers who couldn't stop talking about what they had done tonight-