Thieves World tw-1

by Robert Lynn Asprin

'One of the imperial bodyguards from Ranke, one of the detachment who escorted the Prince along the Generals' Road, called to inspect the local guardhouse this morning at dawn. Apparently he made himself most unpopular, to the point that, when he let fall that scroll without noticing, Aye-Gophlan thought more of secreting it than giving it back. Why he's ready to believe that an imperial officer would carry a document in Old High Yenized, I can't guess. Perhaps that's part of the magic.'

  He thrust gobbets of succulent flesh into his mouth and chomped for a while. Jarveena tried not to drool.

  To distract herself by the first means to mind, she said, 'Why did he tell you all this ... ? Ah, I'm an idiot. He didn't.'

  'Correct.' Melilot looked smug. 'For that you deserve a taste of lobster. Here!' He tossed over a lump that by his standards was generous, and a chunk of bread also; she caught both in mid-air with stammered thanks and wolfed them down.

  'You need to have your strength built up,' the portly scribe went on. 'I have a very responsible errand for you to undertake tonight.'

  'Errand?'

  'Yes. The imperial officer who lost the scroll is called Commander Nizharu. He and his men are billeted in pavilions in the courtyard of the governor's palace; seemingly he's afraid of contamination if they have to go into barracks with the local soldiery.

  'After dark this evening you are to steal in and wait on him, and inquire whether he will pay more for the return of his scroll and the name of the man who filched it, or for a convincing but fraudulent translation which will provoke the unlawful possessor into some rash action. For all I can guess,' he concluded sanctimoniously, 'he may have let it fall deliberately. HmV

  3

  It was far from the first time since her arrival that Jarveena had been out after curfew. It was not even the first time she had had to scamper in shadow across the broad expanse of Governor's Walk in order to reach and scramble over the palace wall, nimble as a monkey despite the mass of scar-tissue where her right breast would never grow. Much practice enabled her to whip off her cloak, roll it into a cylinder not much thicker than a money-belt, fasten it around her, and rush up the convenient hand- and toeholds in the outer wall which were carefully not repaired, and for a fat consideration, when the chief mason undertook his annual re-pointing.

  But it was definitely the first time she had had to contend with crack soldiers from Ranke on the other side. One of them, by ill chance, was relieving himself behind a flowering shrub as she descended, and needed to do no more than thrust the haft of his pike between her legs. She gasped and went sprawling.

  But Melilot had foreseen all this, and she was prepared with her story and the evidence to back it up.

  'Don't hurt me, please! I don't mean any harm!' she whimpered, making her voice as childish as possible. There was a torch guttering in a sconce nearby; the soldier heaved her to her feet by her right wrist, his grip as cruel as a trap's, and forced her towards it. A sergeant appeared from the direction of the pavilions which since her last visit had sprouted like mushrooms between the entry to the Hall of Justice and the clustered granaries on the north-west side of the grounds.

  'What you got?' he rumbled in a threatening bass voice.

  'Sir, I mean no harm! I have to do what my mistress tells me, or I'll be nailed to the temple door!'

  That took both of them aback. The soldier somewhat relaxed his fingers and the sergeant bent close to look her over better in the wan torchlight.

  'By that, I take it you serve a priestess of Argash?' he said eventually.

  It was a logical deduction. On the twenty-foot-high fane of that divinity his most devoted followers volunteered, when life wearied them, to be hung up and fast unto death.

  But Jarveena shook her head violently.

  'N-no, sir! Dyareela!' naming a goddess banned these thirty years owing to the bloodthirstiness of her votaries.

  The sergeant frowned. 'I saw no shrine to'her when we escorted the prince along Temple Avenue!'

  'N-no, sir! Her temple was destroyed, but-her worshippers endure!'

  'Do they now!' the sergeant grunted. 'Hmm! That sounds like something the commander ought to know!'

  'Is that Commander Nizharu?' Jarveena said eagerly.

  'What? How do you know his name?'

  'My mistress sent me to him! She saw him early today when he was abroad in the city, and she was so taken with his handsome' ness that she resolved at once to send a message to him. But it was all to be in secret!' Jarveena let a quaver enter her voice. 'Now I've let it out, and she'll turn me over to the priests of Argash, and ... Oh, I'm done for! I might as well be dead right now!' • . 'Dying can wait,' the sergeant said, reaching an abrupt decision. 'But the commander will definitely want to know about the Dyareelans. I thought only madmen in the desert paid attention to that old bitch nowadays ... Hello, what's this at your side?' He lifted it into the light. 'A writing-case, is it?'

  'Yes, sir. That's what I mainly do for my mistress.'

  'If you can write, why deliver messages yourself? That's what I always say. Oh, well, I guess you're her confidante, are you?' Jarveena nodded vigorously.

  'A secret shared is a secret no longer, and here's one more proof of the proverb. Oh, come along!'

  By the light of two lamps filled, to judge by their smell, with poor-grade fish oil, Nizharu was turning the contents of his pavilion upside-down, with not even an orderly to help him. He had cleared out two brass-bound wooden chests and was beginning on a third, while the bedding from his field couch of wood and canvas was strewn on the floor, and a dozen bags and pouches had been emptied and not repacked.

  He was furious when the sergeant raised the tent flap, and roared that he was not to be disturbed. But Jarveena took in the situation ' at a glance and said in a clear firm voice, 'I wonder if you're looking for a scroll.'

  Nizharu froze, his face turned so that light fell on it. He was as fair a man as she had ever seen: his hair like washed wool, his eyes like chips of summer sky. Under a nose keen as a bird's beak, his thin lips framed well-kept teeth marred by a chip off the right upper front molar. He was lean and obviously very strong, for he was turning over a chest that must weigh a hundred pounds and his biceps were scarcely bulging.

  'Scroll?' he said softly, setting down the chest. 'What scroll?'

  It was very hard for Jarveena to reply. She felt her heart was going to stop. The world wavered. It took all her force to maintain her balance. Distantly she heard the sergeant say, 'She didn't mention any scroll to us!'

  And, amazingly, she was able to speak for herself again.

  'That's true, commander,' she said. 'I had to lie to those men to stop them killing me before I got to you. I'm sorry.' Meantime she was silently thanking the network of informers who kept Melilot so well supplied with information that the lie had been credible even to these strangers. 'But I think this morning you mislaid a scroll...?'

  Nizharu hesitated a single moment. Then he rapped, 'Out! Leave the boy here!'

  Boy! Oh, miracle! If Jarveena had believed in a deity, now was when she would have resolved to make sacrifice for gratitude. For i that implied he hadn't recognized her.

  She waited while the puzzled sergeant and soldier withdrew, mouth dry, palms moist, a faint singing in her ears. Nizharu slammed the lid of the chest he had been about to overturn, sat down on it, and said, 'Now explain! And the explanation had better be a good one!'

  It was. It was excellent. Melilot had devised it with great care and drilled her through it a dozen times during the afternoon. It was tinged with just enough of the truth to be convincing.

  Aye-Gophlan, notoriously, had accepted bribes. (So had everyone in the guard who might possibly be useful to anybody wealthier than himself, but that was by-the by.) It had consequently occurred to Melilot - a most loyal and law-abiding citizen, who as all his acquaintance would swear had loudly welcomed the appointment of the prince, the new governor, and looked forward to the city being reformed - it had occurred to him that perhaps
this was part of a plan. One could scarcely conceive of a high-ranking imperial officer being so casual with what was obviously a top-secret document. Could one?

  'Never,' murmured Nizharu, but sweat beaded his lip.

  Next came the tricky bit. Everything depended on whether the commander wanted to keep the mere existence of the scroll a secret. Now he knew Aye-Gophlan had it, it was open to him to summon his men and march down to the guardhouse and search it floor to rooftree, for - according to what Jarveena said, at any rate - Aye Gophlan was far too cautious to leave it overnight in the custody of a mere scribe. He would return on his next duty-free day, the day after tomorrow or the day after that, depending on which of his fellow officers he could exchange with.

  But Melilot had deduced that if the scroll were so important that Nizharu kept it by him even when undertaking a mundane tour of inspection, it must be very private indeed. He was, apparently, correct. Nizharu listened with close attention, and many nods to the alternative plan of action.

  For a consideration, Melilot was prepared to furnish a false translation designed to jar Aye-Gophlan into doing something for which Nizharu could safely arrest him, without it ever being known that he had enjoyed temporary possession of a scroll which by ' rights should have remained in the commander's hands. Let him only specify the terms, and it would be as good as done.

  When she - whom Nizharu still believed a he, for which she was profoundly glad finished talking, the commander pondered a while. At length he started to smile, though it never reached his eyes, and in firm clear terms expressed his conditions for entering into a compact along the lines Melilot proposed. He capped all by handing over two gold coins, of a type she did not recognize, with a promise that he would have her (his) hide if they did not both reach Melilot, and a large silver token of the kind used at Ilsig for himself.

  Then he instructed a soldier she had not met to escort her to the gate and across Governor's Walk. But she gave the man the slip as soon as they were clear of the palace grounds and rushed towards the back entry, via Silk Corner.

  Melilot being rich, he could afford locks on his doors; he had given her a heavy bronze key which she had concealed in her writing case. She fumbled it into the lock, but before she could turn it the door swung wide and she stepped forward as though impelled by another person's will.

  This was the street - or rather alley. This was the door with its overhanging porch. Outside everything was right.

  But inside everything was absolutely, utterly, unqualifiedly wrong.

  4

  Jarveena wanted to cry out, but found herself unable to draw enough breath. A vast sluggishness took possession other muscles, as though she were descending into glue. Taking one more step, she knew, would tire her to the point of exhaustion; accordingly she concentrated merely on looking about her, and within seconds was wishing that she hadn't.

  A wan, greyish light suffused the place. It showed her high stone walls on either side, a stone-flagged floor underfoot, but nothing above except drifting mist that sometimes took on an eerie pale colour: pinkish, bluish, or the sickly phosphorescent shade of dying fish. Before her was nothing but a long table, immensely and ridiculously long, such that one might seat a full company of soldiers at it.

  A shiver tried to crawl down her spine, but failed thanks to the weird paralysis that gripped her. For what she was seeing matched in every respect the descriptions, uttered in a whisper, which she had heard of the home of Enas Yorl. In all the land there were but three Great Wizards, powerful enough not to care that their true names were noised abroad: one was at Ranke and served the needs of the court; one was at Ilsig and accounted the most skilful; the third, by reason of some scandal, made do with the slim pickings at Sanctuary, and that was Enas Yorl.

  But how could he be here? His palace was on - or, more exactly, below - Prytanis Street, where the city petered out to the south-east of Temple Avenue.

  Except...

  The thought burgeoned from memory and she fought against it, and failed. Someone had once explained to her: Except when it is somewhere else.

  Abruptly it was as though the table shrank, and from an immense distance its farther end drew close and along with it a high-backed, throne-like chair in which sat a curious personage. He was arrayed in an enormously full, many layered cloak of some dull brown stuff, and wore a high-crowned hat whose broad brim somehow Contrived to shadow his face against even the directionless grey light that obtained here.

  But within that shadow two red gleams like embers showed, approximately where a human's eyes would be.

  This individual held in his right hand a scroll, partly unrolled. and with his left he was tapping on the table. The proportions of his fingers were abnormal, and one or two of them seemed either to lack, or to be overprovided with, joints. One of his nails sparked luridly, but that ceased after a little. Raising his head, after a fashion, he spoke.

  'A girl. Interesting. But one who has ... suffered. Was it punishment?'

  It felt to Jarveena as though the gaze of those two dull red orbs could penetrate her flesh as well as her clothing. She could say nothing, but had nothing to say.

  'No,' pronounced the wizard - for surely it must be none other. He let the scroll drop on the table, and it formed itself into a tidy roll at once, while he rose and approached her. A gesture, as though to sketch her outline in the air, freed her from the lassitude that had hampered her limbs. But she had too much sense to break and run.

  Whither?

  'Do you know me?'

  'I...' She licked dry lips. 'I think you may be Enas Yorl.'

  'Fame at last,' the wizard said wryly. 'Do you know why you're here?'

  'You ... Well, I guess you set a trap for me. I don't know why, unless it has to do with that scroll.'

  'Hmm! A perceptive child!' Had he possessed eyebrows, one might have imagined the wizard raising them. And then at once: 'Forgive me. I should not have said "child". You are old in the ways of the world, if not in years. But after the first century, such patronizing remarks come easy to the tongue ...' He resumed his chair, inviting Jarveena with a gesture to come closer. She was reluctant.

  For when he rose to inspect her, he had been squat. Under the cloak he was obviously thick-set, stocky, with a paunch. But by the time he regained his seat, it was equally definite that he was thin, light-boned, and had one shoulder higher than the other.

  'You have noticed,' he said. His voice too had altered; it had been baritone, while now it was at the most flattering a countertenor. 'Victims of circumstance, you and I both. It was not I who set a trap for you. The scroll did.'

  'For me? But why?'

  'I speak with imprecision. The trap was set not for you qua you. It was set for someone to whom it meant the death of another. I judge that you qualify, whether or not you know it. Do you? Make a guess. Trust your imagination. Have you, for example, recognized anybody who came to the city recently?'

  Jarveena felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She folded her hands into fists.

  'Sir, you are a great magician. I recognized someone tonight. Someone I never dreamed of meeting again. Someone whose death I would gladly accomplish, except that death is much too good for him.'

  'Explain!' Enas Yorl leaned an elbow on the table, and rested his chin on his fist ... except that neither the elbow, nor the chin, let alone the fist, properly corresponded to such appellations.

  She hesitated a second. Then she cast aside her cloak, tore loose the bow that held the cross-lacing of her jerkin at her throat, and unthreaded it so that the garment fell wide to reveal the cicatrices, brown on brown, which would never fade, and the great foul keloid like a turd where her right breast might have been.

  'Why try to hide anything from a wizard?' she said bitterly. 'He commanded the men who did this to me, and far far worse to many others. I thought they were bandits! I came to Sanctuary hoping that here if anywhere I might get wind of them - how could bandits gain access to Ranke or the conquered cities
? But I never dreamed they would present themselves in the guise of imperial guards!'

  'They ...?' Enas Yorl probed.

  'Ah ... No. I confess: it's only one that I can swear to.'

  'How old were you?'

  'I was nine. And six grown men took pleasure of me, before they beat me with wire whips and left me for dead.'

  'I see.' He retrieved the scroll and with its end tapped the table absently. 'Can you now divine what is in this message? Bear in mind that it forced me hither.'

  'Forced? But I'd have thought -'

  'I found myself here by choice? Oh, the contrary!' A bitter laugh rang out, acid-shrill. 'I said we're both victims. Long ago when I was young I was extremely foolish. I tried to seduce away the bride of someone more powerful than me. When he found out, I was able to defend myself, but ... Do you understand what a spell is?'

  She shook her head.

  'It's ... activity. As much activity as a rock is passivity, which is conscious of being a rock but of nothing else. A worm is a little more aware; a dog or horse, much more; a human being, vastly more - but not infinitely more. In wildfire, storms, stars, can be found processes which with no consciousness of what they are act upon the outside world. A spell is such a process, created by an act of will, having neither aim nor purpose save what its creator lends. And to me my rival bequeathed ... But no matter. I begin' to sound as though I pity myself, and I know my fate is just. Shall we despise justice? This scroll can be an instrument of it. Written on it are two sentences.

  'Of death.'

  While he spoke, there had been further changes under his concealing garb. His voice was now mellow and rich, and his hands, although very slender, possessed the ordinary number of joints. However, the redness still glowed.

  'If one sentence is upon Commander Nizharu,' Jarveena said firmly, 'may it be executed soon.'

  'That could be arranged.' A sardonic inflection coloured the words. 'At a price.'

  'The scroll doesn't refer to him? I imagined -'

  'You imagined it spelt his doom, and that was why he was so anxious about its loss? In a way that's correct. In a way ... And I can make certain that that shall be the outcome. At a price.'