Thieves World tw-1

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  The tunnel kinked every fifty steps or so, to restrict line-of-sight. One-Thumb went through three corners and thought he saw light at the fourth. He stopped, doused the lamp again, and listened. No footfalls. He set down the krrf and lamp and filled his left hand with a dagger, then headed for the light. It didn't have to be magic; three times he had surprised interlopers in the tunnel. Their husks were secreted here and there, adding to the musty odour.

  But no stranger this time. He peered around the corner and saw Lastel himself, waiting with sword out.

  'Don't hold back there,' his alter ego said. 'Only one of us leaves this tunnel.'

  One-Thumb raised his rapier slowly. 'Wait ... if you kill me, you die forever. If I kill you, the same. This is a sorcerer's trap.'

  'No, Mizraith's dead.'

  'His son is holding the spell.'

  Lastel advanced, crabwise, dueller's gait. 'Then how am I here?'

  One-Thumb struggled with his limited knowledge of the logic of sorcery. Instinct moved him forward, point in line, left-hand weapon ready for side parry or high block. He kept his eye on Lastel's point, krrf-steady as his own. The krrf sang doom, and lifted his spirit.

  It was like fencing with a mirror. Every attack drew instant parry, remise, parry, remise, parry, re-remise, break to counter. For several minutes, a swift yet careful ballet, large twins mincing, the tunnel echoing clash: One-Thumb knew he had to do something random, unpredictable; he lunged with a cut-over, impressing to the right.

  Lastel knew he had to do something random, unpredictable; he lunged with a double-disengage, impressing to the right

  They missed each other's blades

  Slammed home.

  One-Thumb saw his red blade emerge from the rich brocade over Lastel's back, tried to shout and coughed blood over his killer's shoulder. Lastel's rapier had cracked breastbone and heart and slit a lung as well.

  They clung to each other. One-Thumb watched bright blood spurt from the other's back and heard his own blood falling, as the pain grew. The dagger still in his left hand, he stabbed, almost idly. Again he stabbed. It seemed to take a long time. The pain grew. The other man was doing the same. A third stab, he watched the blade rise and slowly fall, and inching slide back out of the flesh. With every second, the pain seemed to double; with every second, the flow of time slowed by half. Even the splash of blood was slowed, like a viscous oil falling through water as it sprayed away. And now it stopped completely, a thick scarlet web frozen there between his dagger and Lastel's back - his own back - and as the pain spread and grew, marrow itself on fire, he knew he would look at that for ever. For a flickering moment he saw the. image of two sorcerers, smiling.

  MYRTIS by Christine De Wees

  'I feel as young as I look. I could satisfy every man in this house if I took the notion to, or if any one of them had half the magnificence of Lythande.'

  So speaking, Myrtis, proprietor of the Aphrodisia House leaned over the banister outside her private parlour and cast judgement on the activity of her establishment below.

  'Certainly, madame.'

  Her companion on the narrow balcony was a well-dressed young man lately arrived with his parents from the imperial capital. He eased as far from her as possible when she turned to smile at him.

  'Do you doubt me, young man?'

  The words rolled off Myrtis's tongue with an ease and inflection of majesty. To many of the long-time residents of Sanctuary, Myrtis was the city's unofficial royalty. On the Street of Red Lanterns she reigned supreme.

  'Certainly not, madame.'

  'You have seen the girls now. Did you have a particular lady in mind, or would you prefer to explore my establishment further?'

  Myrtis guided him back into her parlour with slight pressure against his arm. She wore a high-necked dark gown which only hinted at the legendary figure beneath. The madam of the Aphrodisia House was beautiful, more beautiful than any of the -girls working for her; fathers told this to their sons who were, in turn, passing this indisputable fact along to their sons. But a ravishing beauty which endured unchanging for three generations was awesome rather than desirable. Myrtis did not compete with the girls who worked for her.

  The young man cleared his throat. It was clearly his first visit to any brothel. He fingered the tassels on the side of an immense wine-coloured velvet love-seat before speaking.

  'I think I'll go a round with the violet-silks.'

  Myrtis stared at him until he fidgeted one of the tassels loose and his face flushed a deep crimson.

  'Call Cylene. Tell her the Lavender Room.'

  A girl too young to be working jumped up from a cushion where she had waited in silence for such a command. The youth turned to follow her.

  'Four pieces of silver - Cylene is very talented. And a name - I think that you should be known as Terapis.' Myrtis smiled to reveal her even white teeth.

  The youth, who would henceforth be known as Terapis within the walls of the Aphrodisia House, searched his purse to find a single gold piece. He stood arrogant and obviously well-rehearsed while Myrtis counted out his change. The young girl took his hand to lead him to Cylene for two hours of unimaginable bliss.

  'Children!' Myrtis mumbled to herself when she was alone in her parlour again.

  Four of the nine knobs on the night-candle had melted away. She opened a great leatherbound ledger and entered the youth's true name as well as the one she had just given him, his choice for the evening, and that he had paid in gold. It had been fifteen years or more since she had given the nom-de-guerre of Terapis to one of the house's gentlemen. She had a good memory for all those who lingered in the sybaritic luxury of the Aphrodisia House.

  A gentle knocking on the parlour door awoke Myrtis late the next morning.

  'Your breakfast is ready, madame.'

  'Thank you, child. I'll be down for it.'

  She lay still for a few moments in the semi-darkness. Lythande had used careful spells to preserve her beauty and give her the longevity of a magician, but there were no spells to numb the memory. The girls, their gentlemen, all passed through Myrtis's mind in a blurred unchanging parade which trapped her beneath the silken bed-clothes.

  'Flowers for you, madame.'

  The young girl who had sat quietly on the cushion on the previous evening walked nonchalantly into the boudoir bearing a large bouquet of white flowers which she began arranging in a crystal vase.

  'A slave from the palace brought them. He said they were from Terapis.'

  A surprise. There were always still surprises, and renewed by that comforting knowledge Myrtis threw back the bedcovers. The girl set down the flowers and held an embroidered day-robe of emerald satin for Myrtis to wrap around herself.

  Five girls in their linen shifts busied themselves with restoring the studied disorder of the lower rooms as Myrtis passed through them on her way to the kitchen. Five cleaning, one too pregnant to be of any use, another off nursing a newborn; that meant twenty girls were still in the upper rooms. Twenty girls whose time was fully accounted for; in all, a very good night for the Aphrodisia House. Others might be suffering with the new regime, but the foreigners expected a certain style and discretion which in Sanctuary could be found only at the Aphrodisia.

  'Madame, Dindan ordered five bottles of our best Aurvesh wine last night. We have only a dozen bottles left ...' A balding man stepped in front of her with a shopping list.

  'Then buy more.'

  'But, madame, since the prince arrived it is almost impossible to buy Aurvesh wines!'

  'Buy them! But first sell the old bottles to Dindan at the new prices.'

  'Yes, madame.'

  The kitchen was a large, brightly lit room hidden away at the back of the house. Her cooks and an assortment of tradesmen haggled loudly at the back door while the half-dozen or so young children of her working girls raced around the massive centre table. Everyone grew quiet as Myrtis took her seat in a sunlit alcove that faced a tiny garden.

  Despite the ch
aos the children caused, she always let the girls keep them if they wanted to. With the girl-children there was no problem with their earning their keep; no virgin was ever too ugly. But the boy-children were apprenticed off at the earliest possible age. Their wages were garnished to support the on going concern that was the Aphrodisia House.

  'There is a soldier at the front door, Madame.' One of the girls who had been cleaning the lower rooms interrupted as Myrtis spread a thick blue-veined cheese over her bread. 'He demands to see you, madame.'

  'Demands to see me?' Myrtis laid down the cheese knife. 'A soldier has nothing that "demands" to see me at the front door. At this hour, soldiers are less use than tradesmen. Send him around to the back.'

  The girl ran back up the stairs. Myrtis finished spreading her cheese on the bread. She had eaten half of it when a tall man cast a shadow over her private dining alcove.

  'You are blocking my sunlight, young man,' she said without looking up.

  'You are Madame Myrtis, proprietress of this ... brothel?' he demanded without moving.

  'You are blocking my sunlight and my view of the garden.'

  He stepped to one side.

  'The girls are not available during the day. Come back this evening.'

  'Madame Myrtis, I am Zaibar, captain of Prince Kadakithis's personal guard. I have not come to inquire after the services of your girls.'

  'Then what have you come for?' she asked, looking up for the first time.

  'By order of Prince Kadakithis, a tax of ten gold pieces for every woman living on the Street of Red Lanterns is to be levied and collected at once if they are to be allowed to continue to practise their trade without incurring official displeasure.'

  Only the slight tensing ofMyrtis's hand betrayed her indignation at Zaibar's statement. Her voice and face remained dispassionately calm.

  'The royal concubines are no longer pleasing?' she replied with a sneering smile. 'You cannot expect every woman on the Street of Red Lanterns to have ten gold pieces. How do you expect them to earn the money for your taxes?'

  'We do not expect them to be able to pay 'the tax, madame. We expect to close your brothel and every other house like it on the Street. The women, including yourself, will be sent elsewhere to lead more productive lives.'

  Myrtis stared at the soldier with a practised contempt that ended their conversation. The soldier fingered the hilt of his sword.

  'The tax will be collected, madame. You will have a reasonable amount of time to get the money for yourself and the others. Let us say, three days? I'll return in the evening.'

  He turned about without waiting for a reply and left through the back door in complete silence. Myrtis went back to interrupted breakfast while the staff and the girls were hysterical with questions and the seeds of rumour. She let them babble in this manner while she ate; then she strode to the head of the common table.

  'Everything shall continue as usual. If it comes to paying their tax, arrangements will be made. You older girls already have ample gold set aside. I will make the necessary adjustments for the newer girls. Unless you doubt me in which case, I'll arrange a severance for you.'

  'But madame, if we pay once, they will levy the tax again and again until we can't pay it. Those Hell Hounds ...' A girl favoured more by intelligence than beauty spoke up.

  'That is certainly their desire. The Street of Red Lanterns is as old as the walls of Sanctuary itself. I can assure you that we have survived much worse than the Hell Hounds.' Myrtis smiled slightly to herself, remembering the others who had tried and failed to shut down the Street. 'Cylene, the others will be coming to see me. Send them up to the parlour. I'll wait for them there.'

  The emerald day-robe billowed out from behind her as Myrtis ascended the staircase to the lower rooms and up again to her parlour. In the privacy of her rooms, she allowed her anger to surface as she paced.

  'Ambutta!' She shouted, and the young girl who attended her appeared.

  'Yes, madame?'

  'I have a message for you to carry.' She sat a't the writing table composing the message as she spoke to the still-out-of-breath girl. 'It is to be delivered in the special way as before. No one must see you leave it. Do you understand (hat? If you cannot leave it without being seen, come back herd Don't let yourself become suspicious.'

  The girl nodded. She tucked the freshly folded and sealed message into the bodice of her ragged cast-off dress and ran from the room. In time, Myrtis expected her to be a beauty, but she was still very much a child. The message itself was to Lythande, who preferred not to be contacted directly. She would not rely on the magician to solve the Street's problems with the Hell Hounds, but no one else would understand her anger or alleviate it.

  The Aphrodisia House dominated the Street. The Hell Hounds would come to her first, then visit the other establishments. As word of the tax spread, the other madams would begin a furtive pilgrimage to the back entrance of the Aphrodisia. They looked to Myrtis for guidance, and she looked out the window for inspiration. She had not found one by the time her guests began to appear.

  'It's an outrage. They're trying to put us on the streets like common whores!' Dylan of the artificially flaming red hair exclaimed before sitting in the chair Myrtis indicated to her.

  'Nonsense, dear,' Myrtis explained calmly. 'They wish to make us slaves and send us to Ranke. In a way, it is a compliment to Sanctuary.'

  'They can't do such a thing!'

  'No, but it will be up to us to explain that to them.'

  'How?'.

  'First we'll wait until the others arrive. I hear Amoli in the hall; the others won't be long in coming.'

  It was a blatant stall for time on Myrtis's part. Other than her conviction that the Hell Hounds and their prince would not succeed where others had failed in the past, Myrtis had no idea how to approach the utterly incorruptible elite soldiers. The other madams of the Street talked among themselves, exchanging the insight Myrtis had revealed to Dylan, and reacting poorly to it. Myrtis watched their reflections in the rough-cut glass.

  They were all old. More than half of them had once worked for her. She had watched them age in the unkind manner that often overtakes youthful beauty and transforms it into grotes-querie. Myrtis might have been the youngest of them young enough to be working in the houses instead of running one of them. But when she turned from the window to face them, there was the unmistakable glint of experience and wisdom in her eyes.

  'Well, it wasn't really a surprise,' she began. It was rumoured before Kittycat got here, and we've seen what has happened to the others the Hell Hounds have been turned loose on. I admit I'd hoped that some of the others would have held their ground better and given us a bit more time.'

  'Time wouldn't help. I don't have a hundred gold pieces to give them!' A woman whose white-paste make-up cracked around her eyes as she spoke interrupted Myrtis.

  'You don't need a hundred gold pieces!' A similarly made-up woman snarled back.

  'The gold is unimportant.' Myrtis's voice rose above the bickering. 'If they can break one of us, they can drive us all out.'

  'We could close our doors; then they'd suffer. Half of my men are from Ranke.'

  'Half of all our men are, Gelicia. They won the war and they've got the money,' Myrtis countered. 'But they'll kowtow to the Hell Hounds, Kittycat, and their wives. The men of Ranke are very ambitious. They'll give up much to preserve their wealth and positions. If the prince is officially frowning on the Street, their loyalties will be less strained if we have closed our doors without putting up a fight.'

  Grudgingly the women agreed.

  'Then what will we do?' ^

  'Conduct your affairs as always. They'll come to the Aphrodisia first to collect the taxes, just as they came here first to announce it. Keep the back doors open and I'll send word. If they can't collect from me, they won't bother you.'

  There was mumbled disagreement, but no one dared to look straight at Myrtis and argue the point of her power on the Street. Se
ated in her high-backed chair, Myrtis smiled contentedly. She had yet to determine the precise solution, but the house madams of the Street of Red Lanterns controlled much of the gold within Sanctuary, and she had just confirmed her control of them.

  They left her parlour quickly after the decision was rendered. If the Street was to function as usual, they all had work to do. She had work to do. The Hell Hounds would not return for three days. In that time, the Aphrodisia House would earn far more than those three hundred gold pieces the empire wanted, and would spend only slightly less than that amount to maintain itself. Myrtis opened the ledger, making new notations in a clear, educated hand. The household sensed that order had been restored at least temporarily, and one by one they filed into the parlour to report their earnings or debts.

  It was well into afternoon and Ambutta had not returned from placing her message behind a loose stone in the wall behind the altar at the temple of Ils, For a moment, Myrtis worried about the girl. The streets of Sanctuary were never truly safe, and perhaps Ambutta no longer seemed as childlike to all eyes. There was always an element of risk. Twice before girls had been lost in the streets, and not even Lythande's magic could find them again.

  Myrtis put such thoughts aside and ate dinner alone in her parlour. She had thought a bribe or offer of free privileges might still be the way out of her problem with the taxes. Prince Kada-kithis was probably sincere, though, in his determination to make Sanctuary the ideal city of his adviser's philosophies while the capital city of the empire displayed many of the same excesses that Sanctuary did. The young prince had a wife and concubines with whom he was supposedly well pleased. There had never been any suspicion that he might partake of the delights of the Street himself. And as for the Hell Hounds, their first visit had been to announce the taxes.

  The elite guard were men made of a finer fibre than most of the soldiers or fighters Sanctuary had known. On reflection, Myrtis doubted that they could be bought or bribed, and knew for certain that they would never relent in their persecution of the Street if the first offer did not succeed in converting them.