Thieves’ World

by Edited By Robert Asprin

  “Sometimes I like to check on the help at the Unicom.”

  “Surprise inspection?”

  “Something like that. Is your mistress in?”

  “Sleeping. You want a wench?”

  “No, just business.”

  The eunuch inclined his head. “That’s business.”

  “Tell her I have what she asked for, and more, if she can afford it. When she’s free. If I’m not at the Unicorn, I’ll leave word as to where we can meet.”

  “I know what it is,” the eunuch said in a singsong voice. “Instant maidenhead.” One-Thumb hefted the leather-wrapped brick. “One pinch, properly inserted, turns you into a girl again.”

  The eunuch rolled his eyes. “An improvement over the old method.”

  One-Thumb laughed along with him. “I could spare a pinch or so, if you’d care for it.”

  “Oh … not on duty.” He leaned the sword against the wall and found a square of parchment in his money-belt. “I could save it for my off time, though.” One Thumb gave him a pinch. He stared at it before folding it up. “Black … Caronne?”

  “The best.”

  “You have that much of it.” He didn’t reach towards his weapon. One-Thumb’s free hand rested on the pommel of his rapier. “For sale, twenty grimales.”

  “A man with no scruples would kill you for it.” Gap-toothed smile. “I’m doubly safe with you, then.” The eunuch nodded and tucked away the krrf, then retrieved the broadsword. “Safe with anyone not a stranger.” Everyone in the Maze knew of the curse that One-Thumb expensively maintained to protect his life: if he were killed, his murderer would never die, but live forever in helpless agony:

  Burn as the stars burn;

  Burn on after they die.

  Never to the peace of ashes.

  Out of sight and succour

  From men or gods or ghost:

  To the ends of time, burn.

  One-Thumb himself suspected that the spell would only be effective for as long as the sorcerer who cast it lived, but that was immaterial. The reputation of the sorcerer, Mizraith, as well as the severity of the spell, kept blades in sheaths and poison out of his food.

  “I’ll pass the message on. Many thanks.”

  “Better mix it with snuff, you know. Very strong.” One-Thumb parted a velvet curtain and passed through the foyer, exchanging greetings with some of the women who lounged there in soft veils (the cut and colour of the veils advertised price, and in some cases, curious specialties), and stepped out into the waning light of the end of day.

  The afternoon had been an interesting array of sensations for a man whose nose was as refined as it was large. First the banquet, with all its aromatic Twand delicacies, then the good rare wine with a delicate tang of half-poison, then the astringent krrf sting, the rich charnel smell of butchery, the musty sweat of the tunnel’s rock walls, perfume and incense in the foyer, and now the familiar stink of the street. As he walked through the gate into the city proper, he could tell the wind was westering; the earthy smell from the animal pens had a slight advantage over the tanners’ vats of rotting urine. He even sorted out the delicate cucumber fragrance of freshly butchered fish, like a whisper in a jabbering crowd; not many snouts had such powers of discrimination. As ever, he enjoyed the first few minutes within the city walls, before the reek stunned even his nose to dullness.

  Most of the stalls in the Farmer’s Market were shuttered now, but he was able to trade two coppers for a fresh melon, which he peeled as he walked into the bazaar, the krrf inconspicuous under his arm.

  He haggled for a while with a coppersmith, new to the bazaar, for a brace of lamps to replace the ones that had been stolen from the Unicorn last night. He would send one of his urchins around to pick them up. He watched the acrobats for a while, then went to the various wine merchants for bids on the next week’s ordinaries. He ordered a hundredweight of salt meat, sliced into snacks, to be delivered that night, and checked the guild hall of the mercenaries to find a hall guard more sober than the one who had allowed the lamps to be stolen. Then he went down to the Wideway and had an early dinner of raw fish and crab fritters. Fortified, he entered the Maze.

  As the eunuch had said, One-Thumb had nothing to fear from the regular denizens of the Maze. Desperadoes who would disembowel children for sport (a sport sadly declining since the introduction of a foolproof herbal abortifacient) tipped their hats respectfully, or stayed out of his way. Still, he was careful. There were always strangers, often hot to prove themselves, or desperate for the price of bread or wine; and although One-Thumb was a formidable opponent with or without his rapier, he knew he looked rather like an overweight merchant whose ugliness interfered with his trade.

  He also knew evil well, from the inside, which is why he dressed shabbily and displayed no outward sign of wealth. Not to prevent violence, since he knew the poor were more often victims than the rich, but to restrict the class of his possible opponents to those who would kill for coppers. They generally lacked skill.

  On the way to the Unicorn, on Serpentine, a man with the conspicuously casual air of a beginner pickpocket fell in behind him. One-Thumb knew that the alley was coming up and would be in deep shadow, and it had a hiding-niche a few paces inside. He turned into the alley and, drawing the dagger from his boot, slipped into the niche and set the krrf between his feet.

  The man did follow, proof enough, and when his steps faltered at the darkness, One-Thumb spun out of the niche behind him, clamped a strong hand over his mouth and nose, and methodically slammed the stiletto into his back, time and again, aiming for kidneys. When the man’s knees buckled, One-Thumb let him down slowly, slitting his throat for silence. He took the money-belt and a bag of coin from the still-twitching body, cleaned and replaced his dagger, picked up the krrf, and resumed his stroll down the Serpentine. There were a few bright spatters of blood on his houppelande, but no one on that street would be troubled by it. Sometimes guardsmen came through, but not to harass the good citizens nor criticize their quaint customs.

  Two in one day, he thought; it had been a year or more since the last time that happened. He felt vaguely good about it, though neither man had been much of a challenge. The cutpurse was a clumsy amateur and the young noble from Ranke a trusting fool (whose assassination had been commissioned by one of his father’s ministers).

  He came up the street south of the Vulgar Unicorn’s entrance and let himself in the back door. He glanced at the inventory in the storeroom and noted that it must have been a slow day, and went through to his office. He locked up the krrf in a strongbox and then poured himself a small glass of lemony aperitif, and sat down at the one-way mirror that allowed him to watch the bar unseen.

  For an hour he watched money and drink change hands. The bartender, who had been the cook aboard a pirate vessel until he’d lost a leg, seemed good with the customers and reasonably honest, though he gave short measures to some of the more intoxicated patrons—probably not out of concern for their welfare. He started to pour a third glass of the liqueur and saw Amoli, the Lily Garden’s mistress, come into the place, along with the eunuch and another bodyguard. He went out to meet them.

  “Wine over here,” he said to a serving wench, and escorted the three to a curtained-off table.

  Amoli was almost beautiful, though she was scarcely younger than One-Thumb, in a trade that normally aged one rapidly. She came to the point at once: “Kalem tells me you have twenty grimales of Caronne for sale.”

  “Prime and pure.”

  “That’s a rare amount.” One-Thumb nodded. “Where, may I ask, did it come from?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “You’d better say. I had a twenty-grimale block in my bedroom safe. Yesterday it was stolen.”

  One-Thumb didn’t move or change expression. “That’s an interesting coincidence.”

  She snorted. They sat without speaking while a pitcher of wine and four glasses were slipped through the curtain.

  “Of
course I’m not accusing you of theft,” she said. “But you can understand why I’m interested in the person you bought it from.”

  “In the first place, I didn’t buy it. In the second, it didn’t come from Sanctuary.”

  “I can’t afford riddles, One-Thumb. Who was it?”

  “That has to remain secret. It involves a murder.”

  “You might be involved in another,” she said tightly.

  One-Thumb slowly reached down and brought out his dagger. The bodyguards tensed. He smiled, and pushed it across the table to Amoli. “Go ahead, kill me. What happens to you will be rather worse than going without krrf.”

  “Oh—” She knocked the knife back to him. “My temper is short nowadays. I’m sorry. But the krrf’s not just for me; most of my women use it, and take part of their pay in it, which is why I like to buy in large amounts.” One-Thumb was pouring the wine; he nodded. “Do you have any idea how much of my capital was tied up in that block?”

  He replaced the half-full glasses on the round serving tray and gave it a spin. “Half?”

  “And half again of that. I will get it back, One-Thumb!” She selected a glass and drank.

  “I hope you do. But it can’t be the same block.”

  “Let me judge that—have you had it for more than two days?”

  “No, but it must have left Ranke more than a week ago. It came on the Anenday caravan. Hidden inside a cheese.”

  “You can’t know for sure that it was on the caravan all the time. It could have been waiting here until the caravan came.”

  “I can hear your logic straining, Amoli.”

  “But not without reason. How often have you seen a block as large as twenty grimales!”

  “Only this time,” he admitted.

  “And is a pressed design stamped all over it uniformly, an eagle within a circle?”

  “It is. But that only means a common supplier, his mark.”

  “Still, I think you owe me information.”

  One-Thumb sipped his wine. “All right. I know I can trust the eunuch. What about the other?”

  “I had a vassal spell laid on him when I bought him. Besides … show him your tongue, Gage.” The slave opened his mouth and showed pink scar tissue nested in bad teeth. “He can neither speak nor write.”

  “We make an interesting table,” he said. “Missing thumb, tongue, and tamale. What are you missing, Amoli?”

  “Heart. And a block of krrf.”

  “All right.” He drank off the rest of his small glass and refilled it. “There is a man high in the court of Ranke, old and soon to die. His son, who would inherit his title, is slothful, incompetent, dishonest. The old man’s counsellors would rather the daughter succeed; she is not only more able, but easier for them to control.”

  “I think I know the family you speak of,” Amoli said.

  “When I was in Ranke on other business, one of the counsellors got in touch with me, and commissioned me to dispose of this young pigeon, but to do it in Sanctuary. The twenty grimales was my pay, and also the goad, the bait. The boy is no addict, but he is greedy, and the price of krrf is three times higher in the court of Ranke than it is in the Maze. It was arranged for me to befriend him and, eventually, offer to be his wholesaler.”

  “The counsellor procured the krrf from Caronne and sent word to me. I sent back a tempting offer to the boy. He contrived to make the journey to Sanctuary, supposedly to be introduced to the Emperor’s brother. He’ll miss the appointment.”

  “That’s his blood on your sleeve?” the eunuch asked.

  “Nothing so direct; that was another matter. When he’s supposed to be at the palace tomorrow, he’ll be floating in the harbour, disguised as the shit of dogs.”

  “So you got the krrf and the boy’s money as well,” Amoli said.

  “Half the money. He tried to rob me.” He refilled the woman’s glass. “But you see. There can be no connection.”

  “I believe there may be. At noonday was when mine disappeared.”

  “Did you keep it wrapped in a cheese?”

  She ignored that. “Who delivered yours?”

  “Marype, the youngest son of my sorcerer Mizraith. He does all of my caravan deliveries.”

  The eunuch and Amoli exchanged glances. “That’s it! It was from Marype I bought the block. Not two hours after the caravan came in.” Her face was growing red with fury.

  One-Thumb drummed his fingers on the table. “I didn’t yet mine till evening,” he admitted.

  “Sorcery?”

  “Or some more worldly form of trickery,” One-Thumb said slowly. “Marype is studying his father’s trade, but I don’t think he’s adept enough to transport material objects … could your krrf have been an illusion?”

  “It was no illusion. I tried a pinch.”

  “Do you recall from what part of the block you took it?”

  “The bottom edge, near one corner.”

  “Well, we can settle one thing,” he said, standing. “Let’s check mine in that spot.”

  She bade the bodyguards stay, and followed One-Thumb. At the door to his office, while he was trying to make the key work, she took his arm and moved softly up against him. “You never tarry at my place any more. Are you keeping your own woman, out at the estate? Did we do something—”

  “You can’t have all my secrets, woman.” In fact, for more than a year he had not taken a woman normally, but needed the starch of rape. This was the only part of his evil life that shamed him, and certainly not because of the women he had hurt and twice killed. He dreaded weakness more than death, and wondered which part would fail him next.

  Amoli idly looked through the one-way mirror while One-Thumb attended to the strongbox. She turned when she heard him gasp.

  “Gods!” The leather wrapping lay limp and empty on the floor of the box.

  They both stared for a moment. “Does Marype have his father’s protection?” Amoli asked.

  One-Thumb shook his head. “It was the father that did this.”

  ****

  SORCERERS ARE NOT omnipotent. They can be bargained with. They can even be killed, with stealth and surprise. And spells cannot normally be maintained without effort; a good sorcerer might hold six or a dozen at once. It was Mizraith’s fame that he maintained past a hundred, although it was well known that he did this by casting secondary spells on lesser sorcerers, tapping their power unbeknownst. Still, gathering all these strings and holding them, as well as the direct spells that protected his life and fortune, used most of his concentration, giving him a distracted air. The unwary might interpret this as senility—a half-century without sleep had left its mark—and might toy to take his purse or life, as their last act.

  But Mizraith was rarely seen on the streets, and certainly never near the noise and smell of the Maze. He normally kept to his opulent apartments in the easternmost part of town, flanked by the inns of Wideway, overlooking the sea.

  One-Thumb warned the pirate cook that he might have to take a double shift, and took a bottle of finest brandy to give to Mizraith, and a skin of the ordinary kind to keep up their courage as they went to face the man who guarded his life. The emptied skin joined the harbour’s flotsam before they’d gone half of Wideway, and they continued in grim silence.

  Mizraith’s eldest son let them in, not seeming surprised at their visit. “The bodyguards stay here,” he said, and made a pass with one hand. “You’ll want to leave all your iron here, as well.”

  One-Thumb felt the dagger next to his ankle grow warm; he tossed it away and also dropped his rapier and the dagger sheathed to his forearm. There was a similar scattering of weapons from the other three. Amoli turned to the wall and reached inside her skirts, inside herself, to retrieve the ultimate birth control device, a sort of diaphragm with a spring-loaded razor attached (no one would have her without paying in some coin). The hardware glowed dull red briefly, then cooled.

  “Is Marype at home?” One-Thumb asked.

  �
�He was, briefly,” the older brother said. “You came to see Father, though.” He turned to lead them up a winding flight of stairs.

  Velvet and silk embroidered in arcane patterns. A golden samovar bubbling softly in the corner; flower-scented tea. A naked girl, barely of childbearing age, sitting cross-legged by the samovar, staring. A bodyguard much larger than the ones downstairs, but slightly transparent. In the middle of this sat Mizraith, on a pile of pillows, or maybe of gold, bright eyes in dark hollows, smiling open-mouthed at something unseeable.

  The brother left them there. Magician, guardian, and girl all ignored them. “Mizraith?” One-Thumb said.

  The sorcerer slowly brought his eyes to bear on him and Amoli.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, Lastel, or what is your name in the Maze, One-Thumb … I could grow that back for you, you know.”

  “I get along well enough—”

  “And you brought me presents! A bottle and a bauble—more my age than this sweetmeat.” He made a grotesque face at the naked girl and winked.

  “No, Mizraith, this woman and I, we both believe we’ve been wronged by you. Cheated and stolen from,” he said boldly, but his voice shook. “The bottle is a gift.”

  The bodyguard moved towards them, its steps making no noise. “Hold, spirit.” It stopped, glaring. “Bring that bottle here.”

  As One-Thumb and Amoli walked towards Mizraith, a low table materialized in front of him, then three glasses. “You may serve, Lastel.” Nothing had moved but his head.

  One-Thumb poured each glass full; one of them rose a handspan above the table and drained itself, then disappeared. “Very good. Thank you. Cheated, now? My, oh my. Stolen? Hee. What could you have that I need?”

  “It’s only we who need it, Mizraith, and I don’t know why you would want to cheat us out of it—especially me. You can’t have many commissions more lucrative than mine.”

  “You might be surprised, Lastel. You might be surprised. Tea?” The girl decanted a cup of tea and brought it over, as if in a trance. Mizraith took it and the girl sat at his side, playing with her hair. “Stolen, eh? What? You haven’t told me. What?”