Stealers` Sky

NIGHT WORK by Andrew Offutt

Hanse believes in very little and perhaps nothing. Therefore he's always ready for anything, particularly the unexpected. It's a trait that has served him well. Because he has to be a pragmatist. Shadowspawn is a pragmatist. -Strick

Wisdom is the ability to believe only what you have to. -the Eye

Shadowspawn ranged through Sanctuary like a hungry tiger on the prowl.

His real name was Hanse and Hanse was mad. Better put, he was angry, but he was mad, too, in a manner of speaking: mad with anger. Shadowspawn was hardly the first or the last person to be driven into a sort of madness by anger. He had done heroic deeds: he had broken into the manse of that sorcerer and stolen the earring that saved Nadeesh's life and enabled Strick to buy the Vulgar Unicorn from the old physician. And then by all gods, by the will of Injustice Himself-that evil gnomish dwarf who was left hand of ever-fickle Lady Chance-the heroic Hanse had been hit by a stagger spell, punched by three big toughs, drugged, bound, gagged, and popped into a big cloth bag. He had been hauled down to the dock, hauled onto a ship, and dumped into its hold. Destination: slavery, in the Bandaran Isles.

Yet that did not happen. The next time Shadowspawn emerged from the shadowless sack and saw light he was in the murky keep of that most sinister of men, Jubal. Jubal had bought him. True, after some smirking and sneering and taunting Jubal had freed him, but not as an act of decency or in exchange for the pitiful price the crime lord had paid. Oh, no. He had named a ridiculous sum, close to sixteen pounds of gold, and Hanse's only choice had been to agree. A ridiculous, monumental sumfive hundred pieces of gold! Ridiculous!

Ole Jubal, Hanse thought, must have been thinking with his nose, not his brain. And he wants to take over peacekeeping in Sanctuary. Right. And put me in charge of guarding all the jewelers and shops.

At least Hanse knew now that one of his kidnappers had been Tarkle, whose main occupation was being a bully- And Hanse was just as sure that Tarkle with his brain borrowed from a minnow hadn't acted solely on his own. No, the mage Marype with his pretty silver tresses must have thought up the vengeful plan for the disposal of HanseIShadowspawn, a plan that truly did involve a fate worse than death and so was truly wicked, and clever. Marype probably paid Tarkle, too.

Hanse knew four more things, all Musts. He would find Tarkle. He would find Marype. He would have his vengeance. And somehow, somehow he would pay Jubal his damned ridiculous price.

Of course I'm worth it, but that's beside the point.

Shadowspawn ranged through Sanctuary like a hungry tiger on the prowl. And he could not find Tarkle.

Strick gazed across his blue-draped desk at the young woman there. From beneath a great mass of fiery hair that dribbled straggly red bangs over her brows and even eyes like an unkempt hedge, she stared anxiously back.

"I have interesting news for you," he told his visitor, whose name was Taya and whose scarlet mop of hair was a disguise, "from the princegovernor. He is without malice toward you. A small house and a guarantee of funds await you. They are sufficient to set you up in some business venture. You could also use it to leave Sanctuary, if you wish. This is genuine and only truth, Taya. As to my changing your appearance-yes, that is possible, but such a thing is not a matter of a few minutes and the Price may not please you. Meanwhile, you are best advised to go into hiding for a week or so. It is hardly what you're used to, but I'd recommend a room upstairs over the Vulgar Unicorn."

Her eyes had widened when he began, returned to something approaching normal as she took in his words, and now flared wide again. She flounced narrow and shapely shoulders. "That ... place?!"

The very big man spread his hands in a "why not?" gesture and his eyebrows said the same-he who looked like a swordshnger, a wealthy wizard's bodyguard, perhaps, and who was instead a wealthy wizard who was at the same time friend to prince and thief, Rankan noble and Ilsigi banker, carpenter and smith, whore and orange-peddler, He said, "Who's going to think of looking for you there?" She swallowed, stared at the close-fitting blue coif or hood without which no one had seen this man; she visibly considered, and at last nodded. "B-but I wouldn't dare even set foot in that-that ..."

"Careful, Taya," the spellmaster told her. "I own the place." He mirrored her nod. "The person waiting to see me right now will make the perfect guide, Taya. He will do it for me."

Two people sat in Strick's waiting area below. One, muffled in her costly shawl, was a mildly attractive noblewoman with a ghastly hairy wart erupting from her nose. Yes, Strick could and would deal with that, and be well paid for making her presentable again. The other, from whom she kept herself well clear, was an oldster with a voice out of a gravel pit. It was he that Strick's young assistant, Avenestra, beckoned to rise and follow, and he did, banging his staff as he walked. He was surprised to find someone else in Strick's office, and peered closely at her. Unusually keen of eye-especially at night-he recognized the softly weeping girl there with the white mage. She, meanwhile, glanced up at him and shrank at sight of wrinkled brown hands emerging from an old tan-once-brown robe with its hood all crumpled on his back and around his shoulders. His face was darkly shadowed by a funny feathered hat from some far place, doubtless to hide features ravaged by time and disease and even worse-if anything could be worse than time and disease to a very attractive young woman who had been concubine to the prince-governor from Imperial Ranke. Once-Imperial Ranke.

"Skarth," Strick said, "this is someone who needs to vanish in the Maze for a while."

The big hat nodded and its big bright yellow feather waggled tiredly. "She also resembles someone I once was so rude as to bind and gag in a certain bed in a certain large building!"

Taya gasped and looked at him sharply. He had entered with a limp, bearing a staff or cane in one of those dark, aged hands. Now she also saw an overdone black mustache, floppy as the feather and big and droopy as Strick's oversized blond mustache.

"Taya is in disguise. Taya, this man is in disguise. Please, just wait outside for a moment, will you? I need to impress on him the importance of his job in escorting you."

"Uh-oh, oh, all right," Taya said, who was accustomed to being asked to leave someone's presence and wait somewhere or other while more important things happened than a prince's mere bedwarmer, and hardly accustomed to thinking much for herself.

She rose, bulky and silly in yards and yards of S'danzo garb that hardly went with the lavishly proportioned red wig. The white mage's pneumatically overweight young assistantIreceptionistIfetch-and-carrier smiled at her and showed her along the corridor past that burly man who looked like a swordslinger, a wealthy mage's bodyguard, and was. Like the beyond-plump Avenestra, he wore garments of the color that had already come to be known as Strick blue.

"What'm I supposed to do with that?" the one called Skarth was meanwhile asking Strick. He gestured after Taya, Abruptly losing his limp, he paced with uncommon grace to lean on the back of the chair she had just vacated,

Across his blue-draped desk, the man all in blue told him.

"Uh." A withered old brown hand gestured. "No problem with that. Iffen any of these young jaybirds try to cock their combs at that fair young lass I'll whock 'em with my stick, I will!"

Strick winced. "Next time you consider a disguise that elaborate you might try to gain a lesson or a little advice from Feltheryn."

"Wh-oh, that actor? Not a bad idea, though. What did you find out about Tarkle?"

Strick sighed and looked morose. "Nothing, yet."

In an astonishingly young and vibrant voice for such an oldster, the man called Skarth said succinctly, "Shit."

"Wait." With a smallish smile twitching at his mouth, Strick dropped a small brown and yellow tiger-eye into the brown old hand.

"Glass," Skarth said in instant appraisal, and Strick laughed.

"True. But it's also today's message token. Hand it to Abohorr and ask him what you want to know. By tonight either he or Ahdio will know where Tarkle stays."

On the way out of Strick's, Skarth offered the ridiculously disguised girl his hand. She shrank away. She hustled along beside him, while he walked bent, rolling along like a sailor, clonking the hard-packed earth of the streets and "streets" with his staff.

She had one sentence of him as they made their way through a nice calm windless Sanctuary; Taya asked how it was that he was obviously of considerable age and yet his mustache was so black.

"Dye," Skarth said, from the throat. "The only way a S'danzo could have red hair."

Taya clamped her soft and sensuous lips and wasted no more words on so surly an escort.

When at last they entered the area called the Maze with its noise of yapping dogs and bustling, jostling people amid the odors of cooking and sweat and the ordure of yapping dogs, Taya shrank, bundling into herself and her acres of clothing. Someone jostled her hard and she sought Skarth's hand. He jerked it away.

"Clay might come off," he muttered in manner snarly, and led her on, on to that tavern with the laughably obscene sign featuring an impossible animal performing an impossible act upon itself.

Marype, apprentice to the master mage Markmor until the latter's timely demise, stood gazing down at the smallish pile of white ash in the bottom of a bowl of pure silver. The face of Marype was serene, brows up and eyes large and contemplative.

"You had a short and decent life but not too much fun of late, hmm, Marype?" he murmured. "Once I was out of the way you took over this fine palatial home of that slimy krrf-dealer trapped forever in un-life , . . tricked that doltish slut Amoli into helping you without knowing your master plan ... only to lose that old leech's earring to that most uncommon of common thieves' Next you showed my training well: actually succeeded in bringing me back to come up with an ingenious vengeance on that thief ... and yet got us both defeated by a gluemaker with a belly the size of the barrel of beer he must store in it. Demeaned and shamed me in the process ... and forced me to yield up my secret name to the gluemaker and those other two. In the event you wondered why, why as you felt your self leaving you, Marype; why, why I would take your body and leave you in mine and make sure that this time it is dead without possibility of return - . . well, that was it. To be demeaned and shamed by those three, to know they were laughing at us. Are laughing at us. That, darling apprentice, that I could not and cannot bear."

Looking down at what had been Marype and Markmor, the Marype who was not Marype heaved a mighty sigh. And still he stared down at the ash that had been both he and his apprentice. Nearby a happy little rodent in a golden cage glanced up from its dinner, worked its mouth and whiskers rapidly, and went back to dining. .

"Your first plan was good, boy. The Empire of Ranke has failed and is dying. The battle of those two power-seeking females nearly destroyed this town, and Kadakithis the Rankan was lax and late-is late-in coping. Simple matter to spread poison words and poison thought about him. Simple matter to see his outre wife dead and bring about his complete fall; to take full control of this town! Firaqa is well governed, ruled by wizards ... why not Sanctuary by a wizard!"

The face of Marype, a not unhandsome one, smiled. He glanced over at the cage of pure gold on another of this large chamber's three worktables. Within was a happy vole-a darkish gray mouse but for its short tailhappily dining on choice foods. In that rodent of necessity reposed the soul of the mage Markmor, else he could not have assumed the body of his apprentice. Markmor was long dead, resurrected by Marype only to run afoul of the gluemaker Chollander. Now Marype was dead; now the essential intelligence of Markmor resided in this body. That created anomaly, for a body could not house two souls-and yet without the soul of Marype this one would be impossible to maintain. Markmor had no desire to have the well-made, youthful body he now occupied rot into putrescence about him.

The brain of Markmor guided the body of his apprentice and son of his former chief rival, years agone. Within the body necessarily remained the soul of Marype, and so-the vole. It was a happy vole, mindless, well taken care of, and well guarded in this spell-warded chamber. "Shadowspawn, that street slime Hanse, is disposed of," Markmor said, pacing over to a mirror to look into the face of Marype and watch its mouth move. "A city cannot be taken without money, and plenty is coming in, thanks to your plan." He smiled, watching Marype smile at him.

Long ago Markmor had learned to make gold. Good gold; real gold. He was not sure that any other sorcerer had ever succeeded. Yet if he simply created the gold necessary to bring about his ends in Sanctuary, he would need more and more and ever more, for he would have destroyed its precarious economy. No, money must not merely be created but be generated; earned, brought into Sanctuary, to aid the economy rather than harm it. That had been Marype's ingenious plan, for while he had been a stupid boy he had not been ignorant or without cleverness.

The same as Shadowspawn, the master mage thought. And so the rising number of persons missing from Sanctuary. They were not missing. They were merely relocated in the Isles of Bandara, to the considerable profit of Markmor of Sanctuary.

Markmor of Sanctuary strode to the door, slim and young and leggy in black tights and boots under a belted tunic the color of old gold. "Tarkle!"

The hulking fellow appeared, a man beyond homely but looking respectful-ugly both inside and out, Markmor knew, with hair a brown tangle like an overgrown bramble patch fit only to hide a fearful rabbit. But then Markmor also knew without caring that his own new beauty was external only.

Respectful too were Tarkle's manner, and tone, and choice of response:

"Sir?"

"You and your associates will do tonight's work in Downwind, Tarkle."

"Downwind."

"We leave the Maze alone for a while-and who misses anyone in Downwind? After-"

"Nobody."

"That, damn it, was a rhetorical question. Be quiet and listen. After tonight's work in Downwind, return here. But tomorrow it is time you got out of that dingy hole you live in. You will go there and decide what you have that you consider of value, and fetch it here."

"Here?"

Markmor fought his exasperation with this semi-intelligent semihuman, "Yes, here. The room done in greens is yours."

Tarkle's eyes showed joy. "Yes, sir! Oh, I do thank you, sir!"

"I want you close by me, Tarkle."

Immediately Tarkle moved a pace closer.

Markmor took a pace backward and lifted a staying hand. "I don't mean now, you ..." He broke off and sighed. "Be prepared for a new appearance."

Tarkle looked around as if expecting a new appearance.

The wizard ignored that and wished he knew how to make brains. Or to transfer one from, say, a cat to a human, for instance, thus increasing Tarkle's intelligence severalfold.

"Be prepared for a new appearance," Markmor said in Marype's voice from Marype's mouth while he twitched a lock of Marype's long silverblond hair. "I am tired of all this hair. Today I cut it off and color it, and I don't want you taking me for someone else when you see me tomorrow'"

Tarkle smiled and nodded. "No chance, sir!"

He saw Marype nod, and wave a hand, and a happier Tarkle louted out.

Markmor secured the door and returned to gaze into the mirror. "That big beast is useful, but his mother must lament the fact that she never had any children. Shadowspawn is disposed of," he repeated in a low, controlled voice Marype had seldom used, "and three more must go. Three who know my secret name. The white wizard they call hero of the people ... that mail-shirted pretender at Sly's Place, and the gluemaker." Markmor chuckled and again the plump vole looked up. "Best he go into his own kettle. What a lot of glue he will provide for the good citizens of my city!"

Skarth showed the Vulgar Unicorn's new man the glass tiger-eye. Shmurt dragged his gaze off Taya, said "What d'you need?" and reached for it.

Skarth snatched it back. "Can't. I have to show it to Abohorr tonight, to get a message."

"Irregular," Shmurt said. He had been caretaker of an apartment building now mostly rubble, then unemployed, then construction laborer. Only recently had the Vulg's new owner installed him as day man.

"Strick said to tell ye a word," Skarth told him, and dropped his voice so that Shmurt leaned forward across the bar. "Boodoovagoolarunda," Skarth whispered.

Shmurt smiled and shook his head- "Don't know where he gits them words! What d'you need?"

Skarth told him.

"She wants to stay here?"

"Right."

"You sure?"

"Shmurt ..."

Shmurt nodded hurriedly, raising both hands in a fending gesture, and soon they had Taya installed, happily or un-, in one of the rooms upstairs over the tavern.

"Classiest roomer this place ever had," Shmurt said as he and Skarth came back down. "Don't believe I know you. Live close by?"

"Name's Skarth. You've seen me often enough. I live over on Red Court. Sure ye don't know me?"

"Can't say that I do, Skarth. Sorry'f I should."

Skarth chuckled and ordered a small pail of beer. While Shmurt saw to that, the old man glanced in surprise at an unlikely pairing in a dim back comer of the main room of the already dim dive. There where eyes less keen might have missed them sat Furtwan Coinpinch, changer and sometimes pusher, and Menostric called the Misadept, the cheapest mage in town. Well, the least expensive, anyhow.

"Watch those two, Shmurt," Skarth said, his staff banging the floor as he headed for the door. "They could steal your eyeballs and ye'd not notice till ye tried looking for 'em!"

The two men in back looked up. "What in the fart was that?" Furtwan demanded.

"Skarth," Shmurt called. "Don't you know ole Skarth?"

Then he returned his gaze to the empty doorway, trying to fathom who in the fart Skarth was and why he seemed almost familiar.

Ole Skarth was making his way up the street and into the market area, his staff bang-banging rather than tap-tapping. So many people thronged here that it felt a lot warmer. Business was brisk these days, what with all the employment available to anyone who could dig, cut stone, lift stone, carry stone, mix or carry or spread mortar, or swing a hammer or pick or sledgehammer. He saw Hummy and her daughter buying meat, real meat, and he was glad; that meant Hummy's husband had gotten on with the many others working in construction; the rebuilding of a better, handsomer, safer, and prettier Sanctuary, according to the official documents tacked up here and there for everyone to read or pretend to read, after nature and two viciously maniacal women and some dyspeptic gods and those outlanders of Tempus's and what some referred to as Nature had done their best to make this old city only a rubble-strewn memory. There was Lambkin buying food for her brothers and father, too, which meant that the latter was no longer taking odd jobs but "workin' regular" in the current popular phrasing, at some aspect of construction.

Skarth bang-banged his way among them and the noise of their comments and dickering, trying to remember to stay bowed and to lurch, when a voice sliced right through all the others:

"Hanse!"

Skarth didn't think fast enough, and did the worst thing possible: he froze and started to turn. He arrested the movement, but knew it was too late. The point was, the voice was an impossibility: Mignureal's. After so many years of noticing each other more than somewhat and then living together up in Firaqa, he and she had agreed to irreconcilable differences. Besides, she had good work and was happy. She remained in Firaqa. Even though this and that had happened along the way so that he had hardly come directly back down to Sanctuary, he knew perfectly well that Mignue could not be in Sanctuary.

The voice sounded like hers just the same, and startled him enough so that he responded and gave himself away. Now he stayed bent while he turned the rest of the way around. He saw her, and sighed. Yes, she sounded like Mignureal all right; and with reason. He was gazing at her younger sister, Jileel, the one who used to peep at him around her mother's voluminous skirts and who now was nearly five feet tall and looked at him steady on from large eyes made even larger and lovelier by kohl, and who appeared to have bought two good melons and stuffed them down her blouse.

His roving gaze showed him that no one seemed to be paying attention, and he lifted a finger to his lips. At the same time he shook his head slightly and moved toward her.

"Shh, I'm supposed to be disguised. How'd you know?"

"Oh, I'd always recognize you, Hanse," she told him almost breathlessly, as if he were unmistakably and indisputably just the best-looking thing in the hemisphere. He stood beside her now, head bent so that the big feathered hat from Firaqa shaded the movement of his lips.

"Why are you disguised, Hanse?"

"Stop saying that." He glanced around. "I'm Skarth, girl, Skarth. Some people bagged me and sold me to slavers. I should be 'way out at sea right now, in the scummy hold of a scummy ship. They don't know I got away. I don't want them to know until I'm ready. Right now I'm trying to find out where the main one lives."

"Oh. Oh, Han-Skarth, how awful!" Her hand rushed to her heart in a girlish way and when it banged her chest he'd have sworn it bounced. "You were al-almost, you were aimo-oh, oh!"

He rolled his eyes for no one's benefit but his own and nodded. "Right. It hurt, and cost me a lot of time and trouble. Worse, I owe a certain grasping snake a fat favor and a lot of gold."

"Gold!"

Again Hanse rolled his eyes. He had to get away from here, from her. "You know what they call me?"

She nodded with some pride and an after-all-I'm-not-just-a-child attitude. "Of course. Shad-"

He interrupted quickly. "Right. Well, watch that shadow right over there and you'll know why."

She turned her head and partly her body to look in the direction he indicated, and Hanse took a sideward step and a backward one, grunted when he backed into someone's fat bottom, turned, and hurried down a narrow street. More walking and a few turns brought him to Red Court, where he did indeed live, in a decent second-floor room equipped with a huge old wagon wheel of solid wood. By the time he had opened the door he had straightened up and stepped into the room with his normal gait, a smooth gliding pace that jarred no part of his body.

An emphatically red cat of improbable size greeted him with an emphatic and distinctly accusatory noise. Somehow the animal's eyes looked accusing, too. Then its nose twitched a few times and its entire demeanor changed to one of loving cajolery while its emerald gaze fixed in a stare on the small pail its man carried. It banged its sinuous body constantly against its human's legs while Hanse moved to the little kitchen area and poured beer into an orange bowl that was larger than anyone would expect to be a cat's.

"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, with 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.

"Ah, 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-

"Like to ha' killed all three of us," Ahdio laughed, slapping his belly and reaching over to pour another mug of his better beer.

"Well, I told you we should have moved the clothespress when we first got there and weren't already tired," Shadowspawn said, and Throde chuckled.

"Should have seen it," Ahdio said. "You should have seen it!"

"The gods know I've heard enough about it," Jodeera said.

"Not enough," he said, and laughed anew. "Never enough!"

"I druther see the look on that bullying shithead's face," Throde said, staring wistfully into his severalth beer.

"Like to killed all three of us," Ahdio said, "boosting and pulling and grunting that huge press out the window and up onto the roof! These two were pushing and grunting and cursing and I was dragging and sweating and grunting-and cursing, pulling it up with the ropes ... That damned press is bigger'n I am."

"You could have hurt yourself," Jodeera said.

"Arrr, m'gal, your husband's big enough to handle a little moving job for a friend," Ahdiovizun said, shaking as his voice rose into another laugh.

It kept rising, and Ahdio kept shaking, and the tailless cat named Sweetboy scuttled with a sulky look as the big man nearly fell out of his chair laughing.

"Besides, I had that dry-tack glue on my feet," he said. "The stuff Hanse got from Cholly. It made it easy for me to go up that wall-almost as well and easily as these two wall-climbers." He beamed at his employee and his friend the cat burglar. "Come on back, Sweetboy. Here, I'll pour you a tot."

"But what if someone had seen you?" Jodeera asked.

"Some-who d'you think might've seen us?"

"Someone walking along the street-" she said, and broke off to glance at Hanse, who had snorted.

"We was down in Downwind." Throde said. "Up a wall above an alley. TVobody walks down alleys in Downwind, day or night!"

"Oh," she said. "I've never been ... well. A mean trick on a mean man," she said, and again she could not hold back a smile. "D'you think Tarkle will ever find his things?"

"How?" Throde said. "Nobody but Shadowspawn 'n' me could get up on that roof to see all that stuff!"

Despite the impolite noises Sweetboy was making lapping beer out of his bowl, they all looked at Hanse, who had been nursing one mug of beer for a long, long while. He was not laughing, or even smiling, and he spoke to his mug.

"So much for Tarkle," he said grimly. "Now for that swine Marype."

Audio's face went serious. "It's time I told you something Throde heard that little piece of excrement Hakky say the other night."

Hanse turned his dark-eyed gaze on Throde.

"Somebody was talking about you seeming to drop out of sight again," Throde told him, "and Hakky told him-quietly, grinning-that Tarkle told him Amoli had hired him to get rid of you, and even told him how to go about it."

Ahdio snorted. "He said that she said that he said that I said that she c__"

"Who's Amoli?" Jodeera broke in, and Ahdio had to laugh.

"Not someone you'd be likely to know, sweetheart. She's the proprietor of a whorehouse called the Lily Garden."

The homely woman blinked. She looked at Hanse. "But why-whatever have you done to offend a ho'house madam, Hanse?"

But Shadowspawn was staring at Throde. His face registered astonishment, or perhaps it was revelation. Whatever it was, his eyes showed that he had gone back inside himself, where he was deep in cerebration, and calculation, and machination.

Abruptly he rose and left. The other three stared at the doorway through which he had departed their company. Ahdio gave his head a shake.

"And good night to you too, Hanse," he muttered.

Hanse returned to his room long enough to don his padded vest, collect a delighted Notable, and, once they were outside, wait without patience while the cat relieved himself. He was walking away before Notable was satisfied with his ritual sniffing of his urine. The cat snapped his tail to attention and hurried after him, making a complaining noise.

"Be quiet, Notable," Hanse muttered. "We're on business."

Notable replied with a small burbling sound from the throat. It became a hissy noise while he bristled at the dark-cloaked figure that moved toward them just as they stepped out onto the street. When Notable bristled he became about twice as big as he was, which was large enough to frighten big dogs and bigger humans. Yet the smallish approacher took no note, but moved almost stiffly toward Hanse with fixed purpose. Shadowspawn saw, too, and although he made no sound a knife appeared in his left fist too fast for him to have drawn it. But he had.

"Hanse," Mignureal said in an intense tone. "Hanse!"

"Easy, Notable! Jileel-what are you doing here at this time of ni-" Hanse's nape bristled and he broke off.

He had heard Mignue's voice, and knew it was Jileel, and yet he had heard more, too: it was that strange voice he had heard from Mignue, on a few occasions. Always when he was off on business; always when she had no idea as to his intent, much less his goal. He stepped leftward so that she had to turn. That way a bit of light from a window up the street showed him her eyes. Yes, and that eerie feeling enveloped him. Her eyes were all fixed and starey, really looking as if she weren't at home in there.

"Hanse-be sure to take that knife with the silver blade."

Hanse shivered. 0 Father Us! Jileel had it too, then! The S'danzo Seeing ability. And it was as it manifested itself in her older sister, rather than in their murdered mother and indeed any other S'danzo Hanse knew or knew about; Jilee! and Mignue didn't have to be given anything, didn't have to try to See. They just did.

His voice a little shaky, he was putting away his knife as he said or started to say, "I have it-" and another, taller figure in a cloak came up, and the cloak's hood was up, and this one had two others behind itIhimI her, and the sticker was right back in Shadowspawn's hand.

"My hands are in plain sight and you will not need the knife, young man. Do please calm that huge dog as well."

"Termagant!" Hanse said.

"Termagant?" Jileel said in a more normal voice, although it sounded weak. She was reeling, and the tall woman swung an arm around her.

"Mrrrraowww ..."

"A cat?!"

"No. Notable: Easy. No danger." And to the much respected Old Woman of the S'danzo: "What are you doing here?"

At the same time Jileel was saying, "What are we doing here?"

The tall older woman tore her gaze away from the astonishing cat. "I think this wants an explanation, young man."

"His name is Hanse. What are you doing here, Hanse?"

"I have a name, old woman. My name is Hanse."

Blinking in surprise and some confusion if not quite revelation, the Termagant looked down at the girl. "No, Jileel, that is the wrong question. What are you doing here?"

"Uhh ... out ... walking with you? I feel a little funny ..."

"Termagant," Shadowspawn said in a quiet and decisive voice that commanded the gaze of all eyes. "Those are your bodyguards?"

She seemed to grow taller. "Escorts."

He nodded. "Uh-huh. Jileel, you just had a fainting spell. Take it easy, but step over there with the escorts while I have a few words with the Termagant. Careful, now."

The confused Jileel allowed herself to be eased away by one of the two tall cloaks, while Shadowspawn never took his black-eyed gaze off the senior S'danzo.

"Is this where you live, Hanse?"

"Yes."

"And how is it that Jileel knows where you live?"

"Termagant, I swear to you that she does not. You just heard her ask what I'm doing here. She came to warn me without knowing where I was going or where I live." Seeing her lips part, he raised a hand. "Wait. Listen a moment."

He told her about Mignureal, and how she had more than once warned him, as if with a knowledge she could not have. "But did, Termagant, did," he said. "And now Jileel's done it, just like her sister."

She looked surprised, but not as much as she might have. "I know the truth of that about Mignureal," she said. "Her mother told me of it. It is part of the reason I have been interested in Jileel beyond my usual concern for a blooming young woman of my people. Girl, girl," she corrected herself, too hurriedly.

Hanse knew she was reminding herself to keep reminding him that Jileel was only a girl. And keep your thieving un-S'danzo paws off 'er, streetboy. he thought, but showed nothing.

"Did what she said to you make sense?"

"As it did with Mignue. Once she just seemed to appear-as Jileel did just now-to warn me to be sure to take the striped bowl. It was true I had one, but she had never seen it. It contained lime. If I had not had lime with me that night, I'd have died of Kurd's sorcery."

"Kurd!"

"Another time she bobbed up to warn me to 'take the big red cat.' She had never even seen Notable-this big red cat, here."

"Big, indeed."

"But if I'd not taken him along, I'd have died that night of a Stare-eye snake. A Beysib's, uh ..."

"Beynit," she supplied. "You do live an exciting life, young m-Hanse. That monster, Kurd. I think I'll just not ask about that occasion. And on neither occasion Mignureal knew where you were going?"

Rather than risk an error in deciphering that question, Hanse nodded. At least he'd blocked an older person's snotty habit of saying "young man" and "young woman" by the trick of calling her "old woman." He said, "Both times she had no idea. And other times, up in Firaqa."

"And tonight

"I assure you. Termagant, no one knows where I am going. A very bad man tried to have me sold as slave, and I think he has already profited from the sale of many others. I intend to stop him."

"Please ... would you please say to me her words to you? Jileel's, I mean, tonight."

"Right after you tell me what you are doing here-I mean, did you follow her or go out walking and lose her, or what?"

It took her a moment to digest the fact that he was as demanding as she, even with her. If she found that indigestible, she at least packed it away somewhere in a corner of her craw.

"I was visiting her home. Suddenly she rose and left the room without a word. That is not like her. When we saw her slip out, very hurriedly and cloaked, I counseled her father to silence and I and my two escorts followed her. We followed not as spies, but as protectors, but we did not need to be stealthy; she seemed aware of nothing. She just hurried, hurried. Now I know why-I suppose. Hers and her sister's powers transcend even mi-most."

"Spies can be protectors," he said, letting her know that he knew when a person told a little lie, even the Termagant. And he answered her question: "She stared odd, just the way Mignue does. Did. Her voice was odd, too, just the way Mignue's was. She said my name two or three times, and warned me to take the knife with the silver blade."

"You have such a knife?"

"I'd show it to you, but I wouldn't want to upset your escorts."

She did not smile, but her eyes did, or nearly. "Now, Hanse ... can you imagine why such a knife might be of value to you this night?"

"Will be, Termagant, wilt be, ifJileel has the same power as her sister. You know about silver and sorcery."

Her little sigh was almost inaudible, but she let exasperation color her tone. "I know about silver and sorcery, Hanse." He said nothing; she started to speak; suddenly her eyes widened. "Don't tell me this very bad man you mentioned is a sorcerer."

"I hadn't intended to tell you. Termagant." When she stared without speaking, he told her. "He is."

She heaved a sigh, shook her head, glanced over at Jileel, looked back at the youthful man all in snug black.

"Hanse; A few days ago I referred to your reputation. Perhaps it is a bit more than it should be ... or a bit less ... well, perhaps those who talk do not know quite all there is to know about this Hanse person."

"No one does. Termagant, believe me."

"I promise not to try to leam more than you want me to know. Will you come and see me, Hanse?"

"Not tonight!?"

"No, no, not tonight, Hanse. At a reasonable time of day when this night's work is done and you can come and visit me in the next day or three, will you do so?"

"Termagant, I will."

"Good," she said, with an exuberant nod. "Then when you come to see me, Hanse, bring me this." Her long-fingered hands came out from within her cloak, and in an instant she had draped a piece of cord over his neck. Something thumped his chest and he looked down.

He was more than surprised. "You give me an amulet, Termagant?"

"I loan you a keepsake, Hanse."

"I thank you, I think. Uh-is it all right if I tuck it inside my tunic?"

For once, she chuckled. "Yes, Hanse, that will be all right."

He nodded, one sharp brief bob of his head. "Good. Thank you. I am glad to know that Mignu-that Jileel is in good hands. The Termagant herself, and two big escorts."

For the second time he had made her chuckle, even while she rankled at not having terminated their conversation before he did. A very nervy and decisive young man-and didn't he just love and perhaps live for danger and excitement! No tools or concentration were necessary for her to see that, not her. She well knew that her own abilities were almost equal parts intuition, and observation, and the S'danzo ability.

"Good night, Hanse, and good fortune."

"Notable, we have to be on our way. Good night to you, Termagant, and Jileel, and to you too, you great big pair of escorts, you."

With tail high Notable moved along beside his human, who almost at once took up his nighttime habit of keeping to shadows and alleys. Notable saw quite well in such environs at night, and surely gave no thought to the fact that the black-clad man moved just as unerringly. As a matter of fact Hanse was moving almost without seeing. His brain was busy, working to match Jodeera's information with what had happened to him.

Any city such as Sanctuary had its share of whorehouses; good ones, low ones, and intermediate- True. Sanctuary probably had more than its share, particularly of low and intermediate houses. That described the one owned and operated by Amoli: the Lily Garden was not far from the Maze and yet not within those low and dangerous precincts. Thus it was one of the respectable brothels in the town called Thieves' World. Amoli had been friend to the drug dealer Lastel, who had disappeared. Shadowspawn knew of the tunnel leading from Amoli's house-not-home up to the fine home that had belonged to Lastel and was now owned or at least occupied by Marype the mage. In fact Shadowspawn had made use of that tunnel. His nocturnal visit to Marype's den had saved the life of a client of Strick's; in gratitude the fellow had sold tKe Vulgar Unicorn to Strick at a decent price. Unfortunately that same visit had resulted in Marype's taking vengeance on Thieves' World's thief of thieves. Shadowspawn was sure of that. Yet one aspect of the affair had nagged at his mind: how had Marype known who had been in his lair?

So it was Amoli who sent Tarkle after me. So Tarkle works for her? Or she and Tarkle both work for Marype-or she and that slimebag mage are partners or lovers or both. And the moment I visited his house I was brilliant enough to let her know! Damn! Stupid, Hanse, stupid! Two minutes after I left her that night she must've been hustling her hippy self along the tunnel to tell Marypel

"What we ought to do," he muttered, "is shave some of that fat off the bitch and feed it to her!"

"Mmmaw?"

"Hush, Notable, damn it, I told you to be qui-oh. I thought aloud, didn't I?"

Notable made no comment. He was only an unusually large and unusually smart cat, although once he had been a man.

Abruptly his human seemed to disappear, and in some shock the cat had to spend a second or three finding him- He blinked pupils gone huge and round as a pigeon's eggs as he stared up at the lean man in black, who was ascending a brick wall in a way that could have been used as training for frightened kittens. Unfrightened, Notable followed. He was almost as quiet, almost as competent at wall-climbing. Almost.

Shadowspawn paused on a ledge formed by a set-in second floor.

"Here," he whispered, "you're too slow. Get on my back."

Notable let him know he'd rather just do his own climbing, but he went along. Resentful, he sank his claws well in. Hanse didn't mind; that was the reason he had so recently acquired the padded vest-black. With Notable riding his back without the hint of a purr, Shadowspawn went on up and onto the roof.

Notable might or might not have been capable or willing to make the necessary jump across the long black rectangle that was an alley, but Shadowspawn did not consult the cat. He gathered himself, crouched, measured, shifted to allow for the change in balance caused by the cat's weight on his back. He did reach back with one hand to press and stroke, once, while he murmured a friendly sound. Then he jumped.

Notable made no comment. He just clung, and clung tightly-meaning deeply. Had it not been for the vest, Hanse might well have been wearing several claws to a depth of a foot or so. Again he reached back to give him an encouraging stroke and tried to press his face against Notable's.

Notable moved his head and averted his face.

"Goo-ood Notable," Shadowspawn whispered.

His miffed rider did not deign to acknowledge those sounds he had come to know and love. He began wriggling, preparing to jump down. Shadowspawn pressed harder.

He murmured, "Just hang on, Notable. See, we cross this roof-uh." He broke off while someone passed on the street or "street" below. "Then we break into a trot an'-"

He jumped again, pouncing more as Notable might have done than in the way of a man. He landed almost noiselessly on another roof with his knees bent nearly up to his chest. This roof sloped and Shadowspawn dropped both hands to it, and pressed. He remained in that position long enough to be sure he was not going to lose footing.

Notable meanwhile drew in all claws, gathering himself, then shot out the rearward ones long enough to leap past this maniacal human's head and onto the roof. He ran right up and stopped only when he was on the ridgepole, which was not so narrow as the pointed-wedge sort. Tail lashing, he pretended to have been solely interested all along in gnawing a particular place in his coat. He peeped around casually to see Shadowspawn sitting athwart the ridgepole, unraveling a slender and expensive rope from around his waist.

"If you don't climb on me," he muttered over his shoulder, "it'll be a lot harder for you to get down."

He followed that with a kissing noise. Notable's tail moved restlessly in indecision but he pretended to have something caught in his paw that needed gnawing out. Another glance showed him that the human had tethered his line and was letting himself over the edge of the roof. Trotting along the ridgepole as if it were a broad meadow, the big cat paused to lower his head and stare into Shadowspawn's eyes. Shadowspawn made another kissy noise. Quite delicately for one his size, Notable stepped onto the black-clad shoulder and leaned against the youthful face. He rode down.

Not far. Amoli liked to sun herself, which was why she had caused the little railed balcony to be constructed just outside her window. To her, it was useless at night. Not to Shadowspawn. He whispered, "We're there," and moments later was preparing to enter the darkened room. It was all as simple as that ...

Except that just as he was about to swing over the sill the door opened from the corridor, and light from ensconced lamps as well as a carried one burst into the room.

"-as soon as we have accumulated enough money from the slave business," a voice was saying, and it was the voice of Marype, who was just behind Amoli, who bore the lamp, and in those few words he had told Hanse everything Hanse had wondered about; everything he wanted to know.

Cat and cat burglar crouched low in the darkness outside the window, with black-haired tan hand pressing red fur in an urgent request for motionless silence. As he had learned to do long ago from his mentor Cudget, the superb thief called Shadowspawn did not try to see, or to hold his breath; he controlled his breathing while he listened. He heard the door close. He didn't have to look to be aware that the light remained within the chamber. He didn't hear the chest being opened, but he heard the jingle and then the sound of a lid closing. A key turned in a lock.

"Always a pleasure," Amoli said.

"... business with Tarkle," the voice of Marype muttered, and the door opened again, and closed. The light remained. Shadowspawn stayed where he was, crouched. His head was cocked so that he could stare up at a slow-moving cloud, gray against midnight blue and black. When he decided that it had moved enough, he rose and entered Amoli's private chamber.

She sat before her little table a couple of feet from her bed, gazing into the costly electrum mirror she had propped up while she adjusted her high-coined hair. With eyes much larger than the gold coins called imperials, she stared at the dark-clad reflection of the young man behind her. The elbow of his upraised left arm pointed at her; the hand was just beyond his ear. Amoli's eyes flared and her mouth began widening.

"You try yelling or reaching for anything untoward and I throw," he told her quietly. "I know who told Tarkle what to do to get rid of me. I know who pays Tarkle. I know what you and Marype are up to. I know you told him I'd been there that night, almost the moment I left here. Also, I just heard you two. Amoli, open that chest."

She stared at him in the mirror. "I-he took the key."

"In that case we just ruin the lock. I'm no beginner at that."

Slowly, she turned. Slowly, she rose, all prosperously plump and soft in silk and lace of rose and pale blue, scattered with jewels and a wetly glistening string of fine pearls. Only then did she notice the great big red animal-

"Oh!"

Notable replied with a long r-sound.

"Easy, Notable, she's too smart to try anything stupid with two of us armed with all these sharp things." He showed Amoli a clear-eyed gaze. "You remember I told you about my attack-trained watch cat? Did you think I was joking?"

"You intend to take the money, Hanse? Rob me?"

"I forgot to mention, don't try any dumb words to persuade, either," he told her in that same soft voice. "We all know where that money came from. Even my price is in there-the price the slavedealers paid your lackey Tarkle for me. I have to pay Jubal rather more to be able to call myself free again; he bought me, Amoli, old friend."

She was shaking and her eyes continued wide and glassy as her earrings. "I'll give you-"

"You'll give me the pearls, Amoli, and six hundred pieces of gold. Just six hundred."

"Oh, not the pearls'" Her hand went to them.

He knew at once that it was just as he had supposed; they were indeed good pearls, and they meant more to her than the gold. Hanse was pleased. He said, "Yes, the pearls."

She made a sobby sound. Seeing his implacable stare, she heaved a great sigh and brushed clothing off an apparent low table. That revealed the table as a long, good-sized chest. After a hesitation and another sigh, she squatted beside it. He watched her extract the large black key from her bosom.

"He made me, Hanse. I didn't-"

He moved a couple of paces to be nearer her, and between her and the door. He had relaxed his cocked arm, but made sure she could see the fiat, hiltless throwing knife between his fingers. "Your luck is that you're not lying there wearing this sticker in your key-nook and staring straight up at nothing while I open that thing," he told her. "Don't just blabber and make me mad, all right? Both you and Marype are leaving this town. I hope you don't love him, Amoli. I had decided to let you walk out."

She heard his gentle emphasis on the words "had" and "you," and again a shiver rustled her silk.

"I don't love him," she said. "He isn't even M-but damn it, I do love these pearls."

He smiled. Her words and tone told him that she had resigned herself, made up her mind to stay alive and safe. She was going to do it. He watched her lift the lid of the short coffin. She took out the several bags tucked inside and commenced counting out gold coins into one of them. To Shadowspawn the clinking noises were as perfumed lips whispering sweet anythings in his ear.

"Sure a lot more than five hundred imperials in there, aren't there?" he said conversationally.

Either Amoli considered it wiser not to reply-or perhaps too distasteful to think about how much was here and how much of it was about to depart her company.

"What d'you think five hundred imperials weigh?"

"Not nearly enough to be so important," she said.

"Amoli," he said, in a dangerous voice, "I asked-"

"A few pounds. Three or four."

"When you've counted five hundred into that bag, just pop in the pearls and count the rest into another."

"Oh, Hanse, my pearls ... oh, I'm so sorry ..." She began to sob.

"Well, I could let you keep the pearls, but they'd probably just take 'em away from you."

"Wh-who?"

"The fellows on the next ship bound for Bandara, after I sold you to 'em."

This time her sob was louder and her shiver a real bosom-rocker.

"Or Kadakithis's dungeon guard, once I'd turned you over to him," Hanse said, in that same soft and perfectly equable tone. "Did you know I spent a whole night tied up inside a big-but-not-big-enough sack in the hold of that damned ship, Amoli? Hmmm? Oh, I did a lot of thinking-I had a lot of time to think, Amoli."

Weepily she braced herself and lifted both hands to remove her pearls. Resembling a mother bidding a last goodbye to a darling child just deceased, she moved her hand very slowly to the gold-laden bag. Lovingly, regretfully she deposited the necklace inside. And sniffed loudly. To Hanse's expert eye it looked as if she might be stiffening a bit, maybe preparing for a sudden movement.

"I am so grateful you decided to be smart, Amoli," he reminded her. "I am not fond of killing, but when I throw a sticker at someone, I usually aim at the brightest part. You know, the eye."

The gemmy pendants from her earrings tinkled with her shudder. She sniffed again, jerked her head to clear tears, and shuddered again when that afforded her a sideward glance of a prowling, improbably red cat of a size sufficient to give pause to demons. She wiped her eyes with her fingers, which she wiped on her skirt where it stretched taut over her thigh. And she began counting gold coins into another draw-mouth bag of soft leather.

"Forget about turning me over to the prince or the slavers," she said quietly without looking up, "and you can have all of it."

"Then I'd be rich and probably start thinking stupid thoughts about stupid things like maybe trying to take over Sanctuary. And what's a thief without a reason to go out at night? It's my main enjoyment in life. No, I have a better use for all that gold."

"-nine, one hundred," she said at last. "There." She looked up. Her tears and the lead sulphide preparation she used around her eyes had left dark streaks on her plump cheeks. "Why two bags?"

"Just pass that one to me. I'm going to hand it back to you. For the sum of one hundred pieces of gold, and good imperials at that, I am buying the Lily Garden. You write that out, Amoli. I'll bet the deed's in the bottom of that chest, right?"

"A hun-" She clamped her lips.

"Yes, I know," he said. "I'm worth more than you got for me, too. As a matter of fact I'm also worth more than those five hundred I'm going to sling through Jubal's window one dark night! Just write it right, Amoli."

Working her bejeweled fingers down into gold and wiggling them about with care, she fished out the little oilskin packet and extracted the deed. She was just beginning to write on it when someone knocked at the door. She jerked hard, then looked at Hanse. He lifted his left hand for an exaggerated inspection of his knife, and gestured loosely with the right.

Amoli twisted half around on her backless chair and spoke to the door. "I do not want to be disturbed," she snapped. "See that you tell everyone else that. Everyone, Vissy."

"But ma'am-" a voice began; the voice of one of the girls.

Hanse made his voice as deep and growly as it would go, and tried to add a lazy-sleepy note. "Shall we include her in our bondage game, darling, or d'you want me t'just go carve out that little bird-turd's blabbery tongue for you?"

No further sound came from beyond the door. Amoli returned to printing words on the bill of sale. She signed it; she used her stamp; she twisted around again to look at Hanse.

"It's done. You want to put your mark on it?"

"Kneel there on the floor, Amoli. That's a safe position, while I sign that document."

She knew very well that he could not write or read, but had not dared try to trick him. Nor did she snort at his words. She assumed the position she had taken many times in her line of work, and waited while he made far more marks on the deed than he needed to make an X; a dozen or so. She was beyond surprised to see that he had printed five rather crudely formed but clearly recognizable letters;

HANSE

"Now I tell you what, Amoli," Hanse said, slipping the document back into its packet and the oilskin down into his tunic. "I'm going to make you a guarantee. I'm going to visit Marype. You put your hands back and cross 'em, and I swear to come back and let you and that bag of a hundred imperials see just how fast you can get yourself out of Sanctuary."

"Whe-where am I going to go-o-o," she whimpered, while he tore cloth and bound her wrists with care to pull the strip of silk between as well as around them.

Suddenly the dark, hawk-nosed face of the sinister nightworker called Shadowspawn came over her shoulder- About an inch from hers, it stared with eyes black as the bottom of a well at midnight.

"You can go straight to any hell you care to, you rotten swinish seller of people," he told her in a voice suddenly quivery with malice, "or just make up your mind to shut up and head for Suma or wherever the next caravan is going. You'll have a hundred fine Rankan imperials, surely ninety percent gold, to get you started in the business you know best."

She swallowed and clamped her teeth, not to mention her lips.

"That's good. Now open wide. Wider, damn you!"

He left her lying on her side and half curled on her bed, facing the wall. Her wrists were crossed and bound behind her with a linking line to her ankles, which were also united and pulled up to the backs of her thighs. A lot of silk crowded her mouth and propped it open; a broad violet sash held the gag in place. A broad and folded strip of cotton blindfolded her. Hanse let her hear him close the chest.

"All right. Notable," he said, picking up the cat, "now you just sit right here on this chest and keep an eye-no, both eyes on that tired old whore. If that fat butt moves, hit it with claws 'n' teeth both!"

While a new shiver ran through the bound, blind, voiceless package on the bed, Hanse departed. Carrying Notable.

Using the back stairs he knew Amoli reserved for the use of herself and special clients only, he descended to street level and below, and in short order was moving once again through the dark tunnel that connected Amoli's house with Marype's home-that is, the house that had belonged to Lastel.

"Last time we came along here a large rat attacked," Shadowspawn remarked. "A very large rat, and I was fool enough to think it was illusion. Remember, Notable? Notable? Ah, you remember-how charming you look pacing along three feet behind!"

In reply he received a low-voiced I--sound.

They went carefully. Shadowspawn liked the dark right enough, but not dark tunnels- He had spent too much very unpleasant time in that maze under Corstic's manse up in Firaqa, accompanied only by the Eye. This time there was nothing. They were not assaulted, either by things sorcerous or un-. Likely Marype's attention had been on his "business with Tarkle," rather than arming the musty old secret entry to his keep in the way he knew best. On the other hand the sorcerous attack on Hanse and Notable had come after their previous visit to Marype's den; perhaps the mage left the way clear for Amoli and maybe Tarkle, but something actuated defenses against someone leaving. Unless Marype somehow temporarily suspended it.

Once again a living shadow and an alert yet purring cat came ghosting into the dark-hailed home that had been Lastel's and was now MarypeI Markmor's. This time they paced the dim corridors, soft-soled buskins as silent on good carpet as the cat's pads, without pausing to peer beyond the closed doors they passed. Seeing no one, hearing no sound and making none, man and cat went directly to that room containing a worktable and things that made the hair twitch on Hanse's nape. Nor was Notable happy to approach the tall door- Once again of many times the walking shadow could not avoid the thought of how despicable sorcery was to him.

And this time ... this time the people-peddling slime is here.

Reason enough to be more than cautious. Shadowspawn moved close to the big paneled door and pressed against the wall beside it. He listenedHe heard sounds, right enough, within the chamber of Marype's sorceries. 0 Father Us and all gods, how I hate sorcery and those who practice it! And: He's home, all right. Now should I just-

His heart leaped and adrenaline surged when something bumped his leg. He released his breath and concentrated on careful breathing: he had felt Notable, of course. Hanse moved his leg slowly in a return caressI scent-sharing.

Why am I doing this? Why don't we just forget this? he mused. We could go do something fun and less dangerous, like climbing to the top of the governor's palace and jumping off, or lying down for a nap in the stall of an unbroken horse, or-

The handle clacked and an instant later the door opened. Light burst into the corridor. For once Shadowspawn was not happy to have Notable as company; Hanse might well have stood as he was and let the mage pass. That was not the way of a startled cat. Notable hissed and spat. Just as startled, the emerging Marype reacted automatically with a curse and a kick. His boot made a whump noise in the furry side of a large target and the cat sailed several feet down the corridor with tail all abristle and legs flailing-twisting in air to land on all four feet.

Standing beside Shadowspawn without seeing him, a no longer silverhaired Marype cursed again, stared at the cat, gestured at him, started to mumble ...

Shadowspawn hit him hard in the stomach, backhand in passing, and pounced three feet backward to spin and come down in a crouch facing the sorcerer. Soft, silent buskins alit almost on Notable. The cat made his spit-sputtery sound again and leaped away; the human was silent and went motionless save that one hand snapped back past his ear. The mage gasped, doubled partway, hands to his middle. He straightened and his mouth snapped wide open to yell. That created a target that was a large one, for Shadowspawn. His arm rushed forward, a long swing with long fellow-through, and the dagger streaked. It streaked into the target: the open hole between Marype's nose and chin. The silver-chased blade pinned Marype's tongue to the back of his mouth. He made a gargly sound and both hands rushed to his mouth. Meanwhile he staggered back into his sorcerous den.

"Wait!" Shadowspawn called, but Notable was barreling past him after the man who had dared kick him and, in a far more important offense, embarrassed him by taking him by surprise.

"Notable!" Shadowspawn charged after the cat.

Inside the chamber a hideous feline yowling mingled with the hideous gargling sounds Marype made around a mouthful of knife and blood. Hanse rushed in to see the cat looking even bigger because he was all abristle. Yet he was moveless, held in frozen motion by some gesture and gargly mumble of the mage, Notable's stiff, extended tail resembling a steel-spined red brush.

"Here, sorcerer, have another knife!"

The wounded, horrified Marype should not have been able to move as fast as he did; fast enough to dodge the rushing blade. Yet in hurling himself aside he hit the edge of his big table, which teetered with a screech of its legs on the floor. Its litter rattled and toppled. Marype stumbled away, and in desperation now he was able to commit the horrible act he had been trying to gain nerve to accomplish; he dragged the knife back through his tongue and out of his mouth. Meanwhile various tools and uglinesses of his trade went scattering onto the floor from the rocked table.

That included a very pretty cage containing a small furry animal. The cage hit the floor with a rattly bang that dented and bent the bars of soft metal. It rolled noisily. In terror the small furry animal squeezed out and bolted. A large furry animal, no longer held by the sorcerer's spell, became pure cat and pounced. A moment later he was crunching. His mouth trailed the stubby little tail of a vole.

And Marype who was Markmor screamed, a high-pitched wail that diminished rapidly-as he did. Marype was gone, dead; Markmor occupied that body while his own soul reposed in the body of the vole. The vole was eaten. Marype's body was neither occupied nor alive. It began to deteriorate, hurrying to catch up to several weeks' delayed putrescence.

The sight was ugly, horripilating; the stench was beyond horrible.

"Gahh!" Shadowspawn grabbed his nose with thumb and curled forefinger hard enough to hurt. "Notable! Out of here! Gahh!"

And he fled, a huge red demonic thing racing after him as if in chase, trailing a straight-out tail like a red bristle-brush. They raced through the house and down to the concealed entry to the old tunnel and along it, and neither stopped running until they were re-entering the Lily Garden.

While he was freeing Amoli of gag, blindfold, and bonds Hanse told her of the horror he and Notable had just fled. "Marype just ... just ..."

"That was not Marype," she managed to say, having worked up a little moisture in her dry, dry mouth and licked her lips many times. "Marype is dead. He was stupid enough to bring back Markmor, and Markmor rewarded him by murdering him. Your cat killed Markmor and you watched what happens to a dead man weeks after he died. And I'll tell you, Hanse, Shadowspawn, thief and mage-killer and probably hero too -you've done me a favor tonight. I've got a hundred imperials and my life and I am very, very glad to get out of this town!"

And she went.

Next day Hanse, undisguised, visited Strick to advise that he had found the perfect disguise and a fine business venture for Taya. Strick did what he could and sent her to Ahdio for a more permanent spell. She emerged still shapely and still attractive, but no longer Taya, former prince's playmate. She was Altaya, proprietor and Strick's partner in ownership of the Lily Garden.

That afternoon two men in Strick blue delivered to the palace the jingly contents of Amoli's and MarkmorIMarype's chest, to be used in the continuing reconstruction of the city. "To make it Sanctuary's work for Sanctuary," the message signed by Strick and by Hanse read, "independent of Ranke."

Hanse was meanwhile presenting the father of Mignureal and Jileel with a bag containing fine and far too valuable pearls which he had not stolen. He strongly suggested that Teretaff cause the pearls to be made into ear-drops for his several daughters, and "bury the rest under the floor or someplace."

He left without TeretafTs knowing of the sack of gold pieces Hanse had secreted in his shop-home, for safekeeping.

A few hours later in the Vulgar Unicorn, Hanse slipped a lot of golden imperials to the serving girl Silky, and bought drinks for the house until the Vulg grew so boisterously noisy he couldn't stand it, after which he ambled around to Sly's Place. There he bought drinks for the house, but left when the place grew so noisy he couldn't stand it. He went home with a large bucket of beer and enjoyed watching Notable get thoroughly drunk. Watching a cat stagger was more fun than Hanse could remember.

A week later he traded with Cholly the gluemaker for a dagger he recognized: a handsome affair. True, its hilt was marred, but who could resist that nice silver-inlaid blade?