Thieves' World: Turning Points

Andrew Offutt: Role Model

A Tale of Apprentices

"Better that all such cocky snotty stealthy arrogant bravos were stillborn."

"Me and my Shadowspawn, skulkin' down the Serpentine…"

—Bill Sutton

High of ceiling and sparse of furnishings, the room was half again as long as it was wide. Its illumination was provided by a pair of matching oil lamps, each cast in bronze and resting on a three-legged table at an opposite end of the chamber. The failure of the yellowish light they provided to do more than hint at the arcane drawings and runes on the two longer walls seemed a tease. Both were covered with a medley of intricate, often grotesque ornamentation. Included were fanciful fauna and ornately overblown flora, some with elaborately, even impossibly twining foliage; birds real and un-; lewdly Portrayed lovers with bodies and limbs twining but a little less in-tricately than floral vines; serpents' flowers; medallions and completely untranslatable runic designs. The lamps were fashioned in the likeness of gargoyles so preposterously hideous that no sensible person could believe they were anything but fanciful.

Yet perhaps not, for one of the two men in the room was their owner, and his trade and life's work was sorcery. Such a one might be capable of summoning up such demons from one of the Seven Hells, might he not? He—Kusharlonikas—was a few months past his one-hundred-first birthday, with a face like a wizened large prune bleached to the color of parchment tastelessly decorated with orangey-brown spots. On the vain side as well as still a sexual being, Kusharlonikas the mage chose, understandably, not to show his true likeness—except when he elected to "wear" the age-overused face as a disguise.

On this auspicious night in his keep of keeps the master mage affected the likeness of a man of forty, neither handsome nor un-, with luxurious and wavy auburn hair above eyes like chips of greenest jade and a bushy, droopy mustache. Yet he wore a long robe, a deep rich green bordered with gold at hem and neck and sleeve-ends, for even an intemperate devotee of the arcane did have the devil's own time disguising his ancient legs with their knobby knees and varicose veins.

The other man in this, Kusharlonikas's Chamber of Reflection and Divination, was aware of the mage's age and appearance, for he was Kusharlonikas's apprentice. He was a long-faced and lamentably homely fellow with hair the color of straw—old straw, and subjected to dampness—who was close onto but not quite five-and-twenty years of age. His seeming copy-cat robe of lime green did not require much cloth, for he was both short and slight of build. Indeed, the largest thing about him was his name, which was Ko-modoflorensal.

His master stood at one end of a long table of polished hardwood topped with a narrow runner ot olive green cloth, well napped and tasseled in gold at either hanging end. He stood moveless, with his hands behind his back, bony left wrist clasped in a right hand burdened with three rings, one of them outsize. Its large brown set seemed to be, oddly, a buckeye. As if listening intently, he stood gazing down at the table, which bore three objects.

One was a large, two-handled flagon of some greenish metal that appeared to have little worth. Another was a wooden stick not quite the thickness of a little finger and some two feet long. It bore no bark, and yet did not have a peeled appearance. The third object was fashioned in the shape of an hourglass, but it was not; its sand was but a quarter-hour's worth.

The younger man with the name too long and the robe too bright stood opposite his master, at the opposite end of the table. A film of perspiration glistened on his face and hands. He had been muttering and gesturing arcanely for over a minute. The hand with which he did most of his gesturing bore a ring with a large setting: an object that was at least the color and shape of a buckeye. "Let us hope no one menaces you when you are at your spelling," his master said, with no seeming regard for distracting the young man, "for you have given an intruder or foeman plenty of time to lay you low."

"Iffets!"

The wooden stick returned to motionlessness, but the quarter-hourglass fell over onto its side.

Komodoflorensal sighed and sagged even more pronouncedly, and watched his master gesture.

"Idiot!" Kusharlonikas said, while in response to his single, almost casual gesture, the wooden stick on the table between them accomplished the fundamentally impossible feat of becoming a slender, yellowish, two-foot snake that wriggled toward him as if dutifully.

"Shit!" Komodoflorensal snapped.

Seven blocks away toward the western wall, Fumarilis the Gatho opened his larder to take out the small, precious bag of sugar he had skimped to purchase, and was shocked to find a torn and empty sack. Furthermore he was staring into the eyes of a small, sugar-stuffed honey badger. It did not even snarl before it pounced, and not at his eyes.

The room that Nim rented was in a building three blocks away from the house of Kusharlonikas the mage, in the direction of the north wall. Popular and confident in her voluptuousness, Nim hummed as she prepared. This nocturnal assignation was one of extra importance. She was careful not to spill so much as a drop of the far-too-expensive Lover's Moon perfume as she opened the vial. She half smiled, and inhaled luxuriously, and gasped at the ghastly odor she had loosed, and with a choked cry fled her home. It remained empty for three days, the inexplicably horrid stench holding at bay anyone and anything so foolish as to enter.

Not too far from that building, Semaj Numisgatt was hand-feeding his beloved blossoms when his favorite orchid, the violet-and-white Aurvestan Autumn Queen, opened wide and nipped off his right index finger to the first knuckle.

Deleteria Palungas was combing her rich mass of midnight-hued hair with the jewel-encrusted comb that dear Shih'med had given her three namedays back when the errant spell of a would-be mage she had never heard of wafted through her modest dwelling on Red Olive Street. Too numb with horror and disbelief to shriek, she watched the flashing comb become laden and then clogged with the gleaming black treasure of her scalp. And then it was piling up on the floor, and her shrieking began.

The tavern named The Bottomless Well—not infrequently fondly referred to as "The Bottomless Cesspool" by regulars—was on Tumult Street, a name that had made all too much sense fifteen or twenty years ago. The staff of The Bottomless Well was, unusually, not from Sanctuary and not conquerors, but a family from Mrse-vada. The Bottomless Well was not a dive and yet more than a watering hole. At the same time, it was not an inn much frequented by the wealthy and/or pretentious. The walls and ceiling of the family-run establishment were not painted dark and yet were only a little darkened by grease and the smoke of lamps and candles. That smoke and the odor of frying fat rode the air; not heavily, but sufficiently to cause this or that patron occasionally to rub an eye or two. The furniture and surroundings were decent enough, with lots of rounded edges, and rails and legs of blond wood, the ale and wine unwatered except on request, and the food acceptable and sometimes better than that. A modest statue of Rander Rehabilitatis perched on a stoutly braced shelf on the wall behind the proprietor/ counterman. No one had to squint or look too closely to see that it was well tended and kept free of dust and grease.

He had requested that it be watered. That raised eyebrows but no one made fun of him, for despite his years and his cane he had the look about him of a man not much given to jocularities, a man who would not take denigration with grace, and perhaps not simple joshing, either. Besides, a few minutes ago everyone's attention had been distracted by an abrupt weirdness: the thick, quality wine in one patron's chalice-like cup had suddenly burst into flames. They shot up a foot above the table of the worse than startled fat man for several seconds before a young fellow at a nearby table plopped his big personal beer mug down over the offending goblet. With apologies, the proprietor had bustled over to grasp the cup—using a towel to shield his hands—and hurried to the door to sling its contents outside.

"What in the cold hell—" the dark-clad man with the too-black hair began, but his companion interrupted.

"Some wizard has lost his touch or is training an apprentice," he muttered, wagging his head.

The two old friends had discussed the fact that the white-haired man had narrowly avoided worse than retribution when Noble Ar-izak's horse fell and damaged Arizak's leg. He sent to the white-haired man for help, but his considerable skills succeeded only in reducing the pain of the high-placed nobleman. He felt reasonably certain that this was because Arizak was no good man and he—the white-haired man—despised him.

"At any rate, his Noble Self did not forgive me for failing to work sufficient magic to end all trace of his injuries."

His friend cocked his head. "Ignoble self, I'd say. You are lucky to have escaped with your life!"

That did not seem to cheer the white-haired man. "It was an act of cowardice that I returned his gold and eased the other charge— the Price."

"What was that?"

"We will not discuss that, Chance."

"Hmm. Damn it! Once again I wish I was younger and still had four good limbs! It would be such fun to visit the palace one night and bring you exactly the amount of the charge in gold coin!" The white-haired man smiled, only smiled and nodded a few times. Perhaps he understood the occasional wistfulness of old age but surely not fully, for he was a year past his fortieth birthday and his friend, who had been the friend of his adopted father, was seven and sixty. Too, he well knew that Chance had never truly been happy, especially so after parting from the love of his life, a S'Danzo named Mignureal, and years later his large and decidedly strange cat. To his friend that was truly horrible.

Interestingly, he also wore black, tunic and leggings and boots and, on a chill night, a cloak. When he threw it back—a trifle too dramatically, perhaps—he showed some color: He had decorated himself with a broad sash of blood-red. Neither tall nor short and the beautiful natural tan color of mixed races, he wore his jet hair long but pulled back into a horse-tail passed through a short, narrow sheath of dark red leather. His feet and calves were sheathed in buskins, soft boots of a dull black sueded leather that made next to no sound when he walked. He was well armed with at least three knives and a sword. The sight of a knife worn upside down on each upper arm was an odd one. He also swaggered, and flirted mildly with the teenaged female server, Esmiria, calling her Esmy.

Quietly the dark, dark-haired elder with the nose of a hawk asked, "Strick—who is that swaggering pup who is so intent on looking so tough?"

His companion chuckled. "Uh… the one called Shadowspawn?" he said, putting on a face of complete innocence as he named a youthful thief-cat burglar of time past, though not out of mind. "Hanse, I believe his name was?"

His companion gave him a dark look. "In your ear and out your nose, O Spellmaster," he said, without rancor. "I see no resemblance."

"Amazing! I'd wager our next dinner that yon youth is working as hard as he can for just that—a resemblance. In fact I do know who he is. And a little about him. He calls himself Lone."

"Lone!" The echo was heavy with the emphasis of incredulity, but not so loud as to be heard by the bravo they discussed.

The snowy head nodded. "Aye—and not the monetary kind. But say it a little louder and he'll be right here, looking down at us. And ready to fight, Chance, believe me."

The black-clad man he called Chance glanced back along the room. The black-clad youngster he called pup had not moved from the bar just a few feet from the door. He was not looking their way. He bent close as he spoke to their host, Aristokrates.

Without turning, black-clad Chance said, "I wonder; is he old enough to shave?"

Strick snorted. "From the darkness of that hair I'd say he likely started at age twelve or so," he said, and lifted his goblet to his lips.

Even as he spoke, broad-shouldered Aristokrates moved his plain green-tunicked self away to tend to business—with a casual glance at the two men at the back wall—and the object of their interest turned and set his elbows on the bar behind him. Thus the lean, lean youngster stood, casually and yet poised as a cat, while he surveyed the room from low-lidded eyes the color of anthracite. Defiantly accentuating his dangerousness, he looked as confident as a prince, or an army facing a stick-armed rabble.

Chance's mouth moved as if it considered smiling but changed its mind. "He's got the look. Knows how to do it. I'll never forget Cudget's counsel before I had lived twenty summers: 'Wear weapons openly and try to look mean. People see the weapons and believe the look and you don't have to use them.' You say you know something about him?"

"Ah. He has parents, then."

Strick sighed. His companion claimed not to have known his parents, who were little more than nodding acquaintances. But by his power Strick knew that at some long-ago time Chance had once at least known who his father was. Strick knew too, but never said so.

"All of us have parents, Chance, whether we knew them or not. But no, these two who claimed him to raise were not his. They were a childless couple who wanted him to be theirs. Although the people who… uh… rescued what few children they did not murder as hopeless servants of Dyareela accepted them as his parents, I believe Lone really was an orphan. I believe he has no knowledge of his parentage, or the name they gave him. Nor do I know what his stepparents called him. They are dead, and he decided to call himself Lone. So…" He gestured. "Lone he is."

"I didn't ask for his life story, Strick. But all that black he's wear-ing, at his tender age, and at those buskins—he's a roach, isn't he."

It was not a question, but an observation by a man who was sure of his surmise that Lone was a thief; that is, a creature who went abroad only by night, like a roach.

"Absolutely. He's addicted to it. After the death of his stepfather, he supported his mother with his thieving. His stepmother, I mean."

"He must be good at it, then."

"Must be. Word is that she never questioned the source of her sustenance, meaning she probably knew and did not want to deal with it."

Chance snorted. "Or endanger her source of income and food!"

"Probably. Oh—I was told that he said that what they called him in the Dyareeling Pits was 'Flea-shit.' "

"Charming. Those Dyar scum… ah! Sorry, Strick. No offense."

The man called Strick shrugged. "None taken, old friend and friend of my mentor."

His attention was distracted by the emergence of a spider from a crack in the wall above and to the right of his companion. Abruptly it sprouted lovely wings the color of an Aurvestan Autumn Queen orchid and soared awkwardly down to alight on the table between them. The dark man moved with surprising rapidity for one of his years. Under his cup the secret of the spider's sudden winged state was forever lost.

The white-haired man gave his head a slow, solemn wag. "That's the third abrupt total impossibility I've seen in three days," he murmured, watching a frowning Chance gingerly lift his cup to examine the total impossibility of a winged arachnid. "Like the flaming wine," he said in a deliberately dull way. Then, cocking his too dark-haired head to one side, "Since when is total impossibility unusual in Sanctuary?"

"You know I have."

"Because you have been offered a mission that you believe in but that is beyond you now, and because yon smart-ass reminds you of you, forty or more years agone."

His companion chose not to acknowledge that. Time was when he would never have—could never have acknowledged that anything was beyond his ability. But he had lost that along with his physical swagger and the use of a limb. He said, "Interesting. He is trying to be me, f—uh, a few years back. In fact he is only pretending to be…" He trailed off, looking puzzled. "Sorry. Can't think of the word. Oh! Casual!—he is only pretending to be casual in challenging the room. His main interest is right here, at this table."

"You?"

"Maybe. Maybe it's you. You do look prosperous, you know— and no fast mover. Listen, Strick, you know surprisingly much about him. But always there is more to be known about a person. Will you do me the favor of learning what it is?"

"I can understand that you want the upper hand, Chance. But believe me, he is a smart youngster. He will know he is being investigated."

The elderly man with the too-black hair shrugged, slightly. "So he knows. Use a double go-between so that he makes no connection to you." Then he looked away from the one called Lone and gave his companion a small smile. "Damn! Sorry again! As if you didn't know how to do that!"

His smile was returned. "As if I didn't," Strick said.

As the man he called Chance looked in the direction of the one called Lone again, the one named Strick and called Spellmaster looked whimsical and wagged his head, however slightly. His companion had just said sorry twice, and the first man named Strick had told this, the heir he had chosen and coached and trained to carry on his good work, that hawk-nosed Chance had in his younger years given no indication that he knew the word sorry.

Even some swaggering pups matured and mellowed, if they were lucky…

The first Strick, the White Mage from Firaqa up north, was an ex-swordslinger who had become the strangeling called Spellmaster. He was unbound by gods and locale, or by spells or anti-spells. His was true empathy; he truly Cared about each person who came seeking his help. Part of his curse for being given the power was that he had to care. This curse—and so he called it—of being unable not to care for and about others was part of his pact with whatever god or Force he had bargained with, and it was not always a pleasant trait to possess. He was unable to do magic of the variety referred to as "black"—meaning that his spells were good or "white" magic, only.

Strick also did well. Sanctuary's Spellmaster, sometimes called "Hero of the People," became a wealthy man and remained well off despite losses over the years in the various properties he had acquired. The losses resulted from the "natural disasters" that had plagued poor little Sanctuary-on-the-sea, as well as the thefts of conquerors—thefts that they called "confiscations," of course.

The latest foreigners to take over here also did their best to put an end to every member of the cult of the Blood Goddess Dyareela, with a great deal of success. Victims included the wife and children of the renowned white mage Spellmaster. All, including his adopted daughter, died in the Irrune-kindled fire that claimed his luxurious country home.

He was never the same man after…

But he did take in a skinny young orphan and train him as apprentice. Only that lucky lad—whose name was Chance—knew that his "father" had paid a great deal of money to have various punishments inflicted on various Irrunes, because his talent allowed him to wreak white magic only. When years later the adopted son made his bargain with the unknown that made him a white mage, his dark brown mop of hair turned white overnight and he gained girth with a rapidity that was a boon for the makers of breeches and tunics and belts. It was the Price he paid for the ability.

The Spellmaster, who had never ceased his grieving, named Chance son and heir, and bade him use the name Strick and never, never charge greedily for his services. And when he thought his successor was ready and he had done this and that with the properties he owned in and about the town, Strick killed himself.

The new Strick had long since become the friend of the strange dark man who was a longtime friend of the almost legendary Spell-master. The day Chance changed his name to Strick, their friend changed his to Chance, and moved into a better area of town than any he had previously tenanted. They met frequently to dine and drain a few cups, and The Bottomless Well was one of their favorite places.

Leaning well in toward the aproned, balding Aristokrates of Mrse-vada, Lone said, "Whatever you do, do not so much as glance at the men I am about to ask you about. At the back of the room— look only at me, Aris!—is the man in the blue robe with the white hair the one called Spellmaster?"

Looking at his questioner as if to assess the stability of the chip the youngster wore on each shoulder, the counterman said, "Yes."

Strick and Chance had forbidden him to reveal that he and

Chance owned this place, a fact known to perhaps seven people, three of them city clerks. Strick was known to own or have a stake in several commercial establishments, including, in a lesser part of town, the Vulgar Unicorn. That was a dive he'd had lovingly restored to what it had been before one of the onslaughts of nature that Sanctuary had suffered. The Golden Gourd was his, too, and other places and properties.

Lone asked, "And what of the man with him? Is he a cripple?"

The thickset proprietor and supposed owner of The Bottomless Well blinked medium brown eyes. "He walks with a cane, and limps." The mustache adorning his well-rounded face like a semi-trimmed bramble bush was no minor growth, brown and thick, and always its trailing ends wiggled when he talked. As to his reply, he was always careful with Lone, considering it simple wisdom and perhaps self-protection. The chips on the shoulders of the aptly self-named Lone were big enough to challenge a wood-splitter. While the lad possessed a certain… basic integrity, his opinion of himself was inviolate.

"Aye. He is Chance. Of the old race, I think."

"Ilsigi, like me. But…" Lone was frowning, and on a dusky face with such black eyes under hair as black as the heart of a money changer, that was a sight to give pause even to a bold man. Although Lone was not of the Ilsigi, his idol was, and so Lone called himself. "Are you sure about his name? Maybe he has a nickname?"

The non-aristocrat named Aristokrates made a small gesture with a ringless hand and tapped his chest with the other in the manner of a devotee of Rander. "His name is Chance, Lone. I have never heard him called anything else."

Lone looked disappointed, but said, "When I draw back my hand you will see an earring that came from afar and is not cheap but also not as valuable as it looks. Call it a gift to your wife or your daughter. You choose which, Aris."

The taller, meatier man looked down at the object glittering in silver and green on his countertop. His glance around did not seem furtive and yet was. When he saw that no one was looking their way, he made the earring disappear.

"Falmiria or Esmiria will be grateful, Lone. It is surely worth more than the single cup you just drank."

"I said it was a gift."

A well-maintained mustache of major proportions writhed with Aristokrates' smile. "So is the cup you just drank!"

"Aris!" That, sharply in a female voice, from the kitchen.

"Ah. His master's voice," Lone said.

Aristokrates rolled his eyes. "Go to hell, Lone."

"Be patient," Lone said with a wink. "Surely I'll not be making that journey for a while yet!" With that he put on another expression altogether before turning away to stand and pretend to survey everyone. His manner was that of a man of supreme confidence; the commander of an army facing a mob armed with staves.

The watching Strick's mutter was only for the ears of his companion. "He seems to have the stance right!"

Chance snorted. "Well, he knows how to posture!"

After a couple of minutes of such posturing, Lone swaggered to the door and outside into the darkness, where he seemed to belong. He was heard to snap a curse when a seriously warped plank in the boardwalk paralleling Tumult Street forced him to execute a little hop-skip step. And then he… well, droop-eyed Cajerlain the Twit-chy, lounging at the mouth of Angry Alley not far away, later swore by Theba's Immortal Crotch that the cat-walking lad just disappeared. The woman who stood with her back against a wall while he groped her bore out his story, too.

"Yip-yap yip-yap yip-yap," Chance said. "What a temptation to introduce that imitation of a dog to a throwing star!"

"Ah, that little beast is not worth it."

"Just a little one," Chance persisted, tap-step…

Strick paused and addressed the animal directly. "Imitation Dog with the voice of a bird, you are never going to be able to understand what happened, but hereafter you are not going to be able to bark again unless someone is within three steps of you and headed your way."

Chance smiled broadly. The yip-yapper's mouth continued to move but no sound emerged. Wearing a distinctly puzzled look, the dog dropped back onto his tail and sat staring at the passersby from wet eyes. Neither so much as glanced at him. The dark one was chuckling as they went on their way.

Even though gold showed here and there on his person, a master mage had little to fear when abroad at night in a neighborhood that, while not the worst, was also not wholly safe. His lack of fear of being accosted was bolstered even more when he was in company of the man now called Chance. In fact that proved to be the case this night, when not even a block and a half from the inn not one but two were so foolish as to accost them.

The burly one addressed them in a cultivated snarl that unfortunately made him sound sillier than it did deadly. "Let's see the sight of your purses and them rings, whitey, or you two old farts are going to get stuck with sharp steel!"

Strick spoke very quietly. "I am the Spellmaster," he said. "You boys don't want to do this. You had better run along."

"I don't give a shit if you're the Shadow God hisself," the thinner man with the long knife said, as if anxious to prove his fundamental stupidity and perilous lack of judgment. "Do what my friend says."

Since the attention of both accosters was now focused on Strick, his black-clad companion proved that his limp was false, and too that he was left-handed. His cane, startlingly heavy for the last eight or so inches of its length, became a weapon that all but brained the one with the bigger knife and drove deeply into the midsection of his burly companion. With a spin that proved him no cripple, Chance whacked the side of that one's head, too. The sound of impact was alarmingly loud. Both would-be thieves went straight down and lay moveless half on the boardwalk and half in the street.

The friends exchanged a smile.

Strick shook his head. "A pair of men with a staggeringly bad grasp on reality," he said.

"Old fart indeed!" The offended sixty-seven-year-old kicked one of the men he had knocked unconscious, but in the leg and with not all that much force. "Candlelight!"

"What?" "I called him Candlelight. One blow and he's out!"

Chance had used his left arm only, and the right continued to hang as if asleep, or dead. That had been the case since that horrible occasion when the man who had always been left-handed had awakened from… something; sleep?—he had no memory of what had gone before the waking—to discover the disconcerting fact that he was looking up into concerned faces, most of which belonged to strangers, and that his right arm no longer did what he wanted it to do. It continued in that worse than distressing behavior, and was often cursed by its possessor.

"You had a stroke," a medical type or shaman improbably called Changjoy told him. Whatever in the coldest hell that meant—a stroke of what?—struck by whom or what?—it essentially ended the career of the seemingly invisible Shadowspawn, the world's most brilliant cat-burglar.

Now he of the disrupted arm, livelihood and lifestyle went on his way homeward with his friend Strick, at home in the night and its shadows… without knowing that every moment of his violent reaction to a robbery attempt had been witnessed from an overhanging roof just above them by a vitally interested young man whose all-black attire helped to conceal him in the shadows.

"So his legs are not crippled and the cane is weighted as a weapon," he muttered, only to himself. "But that right arm must be useless or nearly. And it is him!—it has to be!—he is Shadow-spawn!"

The young man, smiling and nodding only to himself, would see to it that a man named Tregginain had a new nickname…

Candlelight.

Komodoflorensal paid little attention to the countryside here, north of Sanctuary. Sometimes picturesquely beautiful, it seemed unexcited about the imminent arrival of spring and the colors it would bring to decorate the land. On his way back to Sanctuary after making a little delivery for his master, the apprentice mage rode a medium-size horse of a medium rust color. The animal and its accouterments belonged to Kusharlonikas. Its bridle and saddle with its high back braced and shaped by carved wood, were of old, tired-looking brown leather. Komodoflorensal wore a pair of aged long-riding pants of similar brown leather, and a high-necked, sleeved tunic vertically striped in burnt orange and off-white. The sun had made a belated appearance along about midmorning, its heat persuading him to roll up his lime green cloak and lash it behind the saddle with its cantle of leather over wood.

His thoughts were on his life and his brilliant but cruel master. They were soulful thoughts, and some of them were tinged with sadness.

It was a difficult life, being apprenticed to a man who was often worse than "merely" difficult. Komodoflorensal, however, was born to nothing of no one whose name was remembered a few moments beyond death. Naturally such a youth considered himself lucky to be in the service of Kusharlonikas. His master was the man he most respected and admired, and the apprentice's only aspiration was to be as exactly like him as he could make himself—with the aid of his master, however painful. To that end, the diminutive mage-to-be swallowed the bitter fruits the old man served up, and tried not to dread the next manifestation of impatience.

He was not sure what prompted him to glance up. But he did, and saw a bird. No, not just a bird, but one of incredible size. In fact it was growing larger by the second. For a moment the apprentice mage froze, staring at the oncoming creature. His first thought was of the bow on his saddle. He realized that would not work; the bird was practically hurtling down. If it were some demon-thing bent on attack, he would never have the bow strung and nocked in time. Although he was no swordsman and in fact better with the foot and a half of steel on his right hip, Komodoflorensal reached across his lean belly for his sword…

The youth felt his hair ruffle and his clothing ripple in the heavy draft from mighty wings and he squinted, thinking how beautiful this enormous denizen of the air was, all deep emerald and turquoise and pale yellow. It flew on, climbing the air, while Komodoflorensal twisted about in the saddle. His hand merely rested on the unde-corated hilt of the sword he had not drawn. He was frowning now, thinking, watching the bird that could not be natural. It flapped on, climbing until it was smaller and seemed darker against the clear sky.

Then it banked and came swooping back. It was beautiful in night, which was bringing it directly at him. Never mind its beauty; Komodoflorensal reined his horse about and drew his sword. Again the bird passed over, in beauty and with a rush of air and slapping of wings little smaller than lateen sails. Kusharlonikas's apprentice had not even begun to swing his sword.

Why, it means me no harm at all! he told himself. Foolish Komodoflorensal! This is surely sorcery, Ah—probably a Sending of

my wily master to keep watch on me! Either that or it meant to tell me something, show me something, and I have stupidly frightened it off.

The young man let the half-drawn sword slip back into its sheath and kept a tight grip on the rein of a mount that had grown increasing restless. Again the great bird of green and green and cream yellow banked, and again it came back his way, flapping gently this time. Though he was sore nervous, Komodoflorensal put a smile upon his face—and spoke quietly to his horse. All was well…

A hundred or so paces from him, the outsized bird swept back its wings and held them so. It came hurtling down in a plunging dive, and by the time Komodoflorensal saw the terrible curved beak and talons as long as his hands, he had no time to take action. The monster raptor's impact drove him backward off his horse, which reared and swerved, screaming. Its mouth was torn, for its unseated rider had clung to the rein until it was torn from its grasp. He fell with bloodied fingers.

The horse galloped in a desperate fear that would not allow it to slow for miles. After a time it did turn, to return to the land it knew. Someone was about to be made very happy.

Its former rider-not-master, meanwhile, was kept in unrelenting agony as he was torn and clawed and bitten to bloody shreds and gobbets. Still he was carried up, and up, in agony and blood loss. And then his unnatural assailant dropped him. Screaming, Komodoflorensal fell and fell and fell and actually heard the terrible thump as his torn form struck the earth.

But he did not feel that impact, and when he awoke in his home— that is, the home of his master—he realized that the sorcerer had used a spell to punish him for last night's failure. Even as Komodoflorensal gave silent thanks that he was not only not dead but unharmed, a huge soldier in full armor came rushing at him and his battle-ax came rushing at the terrified young man's face and—

After that horrible and horribly painful death the apprentice mage awoke again—to open his eyes and see his master gazing down at him.

"So, fool," Kusharlonikas said. "Practice, and think, and next time try harder!" The haughty people of Ranke, self-styled conquerors of the world, expressed their disdain for the town named Sanctuary by its founders, the Ilsigi—people of the god Ils. It was the former Rankan overlords who coined the insulting term Thieves' World for the town. The once almost important coastal city had fallen so low, the imperious invaders from imperial Ranke had been wont to say, that only thieves remained, and so the thieves were reduced to stealing from each other.

Important or not, Sanctuary's outdoor market seemed no less bustling than those of cities that were aprosper, and/or still on the rise. Two senses were kept close to the point of overload by the great Sanctuarite marketplace. Even in winter the air was freighted unto crowding with overlapping scents, aromas, even odors. The competing of fragrances was emphasized at this time of year by those hopeful vendors who earned the price of their bread by serving hot drinks and cooking hot treats to warm the buyers. Each scent separated itself from the others as prospective buyers approached the source, whether fruits or vegetables or (ugh) fish, and receded after their passage, when another scent was competing and, at least for a time, winning dominance.

A third sense was kept busy, but not to the point of being whelmed. That was vision. Many colors and hues marked the clothing and tents and stalls of both sellers and buyers, though the color of their hair differed only a little.

Ah, but that second, nigh overwhelmed sense! The sprawling collection of stalls, tents, and wagons, drab and colorful, was noisy.

Even in the open air hundreds of people, nearly all talking at the same time, did not create merely the "buzz" so often used by storytellers. It was bedlam. In fact, the noisiness of Sanctuary's market defined bedlam.

Yet two people were quite able to carry on a conversation, provided that they paused now and again, reluctantly or in anger, while wending their way through the mass of people, scents, and colors of both produce and of garments. The two older men, for instance, on this cool but sunny day. The one was portly under his veritable mane of hair the color of whitewash, his shorter companion his senior though his hair was blacker than black, and who walked with a cane.

Abroad in daytime, the man called Chance did not envelop himself in the concealing black garb of the man he had been, the infamous shadow-spawned thief and cat burglar. The lightweight cloak he wore over an off-white tunic and medium blue leggings was a sun-sucking dark red, for a man's blood was thinner at the age of seven and sixty, if not his arteries. This day they wended their way among stalls, booths, tents, and shoppers, while Strick relayed to Chance a few additional facts and beliefs about the youth called Lone gained through the Spellmaster's quiet and judicial questioning of a few selected persons. It was Strick's belief that he was discreet… and then their attention was demanded by a woman excitedly talking, with gesticulations, with a vendor who was apparently her friend.

The semi-attractive woman with the hair dyed red under the flut-tery green scarf was not well off, but she was erect and carried herself well and with pride. Too, she did know how to dress, and it was pretty clear to anyone who saw her that she spent what money she could on decorating her well-kept body. She was talking wildly, shrilly, and with a lot of gesticulating at the shortish, thin and thin-haired seller of inexpensive body decorations.

"But I live on the third floor!" she squealed. "That must be— what? Sixty feet up?"

The man in the booth under the orange and violet awning shrugged and made a gesture to indicate his uncertainty but desire to be agreeable. "Uh-huh, about that, uh-huh, I reckon…" She was babbling on as if he had not spoken, making it obvious that he need not have done. "So somebody climbed up the wall all the way up there, Cleggis, and then he broke into my place through my window while I was right there sleeping"—with a sudden shiver, she clutched each of her upper arms with the opposite hand—"and he knew where to find my earrings, or he's so experienced at thievery that he guessed, and he took them out of my shoe about one foot below my head, Cleggis!"

"Yes! And then… and then… he left one of them in the other shoe, just to—to… to taunt me, I guess."

Cleggis shook his head. "Wackle!"

Strick had moved to place his mouth near Chance's ear. "Reckon we're hearing about our boy Lone?" he asked, sotto voce.

"Sounds that way. And it sounds like he's even better than we thought we knew."

"Not in need of a lot of training," Strick said, wickedly teasing.

"Just climb off it, Strick," his friend said, changing course in the smallish throng to head for the savory aroma of cooking meat. "No one is ever, ever going to be as good as I was."

He was happy to order a fat, juice-dripping sausage. With the seven-inch cylinder of meat in hand, he made a flamboyant gesture that silently invited Strick to join him in having one. The Spellmas-ter, however, preferred to cross the aisle between rows of vendors and purchase a smallish wedge of cheese. Chance knew the reason. Strick's vast girth was part of the Price extracted from him in exchange for his ability, but still he had to be careful of his diet, lest he add to that girth and run his weight right on up past three hundred pounds.

"To continue about you know who," he said, as they ambled on, munching, "sometimes called the cat-walker. He is naturally right-handed, but to emulate his idol, that Shadowspawn fellow, he has put in a lot of time training himself to use his left arm and hand. So long, in fact, that he is about equally as good with either arm-hand by now."

"Brilliant fellow," Chance said, as drily as a man could when his mouth was full of greasy sausage. He smiled and nodded at the end of the shelf of the next vendor's booth along the way.

Comfily curled and snoozing there was a smallish cat about the color of charcoal except for the small white area on his left ear and another back of his left rear "ankle."

And somewhere, someone triumphantly pronounced his word of power.

"Iffets!"

Even as Strick turned his gaze in the direction indicated by Chance, every hair on the slumbering animal whipped erect and its eyes flared huge. With a hideous yowl of alarming volume, the cat did not just leap to its feet, but straight up to an elevation that was beyond impressive and in fact appeared beyond possible. Landing as only a cat could, it spun around three times at almost incredible speed, pounced onto the canvas side of the adjacent stall, and ascended as if someone had set its tail afire. It set a record for speed of climbing, surely, for a cat without a flaming tail and not being chased either. Reaching the top of that dingy tent, it ruined the "roof" by spinning completely around—three times at speed, as before, just as if it could count.

By now the performance of the suddenly demented feline had attracted a good number of witnesses, all gawking and ejaculating in excited voices. By the end of its third rotation atop that vendor's tent, the object of their attention looked bigger by twice. Surely an illusion…

Without pausing or even slowing, meanwhile, the dark gray kitty pounced from the top of the dingy tent onto the top of the neighboring one where it had lately slept so peacefully, presumably its home. But! Its destination changed en route. Flattening in air with all four feet extended, as well as neck and tail, the presumably en-sorceled animal took on kinship with a flying squirrel.

"Sorcery!" a high-voiced man squealed.

"Oh Ils father of us all," Chance muttered, "how I hate sorcery!"

The sorcerer standing beside him said nothing, but only stared, as so many were doing.

A charcoal gray streak and still growing, the cat soared completely over the booth of its befuddled mistress, a permanent site constructed of wood. It struck the flat roof of the next stall in line, one of gold-hued canvas with a russet awning. The impact was heavy.

At the instant of that impact the flying feline smashed through the flat canvas roof, at the same time messily exploding into revolting components, without sound other than stomach-turning juicy noises. From within came the sound of yells and screams, one of either sex.

Some vendors and every visitor to the market stood as if frozen, staring at what had been. Abruptly one person detached itself from the crowd. The long skirt of the loosely girt blue tunic worn by the more than portly man with white hair flapped as he strode to the aerially invaded stall. From it emerged no cat or person, but only increasingly muffled screams. Both Strick's ringed hands slapped down onto the wooden counter and, on tiptoes, he bent forward to peer inside.

"Oh, fart!" he barked, which was as profane as the Spellmaster got. He turned. "Chance! I need your help."

His friend's unhurried compliance with the urgent request clearly lacked enthusiasm. He learned Strick's desire and waylaid a burly Woman to help him. Together, they assisted the beyond burly man with the stocky legs onto the counter, and over it. A few moments later they were joined by a wide-eyed fellow who came hurrying around the left side of the stall, and the equally goggle-eyed woman who closely followed. Dark, dark they were, desert people whose place of business had been invaded by the ghastly components of the product of sorcery. In desperation and charged with adrenaline, they had hoisted the canvas in back and crawled out.

Together, the four of them watched Strick ritualistically bestow a touch on each of the several wet pieces of fresh meat lying here and there on the earthen floor, most bearing at least a trace of hair the color of charcoal. Without wiping those begored and lymph-shining hands, he unfolded a caravaneer's wooden stool and seated himself slowly and with care.

"Here," the owner said, slapping the counter with one of her thin, veined hands and pointing with the other. "Break that stool under your vast butt and pay for it, fat man!"

"Hush," the coal-haired cripple beside her snapped. "He is a mage at work—a good and honorable mage and the best man you're likely to meet, skinny woman, but I'd not be testing my luck if I was you… and beside, if that crappy little stool breaks he will offer payment!" The woman, her presumed husband who had preceded her in fleeing their marketplace tent, and a few others so daring as to have joined them, all directed their stares at the man who had spoken so harshly. But no one responded vocally. Even old and leaning on a cane as he was, there was something about the fellow…

"Not a word," Chance murmured to his fellow watchers, and put on his meanest menacing look.

No one spoke a word.

Abruptly the seated Spellmaster snapped up his head and startled those watching with an aspirated "Ah!" that sounded pleased. He followed that with several nods of his snowy head. Then he glanced round, and his audience heard his grunt without being able to translate it.

Chance knew the man, and recognized the sound of effort. Strick's divining was at an end; he had just made an effort to hoist his bulk off the low stool, and failed. He who had been Shadowspawn leaned against the counter.

"Strick."

The white head turned and the white mage looked over at his audience.

"For you," Chance said, and with care, tossed his cane over the colorful array of mingled peppers and onto the ground that floored the cluttered little room. It fell with little sound and rolled only about three-quarters of a revolution before it fetched up against Strick's left foot. He grunted anew in bending to pick it up, and with its aid and another gasping grunt he came to his feet. The stool had survived. It did creak as if with gratitude at his departure.

More effortful grunts accompanied the Spellmaster's departing the booth in the same way the vendors had. He came round the tent a few seconds later and handed Chance his cane. By that time the two desert people had used their counter to reoccupy their tent. With clear distaste, they were collecting gobbets of deceased cat and dropping them into a large urn.

"Hope they aren't meaning to clean that meat and try to sell it," the burly woman who had helped Chance boost Strick into the tent said, and he flashed her a smile. He was revolted by the sorcerous occurrence, and a little angry. Years and years ago, a cat had been the best friend he could claim.

Strick addressed the vendors across their counter. "I will pay ask-ing price for a basket of peppers, assorted but without the hottest ones." He pointed to a medium-sized basket.

At that marvelous and in fact unparalleled offer the vendors bustled to fill the basket with colors and shapes; the peppers they judged best of the lot, all without a word about the doubtless weakened stool.

"What… happened?" the woman asked, as without attempting to negotiate he paid her the price she named.

"It was a cat," Chance provided, and received no thanks for being so kind as to provide the information.

"A cat of normal size," Strick added, "until an incompetent someone somewhere not too far away cast a spell that he botched. An apprentice mage whose talent I suspect is worse than limited. I know whose he is, but it's best that I don't tell you. It was an accident."

"You are the one called Spellmaster," she said.

Strick was hardy unaccustomed to that same non-question. "I am."

"Can you bring back my dear Sleeks?"

He shook his head.

"Huh!" a nearby shopper snorted. "Can't bring back a little old dead cat! Some kind of 'spellmaster' you are!"

Strick smiled. Never, never could his friend, who had been a model of truculence all his life, understand why Strick was so accepting, so understanding, so extremely slow to take offense. "Restoring a dead cat to life," the white mage said quietly and without turning, "would not be an act for good, and I can perform only that kind of magic. And besides, cats make a point of breeding quite well enough that we need not help increase their number by granting immortality to some. I hope you soon adopt one, or more likely, that one adopts you," he told the vendor.

"Sleeks was one of a kind," she said wistfully, "but you are a great man, Spellmaster. You did a great service for my sister-in-law when you dispelled the wart off her nose."

His smile was small, a slight change in the shape of his mouth. "Apparently whatever inconvenience or thorn in the flesh she had to accept in return for her improved appearance is bearable," he said.

The woman smiled across the counter at him. "Something else did happen just like you warned her it would, and she is marked— but neither she nor her husband my brother minds as much as they did that damned wart!"

Naturally Strick asked no questions, and nodded. Having paid for and accepted a small packet of vegetables, he turned to walk away. He was brought up short. The fellow who had spoken from behind him and been all but ignored moved swiftly to bar his way. "So you can't do nothing that ain't good, huh?" His chest was out and his hands were balled into fists the size of small loaves.

"Putting a wart on that snotty bully's nose of yours," the dark man just behind Strick's shoulder said, bracing the considerably larger accoster with a very steady gaze, "would be no bad act."

"Why, you little piece of cat sh—"

The bully was interrupted by a third male voice, from behind him. "Say, citizen, do you really think it's smart to go messin' around with a real live wizard?"

The bully wheeled on his accoster, who was a burly swordslinger hired by the market manager to police the place and protect its users. No longer a young man, he was intelligent enough to be standing about a yard back, holding a one-handed crossbow aimed at the bully's middle. It was cocked.

"Huh! Big man! Tough when you've got that sticker aimed at my gut, arencha, old fart!" Again Sirrah Hostility heard a hostile voice from behind: "Argalo, Would you have to arrest me if I was to crack the skull around this ugly little fellow's big noise-hole with my little walking stick?"

Hanse-I-mean-Chance laughed. The former bravo he called Ar-galo laughed. Strick laughed. Several others nearby laughed. The heavily intimidated bully proved that he retained a modicum of intelligence by suddenly remembering his urgent need to be somewhere else.

Thanks and good wishes were exchanged, and Strick bought some fish that smelled good enough to eat provided he didn't put it off, and he and Chance made their way to the east entry to the marketplace. There, just inside, they had time to sit down and, without incident, knock back a small measure of wine. Then it was about time to step outside and look for transportation.

It had arrived: here was Strick's man Samoff with the one-mule-cart which the Spellmaster chose over a carriage, in order not to look as well off as he was. It was in accord with Strick's desire that Samoff of the thick, droopy, rust-colored moustache wore nothing that even approached livery. He who had named the mule "Killer" dressed as he wished and wore arms as he wished. In his case that meant he was well armed with sword and dagger and crossbow and back-up knife, and as mean-looking as he could look in mostly leathers with boots well up his thighs and his big wide-brimmed old desert hat with a sweat-stain about the size of some small animals. He was a much wrinkled man of one and fifty who had put in a lot of years traveling from town to town across the desert as a caravan scout. The job meant keeping to himself and riding ahead and on the flanks all along the way, on the alert for possible menace.

Samoff was a man of few words and considerable respect who knew how to use his weapons, although he was handicapped by an old leg injury.

He knew he was lucky to be employed by the Spellmaster, too, who also provided food and housing, and had spelled away the personal problem that Samoff called the worst: a pair of feet whose sweat had smelled worse than a hound-dog's mouth. Samoff was also privy to the former life of his boss's dark, unfriendly looking friend. One afternoon a couple of years back he had heard an old acquaintance of Chance ask him if the change of name really worked; what about people who had known him as Hanse the roach for many years?

"They are mostly all dead," Chance replied, and no one could disbelieve that, for nearly everyone who had lived in Sanctuary a half-century ago no longer lived anywhere.

Today Samoff greeted that man, along with his employer, with respect. He was pleased to accept with a low nod of his head the half-measure of beer that Chance had been so thoughtful as to purchase for him, saw the two men seated in the cart, and mounted its forward seat to make the long drive to the much better area of town and the Spellmaster's home. The drive was leisurely and without incident of any significance.

The door of that spacious dwelling was opened from within and they were greeted by a quite shapely, thin-faced woman in her late thirties or early forties. She was Linnana, who was as always rather garishly attired in several items of jewelry and at least as many colors, not all of which were compatible.

Chance was one of the very few who knew that this S'danzo "housekeeper" was Strick's woman. Since her people tended to shun liaisons with outsiders and frown upon those who broke that unwritten "rule," she pretended to be no more than his housekeeper, and they maintained the fiction that she dwelled in the small building attached to his large home. In fact, long ago a S'danzo had been the one true love of the hardly lovable thief named Hanse and called Shadowspawn, and he had lost her because he had persisted in being Hanse called Shadowspawn—and never ceased to blame himself. It was because of his lost Mignureal that he had long secretly channeled money to one Elemi, a widow, because she was S'danzo and he was sentimental—a fact that even now, so close to the end of his life, he would never admit, even to Strick.

"But he left this," she said, handing her lover a tiny tablet of hard clay and soft wax. It had been sealed with Strick's wax and seal.

He gave Chance a look. "Want to risk a wager as to who left this?"

"I like him more and more," Shadowspawn said. "It's what I would have done!"

Smiling—rather tightly—Strick broke the seal and lifted the tablet's cover. Very neatly scratched into the soft wax coating the inside of the tablet were the words "Why not just ask me stead of them uthers?"

Strick chuckled. "That would be Lone, all right. All is well, Lin-nie. We are in no danger from this intruder."

While she showed visible relief, she also remained close to her man.

Chance added his assurance: "A certain youngster just wanted to show us he could do it."

"Wants to be like his idol," Strick appended, now with an arm about his woman. "You remember hearing about a certain Shadowspawn, don't you Linnie?"

She heaved a sigh and showed the two men a wan smile. "Never heard of him," she said. "But I do smell something that needs to be taken outside and cleaned."

"Sorry," Chance grinned. "Strick did do some sweating…"

With an indulgent smile she took over the fish. The Spellmaster headed for his private sanctuary, his home office-divinery, while Lin-nana took charge of the market purchases. She presented no real argument when Chance said it should be his job to clean the fish. Strick was still in his sanctuary when he finished, so Chance went out to visit with Samoff and "maybe lend a hand in tending to the mule and cart."

He and the former caravan scout sat in the barn and reminisced, as they had on several other occasions. Most of what each told the other was true.

Over dinner, Strick surprised no one by advising that he had been at a little private divination, an ability enhanced by a few things he had learned not from his stepfather, but from a friend of his, a dauntingly large man named Ahdio.

"The lad who continues to cast bad spells over Sanctuary is named Komodoflorensal," he told Chance and Linnana.

Chance paused over a slice of onion-rubbed bread the color of old leather. "Now that," he said, "is a lot of name!" Strick nodded, using his tongue to explore the morsel of fish in his mouth for bone. "He is apprentice to a master mage named Kusharlonikas, who is older than dirt. Do you know of him, Chance?"

So many years he has lived, Strick thought, and still so defensive and quick to take offense! For him not to be happy, and so low of self-esteem as to feel it, especially for a man so very good at his life's work, was to Strick one more miscarriage of justice—and proof once again that the whole "justice" concept came not from the gods but was solely a human invention, and did not exist in any natural state.

Or so believed Strick, Spellmaster.

"No," he told Chance, "because I believe this Kusharlonikas to be old enough to have whelped you."

Chance jerked erect in his chair. "All gods forbid!"

"No argument offered," Strick said.

Linnana chuckled. "What an irony that would be!"

Strick went on, "I should not have much trouble learning where Kusharlonikas lives, since I have seen the neighborhood behind my eyes. I intend to have a talk with him. Sorcerers are wont to claim— even believe, in some cases—that any and every event that takes place—or fails to take place, as expected!—is demonstration of their magnificent ability. This one needs to accept responsibility for the bad, too. The incompetence of his apprentice is a danger to everyone. And certainly his master owes that couple in the market for the tent destroyed by that excrementitious spell."

While Chance was wondering what the grundoon that meant, Linnana was aborting the lifting of nicely peppered fish to her mouth. Strick and Chance had given the shapely woman a brief description of the outre mis-happening in the open market. Now she said, "And that poor woman's cat?"

"Cats," Strick announced with uncharacteristic portentousness, "are plentiful and not at all expensive."

But the man called Chance was staring at a blank wall blankly, remembering, and he said nothing.

The quite spartan apartment that Chance kept was not at all far from the considerably nobler estate of his friend, but as sometimes happened, the retired Shadowspawn spent the night at Strick's. When he entered his two rented rooms next morning, he discovered that he had been visited. Someone had neatly arranged on his bedspread the amethyst off Strick's desk and another little clay tablet.

"While yur frend was trying to learn about me," the note said, "I was learning about you, Shadospawn. Sign me if yu hap to be at same table at Bottomless Well this night."

He who had been the ultra-cocky Shadowspawn, invader of so many dwellings not his own, felt violated and was righteously outraged, but that night he was at the table he had shared with Strick the night the spider sprouted wings and the "professional barker" outside became a "good dog."

The boy, as Chance thought of Lone, was not present, and Ar-istokrates understood the reason of this influential patron for drinking "wine" that contained more of the well than the grape.

The ever-patriot and former professional thief had lived a long time, and played many games, mind and otherwise, and so was not surprised when after the turn of the hourglass on the counter the boy had still made no appearance. Neither had he sent a message, which admittedly Chance had half-expected. He rose, step-thudded to the counter, paid, and leaned close to the host to murmur a number of words for his ears only. Aristokrates agreed, and Chance departed the establishment.

And time passed in The Bottomless Well. At last through the arched doorway he came, in his gliding gait called catlike, a lean young man of no great height but at least five lengths of sharp steel that showed. He wore black, black, and black, tonight unalleviated even by the red sash, and the soles of his soft buskins made not a sound on the hardwood floor. From arrestingly dark eyes beneath rather thick, black brows he scanned the place as if in a casual way, but which his host knew was quite purposeful indeed.

The catwalker wore no happy look when he turned to the counter and those nearly black eyes bored into the mild, medium brown ones of his host.

"I was to meet the man who calls himself Chance here," he said. "I don't see him…"

Aristokrates bobbed his head in such a way as to make it obvious that he was attempting to be ingratiating. "Yes. He was here, Lone. Alone. He sat at the back wall, and sipped a mug very slowly like a man waiting for someone to join him. After more than an hour he had still not bought another cup and I despaired of ever selling him one. Then he came up here on that cane of his, and paid, and looking not at all pleased, told me that if you came in I was to say these words, and I repeat them exactly, Lone: 'I waited a long time; too long for a boy so young and inexperienced.' "

Immediately he had spoken, the balding man from Mrsevada took a step back from the counter and the stormy face on its other side. That face had darkened, and its features were writhing, and the eyes seemed ready to emit flashes of fire.

"That bastard!" Lone blazed, and louder than Aristokrates had ever heard him speak.

"I… think you are right," the bigger man said mildly, while judiciously reserving all comment on Lone's lack of parentage.

Lone slammed a fist down on the counter. "That blag-dagged blaggard! This is—this is—you said his words exactly, Aris?"

"Absolutely! D'you think I would say such a thing to you?"

"That blag-dagged bastard!" Lone spun about as if in hopes that someone would hurry to pick a fight with him, or that he could find an excuse to assault someone. Anyone.

No such opportunity knocked.

"I can understand that you are not amused," Aristokrates said. "Let me pour you something."

Lone wheeled back to him with such speed and such a stormy face that the other man bethought himself of the thick hardwood club he kept under the counter. But Lone proved not the sort to take out his anger on the message-bearer.

"Not tonight, Aris. Damn! Damn him for an arrogant blaggard!" Aristokrates considered that his wisest course was to say nothing.

"Shit!" the young man snapped, face still writhing, and with a swish of cloak dark as midnight he whirled away toward the door. "Oh, Lone," the man behind the counter said. "Wait a moment. He did bid me give you a few words of

council when you were about to leave."

Dark clothing did not rustle despite the speed of Lone's turn. Wickedly menacing eyes met those paler ones of Aristokrates. "Council?" "He bade me do you a favor," the proprietor of The Bottomless Well reported. "I'll just bet!" "Umm. He said to warn you not to enter Angry Alley." Lone stared. "Huh! That's all?" "Yes." Aristokrates nodded solemnly. "Hey, Aris! How about another mug over here!" That call sounded in a voice with a bit of surliness in it. Aristokrates waved a hand at the patron, one of several at his table. Two of them also signed for another.

"Oh oh. Sorry, Lone. Uh… good night…"

Lone did not return that ritual well-wishing as he glided to the door and in a second as much as vanished into the darkness outside. Naturally, being angry and more, being Lone, he headed directly for the dark, dark opening between two

close-set walls—a passage that too often reeked of urine. Although he saw no one in Angry Alley,

someone was. "The carelessness of rash-brash youth," a voice quiet as a tiptoe in shadow said, "is not bravery, Lone. The real Shadowspawn would not be so rash as to charge in when such a clear warning was issued."

"Shadowspawn!" Lone gasped, cloak swept back and hand frozen to hilt. It was as if the darkness had

spoken, for still he saw no hint of person or even movement. "The same. And well armed, and vexed at you with reason, but only talking instead of letting steel speak for me."

Lone of the prickling scalp and armpits considered that, and swallowed, and actually devoted a few

seconds to thought, and for once he answered from his brain, not his bravado. "You left word that I must stay out of this alley only because you knew I would have to accept the challenge!"

"It was a safe assumption," the darkness said. "You have just restrained yourself. You must learn to do that much more often, which is to learn to think. Else you will die a very young man, and who could possibly give a damn."

The final words were no question, really, but spoken flatly as a statement of fact. And once again Lone felt assaulted… and once again, somehow, he found discipline within himself, and exercised it. "I will try, Master of Thieves."

"You do not make it easy, do you."

"I have had no easy life, Lone. My mentor was hanged when I was only a boy, younger than you. I was a cocky little piece of cat shit, but I learned that I must learn, and so I tried, and I learned."

Lone swallowed and, even in pitch darkness, blinked. It had not occurred to him that his idol was capable of such profundity.

"Doubtless you think that was profound," the darkness said, in the shadow-quiet voice of the master thief of Sanctuary.

Lone swallowed and managed to make no reply.

"If you can learn, I know things that you don't and can still do things that you can't."

As I can do things that you no longer can, poor crippled Shadowspawn, Lone mused, but again he strengthened himself to hold silent.

Then it occurred to him that the unseen owner of the ever-challenging voice was also saying nothing, and he steeled himself to pronounce the simple words:

"I can learn, Master."

The man called Chance had not been so elated in a long, long time. But none of that was apparent in his shadow-quiet voice: "You must be tested. To begin with you have not I hope forgot the location of the home of the Spellmaster."

"I remember," Lone said, trying hard not to sound sheepish. What an idiot I was, breaking into that mansion! What a friend such a man as Strick could be!

"Good," the shadows said. "Then we will meet there. Your first test is to reach his door before I do."

After a time Lone realized that although he had heard no sound of movement, he was alone in Angry Alley. With a slight smile, he began walking. Rapidly.

With a fleet and eager horse hitched to the mule-cart and a pass to show any law enforcement types who might stop him, Samoff made very, very good time driving through the night to the home of his master. Simple matter to wait near the end of the alley Chance had specified, say nothing when the black-clad man appeared and climbed aboard, and set off. From time to time as he guided the more than spirited young horse through the night he heard a chuckle from the man seated behind him, and Samoff made a vow to ask Chance—at a more opportune, meaning safer, time—if he had wet his underpants in his gurgling glee.

If the younger cat-burglar wet his pants that momentous night, it was not in glee. He was not short of breath but his legs were afflicted with spikes of ice when he reached the estate of the Spellmaster… and stared, blinking. Strick was right there outside, seated on the front steps of the carefully elevated house, apparently awaiting Lone's arrival. Moreover and far more awesomely, beside him sat a black-clad figure. That one threw up a hand as the other man in black approached on weary legs that he had pushed close to the limit of their endurance. "Lone!" Chance called jubilantly. "Good to see you at last, lad!" "Shit!" Lone muttered. Then, reprovingly as a schoolmaster: "You cheated!" "True! I used my brain instead of my legs!" While Lone ground his teeth, Strick spoke. "Not to mention a horse. Promise never to enter this house

again unless invited, Lone, and we will go in for some refreshment." "I promise," Lone said. "I even… uh… I had something to prove." "Still have," Chance said, rising with the apparent aid of his cane. Lone heaved a sigh and nodded. He had aborted, saying, "I even apologize," because it was hard, so

hard for him to say such words. They went inside, and Lone learned what it was like to have the

wherewithal to have a fast runner fetch ice from the mountains down to Sanctuary. Or, in this case, for a certain old master cat burglar to find a way to relieve Arizak's runner of his burden and make a gift of such rich bounty to a friend…

Ice weakened good ale a bit, but how good to a sweatily exercised man it was with a bit of coolth

added! And then a bit more without the ice, as the three men talked. The woman present talked but little, as was her habit, but she gazed much on the cocky youngster working so hard to control his natural cockiness and truculence. What a fascinating boy! How strangely… akin to him she felt!

Linnana knew already the story of Strick's nonpayment by Lord Arizak, even to the amount. Now she heard Chance lay out his desire to steal into Arizak's less than modest dwelling and relieve him of that exact amount.

"Not a quarter-ounce of copper more," Chance said, one finger upraised, "and not a quarter-ounce less." "Yet," Linnana put in, "there is or should be the matter of interest…" Strick smiled. "I have little doubt that opportunity will one day arise for me to extract that from the great

Arizak." She chuckled. Chance did not. Meeting the eyes of no one, he said, "How I long to do it! But my age and leg make me

unable to undertake that exciting piece of night work…" "Your age and arm, you mean, Master," Lone said, lest Chance think the youth still believed that he was

crippled in the leg, that the walking stick was necessary. "But the work will be done. I need only bethink myself of what I will need, and make a little list…" "You need make no list," Chance assured him. "I know exactly what you need, for in past I completed an

almost identical mission."

"Hmp," the Spellmaster said, without the hint of a smile. "Mission? Not on my behalf. Must have kept the swag to yourself!" His friend also did not smile. "Nah, nah. Gave it all to the poor and the Temple of Him Whose Name We

Do Not Pronounce, I did!"

Strick laughed with him, and continued to keep his peace about what he knew: his friend was indeed spawn of the shadows… or rather of the shadow god, Shalpa, usually referred to namelessly, as Chance just had.

"By four nights hence," Linnana suggested into the laughter, "we will have full dark of the moon, surely the

perfect time for such a wicked venture…" "But too easy," Chance said firmly. "By night after next the moon will be a mere tiny sliver—a fine working night for an excellent roach anxious to prove his talent and ability!"

Lone shrugged and endeavored to look relaxed and, above all, casually confident. Whatever the Shadowspawn said. At last he had achieved his goal, and here he sat, in the company of the man he most respected and admired. Naturally a youth with such a goal considered himself lucky to be in the service of Shadowspawn, no matter how much in his shadow! The only aspiration of the orphan Lone was to be as exactly like his idol as he could make himself— which meant doing things Shadowspawn's way, however dangerous.

"For one thing," Chance said, "you will need an archer." Lone cocked his head. "An archer?" "Someone good with a bow," Strick said, as if it were the meaning of the word that Lone did not grasp.

"And arrows." Without taking his gaze off Chance, Lone said, "Oh." "An archer who can loft an arrow upward, trailing a rope," Chance explained. "That gets you over the

Lord Arizak's wall, and maybe farther, as in higher." "Ah!" Lone bobbed his head, acknowledging something he had not thought of. "I, ah, know a girl who is expert with bow and arrow," Linnana said, and received strange looks from the

men, all thinking: a girl?! Strick said, "Would that be that teen daughter of Churga and Filixia?" She nodded. "Jinsy, aye. She practices every day behind their house, and the girl is good.'" Chance was looking uncomfortable, and wishing he were having this meeting with his apprentice

elsewhere, and just the two of them. "Uh… you sound like you're talking about a neighbor…" "Right," Linnana said, smiling brightly. "And very good friends. Jinsy will be thirteen next month." "Pardon me," Chance said, "but we are not going to use the child-daughter of well-off neighbors to help

break into the keep of the lord of Sanctuary."

"Their financial status has nothing to do with it," Strick said. "They are Ilsigi, and love Lord Arizak no more than you do." "Lone and I thank you," Chance said, "and we will recruit someone from within the Maze…" he broke

off, and a little smile tugged at his lips. "Or maybe in what remains of Downwind relocated to the Hill. Remember: I come from there." Having tried to help and been rejected, Linnana and her almost-husband sat back and looked grim.

"You will want to take rope with you, too," the master said.

"And something to bring out the coins in," Strick suggested.

Two experienced thieves gave him the sort of look he was not accustomed to: disdain. Strick and Linnana offered no more advice or help, and the plan was made. The offer was made and repeated, but the catwalker repeatedly turned down opportunity to spend the night in the manse. Then the man he had apprenticed himself to nodded and made the decision for him.

"We thank you three times, friends, for such kindness. You have two overnight guests: Shadowspawn and Catwalker."

Later, very quietly in a darkened room, Chance furthered the education of his apprentice: "We made them unhappy by accepting no help or advice from them. When people really want to do you a favor, let them if you can. That is doing them a favor. We are making them feel good by staying here tonight."

"Thank you, Master. Ah… Shadowspawn… I need all such advice you can give me."

"Here's another piece, then. Never call me that again."

"Yes sir."

Father Ils save us all, Chance thought, just before he fell asleep, for the ocean may go dry. Me, giving advice!

Two nights later three men in dark clothing stood in the dark area below the wall of the lordly keep of the master of Sanctuary. Two were clad all in black, the third only a shade less somberly. He alone wore headgear, a soft cap of dark gray. The oldest among them had relieved the youngest of his cloak and sword, in the interest of better mobility. With Lone ready to set off on the mission that neither of them considered the least bit dishonest, the trio watched the arrow go up, and up, and a grin of pride rearranged the beard of the ragtag former soldier Chance had recruited. He had proved his mettle. It was a perfect shot or appeared to be: the shaft caught, and here dangled the rope for Lone's use.

And no matter what plans the ocean might or might not have to go dry, Chance proved to have more advice to impart to his newfound apprentice. "If it's possible without overmuch danger," he counseled, "bring out the rope with you. Absolutely bring out the arrow, no matter what. And… Lone."

The younger man was gazing up at the wall, and the place where arrow and rope had disappeared. "Aye."

"Look at me."

Instantly, Lone did.

With the portentousness of master to assistant, Chance said, "You are going to be very proud, and you will want to leave some sign that you have been there. Do not."

Lone nodded. "Aye. May… may I ask why… Master?"

"Once in my weening pride I left proof to the man who then ruled this poor foreigners-saddled city, and after I was out it occurred to me that it was a bad idea to let him know how easily I could break into his palace, and out." "Ah." Lone's dark, dark head was bobbing. "And did ill come of that?" "No, except extra time and labor for me, for I felt obliged to steal back into the palace and remove the

signal I had left of my presence… and then I had to get myself back out again."

Lone smiled, and then chuckled, and apologized for laughing. Then he noted that his mentor was also chuckling… As the young man began to make his way sinuously up the rope, the watching Chance felt a touch at his

sleeve. He turned to face his archer. "The rope's in place and there he goes, yer lordship," the bearded man said. "About my payment?" Chance pressed three coins into the waiting, grime-etched hand. The old soldier raised it to examine the

contents of his palm, then gave his temporary employer a look.

"That is half," Chance told him. "So far the rope has not worked loose or broken. When he tops the wall and we know the rope has held, you will have earned the full amount we agreed on." The archer looked crestfallen. "Aw…" "If you don't think you can trust me, come with me to a place called The Bottomless Well." Acorn-colored eyes shone in the darkness. "Are you buyin', yer lordship?" "We will see," Chance said. "And stop calling me that." He and the fellow, whose name he had given as Kantos, were on their second cup when through the

doorway came a smug-faced young man all in black, in quest of his cloak and sword. Reaching the table, he produced Kantos's arrow and, with a flourish, handed it to him. Lone was reaching into his tunic as he removed his sword and cloak from a third chair and seated his smiling self with his mentor and the hired help.

"Done," he announced. Chance shoved his mug over in front of his apprentice, who bobbed his head in gratitude. "Well done!" Chance said, and immediately diverted his attention from the pridesome youth. "Kantos, the

other half of your payment for a job well done," he said, and pressed the coppers into Kantos's ready

hand. "As a bonus, I am paying for your beer. Do have a good night." Kantos was smart enough to recognize dismissal. "Thankin' ye both," he smiled, touching his forelock as he rose, and he all but louted out.

When he was gone Lone withdrew from within his tunic a soft cloth sack that he had partially burdened with earth before he went up the wall. The purpose of that strangeness was to absorb the sound of clinking coins while he took his leave. With great pride and smugness he set it on the table before Chance. They both heard a muted clink.

Chance directed his dark gaze into the dark eyes across the table from him. "The exact amount?" Lone nodded. "The exact amount."

"Strick is going to crow! And what did you take for yourself, Catwalker?"

"Well done. Did you have any trouble?"

Lone compressed his lips and flared his nostrils with a sigh. "I did. I was on my way out when a servant appeared out of nowhere. Nothing I did had attracted him. He just happened along and there was nothing I could do about it. He saw me, but I had the scarf across my face. His mouth went wider'n his eyes, and I hit him, hard. He fell down and just stayed there. On his back with his eyes closed. I got out of there as fast as I could. He could never recognize me."

Chance sighed and looked unhappy. It was the way of masters.

Part of the problem had nothing to do with the fact that Lord A. now knew that someone had breached his keep. As disturbing to the man who so despised sorcery was the fact that this afternoon an unduly nervous Linnana had told him that she'd had an unfamiliar experience: for the first time in her life, she had Seen, in the way of the S'danzo. What she Saw had to do with Lone's entry into Arizak's keep: a man lying on the floor on his back, with his eyes closed.

The successful apprentice thief sat erect in his new less-than-finery, so filled with pride that he had been complimented—but not much!—by his idol. He had rejected Strick's insistence that he accept the coins he had liberated, until he caught the sharp look directed at him by his chosen mentor and master. He accepted the spell-master's "too kind" offer as he said, head bowed, with great gratitude… that Chance later told him was overdone.

Lone had also agreed and acceded to Chance's wise suggestion that during his "off-duty hours," he wear much less somber clothing and perhaps even fewer weapons. Lone had even been gracious enough in accepting Linnana's offer to help him find a more colorful tunic and leggings. Now he sat comfortably in a medium-blue tunic over dark yellow or "old gold" leggings and soft tan boots with heels. The four of them once again sat together, at Strick's. This time they were out back, in a yard full of flowers and ornamental shrubs that the Spellmaster had caused to be surrounded by a strange fence made of vertical slats with spaces between.

Strick had told them of his contacting the ancient mage whose apprentice he had determined was responsible for the many mis-sent spells in Sanctuary of late, and they had met. At first Strick's only report was a terse, "He and I are not going to be friends."

Chance and Linnana prevailed upon him to tell the story of their meeting, however brief. The Spellmaster's reaction to the reaction of Kusharlonikas to the news, and his attitude, was, all but grinding his teeth, to call himself "appalled." The sorcerer not only refused all responsibility for both his spells and those of his less-than-competent apprentice, but was positively obscene in his dismissal of the woman who had lost her sole companion—the cat—and the couple who had been forced to the expense of replacing their tent.

Chance did have to like Strick's characterization of Kusharlonikas as "that pompously overblown droplet of ant excrement!"

Now he who had been Shadowspawn had told the blue-tunicked youngster that he "seemed" ready for the real job; a deed of true importance. This news was more than welcome to Lone, who was immediately all attention.

"When the Dyareelans desecrated the main temple of Father Ils," Chance said, quietly in the pre-insect twilight, "they committed the heresy of stealing the Sacred Left Sandal of the Father. I have been all but begged to learn its whereabouts, and retrieve it." He made an unhappy face. "In times past, I needed help for the first task only. Now, I must have others perform both."

The master thief shot him a look. "Don't overdo it, Catwalker."

But then he saw that the lad who called himself an Ilsigi in emulation of Shadowspawn was sincere or at least mostly, and Chance was almost embarrassed. Lone either did not notice that or affected not to. He was, after all, a boy—however bad a boy. "Do we

yet know where the Sandal is?" Chance was nodding as he said, "Strick has just located it." Lone looked pleased. "Ah!" He looked expectantly at Strick. After a moment, when no one had spoken,

Lone prompted, "Well?"

Quietly Strick told him: "The Dyareeling destroyed it. But! A precise copy of it has been fabricated, imbued with its essence, and coated with a SeeNot Spell." Lone looked dubious. "Will a copy do?" "The priest says so," Chance told him. "Ah! Then where—?" "It's in the keep of the mage Kusharlonikas," Strick said, and was interrupted by the youth. "Sorcery! Shit!" "Lone, damn it," Chance snapped, "are you going to blither, or let us tell you what you have to know?" Lone put on a chastised look. "Apologies, Strick. Please tell me all of it." Strick nodded amiably, something he did well. "It's in the spell room of that dot of ant excrement. His

Chamber of Reflection and Divination, the pompous scum calls it." Lone managed to curb a blurt, but rolled his eyes. So cute, Lin-nana thought… "The spell disguises it," Strick went on. "I believe that what I Saw around the Sandal is a large,

two-handled flagon. On his divination table." This time Lone was unable to hold back an entirely natural reaction to such unwelcome news: "Shit!" With the piece of special beef folded in an enormous leaf to contain its greasiness, Lone was just about to

depart on the biggest night of his life when Strick appeared. The bulky man was winded from hurrying

from his home to Chance's apartment, where Lone had reported a couple of hours ago. "Something strange just happened," the man in the long-skirted tunic said, panting a little. "Until she Saw a man on the floor on his back with his eyes closed during your Arizak adventure, Linnana had never

showed any evidence of having that peculiarly S'danzo ability—which is certainly not granted to all her people. Now she and I have both had a vision of you and your destination this night."

"Nothing so final, but something very unpleasant, I think. Ku-sharlonikas has laid a spell on more than one item in his innermost chamber. We were unable to See specifics because of wards on the room, but two menaces to an intruder are there. They are disguised with a SeeNot and a binding spell. I think the scum has trapped a pair of demons as guardians of his divining chamber."

"Demons'." Lone blurted his reaction because he was unable to disguise the fact that he was shaken by such news.

"So I think, I said. Now stand still, close your eyes, and try to think of nothing while I make some silly noises."

Lone was right willing to go along. The "silly noises" the Spell-master referred to apparently comprised a spell, and Lone certainly hoped that it was effectual. He thought he recognized some of the sounds as words, but he could never be certain. If the oral spelling was accompanied by gestures, he saw none, for he kept his eyes closed as bidden.

"Good," Strick said. "Let's hope for the best. Naturally I place a lot of faith in spells, but nothing is certain when I'm not sure what I'm trying to combat. Here, Lone, wear this."

With his own hands the Spellmaster slipped the shortish thong over Lone's dark, dark head and let the medallion flop onto the black-clad chest. Lone peered downward. He was not able to make out any details of what he was wearing, and was unwilling to touch the thing. It appeared to be ceramic, rather than metal.

"Uh… Spellmaster… this thing swinging and sliding around on my chest is going to be a distraction and maybe worse…"

Strick nodded. "Good point. I've got to find a way to secure some kind of locking pins to the back of such a ward-medal, for you active types. Here, be still a moment."

Lone was not a person who took kindly to being touched, but he curbed the movement of his hands while the white-haired man slid the ward-medallion down into his tunic.

Strick stepped back. "I can't think of anything else to try, other than to tell you what you must already know: Breaking into the keep of a master mage is a bad idea, and I advise you not to do it."

"Thanks, Spellmaster. And you already know that I am going."

And so he went, ghosting through a nighted city in his jet clothing under a pallid crescent of a moon just on the point of being swallowed by the demons of the night sky. He was all unaware that his mentor was already at the scene, to observe whatever of his apprentice's actions he could.

Not a lot, as it turned out, and that did not displease the spawn of the shadows. First Lone went close to the fence that surrounded the sorcerer's sizable estate, flapped his arms to attract the dog, and threw the drugged meat over the wall. Then he faded into the shadows. Tempted by the aroma of beef, the big dark red animal redirected his attentions to the good-sized morsel. He was peacefully snoozing in less than a minute, and Chance smiled without showing his teeth. Strick did know his potions!

What the youth did with cloak and sword Chance did not see, but he watched him take the fence as if it were mere inches high, go up an outbuilding wall with seeming ease, and onto the roof of that building. Chance saw him make the leap from there onto the roof of the large keep—home of the man that Chance, thanks to Strick, could not help but think of as "ant excrement." He neither saw nor heard—good!—the landing of the buskin-shod lad, and saw nothing further except the distinctly handsome and nonmenacing structure. After a while he realized that Lone must have unwound his rope to go in through a window not visible to his mentor.

He swung to the door, opened it, slithered into the smallish and completely windowless room beyond, and closed the door all in one fluid motion that took but a moment. How very kind of Kushar-lonikas to keep a little oil lamp burning here, in his keep of keeps! Odd, that it rested on a side table while at either end of the long green-draped one that dominated the centenarian mage's Chamber of Reflection and Divination rested an ornate brass lamp in the shape of a preposterously hideous gargoyle. Each was about the size of a lap-dog, and partially supported by its thickish tail. Neither was lit.

Glad they're not the real thing, Lone mused, staring in curiosity at the third object on the divination table: a large, two-handled flagon of an unrecognizable greenish metal that appeared to be of little value. He moved silently round one end of the table so that he faced the door. It was time to open the small vial that Strick had given him.

The youthful man called Catwalker opened his pouch, removed the vial of medium green glass, and uncorked it. According to in-structions, he slung its contents into the air above the table and backed away, holding his breath. The dark powder proved very nearly lighter than air. A few grains floated down onto the flagon, and onto each of the gargoyle lamps. Almost in a moment Lone was gazing at what looked like an ancient sandal of rust-hued leather— and two gargoyles were looking at Lone from eyes large as those of calves. Every hair on his scalp and nape tingled as it rose. As if they had practiced, the twin horrors snarled in unison.

The intruder into the domain that they had been set to guard had his long Ilbarsi knife out in less than two seconds. At the same time, he backed another couple of steps from the table. It occurred to him to draw the medallion out of his tunic and let it lie on his chest. Maybe sight of it would affright these trapped demons back into being lamps again? He'd be happy to light them…

No, and furthermore with a slight rustling as in unison they scuttled to the edge of the table, they launched themselves at him. Simultaneously, one from his left and the other from the opposite direction, and all he saw was huge inimical eyes, and fangs—lots and lots of sharp teeth. For wingless monstrosities, they certainly flew well enough! Lone squatted low, did some crablike scuttling of his own to the side, and was on his feet again quick as breath. Already he was swinging the long almost-sword at the pair of brainless monsters that hurtled past his former location and crashed into the wall.

Speed and skill abetted by plain good luck enabled him to cut one of the hell-sent things completely in two—bloodlessly. That was when he heard the door open behind him. He did not turn to greet the new menace for the simple reason that the intact demon was hurtling up at him from the floor. Lone moved so fast that the ward-medallion swung—and a claw tore through its thong as the demon hurtled past. Disgruntled was a mild term for what the apprentice cat burglar felt when he heard the ceramic medallion shatter on the floor. Instantly and simultaneously someone behind Lone snapped out a "Shit," and the two halves of the slain gargoyle fused. So. Strick's medallion had been more effective than its wearer had anticipated, and now he was totally unprotected, with three foes intent that he never leave this place on his feet!

So the one that missed me attacked whoever came in—or at least struck him in its flight! Lone thought, desperately kicking at the reincarnated gargoyle number one again, and now he is putting a curse on me, or worse'. And then he spun and his right arm snapped forward to send a flat leaf-shaped blade in the direction of the voice. When it swerved away from the homely, very young man in the icky green robe, Lone shuddered at knowledge that he was in the presence of a sorcerous enemy with a better protective spell than his. Kusharlonikas's apprentice, surely. And his fellow apprentice hardly appeared incompetent, up close!

Kusharlonikas's apprentice slung gargoyle number two at Sha-dowspawn's apprentice and began gesturing and muttering. This time Lone successfully skewered the thing—which slid right along his blade and clawed his hand.

He made a sound of pain just as Komodoflorensal finished casting his spell and added his personal word of power: "Iffets!"

Immediately the tan sandal became a green flagon and the monsters from hell became handsomely wrought but hideous oil lamps, and Komodoflorensal was staring across the divining table at a thoroughly angry young man all in black.

One of the apprentices present said, "Shit!" and the other said, "You'd better start running, Komo-duh-whatever!"

The high priest of the pitifully diminished temple of Ils Father of All was unsparing in heaping praise and blessings on the two who surreptitiously brought him the long-missing Sacred Left Sandal of the Father. And yes, he acceded to the wish of the master and his apprentice that he tell no one whence came the great gift.

The two well-dressed men were on their way to meet Strick when somewhere a savagely punished young man in a green robe said, "Iffets!"

The shattered shards of ceramic on the floor of the Chamber of Reflection and Divination of Kusharlonikas the mage did not reassemble into a circle, but a shadow passed between Sanctuary and the sun.

"Shit," Komodoflorensal muttered.

"Damn," Lone muttered. "How convenient! Darkness at noon!" And he abandoned his mentor to head for the alley beside the nearest well-to-do apartment building…