Turning Points (11 page)

“Absolutely! D’you think I would say such a thing to you?”

“That blag-dagged
bas
tard!” 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.”

“I doubt it. And just ‘master’ will do, if you intend to apprentice yourself to Shadowspawn and succeed him.”

“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.

“Lightweight, thin, and tough. Test it yourself at your weight,
plus
. For me it was best to wind it around myself.”

“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.