The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 (79 page)

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

"Always a pleasure," Amoli said.

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

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

"You try yelling or reaching for anything untoward and I throw," he told her quietly. "I know who told Tarkle what to do to get rid of me. I

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know who pays Tarkle. I know what you and Marype are up to. I know you told him I'd been there that night, almost the moment I left here. Also, I just heard you two. Amoli, open that chest.'*

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

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

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

"Oh!"

Notable replied with a long r-sound.

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"Easy, Notable, she's too smart to try anything stupid with two of us armed with all these sharp things." He showed Amoli a clear-eyed gaze.

"You remember I told you about my attack-trained watch cat? Did you think I was joking?"

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

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

She was shaking and her eyes continued wide and glassy as her ear rings. "I'll give you—"

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

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

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

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

"He made me, Hanse. I didn't—"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A few pounds. Three or four."

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

"Oh, Hanse, my pearls ... oh, I'm so sorry . . ." She began to sob.
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"Well, I could let you keep the pearls, but they'd probably just take

*em away from you."

"Wh—who?"

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

*em."

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

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

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

"I am so grateful you decided to be smart, Amoli," he reminded her.

"I am not fond of killing, but when I throw a sticker at someone, I
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usually aim at the brightest part. You know, the eye."

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

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

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

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

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

"A hun—" She clamped her lips.

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

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

Amoli twisted half around on her backless chair and spoke to the door.

"I do not want to be disturbed," she snapped. "See that you tell everyone else that. Everyone, Vissy."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Using the back stairs he knew Amoli reserved for the use of herself and special clients only, he descended to street level and below, and in short order was moving once again through the dark tunnel that connected

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Amoli's house with Marype's home—that is, the house that had belonged to Lastel.

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

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

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

perhaps the mage left the way clear for Amoli and maybe Tarkle, but something actuated defenses against someone leaving. Unless Marype somehow temporarily suspended it.