Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune (37 page)

Crossing the main floor, Little Minx nodded as a barrel-maker tried to flag her down to order the same rot-gut ale he always ordered these days. She dodged out of the way of another groper along the back aisle and pulled a meat pie of dubious provenance from the cook’s counter, delivering it to the third table on the right, where a group of dark-haired men stopped talking the moment she arrived.

Dropping the meat pie, she retreated, hearing the conversation kick in again in sharp whispers behind her. She orbited out of the range of a ham-handed swat at her backside and pointed to a bleary red-haired drinker two tables up who had clearly had enough. She announced his bar tab, padding it for a tip, and left him to sort through his change as she wound her way back to the bar. She stepped neatly out of the way of Big Minx, who was herself loaded with a heavy tray for the Ilsig party in the back room.

A firm hand grabbed a good section of her posterior, squeezing a full cheek. She wheeled, smacking the offending paw away, the worn smile on her face turning suddenly feral. She let out a string of curses sufficient to blister the tattered wallpaper and spun back out into the main aisle, heading for the bar, still snarling a blue streak.

Two steps later the floor opened up beneath her feet in a wide hole, perfectly circular. The pit within glowed with the light of burning embers, and smoke billowed upward in an acrid puff. Everyone in the Vulgar Unicorn who could look up did.

Little Minx had enough time to hurl one more epithet, then plunged straight into hell.

I
’m in hell,
thought Heliz Yunz.

The Linguist of Lirt blinked and tried to force himself awake as the merchant continued to elaborate on the wide variety of stock that had been broken, lost, or obviously stolen from his most recent caravan. Heliz bridled against the fact that he should be researching but instead was parked in the marketplace writing letters for padpols and the cost of paper. Across the way, a street conjurer cadged for loose change by presenting wilted flowers out of thin air and appearing to drive nails through her hands—simple tricks that would fool no child over five. Yet the street conjurer was doing better business than Heliz.

Indeed, Heliz looked like an object of pity as opposed to commerce. His hair was a black bowl-cut tilted at a slight but noticeable angle, the result of self-inflicted barbering. His faded and patched robe was now even more faded and patched than it had been when he had arrived at this godsforsaken town, and of the thirty silver buttons that once closed it, not a single one remained—all had been replaced with wooden disks.

In truth, Heliz had a newer robe, no fancier than the one he wore but of similar cut and more contiguous material, given to him by the youth called Lone as payment, but felt that the merchants he had to deal with deserved no better than pure poverty-stricken Heliz Yunz. They prattled their petty concerns into the ears of a man who was no mere scribe, but a true researcher, a man who sought out the words of power that created the universe itself, and had mastered a few such words along the way: A verb that softened the earth for plowing. An adjective that created a small flame. A turn of phrase that would ease a lamb’s birth.

And a particular noun that was very, very powerful indeed. No, these merchants and mendicants had no idea of the true power of such words.

This particular merchant, a weasel-faced Rankan, was no better or worse than the rest of Heliz’s clients. Just from the cadence of his voice Heliz could tell what claims were valid and which were false. There was a catch in his throat just before declaring some crate of his had gone missing, a slight vagueness in the description of the damage to a particular piece of statuary. Heliz had no doubt the missing crate was resting comfortably in the merchant’s back room, and from the way the merchant circumspectly described it, the damaged statue itself was of an extremely erotic nature.

Through it all, Heliz felt the heavy lump of bronze in his breast pocket of his worn and over-patched robe. He would rather turn his attention to the tablet than to Weasel-face, but the current path of his life led in this less-appetizing direction.

A shadow appeared at the corner of his eye, a shadow both large and dull. Heliz didn’t need to know who it was and had no desire to show that he recognized it. Instead he narrowed his eyes and tried to look like he was listening more intently to the Rankan merchant. Perhaps the bulky shadow would take the hint.

The shadow did not, but Weasel-face, suddenly aware he had an audience, did. The Rankan stopped, stumbled over a word or two, and finished up his dictation with a crusty demand for reimbursement from the letter’s recipient that Heliz had no doubt would be ignored. A few coins ransomed the official-looking letter from the Heliz’s hands, and the merchant was gone.

The linguist-turned-scribe sighed deeply, gathering his strength. The monotonous drone of the merchant had left him more tired and petty than normal. He tried to remember a time when he didn’t feel so, but he came up empty.

He looked at the looming shadow and tried to conjure a suitably nasty greeting. Nothing came to mind, so he settled on, “What are you doing here, besides chasing away my clientele?”

Lumm the staver cleared his throat and said, “It looked like he was wrapping up. I didn’t want to intrude.”

Heliz managed another hopefully obvious sigh. “He was wrapping up because the weight of your shadow was enough to drive him away. It’s hard to prevaricate effectively when a barrel-maker’s shade is resting athwart one’s shoulder blades.”

Lumm didn’t respond. Heliz wondered what words the big man was having trouble with.

The linguist took advantage of the silence to press on. He shook his head. “Bad enough I have to sit here in the marketplace, in the blistering sun like some relic of a bygone age, writing letters for any fool that passes by because I have to get you a new house.”

“A new business,” said Lumm quietly. “You destroyed the old one. I mean, it was destroyed because you were there.”

“A new house that
includes
space for a business,” snapped Heliz. “One that has a hearth large enough for small iron-smithing, a source of water for shaping the staves, an anvil, of course, and all manner of space for storage of staves, hoops, and finished barrels. No, it’s not bad enough that I beach myself on this barren expanse to pay off a debt of my life (not that I forget such things, I want you to know), but now you come into what can laughingly be called my place of business and scare away my patrons, patrons I need to pay for the new house with the et cetera and so forth. So forgive my effrontery when I ask, what are you doing here?”

The side of the large man’s mouth twitched, and Heliz knew the cooper was trying to phrase a response in a manner that would prevent, or at least minimize another tirade. For a brief moment, a moment shorter than the orgasm of a moth, he felt sympathy for Lumm. To be saddled with a set of slow thought processes and trapped in a ponderous form would be more than Heliz could bear. That was another breed of hell entirely.

But the moment, like the moth, came and went Heliz scowled at the barrel-maker.

“There’s a problem,” said the cooper at last.

Heliz grunted. “Linking verb, missing the proper pronoun. Not ‘I have a problem,’ nor ‘You have a problem,’ nor even ‘We have a problem.’ Merely a recognition that a problem exists. You’re next going to tell me what the problem is and why it is going to become
my
problem.”

“I was at the Vulgar Unicorn last night,” said Lumm.

“And you didn’t come home before I left this morning,” noted the linguist. “Not that I am your mother. I thought you could not get blotto on rot-gut ale and cabinet wine, but I am no barfly and have been wrong on such matters before.”

“I was consoling …” The cooper’s words failed him, and he reddened. Then he shook his head and said, “Let me start at the beginning.”

Start he did, laying out in plodding detail his evening af ter their late supper (hard cheese and bread eaten in their current quarters: an upper-room flat with a communal well in the atrium, a communal privy, too). A short walking tour to collect debts and seek orders, then an evening at the ’Unicorn, watching the lowlifes in their natural habitat. Heliz noted that Lumm apparently spent a lot of time watching two of the staff, the Minxes (Big and Little), because their actions wove through the commentary regularly, right up to the point where the floor opened up beneath the smaller, fox-faced one and plunged her into hell.

“And then what?” said the linguist.

“And then everyone left,” said Lumm. “I mean mostly everyone. Some of the staff stayed, and me, and few of the curious. But most cut and ran. You don’t smell brimstone and hang about. Some left quickly, and some left slowly, but most just left and haven’t come back. There were attempts to pound on the floor looking for a hollow spot. There are tunnels everywhere else, it seems, but where Little Minx disappeared, the floorboards rest on solider-than-solid rock. And some of the staff was afraid, and I spent the night …” His face reddened again.

“Consoling,” finished Heliz. Lumm nodded, and a moment of silence passed between the two. Finally the linguist said, “So?”

“So, what?” said the cooper.

“Exactly,” said Heliz. “So what? Why does this pyrotechnic disappearance have anything to do with me and my life, penurious as it seems?”

“Well, people are saying it’s very strange.”

Heliz snorted. “Strange? This rattletrap of a town occupies the corner of Odd and Weird. I don’t doubt that it already has half a foot in four separate dimensions, so a mere flaming chasm opening shouldn’t surprise anyone.”

Lumm regrouped, “Well, there’s an idea that it was because of a curse.”

“Curses are three-a-padpol here,” said Heliz, his mind wandering. He felt the weight of the bronze tablet again over his heart, the tablet set with lines of five languages, two of which he had never seen before, all threatening dire curses on the one who violated the tablet’s sanctity. He could take a rubbing of the tablet, of course, but it seemed a pity to have to give it back to the young man who asked for the translation.

“No,” said Lumm. “It was because of her curse. I mean, her cursing. She was cursing like the devil’s dam right before, and suddenly the- ground opens up beneath her.”

Heliz looked hard at the cooper. “And you think it’s because of her cursing that she disappeared?”

“Not me,” said the big man. “But others are talking, and when they talked, the idea sort of evolved, if there are powerful words …”

“And there are,” said Heliz.

“Then there’s a chance that someone might stumble onto them, and … you know, work a spell.”

Heliz looked out across the marketplace, then took a deep breath. “That,” he said, “is the
stupidest
thing I have ever heard.”

“Hold on,” said Lumm. “You work with words. I mean, those type of words. You know what I mean. And I’ve seen what you do with them.”

“Do you think that’s it?” said Heliz. “That if you utter a few choice phrases, suddenly you’re a magician? The words of power, the words the gods used to build the world, are slippery things. The human mind isn’t made for them. Indeed, you can look right at one without seeing it, you can hear it spoken and not remember it a moment later, because your mind doesn’t want to recognize it. Words of power aren’t something that a cursing doxie would suddenly stumble upon in mid-tirade. And even if she did, without recognizing what they were, without some base understanding, she couldn’t work an effect that large. That is stupid beyond belief. Even for the crowd at the ’Unicorn.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Lumm, “I didn’t say anything at the time, because I could be wrong, but that’s what I thought. What you just said.”

“Were that true, a combination of common words, the most common words usually uttered in this town, would cause such damage,” continued Heliz, shaking his head, “that the entire Maze would be filled with fiery chasms, and every bar and tavern from here to the docks would be in flames. Who would be dull enough to put forward such an idea?”

“There was this Irrune warrior that told me,” said Lumm. “Ravadar, his name was.”

“I wonder who told
him,”
muttered Heliz. The linguist shook his head and took a deep breath. “No. No. You have an odd occurrence. You have a bizarre theory that I have now thoroughly debunked. Why is this still my problem?”

Lumm was quiet for a moment, such that to someone other than Heliz, he would look deep in thought. At last he said, “I thought you would be curious.”

“Curious, yes!” said Heliz, now packing up his pens, stylus, inks, and tablet. There would be no more writing this day. “Curious enough to get involved, no! The curious do not survive here, in case you haven’t noticed!”

“And I thought you’d be able to help,” said Lumm, “because you always seem to be asking the questions that no one else thinks of.”

“Flattery is not your strong suit,” said Heliz. “And you ended that bit of praise with a preposition. But your words ring true. However, regardless of my abilities in the matter, why is this your problem? And by this I mean to ask, why is it
my
problem?”

Lumm was quiet for a moment, and Heliz knew that now the cooper would speak the truth. “There is talk that this particular curse is one that only worked in a specific place. In the tap room of the Vulgar Unicorn.”

“And?” pried the linguist.

“Well, people are now a little wary of cursing in the ’Unicorn. You know, in case it happens again.”

“And … ?”

“No one likes to go to a bar and not be able to curse,” said Lumm.

“And once more: Why is this … ?”

“It’s
my
problem,” said Lumm, “because people are staying away from the ’Unicorn now. And if people stay away, they don’t spend money.”

Heliz’s eyes lit up. After the long night, understanding finally dawned like the morning thunder. “And they owe you money,” he said, simply.

Lumm the staver nodded. “They need barrels, and it’s good steady work until we have a place of our own.”