Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune (6 page)

The embrace ended in an instant. The Raivay held Dysan at arm’s length, as if to read his intentions from the expression on his face. Not for the first time, her eyes seemed to bore through flesh to his very soul. “What?”

“You have to do the translation.” This time, Dysan managed to sound self-assured and doggedly certain.

“Why?”

She did not immediately deny him, which Dysan took to mean he might still convince her. “Because we have to know what this man plans to do with it. We have to know if the Hand still exists; and, if so, where.”

SaVell nodded awkwardly. Dysan could not read her mood, he rarely could; but he sensed clear reluctance. “Then, I’ll translate incompletely. Get an ingredient or two deliberately wrong.”

“No!” The word was startled from him. Sweat trickled suddenly down Dysan’s back, and a flash of heat prickled through him, followed instantly by ice. He forced his eyes wide open, focused wholly on the single shelf fastened to the wall that held the few books not already on the table. To close his eyes or look at SaVell would bring images of his mothers assaulted by hordes of foul-smelling tattooed men, raped on the altars and dismembered in the name of Dyareela, their screams lost amid the savage cheers, their blood staining the altar. “Please. They will know. Do not cross them.” His next words emerged in a pant as he strained against memories he dared not relive one more time. “They … will … come … here …”

“Sabellia will protect us.”

Dysan wanted to shake her. He wished he could open up his memories to her of innocent priests and priestesses dragged from their prayers by masses of torture-crazed and vicious children who knew only violence, to watch grotesquely tattooed men and women fornicate and defecate upon their altars in Dyareela’s name. Those holy men and women died in an excruciating, slow agony, their wits and bodies drained at the same time, their begging and crying only spurring the cultists. Instead, Dysan pointed toward the single window. “Don’t you see what remains of the Promise of Heaven? Crumbling, defiled ruins, all of them.” He guarded his tongue. “I love Sabellia for all she has brought me, but her temple was not spared.”

SaVell sighed deeply. “Dysan, I’ve seen the scars.” He believed she referred to the marks his single beating had stamped permanently upon his back and shoulders. “Gods only know what you went through or why, but surely there are better ways to root out whatever remains of that hideous, disgusting cult.”

The old wounds on Dysan’s flesh were nothing compared to the ones burnt deep into his psyche. He had never been normal, could never be so, but the Bloody Hand had seen to it that he never forgot his anomalies and weaknesses every moment of every day, and even into sleep. “Write down the translation as I tell it,” he begged. “Or I will.” It was an idle threat he had little hope of fulfilling.

“And if I do,” SaVell said, still staring at him with grim, yellow eyes. “Who will see to it that the ritual written here is not consummated?”

Dysan hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. “Leave that part to me.”

H
unkered on the floorboards in the upstairs study, Dysan watched their young male client pace through a knothole in the planking. From his angle, he could not assess height, though it did not seem extraordinary. In fact, nothing about this man seemed remarkable, and that bothered Dysan. He forced himself to take careful note of every detail, using verbal descriptions so they might stick in his memory. It was a trick his Dyareelan handlers had taught him. He could not recall the specifics of objects he saw unless he dissected them down to words. That worked exceedingly well, but he had to choose those particulars carefully. Otherwise, he found himself constantly mumbling, talking his way through everything.

The other had hair as dark as Dysan’s own, though not nearly as thick and much sleeker, pulled back into a horse-tail. He wore a tunic and leggings so deep in their blue they might just as well have been black. As if to deliberately offset them, a brilliant cerulean sash encircled his lean frame, and the band that held back his hair matched it perfectly. He wore a sword at his hip and at least one dagger. His walk seemed almost mincing, as though he was concentrating on hiding a natural cocky swagger that eluded his efforts at intervals. Nevertheless, his booted feet made no sound on the floorboards. The awkwardness could not hide a natural, or very well-trained, dexterity. He moved like a cat.

Missing things struck Dysan most. The man’s arms bore scars and his palms looked callused, but he did not sport a single tattoo. Despite those work-hardened hands, he dressed well, almost flashily, in garb Dysan could never hope to afford. Only a few years older than Dysan, he would have been a child no older than nine at the time of the Dyareelan purge. If Dysan looked upon a member of the Bloody Hand, he was a recent recruit, a fact that made Dysan more, not less, uneasy.

The door below swung open, and SaVell stepped inside with the stranger, her face a mask of displeasure. Beside him, her ivory features looked pallid, her gray hair colorless. Only then, Dysan noticed the swarthiness of the man’s skin, his thick brows, and well-shaped features. Everything Dysan noted, he transformed into words in his mind He would not allow himself to forget this man.

“I’ve brought your translation,” the Raivay said.

The man barely nodded, though, when he spoke, he sounded gracious. “I’ve brought your payment.”

“Keep it,” SaVell said, her voice a warning growl. “I want only two things from you.” She held the papers in a firm grip.

The young man’s eyes went from the paper to her face.

“A name.
Your
name. And a promise that you will not use our work for evil.”

The man’s lips set into a grim line. Dysan wondered if he struggled for the first request or the second. In Sanctuary, a man’s past and intentions belonged to no one but himself. “I would not use what you have given me in good faith to harm the decent folk of Sanctuary.”

It was a promise full of holes. SaVell had some small magics, but Dysan doubted she could compel the man to keep his word. Dysan held his breath.

SaVell waited, still holding the paper.

“And I am called Lone.”

The name brought the last scattered pieces into place. Dysan had seen this man before, in some of the same dark corners he also preferred. He had learned that the youngster, also known as Catwalker, was a thief of great competence and growing renown. Dysan also heard things he should not, things whispered in places honest folk would never dare to go, things that simply knowing could get a man killed. Lone was, some said, the reincarnation of the infamous Shadowspawn. Sources Dysan trusted more claimed he simply apprenticed to what remained of that notorious burglar, a crippled old man long past his second-storey days.

In either case, if men who knew the inner workings of every rat-hole and palace of Sanctuary masterminded the revival of the Dyareelans, all seemed already lost.
What have I done?
Abruptly Dysan desperately regretted talking his oldest mother into handing over the means to the city’s destruction. He had fallen prey to his own pride, believing he could single-handedly stop the resurgence of a maliciously immoral cult that had warped and slaughtered men, women, and children in droves. It had taken the combined might of so many magicians and warriors to unseat them. He wondered what madness had made him think he could deal with this problem alone.

Yet, now committed, Dysan did not hesitate. He hurried down the ladder as the papers changed hands and rushed to follow the young thief into the city. He opened the door a fraction of an instant after Lone exited. As swiftly as Dysan had moved, as prepared as he believed himself, he found the Promise of Heaven empty.

Muttering epithets his mothers would never believe he knew, Dysan headed back inside to grab some breakfast before putting his plan in motion.

D
ysan made his way through the Shambles, down Wriggle Way, to the gate of the shop yard of Bezul. This late in the day, any goose the Changer might have forgotten to pen should already have made its presence known. Nevertheless, Dysan tripped the latch with caution, listening for a faint rustle, the light snap of a twig, the coarse honk of an irritable goose. Barely reassured by the silence, he shoved the gate open and stepped into the yard. When nothing feathered charged him, he breathed a sigh of relief and made his way to the shop with quiet and practiced stealth.

Dysan found Bezul alone in the shop that also served as his home, humming while he shifted objects from one dusty shelf to another. As always, the room contained a wide assortment of necessities, strange objects, and sundry bric-a-brac that changed every time Dysan entered. Not wishing to fill his mind with a clutter of details he would have to reduce to words, he did not bother to look around any further than it took to assure that nothing could imminently harm him. Instead, he fixed his attention directly upon the proprietor.

Bezul ceased humming at the sight of Dysan and turned him a welcoming grin from beneath a mop of sandy hair nearly as wild as Dysan’s own. He seemed particularly happy, apparently a good day for trading. Dysan was just pleased no other patrons competed for the Changer’s attention; and that his two massive temporaries, Jopze and Ammen were not with him. Dysan liked Bezul’s wife, Chersey, but making small talk with more than one person at once taxed his limited abilities. He avoided those situations as often as possible, though he knew that, in itself, seemed rude.

As usual, Bezul spoke first. “Good day, Dysan. What can I do for you?”

Dysan breathed a faint sigh of relief, glad the Changer had obviated the need for chitchat. “I … was just wondering.” He found the words harder to speak than he expected and wished he had rehearsed them.

Bezul dipped his head, encouraging.

Worried someone else might come into the shop, Dysan forced himself to continue. “That man I saw in here, a while ago. Pel, you called him.”

“Pel Garwood. The healer. Yes.”

“Yes,” Dysan repeated, shifting from foot to foot. He let his gaze wander over a shelf of neatly stacked crockery. “You do sell him his … flasks and vials and such.” He dodged Bezul’s gaze. “Don’t you, Bez?” He cursed himself for further shortening the man’s name. That only encouraged the Changer to do the same to his, and he hated when anyone called him Dys. It reminded him that his name started with the same syllable as the Bloody Mother, Dyareela. He added lamely and too belatedly, “ … ul, cleared his throat, and put it all together.”Bezul.”

Bezul regarded his single patron more intently, squinting, the grin growing slightly. Dysan trusted no one fully, but he relied on Bezul more than anyone else in Sanctuary. He had no way of knowing whether or not the Changer had ever cheated him, but he always managed to buy the things he needed here. When he laid a handful of coins on Bezul’s counter in payment, the Changer rarely claimed all of it. “It would seem so, yes. When I have it, I sell or trade him what he needs.”

Dysan could not imagine Bezul ever not having anything. No matter what he wanted, he found it here amid the clutter of junk and finery, even the time he sought snakes, rats, and mice. “If I were buying a cure from him today, what would he put it in, do you think?”

For an instant, the Changer’s dark eyes showed a spark of curiosity, but he did not ask Dysan’s purpose. He never did. Instead, he turned, walked to the opposite side of the room, and perused his inventory. He tapped a finger over generous lips. “A large or small amount of … cure?”

The recipe had demanded a single dose of “a treatment for buttocks boils distilled from tamarask bark.” It was the only difficult item in the brew, so poorly described that it would take an expert with potions to create it. The other objects, such as salt and red dust, a vat of soured wine, a specified number of rat hairs, the blood of an orphan and a virgin, could come from almost anywhere. “A small amount.”

Bezul rummaged through crockery. “So long as there isn’t anything that reacts with clay, he would use …” His head disappeared among the wares, his toned, round-cheeked bottom swaying as he shifted through the mess for the right piece. He pulled it out and turned simultaneously. “ … this.” He held up a well-cast bottle. “And he’d wrap it in this.” He dangled a dingy triangular pouch by the strings.

Without bothering to examine them, Dysan moved to the main counter, mostly free of disorder. He tossed his own small purse onto the top as Bezul came over with his finds. As usual, Dysan dumped the entire contents for Bezul’s perusal. Padpols spilled out, more than five by Dysan’s crude form of counting. Bezul claimed three, shoved the rest toward Dysan, and handed him the bottle, now swaddled into the pouch. Dysan swept the remaining coins to his purse, tying both at his left hip.

“Dysan.”

The young man looked up cautiously, anticipating some sort of warning. Bezul would not question, but he might remind Dysan that the new healer performed an important service for Sanctuary. He would not want to do anything that caused Pel to change his mind about coming to ply his trade in this mudhole. But Bezul said only, “Be well.”

Dysan nodded, heading toward the exit. The healer was not his concern. He worried for the future of Sanctuary itself, for the return of the murders and maimings. He could not risk his new mothers; they came from an imperial world where the politics had more to do with money than survival. They opened their hearts and home too easily, and they trusted men whose own fathers would not dare share a confidence. Pel was a stranger to Dysan, one who bore a striking and terrifying resemblance to a cultist Dysan had once known. That likeness kept him a cautious distance from Sanctuary’s new healer and the Avenue of Temples, though a neighboring street to his own. The many shattered buildings in the area gave him plenty of places to hide and watch the patients who came and went from Pel’s growing building. Not all of them seemed innocent or wholesome.

Dysan headed there now, trotting down streets that grew more familiar daily, choosing a route that took him through as many darkened alleys as main thoroughfares. He changed his manner from habit as he entered each one: winding congenially through the regular masses or slouching through the puddled shadows of the alleys. Feigning focus allowed him to appear deaf to the conversations, though he heard, and inadvertently memorized, every one. It allowed him to dodge the small talk that usually defied him and the cutpurses seeking larger and easier prey. He stopped only once, to partially fill his new-bought bottle from a washerwoman’s tub.