The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 (75 page)

happily dining on choice foods. In that rodent of necessity reposed the

soul of the mage Markmor, else he could not have assumed the body of his apprentice. Markmor was long dead, resurrected by Marype only to run afoul of the gluemaker Chollander. Now Marype was dead; now the essential intelligence of Markmor resided in this body. That created anomaly, for a body could not house two souls—and yet without the soul of Marype this one would be impossible to maintain. Markmor had no desire to have the well-made, youthful body he now occupied rot into putrescence about him.

The brain of Markmor guided the body of his apprentice and son of his former chief rival, years agone. Within the body necessarily remained the soul of Marype, and so—the vole. It was a happy vole, mindless, well taken care of, and well guarded in this spell-warded chamber.

"Shadowspawn, that street slime Hanse, is disposed of," Markmor said, pacing over to a mirror to look into the face of Marype and watch its mouth move. "A city cannot be taken without money, and plenty is coming in, thanks to your plan." He smiled, watching Marype smile at
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him.

Long ago Markmor had learned to make gold. Good gold; real gold. He was not sure that any other sorcerer had ever succeeded. Yet if he simply created the gold necessary to bring about his ends in Sanctuary, he would need more and more and ever more, for he would have de stroyed its precarious economy. No, money must not merely be created but be generated; earned, brought into Sanctuary, to aid the economy rather than harm it. That had been Marype's ingenious plan, for while he had been a stupid boy he had not been ignorant or without cleverness.

The same as Shadowspawn, the master mage thought. And so the rising number of persons missing from Sanctuary. They were not missing. They were merely relocated in the Isles of Bandara, to the considerable profit of Markmor of Sanctuary.

Markmor of Sanctuary strode to the door, slim and young and leggy in black tights and boots under a belted tunic the color of old gold. "Tar kle!"

The hulking fellow appeared, a man beyond homely but looking re spectful—ugly both inside and out, Markmor knew, with hair a brown tangle like an overgrown bramble patch fit only to hide a fearful rabbit. But then Markmor also knew without caring that his own new beauty was external only.

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Respectful too were Tarkle's manner, and tone, and choice of response:

"Sir?"

"You and your associates will do tonight's work in Downwind, Tar kle."

"Downwind.'*

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"We leave the Maze alone for a while—and who misses anyone in Downwind? After—"

"Nobody."

"That, damn it, was a rhetorical question. Be quiet and listen. After tonight's work in Downwind, return here. But tomorrow it is time you got out of that dingy hole you live in. You will go there and decide what you have that you consider of value, and fetch it here."

"Here?"

Markmor fought his exasperation with this semi-intelligent semihuman, "Yes, here. The room done in greens is yours."
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Tarkle's eyes showed joy. "Yes, sir! Oh, I do thank you, sir!"

"I want you close by me, Tarkle."

Immediately Tarkle moved a pace closer.

Markmor took a pace backward and lifted a staying hand. "I don't mean now, you . . ." He broke off and sighed. "Be prepared for a new appearance."

Tarkle looked around as if expecting a new appearance.

The wizard ignored that and wished he knew how to make brains. Or to transfer one from, say, a cat to a human, for instance, thus increasing Tarkle's intelligence severalfold.

"Be prepared for a new appearance," Markmor said in Marype's voice from Marype's mouth while he twitched a lock of Marype's long silver blond hair. "I am tired of all this hair. Today I cut it off and color it, and I don't want you taking me for someone else when you see me tomor row'"

Tarkle smiled and nodded. "No chance, sir!"

He saw Marype nod, and wave a hand, and a happier Tarkle louted
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out.

Markmor secured the door and returned to gaze into the mirror. "That big beast is useful, but his mother must lament the fact that she never had any children. Shadowspawn is disposed of," he repeated in a low, con trolled voice Marype had seldom used, "and three more must go. Three who know my secret name. The white wizard they call hero of the people

. . . that mail-shirted pretender at Sly's Place, and the gluemaker." Markmor chuckled and again the plump vole looked up. "Best he go into his own kettle. What a lot of glue he will provide for the good citizens of my city!"

Skarth showed the Vulgar Unicorn's new man the glass tiger-eye. Shmurt dragged his gaze off Taya, said "What d'you need?" and reached for it.

Skarth snatched it back. "Can't. I have to show it to Abohorr tonight, to get a message."

"Irregular," Shmurt said. He had been caretaker of an apartment building now mostly rubble, then unemployed, then construction laborer. Only recently had the Vulg's new owner installed him as day man.

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"Strick said to tell ye a word," Skarth told him, and dropped his voice so that Shmurt leaned forward across the bar. "Boodoovagoolarunda," Skarth whispered.

Shmurt smiled and shook his head-"Don't know where he gits them words! What d'you need?"

Skarth told him.

"She wants to stay here?"

"Right."

"You sure?"

"Shmurt . . ."

Shmurt nodded hurriedly, raising both hands in a fending gesture, and soon they had Taya installed, happily or un-, in one of the rooms upstairs over the tavern.

"Classiest roomer this place ever had," Shmurt said as he and Skarth came back down. "Don't believe I know you. Live close by?"

"Name's Skarth. You've seen me often enough. I live over on Red Court. Sure ye don't know me?"

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"Can't say that I do, Skarth. Sorry'f I should."

Skarth chuckled and ordered a small pail of beer. While Shmurt saw to that, the old man glanced in surprise at an unlikely pairing in a dim back comer of the main room of the already dim dive. There where eyes less keen might have missed them sat Furtwan Coinpinch, changer and some times pusher, and Menostric called the Misadept, the cheapest mage in town. Well, the least expensive, anyhow.

"Watch those two, Shmurt," Skarth said, his staff banging the floor as he headed for the door. "They could steal your eyeballs and ye'd not notice till ye tried looking for 'em!"

The two men in back looked up. "What in the fart was that?" Furtwan demanded.

"Skarth," Shmurt called. "Don't you know ole Skarth?"

Then he returned his gaze to the empty doorway, trying to fathom who in the fart Skarth was and why he seemed almost familiar.

Ole Skarth was making his way up the street and into the market area, his staff bang-banging rather than tap-tapping. So many people thronged here that it felt a lot warmer. Business was brisk these days, what with all
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the employment available to anyone who could dig, cut stone, lift stone, carry stone, mix or carry or spread mortar, or swing a hammer or pick or

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sledgehammer. He saw Hummy and her daughter buying meat, real meat, and he was glad; that meant Hummy's husband had gotten on with the many others working in construction; the rebuilding of a better, handsomer, safer, and prettier Sanctuary, according to the official docu ments tacked up here and there for everyone to read or pretend to read, after nature and two viciously maniacal women and some dyspeptic gods and those outlanders of Tempus's and what some referred to as Nature had done their best to make this old city only a rubble-strewn memory. There was Lambkin buying food for her brothers and father, too, which meant that the latter was no longer taking odd jobs but "workin' regular" in the current popular phrasing, at some aspect of construction.

Skarth bang-banged his way among them and the noise of their com ments and dickering, trying to remember to stay bowed and to lurch, when a voice sliced right through all the others:

"Hanse!"

Skarth didn't think fast enough, and did the worst thing possible: he froze and started to turn. He arrested the movement, but knew it was too late. The point was, the voice was an impossibility: Mignureal's. After so
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many years of noticing each other more than somewhat and then living together up in Firaqa, he and she had agreed to irreconcilable differences. Besides, she had good work and was happy. She remained in Firaqa. Even though this and that had happened along the way so that he had hardly come directly back down to Sanctuary, he knew perfectly well that Mignue could not be in Sanctuary.

The voice sounded like hers just the same, and startled him enough so that he responded and gave himself away. Now he stayed bent while he turned the rest of the way around. He saw her, and sighed. Yes, she sounded like Mignureal all right; and with reason. He was gazing at her younger sister, Jileel, the one who used to peep at him around her moth er's voluminous skirts and who now was nearly five feet tall and looked at him steady on from large eyes made even larger and lovelier by kohl, and who appeared to have bought two good melons and stuffed them down her blouse.

His roving gaze showed him that no one seemed to be paying attention, and he lifted a finger to his lips. At the same time he shook his head slightly and moved toward her.

"Shh, I'm supposed to be disguised. How'd you know?"

"Oh, I'd always recognize you, Hanse," she told him almost breath lessly, as if he were unmistakably and indisputably just the best-looking
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thing in the hemisphere. He stood beside her now, head bent so that the big feathered hat from Firaqa shaded the movement of his lips.

"Why are you disguised, Hanse?"

"Stop saying that." He glanced around. "I'm Skarth, girl, Skarth. Some people bagged me and sold me to slavers. I should be 'way out at sea right now, in the scummy hold of a scummy ship. They don't know I got away. I don't want them to know until I'm ready. Right now I'm trying to find out where the main one lives."

"Oh. Oh, Han—Skarth, how awful!" Her hand rushed to her heart in a girlish way and when it banged her chest he'd have sworn it bounced.

"You were al-almost, you were aimo—oh, oh!"

He rolled his eyes for no one's benefit but his own and nodded. "Right. It hurt, and cost me a lot of time and trouble. Worse, I owe a certain grasping snake a fat favor and a lot of gold."

"Gold!"

Again Hanse rolled his eyes. He had to get away from here, from her.

"You know what they call me?"

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She nodded with some pride and an after-all-I'm-not-just-a-child atti tude. "Of course. Shad—"

He interrupted quickly. "Right. Well, watch that shadow right over there and you'll know why."

She turned her head and partly her body to look in the direction he indicated, and Hanse took a sideward step and a backward one, grunted when he backed into someone's fat bottom, turned, and hurried down a narrow street. More walking and a few turns brought him to Red Court, where he did indeed live, in a decent second-floor room equipped with a huge old wagon wheel of solid wood. By the time he had opened the door he had straightened up and stepped into the room with his normal gait, a smooth gliding pace that jarred no part of his body.

An emphatically red cat of improbable size greeted him with an em phatic and distinctly accusatory noise. Somehow the animal's eyes looked accusing, too. Then its nose twitched a few times and its entire demeanor changed to one of loving cajolery while its emerald gaze fixed in a stare on the small pail its man carried. It banged its sinuous body constantly against its human's legs while Hanse moved to the little kitchen area and poured beer into an orange bowl that was larger than anyone would expect to be a cat's.

"Sorry I had to leave you so long, Notable," he was saying, "but
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Skarth can't be seen with that big red monster too many people already know is Shadowspawn's shadow. Here you—dammit, Notable, ease up, you'll spill the beer and me too!"

He had to hold the bowl up while he squatted to restrain the cat long enough to get the bowlful of beer on the floor with the other hand. That operation was no simple one; Notable was large, heavy, and squirming

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like a barrel of worms. Released, he attacked the beer like an army of thirsty horses finding an oasis after days on the desert.

Hanse, called Shadowspawn and more recently Skarth, stepped back and away, paused to set his sense of direction, and thrust his left hand up his right sleeve. That hand whipped up and back just past his ear as he spun. The arm snapped forward and a long flat piece of steel appeared with a thunk m the wagon wheel set up against the far wall. Getting the thing up here had not been easy, but it was perfect, a solid wheel of wood joined by wooden pegs, not nails. He had removed the iron rim. Now the wheel showed numerous holes and gouges, the marks of throwing prac tice with hiltless, guardless knives and stars. The hub was particularly chewed up, while the wall above and around the target was unmarked.