Turning Points (12 page)

With the portentousness of master to assistant, Chance said, “You are going to be very proud, and you will want to leave some sign that you have been there.
Do not
.”

Lone nodded. “Aye. May… may I ask why… Master?”

“Once in my weening pride I left proof to the man who then ruled this poor foreigners-saddled city, and after I was out it occurred to me that it was a bad idea to let him know how easily I could break into his palace, and out.”

“Ah.” Lone’s dark, dark head was bobbing. “And did ill come of that?”

“No, except extra time and labor for me, for I felt obliged to steal back into the palace and remove the signal I had left of my presence… and then I had to get myself back out again.”

Lone smiled, and then chuckled, and apologized for laughing. Then he noted that his mentor was also chuckling…

As the young man began to make his way sinuously up the rope, the watching Chance felt a touch at his sleeve. He turned to face his archer.

“The rope’s in place and there he goes, yer lordship,” the bearded man said. “About my payment?”

Chance pressed three coins into the waiting, grime-etched hand. The old soldier raised it to examine the contents of his palm, then gave his temporary employer a look.

“That is half,” Chance told him. “So far the rope has not worked loose or broken. When he tops the wall and we know the rope has held, you will have earned the full amount we agreed on.”

The archer looked crestfallen. “Aw…”

“If you don’t think you can trust me, come with me to a place called The Bottomless Well.”

Acorn-colored eyes shone in the darkness. “Are you buyin’, yer lordship?”

“We will see,” Chance said. “And stop calling me that.”

He and the fellow, whose name he had given as Kantos, were on their second cup when through the doorway came a smug-faced young man all in black, in quest of his cloak and sword. Reaching the table, he produced Kantos’s arrow and, with a flourish, handed it to him. Lone was reaching into his tunic as he removed his sword and cloak from a third chair and seated his smiling self with his mentor and the hired help.

“Done,” he announced.

Chance shoved his mug over in front of his apprentice, who bobbed his head in gratitude.

“Well done!” Chance said, and immediately diverted his attention from the pridesome youth. “Kantos, the other half of your payment for a job well done,” he said, and pressed the coppers into Kantos’s ready hand. “As a bonus, I am paying for your beer. Do have a good night.”

Kantos was smart enough to recognize dismissal. “Thankin’ ye both,” he smiled, touching his forelock as he rose, and he all but louted out.

When he was gone Lone withdrew from within his tunic a soft cloth sack that he had partially burdened with earth before he went up the wall. The purpose of that strangeness was to absorb the sound of clinking coins while he took his leave. With great pride and smugness he set it on the table before Chance. They both heard a muted clink.

Chance directed his dark gaze into the dark eyes across the table from him. “The exact amount?”

Lone nodded. “The exact amount.”

“Strick is going to crow! And what did you take for yourself, Catwalker?”

Lone looked offended. “Nothing!”

“Well done. Did you have any trouble?”

Lone compressed his lips and flared his nostrils with a sigh. “I did. I was on my way out when a servant appeared out of nowhere. Nothing I did had attracted him. He just happened along and there was nothing I could do about it. He saw me, but I had the scarf across my face. His mouth went wider’n his eyes, and I hit him, hard. He fell down and just stayed there. On his back with his eyes closed. I got out of there as fast as I could. He could never recognize me.”

Chance sighed and looked unhappy. It was the way of masters.

Part of the problem had nothing to do with the fact that Lord A. now knew that someone had breached his keep. As disturbing to the man who so despised sorcery was the fact that this afternoon an unduly nervous Linnana had told him that she’d had an unfamiliar experience: for the first time in her life, she had Seen, in the way of the S’danzo. What she Saw had to do with Lone’s entry into Arizak’s keep: a man lying on the floor on his back, with his eyes closed.

The successful apprentice thief sat erect in his new less-than-finery, so filled with pride that he had been complimented—but not much!—by his idol. He had rejected Strick’s insistence that he accept the coins he had
liberated
, until he caught the sharp look directed at him by his chosen mentor and master. He accepted the spell-master’s “too kind” offer as he said, head bowed, with great gratitude… that Chance later told him was overdone.

Lone had also agreed and acceded to Chance’s wise suggestion that during his “off-duty hours,” he wear much less somber clothing and perhaps even fewer weapons. Lone had even been gracious enough in accepting Linnana’s offer to help him find a more colorful tunic and leggings. Now he sat comfortably in a medium-blue tunic over dark yellow or “old gold” leggings and soft tan boots with heels. The four of them once again sat together, at Strick’s. This time they were out back, in a yard full of flowers and ornamental shrubs that the Spellmaster had caused to be surrounded by a strange fence made of vertical slats with spaces between.

Strick had told them of his contacting the ancient mage whose apprentice he had determined was responsible for the many mis-sent spells in Sanctuary of late, and they had met. At first Strick’s only report was a terse, “He and I are not going to be friends.”

Chance and Linnana prevailed upon him to tell the story of their meeting, however brief. The Spellmaster’s reaction to the reaction of Kusharlonikas to the news, and his attitude, was, all but grinding his teeth, to call himself “appalled.” The sorcerer not only refused all responsibility for both his spells and those of his less-than-competent apprentice, but was positively obscene in his dismissal of the woman who had lost her sole companion—the cat—and the couple who had been forced to the expense of replacing their tent.

Chance did have to like Strick’s characterization of Kusharlonikas as “that pompously overblown droplet of ant excrement!”

Now he who had been Shadowspawn had told the blue-tunicked youngster that he “seemed” ready for the real job; a deed of true importance. This news was more than welcome to Lone, who was immediately all attention.

“When the Dyareelans desecrated the main temple of Father Ils,” Chance said, quietly in the pre-insect twilight, “they committed the heresy of stealing the Sacred Left Sandal of the Father. I have been all but begged to learn its whereabouts, and retrieve it.” He made an unhappy face. “In times past, I needed help for the first task only. Now, I must have others perform both.”

“Only respect for you, Linnana,” a suddenly grim-faced Lone said, “stops me from spitting on your grass at mere mention of the Dyareela swine. It’s even hard for me to say the name. But a chance to undo something
they
did—
one
of their many evils—I can count only as a gift. And to do a service for the Ilsigi and our god of gods at the same time… what have I done to merit such a pile of riches?”

The master thief shot him a look. “Don’t overdo it, Catwalker.”

But then he saw that the lad who called himself an Ilsigi in emulation of Shadowspawn was sincere or at least mostly, and Chance was almost embarrassed.

Lone either did not notice that or affected not to. He was, after all, a boy—however bad a boy. “Do we yet know where the Sandal is?”

Chance was nodding as he said, “Strick has just located it.”

Lone looked pleased. “Ah!” He looked expectantly at Strick. After a moment, when no one had spoken, Lone prompted, “Well?”

Quietly Strick told him: “The Dyareeling destroyed it. But! A precise copy of it has been fabricated, imbued with its essence, and coated with a SeeNot Spell.”

Lone looked dubious. “Will a copy do?”

“The priest says so,” Chance told him.

“Ah! Then where—?”

“It’s in the keep of the mage Kusharlonikas,” Strick said, and was interrupted by the youth.

“Sorcery! Shit!”

“Lone, damn it,” Chance snapped, “are you going to blither, or let us tell you what you have to know?”

Lone put on a chastised look. “Apologies, Strick. Please tell me all of it.”

Strick nodded amiably, something he did well. “It’s in the spell room of that dot of ant excrement. His Chamber of Reflection and Divination, the pompous scum calls it.”

Lone managed to curb a blurt, but rolled his eyes. So cute, Lin-nana thought…

“The spell disguises it,” Strick went on. “I believe that what I Saw around the Sandal is a large, two-handled flagon. On his divination table.”

This time Lone was unable to hold back an entirely natural reaction to such unwelcome news: “Shit!”

With the piece of special beef folded in an enormous leaf to contain its greasiness, Lone was just about to depart on the biggest night of his life when Strick appeared. The bulky man was winded from hurrying from his home to Chance’s apartment, where Lone had reported a couple of hours ago.

“Something strange just happened,” the man in the long-skirted tunic said, panting a little. “Until she Saw a man on the floor on his back with his eyes closed during your Arizak adventure, Linnana had never showed any evidence of having that peculiarly S’danzo ability—which is certainly not granted to all her people. Now she and I have both had a vision of you and your destination this night.”

“Good. I hope it wasn’t about me lying on a floor with my eyes open!” a cocky youngster said.

“Nothing so final, but something very unpleasant, I think. Ku-sharlonikas has laid a spell on more than one item in his innermost chamber. We were unable to See specifics because of wards on the room, but two menaces to an intruder are there. They are disguised with a SeeNot
and
a binding spell. I think the scum has trapped a pair of demons as guardians of his divining chamber.”

“
Demons’
.” Lone blurted his reaction because he was unable to disguise the fact that he was shaken by such news.

“So I
think
, I said. Now stand still, close your eyes, and try to think of nothing while I make some silly noises.”

Lone was right willing to go along. The “silly noises” the Spell-master referred to apparently comprised a spell, and Lone certainly hoped that it was effectual. He thought he recognized some of the sounds as words, but he could never be certain. If the oral spelling was accompanied by gestures, he saw none, for he kept his eyes closed as bidden.

“Good,” Strick said. “Let’s hope for the best. Naturally I place a lot of faith in spells, but nothing is certain when I’m not sure what I’m trying to combat. Here, Lone, wear this.”

With his own hands the Spellmaster slipped the shortish thong over Lone’s dark, dark head and let the medallion flop onto the black-clad chest. Lone peered downward. He was not able to make out any details of what he was wearing, and was unwilling to touch the thing. It appeared to be ceramic, rather than metal.

“Uh… Spellmaster… this thing swinging and sliding around on my chest is going to be a distraction and maybe worse…”

Strick nodded. “Good point. I’ve got to find a way to secure some kind of locking pins to the back of such a ward-medal, for you
active
types. Here, be still a moment.”

Lone was not a person who took kindly to being touched, but he curbed the movement of his hands while the white-haired man slid the ward-medallion down into his tunic.

Strick stepped back. “I can’t think of anything else to try, other than to tell you what you must already know: Breaking into the keep of a master mage is a bad idea, and I advise you not to do it.”

“Thanks, Spellmaster. And you already know that I am going.”

And so he went, ghosting through a nighted city in his jet clothing under a pallid crescent of a moon just on the point of being swallowed by the demons of the night sky. He was all unaware that his mentor was already at the scene, to observe whatever of his apprentice’s actions he could.

Not a lot, as it turned out, and that did not displease the spawn of the shadows. First Lone went close to the fence that surrounded the sorcerer’s sizable estate, flapped his arms to attract the dog, and threw the drugged meat over the wall. Then he faded into the shadows. Tempted by the aroma of beef, the big dark red animal redirected his attentions to the good-sized morsel. He was peacefully snoozing in less than a minute, and Chance smiled without showing his teeth. Strick did know his potions!

What the youth did with cloak and sword Chance did not see, but he watched him take the fence as if it were mere inches high, go up an outbuilding wall with seeming ease, and onto the roof of that building. Chance saw him make the leap from there onto the roof of the large keep—home of the man that Chance, thanks to Strick, could not help but think of as “ant excrement.” He neither saw nor heard—good!—the landing of the buskin-shod lad, and saw nothing further except the distinctly handsome and nonmenacing structure. After a while he realized that Lone must have unwound his rope to go in through a window not visible to his mentor.

So Lone had. While his mentor was tying to convince himself to walk away and await the youth as agreed, Lone’s soft-soled boots were padding silently along a corridor little less dark than his clothing. He heard no sound until he came to the second-floor room he assumed was his destination, at least according to Strick. There he paused and pressed himself flat against the wall. Holding his breath with throwing knife in hand, he rolled his eyes this way and that— and heard nothing.

He swung to the door, opened it, slithered into the smallish and completely windowless room beyond, and closed the door all in one fluid motion that took but a moment. How very kind of Kushar-lonikas to keep a little oil lamp burning here, in his keep of keeps! Odd, that it rested on a side table while at either end of the long green-draped one that dominated the centenarian mage’s Chamber of Reflection and Divination rested an ornate brass lamp in the shape of a preposterously hideous gargoyle. Each was about the size of a lap-dog, and partially supported by its thickish tail. Neither was lit.