Pawbool settled himself into the end chair. “Well, Ahzurdan, you’ve changed the furnishings somewhat, but you smell the same.”
“Ahzurdan’s dead,” Danny murmured; in his head the Ahzurdan phasma gibbered a denial, but he ignored that. “Call me Lazul.”
Pawbool laid his staff across his knees. “The dreamdust must have rotted your brain, you were easier than a first year apprentice, not a ward in sight. Makes me wonder if we were right involving you in this business. Well, what’s done is done. Your question. It’s the end of the trading season; the Silk Road is shut down though there’s no snow in the passes yet, which is odd, there should be some by now, the last caravans left for the east a couple weeks ago. What that’s got to do with this is this: every year when the season closes, the Lewinkob Spinners get rid of the ends and bolts that didn’t sell. They cut the selvage off so the Hennkensikee sigil is gone and reduce the price to something like a third of what it would have been. What happens is small-time traders come in from everywhere to hunt through the leavings and get what they can. Even without the name, Lewinkob silks bring big money. You play things right, the Wokolinka’s Amazons will think you’re just another trader.”
“I know as much about silks as you do about fire, Poo Boo.”
“There you come, sneaking out, Firenose. Say your greets to the real world.” Pawbool ran his fingertips delicately along his staff. “We know how ignorant you are, Little Zhuri. We have provided. Of your three companions, two know as much about silks as any specialist would. One steals them, the other wears them.”
“A thief and a…”
“Courtesan.”
“And the other?”
“Thief and assassin, you get two for one with her. Oh, you needn’t be worried about their commitment to the enterprise; the basis of their loyalty is much the same as yours.”
“I see.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Right. If you want this thing to work, I’ll need a few items. An up-to-date map of the city. I presume you know where the talisman is housed, so lay out for me whatever information you have about that, a floor plan of the structure, if you can come up with one that’s reasonably accurate, a description of how the thing is guarded-and warded. I assume it’s powerfully warded and our silent friend back there would have got his fingers singed if he tried this on his own. I need what you know about the local god and what’s his or her attributes.” He paused a moment, thought a question at the Ahzurdan phasma, got back the equivalent of a shrug. “I’ve never been there and I haven’t bothered to learn the basics. Too busy with more immediate concerns. I need to know them now.”
Pawbool glanced at the god, then nodded. “Everything we have will be ready for you before the day’s out.”
“Good. I need to meet with and assess these aides you’ve roped in for me; any plan I make has to include their weak points and strengths. I’ll go there by river, but I want strong, fast horses waiting for me and the others when we leave Hennkensikee. If things go well, we’ll get out without raising a stir, but it’s stupid to count on that. You know as well as I do, if anything can go wrong, it will. Set up relays along the river so we can change mounts and come straight through to Arsuid without stopping to rest.”
“Travel both ways by river. We can guarantee protection as long as you’re on water.”
“Lovely. It’s my skin, Poo. I know what I can do, I’m not all that sure of your urn protection. It’d be so very easy to take that talisman off me and leave me to the tender mercies of the Wokolinka. If you want me to do this, set up the relays.”
“You don’t do it, you die. Painfully.”
“Without the relays, I’m even more apt to die. Painfully.”
There was a bubbling grunt from the god. Danny stiff-
ened, then relaxed as he recognized the sound. Arlon was laughing. “Do it,” the god said; his voice was like mud flowing, liquid and thick. “I like this one’s wits; he doesn’t cringe like you worms and he uses his head. I like him.” Pawbool’s hands tightened on the staff; he waited until he was sure the god had finished, then his hood jerked as he nodded. “Agreed,” he said to Danny, carefully not speaking to the god. “I will arrange for the relays come morning. What else?”
“If the three you’ve planted on me look like everyone else in this city, they’ll need less conspicuous clothing. I won’t travel with things out of some dye-master’s nightmare. I’ll need more gear myself; set me up as a Phrasi on the tawdry side, a small trader just barely making it. And I’ll need enough coin to be convincing. Over and above what you found on me, which I’ll want back. I’m supposed to be going there to buy, not shoplift. Everyone’s heard that much about Hennkensikee; they don’t let deadbeats through the gates.”
“That has already been arranged. We will send you properly equipped.”
“Nice of you. I’d better not go back to the Estron Coor, I don’t want rumors to get out connecting me to anything Arsuider, especially your lot. I presume you’ve thought of that and set up quarters for me here, wherever this is.”
“Yes.”
“You left my gear in my room?”
“Yes.,’
“Transfer it. I’m tired and hungry and filthy. I want food and a bath, then I want to see the three I’m supposed to be working with.”
“Snipsnap, Firenose, is that all? Shall I send along some dreamdust too?”
“Stuff it up your own nose.”
“Hostile, aren’t you.”
Danny Blue looked over his shoulder. The god was gone. He snorted, it took that to give Poo Boo some stiffening in his spine. He stretched, rubbed at the back of his neck. “How much more time we going to waste playing one-up games?”
Braspa Pawbool stood. The light flared in the silver inlay of his staff as he fashioned a small amber will-o which drifted over to Danny and hung before his face. “Follow the light, Firenose. I’ll follow you.”
12
“Felsrawg Lawdrawn.” The small wiry woman in boy’s tights and tunic glanced at him, went with quick nervous steps about the room, whipping back draperies, opening doors to see what lay behind them, stopping to touch the bars on the window. She was a narrow sword of a woman, tensile and darting, filled with energy, with anger at the world; she looked like she’d *ive off sparks if you touched her. When she finished her inspection, she perched on a small backless chair, hands resting lightly on her thighs, her sleeves loose about her wrists, the knives she wore on her forearms not visible but ready if she needed them. Her tights were black and white, the stripes spiraling about her legs down to soft boots of dark crimson. There was a matching glove on her left hand; the nails of her right hand were painted green. Her tunic was divided into squares, black, red and white in a dizzying spiral; she wore a loinskirt of leather strips dyed a bright green, studded with black iron and silver. Her hair was black with silver stripes; it was pulled tightly up and bound at the crown with a green thong, the fall coiled into black and silver corkscrews that trembled past her shoulders. She had small ears that sat tight against her head pierced along the rim; she wore six black studs on the left side, six silver studs on the right. She had a lean and angular face, a wide mouth whose corners turned down. She was young, not more than twenty, and she could have been pretty if she’d wanted that, but she refused it with every breath she took. “Who’re you?” she said; her voice was hoarse like an old singer’s might be after fifty years in cabarets.
“Lazul.”
‘That doesn’t tell me a whole helluva lot.”
“I doubt you need telling much, being the one that Poo the Boob brought in to put a knife in me and take the talisman soon as we get clear of the city.”
“At least you’re not a fathead like him.”
“There’s only one of him, gods be blessed for that. He said you’re a thief. How good are you?”
“You mean if I got caught, I couldn’t be worth much.” Her face was taut with an anger only just under control. “Him. He set his thumb on me. Arfon.” She shrugged. “I was a whore when I was eight, killed my pimp when 1 was ten and got rid of his ghost before it squealed.” She laughed when he raised his brows, mildly surprised that she would tell him something like that. “I’d just say you lie and they’d believe me, I’m Arsuider, you’re outsider. Think about it, toop.” Another shrug. “Since then my life’s been mine, I have not been cheated or caught. I trust myself and no one else. I am good, Lazul. It took a god to get me. And I don’t know shit about this business, except that blinbaw Pawbool told me I was to do what you said and when you got what they wanted, to get it off you and bring it to him.”