"Greetings, Pinch dearie," said the sole woman at the table Pinch joined. Though far past her prime, she still dressed like she once might have been-pretty and alluring-but years and drink had long stolen that from her. Her long brown hair was thin and graying, her skin wrinkled and blotched. It was her eyes, weak and rheumy, that revealed her fondness for drink.
"Well met to you, Maeve," Pinch answered as he pulled up a chair and joined the three already there.
Across from Maeve, Sprite-Heels sprawled on a bench like a child bored with the temple service. He thrust a hairy halfling foot into the air and waggled his oversize toes. "You took your time. Find a distraction upstairs?" the little being mocked while at the same time breaking into a yawn he could not stifle.
The fourth at the table, a big overmuscled man with farmboy good looks, snorted his ale at Sprite's tweak. He broke into a fit of coughing, the scarf around his neck slipping to reveal a thick scar underneath. "Pinch don't got no time for women. 'Sides, he's got Maeve." He snickered at his own great wit.
"Ho, that's right. He's always got me, if I'd ever let him!" Maeve added with a laugh.
Pinch let the comments slide, eying the man across from him. "Therin, my boy," he finally asked with only a little comradely warmth, "what happened? I thought the constables had you for nipping a bung."
The younger man smiled knowingly. "Seems I had good witnesses to say it wasn't me with his hand in the gent's purse. By their eyes I was here, drinking with them at that very time."
Sprite's boozy voice came from below the edge of the table. "Our farmboy's learned to hire good evidences, even if he ain't learned to nip a purse. Isha shame-always learnin' the wrong thing first."
Therin rubbed at the scarf around his neck. "I've been hanged once. I don't need to be hanged again."
"See!" came the hiccup from below. "Mos' men saves the hanging lesson for las'."
Pinch propped his head on the table and gave Therin a long, hard stare, his face coldly blank. "There's some who'd say you're just bad luck, Therin. Maybe not fit to have around. It was you supposed to be there tonight." His mouth curled in a thin smile. "But then, your bad luck seems to affect only you. It was your neck for the noose and your money for the evidences. Sprite-Heels and I did just fine, didn't we?"
"Ish true, Pinch, ish true." The halfling heaved himself up till he could look over the top of the table. He was still spotted with the muck of the sewers. Fortunately the air of the Dwarf's Pot was so thick with wood smoke, stale ale, and spiced stew that his reek was hardly noticed. Right now Sprite-Heels breath was probably deadlier than his filth. "Wha'd we get? I' didn't look like more 'an a cheap piece of jewelry."
Pinch scowled at the question and waggled a finger for silence. That was followed by a series of quick gestures that the others followed intently.
Magical… important… temple… wait for money. The gestures spelled it out to the others in the hand-talk of thieves. From the quick finger-moves, they puzzled it out. Clearly what they'd taken was of great importance to the temple, so important that it was going to take time to sell. Pinch's sudden silence told them as much as his hands. The rogue was suddenly cautious lest someone hear. That meant people would be looking for what they had stolen, and Pinch saw no reason to openly boast of what they had done. Even Sprite-Heels, fuzzy-minded though he was, understood the need for discretion. The three turned awkwardly back to their mugs.
"What's the news of the night?" Pinch asked after a swallow of ale. They could hardly sit like silent toads all through the dawn.
Sprite collapsed back onto the bench since he had no answer. Therin shrugged and said with a grin, "There was a job at the temple. Somebody did them good." He, too, had nothing to say.
Maeve squeezed up her face as she tried to remember something the hour and the drink had stolen away from her. "There was somebody…" Her lips puckered as she concentrated. "That's it! There was somebody asking about you, Pinch."
The rogue's drowsy eyes were suddenly bright and alert. "Who?"
The memory coming back to her, Maeve's contorted face slowly relaxed. "A fine-dressed gent, like a count or something. Older, kind of puffy, like he didn't get out much. He was all formal and stuffy too, kind of like a magistrate or-"
"Maeve, did he have a name?" She was rambling and Pinch didn't have the patience for it.
The sorceress stopped and thought. "Cleedis… that was it. He was from someplace too. Cleedis of…"
"Cleedis," Pinch said in a voice filled with soft darkness. "Cleedis of Ankhapur."
2
It was one of those statements that could be understood only with mouths agape, and the three did so admirably. Maeve blinked a little blearily, her slack mouth giving her the look of a stuffed fish. From out of sight, Sprite-Heels suddenly stopped hiccuping. The grumbling of a drunk as he argued the bill, the clatter of dishes carried to the back by a wench, even the slobbering snore of an insensate drunk filled the silence the three scoundrels created.
It was up to Therin, naturally, to ask the obvious. "You know this Cleetish?" he asked, wiping his sleeve at the drool of ale on his chin.
"Cleedis-and yes, I know him," was the biting answer. This was not, Pinch thought, a subject for their discussion.
" 'Swounds, but ain't that a new one. Our Pinch has got himself a past," the big thief chortled.
By now Sprite had hauled himself up from his sprawl on the bench. Though his hair was a tangled nest of curls and his shirt was awry, the halfling's eyes were remarkably clear for one who only moments ago was half done-in by drink. Still, his words were slurred by ale. "Wha's his nature, Pinch-good or ill?" The little thief watched the senior rogue closely, ever mindful of a lie.
Pinch tented his finger by his lips, formulating an answer. All the while, he avoided the halfling's gaze, instead carefully scanning the common room under the guise of casualness. "Not good," he finally allowed. "But not necessarily bad. I haven't seen him in a score of years, so there's no good reason for him to be looking for me."
"From Ankhapur, eh?" Therin asked more ominously, now that the drift of things was clear. "Where's that?"
Pinch closed his eyes in thoughtful remembrance, seeing the city he'd left fifteen years ago. He tried to envision all the changes wrought on a place in fifteen years, see how the streets would be different, the old temples torn down, the houses spread outside the outdated walls. Still, he knew that the Ankhapur he imagined was as much a dream as the one he remembered.
"South-too far south for you to know, Therin," the rogue finally answered with a thoughtful grin. It was no secret that Therin's knowledge of the world ended about ten leagues beyond Elturel. Pinch could have claimed that Ankhapur drifted through the sky among the lights of Selune's Tears for as much as Therin knew. Still, maybe it was the remembering that made Pinch more talkative than he had ever been. Home and family just weren't topics of conversation for those of his trade. "It's the white city, the princely city, built up right on the shores of the Lake of Steam. Some folks call it the boiled city. Take your pick."
"So who is this Cleedis, Pinch?" Maeve wheedled. "He seemed like a gent."
"An old, foolish man," Pinch answered offhandedly to end his reminiscence. Maybe there was more to be said, but the rogue offered no further explanation.