Theebles stared at the tantalizing snakes for a long while, then glanced back to the right. He stymied his surprise, realizing that silent Entreri had moved around him, toward the far end of the room. He turned to the young rogue and gave a wry snicker, that superior chuckle that reminded Entreri pointedly of his position as an underling.
It was then that Theebles noticed the quarter table, partially concealed by a screen. Surprise showed on his pudgy, blotchy features for a moment before he caught himself and calmed. “Your doing?” he asked, approaching the screen and indicating the small and round glass-topped table, flanked on either side by a waist-high lever.
Entreri turned slowly to glance over one shoulder as Theebles passed him by, but didn’t bother to answer. Entreri was the milker of the snakes. Of course the table was “his doing.” Who else, except for his taunting mentor, would even bother coming into this room?
“You have made many allies among the lower members of the guild,” Theebles remarked, as close to a word of praise as he had ever given to Entreri. In fact, Theebles was truly impressed; it was quite a feat for one so new to the guild to have the infamous quarter table moved to a quiet and convenient location. But Theebles, when he took the moment to consider it, was not so surprised. This young Artemis Entreri was an imposing character, a charismatic young rogue who had ruffians much older than him showing a great degree of respect.
Yes, Theebles knew that Artemis Entreri was not an average little pickpocket. He could be a great thief, among the very best. That could be a positive thing for the Basadoni Cabal. Or it could be a dangerous thing.
Without turning back, Entreri walked across the room and sat down at one of the two chairs placed on opposite sides of the quarter table.
It was not a wholly unexpected challenge, of course. Theebles had played out similar scenarios several times with the youths under his severe tutelage. Furthermore, young Entreri certainly knew now that it had been Theebles who had sent the rogue out to the shantytown to challenge him. Dancer had told Entreri as much, Theebles guessed; he made a mental note to have a little talk with Dancer when he was done with Entreri. Laughing slightly, the fat man sauntered across the room to stand beside the seated young rogue. He saw that the four glasses set in the evenly spaced depressions about the table’s perimeter were half-filled with clear water. In the middle of the table sat an empty milking vial.
“You understand that I am a close personal friend of Pasha Basadoni,” Theebles said.
“I understand that if you sit down in that chair, you accept the challenge willingly,” Entreri replied. He reached in and removed the milking vial. By the strict rules of the challenge, the table had to be clear of everything except the four glasses.
Theebles shook with laughter, and Entreri had expected no less. Entreri knew that he had no right to make such a challenge. Still, Entreri breathed a little easier when Theebles clapped him on the shoulders and walked about the table. The fat lieutenant stopped and peered intently into each of the glasses, as if he had noticed something.
It was a bluff, Entreri pointedly told himself. The venom of a Thesali viper was perfectly clear, like the water.
“You used enough?” Theebles asked with complete calm.
Entreri didn’t respond, didn’t blink. He knew, as did the fat lieutenant, that a single drop was all that was needed.
“And you only poisoned one glass?” Theebles asked, another rhetorical question, for the rules of this challenge were explicit.
Theebles sat in the appointed chair, apparently accepting the challenge. Entreri’s facade nearly cracked, and he had to stifle a sigh of relief. The lieutenant could have refused, could have had Entreri dragged out and disembowelled for even thinking that he was worthy of making such a challenge against a ranking guild member. Entreri had suspected that cruel Theebles would not take so direct a route, of course. Theebles hated him as much as he hated Theebles, and he had done everything in his power over the last few tendays to feed that hatred.
“Only one?” Theebles asked again.
“Would it matter?” Entreri replied, thinking himself clever. “One, two, or three poisoned drinks, the risks remain equal between us.”
The fat lieutenant’s expression grew sour. “It is a quarter table,” he said condescendingly. “A quarter. One in four. That is the rule. When the top is spun, each of us has a one-in-four chance of sipping the poisoned drink. And by the rules, no more than one glass can be poisoned, no more than one can die.”
“Only one is poisoned,” Entreri confirmed.
“The poison is that of the Thesali viper, and only the poison of a Thesali viper?”
Entreri nodded. To a wary challenger like the young rogue, the question screamed the fact that Theebles didn’t fear such venom. Of course he didn’t.
Theebles returned the nod and took on a serious expression to match his opponent’s. “You are certain of your course?” he asked, his voice full of gravity.
Entreri did not miss the experienced killer’s sly undertones. Theebles was pretending to offer him the opportunity to change his mind, but it was only a ruse. And Entreri would play along. He glanced about nervously, summoned a bead of sweat to his forehead. “Perhaps …” he began tentatively, giving the appearance of hedging.
“Yes?” Theebles prompted after a long pause.
Entreri started to rise, as though he had indeed changed his mind about making such a challenge; Theebles stopped him with a sharp word. The expression of surprise upon Entreri’s young and too-delicate face appeared sincere.
“Challenge accepted,” the lieutenant growled. “You cannot change your mind.”
Entreri fell back into his seat, grabbed the edge of the tabletop, and yanked hard. Like a gambling wheel, the top rotated, spinning smoothly and quietly on its central hub. Entreri grabbed the long lever flanking him, one of the table’s brakes, and Theebles, smiling smugly, did likewise.
It quickly became a game of nerves. Entreri and Theebles locked gazes, and for the first time, Theebles saw the depth of his young adversary. At that moment Theebles began to appreciate the pure cunning of merciless Artemis Entreri. Still, he was unafraid and remained composed enough to note the subtle shift of Entreri’s eye, the hint that the young man was quietly watching the spinning glasses more intently than he was letting on.
Entreri caught a minute flicker, a subtle flash of reflected light from the table, then a second. Long before Theebles had come to visit, he had chipped the rim of one of the glasses ever so slightly. Entreri had then painstakingly aligned the table and the seat he’d chosen. With every rotation, the tiny chip in the glass would flicker a reflection of the torch burning in the nearest wall sconce-but to his eyes only.
Entreri silently counted the elapsed time between flickers, measuring the table’s speed.
“Why would you take such a risk?” wary Theebles asked, verbally prodding the young man’s concentration. “Have you come to hate me so much in a few short tendays?”
“Long months,” Entreri corrected. “But it has been longer than that. My fight in the street was no coincidence. It was a set-up, a test, between myself and the man I had to kill. And you are the one who arranged it.”
The way that Entreri described his adversary, “the man I had to kill,” tipped Theebles off to the young rogue’s motivation. The stranger in the dusty street had likely been Artemis Entreri’s first kill. The lieutenant smiled to himself. Some weaklings found murder a difficult thing to accept; either the first kill, or the inevitable path it had set the young man on, was not to Entreri’s liking.
“I had to know if you were worthy,” Theebles said, admitting his complicity. But Entreri was no longer listening. The young rogue had gone back to his subtle study of the spinning glasses.