"It was a safe assumption," the darkness said. "You have just restrained yourself. You must learn to do that much more often, which is to learn to think. Else you will die a very young man, and who could possibly give a damn."
The final words were no question, really, but spoken flatly as a statement of fact. And once again Lone felt assaulted… and once again, somehow, he found discipline within himself, and exercised it. "I will try, Master of Thieves."
"You do not make it easy, do you."
"I have had no easy life, Lone. My mentor was hanged when I was only a boy, younger than you. I was a cocky little piece of cat shit, but I learned that I must learn, and so I tried, and I learned."
Lone swallowed and, even in pitch darkness, blinked. It had not occurred to him that his idol was capable of such profundity.
"Doubtless you think that was profound," the darkness said, in the shadow-quiet voice of the master thief of Sanctuary.
Lone swallowed and managed to make no reply.
"If you can learn, I know things that you don't and can still do things that you can't."
As I can do things that you no longer can, poor crippled Shadowspawn, Lone mused, but again he strengthened himself to hold silent.
Then it occurred to him that the unseen owner of the ever-challenging voice was also saying nothing, and he steeled himself to pronounce the simple words:
"I can learn, Master."
The man called Chance had not been so elated in a long, long time. But none of that was apparent in his shadow-quiet voice: "You must be tested. To begin with you have not I hope forgot the location of the home of the Spellmaster."
"I remember," Lone said, trying hard not to sound sheepish. What an idiot I was, breaking into that mansion! What a friend such a man as Strick could be!
"Good," the shadows said. "Then we will meet there. Your first test is to reach his door before I do."
After a time Lone realized that although he had heard no sound of movement, he was alone in Angry Alley. With a slight smile, he began walking. Rapidly.
With a fleet and eager horse hitched to the mule-cart and a pass to show any law enforcement types who might stop him, Samoff made very, very good time driving through the night to the home of his master. Simple matter to wait near the end of the alley Chance had specified, say nothing when the black-clad man appeared and climbed aboard, and set off. From time to time as he guided the more than spirited young horse through the night he heard a chuckle from the man seated behind him, and Samoff made a vow to ask Chance—at a more opportune, meaning safer, time—if he had wet his underpants in his gurgling glee.
If the younger cat-burglar wet his pants that momentous night, it was not in glee. He was not short of breath but his legs were afflicted with spikes of ice when he reached the estate of the Spellmaster… and stared, blinking. Strick was right there outside, seated on the front steps of the carefully elevated house, apparently awaiting Lone's arrival. Moreover and far more awesomely, beside him sat a black-clad figure. That one threw up a hand as the other man in black approached on weary legs that he had pushed close to the limit of their endurance. "Lone!" Chance called jubilantly. "Good to see you at last, lad!" "Shit!" Lone muttered. Then, reprovingly as a schoolmaster: "You cheated!" "True! I used my brain instead of my legs!" While Lone ground his teeth, Strick spoke. "Not to mention a horse. Promise never to enter this house
again unless invited, Lone, and we will go in for some refreshment." "I promise," Lone said. "I even… uh… I had something to prove." "Still have," Chance said, rising with the apparent aid of his cane. Lone heaved a sigh and nodded. He had aborted, saying, "I even apologize," because it was hard, so
hard for him to say such words. They went inside, and Lone learned what it was like to have the
wherewithal to have a fast runner fetch ice from the mountains down to Sanctuary. Or, in this case, for a certain old master cat burglar to find a way to relieve Arizak's runner of his burden and make a gift of such rich bounty to a friend…
Ice weakened good ale a bit, but how good to a sweatily exercised man it was with a bit of coolth
added! And then a bit more without the ice, as the three men talked. The woman present talked but little, as was her habit, but she gazed much on the cocky youngster working so hard to control his natural cockiness and truculence. What a fascinating boy! How strangely… akin to him she felt!
Linnana knew already the story of Strick's nonpayment by Lord Arizak, even to the amount. Now she heard Chance lay out his desire to steal into Arizak's less than modest dwelling and relieve him of that exact amount.
"Not a quarter-ounce of copper more," Chance said, one finger upraised, "and not a quarter-ounce less." "Yet," Linnana put in, "there is or should be the matter of interest…" Strick smiled. "I have little doubt that opportunity will one day arise for me to extract that from the great
Arizak." She chuckled. Chance did not. Meeting the eyes of no one, he said, "How I long to do it! But my age and leg make me
unable to undertake that exciting piece of night work…" "Your age and arm, you mean, Master," Lone said, lest Chance think the youth still believed that he was
crippled in the leg, that the walking stick was necessary. "But the work will be done. I need only bethink myself of what I will need, and make a little list…" "You need make no list," Chance assured him. "I know exactly what you need, for in past I completed an
almost identical mission."
"Hmp," the Spellmaster said, without the hint of a smile. "Mission? Not on my behalf. Must have kept the swag to yourself!" His friend also did not smile. "Nah, nah. Gave it all to the poor and the Temple of Him Whose Name We
Do Not Pronounce, I did!"
Strick laughed with him, and continued to keep his peace about what he knew: his friend was indeed spawn of the shadows… or rather of the shadow god, Shalpa, usually referred to namelessly, as Chance just had.
"By four nights hence," Linnana suggested into the laughter, "we will have full dark of the moon, surely the
perfect time for such a wicked venture…" "But too easy," Chance said firmly. "By night after next the moon will be a mere tiny sliver—a fine working night for an excellent roach anxious to prove his talent and ability!"
Lone shrugged and endeavored to look relaxed and, above all, casually confident. Whatever the Shadowspawn said. At last he had achieved his goal, and here he sat, in the company of the man he most respected and admired. Naturally a youth with such a goal considered himself lucky to be in the service of Shadowspawn, no matter how much in his shadow! The only aspiration of the orphan Lone was to be as exactly like his idol as he could make himself— which meant doing things Shadowspawn's way, however dangerous.
"For one thing," Chance said, "you will need an archer." Lone cocked his head. "An archer?" "Someone good with a bow," Strick said, as if it were the meaning of the word that Lone did not grasp.
"And arrows." Without taking his gaze off Chance, Lone said, "Oh." "An archer who can loft an arrow upward, trailing a rope," Chance explained. "That gets you over the
Lord Arizak's wall, and maybe farther, as in higher." "Ah!" Lone bobbed his head, acknowledging something he had not thought of. "I, ah, know a girl who is expert with bow and arrow," Linnana said, and received strange looks from the