"I'm Damo Sparen," his visitor finally announced. His voice was as cold and hard as his appearance. "I own the carnival. I've been watching you."
Mocker shrugged. Was he supposed to beg forgiveness for bleeding off a miniscule portion of the man's revenues?
"You're interesting. One of the nastier cases of self-abuse I've seen. Talent bleeds out of you, and you waste it to the last ounce. Do you want to die young?"
Mocker gulped. "Maybeso. In thousand years, or two." He grinned weakly. He was scared. "What is going on here?"
"I wanted to tell you something. I'm no diviner, but this prediction doesn't require the skills of a necromancer. You will die. Soon. Unless you mend your ways."
Mocker's fear tightened its noose.
"You keep cutting purses, somebody's going to cut your throat. Before summer's done. You're too damned clumsy."
Mocker swallowed the lump in that throat. He was bewildered. The man sounded like an evangelist.
"My eastern friend, I'm going to give you a chance to see Old Man Winter again. I'm looking for someone with your talents and not much conscience. I could use you. If we could dry you out and knock a little sense in your head. You've got the skills, but they're in bad shape."
"Self, am unsure hearing is accurate. Explicate, please. Am being offered position?"
"Conditionally. I need a ventriloquist and magician. My performers usually get a share of the net. In your case that won't hold unless you shape up. I'll give you food, found, and lessons in whatever you don't already have. Hypnotism, for instance. Make it a trial period of three months. If you stop the drinking and stealing... Don't try to bullshit me, my friend. I told you I've been watching you.
"Even without a share it's more than you've got now. Like I said, you won't last the summer this way."
Mocker hemmed and hawed. He could not believe the man was serious. Nevertheless, he decided to take a chance. He could be no worse off.
It was a fateful decision. Damo Sparen would quickly shape the raw Mocker clay into the man he would become.
Sparen was a westerner, and older, but was Mocker's spiritual brother. Their black, lazy souls had been struck on the same dies.
While supervising Mocker's higher education, Sparen became his first real friend.
"One thing you've got to learn," Sparen told him early on. "Discipline. Your troubles all stem from a lack of discipline."
Mocker sputtered.
"I mean self-discipline, not the poundings you got from Sajac. They're part of your problem, too. You don't know how to handle your freedom.
"My friend, you made it this far on sheer talent. But you've got to learn some things that don't come instinctively. You've refused so far. So you've been hungry a lot.
"Sparen's First Law: Always make the mark think he's smarter than you are. Make him think it's him doing the con. Greed will carry it for you then.
"Second Law: Don't work a con where you're boosting. Or vice versa. I warned you before, don't steal around the carnival. Yesterday you cut a purse within a hundred feet of your puppet show. Don't let it happen again. I'm not patient. You could get my whole operation broken up.
"Third Law: Don't aggravate the underworld. You got to stay in good with those guys. They're organized. You leave a bad marker with Three Fingers in Hellin Daimiel and run off to Octylya, when you get there the Dragon's men will be waiting. With knives. They like to do each other little favors.
"Fourth Law: Think big. That crap of sitting in the street selling mud packs made with cat's piss ain't got no future. You'll be doing the same thing fifty years from now. Just like Sajac."
Mocker finally interjected, "Self, am able to do only what is known to self."
"Then suppose you stop scheming and stealing long enough to learn something? You're secure here. You don't have to take risks. Expand your talents instead. Look at me, Mocker. I started out where you are now. Today I've got a villa on the Auszura Littoral. A duke is my next door neighbor. I've got copra plantations in Simballawein. I've got mines in Anstokin."
"Hai! And still... "
"And still I travel with the carnival? Of course. It's in my blood. It's in yours. We can't resist the challenge. Of what the carnival represents. One more sucker taken for everything but his greedy smile. But I don't do that kind of thing as Sparen. Sparen and his carnival are cover. Sparen is an honest and respected businessman. People trust him enough to loan him money."
For once in his life Mocker listened.
"You had what you needed when you got a hold of those jewels. Working capital. More than I started with. How in heaven's name could you have wasted it that way?"
"Self, am mystified. Am bambazoolooed. Am utterly ignorant of course to pursue."
"That's good. That's a beautiful touch. The way you talk. Never change it. If they can't understand you, they can't ever be sure their losses weren't their own fault. At worst, you'll get a little more getaway time. And it'll help convince them they're smarter that you are."
"First Law."
"Exactly."
Mocker's secondary education proceeded apace. He began to learn the self-restraint that had been missing most of his life. Sparen gave a little heavy-handed encouragement, in the form of a gigantic thug named Gouch who was always there, sap in hand, when temptation stalked too close.
"I think we're getting somewhere, my friend," Sparen told him late that summer. And he meant the word friend. They had become as close as two men could. "I think you're ready to be a partner."
"Hai! Good. Self, have several ideas... "
"This war thing has got me scared," Sparen told him, trampling his enthusiasm. "They're bully-ragging Throyes. If those crazies take over and come out of Hammad al Nakir, they'll crawl all over the Lesser Kingdoms. They'll ruin us. I've seen what a war can do to business. Luckily, this carnival business isn't the only one. There're a few better suited to wartime. It's time to start getting ready. Just in case." Sparen downed a long draft of wine. "You know, I never had a son. Not that I could acknowledge. I think I've kind of found one now."
Mocker's eyes narrowed. Was this just talk born of a mating 'twixt wine and melancholy?
"Well, that's neither here nor there. We've got to find you a trade name. Magellin the Magician strikes me. I used to have a partner who went by that. But I caught him shorting the accounts. Had to elevate his spirit to a higher plane and lower his flesh to the fishes. It was a sad occasion. I cried for an hour. I thought he was a good friend. Don't you do that to me, you hear?"
"Is farthest thing from mind, guaranteed. Have developed healthy respect for Gouch and own neck. Have learned to mend ways."
Which was not strictly true. He had learned a lot of wicked and wonderful things from Sparen and Gouch, but mending his ways was not one of them. He never could stifle his urge to cut a purse, or to squander his takings gambling.
What he did learn was how to manage theft with finesse, while Gouch was watching, so that he alone knew what was going on.
Chapter Seven:
THE EXILES
T he first assassins reached the mountain camp with the spring thaw. Six good men died stopping them. "Always in threes," Haroun gasped. He was pale and soaked with sweat. "Harish always come in threes. What moves men like that, Beloul? They knew they were going to die."
Beloul shrugged and shook his head. "They believe in their cause, Lord."
A second team materialized almost immediately, and a third followed close behind. Haroun imagined an endless line of smiling, vacant-eyed men coming to die for their prophet, each certain of immediate entry into paradise.