L. Camp - The Exotic Enchanter

“No,” Shea said, “but we’d love to learn them.” He pointed at a group of men who seemed to be practicing some sort of martial art, except that Shea could very clearly make out some movements that seemed to be those of cutting purse strings. “What are they doing?”

Chankoor seemed to puff himself up, grinning with self-importance. “They practice the lessons of the god with the golden spear.”

“What god is that?” Chalmers asked.

Chankoor stared in surprise. “You are thieves, and do not know?”

“Thieves from lands far to the west, remember,” Shea said quickly, “very far to the west.”

Chankoor muttered something about ignorant barbarians, but explained. “He is Kartikeya, the god of thieves, who revealed to the master Yugacharya the Chauriya Vidya, the Thieves’ Manual . Any who wish to succeed in theft must know its precepts by heart. Regard those men, now . . .” He pointed at two men who labored at the base of a wall, “. . . and those, those, and those!” He pointed out three other groups who were also at work on the walls of three other shops. “They carry out the four modes of breaching a house.”

Shea peered through the darkness, and saw that the first pair were picking bricks out piece by piece. Shoddy, material, no doubt — and Chankoor confirmed it. “Burnt bricks,” he explained, but didn’t say who had burned them. Another pair were at work with a cold chisel, cutting through. “Those bricks are unbaked, and old,” Chankoor explained “The monsoon winds softened them quite nicely — but exposure to sun or salt will do as well.” The third pair needed no explanation — they were splashing a mud wall with bucketfuls of water. Shea shuddered, feeling that he had never fully appreciated modem construction methods before. He also didn’t need much explanation for the fourth pair — all he needed to see was the huge augur with which they were boring into the wall of a wooden house. “They’re going to have to drill a lot of holes before they can make one big enough to crawl through.”

“Not so many as you would think,” Chankoor said offhandedly. “They have saws with slender blades with which they can join the holes. See with what artistry they practice their craft! These sons of Skanda make breaches in the shape of lotus blossoms, of the sun, the new moon, the lake, and the water jar!”

“They do seem to be enjoying their work,” Chalmers said diplomatically. “I find it hard to believe that a group of such, ah, ‘rugged individualists’ would be willing to take orders from anyone.”

“Ah, but you have not seen the captain yet!” Chankoor said with a grin. “Come, let us find him!”

Moonlight or not they were caught in a maze of single-story mud-brick houses that was a tribute to a lack of city planning. Shea found himself growing dizzy with the turns and twists. He did notice that they seemed to avoid the big stone buildings carefully. As they went, other bands of three and four came out of side sheets to Join them, clanking bags on their backs, laughing and joking over their good luck. It made Shea’s flesh crawl, especially since he was soon surrounded by them. Looking up, he happened to notice the disguised rajah only a few feet away; he had apparently been taken up by one of the other squadrons, just as Shea and Chalmers had. Shea nudged Chalmers and nodded at the rajah, ever so slightly; Chalmers looked, and his eyes widened. He exchanged a quick worried glance with Shea before they both turned back to the front, marching onward in the midst of a mob of muggers, feeling as though they walked under the Sword of Damocles.

Then they turned a corner and almost ran into the city wall, Shea jolted to a stop out of sheer surprise, but a knife-point in his back, and a snarl, motivated him to go forward again. “How are we going to get over it?” he whispered to one of his captors, but the man hissed back, “All shall become evident to the enterprising. Forward!”

Shea gulped and marched, Chalmers beside him. He could have sworn they were going to march right into the wall, and Shea found himself wondering if Chankoor were planning to have them grind their faces into it. “Doc, do you think they’ll consider stopping?”

“The question has occurred to me, too,” Chalmers admitted. “Perhaps they believe themselves to be invisible.”

Shea remembered the incantation for invisibility. “But the guards won’t open the gates for invisible men!”

“I do not think it will be the guards who open them,” Chalmers returned. “After all, invisible men can still strike blows.”

Shea remembered the Wells novel, and shuddered; after the random senseless slayings he’d seen for no more than a few pieces of minted metal, he didn’t doubt that the robbers would not hesitate to kill their way out every night. “Maybe they’re just going to loiter around until the gates open at daybreak,” he said hopefully. “They can mutter the spell over and over, after all.” But the look of skepticism Chalmers gave him was all the comment the notion deserved.

Chankoor fooled them both. He simply walked up to the gate and knocked in what sounded like Morse code — three quick knocks, then two slow. For a moment, everything seemed frozen; Shea even held his breath. Then, slowly, the gate opened. “Magic?” he whispered.

“No,” Chalmers said with disgust. “Bribed porters.”

Shea stared, then felt a surge of self-anger at his own gullibility. He risked a glance about — and stared. He found himself gazing at the man with the horsehair over his nose! He couldn’t see the horsehair in this dim light, of course — it was only a stray moonbeam that had showed it to him in the first place — but he certainly recognized the face. It was Rajah Randhir, and his eyes flared with anger at this betrayal by his own gate guards.

Din pricked Chalmers’ neck again; he flinched and said, “I think we had better undertake our own transportation, before these fellows lose patience and leave us by the wayside.”

“With our throats slit,” Shea muttered. He started walking beside Chalmers, following the stocky, moonlighted figure before them.

Out they went, in the midst of a host of thieves and killers. They only walked for about ten minutes before they came to a knot of men milling about in the roadway, talking and laughing, with more joining them from footpaths beside the way every minute, Shea stared. Could the thieves really be so bold, and so busy, that they had worn their own paths? If they were, how could there be anything left in the city worth stealing?

They certainly weren’t worried about the sentries at the gate hearing them. The voices were loud, the laughter louder, and here and there a snatch of song. Their guides led them to the center of the mob, which parted to let them through at a muttered, urgent demand from their captors. Looking about for any possible escape routes, Shea happened to catch the rajah’s eye. Randhir gave a start of recognition, then gave him a furious glare that as much as promised instant death if Shea dared breathe a word about his not being a genuine thief — but Shea knew how he felt; he wasn’t at his most relaxed, himself, surrounded by a pack of outlaws who would probably slip a knife between his ribs as easily as they would hiss him to silence. He tried to look reassuring before the thieves behind him hustled him along.

The crowd stopped parting at a man who was taller than the rest, and strikingly handsome, if you liked lots of beard and moustache. He had muscles, anyway, and his style of dress certainly let it show. After all, a loincloth and turban don’t hide all that much,

“Captain Charya,” said Chankoor, “we have here two strangers who stumbled upon us as we were leaving the shop of the goldsmith.”