Lynn Abbey - Thieves' World - Turning Points

A third sense was kept busy, but not to the point of being whelmed. That was vision. Many colors and hues marked the clothing and tents and stalls of both sellers and buyers, though the color of their hair differed only a little.

Ah, but that second, nigh overwhelmed sense! The sprawling collection of stalls, tents, and wagons, drab and colorful, was noisy.

Even in the open air hundreds of people, nearly all talking at the same time, did not create merely the "buzz" so often used by storytellers. It was bedlam. In fact, the noisiness of Sanctuary's market defined bedlam.

Yet two people were quite able to carry on a conversation, provided that they paused now and again, reluctantly or in anger, while wending their way through the mass of people, scents, and colors of both produce and of garments. The two older men, for instance, on this cool but sunny day. The one was portly under his veritable mane of hair the color of whitewash, his shorter companion his senior though his hair was blacker than black, and who walked with a cane.

Abroad in daytime, the man called Chance did not envelop himself in the concealing black garb of the man he had been, the infamous shadow-spawned thief and cat burglar. The lightweight cloak he wore over an off-white tunic and medium blue leggings was a sun-sucking dark red, for a man's blood was thinner at the age of seven and sixty, if not his arteries. This day they wended their way among stalls, booths, tents, and shoppers, while Strick relayed to Chance a few additional facts and beliefs about the youth called Lone gained through the Spellmaster's quiet and judicial questioning of a few selected persons. It was Strick's belief that he was discreet… and then their attention was demanded by a woman excitedly talking, with gesticulations, with a vendor who was apparently her friend.

The semi-attractive woman with the hair dyed red under the flut-tery green scarf was not well off, but she was erect and carried herself well and with pride. Too, she did know how to dress, and it was pretty clear to anyone who saw her that she spent what money she could on decorating her well-kept body. She was talking wildly, shrilly, and with a lot of gesticulating at the shortish, thin and thin-haired seller of inexpensive body decorations.

"But I live on the third floor!" she squealed. "That must be— what? Sixty feet up?"

The man in the booth under the orange and violet awning shrugged and made a gesture to indicate his uncertainty but desire to be agreeable. "Uh-huh, about that, uh-huh, I reckon…" She was babbling on as if he had not spoken, making it obvious that he need not have done. "So somebody climbed up the wall all the way up there, Cleggis, and then he broke into my place through my window while I was right there sleeping"—with a sudden shiver, she clutched each of her upper arms with the opposite hand—"and he knew where to find my earrings, or he's so experienced at thievery that he guessed, and he took them out of my shoe about one foot below my head, Cleggis!"

"Yes! And then… and then… he left one of them in the other shoe, just to—to… to taunt me, I guess."

Cleggis shook his head. "Wackle!"

Strick had moved to place his mouth near Chance's ear. "Reckon we're hearing about our boy Lone?" he asked, sotto voce.

"Sounds that way. And it sounds like he's even better than we thought we knew."

"Not in need of a lot of training," Strick said, wickedly teasing.

"Just climb off it, Strick," his friend said, changing course in the smallish throng to head for the savory aroma of cooking meat. "No one is ever, ever going to be as good as I was."

He was happy to order a fat, juice-dripping sausage. With the seven-inch cylinder of meat in hand, he made a flamboyant gesture that silently invited Strick to join him in having one. The Spellmas-ter, however, preferred to cross the aisle between rows of vendors and purchase a smallish wedge of cheese. Chance knew the reason. Strick's vast girth was part of the Price extracted from him in exchange for his ability, but still he had to be careful of his diet, lest he add to that girth and run his weight right on up past three hundred pounds.

"To continue about you know who," he said, as they ambled on, munching, "sometimes called the cat-walker. He is naturally right-handed, but to emulate his idol, that Shadowspawn fellow, he has put in a lot of time training himself to use his left arm and hand. So long, in fact, that he is about equally as good with either arm-hand by now."

"Brilliant fellow," Chance said, as drily as a man could when his mouth was full of greasy sausage. He smiled and nodded at the end of the shelf of the next vendor's booth along the way.

Comfily curled and snoozing there was a smallish cat about the color of charcoal except for the small white area on his left ear and another back of his left rear "ankle."

And somewhere, someone triumphantly pronounced his word of power.

"Iffets!"

Even as Strick turned his gaze in the direction indicated by Chance, every hair on the slumbering animal whipped erect and its eyes flared huge. With a hideous yowl of alarming volume, the cat did not just leap to its feet, but straight up to an elevation that was beyond impressive and in fact appeared beyond possible. Landing as only a cat could, it spun around three times at almost incredible speed, pounced onto the canvas side of the adjacent stall, and ascended as if someone had set its tail afire. It set a record for speed of climbing, surely, for a cat without a flaming tail and not being chased either. Reaching the top of that dingy tent, it ruined the "roof" by spinning completely around—three times at speed, as before, just as if it could count.

By now the performance of the suddenly demented feline had attracted a good number of witnesses, all gawking and ejaculating in excited voices. By the end of its third rotation atop that vendor's tent, the object of their attention looked bigger by twice. Surely an illusion…

Without pausing or even slowing, meanwhile, the dark gray kitty pounced from the top of the dingy tent onto the top of the neighboring one where it had lately slept so peacefully, presumably its home. But! Its destination changed en route. Flattening in air with all four feet extended, as well as neck and tail, the presumably en-sorceled animal took on kinship with a flying squirrel.

"Sorcery!" a high-voiced man squealed.

"Oh Ils father of us all," Chance muttered, "how I hate sorcery!"

The sorcerer standing beside him said nothing, but only stared, as so many were doing.

A charcoal gray streak and still growing, the cat soared completely over the booth of its befuddled mistress, a permanent site constructed of wood. It struck the flat roof of the next stall in line, one of gold-hued canvas with a russet awning. The impact was heavy.

At the instant of that impact the flying feline smashed through the flat canvas roof, at the same time messily exploding into revolting components, without sound other than stomach-turning juicy noises. From within came the sound of yells and screams, one of either sex.

Some vendors and every visitor to the market stood as if frozen, staring at what had been. Abruptly one person detached itself from the crowd. The long skirt of the loosely girt blue tunic worn by the more than portly man with white hair flapped as he strode to the aerially invaded stall. From it emerged no cat or person, but only increasingly muffled screams. Both Strick's ringed hands slapped down onto the wooden counter and, on tiptoes, he bent forward to peer inside.

"Oh, fart!" he barked, which was as profane as the Spellmaster got. He turned. "Chance! I need your help."

His friend's unhurried compliance with the urgent request clearly lacked enthusiasm. He learned Strick's desire and waylaid a burly Woman to help him. Together, they assisted the beyond burly man with the stocky legs onto the counter, and over it. A few moments later they were joined by a wide-eyed fellow who came hurrying around the left side of the stall, and the equally goggle-eyed woman who closely followed. Dark, dark they were, desert people whose place of business had been invaded by the ghastly components of the product of sorcery. In desperation and charged with adrenaline, they had hoisted the canvas in back and crawled out.