Anthology - Thieves World - Turning Points

Dace blinked often enough, but he didn't move, didn't say a word as the changing house conducted its business. As birds flew, the Prince's gate on the east side of Sanctuary was farther from Wriggle

Way than the Swamp of Night Secrets, but Dace might just as well have fallen from the moon for all he seemed to grasp of ordinary trade.

"I'll see him back where he belongs," Jopze volunteered. His hand fell heavily on the Nighter's shoulder and spun him effortlessly toward the door.

"No, we owe him-" Bezul rubbed his brow. He'd acquired a headache between Stink Street and home. "We owe him a 'lucky.' " He turned to Chersey. "That chest of my father's. The one with the glass bulbs Ayse loves to play with, it's-?"

"In the woodshed behind the annex, under the porphyry urn we're holding for Lady Kuklos. The key's in the flowerpot."

Bezul leaned forward to kiss his wife on the cheek.

She whispered, "I knew Perrez was lying about something, but I couldn't get him to say what. That's why I wouldn't give him three shaboozh-I'd guessed he wanted it for wine. I never thought-"

"Who could?" Bezul replied in the same tone. "There'll be a reckoning this time, I swear it. The children are getting old enough to notice."

"What about that one? The Nighter… the boy."

"We'll give him a 'lucky' and send him back to the swamp." Bezul sighed. "I don't know which I find harder to believe: that my brother stole crab-trap bait or that he promised to take that poor, frog-eating bastard on as a partner."

Chersey put an arm's length between herself and her husband. "Could you be wrong about the bait?"

"I could be wrong about everything, Chersey. Why?"

"It's just-"

She twisted the moonstone ring and revealed an oval patch of reddened skin on her finger. Bezul gasped. The ring had been in his family since their goldsmithing days. It had kept them safe-almost-from the Hand and even in the face of Retribution himself, Dyareela's right hand in Sanctuary, the ring hadn't harmed the slender finger that wore it.

"I was suspicious," Chersey confessed. "So I kenned him-Perrez. I didn't see the aura-no malice-but, it hurt, Bez, and, afterward, all I could think about was the pouch hanging from his belt. That's how I knew… how I knew it wasn't anything to do with the tournament."

She blushed and Bezul tried to reassure her while asking, "Did you see which way he headed?"

"Out, that's all. We've been busy all morning. Maybe Jopze saw something. He was near the door, but I doubt it."

Bezul's headache was getting worse by the heartbeat.

"I'll go down to the tavern after we're done with Dace-the Nigh-ter. I'll talk to him, get to the bottom of this."

He left his wife smiling and went outside to the woodshed where the dusty air aggravated his headache and the big urn was at least twice as heavy as he remembered. Bezul had his arms full and his cheek pressed against the porphyry when he heard footfalls behind him.

"Give me a hand, here," he said, expecting that Chersey had sent Jopze or Ammen out to help, but the arms that slid around the polished stone were Gedozia's.

His mother was a strong woman, despite her gray hair and missing teeth. Between them, they got the urn to the ground without crushing anyone's toes. Bezul brushed his sleeves and waited for her to start the conversation because, sure as the sun rose in the east, Gedozia hadn't shown up by accident or to help with manual labor.

"You won't find your brother in any tavern around here."

Bezul raised his arm-in anger or sheer frustration, he couldn't have said which. After a moment, it dropped to his side again. "You knew," he accused her. "This morning, I asked you where he'd gone and you said you didn't know."

"And I didn't!" Gedozia insisted. "Oh, Bezul, this has nothing to do with that Nighter stinking up the front room. Perrez found something-"

"A bulb of red glass!"

"Some glass bulb," Gedozia retorted, "if there's an Ilsigi trader willing to pay seventy royals for it."

Bezul blanched at the sum, though, surely, if something were worth seventy golden royals in Sanctuary, it would be worth seven hundred in the king's city.

"Perrez came by to tell me this morning. Seventy royals! He's been working with this trader all winter. Yesterday the trader finally got serious and offered some earnest money. Today Perrez said he was turning it over-the red glass-and getting the full seventy royals. Seventy! He was so excited. He swore me to secrecy because he wanted to tell you himself, Bezul, to show you what he's made of. But you were already gone-chasing that Nighter-and he had to meet the Ilsigi at midday. Think of it: seventy royals ! I told your father, 'Bezulshash, it's not enough, not what he deserves, but it's a start.' I went to market to buy food for a feast-tried to, the city's up to here with people who think they're going to win more than seventy royals tomorrow and are spending their winnings today!

"Your father came to me at the fishmonger's: 'Gedozia,' he says. 'Gedozia, he can't be trusted!-' "

"Praise Ils! It's about time-"

Gedozia seized Bezul sharply by the wrists. "Not your brother, the Ilsigi! The Ilsigi means to cheat Perrez out of the seventy royals! He's too sweet-natured, my Perrez. He'll never suspect a thing, until it's too late. Find him, Bezul. He's your brother. It's up to you to do what his father would have done. Bezulshash would have beaten this Ilsigi with a stick."

Bezulshash would have done no such thing and Bezul would have dismissed everything his mother had said, if it hadn't made a sour sort of sense when compared with the tale Dace had told.

Bezul broke free of Gedozia's grasp. "Hard to cheat a thief, Mother. He tricked that glass from the Nighter. Good as stole it-"

"The Nighter's a halfwit-and who's to say where he got it, eh? If he got it. If it's even what the Ilsigi trader wanted to buy. You're the one talking about glass . I thought it was a manuscript."

"You-" Bezul caught himself. The sun rose and set on Perrez, always had, always would, and telling Gedozia anything else was a waste of time. Best to go back to the beginning, to what she wanted. "You said I wouldn't find Perrez around here. Where will I find him?"

"Uptown… in the Maze. The Unicorn."

Just when Bezul had thought he'd heard the worst, Gedozia astonished him. But if she knew the Vulgar Unicorn's reputation as a den of thieves and ne'er-do-wells, she kept it hidden. Bezul shook an iron key out of a painted flower pot, unlocked his father's chest, and sorted through its contents until he'd found a bulb of blood-red glass as big as his fist.

"You can't be serious," Gedozia complained. "That's irreplaceable. It's worth four shaboozh, three at least-"

Bezul locked the chest. He tucked the key inside his jacket and left the urn where it was. "Don't say another word," he warned the woman who'd birthed him. "After I've settled with the Nighter, I'll go uptown, looking for Perrez. Don't convince me otherwise."

"You-" Gedozia began, but Bezul's darkest stare convinced her not to finish.

He returned to the front room where Lesimar was sitting in Am-men's lap and Chersey tended a desperate-looking woman trying to exchange an apron of windfall apples for three fishhooks. Had Bezul been the one behind the counter, he would have given the woman a single metal hook for the brown, wrinkled fruit that even the geese wouldn't eat. Chersey parted with two and a length of light silken thread pulled invisibly from the hem of a lady's dress left in the shop on consignment. Their eyes met as the woman departed.

"Has the Nighter gone?" Bezul asked, saying nothing-wisely- about his wife's generosity.

"The kitchen," she replied, meaning that she'd decided to feed him.