Robert Asprin: Stealers' Sky

After a time he heaved a sigh from the barrel chest any fighting man would have been happy to gain. Now Strick of Firaqa was torn. His burden, the Price he had paid for his powers, was twofold. One part of that Price was forever hidden beneath the flapped skullcap he wore, always. The second part was that Strick cared, cared, because he must. He had to. He must help people, not harm them. That meant he wove the spells that people called white magic, and that only.

"But ... isn't harming MarypeIMarkmor helping people? Does it serve good to-try to; maybe with Ahdio's help-to try to send an antisorcerous spell on MarypeIMarkmor?"

In blue skullcap and tunic over blue tights as ever, Torazelan Strick ti Firaqa sat alone, and fought himself.

"That you in there, Hanse?"

"Thanks for keeping your voice down, Abohorr. You know-you must have less belly than any bartender in this town or any other!"

"I'm startin' to put it on again," the man behind the Vulgar Unicorn's bar told him. "This work is ail standin', but hardly the work carpenterin' is. I'm a lot happier, too. You? Is that a disguise?"

Abohorr couldn't see the roll of dark, dark eyes within the deep shadow of the large hat. "Must be. Here." A wrinkly brown hand stretched out to leave an imitation gemstone in Abohorr's thumbless one.

He squinted at it. "Some of your skin seems t'be flakin* off, uh, Skarth."

"Damned clay! Strick asked you to find out where somebody lives. That says he wants you to tell me."

Abohorr nodded, but didn't look happy. "I understand. But I haven't found out. That fellow hasn't been in and my casual tries to find out anything about him got me nothin'. I'm sorry, Hanse."

"Damn. Not as sorry as I am." He glanced around and paused to watch the girlish woman moving among the tables delivering cups and bowls and collecting coins. "Silky looks good. Odd; she's wearing more'n I ever saw on her! She working out all right, Ab?"

"She's all right. Most customers leave her pretty much alone. Ah, she don't mind a pat on the butt now and agin, but she does hate t'be pinched. Broke a good jar over Harmy's head a few nights ago when he pinched 'er. Drenched 'im with beer and stretched him right out on the floor, she did! So she made an announcement-sure can be loud when she's of a mind to!-an' I did, and the boss sent over that sign."

Abohorr jerked his head at the wall behind him. Hanse looked, and sighed.

PINCHING HURTS. PINCH AND YOU'LL GET HURT WORSE. GUARANTEED.

-The Management

"Ab."

"Hmm?"

"What's it say?"

Abohorr reared his elbows up off the counter and turned to gaze at the sign. "Pinchin' hurts," he enunciated slowly. "Pinch and you get hurt worser. Somethin'-I guess that word is 'signed'-the Management." He turned back to Hanse, who had made a chuckly sound. "That's Strick. An' me, I guess. I got to ask him ... do I call myself manager?"

The large hat with the large droopy feather wagged. "Better ask him. Seen Gralis, Ab?"

"You ain't heard? He tried to mug the wrong man. Him and several others-but I hear Gralis swears he was by hisself. Anyhow he got his collarbone broke."

"Damn. I wanted to ask him to help me with something." Hanse thumped the bar with a wrinkly brown hand. "Got to go, Abohorr. Thanks. Pinch Silky for me."

Abohorr stared down at a flake of brown wrinkle on his counter, then lifted his eyes to watch Skarth depart, banging that staff on the floor all the way to the door. With a wag of his head the new One-Thumb picked up his bar cloth to wipe away evidence of Skarth's apparent leprosy.

The two youths accosted the old crip just as he was about to emerge from an alley onto the Serpentine. Teeth flashed as they grinned at the silly oldster who had to lean on a staff but still walked with a rolling limp.

"Nice hat you got there, citizen!"

"I'll have that feather, paw-paw. You don' need it."

"This here hat is all I got in the world that I love," an old voice quavered from under the outsize headgear, "an* it ain't for sale. You two nice boys just git along now."

They laughed. "Who said anythin' about buyin'," the leftward one said, moving in.

"Got a shock for you, citizen," the other said, with a chuckle that more resembled a giggle. "We ain't nice boys." He was moving in.

"Well, y'oughtta be! Look atche-Synab's boy Hakky an' you're Saz's little brother Ahaz, ain'tche?"

The youths paused to exchange a glance. "He knows us!" Ahaz whispered, high-voiced.

"Shu'up," Hakky told him. "So we have to leave some work for Cholly the gluemaker, then."

Each took a deep breath, fixed his gaze on the crippled man under the big hat, and again started toward him. Hakky's knife was in his hand.

Their quarry underwent a miraculous cure, but rather than straighten up he remained stooped. Neither accoster recognized it as a combative crouch until he shoved his staff between Hakky's legs and jerked it up hard, and even while Hakky was sucking in an audible, high-voiced gasp of pain, the quarry danced back and gave Ahaz such a crack in the side of his shin that the youth squealed and went down. After bouncing off the alley's right wall.

When they got their groaning selves together after a minute or so, their intended prey had vanished, seemingly into the shadows.

"Damned old faker!" Ahaz whimpered. "What a mean trick! And us just boys, too!"

That was when Hakky kicked him in his other leg.

And cried out at the pain his violent movement sent sizzling into his bruised and swelling genitals.

A few minutes later the damned old faker used his staff to poke aside several of the thirty-one dangling strands of Syrese rope hanging before the entry to that low dive called Sly's Place. He step-clonked in, glanced around at a fine big crowd of drinkers and babblers, and step-clonked down the single step into the noisy, odoriferous main room.

Ouleh the man-killer sat on someone's leg, her Ouleh-stuffed blouse cut down to here, while a homely woman in a long heavy-looking skin waited tables and a gimp-legged youth bore pottery back to the counter, where a very large man in a linked-chain mail coat was laying a big pickled sausage on a little tray between two bowls of beer. Ever moving, watching his place and his help and his patrons, his eyes did not miss the advent of the gimped old fellow in the wild hat. Besides, he was making enough noise with that outsize staff of his on the floor of oiled wood to make a god cover his ears.

He step-clonked his way to the counter.

"Are you Ahdio?"

The mailed man grinned. "Uh-huh. What do you want me to call you tonight-Notable?"

Under the hat a black mustache moved, but was too full to allow teeth to flash in a rueful smile. "You know everything, don't you? You really a sorcerer, Ahdio?"

Ahdio set a hamlike hand to his chain-scintillant chest and took on a sweet and innocent look-as much of one as that slab of face was capable. "Me? Are you a member of the Hell-Hounds?"

Under the hat, Hanse snorted. "Call me Skarth. I live in the Maze. You've known me for years. Draw me a beer and I'll leave it for Sweetboy."

"Nice of you," Ahdio said, moving for the beer, "but that cat hit a rat like a lightning strike this afternoon and ate everything but the viscera and the contents of its bowels. He always leaves those for me. Catsl Anyhow he's been sleeping it off for hours and probably couldn't even be bothered to stick his tongue into a bowl of beer. How's Notable?"

"Not that sleepy," Hanse assured him, "ever! Thanks." He slid his hand into the handle of the unglazed mug Ahdio set before him, watched a wrinkle or two flake off, and made a snarly noise. "You find out what Strick asked you about?"

"I did. That individual lives in Downwind." Ahdio leaned forward and lowered his voice, although that hardly seemed necessary, in the lowest and noisiest dive in the city and probably on the planet. "Brick, painted blue maybe twenty years ago, four stories high, on Happiness Street. Backs up to an alley just across from a small barn that looks more like a stable and used to be. He goes to sleep to the sound of goats, I reckon. His room's on the fourth floor, in back."