Robert Asprin - Aftermath

"I will!" Samlor cried again, "Depend on it!"

His voice echoed, but there was no sound at all from within the house.

"It wasn't really present," said Khamwas, touching the other man's shoulder to calm him.

"It's there enough for me," said Samlor grimly, massaging his bruised shoulder with the faceted knife hilt. "Might've tried t' stop a landslide for all I could do to keep it from slamming the door."

At a venture, he poked his dagger blade through the slit beside the door, in and out quickly like a snake licking the air. Nothing touched the metal, nor was there any other response. "He who shakes the stone," said-warned?-Tjainufi, "will have it fall on his foot."

"I mean," said Khamwas hastily to deflect possible wrath from his manikin, "that it's no more than a part of the door. A trick only, without volition or consciousness. It's carrying out the last order it was given, the way a bolt lies in its groove when the master releases it. No one may be present."

"If we go in there," said Star distinctly, pointing at the door, "we'll be ... krrk." The child cocked her head up as if her neck had been wrung. "Like chickens," she added as she relaxed, grinning.

Samlor's breath wheezed out. He had thought ...

"Well, Star," said the Napatan scholar, "I might be able to keep the wraith from moving for a time, long enough for us to get past the - . . zone of which it's a part. I might. But I think we'd best not go in by this door until Setios permits us to pass."

The two of them smiled knowingly at one another.

Samlor restrained his impulse to do something pointlessly violent. He looked at the blade of his knife instead of glaring at his companions and began in a very reasonable tone, "In that case, we'd best get some sleep and-"

"Actually," said Khamwas, not so much interrupting as speaking without being aware that Samlor was in the middle of a statement, "nei- ther of us have business with Setios himself, only with items in his posses- sion. I wonder ..."

"I want my gift now," said Star, her face set in the slanting lines of temper. Either she tossed her head slightly, or the whorl of white strands in her curly black hair moved on its own.

Go IN NOW read the iron letters on the blade at which Samlor stared in anger. There was too little light for the markings to be visible, but he saw them nonetheless.

"Heqt take you all to the waters beneath the earth!" shouted the Cir- donian in fury. He slashed the air with his dagger as if to wipe away the message crawling there in the metal. "I'm not a burglar, and coming to this damned city doesn't make me one."

"When you are hungry, eat what you despise," said the manikin on Khamwas's shoulder. "When you are full, despise it."

"Anyway," said Star, "ifs going to rain. Uncle Samlor." She looked smug at the unanswerable truth other latest argument.The caravan mas- ter began to laugh.

Khamwas blinked, as frightened by the apparent humor as he had been by the anger that preceded it. Emotional outbursts by a man as danger- ous as the caravan master were like creakings from the dike holding back flood waters.

"Well," the Napatan said cautiously, "I suppose the situation may change for the better by daylight. Though of course neither of us were considering theft. I want to look at a slab of engraved stone, and you simply wish to retrieve your niece's legacy from its caretaker-who seems to be absent."

"We don't know what it is." said Star. "My gift."

"Ah," said Khamwas, speaking to the girl but with an eye cocked toward her uncle. "That shouldn't be an insurmountable problem. If we're inside"-he nodded toward the door-"and the object is there also, I should be able to locate it for you."

"Will you show me how?" Star begged, clasping her hands together in a mixture of pleading and premature delight.

"Ah ..." repeated the Napatan scholar. "1 think that depends on what your uncle says, my dear."

"Her uncle says that we're not inside yet," Samlor stated without particular emphasis. "And he'll see about getting there."

Without speaking further to his companions, the Cirdonian walked to the comer of the building.

Setios's house was two feet away from the building beside it. There were no ground-floor windows in the sidewall either, but the second story was ventilated by barred openings.

Samlor stepped through the gap, too narrow to be called an alley anywhere but in the Maze. He ignored his companions, though they followed him gingerly in lieu of any other directions.

The vertical bars of the window above him were thumbthick and set with scarcely more room than that between them. Star might have been able to reach through one of the spaces, but the caravan master was quite certain that his own big hands would not fit.

"Are there going to be things like that door-monkey waiting by the windows?" Samlor asked the other man quietly. He nodded upward to indicate the opening he had studied.

Khamwas shrugged in darkness relieved only by the strip of clouded sky above them. "I would expect human servants if anything," he said. "They're ... more trustworthy, in many ways. And from what I've gathered, Setios is a collector the way I'm a scholar. Neither of us, you understand, are magicians of real power."

He paused and tucked his lip under his front teeth in doubt, then added, "The way your niece here appears to be, Master Samlor."

"Yeah," said the caravan master without emotion. His left hand tou- sled Star's hair gently, but he did not look down at the child. "And he collected a demon in a bottle, among other things."

Samlor grimaced, then went on, "Let's get out t' the street again. You wait, and I'll go talk to the fellow across the way there."

"Ah, Samlor ... ?" Khamwas said.

"Just wait here," the Cirdonian repeated. "I'm going across the street to talk with the watchman there." He nodded toward the guard shack on the construction site opposite.

"Yes, of course," Khamwas said with enough disinterest to hint at irritation. "But what I wanted to say was-Setios, you see, may not be avoiding you. There's been a recent upheaval in the structure of, you see, magic. He may have become frightened and fled from that."

The Napatan grinned. "He'll have left behind the stele I want to read, surely. Probably his whole collection, if that fear is why he left. And, as for this child's legacy"-he touched Star's cheek affectionately-"if we don't find it here, I'll help you locate it. Because you've helped me. And because I am honored to help someone as talented as your niece."

"The plans of gods are one thing," said the manikin on his shoulder. "The thoughts of men are another."

"Yeah, well," said the caravan master, then strode across the street with a swaggering assurance which immediately set him apart in a city where lone men habitually slunk. The watchman edged back from his window so that his eyes no longer reflected light.

It took five pieces of Rankan gold and ten minutes cajoling the nervous watchman at the construction site before Samlor returned to his compan- ions with the house jack he had borrowed.

"Khamwas," he said gruffly, "come help me with the window."

Star was curled in the comer of the door alcove, dozing with the Napatan's cape for a pillow. Khamwas stood in front of her, watching the street as well as the caravan master. He was very slim without the bulk of the outer garment, and his bare chest was no garb for this night.

"I, ah," he said, looking down at the child. "I thought it would be good if she got some rest, so - - - She's very like my own daughter, you know."

"Wish I had more talent for what she needs," said the caravan master quietly, staring at the child also. "Wish I knew what she needs, what any kid needs. But you do what you can."

He grimaced again. "Bring 'er along, will you? I need you at the side to hand me this jack when I'm ready for it"-he fluffed his cloak open to display the tool-"and I don't want her in plain sight on the street, even though it means getting her up again."