King Pinch (18 page)

"Up you are, then!" the Gur grunted as his fingers dug into Pinch's shoulder and, with a strained heave, he hauled the regulator half onto the platform.

Pinch was hardly surprised that Therin was there and waiting. Climbing was never the regulator's strong suit, and he'd made enough noise to sound like a bull elephant to a thief's trained ears. Sure enough, Therin, Sprite, and even Maeve -looking clearer-headed than usual-were there to greet him.

With a certain lack of dignity, Pinch kicked his legs over the rail and flopped to the wooden floor of the balcony. Easy climb or no, the effort, combined with a full day and night of no sleep, was exhausting.

"Gods, dearie! You've been hitting the blackjacks a bit, haven't you?" Maeve exclaimed. The regulator was a sight, at least by his own standards -rumpled clothes, bleary eyes, and a full day's crust of grime. He hardly looked their leader, the one who kept himself urbanely polished and clean.

"Found himself a woman, too, I'll wager," Sprite added with merciless glee. It wasn't often he got to pluck such fun at his senior.

Pinch struggled against the urge to yawn and lost. "Found more than you know, furry foot," he finally shot back as he made a grab for the halfling's curly toes. Sprite skipped out of reach, giving Pinch enough space to heave to his feet and stumble inside. Yesterday's, last night's, and today's adventures fell on him as he collapsed into the largest chair he could find.

Arms flopped over the rests, he looked at the three sideways as they filed in and stood semicircle around him: Sprite amused, Maeve curious, and Therin with the clear gaze of suspicion. Someday, Pinch thought to himself, someday that Gur is going to get it in his head to challenge me.

"We've work to do." Sprawled in the chair, the regulator hardly looked serious, but his companions knew to judge by the tone of his words, not simple appearances. "How have you come on finding a bolt hole?"

"Slipping the ring here's no problem, Pinch," Therin bragged. "Like you said, the door's always watched but the balcony's easy. We can avoid those cursed hellhounds by climbing up instead of down and taking out over the roof. Once we get up there, it's an easy scramble to the wall. Then we just watch the guards and go over the side."

"What about you, Maeve? Can you keep up with these two monkeys?" Pinch knew the wizardess wasn't trained in acrobatics like the other two.

"We'll help her along," Therin assured, before she could say a word.

The woman glared at the big, cocky Gur and added, "I've got spells, too. Don't you go worrying about me."

"Well laid, then." Pinch cut their bickering short. "Use it tonight. Go to the ordinary across from the lower end of the fish market. It's run by an old man named Sarveto. He'll have rooms for you."

"What's the job, or are you just running us off, Pinch?" Therin posed suspiciously.

"Work." Pinch glared at his lieutenant. Ever since starting this journey, the man had been insolent. After this, Pinch decided, Therin may have to go. Without taking his gaze from Therin, the regulator continued.

"Sprite, you've an eye for the stones. Find me an artificer of cunning hands, one who's hungry or likes the women too much. Just as long as he does good work and keeps himself quiet."

"Aye, Pinch. What'll his commission be?

"I want a copy of the Cup and the Knife. He'll know what I mean." The man leaned back and rubbed his eyes. "Therin, you and Maeve case the temple of the Red Priests. Mark their guards, whether the catchpoles are near at hand, and what the hour is of their walks. Maeve, use your charms to get yourself through their doors. Make friends with their servants. Note the hasps on their doors and what spells they lay about. Oh, and pay particular mind to their gossip. We're looking for this Cup and the Knife."

Therin smirked, perhaps wondering if Pinch had finally gone mad. "A cup and knife? Any old one or one that's particular?"

Pinch was suddenly alert and forward in his chair. "Not a cup and knife,
the
Cup and Knife."

"And what makes this set of trinkets so special?"

"They're the royal symbols of Ankhapur. Without them, a body can't be king or queen."

"So you're going to steal them and become king of Ankhapur!" Sprite blurted in a dazzlingly ambitious leap of conclusions.

"Hah! Me, king?" Pinch actually broke into laughter at that one. "Can you imagine me sitting on some throne. I've as much chance of becoming king as you, Sprite, have of becoming the lord high master of the Zhentarim."

"I think I'd make a fine Zhent. Don't you, Therin?"

With a grin the Gur twirled up a dagger. "Good Zhents are dead Zhents, Sprite. Want I should scrag you?"

The halfling comically ducked behind a bronzewood chest. "Well taken. I'll not be a Zhentarim and Pinch'll not be king of Ankhapur. "

"But I don't understand," Maeve said with a quizzical whine that cut through their play. "If you had this cup and knife, why couldn't you be king?"

The regulator, playing the role of wise teacher of the lore, settled back into his chair. "It's because of what the Cup and Knife do. You see, a long time ago -oh, back whatever ages of man it takes to forget such things-"

"Yesterday, for Maeve," Sprite-Heels sniped. Therin guffawed. With a mouselike shriek, Maeve kicked a footstool the halfling's way.

"However long it was, there was a falling out of the royal household. The first king of Ankhapur was dead. Apparently, the old king had been fond of his bedchamber though, 'cause he left behind more than a score of sons and grandsons, at least as many as what people knew about."

"One of the rewards of royalty," smirked the Gur as he settled into the chair across from his senior. Sprite turned up the stool and plopped onto it while Maeve leaned over Therin's shoulder. It was beginning to look like a long tale and one that might merit their attention.

Pinch yawned as the morning sun warmed the chair. "Of course, every one of those sons and grandsons considered himself the only fit successor to the old king. The rest were fools, idiots, and just plain enemies who didn't deserve the throne. It was a terrible time for the city."

"Assassins stalking the halls and all that?" Sprite asked eagerly. To his mind, this was shaping to be a fine story. "Lots of slaughter and only one survives?"

Pinch shook his head. "If it were only that, it would hardly be a crisis at all. The gentlefolk of Ankhapur are long used to solving a problem with a quick and fortunate death. No, this was worse for them -"

"I'd think losing my head would be about the worst you could get," Maeve whispered to Therin. She stroked the hangman's scar that peeked from under the scarf at his neck. "You'd know about that, wouldn't you, moon-man?"

The Gur bristled at the slur but said nothing. He wanted to hear the rest of the story.

"Worse for them -civil war. It would have torn the city apart. There were factions in factions ready to fight for their man."

Therin brushed Maeve away from the back of his chair. "So what's it got to do with this cup and knife?"

"Patience with my tale," Pinch advised as he held up one hand to restrain his lieutenant's impetuousness. "It turns out this story has a wise man, a priest -like there always is in these things. He said the choice should be up to the gods; let them pick the royal heir who was most fit to lead the city. He pointed out they could all slaughter each other for no gain but a smoking ruin of a city, or they could take their chances with the gods. How he got them all to agree, I don't know, but he did.

"So as the story goes, this priest and his servants go off praying and doing whatever it is they do, and after some time they return with the answer. And that an-

swer is the Cup and the Knife."

"I don't see it," Sprite protested.

"Whenever there's a new king to be chosen and there's more than one contender, it's the Cup and the Knife that decide. Each heir takes the Knife, pricks his wrist, drips a bit of blood into the Cup, and mixes it with wine. Then he drinks the stuff straight down. If he's the one chosen by the gods, he'll be wrapped up in a ball of holy light, or something such. I never saw it done for real."

"So then, that's what's going to happen here soon, eh Pinch?" Maeve asked.

"And without this Cup and Knife, none of the princes can be crowned?" Therin added.

"So if someone were to steal them, they could name their price?" Sprite chimed in, scuttling to Pinch's feet. "We're going to steal them, aren't we? And then we'll ask for a ransom and clean out the royal treasury! It's genius, Pinch. Why, they'll know our crime from here to Waterdeep!"

He'd told them too much already, the regulator decided, and there was no need to tell them any more – not about Manferic, the switch, or what their fates were likely to be when the job was done. They were with him now, and there was no point in giving them unnecessary details, especially ones that might make them question his plans.

"Yes, we're going to steal them and sell them back. Something like that."

"Temple robbing again." Given their last try, the halfling sounded almost cheerful at the prospect. He gave a nod to Maeve, who seemed in almost as good a cheer.

"It'll be the death of us yet," Therin gloomily countered as he pulled the scarf up to cover the rope scar on his neck.

I'm getting old, he thought. The nights of carousing, dashing from rooftops to beds to taverns, the nights sitting in the cold alleys, they're sapping the youth from my marrow. I have to be smarter now, work from my web and pull the lines like the spider that senses its prey. I have to think.

A pox on all that, he decided. I'm old. I'm going to sleep.

As he slept, Pinch dreamed, and he remembered those dreams -a thing unwarranted for him.

A shadow shape stalked him. First it was Manferic who, weeping by his own tomb, tried to draw Pinch into his mourning. The dead king's face was hooded, but the fabric of it shifted ever so slightly with the mewling wriggling of something alive. "Help me, son," clacked the dry jaws.

A panic clenched Pinch's dream-self. Then the shadow became Cleedis in a Hellrider's colors, hangman's noose in hand. Pinch could feel, if he truly felt in a dream, the cut of the hemp on his neck, burning the flesh to leave a scar like that around Therin's neck. Cleedis became Iron-Biter and Vargo, two creatures so alike, height to height the same. His dream attached great importance to the fusing of that pair. The one-who-was-two converged on him with the gleaming blade of the Knife held high and the Cup eager to receive his blood. His legs struggled to run, but his toes only brushed the ground. The noose cut into his neck, lifting him higher and higher. He soared above the reach of the Knife, above the scrape of the ground, up to the gallows height. His menacer changed again, and there was Therin laughing on the ground below, past the view of his own dangling feet. The lieutenant wore Pinch's clothes and was counting out the silver of his purse. Somewhere a magistrate's voice read the roll of his crimes and the punishments he had earned. Darkness closed till he hung in a single point. The roll was almost at its end, the creak of the executioner's lever eagerly waiting to finish the litany.

A woman's voice, cracked with age but holding a gentleness uncommon to Pinch's ears, carried through this darkness. "Janol," was all it said, over and over, unearthly hollow and never growing closer. It wasn't Maeve, the only woman Pinch had ever felt close to, although his dream-self half-expected it. It was a cry of anguished poignancy, yet one that offered safety in the darkness. Pinch strained against the noose, the logic of his dream creating ground beneath his dangling feet. The noose cut tighter, cold blood ran into his collar, but the cries grew no nearer. The rope creaked and a black-gloved hand came into view, ready to pull the trapdoor lever.

The hand pulled the lever. There was a rattling thunk. The rope swished. Pinch was falling.

"Janol."

The rogue jerked forward, hands clawing to pull loose the rope around his neck. It actually took moments, during which he ripped at his collar, before Pinch realized the noose was not there. He was sitting up in a mess of bed linens, still dressed in his day clothes, and gulping air like a fish. His mouth was dry and his jaw rigid with fright.

"Janol."

The regulator whirled about. He heard the voice. He was certain it was here somewhere and not just in his dream. It came from somewhere, anywhere in the room -but there was no one. He froze and waited expectantly for it to repeat.

Nothing happened; no cry came.

It had been only the residue of his dream, his nightmare. Sliding out of bed, he rubbed his temples until the echoes and the fog fled away.

Nightmares and dreams. Pinch didn't like either. There were priests who said dreams were the work of the gods, omens to be studied for their insight into the future. Perhaps because of this, Pinch had made a point of banishing dreams. He slept, he woke, and he never remembered what the gods might have foretold for him.

This nightmare was all the more galling because it would not go away. If it was a message from the gods, then his future was grim indeed.

Still, there was no point in brooding over what he couldn't control.

The small light though the windows, such as they were, suggested the best of an honest man's day was gone. It was time then for him to get to work. The regulator shrugged out of his tired clothes and into a doublet and hose of dark crepe that the servants had provided. He disdained the fine lace and silver buckles -too visible in shadows-and chose instead his worn hanger and well-used sword. Working clothes for a working man, he mocked as he admired himself in the mirror.

Ready, he cracked open the door to the hall slightly, although there was no reason for such caution. It was just old habit. Cleedis would have his guards outside, but there was no reason to conceal his goings from them.

The view outside reminded him that old habits existed for reasons. Cleedis's guards were there all right, their backs to him in an indifferent slouch, but beyond them were two more men equally bored, but wearing the livery of Prince Vargo.

"Damn!" the regulator breathed as he closed the door. Vargo's men complicated everything. They'd report to the prince and he'd be followed. If Vargo learned what he was up to, it would scotch all the plans. It was not likely the prince would allow Pinch to make off with the Cup and Knife.

In a few moments, Pinch reviewed his options. He could do nothing. He could hope that Cleedis came and provided a rescue or that the guards grew weary and slept. These were unpalatable and unlikely. He could try to create a distraction, but that would seem too obvious.

Still, there was another way out of the suite, though Pinch was loath to use it. His first and only experience in the tunnels had not been uplifting. He could only assume the tunnels went somewhere, but he had no idea how to find that somewhere. Then, there were things down there, including Manferic. He had little doubt the tunnels reached the necropolis because he was certain the late king had been spying on him before.

Thieves and fools were never far apart, though, so now was as good a time as any to learn his way through the underground maze. This time, though, he was forewarned and had every intention of being forearmed.

By the time he opened the door, he carried an oil lamp and a piece of charcoal in one hand and his sword in the other. His pockets were stuffed with candles, and a glowing coal was carefully hung in a little pot from his side. The ember heated the clay until it threatened to scorch his hip, but Pinch was not going to be without some way of rekindling his light.

The dust still lay in a thick gloom on the floor and, although Pinch was no tracker, he could see footprints other than his own in the churn. "Manferic," he muttered, interpreting the marks as best he could. This was a confirmation of his suspicions -and also a guide out. He'd follow the trail back until it certainly led to some escape to the surface. He'd just have to hope Manferic didn't have a direct path to the necropolis.

The plan stood him well at the bottom of the stairs. His own trail, which he could recognize by comparing to his prints now, went left, the other went right. He followed the latter.

The underground was a honeycomb of more passages than he imagined. The trail passed first one branch, then another, and finally so many that he gave up count. At any point of doubt, he marked the wall with a streak of chalk, showing that "I came this way or took this turn." He didn't intend to come back by the tunnels, since he cared not who saw him coming into the palace, but prudence was a virtue, and he with so few virtues needed all the ones he could garner.

He'd traveled so for twenty minutes without a guess where he was under the palace -if he was under the palace at all -when the plan went awry. The trail did something it wasn't supposed to do-it split. There were two sets of tracks where he'd been following only one. One was a thin trail in the dust, and it threatened to melt into uniform gray around the next double-backed corner. The other trail was solid and profound, clearing a route of constant traffic.

He tried to interpret the thick marks in the powder. The lesser trail was probably no more than the scuttles of rats; if he followed it, he'd end up in the palace kitchens.

The larger trail was more a puzzle. It smeared across the ground the way a wench mopped a table, in ragged swipes that blotted out what had come before. Here and there were traces of a boot or a shoe, showing some human progress. Tattered drapes of old cobwebs confirmed the passage. What slope-footed thing had shambled through the hall?

Pinch chose the latter route. Of course it was the worse choice. It was like a verser's play in a game of sant, where the obvious card was always the wrong card. Looking at it, though, there really wasn't any other choice. He was a thief and a confidence man, not some wild woodsman. The signs he could read were the marks of greed, gullibility, and the law. If he lost the trail -and the one looked damned slight-he'd be forced to come back here anyway.

It was with a profoundly greater sense of caution, though, that Pinch advanced. If there was something ahead, he was in no hurry to meet it unprepared.

The dry dust of the broken webs tickled his nose. The air was a dark sweetness of rotted spider strands and forgotten time. No breeze except for the unknown strangers rustled through the stygian corridor. There were no clicking insects in the darkness and none of the sinister squeaks of rats that he was accustomed to as a prowler. He'd crept down secret ways before, but the silence of this one was unsettling.

Remembering the pits and falls of his previous visit, the rogue felt the floor carefully with each step, reassuring himself that the stone was solid beneath his feet. At the same time, he strained his ears, wondering if he'd hear the same inexplicable lamentations he'd heard before.

He went a long way in this fashion, creeping and listening, and perhaps the strain of the effort dulled his keenness. He almost missed a sound that, had he been more alert, would have saved him from harm.

As it was, it was only just too late. He heard a snorting grunt and before he could assess it, anticipate its source, and shift the knowledge to his favor, it was too late.

A form, thick and furred, sprang from an as yet unexamined niche just at the edge of Pinch's probings. The creature stood like a man, half again as tall as the smallish rogue. It lunged forward in a burst of fury, its fur gleaming dirty white in the flickering light. Pinch jabbed at it with his long dirk, but the thing smashed his hand against the wall with a casual backhand blow. The biting stone shredded the skin over his knuckles and ground at the tendons until Pinch, unwilled, screamed at the fire that jabbed through his fingers.

With its prey's only guard dispensed, the man-thing lunged forward. Its head, a bearlike face twisted into a brutal snarl, was squashed between its shoulders to make a rounded lump above oversized shoulders. Before Pinch could dodge, the thing flung its limbs around him, pinioning one arm to his side. Rip went the back of his fine doublet as thick claws cut through it like paper. The nails pierced his back, burning between the muscled knots of his shoulder blades. The creature drove them in hard, pressing him close into its greasy chest. It smelled of sheep fat, grubs, night soil, and salt, and he could taste the same crushed up against his lips.

The skewed perceptions, the over-pure sensation of it, vainly tried to fill his mind and drive down the sear of pain as it worked its claws deeper into his flesh.

He distinctly heard the ragged course of his breath, the helpless scrape of his feet against the flagstones, and the creak of his ribs. He tried to twist himself free, but this was a futile play at resistance. The beast had struck too quickly and was too strong for him to resist.

Still, in the writhing, he managed to get a little leverage with his dagger hand. He couldn't jab the blade in, the way it should be, but was able to make a clumsy slash along its side. There was little hope of seriously wounding the creature. All the rogue wanted was a deep gash, one that would hit nerves and spill blood, distract the thing and give him a measure of satisfied revenge.

The knife cut as if through thick leather, and Pinch was rewarded with a furious squeal. Seizing the chance, he kicked out and twisted to break himself free. The hope was a cheat, like trying to win against a cole who's cut the dice to his advantage.

The squeal transformed into a snarl and, in one effortless sweep, the beast raked its claws out of Pinch's back to sink into his shoulders. Heaving up, the creature cleared the thief's feet from the floor and slammed him against the stone wall so hard his head cracked on the rock.

The world, a gloom already, darkened to a single tunnel. Somehow Pinch kept his dagger, though he could do little more than wave it around in weak blindness.

The creature slammed him against the wall again, its yellow fangs bared in brutal joy. And again. A fourth, a fifth, and more times until Pinch lost all count. With each crash a little more of the volition drained from his muscles until he flopped like a helpless doll in the monster's grasp. The world was all blackness, save for the tiniest point of the real world – the candle he'd dropped, still guttering on the ground.

The bashing stopped. Pinch could barely loll his head up. The rogue still hovered over the ground in the beast's bloody grasp.