Authors: Alexey Pehov
Markun had taken the trouble of posting lookouts in order to spot any unusual developments in the form of Frago Lanten and his faithful lads, or even Harold, if it came to that. Well, well.
Thank Sagot, the lads didn’t notice me, and I turned onto the next side street, intending to get into Gozmo’s inn through the service entrance. Or exit—it all depends on which way you look at it. But there was a stroke of ill luck in store here, too. As if to spite me, there were a large number of angry-looking Doralissians hanging about nearby, keeping an eye out for suspected enemies, and I got out of there in a hurry. The goats were also pretending to be peaceful lambs and acting as if this was their home territory. The local inhabitants were not objecting.
I’d have to do it the old-fashioned way, over the roof. Using the cobweb, I was soon standing on the roof next to the roof of Gozmo’s inn, and with a hop and a skip I was on the other building. I dived into a little attic window . . . and almost ended up in a lovingly positioned mantrap.
These hunters, may the dark elves roast me alive! You could catch an adult obur in a trap like that! Nothing could possibly be more dangerous than the hospitality of my best friend Gozmo!
As I expected, the attic was dusty and dirty, and so it cost me quite an effort to find the hatch in the floor; I had to scrape away a heap of old
rags, and the dust almost made me sneeze. The trapdoor was locked from the other side, and I cursed the lock, and Gozmo, and Markun’s lads, and the stupid Doralissians a dozen times before I finally managed to get it open.
There were no steps, so I simply jumped down onto the floor of the second story, almost colliding with Gozmo as he strolled along the corridor. The innkeeper squealed in surprise and jumped back against the wall.
“Harold! You’ll be the death of me!” he exclaimed and spat when he recognized me. “Couldn’t you choose a less eccentric way of visiting?”
“Did you do as I said?” I asked, ignoring his question.
Somehow I didn’t enjoy visiting Gozmo as much as I used to.
“Yes, may you be cursed three times over! Markun and his lads have been here for more than an hour already.”
“My sympathies.” The head of the Guild of Thieves was as impatient as ever. He had decided to turn up well in advance of the set time. “What sort of mood is he in? Bad, as usual?”
“Bad?” Gozmo wrung his hands despairingly. “I’m done for! The moment he learns that there isn’t going to be any deal, those lads of his will have our guts!”
“Stop whining,” I said good-naturedly. “You’ve got nowhere to fall back to now.”
What’s true is true. Even if Gozmo betrayed me, he was a dead man. The fat slug who through some mistake of the gods had become the leader of the Avendoom Guild of Thieves never forgave anyone who tricked him. The hospitable water below the piers was waiting for Gozmo.
“Curses on that night when I listened to you,” Gozmo muttered.
He had probably been visited by thoughts about the water under the piers as well.
“Don’t panic. It’s bad for the job. Better think about something pleasant. Have you already received your share of the gold?”
“No,” Gozmo said with a frown. “That cursed fat man promised to pay after he closes the deal.”
“You’ll get a deal. At exactly midnight. Meanwhile, pour the lads some beer, so they don’t get too bored. Or they might get upset and start trashing the place.”
“Who’s going to pay for it?” There was no more warmth in the old thief’s eyes than in an icicle on the S’u-dar Pass.
“You are, of course, or did you think I’d pay a brass farthing to help fill Markun’s belly?”
Gozmo didn’t think so, and he spat on the floor again.
“Go and keep them busy, give them some beer. I’m going into the office.”
“The Darkness take you,” Gozmo muttered, and set off toward the staircase leading down to the first floor.
I was under no illusion about Gozmo’s feelings for me, but it really wasn’t in his interest to sell me out. It was better for him to count on Harold coming up with something to make everything turn out all right.
The office was a little room directly above the main hall of the inn. Something like a closet with a magical floor that was transparent from one side, so that you could see what was going on underneath your feet.
As far as I’m aware, Gozmo acquired the inn without the magical floor. But one day a magician who had been expelled from the Order locked himself in the closet with a young maiden, and this was the result. I won’t even try to imagine what they got up to in there, but the outcome was a very convenient observation point. I found out about it completely by accident. That day good old Gozmo had taken a drop too much, and his tongue was flapping faster than the sails of a windmill. The next day the innkeeper denied everything, of course, but I cornered him, and he had to admit I was right. So today I was going to watch the show with every comfort and, most important, in absolute safety.
Just as I had anticipated, no customers were expected that day. No man in his right mind—or even out of it—would go barging straight into a hornet’s nest, especially when the chief hornet was Markun himself. Better to spend the day at home and go without drink. Or visit the inn on the next street along.
Gozmo, of course, did not share the opinion of those regulars who were too timid to visit his establishment today but, to do him justice, he suffered in silence.
The role of customers had been usurped by Markun’s faithful jackals. There were about two dozen of these items spread around the tables. I call them items rather than men because these lads were no more than the living appendages of their swords; they were a brute force that
simply carried out the instructions of the head of the Guild of Thieves. And they were even more hard up for brains than the Doralissians.
The lads were downing the free beer provided by the generous Gozmo, who flitted from table to table filling the orders of the insolent bandits. The entire gang was very heavily armed; they looked as if they had just dropped in for a minute before going off to make war on the Nameless One.
It looked like I was in for a genuine fireworks show.
His Majesty, Milord Fat Ass, the head of the Gang of Corpse-Eaters that was unworthy to bear the title of the Avendoom Guild of Thieves, was sitting at a separate table straight below me. If there had been no barrier between us in the form of the floor, I would have been absolutely delighted to spit on his bald, shiny head—something that he deserved a thousand times over.
The fat leader of the guild was decked out more richly than the peacocks in a sultan’s courtyard. The dark brown suit of fine velvet was fit for a king, not the owner of three chins and a pair of little rat’s eyes drowning in fat. I found Markun repulsive. He was a slug who had managed to crush the once beautiful and all-powerful Guild of Thieves under his own vast carcass through crude deception.
There was a time when we could still pass each other by on the narrow path of our personal interests and Commissions, but now the day had arrived when the path was too narrow for both of us.
There was a man in black sitting opposite Markun, with his back to me. It was Paleface, of course. They were talking about something and the killer began waving his hands about in nervous irritation, but Markun took no more notice of him than a gkhol would take of a well-gnawed shinbone.
“What are you so nervous about, Rolio?” asked Markun.
“I’m not nervous!” Paleface hissed. “I’m just saying that I don’t like all this.”
“What don’t you like about it?” The argument seemed to have been going on for some time already, and Markun was beginning to get irritated.
“The buyer. How did he find out that you had the Horse? And where would he get so much money from?”
“What difference does that make to you? I don’t think Gozmo would
dare try to trick me. And as for the buyer—that’s not our concern,” Markun laughed.
“You’re right about that,” Paleface muttered, getting up off his chair.
At last I was able to get a look at his face. Several burns and a mass of scratches made Paleface look like a visitor from the next world. It was not so easy to look handsome after suffering the effects of Roderick’s fireball. And his arm was still in a sling—it would be a long time before he forgot that shot from Bolt, may he rest in the light.
“It’s not our concern! It’s your concern! Our common acquaintance gave you the Commission for the Horse. And you’ll be the one to pay with your stupid head for deciding to sell the Horse to someone else and bypass the client!”
“And I seem to recall that our common acquaintance ordered you to kill Harold, but the thief is still alive, while you look like something that’s come back from the dead. And I also remember very well that my best men never came back from your adventures. Two of them never got out of that nameless alley and another three were finished off by the guards in the library. And I’d like to ask what in the name of Darkness those guards were doing there in the first place. And then another three of my most experienced men disappeared somewhere in the Forbidden Territory. And they were all sent by you! Under cover of my name!”
“I didn’t send your jackals into the Forbidden Territory,” said Paleface, interrupting Markun. “The Master’s servant did that.”
“Oh, don’t give me that, Rolio!” Markun said with a dismissive gesture. The expression on the face of the fat master of the guild was one of frank disdain for the world in general and for Paleface in particular. “You were the one who dragged me into your business with the Master. If only I’d known, I’d never have got involved.”
“Come on, Markun, you were serving the Master long before I ever came to Avendoom. So don’t go hanging all your dead men round my neck! All I did was remind you that you can’t just go on taking money for nothing; it’s time to repay our lord with some real service. And you have no right to complain.” Paleface snorted as he sat back down at the table. “You’ve had more than enough gold.”
“Gold won’t save my head,” Markun muttered.
“Nothing will save your head if you sell the Horse!” Paleface growled, beginning to lose patience.
Several of Markun’s minions looked round from their mugs of beer to see what was going on at their chief’s table.
“I’ve no intention of selling the Horse!” Markun snapped, slamming his plump hand down on the table. “We’ll just take the money and leave the buyer floating under the piers! Do you really think I’m stupid enough to give that Stone to anyone except the servant of the Master? You’d do better to handle your own assignment and put an end to our common problem at long last.”
“I’ll put an end to him,” Paleface growled in a more conciliatory tone. “Harold won’t be in this world for much longer.”
“That’s what you said five days ago,” Markun said with a repulsive giggle. “I’m beginning to have doubts about your professional skill.”
“You’d do better to think about how to keep the Horse safe and sound until the client comes to collect it.”
“What’s so hard about keeping it safe?” Markun asked with sincere surprise. “I keep it with me all the time.”
The head of the guild snapped his fingers casually and one of his bandits immediately placed the Horse of Shadows on the table.
I’ve always said that the Doralissians are rather strange creatures. Only they could have called something that looks like the phallus of some ancient pagan god the Horse of Shadows. If that’s a Horse, then I’m the emperor of the Lakeside Empire.
“Hey, Gozmo!” Markun shouted across the entire room. “Where’s this buyer of . . .”
Unfortunately, he never finished what he wanted to say. Several things happened at once.
Bleating repulsively with that remarkable skill that they have, Doralissians started running in through both of the doors. I could see that their leader was my old acquaintance Glok. The goat-men were in a really foul mood and looked as if they intended to make serious use of the clubs, hand axes, and grappling irons that they were clutching. There were only a couple of dozen men in the place, but about fifty goats came piling in. The inn was immediately crowded and the atmosphere was explosive.
This time the Doralissians almost managed to surprise me. Ten of the goats had been bright enough to bring crossbows, but they were still too stupid to make use of their advantage. They should have fired first
and then got involved in the fighting. But as the goats always do, they got everything backward. The ones without crossbows went charging forward stupidly, leaving their archer brothers behind them. And the ones with crossbows turned out not to be blessed with the gift of patience either: They decided that the sooner they fired, the better.
So they fired. Of ten bolts, three hit the wall, six hit the backs of the charging goat-men, and only one—clearly by complete accident—pierced the shoulder of one of Markun’s men.
The Doralissians just don’t know how to play their trump cards. Having killed six of their own kind, the goats stopped in amazement, wondering how they had managed to hit their brothers-in-arms. Markun’s lads, who hadn’t been expecting to find themselves in the middle of a goat farm, jumped up from the tables—knocking over their chairs—and grabbed hold of their weapons. They had more than enough time while the Doralissians were dithering like genuine . . . er . . . Doralissians.