David Cook - The Nobles 01 - King Pinch

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[The Nobles 01] - King Pinch
By David Cook
Scanned, formatted and proof-read by BW-SciFi
Release Date: July, 11th, 2003
Prologue
In a far southern land, ten thousand people gathered in the afternoon haze, a miasma that started at noon
along the shores of the Lake of Steam. From there it swelled through the streets of Ankhapur and cloaked
the city in a moist cloud until sweat and air became one. No breezes fluttered the white banners on the
rooftops. Not even the collective breaths of all those gathered could swirl the clotted air. Cotton plastered to
flesh like a second skin, so that clothes hung limply on people's bodies. Ten thousand people stood waiting in
the clothes of the dead and the lifeless.
These ten thousand—the grandfathers, fathers, and sons of Ankhapur; the grandmothers, mothers, and
daughters of the same—squeezed against the sides of the narrow streets, overflowed the balconies, and
squatted in jumbles on stairs that coiled out of sight.
They lined a single winding avenue, choked the streets that led to it, even crammed their boats along the
quay where the avenue passed. At the edges of this mass were the kebab vendors with their sizzling meats,
the wine boys who siphoned draughts from the kegs strapped to their backs, the fruit sellers pushing
over-ripe wares, the gamblers who cunningly lost in order to win, and the ladies who profited from any
crowd.
A traveler, caught in the edges of the thronged multi-tude, would at first assume he had stumbled upon a
festival unknown in his far-off homeland. Perhaps the hordes waited for the devout pilgrimage of a revered
saint. Maybe it was the triumphal entry of a conquer-ing lord, or, most wonderful of all, the perambulation
of a revealed god before the very eyes of his worshipers. That truly would be a story for the traveler to tell
upon his return to some distant home.
As he pushed his way farther in, though, the traveler would begin to have doubts. Where were the
lanterns, the bright streamers, the children's toys he was accus-tomed to at every festival in his home? Was
this the passing of a particularly dour saint, a victory too costly for the citizens to bear, or, worse still, the
march of some vengeful death god whose gaze might strike down some unfortunate? There was no cheer
or eager expec-tation in those around him, and as he plunged farther into the crowd, he would find only
ever-increasingly somber face of duteous sorrow.
Upon finally reaching the center of this dour crowd, the traveler would be greeted by masses of red
bunting, great swathes of the brilliant cloth hanging listlessly from the balustrades and lampposts that
magically light Ankhapur's nighttime streets. Were this the trav-eler's fledgling journey, he might be
mystified by the colorful riot that hung over his head. His journey had brought him, perhaps, to a city of the
mad—lunatics who lived out their lives as the inverse of all normal reason—melancholy in their joy, merry
when others called for sorrow. Shaking his head, he would quickly resolve to leave Ankhapur, perhaps
noting its dementia in the notebooks of his travels.
This would not be the conclusion of a traveler more steeped in the whirling customs of different lands.
He would look at the scarlet bunting and know that the language his own culture saw in them was not the
lan-guage of Ankhapur. Before him was stretched a fune-real display, just as black or white might
symbolize the same in his land.
If he were truly cunning, he would guess the nature of the departed. No crowds throng for the passing
of a mage. The deaths of wizards are intimate and mysteri-ous. Nor was it the passing of some
once-beloved priest, for then surely the people would congregate at the clergyman's temple to hear the
dirges his followers would sing. The passing of thieves and rogues no one mourned.
It could only be the death of a lord, and one great and powerful at that. Nothing less than the mortality of
kings could draw the people into the humid afternoon, out to stand in the sun until the processional passed.
Looking at the citizens with renewed insight, the trav-eler would see an old courtier in despair, his
almost-realized expectations dashed. A young maiden shivers with tears, overcome by the memory of some
forgotten kindness His Highness had bestowed on her. A one-eyed cripple, dismissed from the guard after
his in-juries in the last campaign, struggles to stand in the stiff posture of old duty. Farther up, a merchant
leans out the window, his face a mask of barely disguised glee as he already counts the profits he will reap
now that the oppressive lord is gone.
As the traveler studies his neighbors, the procession finally arrives. The honor guard broils under its
plumes and furs as it clears the streets. Behind follow the priests of all the temples, the aged patriarchs
carried in shaded sedan chairs while their acolytes swing censers and drone their prayers to the skies.
Finally there comes a great gilded cart, draped in a pyramidal mound of red silk and pulled by three ranks of
sacrifi-cial oxen, the first rank the deepest black, the second a hitch of unblemished white, and the third all
perfect gray. As the ox cart creaks and lumbers through the cobbled streets, all eyes strain to see the
throne that sits at the top. There, dressed in the robes and furs of state, immune to their crush and heat, is
their late king. Only his face shows, chalky gray and hollowed by the final touch of death.
A breath, held by ten thousand souls, is released as the cart passes each man, woman, and child of
Ankha-pur. The king is truly dead. The people begin to move once more, each citizen taking up again his
course among the living. As the traveler passes through the crowd, a hand with a knife stealthily reaches
for the strings of his purse.
Years later, when the traveler speaks of Ankhapur, he will tell of the funeral of the king of a land of
rogues.
Rooftops and Boudoirs
"Crap! This wind stings like Ilmater's wounds!" a thin voice loudly groused from the darkness of night.
"Quiet, you little fool!" hissed a second, deeper voice close by the first. "You'll tip us for sure with your
whin-ing."
"Fine then. You work these knots with your fat human fingers," the other voice hissed back. His words
were almost lost in a roaring gust. There was the furi-ous snap of long cloaks lashing the air.
"Just work, damn you, before we both freeze." The words were accented by the chink of metal grating
against tile.
A flash of light swept across the pair.
"Down!" hissed the deeper voice. The light briefly il-luminated two people—one large, the other absurdly
small—perched on a precarious cant of rippled roof tile.
The larger of the two was leaning heavily on a bar wedged in a crack between the terra-cotta shapes.
The smaller one fumbled with a stout cord, knotting the end around a glazed chimney.
"Relax. Just a lamplighter," the little one said. An icy gust rocked them, swirling their cloaks into fierce
snarls.
Wind was a property of the winter-stung nights in Elturel. Each night it rose up with the fading sun to
sweep through the hillside streets of the city's High District. On a gentle night it was a dog's whimper,
pa-tiently waiting to be let in through every opened door and window. But there were other nights, like
tonight, when it snarled like a ravaging hound. The hunter's wind, people called it then, and shuddered when
they heard the noise as it bayed through the streets. Every-one knew the calls were the hounds of Mask,
and no wise man went out when the unshriven dead called to him from the street.
At least not the honest ones.
Poised on the high, tiled rooftop, the two shapes— large and tiny—continued their work. A chill blast
shivered over them and they unconsciously shifted on their roost until their backs were carefully turned to
the numbing blasts. Never once did they break their at-tention from the glazed tiles beneath them.
There was another grate of metal on fired clay. "It's up. Are you ready?" hissed the larger of the two.
The snap of rope as the smaller set his last knot was the answer. "Don't drop me this time, Pinch," the
thin voice cautioned, only half in mirth.
"Don't try to hold back the pelfry, Sprite-Heels. Sav-ing the best stones for yourself's not being upright. I
could've let the Hellriders take you." There was no humor in the man's voice at all, and in the darkness it
was impossible to see his expression. He passed the knotted rope through the small hole in the roof tiles.
Sprite-Heels mumbled an answer without saying anything, though his tone was suitably meek. Pinch, his
partner, was not a man to cross needlessly. Sprite-Heels had tried it once and got caught cold at it. He
could only guess Pinch must have been in a good mood that day, for the halfling was still alive. He'd seen,
even helped, Pinch kill men for less provocation. He could say that Pinch just liked him, but he knew the old
rogue better than that. Pinch didn't have friends, only the members of his gang.
There was a faint slap as the cord struck the floor. "Down you go," Pinch said with playful cheer. He
wrapped the cord around his waist and belayed it with his arm, ready to take the halfling's weight. Little folk
like Sprite-Heels were small and short, which made them good for wriggling through tiny gaps made
through pried up roof tiles, but they still weren't light. Sprite-Heels for one was fond of his ale and cheese,
which lent him an innocent-seeming chubbiness. That was all well and good for working the street, but the
halfling was far from the lightest cat burglar Pinch had used.
The halfling studied Pinch in the darkness and then gave a shrug, unable to fathom the man. Pinch was a
"regulator," the master of his shifty and shiftless fel-lows. The air of studied threat about him was a mask
worn too long, until Pinch knew practically no other. In-deed, pudgy little Sprite-Heels was not even sure he
knew the real Pinch anymore.
"Stop dallying," the rogue hissed.
The halfling jerked into motion. Squirming his rear for balance on the tiles, he tugged off a pair of thick
boots and flexed his furred feet. Barefoot was better for working the rope, but a terra-cotta roof in the
winds of winter was no place to creep unshod.
Pinch thrust the rope into the halfling's calloused hands.
The halfling fingered the rope. "Why don't you go down, Pinch?" he finally asked with a brazen smile.
"I'll steady you."
Pinch smiled back with a grin just as predatory. "Bad knee—never any good at climbing." They both
knew the answer anyway. "Get going. We're to be gone before the Hellriders come around again."
The halfling grumbled, knowing what argument would gain him. He wriggled through the hole, snag-ging
his cloak on the uneven edges. "Climbed up here well enough, you .. ."
The grumbles grew inarticulate and then disap-peared as the halfling descended into the darkness.
Pinch's arms, wrapped tight around the rope, trembled and quivered with each jerk of the line.
As he sat on the roof, back to a small chimney, every second in the wind and darkness dragged into
hours in Pinch's mind. Time was the enemy. It wasn't the guards, the wards, the hexes, or the beasts
rumored to roam the halls beneath them; it was time. Every minute was a minute of more risk, a chance
that some ill-timed merchant next door would rise from his secret assignation and step to the window for
air, or that on the street below a catchpole would look up from his rounds to stare at the moon. There were
endless eyes in the dark, and the longer the job took, the more likely that someone would see.
Pinch cursed to a rat that watched him from the cor-nice, flipping a chip of tile toward its pit black eyes.
As the rat squeaked and ran away, Pinch damned Sprite for his slowness. There was another, Therin, who
was a choice target of his oaths. It was he and not Pinch who should have been on the roof; that was the
way Pinch had planned it. In fact it was all that damn-fool's fault for getting caught in a nip when he
shouldn't even have tried. He hadn't the skill as a cutpurse to try for a mis-tress o' the game's bodice
strings, let alone the purse of a Hellrider sergeant.
Pinch was just pondering who was the right man to give an alibi for Therin when the line went slack
through his fingers. Instantly he bobbed forward face first into the hole, catching himself before he
plum-meted to the marble floor thirty feet below. He strained to hear any sounds of scuffle or alarm, even
the lightest tap of a soft footfall.
There was nothing and that was good. So far every-thing was going according to plan. Sprite-Heels was
liv-ing up to his name, now padding silently through the halls of the Great Temple of Lathander, making for
the great holy relic kept there.
Pinch had a plan, and a grand one at that. The relic was useless to him, but there were others who
would pay dearly for it. Splinter sects and rival faiths were the most likely, but even the temple beneath him
might be willing to pay to keep their honor intact.
It was by far the most ambitious thing he and his gang had tried yet, a far cry from the simple curbing
and lifting they'd done in the past. Diving, like this, they'd done, but never on so grand a scale. It was one
thing to house break some common fool's dwelling. Sending Sprite-Heels diving into the temple was quite
another, almost as bad as cracking a wizard's abode. Temples had guards, wards, priests, and beasts—but
the rewards were so much more.
The plan was simple. The dark stretch of Sweet-sweat Lane, an alley that barely divided the temple
from the festhalls on the other side, was where Pinch had plotted their entry. A few nights' pleasant
scouting from the high floors of the Charmed Maiden had as-sured Pinch that the guards along that section
were particularly lax. Still, Pinch shed a few coins so that two maids, Clarrith and Yossine, were sure to do
their washing up in back, to draw off any curious eyes. Sprite-Heels had shimmied to the temple roof
without a snag while Pinch took the rope and followed shortly thereafter. All went well.
Once on the wall, the pair of rogues had scurried across the guard walk and plunged into a maze of
gables, eaves, and chimneys until Pinch's estimate put them over the main hall. With a pry bar and a
petter-cutter, they had pulled up the tile and carved through the lead beneath—and now Sprite-Heels was
inside.
Which was taking all too long. Pinch didn't like it. His calculations were right, and the halfling was
cer-tain to be over the altar by now. All Sprite-Heels had to do was grab the relic and whatever else he
could put his hands on quickly, and get back to the rope.
The problem was that Sprite was taking too long.
Carefully, so as not to lose his windswept seat, Pinch leaned forward to peer through the hole. At first
his eyes, a little weak in the night, saw nothing, but slowly the inside divided itself into areas of profound
dark and mere gloom. Straining, Pinch tried to interpret what he saw.
"Infidel!" roared a voice just as the darkness flared with light. Pinch practically flopped through the
nar-row hole as his gaze was filled by a corona of blinding after-lights.
"Seize the thief." roared the voice again, echoing through the vast empty chamber of the temple's great
nave.
In Pinch's blinking gaze, a small hunched blur darted across the broad marble floor. Close behind was a
pack of clanking men lit by the brilliant flare of a priest's wand of light. The old rogue heaved back out of
the hole, suddenly fearful he'd been seen and breathless with surprise.
The rope, previously slack, jerked and snapped as a weighty little body grabbed it and scrambled up the
line. "Pinch!" wheezed Sprite-Heels through lungfuls of air. "Pinch, haul me up!"
The man seized the rope and heaved. "For the gods' piss, be silent!" he hissed through clenched teeth,
too softly for anyone to hear. It was bad enough Sprite-Heels had blown the job, but he had to drag Pinch's
name into it, too.
Straddling the hole, Pinch suppressed the urge to drop the blundering halfling to his well-deserved fate.
Do that and there was no doubt the little knave would sing hymns for the catchpoles. So he had no choice
but to pull, heedless of the strain, until he drew up great arm-lengths of rope and the halfling was hurtling
to-ward the temple's painted ceiling.
"To the roof! Alarms! Blow the alarms!" came the muffled bellow from below.
"OWWW!" came the more immediate cry as the rope suddenly came to jarring halt. " 'inch, lay aw a
liddle! Yer bregging by dose!"
A foot of line slid through the rogue's fingers and the weight on the other end bounced with a jolt. A
small hand thrust through the hole and flailed until it gripped the edge. "Up—but slowly!" wailed
Sprite-Heels from below.
Pinch cast his gaze over the windswept rooftop, try-ing to guess how long they had. "Did you get it—the
pelfry?"
" 'Course I did!" came the indignant reply. The half-ling's arm struggled and heaved until his curly head
popped into view. "Pinch, help me out of here! They're getting archers!"
"Pass me the garbage—all of it!"
Sprite-Heels looked at Pinch's out-thrust hand. "A pox on that!" he spat out as he lunged forward and
caught the rogue's wrist in his tiny grip. "You'll not drop me twice!"
Pinch didn't resist, but heaved his small companion through the hole. "I should take it, for the way you've
bungled this job!" he snarled.
"Bungled! You're the one who—"
CR-RACK! A burst of splintered tile slashed across Pinch's arm. Wheeling, Pinch saw the silhouette of
two guardsmen, one twirling his arm over his head.
"Slingers! Down!" The man shoved the halfling as he dropped toward the rooftop. There was a whirring
buzz just over his head and then his feet slipped out from be-neath him. Unbraced on the pitched slope,
Pinch skid-ded and rattled several feet down the tile roof before he was able to arrest his slide. The
darkness beyond the third-story eave loomed ominously below.
Pinch scrambled for purchase, his feet skittering across the tiles. Sprite-Heels was facing him, back
pressed against the brick pile of the chimney. The only advantage gained in his fall was that the stack
screened his attackers, but not seeing them hardly made them go away. Over the fits of the wind, Pinch
and the halfling could hear the heavy-footed clunk of the temple sen-tinels as they picked their way across
the angled tiles.
A throng of voices rose up from the courtyard below as the alarm leapt like an elemental spark through
the temple compound. Pinch twisted around just in time for the brilliant glare of a spotter's lantern to sweep
over the eaves. The wash of light swung their way, not quite on them but close enough to highlight the fear
in Sprite-Heels's countenance.
The rogue's sharp whistle jerked the wavering half-ling back to action. A snap of the head and a sharp
ges-ture were all that Pinch had to do before his small partner nodded in agreement. The knowing eye and
the sure hand were the language of all thieves.
As if on a spoken signal, the pair sprang into motion. They barreled around the chimney, one to each
side, and straight into the faces of the two guardsmen who'd been trying to creep forward with ox-footed
stealth. "Clubs!" bellowed Pinch, letting loose the time-honored battling cry of Elturel's apprentices. The
astonished guardsman flailed madly with his sword, the blade slashing the air over Pinch's gray-curled head.
The thief didn't stop to fence but swung his balled fist in an uppercut beneath the other's guard. Knuckles
slammed into hardened jerkin right below the breastbone. The guard sucked air like a drowning man; Pinch
cursed like a sailor. The sword hit the tiles with a sharp crash and skittered over the eaves like a living thing
while the guard took a floundering step back. All at once, he tipped precipitously as one foot found the
burglars' hole and disappeared from sight.
At the rim of his attention, Pinch saw Sprite-Heels was no less quick. As the halfling easily dodged
be-neath the tall guard's lunge, there was a flash of metal and a bewildered scream. Like a rag doll, the
guard tumbled against the chimney, hands clutching the back of his leg below his armored coat.
Ignoring all else, Pinch scrambled up the wavering slope of tile and lunged over the ridge. Momentum
skid-ded him halfway down and then he was up and running with short, acrobatic steps. He clambered over
a gable and then swung precariously around the edge of a conic tower before he came to the dark and
shadowed alley they had started from. Moving with greater care, he searched for their rope to the alley
below. Just then Sprite-Heels tumbled over the ridgeline, coming from a different direction.
"Anyone following?" Pinch demanded.
Sprite-Heels grinned while he caught his breath. "Not a one ... of the patrico's men . . . not even a rat,"
he gasped.
"And the pelfry?"
The halfling reached inside his vest and pulled out a crudely forged amulet embossed with a stylized
half-sun symbol. Pinch snatched the booty and pulled the startled halfling to his feet.
"Right, then. To the rope."
As they neared the line, Pinch instantly knew there was trouble. A noise carried over the wind that
others, less keen, might miss. It was a steady creak, the sawing to and fro of a line. He signaled Pinch to
silence and crept forward over the terra-cotta terrain.
Sure enough, there was someone on the rope. It jerked from side to side as someone pulled himself up.
Signaling Sprite-Heels to stand watch, Pinch carefully peered over the edge of the roof.
Halfway below was the dim shape of a climber. From the bulky shape and the oversized helmet, there
was no mistaking it was one of the temple's men. In the middle of the alley was a pool of light where the
climber's part-ner stood holding a lantern.
"Pinch, they're coming!" Sprite-Heels hissed. As if to prove his warning there was a thunderous clatter
of boots across tile.
The pursuit was hard on, and their escape route was blocked. In a few more moments the climber
would reach the roof, putting the two thieves between enemy swords. There was no forward and there was
no back.
With barely the touch of thought, a small knife seemed to materialize in Pinch's hand. The blade flashed
in the lantern light as he reached over the eaves. A yelp of alarm burst from below. With a single swipe, the
razor-sharp edge severed the thin silken line. The yelp became a squeal until it ended in a solid whump of
flesh and steel.
"At the back!" roared a voice from the top of the ridgepole. The vanguard of their pursuers was
silhouet-ted against the shivering night, the wind furiously whipping their plumed helmets as they blundered
for-ward.
Fear making their thoughts fleet, Pinch and Sprite-Heels frantically cast about for an escape, now that
their rope was gone. Suddenly Pinch saw dark, moving branches in the void of the alley between the
somber temple walls and the garish lanterns of the festhalls. A plan formed in his mind; he knew it was a
bad plan, but it was the only choice he had.
"With me!" Pinch shouted to encourage himself. And then, even though he wasn't a strong man, the
rogue scooped up the halfling around the waist. With three all-out strides and before Sprite-Heels could
even squeak, Pinch leapt into the darkness, his partner tucked under one arm. With his other arm he
reached out as far as he could and with his eyes closed, Pinch prayed.
"PINCH! ARE YOU—"
All at once the pair hit the top branches of the only tree in Sweetsweat Lane. Flailing for something to
grip, the master thief dropped Sprite-Heels, who was squirming and howling enough already. The branches
tore at Pinch's face, shredded his fine doublet, and hammered him in the ribs. Still he crashed through them,
seeming to go no slower as momentum carried him in a sweeping arc toward the ground.
Pinch was almost ready to welcome the impact with the earth when his whole body, led by his neck,
jerked to a stop. His fine cloak that had been billowing out be-hind him had snagged on a broken branch. A
cheaper cloak with a clasp of lesser strength would have torn right then or its clasp would have come
undone, but Pinch didn't dress in cheap clothes. Instead the cloak tried to hang him, saving the patrico of the
Morning-lord the job.
There was a brief second when Pinch thought his neck might snap, and then he realized he was still
plunging downward—though not as fast. The one tree in Sweetsweat Lane was little more than a sapling,
and under Pinch's weight the trunk bent with the springi-ness of a fishing pole. He felt as if he were
floating, per-haps because he couldn't breathe, but there was no doubt the fall was slowing.
And then, through a shroud of pain that narrowed his vision, Pinch saw salvation. It was as if Mask, god
of thieves, had reached down and parted the branches to reveal the brightly lit patio of the Charmed Maiden
just below him.
Gurgling and kicking, Pinch fumbled his bung-knife from its wrist sheath and slashed at the cloth above
him. The pop of threads breaking turned into a rip, and suddenly he was plunging as the branches whipped
past him. With a loud crash, he bounced off a table, hurling trays of candied fruits and pitchers of warm
wine into the air, and ricocheted into the warm and amply padded embrace of an enchanting lass of the
Charmed Maiden. Not far away from him landed his smaller half, but with no less solid a thump.
"MAD!" Sprite-Heels howled over the shrieks of the Charmed Maiden's consorts and the outraged
sputters of their clientele. "MAD, MAD, MAD! You tried to kill us! You suicidal son of a cheating
apple-squire!" Sprite-Heels paid no attention to the panicked rush of the ladies or the bristling posturing of
their gentlemen friends. They'd undoubtedly come out to see the commo-tion and were now getting more
than their share.
"Stow it!" Pinch snarled as he reluctantly freed him-self from the young lady's arms. "It's our necks on
the leafless tree if the Hellriders take us." Though battered and hobbling, Pinch nonetheless seized the
halfling by the nape of the neck and half-dragged him into the back passages of the festhall.
The pair staggered through the scented hallways, their haste increasing with each step. They passed
locked doors where only soft giggles where heard, passed salons where dells awaiting the night's suitors
adjusted their gowns. They hustled down the back stairs. As they neared the bottom, a chorus of shrieks
and indignant cries filled the floor below. Over it all, Pinch heard the discordant clang of hand bells.
"Hellriders!" The rogue thrust his little partner back up the stairs. "Second floor—end of the hall!" he
barked.
Sprite-Heels knew better than to argue. The chorus of hand bells was enough to say the watch was at
the front door. The halfling could only trust the rogue's or-ders; gods knew the man had been here enough
times.
At the top of the landing, Pinch forced his way through the sweaty couples who surged from the richly
draped rooms, dodging elbows as women struggled into their gowns and the hard slap of steel as men
buckled their swords to their belts. Behind them the bells and the shouts of "Hold fast!" and "Seize him!"
grew stronger along with the furious pound of boots as the Hellrider patrol mounted the stairs. Forced like
rats to flee rising water, the host of entertainers and clients crammed the staircase upward, so that it was
mere mo-ments before Pinch broke free into the near-empty hall. The rogue assumed his partner would
follow; the half-ling was able enough to care for himself. Pinch sprinted down the hall and painfully skidded
around the corner.
"It's a blank wall!" wailed the voice right behind him, and indeed the words were true. The hallway
ended in a solid wall, albeit one pleasingly decorated to imitate a garden seat. The small niche with a marble
bench, all draped in false vines of silk and taffeta, was charming enough, but completely without a door.
"There's a way through here, Sprite. Maeve told me about it," Pinch assured. Even as he spoke, his
long-fingered hands were swiftly probing the panels in search of some hidden catch or spring.
The halfling snorted. "Maeve? Our dear sweet drunken Maeve—here?"
"She was young once and not always a wizard. Now cut your whids and get to searching." From the
commo-tion behind them, the Hellriders had reached the landing.
The halfling ignored the command. "So that's how you met her. Maeve, a—" he jibed.
"Stow it," Pinch snapped, though not out of senti-mentality. He needed to concentrate and focus—and
press just-so the spring-plate his fingers suddenly found.
A small panel over the garden bench swung out, opening to reveal a well of darkness. An exhalation of
dust and cobwebs swept from the gap.
Pinch pulled the panel back and nodded to the half-ling. "It's jiggered; in you go."
The halfling looked at it with a suspicious eye until the clomp of boots in the hall overcame his
objections. With a lithe spring he was up and through the door.
Pinch wasted no time in following, surprised that he could wriggle through the small opening so quickly
after all the battering he'd taken. Grabbing the inside handle, he pulled the door shut and plunged them into
darkness. With one hand on Sprite-Heels's shoulder, Pinch followed as the halfling descended steps the
human could not see.
They padded downward as the thumping and thun-der of the 'riders behind them faded, and then snaked
through passages that wove beneath the city. In places Sprite led them through water that splashed up to
Pinch's ankles and smelled so bad that he was thankful not to see what he walked through.
Their escape was so hurried that neither had a light. Several times Sprite stopped and described a
branch in the sewer tunnels. Each time Pinch did his best to re-member the path, though his confidence
grew less and less the farther they went. He was an "upright man" now, the master of his own cohort of
rogues—years away from his beginnings as a sewer rat.
At last they reached a landmark Pinch knew well from his underground days, a jagged gap in the brick
casing of the sewer wall. From Sprite's description,
Pinch could see it almost unchanged in his mind—the ragged curve of the opening, the broken tumble of
bricks that spilled into the muck—from the day he and Algaroz broke through the wall to complete their bolt
hole from the alehouse above.
"Through there," Pinch ordered with silent relief. Up till now he had only hoped that Algaroz, who now
owned the Dwarf's Pot, kept the bolt hole open. Pinch knew it wasn't out of sentimentality. Algaroz had
good reasons for keeping a quick escape route handy.
The dirt-floored passage ended in a planked door, tightly fitted into a wall. Designed to be hard to find
from the other side, it took only a few moments of probing to release the catches and swing the hidden door
slowly open. Muddy, smelly, and blinking, the two thieves stepped into the soft light of the alehouse's cellar.
*****
It was several hours, almost near dawn, before a man of average height and average looks finally found
his way to a table at the back of the common room. Still, he commanded attention. His clothes and manner
stood him apart from all the rest. The man wore the costume of an aspiring courtier—a red velvet doublet
generously trimmed in gold braid, cross-gaitered woolen hose with-out a tear, and a fur-lined mantle draped
casually across his shoulders. The tangled curls of his graying hair were neatly brushed out and his thick
mustache trimmed. Most wondrous of all, he was clean and bathed, which was far more than any other
customer in the smoky ordinary. A few hours before he'd been crawl-ing on a roof, but now gone were the
dark and sludge-stained clothes from the night's escapade.
The Dwarf's Pot, or the Piss Pot as some called it, was not noted for its fine clientele. Infamy more than
fame brought a man here. Most of the lot were foists and nips who swilled down cheap sack and haggled
with their brokers over the day's pickings. In one shad-owed corner a dwarf pushed a few pieces across
the table for a pittance of coin, while at another table a wrinkled old dame, a curber by trade, showed a wig
and cloak she'd hooked from a window left carelessly open. Boozing hard near the entrance was a whole
tableful of counterfeit cranks, those beggars who specialized in sporting their appalling deformities and
maimed limbs to the sympathetic citizens of Elturel. Here in the com-mons, they looked remarkably hale
and whole, no doubt due to the restorative powers of the cheap ale they swilled. Mingled among the crowd
were the doxies and dells finally returned from their evening's labors.
"Greetings, Pinch dearie," said the sole woman at the table Pinch joined. Though far past her prime, she
still dressed like she once might have been—pretty and al-luring—but years and drink had long stolen that
from her. Her long brown hair was thin and graying, her skin wrinkled and blotched. It was her eyes, weak
and rheumy, that revealed her fondness for drink.
"Well met to you, Maeve," Pinch answered as he pulled up a chair and joined the three already there.
Across from Maeve, Sprite-Heels sprawled on a bench like a child bored with the temple service. He
thrust a hairy halfling foot into the air and waggled his oversize toes. "You took your time. Find a distraction
upstairs?" the little being mocked while at the same time breaking into a yawn he could not stifle.
The fourth at the table, a big overmuscled man with farmboy good looks, snorted his ale at Sprite's
tweak. He broke into a fit of coughing, the scarf around his neck slipping to reveal a thick scar underneath.
"Pinch don't got no time for women. 'Sides, he's got Maeve." He snickered at his own great wit.
"Ho, that's right. He's always got me, if I'd ever let him!" Maeve added with a laugh.
Pinch let the comments slide, eying the man across from him. "Therin, my boy," he finally asked with
only a little comradely warmth, "what happened? I thought the constables had you for nipping a bung."
The younger man smiled knowingly. "Seems I had good witnesses to say it wasn't me with his hand in
the gent's purse. By their eyes I was here, drinking with them at that very time."
Sprite's boozy voice came from below the edge of the table. "Our farmboy's learned to hire good
evidences, even if he ain't learned to nip a purse. Isha shame—al-ways learnin' the wrong thing first."
Therin rubbed at the scarf around his neck. "I've been hanged once. I don't need to be hanged again."
"See!" came the hiccup from below. "Mos' men saves the hanging lesson for las'."
Pinch propped his head on the table and gave Therin a long, hard stare, his face coldly blank. "There's
some who'd say you're just bad luck, Therin. Maybe not fit to have around. It was you supposed to be there
tonight." His mouth curled in a thin smile. "But then, your bad luck seems to affect only you. It was your
neck for the noose and your money for the evidences. Sprite-Heels and I did just fine, didn't we?"
"Ish true, Pinch, ish true." The halfling heaved him-self up till he could look over the top of the table. He
was still spotted with the muck of the sewers. Fortu-nately the air of the Dwarf's Pot was so thick with
wood smoke, stale ale, and spiced stew that his reek was hardly noticed. Right now Sprite-Heels breath
was probably deadlier than his filth. "Wha'd we get? I' didn't look like more 'an a cheap piece of jewelry."
Pinch scowled at the question and waggled a finger for silence. That was followed by a series of quick
ges-tures that the others followed intently.
Magical.. . important. . . temple . . . wait for money. The gestures spelled it out to the others in the
hand-talk of thieves. From the quick finger-moves, they puz-zled it out. Clearly what they'd taken was of
great im-portance to the temple, so important that it was going to take time to sell. Pinch's sudden silence
told them as much as his hands. The rogue was suddenly cautious lest someone hear. That meant people
would be looking for what they had stolen, and Pinch saw no reason to openly boast of what they had done.
Even Sprite-Heels, fuzzy-minded though he was, understood the need for discretion. The three turned
awkwardly back to their mugs.
"What's the news of the night?" Pinch asked after a swallow of ale. They could hardly sit like silent
toads all through the dawn.
Sprite collapsed back onto the bench since he had no answer. Therin shrugged and said with a grin,
"There was a job at the temple. Somebody did them good." He, too, had nothing to say.
Maeve squeezed up her face as she tried to remem-ber something the hour and the drink had stolen
away from her. "There was somebody . . ." Her lips puckered as she concentrated. "That's it! There was
somebody asking about you, Pinch."
The rogue's drowsy eyes were suddenly bright and alert. "Who?"
The memory coming back to her, Maeve's contorted face slowly relaxed. "A fine-dressed gent, like a
count or something. Older, kind of puffy, like he didn't get out much. He was all formal and stuffy too, kind
of like a magistrate or—"
"Maeve, did he have a name?" She was rambling and Pinch didn't have the patience for it.
The sorceress stopped and thought. "Cleedis .. . that was it. He was from someplace too. Cleedis of..."
"Cleedis," Pinch said in a voice filled with soft dark-ness. "Cleedis of Ankhapur."
Janol of Ankhapur
It was one of those statements that could be under-stood only with mouths agape, and the three did so
ad-mirably. Maeve blinked a little blearily, her slack mouth giving her the look of a stuffed fish. From out of
sight, Sprite-Heels suddenly stopped hiccuping. The grumbling of a drunk as he argued the bill, the clatter of
dishes carried to the back by a wench, even the slob-bering snore of an insensate drunk filled the silence
the three scoundrels created.
It was up to Therin, naturally, to ask the obvious. "You know this Cleetish?" he asked, wiping his sleeve
at the drool of ale on his chin.
"Cleedis—and yes, I know him," was the biting an-swer. This was not, Pinch thought, a subject for their
discussion.
" 'Swounds, but ain't that a new one. Our Pinch has got himself a past," the big thief chortled.
By now Sprite had hauled himself up from his sprawl on the bench. Though his hair was a tangled nest
of curls and his shirt was awry, the halfling's eyes were remarkably clear for one who only moments ago
was half done-in by drink. Still, his words were slurred by ale. "Wha's his nature, Pinch—good or ill?" The
little thief watched the senior rogue closely, ever mindful of a lie.
Pinch tented his finger by his lips, formulating an answer. All the while, he avoided the halfling's gaze,
in-stead carefully scanning the common room under the guise of casualness. "Not good," he finally allowed.
"But not necessarily bad. I haven't seen him in a score of years, so there's no good reason for him to be
looking for me."
"From Ankhapur, eh?" Therin asked more ominously, now that the drift of things was clear. "Where's
that?"
Pinch closed his eyes in thoughtful remembrance, seeing the city he'd left fifteen years ago. He tried to
en-vision all the changes wrought on a place in fifteen years, see how the streets would be different, the old
temples torn down, the houses spread outside the out-dated walls. Still, he knew that the Ankhapur he
imag-ined was as much a dream as the one he remembered.
"South—too far south for you to know, Therin," the rogue finally answered with a thoughtful grin. It was
no secret that Therin's knowledge of the world ended about ten leagues beyond Elturel. Pinch could have
claimed that Ankhapur drifted through the sky among the lights of Selûne's Tears for as much as Therin
摘要：

[TheNobles01]-KingPinchByDavidCookScanned,formattedandproof-readbyBW-SciFiReleaseDate:July,11th,2003PrologueInafarsouthernland,tenthousandpeoplegatheredintheafternoonhaze,amiasmathatstartedatnoonalongtheshoresoftheLakeofSteam.FromthereitswelledthroughthestreetsofAnkhapurandcloakedthecityinamoistclou...

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