"I'd 'preciate it if ye'd stop that," Mama Becho snapped. "Someone's gotter mop up when yer gone now."
Zip shifted beneath her, locking his hands together behind his head, an arm cocked around her dagger. He tried to look innocent and almost achieved it. But his face was full of suspicion. "All right, lover," he mocked her. "What you got in mind?"
She pulled the dagger from the floorboards and returned it to her boot, rose, and extended a hand to help Zip to his feet. Unsurprisingly, he declined her offer and got up on his own. He made a show of brushing Mama Becho's dust from his clothing.
"Tomorrow night," she told him, "meet me with as many of your men as you have the entire PFLS-at the old stables near the granaries."
Zip frowned, bent down, and picked up the mug of wine that yet remained on the floor. He turned it in his hands without drinking. "That's right across from the dungeons."
Chenaya taunted him with a nasty grin. "Don't get nervous, Zip. I heard you were a man of action. Well, action is what I'm going to give you." Let him interpret that as he wished, she thought wickedly. "I happen to own the guard who works the Gate of the Gods tomorrow night-he has a very expensive krrf habit-and a word from me will open that passage. It's a very brief run from there to a side entrance into the palace itself." She pushed back her hair with one hand, raised herself from the floor with the other, and poured the last of her own bitter wine down her throat. Her hand opened then, and the earthen mug shattered at her feet.
"Now," she challenged, "you and your playmates can go on butchering helpless shopkeepers and limp-wristed nobles and getting nowhere with your so-called revolution..." She took the cup he'd been fidgeting with, raised it in a silent toast to him, and drained it, too, regarding him over the rim. An instant later it joined the first one in pieces on the floor. "... or the PFLS can at last strike a meaningful blow. What do you say?"
Zip looked thoughtful. "With Kadakithis dead we'd still need some kind of defense for when Theron returns." He scratched his chin, frowning.
"Theron will probably thank you," she pointed out. It was safe to gamble that Zip had never met the usurper, knew nothing of the subtle workings of the old general's mind. Theron wanted Sanctuary for a bastion on Ranke's southern border. Nothing would convince him to release the city from the Empire's iron grip. Not even the execution of the legitimate claimant to the very crown he had stolen.
But Zip wouldn't understand that. He was a fighter, no politician.
"No need for all my men," Zip argued. "A small force- two or three-just enough to sneak in and do the job."
Chenaya stepped closer. She was almost as tall as Zip, almost as broad through the shoulders. Again, she inhaled the smell of him and bit her lip. "A small force for the prince and his fish-faced consort," she agreed, nodded her head as a patient teacher might with a dim-witted but struggling pupil. "The rest will take care of every other Beysib in the palace- and anyone else who gets in the way."
Plainly, Zip's thoughts were churning. He glanced at his man by the door. He'd heard every word; eagerness gleamed in his face, though he kept his silence. Zip began to pace back and forth, crushing pottery under his tread. "And the garrison?" he asked. "What about a way out? Armed resistance inside?"
Chenaya scoffed at his endless questions. "Tempus told me you were a man who knew when to act, yet you sound like Molin Torchholder with your endless queries."
Zip shut up, but continued to pace.
"Would you do it with Tempus to lead you?"
He stopped in mid-stride, regarded her through narrowed eyes. Still he said nothing, but questions hung on his lips.
She spat again, but this time for Mama Becho's sake the wad landed squarely on Zip's boot. "I'm everything that Tempus is, lover," she said, grim-voiced, mocking his trepidation. "And more. You don't believe that yet, but you will." She turned her back to him, went to the serving board. To Mama she said, "Got a pair of dice?"
The old woman reached up onto a shelf and found a pair of yellowed ivory cubes. She set them on the counter with a rude grunt. Chenaya crooked a finger at Zip. "Roll 'em," she ordered. "High number wins."
He paused, studying her, their gazes locked in a game of dare and challenge. Finally, he swept up the cubes and tossed them. "Eleven," Chanaya announced. "Not bad." Then, she rolled them. "Twelve." Zip seized the dice again and beamed when eleven black dots showed up once more.
Chenaya didn't even bother to look as she gathered and dropped the ivory bits.
Zip blinked.
Twelve.
"I can't be beaten," she assured Zip, never taking her eyes from his. "Not at anything."
"Kind of takes the fun out of life, doesn't it?" Zip said, dead-pan.
She flicked a glance over her shoulder. "Call your man," she instructed him.
Zip did. The man she'd nearly shaved with the throwing star took a step forward. "The black smudge on the far wall," she suggested. The man threw his belt dagger. One of the daggers from her boot followed. Two good throws, but hers was clearly nearer the center of the mark. "Not at anything," she repeated.
"So you have luck and skill," Zip conceded. "That doesn't mean squat against the Riddler's god-or his curse, or whatever it is."
She rolled her eyes; a long sigh hissed between her teeth. "I'll bet you another kiss," she said at last. "You've played guess-the-number?" She waited for him to nod. "Go to the far end of the bar, take your knife, and carve any number between one and ten. No, wait. Let's make it fun-between one and twenty-five."
Mama Becho waddled up, her gray hair flying. "Oh, no, ye don't!" she cried. "Yer not cuttin' on my fine board, yer not. Not easy to come by good wood. An' I've jus' about enough of this spittin' and breakin' mugs an'-"
Chenaya pulled her purse free and upended it on the counter. Coins spilled everywhere. She dropped the empty leather bag on the top of the pile. "Mama," she said softly, "shut up."
"All right," Zip announced from the other end, covering his scratching with one hand, flipping his knife nervously and catching it.
"Forty-two," she answered smugly. "Cheater."
Zip stared at the number he'd carved into the wood, at his knife, at his men, at her. Without another word, he went to Chenaya and made good on his bet.
The glaring sun had long since disappeared beyond the western edge of the world, and beautiful Sabellia, resplendent in her fullness, scattered diamond ripples over the ocean's surface. Chenaya dangled her feet over the end of Empire Wharf, stared at the glistening water, and listened to the muted sounds of a nearly silent thieves' world. The old pilings creaked gently, rocked by the relentless surf; the riggings and guy wires of nearby fishing ships hummed and sang in the night wind. There was little else.
It was one of the places she went when she was troubled. She couldn't say for sure exactly what it was disturbed her, but she felt it like a gloomy darkness on her soul. She tried to dismiss it. The water often made her melancholy. But the mood lingered.
She touched the bag that was tied to her belt. It contained a mixture of sugar and the high-grade krrf Gestus had obtained for her. She squeezed it and grinned. No, it certainly wasn't that which bothered her. She planned to enjoy her little prank on Tempus.
What then?
Far out on the water something flashed in the moonlight. There was a muffled splash. She peered, straining to see, and spied the silver gleam of a dorsal fin as it cut through the waves. Briefly visible, it submerged and was gone. A dolphin, she wondered? A shark?
The world-particularly this thieves' world-was full of sharks. She thought of Kadakithis and Shupansea hidden away in their palace, and she thought of Zip and Downwind. She thought of the betrayal she planned.