Then it banked and came swooping back. It was beautiful in night, which was bringing it directly at him. Never mind its beauty; Komodoflorensal reined his horse about and drew his sword. Again the bird passed over, in beauty and with a rush of air and slapping of wings little smaller than lateen sails. Kusharlonikas's apprentice had not even begun to swing his sword.
Why, it means me no harm at all! he told himself. Foolish Komodoflorensal! This is surely sorcery, Ah-probably a Sending of
my wily master to keep watch on me! Either that or it meant to tell me something, show me something, and I have stupidly frightened it off.
The young man let the half-drawn sword slip back into its sheath and kept a tight grip on the rein of a mount that had grown increasing restless. Again the great bird of green and green and cream yellow banked, and again it came back his way, flapping gently this time. Though he was sore nervous, Komodoflorensal put a smile upon his face-and spoke quietly to his horse. All was well…
A hundred or so paces from him, the outsized bird swept back its wings and held them so. It came hurtling down in a plunging dive, and by the time Komodoflorensal saw the terrible curved beak and talons as long as his hands, he had no time to take action. The monster raptor's impact drove him backward off his horse, which reared and swerved, screaming. Its mouth was torn, for its unseated rider had clung to the rein until it was torn from its grasp. He fell with bloodied fingers.
The horse galloped in a desperate fear that would not allow it to slow for miles. After a time it did turn, to return to the land it knew. Someone was about to be made very happy.
Its former rider-not-master, meanwhile, was kept in unrelenting agony as he was torn and clawed and bitten to bloody shreds and gobbets. Still he was carried up, and up, in agony and blood loss. And then his unnatural assailant dropped him. Screaming, Komodoflorensal fell and fell and fell and actually heard the terrible thump as his torn form struck the earth.
But he did not feel that impact, and when he awoke in his home- that is, the home of his master-he realized that the sorcerer had used a spell to punish him for last night's failure. Even as Komodoflorensal gave silent thanks that he was not only not dead but unharmed, a huge soldier in full armor came rushing at him and his battle-ax came rushing at the terrified young man's face and-
After that horrible and horribly painful death the apprentice mage awoke again-to open his eyes and see his master gazing down at him.
"So, fool," Kusharlonikas said. "Practice, and think, and next time try harder!"
The haughty people of Ranke, self-styled conquerors of the world, expressed their disdain for the town named Sanctuary by its founders, the Ilsigi-people of the god Ils. It was the former Rankan overlords who coined the insulting term Thieves' World for the town. The once almost important coastal city had fallen so low, the imperious invaders from imperial Ranke had been wont to say, that only thieves remained, and so the thieves were reduced to stealing from each other.
Not that the Rankans had not done their share of stealing, along with despoiling and tyrannizing…
Important or not, Sanctuary's outdoor market seemed no less bustling than those of cities that were aprosper, and/or still on the rise. Two senses were kept close to the point of overload by the great Sanctuarite marketplace. Even in winter the air was freighted unto crowding with overlapping scents, aromas, even odors. The competing of fragrances was emphasized at this time of year by those hopeful vendors who earned the price of their bread by serving hot drinks and cooking hot treats to warm the buyers. Each scent separated itself from the others as prospective buyers approached the source, whether fruits or vegetables or (ugh) fish, and receded after their passage, when another scent was competing and, at least for a time, winning dominance.
A third sense was kept busy, but not to the point of being whelmed. That was vision. Many colors and hues marked the clothing and tents and stalls of both sellers and buyers, though the color of their hair differed only a little.
Ah, but that second, nigh overwhelmed sense! The sprawling collection of stalls, tents, and wagons, drab and colorful, was noisy.
Even in the open air hundreds of people, nearly all talking at the same time, did not create merely the "buzz" so often used by storytellers. It was bedlam. In fact, the noisiness of Sanctuary's market defined bedlam.
Yet two people were quite able to carry on a conversation, provided that they paused now and again, reluctantly or in anger, while wending their way through the mass of people, scents, and colors of both produce and of garments. The two older men, for instance, on this cool but sunny day. The one was portly under his veritable mane of hair the color of whitewash, his shorter companion his senior though his hair was blacker than black, and who walked with a cane.
Abroad in daytime, the man called Chance did not envelop himself in the concealing black garb of the man he had been, the infamous shadow-spawned thief and cat burglar. The lightweight cloak he wore over an off-white tunic and medium blue leggings was a sun-sucking dark red, for a man's blood was thinner at the age of seven and sixty, if not his arteries. This day they wended their way among stalls, booths, tents, and shoppers, while Strick relayed to Chance a few additional facts and beliefs about the youth called Lone gained through the Spellmaster's quiet and judicial questioning of a few selected persons. It was Strick's belief that he was discreet… and then their attention was demanded by a woman excitedly talking, with gesticulations, with a vendor who was apparently her friend.
The semi-attractive woman with the hair dyed red under the flut-tery green scarf was not well off, but she was erect and carried herself well and with pride. Too, she did know how to dress, and it was pretty clear to anyone who saw her that she spent what money she could on decorating her well-kept body. She was talking wildly, shrilly, and with a lot of gesticulating at the shortish, thin and thin-haired seller of inexpensive body decorations.
"But I live on the third floor!" she squealed. "That must be- what? Sixty feet up?"
The man in the booth under the orange and violet awning shrugged and made a gesture to indicate his uncertainty but desire to be agreeable. "Uh-huh, about that, uh-huh, I reckon…"
She was babbling on as if he had not spoken, making it obvious that he need not have done. "So somebody climbed up the wall all the way up there, Cleggis, and then he broke into my place through my window while I was right there sleeping"-with a sudden shiver, she clutched each of her upper arms with the opposite hand-"and he knew where to find my earrings, or he's so experienced at thievery that he guessed, and he took them out of my shoe about one foot below my head, Cleggis!"
Cleggis shook his head. "Wackle! What a sneak! That sumbitch is good!"
"Yes! And then… and then… he left one of them in the other shoe, just to-to… to taunt me, I guess."
Cleggis shook his head. "Wackle!"
Strick had moved to place his mouth near Chance's ear. "Reckon we're hearing about our boy Lone?" he asked, sotto voce.
"Sounds that way. And it sounds like he's even better than we thought we knew."
"Not in need of a lot of training," Strick said, wickedly teasing.
"Just climb off it, Strick," his friend said, changing course in the smallish throng to head for the savory aroma of cooking meat. "No one is ever, ever going to be as good as I was."