King Pinch Read online

  With less than good grace, the rogue pulled aside the scroll with a brusqueness certain to get his escort’s attention and repeated, “Why are we camping? Ankhapur is months away, and I for one don’t want to dally out here as your invited guest.”

  The chamberlain did something with his face, and his beard swelled to the proportions of an irate porcupine. “We’re stopped because it’s not the right day and we’ll stay stopped until it is. You’re so clever, Master Pinch, that I thought you’d have the sense to see I didn’t waste my days trekking through this uncivilized land. It would have taken the whole bodyguard of Ankhapur to make the distance and months more than I’ve got. We’re waiting for an appointment to be kept. By my calendar, tomorrow is the first of Nightal. On that particular day, at a particular hour, certain wizards in Ankhapur, still loyal to Lord Manferic’s memory, will gather and cast a spell. When they do, on this spot at that time will be our way back home—without hiking or riding that whole distance.

  “Now who’s so clever?” Cleedis trumpeted as he bundled the scroll and thrust it under his arm.

  I am, Pinch thought to himself as the man stormed away. You need me in Ankhapur more urgently than it seemed, enough to make the wizards send a whole troop across the continent to find me. Pinch didn’t say a thing but shrugged like a man outsmarted and went away.

  Lissa had joined their little knot by the time Pinch returned. In the days since their first meeting, he had carefully cultivated his relationship with her. Her awe at his position as Lord Janol hadn’t hurt, and he carefully played on it. She was, to his mind, usefully naive, apparently unable to impute base thievery to anyone of rank. Thus, his careful suggestions that Cleedis was suspect were met with amazed acceptance. She behaved as if the veil had been lifted from her eyes, yet all the time Pinch was obscuring her target even more.

  It had taken a little more art to explain away his gang to her satisfaction. They hardly met the image of suitable servants. Pinch could hardly present himself as wise and trustworthy if he employed such a crew of ingrates, unthrifts, and rinse pitchers as Therin, Sprite, and Maeve. Maeve would get drunk and confide something completely beyond the pale of any household cook. Therin, though a good lieutenant, was too proud to play the role without bristling. And Sprite-Heels—well, he might play along for a while, but only if he could ruin it with some disastrous prank.

  Instead Pinch took a tack not too far from the truth. He was, the rogue explained, the once-wastrel ward now destined to be redeemed and reformed. Still, Pinch claimed, he could not surrender old companions without remorse, no matter how vile and fallen they had become. These few companions had stayed steadfast friends through his darkest days. For him to abandon them now, simply because he had regained the proper sense of his true class, was the height of callousness. He owed them and so was bringing them home where he might bestow on them small pensions for the rest of their years.

  As tales went, it had just enough pathos and honor in it to appeal to the young priestess. Pinch was just, the meek were raised, and the proper order of the world had been restored. Still, the rogue couldn’t resist adding a fillip: Cleedis was the villain, albeit not a grand one. The old campaigner was the shadow of Pinch’s enemies, those who might not want him in Ankhapur alive. The lean shark didn’t press the idea, even allowing as how he might be mistaken, but let the suggestion float through his tale.

  The woman listened with a disdainfully worldly fìnger to her nose, dismissing most of what her traveling companion said. She was not so naive, contrary to what the youthful brightness of her face proclaimed. When she snorted at his claims or poked at her cheek with her tongue, the senior rogue pretended not to notice any more than a suitor would his paramour’s sour moods. Pinch didn’t expect her to believe the whole story, indeed she didn’t need to believe any of it. She needed to doubt her suspicions, whether it was because she was naive or just entertained.

  All that didn’t matter anymore. She’d have to find her own way to Ankhapur now. Cleedis’s arrangements were at least going to remove one gnawing worry.

  “We’ve stopped.” It was a cool observation, not profound but as if she held Pinch somehow responsible.

  “The venerable’s given orders to camp. I think he intends a rendezvous.”

  “Ah?” It was one of her favorite expressions.

  “Arranged with the court wizards of Ankhapur, I’d guess.”

  “Ah.” Without more comment, Lissa strode through the mud, intent on catching up with Cleedis. Pinch was about to follow when his attention was snagged by the raised squeal of an enraged halfling.

  “Put me down! It’s not my fault you lost!”

  The halfling was dangling by his arms at eye level with a swarthy trooper, so close he could have licked the man’s grubby nose. “Let’s see yer dice,” slurred Sprite’s captor.

  Pinch sloshed casually through the mud, picking his way through the sudden clot of onlookers. He took his time, curious to see if Sprite just might lick the man’s nose.

  “It’s not my doing you lost the hazard. How could I say I’d throw a bale of deuces? It’s just bad luck and you’re not taking it well!” the hanging thief protested.

  “Pigsy luck, indeed. When it’s ‘Let’s play for drinks,’ he throws a whole set and never makes a point—”

  “There, you see, just luck!” the halfling kicked and squawked.

  “But nows it’s ‘Lets play for coin’ and he can’t lose. Play for my coin maybe. I’ll be wishing … you’ll be wishing you was wishing you was playing somewhere-body else.” The drunken trooper tried to unmangle his meaning while he groped for the purse at Sprite’s waist. “Lemme see them dice and then maybe I’ll gut you—”

  Darkness slid forward and dealt the man a sharp rap across his fumbling fingers.

  “Maybe you want to gut me, too.”

  The trooper looked at the bright-bladed dirk that hovered just over his hand, slithering to and fro in Pinch’s shifting grasp. It was a snake, violently coiled and tempting the other to foolishness.

  “Set him down and go, before I tell Cleedis you were boozing on duty.”

  Fear-drunk eyes darted to his fellows for support, but he had gone invisible before their gaze. Suddenly, the soldier knew where he stood: alone, wet, and dirty in the beech wood. Something unholy hacked out an asthmatic howl just across the stream, a howl that almost shaped hungry words of welcome.

  Slowly the man set the halfling down.

  A pointed flick of the dirk sent the man scurrying, and without him the crowd drifted away to jeer his cowardice. Already the stinging puns and cruel poesy were forming in their minds.

  “YOU,” Pinch intoned while snagging Sprite before he disappeared, “give me the dice.”

  Sprite fumbled in his shirt and produced the pair. Pinch didn’t even ask if they were loaded. There was only one answer.

  “Get to the tent.”

  “What’s this, Pinch? Since when would you be knocking in fear from these king’s men?”

  The rogue answered the challenge by shoving the runt forward. “It’s time for a little talk,” he whispered through clenched teeth.

  The tone was enough to get Sprite doing what he was told. The two squeezed into the small tent where Therin and Maeve were chatting, squatted on the ground.

  “Listen well.” Pinch thrust Sprite onto a pile of blankets in between the other two. Ducking sideways to avoid the ridgepole, he continued without preamble. “We’ll be in Ankhapur soon, a few days at the latest. When we get there, things are going to change. Cleedis came north to get me, and just me. I don’t know why he’s allowed the rest of you along, but I’d guess he means to use you to keep me in his shackles.” The old rogue smirked darkly. “Though you’re a damn sorry lot of hostages.

  “ ’Course, he might not be such a fool as to think you’ve got any sway over me. We all know what happens when somebody gets caught. He’s on his own.”

  Therin rubbed at the scar around his neck and noted bemuse
dly, “You snatched me from the gallows once.”

  Pinch didn’t like being reminded of that now, or the others might think his motives then were sentimental. “I didn’t get you off the gallows. I let you hang and then I brought you back to life. And I did it for other motives. From here on, this is different. Ankhapur’s not Elturel.”

  “Ohhh?” Maeve cooed. “They’re both cities. What makes this one so special?

  “Besides being your home,” Sprite chimed in.

  Pinch looked at Maeve’s thick-veined cheeks and the knobby little carrot that was her nose. He could not describe the true Ankhapur to her, the one that filled him with despised love.

  “Ankhapur the White.” The words came reverently and then, “Piss on it. Bloody Ankhapur, it’s lesser known. City of Knives, too. Ankhapur’s fair; it’s got whitewashed walls that gleam in the sun, but it’s all hollow and rotten inside. The Families”—Pinch stressed it so that there was nobody listening who didn’t hear the salt in his words—“control everything they want, including lives. You’ll never find a more cunning master of the confidence games than a man from Ankhapur. Who do you think trained me to run a gang like you? Elturel?”

  Therin flopped back on his rick, clearly unimpressed. “So it’s got competition. We’ve taken down worse.”

  Pinch snorted. “You’re not competition—none of you are. What kind of competition are you for a king who kept a personal assassin on the payroll? Or his sons who taught playmates how strike down their enemies? This isn’t just doing the black art on a weak lock or ripping the cove from a temple roof.” Pinch slipped the Morninglord’s amulet from his shirt and plopped it on the damp ground between them. “They’re playing for stakes that make this look small—title and crown of all Ankhapur.

  “We’re just a bunch of petty thieves. They’re princes, dukes, and barons of the land. First Prince Bors, Second Prince Vargo, followed by Princes Throdus and Marac—there’s a murderous lot. Bors is too much of an idiot to be any danger, but don’t worry. Our dear Lord Chamberlain out there, the duke of Senestra, has gone begging for a fool to protect his own interests. Oh, and there’s more. Tomas, Duke of the Port, is Manferic’s brother, and Lady Grain was his sister-in-law. She’s got whelps, princelings of the Second Order, for whom she’d kill to see crowned. Finally, there’s the Hierarch Juricale. They call him the Red Priest, he’s got enough blood on him. He and his sect hold the Knife and the Cup, so you can imagine no one gets crowned without his say.” With slender fingers, Pinch counted out the titles until there were no fingers left. “Every one of them’s a scorpion in the sheets. Compared to them, we’re lewds.”

  “They sent Cleedis up here for you,” Sprite mused, as his foot gently slid toward the bauble at his feet.

  “Royal Ward Janol, Pinch to you,” the regulator mocked. A light kick with his boot kept the halfling’s furred foot at bay. “It’s not as though the royal ward has any chance or claim. Cleedis wants me for some reason, but it’s just as like there’ll be a mittimus for your arrest as soon as we strike Ankhapur. From here on, abroad or in the city, cut your words goodly and keep your eyes open like quick intelligencers or somebody’ll cut your weasand-pipe for certain.” That said, Pinch scooped up the amulet and turned to leave.

  “And you, Pinch dear?” Maeve asked.

  The rogue considered the truth, considered a lie, and then spoke. “I’ll stand by you all and cross-lay old Cleedis’s plans any way I can.” He smiled a little, the way he chose when no one was to know his true thoughts. The afternoon shadows, creeping through the door, gave all the warmth to his thin reassurance.

  Outside, after ten steps, he met Lissa as though she’d been lurking around waiting for this casual rendezvous. The woman had finally shed her saintly armor, and the effect was a transformation. Pinch had become so used to the rumpscuttle mien of a warrior woman that he was taken aback by her change to more demure clothes. Her silvery vestments, though long and shamefast, were still more flattering than battered steel made to cover every weak point of her sex. Her arms were half-bare to the cool air, and her slender, fair neck uncased from its sheath of gorgetted steel. Hair, brown and curly, tousled itself playfully in the breeze. Without all that metal, she stepped lighter and with more grace than did the clank and jingle of her armored self. The transformation from amazon to gentry maid was startlingly complete.

  “Greetings, Lord Janol,” Lissa hailed, catching the rogue not at his best. “How fare you and your companions? Lord Cleedis says we shall be upon Ankhapur on the morrow.”

  “We?”

  With a knowing, impish smile, Lissa brushed a loose wisp back into the tumble of her hair. “Certainly. Like yourself, Lord Cleedis is a gentleman. He’s offered me passage to Ankhapur rather than leave me in this wilderness.”

  Either she now suspects me and favors Cleedis or the chamberlain is playing the game, using her and her temple as a threat over me. If that’s the case, does she know her part, or can I still direct her? Taking up his mantle as the lordly Janol, Pinch smiled and bowed while making his cold calculations.

  “As well the chamberlain should. And if he had not, I would have insisted upon it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you would because I’m still counting on you to help me find a thief.” Her voice dropped to a whisper of winter wind through the beeches.

  “If your thief is here.”

  Lissa nodded. “They are—I’ve had dreams.”

  “Dreams?”

  “The voice of our lord. He speaks to us in our dreams. It’s our way.”

  She could be naive, misled, inspired, or right; Pinch withheld judgment. He couldn’t think of any good reason why a god shouldn’t talk to his priests in their dreams, but why not just burn your words in a rock or, for that matter, limn the offender in holy fire? Had she seen him in her dreams? If not, then what was her god revealing? At least so far, that seemed to be nothing.

  Gods always took roundabout ways to the straightest of things, and he for one felt they did so for his personal benefit, although perhaps not in the case of Fortune’s master. Pinch did feel that the Mistress of Luck was a little too indirect in his own case—so much that he, only acting from a sense of just deserving, did what he could to speed the turn of her wheel along. So if the gods wanted to be indirect with him to the point where he helped move them along, it was apt that her god was equally oblique.

  In this simplified theology, it was clear to Pinch’s mind that Lissa was being tested. Succeed at the test and she would find the thief. Fail—and well, who knows?

  He pulled at his ear to show doubt. “I could never place so much stock in dreams. What if you have a nightmare?”

  The seminary student got the better of the priestess. “It’s my duty to interpret the meaning in what I have received. If I can’t, then I need to dedicate myself even more.”

  “Well spoken,” he applauded, while settling onto a punky log, fallen several years back and now riddled with insects and mold.

  She reddened at the compliment.

  “So you don’t really see the thief in your dreams, only some sort of symbol?”

  “The words of our god transcend simple images. He speaks a different language from us. In our dreams, we filter though the things we know and find parallels for his voice.” Lissa’s hands flew as she talked, sometimes cupping the words only to spill them in a burst of excitement.

  Pinch let her go on to explain how to tell true dreams from false visions, the five precepts of action, and more than Pinch needed to know. Still it was a good diversion from the hectic preparations for home, and before the rogue had completely succumbed to boredom, dusk wafted in from the east and it was time to retire.

  The night passed quickly, dreamless for Pinch. As for the others, none would say. What kinds of dreams were left to an outcast Gur, a drink-sodden sorceress, and an unrepentant halfling?

  Dawn scratched at the canvas, scarring the tan haze with morning shadows. Pinch stepped out of the sweat of tent air. It wa
s a clammy dawn of stale wood smoke and horse manure, but over it all was the incongruous thick scent of geraniums and jasmine. The jarring sweetness clung in the throat and choked more than the stench of ordure. In the cold of coming winter, it could only be that the wizards were here, borne in on a wind of flowers of their own making.

  Stumbling out of his tent, the rogue wandered through a queue of clay-colored troopers, pilgrims awaiting their turn at the shrine. Each man led his horse, fully packed and carefully groomed. They jostled and talked, smoked pipeweed or whittled, and every few minutes plodded ahead a few more steps.

  At the head of the column was a small cluster of strangers, as uncomfortable as choirboys milling outside the church. As each man of the column came abreast, one of the strangers stepped from their shivering mass, thin robes clutched about him, and gestured over the line. A greenish flash bubbled out from his fingertips and swallowed trooper, spellcaster, and more. When the bright air cleared, wizard and soldier were gone.

  “The time is best for you and your companions to take their place in the line,” Cleedis noted as he ambled over to where Pinch stood. There was no haste or desperate urgency in the man’s way; those who weren’t ready could be left behind.

  A swift yank on the tent pole roused the rest. As they stumbled out, Lord Cleedis, playing host and master and accompanied by Lissa, led Pinch to the front of his troop. The rogue’s mates fell into line, grumbling and slouching, unruly children mocking their parents. At the front a pudgy, boy-faced wizard who couldn’t be much older than twenty and hadn’t gotten himself killed yet—more than a little feat for an ambitious mage—bowed to the Lord Chamberlain. With apologies, the wizard arranged them just so, positioning the five of them to some invisible diagram. Cleedis’s impatience and Sprite’s impish refusal to cooperate made the young mage all the more nervous until, by the time he was to say the words and make the passes, Pinch worried whether they would have their essences scattered across a thousand miles. Pinch always worried though; suspicion is what kept rogues like him alive.