Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar

by Frances Mason

  Randy Barber could not have picked a pocket if it had been turned inside out on a clothes line. For some thieves that level of ineptitude did not matter, since if they wanted to steal something they would sneak up behind their victim, belt them over the sconce with a small club or pouch weighted with lead and take what they wanted before the victim came round. Bastard probably could not even do that. If he tried his victim would realise what was up and squawk for the watch before Randy could get within range. So he just put on a silly jester’s mask, walked right up to them, and beat them up face to face, or paid the guards of the city watch in advance to ignore any screams. Sometimes he strangled his victims unconscious, or worse.

  In any other city a man like that would end his life on the gallows pretty quickly, kicking till no tune could make him dance, but the Thedran constabulary were so corrupt that an incompetent thief just had to share and share unalike when caught. And if he stumbled across one of those rarities, a city watchman with integrity, he would just have to sit in The Pit, a prison in North Bank, or one of the other Thedran prisons for a while. The Pit, like most of the other Thedran prisons, was virtually run by the guild, so members served easy time. Then would come the trial. There could be no doubt that the city magistrates were upright men, until the bribe was big enough; and the resources of the guild were considerable. And there was always the possibility of a “resurrection” if the magistrates got too greedy. Most of the hanged criminals were cut down by the hangman after a brief dance, taken away and revived to rob, cheat and murder another day.

  Put simply, Randy completely lacked an appreciation of the fine art of separating a man from his hard earned coin. A skilful theft had a kind of beauty to it. Alex admired that beauty, and tried to create it all over this corrupt, ugly city. The thieves’ guild appreciated his talent but did not approve his sense of independence. The Lord of Law, as the master of the thieves’ guild was known, was lenient with child thieves, only having his manglers roughing them up in an almost paternal way and stealing what they had already stolen, as long as they did not poach the big, wealthy targets, or cause the failure of large heists by being in the profitable place at the wrong time. But, because Alex had recently turned eighteen, he was expected to join. No excuses. He had ignored their demands regardless, shrugging off their promises and threats. Perhaps because the Lord of Law wanted so much to own Alex’s remarkable talents the boy had not yet died for his insolence. Instead the guild thieves had whispered a lot of sweet nothings about protection, and safety in numbers.

  Randy had cornered him the other night. He had suggested that maybe the watch were not as blind, deaf and dumb as Alex believed. He had hinted that the guild might help them catch him. “They might be sharper than you think, and who knows what kind of lowlife might sell out a scab. No honour among scabs. Then there’ll be no saving you. If that happened you’d dance Death’s Dance,” he had said, referring to the gallows dance, “no one’ll resurrect you, Alex Lickfrigger.”

  “Quickfingers,” Alex had corrected.

  “Whatever! You’ll dangle and you’ll die. But wha’da’ya expect from a louse’s son?”

  “Beggar’s son, moron.”

  “What?”

  “I said, beggar’s son, more or less.”

  “You just watch yourself, Alex. No matter how quick those fingers, the Lord of Law sees all things.”

  “He’s omniscient?”

  “Om what?”

  “It’s a kind of fish, sees everything the eyeless can see.”

  “Think you’re smart? Just for that…” He tried to grab Alex, but was not quick enough, and when he looked around the young thief had been nowhere in sight. “I don’t have to see you to know you’ve got a thrashing coming you smart arsed little shit.” Alex had blown a raspberry, ventriloquising the sound across the alley, then had quickly climbed to a rooftop while the idiot searched for him in the wrong direction. “I’ll get you, you little shit. Your mouth might be as quick as your fingers, but I’ll get you. Just you wait and see.”

  Alex had no intention of waiting, but he saw he would not be able to continue this way forever. He slunk through the shadows the city wall cast on the tiles. He liked his freedom, and he did not like sharing his loot, and the guild did not help him in any of his purse cutting or pickpocketing or breaking and entering into an arrangement with a merchant’s hidden gold.

  He had told himself he would turn a new leaf. “What they don’t know won’t hurt me,” he had said in one of his conversations with himself. He had moved further into the city than his usual haunts, coming to Dyers’ Lane, which smelled of rancid piss from the fullers’ shops opposite the dyers’ shops. He had intended breaking into the guild master’s shop and give the gift of taking. As the dyer had left, wearing a great gold chain about his neck, accompanied by his dressed up wife, Alex had thought, “It’s a work of charity. The poor rich man can’t be expected to spend all that gold by himself. And what about his wife? Just look at her. She looks so weighed down by fine dresses she couldn’t possibly carry another thread on her back. What kind of city would not relieve such an upstanding man of his burden of responsibility. What kind of man would not lighten his poor wife’s load? Who’d be so unkind? What kind of thief would be so inconsiderate?”

  Alex knew it was the night of the guild meeting, when they waffled praise and complained about their prentices and the prices of daughters’ dowries. As he watched them walk down the street to the guild hall he thought, he too could have been an honest prentice, stealing from his master, joining the occasional riot, relieving the master’s daughter of her unwanted virtue. The guild hall was in the same street, but a lot further down. The torches burned at its doors. There were guards there, and patrolling the street, not the corrupt city watch, but paid mercenaries. That would not worry Alex too much. Ordinarily he would time darting across the way and picking the lock to when they were walking away and be safely into the shop before they turned back.

  Then Randy bloody Bastard turned up, sauntering noisily down the street to the door. It might be chance, but chances were it was not. Somehow, Alex thought, Randy had found out he would be here, and had come to thwart him. But how had he known? Alex was not foolish enough to advertise his intended targets. Had he been followed? By Randy? Randy was about as inconspicuous as a turd on a table. He did not love the shadows like a true thief. He stood there, in the brightest patch of torchlight, picking his nose, hawking and spitting on the house fronts, looking even more sinister than usual, if that were possible, because of the spectral illumination of the full moon. Whatever his reason for being here, he blocked Alex’s path from the alley opposite the dyer’s door. There was the lock Alex would have picked, so temptingly near yet now unapproachable. The guards continued past their colleagues at the brightly lit guild hall doors. If it were only a matter of getting past Randy, Alex would not be so concerned. He knew the dyer had a window on the second storey. He could get in through that. But when the guards turned at the end of the street Randy would draw their attention, and that would make any approach more difficult.

  “You’re an idiot, Alex. Quick of finger, slow of brain. He’ll be a useful distraction. Who are you calling an idiot? If I’m an idiot, so are you.”

  Alex decided he would climb to the roof of the adjoining house. But he had to get across the street first, and the shadows were not so dark beyond the little alley where he crouched. The dyers were not the complete fools for which a thief always hoped. They had lit torches along the street, and they had chosen the night of the full moon. The light of the guttering torches mixed with the eerie prismatic rays of the moon in unpredictable ways. He moved to the edge of the shadows under a fullers’ eaves opposite the guild master’s workshop-shop-house. There was another solid shadow, under the projecting plane of the second storey of the house next to the guild master’s. Randy scratched his bum and swivelled his head, side to side to side. When he was looking the other way Alex darted across the narrow lighted space b
etween the alley and the overhang. Quiet as a clawless mouse on velvet. He searched for a hold and found it in the projecting section, furthest away from Randy. With a few quick movements he was up to the roof looking across to the guild master’s upper storey window. He would have to be quick. The moment the guards spotted Randy they would raise the alarm, then the whole place would be swarming with guards, some paid mercenaries, some corrupt city watch. They might assume that Randy was a lookout and carefully search the house fronts and what they could see of the roofs from below.

  Then it struck Alex. Randy was not looking for him.

  A shadow moved on the opposite roof, near the guild master’s upper storey window, which was some way back from the first storey eaves, since the second storey itself was further back. Another thief. Then Alex saw the whites of eyes. Carelessly, he had not hidden in shadows of the nearby chimney, being on the rooftops, out of sight of Randy and the guards in the street below. His contempt for Randy had made him complacent, when the mangler’s presence should have alerted him. The other thief saw him before he could correct his error. “Hello Quickfingers,” he hissed threateningly. The guild master’s home was a fat target, precisely the kind they reserved for their members. “You should have stuck to cutting purses and robbing stalls in the marketplace,” Alex cursed himself silently, “or at least have had the sense to hide in the shadows.”

  “What are you doing here? You know better than that.”

  Alex had frozen, like a statue, only less impressive, then his brain started to work.

  “I was going to break into this shop here,” he whispered, pointing down.

  “Ah. But there’s nothing worth the effort in there, little Alex. And I think you know it.”

  “How could I know what’s in a shop without breaking into it first.”

  “Mmm. The Lord of Law wants you, Alex.”

  “What, you mean…? I’m not really into that sort of thing.”

  “Not sexually, you twat. You have skills, and we always value skills in Ilsa’s Temple.”

  “Ilsa’s Temple?” That was a bit rich, calling the House of the Hand the temple of the god Ilsa. He knew the Lord of Law at his most pretentious liked to style himself Ilsa’s arkon, high priest of the god of thieves, but every good thief knew Ilsa valued disorder, not the neatness of an hierarchical priesthood. He was the god of beggars, thieves, madness and transgression, not of comfortable rules and boring old thieves past their prime pretending to be priests. Not that Alex had anything against temple altars, they usually had lots of valuable things to steal. He wondered for a moment if the Thieves’ Guild had an altar, and lots of golden candelabras and goblets and the like. Now that would be something. To steal from the guild…and survive.

  Alex had an idea, not a good one, but a workable one. “You’re having trouble with that window.”

  “And you’re going to help?” He heard the thief chuckle. But those eyes cut the air between them like a knife cuts a throat. “Oh, no, little Quickfingers. You’re not a member, yet, though you will be before long if you want to live to nineteen. You leave this to the masters.”

  “What, like Randy? Waiting in plain sight to warn the guards you’re breaking into the shop?”

  The thief peered over the edge. “Damn the fool. I told him to watch for the guards and…” He looked up the street. The guards had turned and were walking back. It would not be long before they spotted Randy. “Don’t try anything with those quick fingers while I’m gone, unless you want to pick pockets with your toes,” the thief said as he slid down in shadows and came up behind Randy to clip him over the head.

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” Alex said with a smirk, and waited for the thief to become preoccupied enough.

  But this thief was not as dumb as his mangler companion. He placed his partner in crime in the middle of the street and pointed his face towards Alex. Though Alex had by then withdrawn into the shadow of the chimney stack, when the thief whispered to Randy the mangler grinned, almost leering at the place the young freelancer hid, unable to cross through moonlight and Randy’s line of sight to the guild master’s roof and upper storey window. Then the other thief flipped back his hood and strutted confidently up to the guards.

  Unlike Randy, this thief was quick on his feet, and with his bullshit. “Special assignment, boys. Good to see you’re on your toes. If you weren’t we’d have to report you. But you took a bit long. I counted a full hundred between when you passed the shop and when you noticed us. If we’d been thieves the guild master’s home would be robbed. I think I’m going to have to put that in my report.” He signalled the two guards to follow him back past Randy. Alex dropped low behind the peak of the roof and observed.

  “What? Report? No, we were…”

  “Just following orders. But not using your heads. Do you really think any serious thief is going to be breaking into any other shop than the guild master’s?” He hooked a thumb at the door directly behind him. “Those slimy bastards know where the real money is. They know how to rob a decent honest man who’s worked hard to get where he is. They have no respect for honest men. Bloody thieving bastards!”

  Finally Randy’s slow brain clicked. “Bloody thieving bastards!”

  “Bloody thieving bastards!” the guards agreed.

  “Let’s go and talk to the master. I’m sure he’d like a full report. Come on Jack.” The thief strutted confidently toward the guild hall. He turned back, and gave Randy a significant look. Randy, always slow, stared uncomprehending. “Jack, we have to make a full report,” he said again and gave Randy an angry glare. Randy suddenly realised what was being asked. “Yes, a full report,” he parroted and followed the other.

  “Is that really necessary?” the guards asked, turning to follow the low lawyer and mangler.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it, boys. It’s not like he won’t understand. You were doing your job. It’s just a minor detail. So that he understands what’s lacking in his security arrangements.”

  “Couldn’t we just…ah…learn from our mistake?”

  “But don’t you want your employer to learn from your mistake too?”

  “Oh, we could explain any changes needed.”

  “Well, we get paid for results, boys. You wouldn’t want to rob a couple of honest men like us.”

  “No, no. That’s not what I meant. I mean, we could pay you for the privilege of telling him ourselves.”

  “Ah, and you could maybe get a bonus. You’d give us a share of the bonus, wouldn’t you?”

  “How about we discuss that. What kind of a share do you think is fair?”

  The thief turned back and Randy followed. The four men stood by the guild master’s shop and haggled over a difference of a few silver coins. It was not much, not compared to what might be inside, but the thieves had avoided any trouble, and at the next month’s dyer’s guild meeting they could try again. By which time Alex was determined to have robbed the shop, even with the owner and his wife and prentice sleeping in there. Now that would take real skill. In the meantime Randy and his accomplice were right next to the shop, and Alex suspected the smarter thief was deliberately taking his time. If Alex tried to take advantage of their distraction to break in through the second storey window he might even point it out to the guards and then Alex would find out if that threat about the gallows Randy had made the other night was real. He had never been a “messiah,” as was said in the thieves’ cant when a thief had been resuscitated, or “resurrected,” after a gallows dance, and he certainly did not want to be permanently dead.

  Still, he was unsatisfied. He had expected a big haul, and he had come away with nothing. He would have to satisfy that itch some other way. From where he crouched on the roof he scanned the other rooftops. He could see another thief in the next street over. Cripple Street. Just a shimmer of shadow that might have been mistaken for a black tomcat prowling.

  His eyes were drawn, despite himself, in one direction. The tower. He had not realised how ne
ar he was. “Don’t be stupid,” he told himself. “Don’t you like a challenge? Not the kind that has me turned into a pile of dust by an angry evil wizard. They can do that kind of thing, you know. Pfft, lot of old whores’ tales. You would know, growing up among whores. Just shut up, I wasn’t going to do it anyway.” But he heard the voice calling, and this close to the tower it was louder in his head. For a moment it sounded almost like a scream.

  He crossed the roofs, testing loose looking tiles carefully through his soft leather boots because he was not as familiar with roofs in this part of town as he was in the north east near the bridge and the market. Soon he came to Weaver’s Way. There in the street was a man with a nice juicy purse, just waiting to be plucked, like a fresh peach from a tree in a spring orchard when the farmer was working so hard dozing in the summer sun he would not notice. But this man looked more dangerous than a sleeping farmer. He had a sword. Not worth the risk. Alex only carried the dagger with which he ate. His father had long ago taught him unarmed fighting and techniques for disarming a swordsman, and his friend, Rob Smart, an actor, and many other things dishonest and honestly skilful, who knew swordsmanship from his stage acting, had taught him some basics attacks and counters with a blade, but Alex knew he would likely get skewered if he tried wielding a real sword against anyone with real experience. This man had a face scarred by more than childhood pox or teenage acne or a dose of the clap. A nasty looking welt from chin to ear, a pattern of tiny nicks across his forehead, a squashed nose and cauliflower ears, one of which was missing a lobe. And Alex could see the lumpiness of light armour beneath that leather jacket. He was probably a mercenary.

  He waited till the man had passed, dropped without a sound to the cobblestones, and darted from one shadow to the next, working his way up the street. Then he climbed on a molasses barrel past the uncurious eyes of a hay munching pony, grabbing the eaves and lifting himself to the roof. There were few shadows here, but an easy passage across to Candlewick Lane, which he traversed quickly. After a quick look up and down the street for the city watch or similar men of dubious morals he dropped to the cobblestones. Next to him was a dog, staring, its lips drawn back in a snarl, but not a growl coming from its throat. He patted the statue and darted across the street and up to the roofs again, levering himself past the bedroom window of a sleeping chandler and his wife. They would be an easy target, provided they were not light sleepers, and what hard working couple were? but he did not want an easy target tonight. His failure at the guild master’s home made him want a challenge. He crossed roofs again and dropped lightly to the cobblestones.