by Roger Taylor
He scowled with effort. Arithmetic was not his strongest suit but it was good enough to show him that Lassner would be making a great deal of money out of his charges – a great deal of money for which he did very little. In fact, he did nothing, Pinnatte decided, except sit in that damned room like a scavenging crow.
And what did Lassner do with all this money? Pinnatte was suddenly angry. Unlike the majority of his Den-Mates, he had a shrewd idea where much of Lassner’s money went – it disappeared into the pockets of the men who ran the gambling rings at the fighting pits.
On one occasion, quite by chance, Pinnatte had seen Lassner there. He had not recognized him until, at the height of the excitement, a hood had slipped to reveal the old man at the very edge of the pit, wild-eyed and frenzied like the rest of the spectators. Pinnatte was about to shout across to him when the fight came to a sudden and, apparently, unexpected end. The change of expression on Lassner’s face struck Pinnatte like a blow, seeming, as it did, to mingle in an obscene harmony with the final pitiful whimper from the pit. He felt the acrid stench of the place filling his entire being, and his greeting died before it formed. Whatever had happened, it was bad, and Lassner would no more want to be seen thus by one of his charges than be seen naked in the street. Pinnatte backed discreetly into the crowd, resolving to act with the utmost surprise if he chanced to bump into his Den Master before he had a chance to get away. Some imp, however, held him there. He had rarely seen Lassner outside the Den and was curious about what the old man was up to, particularly in view of his violent reaction at the end of the fight. Thus, against his better judgement, but keeping carefully out of sight, he had watched him for much of the evening. It proved to be an unsettling revelation as he saw Lassner part with substantial sums of money in predominantly unsuccessful wagers. When he finally left, Pinnatte had made a further resolution to say nothing to anyone about this insight. At the time, it had been out of a mixture of loyalty and fear for, though he had been uncomfortable about what he was seeing, he still presumed that Lassner would only act in the best interests of the Den – and who was he to question his Den Master about such a matter? Over time however, his assessment of Lassner’s altruism had gradually changed and, though his suspicions about the gambling were strengthened into certainty by his growing experience of the man, and such contacts as he had at the pits, he still remained silent. Nothing was to be gained by exposing Lassner’s folly to the others, and a great deal was to be lost.
Now however, the matter, having simmered over the years, seemed to have been brought to a boiling conclusion by today’s shaking events. He would not be Lassner’s creature any longer. He would work now to break away and to earn himself the kind of money that would meet the needs of his new aspirations.
He rubbed the mark on his hand.
Chapter 8
Dreaming about breaking away from Lassner was one thing – doing it, quite another. Pinnatte was an experienced and skilful thief and he knew more ‘useful’ people in his trade than Lassner would have guessed. Further, over the years he had done an unusual thing for a thief – he had accumulated some money. It was carefully hidden in discreet niches about the city, and while it was not a great deal, it would at least buy him board and lodge for a week or so, if need arose. He had managed to achieve this by not declaring all his ‘earnings’ to Lassner – a matter requiring very careful judgement and a stern control over his natural greed, for the Den Master had an uncanny knack of knowing when he was being given purses that had already been lightened, and he was brutal to anyone he caught. One of Pinnatte’s earliest memories after he had joined the Den was of Lassner’s stick hissing violently through the air and of an offender trying vainly to escape, his cries mingling with Lassner’s curses.
‘Not for your greed, you vermin. For your stupidity in thinking that I was stupid!’
The recollection reminded Pinnatte again that striking out on his own was not only a daunting prospect, but probably hazardous. Yet it did not radically diminish his new-found resolution. He would just have to continue being careful.
Why the day’s events should have brought the idea of freedom to him, he could not have said, but he knew now that he would not be able to turn away from it. All that was to be decided was the manner in which his parting from Lassner was to be achieved. Vague notions came and went, leaving nothing in their wake that would direct him to the next act in his quiet rebellion. Gradually his enthusiasm turned into frustration until, in the end, he was pacing the floor, fists clenched.
There had to be a way!
There had to be a place for him somewhere other than this dismal Den.
He stopped. He was at the window, staring out at the Street and the familiar decaying buildings opposite. On an impulse, he turned and ran out of the room and up the several flights of stairs that led to the Den’s deserted attic. From here, a little nimble footwork carried him through a dormer window, up the roof and on to the ridge. He paused to catch his breath, then, leaning against a chimney stack, gazed around.
He had first come to this place some years ago thanks to a scornful challenge by one of the other Den-Mates. His meeting of it had enhanced his status within the group dramatically but, more important to him, both then and since, was the knowledge that here was a place to which he could retreat and be alone. The bright blue sky and the cool breeze of that successful day had been like a benison, and some part of it was always with him when he came here. Even now, when the sky, strained by the relentless heat of the long summer, looked grainy with effort, he still felt a lightening inside him as he looked along the hump-backed ridge and out across the familiar roofscape.
As far as he could see, in every direction, there were buildings. Walls and rooftops rose and dipped in a chaotic landscape, their jagged contours adding to those of the innumerable and long-forgotten hills upon which the city had grown. In the distance he could make out the Vaskyros, spiky against the dusty sky. It was thought to be the highest building in the city but Arash-Felloren was so hilly that no one building could dominate it and, from so far away, it looked small and insignificant. The scaffolding that encased it – solid, elaborate and confusing at close quarters – became only a cobwebbed raggedness. Pinnatte had never known the Vaskyros to be free of the paraphernalia of masons and builders and their allied trades. Time after time, walls, towers, spires, high-spanning arches had been started, abandoned, restarted, changed, demolished, but never to any discernible plan. Few bothered to ask any more why the Kyrosdyn were always altering their building.
‘Women can’t ever make up their minds.’
He recalled the sarcastic explanation and the sneering face as if the words had been spoken within the hour, although it must have been years ago and he could not now remember even the name of the speaker. Nor could he remember the name of the older man who had rebuked him, though he remembered a strangeness in his gaze. ‘Hold your tongue, boy. A man who rises to become Ailad of the Kyrosdyn is to be respected. A woman who does it is to be feared. It bodes no good for any of us.’ The sneering face had chosen not to pursue the matter.
Work on the Vaskyros had indeed begun shortly after Imorren had become Ailad. That much Pinnatte had learned from Lassner, though he had learned precious little since. As far as he could determine, that had been some time before he was born and, insofar as he ever thought about it, he shared the common view that the endless changes to the building were the folly of people with too much money and too little work to occupy themselves with. Not that, until today, the Vaskyros had ever occupied his thoughts very much. Still less did Imorren. She was an even more distant figure than the Prefect, although admittedly, together with other female notables, she featured occasionally in his wilder flights of fancy, when some adventitious act of courage on his part would lead him on to wealth, power and, above all, sensual gratification. For all her years, Imorren was said to be a ‘striking’ woman. Pinnatte had never seen her at close quarters and was not quite sure what that meant, so h
e usually assumed the best.
He rubbed his hand. Imorren was in his thoughts now, but not as an idle dream. What kind of woman could she be, to control the Kyrosdyn as she did? He let the question float away. It brought back to him the memory of his encounter with the Kyrosdyn and the fear that hung about it. The fear was less now, diminished by confession, revelation and physical effort, but it was still there. Yet too, the thought of Imorren brought an unexpected encouragement. This woman had risen through an organization dominated by men and, somehow, for whatever reason, she imposed her will not only upon them but on their very fortress. It would be how she wished it to be, regardless of any obstacle or opposition.
The realization was visceral and sudden. Pinnatte found he was holding his breath. She would allow nothing to stand in her way.
He must be the same.
Steadying himself against the chimney-stack he turned around slowly to look at the full panorama of the city. Buildings, large and small, ornate and simple, faded gradually into a complex patchwork and thence into a mottled uniformity; all detail, all individuality gone. But still the buildings would be there – and the city went on and on. He knew that he would see the same sight from the roof of any other building he chose to climb.
And just as his sensing of the ambition of Imorren had shaken him, so now the vastness of Arash-Felloren forced itself on him for the first time.
He was the merest mote! He was nothing.
How big was the city? Did it ever end?
‘No man has ever walked across it. So far does it reach, so densely woven its ways, that any who have tried to span it have never returned.’
‘A lifetime is not long enough to walk a different street each hour.’
‘Sunset and sunrise are ever-present in the city.’
Ale-house legends uttered with the unimpeachable conviction of unnumbered but sincere and variously poetical drunkards rose up to answer his question. They were a nonsense, of course. A city couldn’t go on for ever… could it?
How would he know? He, who had never travelled more than half a day from the Den! He had heard of the Thlosgaral to the east, where the crystals came from – and of the Wilde Ports beyond, though he had no idea what they were – but in every other direction…?
And there were other tales, more foolish still – yet they were tales that even drunkards whispered. There were more tunnels and caves beneath the city than streets and buildings above it. There were more people beneath the city than above it. And there were other things beneath the city, in the caves… ancient and terrifying things. And buildings that just vanished, to be replaced by different buildings and strange people speaking unintelligible tongues, or that reappeared elsewhere in the city, the inhabitants seemingly unaware of any change. It was even said that there were places where a single thoughtless stride would carry a man into the past or the future.
Pinnatte shook his head to break free of the city’s unexpected grip. He was only partially successful. The immensity of Arash-Felloren was not so lightly set aside. But his perspective had changed. Still he was as nothing in such a city, but what did that mean for him? It meant that there were countless places where he had never been, countless places where he could find another home, countless people who did not know him, countless opportunities. All he had to do was look for them, and then reach out and take them.
Slowly his mind spiralled back to some semblance of calmness. Now he must think. He sat down on the ridge and leaned back against the chimney-stack. His problem was starkly simple – he needed more money. A great deal of it. The solution was less clear – where was it to be found, and how might he go about acquiring it? He was good at what he did, of course, very good. But that knowledge merely heightened the need for him to look to other than purse-cutting to serve the needs of his new ambition. He was one of the best in Lassner’s Den, but even if he paid no premium, the money he made would not be sufficient for him to live much better than he did at present. And it was a risky business. Many a purse contained little or nothing, while all held danger. And how much better could he become at this craft? He could not take many more purses each day than he already did, and twice the number would not bring him anywhere near the realm where he might sport a purse such as the Kyrosdyn had casually taunted him with.
And too, seeping into all these thoughts was the presence of Lassner. Another realization came to Pinnatte as he sat gazing at the dimming western sky. He still had a great deal to learn from the old man. He smiled to himself. Wasn’t it Lassner after all who had taught him to smile and make a friend rather than an enemy?
‘Won’t stop you robbing him in the end, will it? But there’s no need to be unpleasant about it.’ Pinnatte’s smile turned into a chuckle and he felt an unexpected surge of affection for his mentor. Thoughts of Lassner brought his mind back to where much of his premium was spent, thanks to the good offices of his Den Master: the fighting pits.
When Pinnatte had gone there originally, it was to see what opportunities the crowds offered for easy pickings. He had learned two things very quickly. One was that there was a great deal of money to be found there; the other was that he was unlikely to be able to make off with any of it. He relied on his ability to move quickly through crowds to save him when things went amiss, but that would be out of the question around the pits where the crowd was so packed that it was sometimes impossible to move at all. Adding to this assessment of his chances was the fact that the typical pit crowd was not one he would wish to antagonize. This too, was immediately apparent. The air stank of bloodlust and savagery, and it needed little sensitivity to see that there was more cruelty and viciousness around the pit than in it. Subsequently he had had a dream in which he was seized in the act of taking a purse and hurled bodily into the pits to be torn apart while his eager-eyed captors slowly passed money to and fro, waging on the nearness and the manner of his end and discussing in leisurely terms the techniques of the raging animals. The dream had recurred several times after his first visit and each time he had lurched out of sleep, bolt upright, gasping and covered in sweat. It came less frequently after he forced himself to go to the pits again, hands firmly tucked in his belt and knife tightly sheathed, and it had stopped altogether after he had learned about Lassner’s gambling.
Also deterring him from trying to pursue his trade at the pits was the fact that many of those present were from the darker fringes of Arash-Felloren’s criminal fraternity: those who earned their money by bludgeoning people in the street, or even in their homes; those who kidnapped and extorted; those who even preyed on their own kind and who killed at the behest of others. He, and most of the Guild, affected to despise such as these for their brutality and lack of skill or finesse, but the scorn was always carefully hidden. Fates worse than being thrown into a fighting pit were waiting for those who needlessly provoked such individuals.
Yet the pits were the only place that Pinnatte knew of where substantial sums of money were conspicuously available. True, there were banking and credit houses, and there were the larger shops and market stalls, but it was beyond him to attempt to rob any of those. They invariably had their own guards who would watch the likes of him constantly from the instant he appeared. He looked down at his clothes to confirm this. Perhaps he could smarten himself up a little? He imagined himself preened and elegant. ‘Some of the best thieves in the city are heading trading houses or serving on the Council.’ But Lassner’s words only reminded him where he stood in the city’s social and criminal hierarchy. He hadn’t the faintest idea how such people did their thieving; he was lacking far more than decent clothes. With a twinge of regret, he let the peacock image fade.
Yet, incongruous though it seemed, he knew that he should be working to acquire that knowledge; he should be thinking about how he could take money from these people. Just because it was difficult did not mean that it could not be done, even by him. He placed the notion carefully to one side, quietly resolving to think about it from time to time.
&
nbsp; He could always resort to burglary, of course, but that held even less charm than cutting purses. True, he was a good climber, but he liked to have several avenues of escape available at all times and the prospect of encountering an enraged householder while clambering through a window high above the street gave him vertigo.
Inexorably his thoughts gravitated back to the pits. Was there anything more for him there than anywhere else? Purse-taking was out of the question and he had no money for placing wagers – not that that would have earned him much in view of what happened to Lassner’s money, and he, presumably, knew something about the business. Besides, it had not taken Pinnatte very long to realize that the people who made money out of wagers were those who set the odds – the men who ran the pits – and they were very jealous of anyone attempting to usurp their rights. But even as he reviewed his prospects at the pits he realized that they offered opportunities not found elsewhere in the city; they brought together people from the highest to the lowest. They were places of levelling.
‘We’re all blood-lusting brothers under the skin,’ Pinnatte had once heard someone say, with a grim, knowing laugh, when all eyes had been temporarily drawn away from the conflict to look at a group of smartly dressed young women whose frenzied shrieking was overtopping that of the blood-soaked animals.
His stomach rumbled. Despite the day’s happenings, bodily needs were making themselves felt. He was pleased now that he had managed to bring enough money back to ensure he would be fed for a day or so. Clambering to his feet he took a final look around the city. The western sky was reddening with the setting sun while a dull, brooding redness on the eastern horizon marked the Thlosgaral. There would be a place for him somewhere, he resolved.