Shadowspawn (Thieves' World Book 4)

by Andrew J Offutt

  He could only be Hanse. He had to cover, and he did that by pretending anger. He stalked to the door, where he paused to turn and give her a look before he walked out.

  He had been a loner and pride-driven, needs-driven for a long, long time. He also did not drink, and was proud of that control. Still, now and then, in stress, he had done. Tonight he would drink. Tonight he went to a dive, heedless of his attire, and he drank. No one spoke to or approached the silent, dark-clad and sinister young man at the comer table in the Rampant Goat. An underdressed young woman alone gazed at him for a long time with bright eyes, but he never glanced at her and something close to fear kept her from approaching him. Someone approached her, and she left with him, his hand down her dress. At the door, she glanced back.

  The sinister yet magnetic dark one stared into his ale-cup, saying nothing, now and again signalling for more, and no one spoke to him or approached him.

  Until four men did.

  The one called Malingasa had recently gone out to relieve himself, and had seen this same lean, supple and night-clad youth ghost across a pallidly lit section of night. Hanse had been found out; Shadowspawn had been seen. He was known to these four as a nighter, a youthful man who could vanish as if materially into night’s shadows. He was alone and lonely and bereaved, and these four men wanted him; wanted his services.

  Nevertheless he denied what he was, and he denied them.

  They pressed. They talked quietly but almost openly, for they knew what he was. They wanted a break-in and a theft. It was a job that required more than one person as backup and support, but that absolutely wanted one specialist. A human cat. That component they lacked. They wanted Hanse; no, they wanted Shadowspawn. He refused and they pressed. They cajoled and threatened and filled his cup; they dickered and flattered him. Perhaps most importantly, they told him that it would be difficult and that they knew no one who could accomplish such a feat. Unless …

  He was Hanse with his needs, devilled by sorcerous coins and troubles with his woman, unemployed and made to feel embarrassed and useless even tonight, after a triumphant practicing of his trade and his expertise. And now, by these four he was wanted and needed. As a professional; as Shadowspawn.

  He agreed, and they had of him his name and he theirs: Malingasa and wall-eyed Marll; Thuvarandis — now there was a familiar name! — and Clur called Shorty. Yes, Hanse would meet Shorty just up the street tomorrow, at dusk. They were agreed. The four men dribbled away, not leaving together, a newly sharp-witted Shadowspawn noted. He waved off a refill, waited a few moments, paid and went home — to the sheet-covered back of a sleeping Mignureal.

  *

  In the morning he awoke after she had risen. Under the sheet, he pretended sleep while she finished preparations to leave. He knew when she went to the door to the other room and paused to look back at him, but he did not move or open his eyes. He heard her leave, and noted with some feeling of guilt how she was so quiet about closing the hall door. Hanse knew he would not have behaved so.

  But I am not gentle Mignue, he mused. If I were like her, she’d probably never have paid any attention to me at all. Then we — oh, this is silly. What-ifs don’t count for anything. I’m Hanse and she’s Mignureal. What’s more, I am Shadowspawn.

  And Shadowspawn’s talents were needed.

  Hanse lay where he was, under the sheet, thinking amid a mix of emotions. They even cajoled me, he reflected with a joyous feeling of pride. And although he didn’t know who the target was, or where, he was going to do it. Of course casual mention had been made of the fact that he was a foreigner living respectably in Firaqa, accepted for what he appeared to be, and that word could possibly get out that he was also a professional thief who was probably in their city because he’d been chased out of his own.

  He considered and tried to plan, despite limited information. Then Notable decided that he had lain there long enough. Notable mounted the bed. Hanse let the cat walk up his body and opened his eyes only when the padded feet were on the sheet covering his chest. Huge green eyes stared down at him.

  “Aww, you damned cat. You I can trust, Notable. You love me, don’t you!”

  “Meraw.”

  Hanse reached up to stroke the big red cat, which leaned into his hand until it moved him aside. Hanse rose. Gods, but he was practically gurgling with seeming gallons of beer that wanted out! Consider yourself lucky that you don’t have a headache, he thought. He pulled his cloak about him and hurried down the hall to the privy. Feeling much better, he ambled back. He fed the cats while tearing off morsels of tough-crusted bread with his teeth. He peered out the window above the alley, twisting to look upward.

  “Easy,” he muttered, nodding.

  He made a temporary parcel of working clothes and weapons. Dressed in the off-white tunic and hat, he strapped on a couple of knives and, for the first time, buckled on Sinajhal’s sword with its fancy hilt. Then he left the apartment.

  The bazaar was already crowded. Well away from the S’danzo booth, he found the couple who sold nearly everything. He surprised them by asking for the largest piece of gut they had.

  “You got a window that big?”

  Hanse shook his head. “I want to make a waterproof parcel.”

  “Oh. Pig’s gut’d be a little small, then. Dear, don’t we still have that horse innard? We’ve never cut it up, have we?”

  “Just taking up space,” she said happily, and found it.

  Hanse established that no odour attended the large piece of tissue, and bought it. Back in the apartment, it became the container for a carefully rolled set of black clothing, along with two knives, three throwing stars, and the Ilbarsi knife. If anyone asks, he thought, I’m checking our recent work on the roof! He went out the window, and up. There he secured his parcel, and came back down the wall to his own window. No one had happened along the alley and no one would be going up onto that roof but Hanse. No one had seen and no one but he knew of the location of his working clothes.

  Since he had no idea where the proposed theft was to take place, he decided to explore the well-to-do neighbourhood called Northgates.

  It wasn’t as if that area of the city was near any gates at all, but area names had a habit of being born without regard for logic. He found no business establishments, only large houses on large lots. The lots were for the most part well shrubbed and shaded by tall trees. He noted the smaller dwellings of servants, along with stables and hen-houses. Here and there handsome statuary rose, and of course he saw dogs. The tall fences and walls he passed were hardly as high as the one around the governor’s palace of Sanctuary. Nor was any of these dwellings so lofty as that mansion.

  Shadow spawn, who had broken in and out of Sanctuary’s palace three several times, saw nothing here that looked overly difficult.

  Of course I’m in a town of mages, he reminded himself, and thought at once of the sorcerous attack that time he had broken into the dwelling of Kurd, to rescue Tempus. That had been the first time Mignureal had Seen for him, bidding him take a forgotten pot. It had happened to contain quicklime. Had he not heeded her, and had it not rained, he’d have been found dead there outside the vivisectionist’s grim keep; strangled by attacking vines.

  Hanse made a mental note to obtain some quicklime, just in case.

  He reached the city’s northward wall, which he saw had been well reinforced here. By the well-moneyed citizens in these manses, he supposed, and looked up over the wall. Beyond it rose Town Hill. It occurred to Hanse that he had never wandered up there, and that his target might well be one of the landed villas on that shrubby, tree-studded hill. Well, he’d find out soon enough. Too late now to go fetch his horse and ride up there, playing sightseer or perhaps messenger.

  Messenger!

  That thought sent him boldly over to the winding street called Bitterwood, and up to two manses. No one came to the door of the first, and Hanse smiled. Avoiding the place with the wall and three dogs, he approached another door. Again there wa
s no response, and he decided to try the smaller house to one side and beyond the big home. He was surprised when it was opened by a plump, attractive and red-tunicked young woman with glossy black bangs and a décolletage that had to be called extreme even in Firaqa. She looked at him from beneath long lashes. Indeed, she looked him up and down.

  “Please pardon me,” he said, sweeping off his hat to reveal hair as jet black as hers. “I am looking for the dwelling of Tethras the Changer. Can you help me?”

  “Why?” She stood gazing at him, one hand on a broad round hip and the other well up on the door’s inner edge.

  “Wh — oh, I have a message for him. Rather I am to leave it, since he is in the bazaar, surely.”

  “What is your name?

  Hanse cocked his head. “Why?”

  “Because mine’s Janith and I watched you pass awhile ago and I’m alone and really lonely and you’re the cutest thing I’ve seen in months.”

  “I do not believe this,” Hanse muttered, not quite stammering.

  “You believe this, don’t you?” she said, bending far forward to afford him an inspiring view down her low, low-cut red tunic. It appeared to contain two large peeled pears separated by a deeply shadowed canyon. She imparted movement to the pears and changed the shape of the canyon by moving her shoulders. After giving him a moment to goggle, she looked up into his eyes from beneath long black lashes.

  “Come in and see what else I have that you won’t believe.”

  He was a little late for his appointment with Shorty, and he would never be called Saint Hanse.

  *

  Clur called Shorty conducted him to a certain place west of the bazaar, west of Caravaner Street, and Hanse had indeed come into Firaqa’s maze, Red Row. At least he didn’t have to enter blindfolded, or any such nonsense. The other three waited in this odd place that seemed to have been a stable, then a dwelling, and now to be abandoned. Its single window was boarded. The floor was not; it was earth. An oil lamp shared a tabletop with a squat, fat wine bottle and five unmatching cups. There were four chairs and a stool, on which sat grey-thatched Thuvarandis, with his back against the wall and long, long legs stretched out.

  Blond Marll poured wine, and they talked. Hanse instructed them to call him Shadowspawn, and to refer to him only by that name. They accepted that without question or comment, which touched off a spark of suspicion in the back of his mind. They talked.

  They did not say so, but Hanse began to gather that he was part of some sort of larger plot. Political, maybe. Integral to their plans was a theft from the palatial Town Hill home of one Corstic. Aye, Corstic the mage; Corstic the banking partner; Corstic who was one of the two primary powers in Firaqa. As a matter of fact, the more powerful of the two, as Hanse had already learned. Corstic possessed in his home a certain figurine, and these men wanted it.

  “Gold?” Shadowspawn asked, again shaking his head at the silent offer of wine.

  “No. The figure is of a cat, and it is of porcelain the colour of pearl.”

  Hanse nodded. The thing was presumably without direct monetary value then, and so held another sort of worth to these men.

  They knew where it was, or at least where it had been three days ago. It rested on a table, right out in the open. It might weigh between one and two pounds.

  “You want me to break into the mansion of a powerful and wealthy mage, and all you want me to bring out is a little porcelain statue of a cat. That’s all you want, from a wealthy home.”

  “Right,” Thuvarandis said in his deep bass.

  Marll with the one off eye said, “We don’t even want that. We just want it out of Corstic’s possession. So long as he has it, we and you and all of Firaqa are in danger, because we could be in his thrall anytime he chooses.”

  “Careful not to say too much, Marll.”

  Hanse thrust out a pointing finger at the speaker, Malingasa. “Listen, I don’t want to hear anything else along those lines, you hear? You want me and my services in this, you tell me what you know and what I need to know and then more. Because only I can say what I might need to know. If what you’re looking for is hired help to be kept ignorant of what’s going on, run out and find one while I get on back home.”

  Silence followed that outburst, if that was the term; Hanse had spoken in no loud voice and without apparent anger. Malingasa stared, eyes larger, while Shorty and Thuvarandis gazed at Malingasa. Thuvarandis was smiling. Marll emptied his mug and wiped wine off his blond moustache.

  “You know,” Thuvarandis said quietly, “under the circumstances I’d have said the same thing.”

  Malingasa jerked his head to shoot him a look, but closed his mouth with obvious effort. With a nod, he looked back into the dark, dark eyes of their cat-thief.

  “You’re right, Shadowspawn. That’s the way it will be. And yes, the porcelain cat is all we want. What we intend to do with it is destroy it. It must be done in a specific way, under specific circumstances. It’s in Corstic’s private quarters and workshop, which is on the second floor.”

  Hanse glanced around. “And where do we think Corstic’s going to be?”

  “In Council meeting. Council meets on Ganeday night.”

  “That’s two nights hence.”

  “That’s right.”

  Hanse sighed. “I am not interested in Firaqi politics, and I’ve never cared for cats, and I hate sorcery. Your gain in this is not mine, but I see plenty of risk. The phrase is: What’s in it for me?”

  Marll smiled. Thuvarandis chuckled. He sat up straight on his stool, brown-legginged knees high.

  “Two things, Professional. First — whatever you carry out of there in addition to the porcelain cat! We want nothing else. We won’t even ask what you picked up. You might want to carry an empty sack or two in with you…”

  Hanse didn’t quite smile as he nodded. He glanced at the others. “Are you in agreement with that, Shorty? You, Malingasa? Marll?” It was hard, looking at the man; Hanse was never sure which eye to look at.

  They were all in agreement. They wanted nothing else; they would take the cat and ask no questions about whatever else stuck to his hands. They could even recommend at least two fences — er, Changers — who asked few or no questions. “Why is the figurine important?”

  “It is an aid to sorcery; a certain form of magic,” Marll said. “That need not worry you. I have touched it, and Thuvarandis has. So has its previous owner, who is Arcala. It is not dangerous of itself, Shadowspawn.”

  “Which of you is a mage?”

  Thuvarandis’ bass boomed a good genuine laugh. “Excellent question!”

  “I am,” Marll said.

  “So I thought. What help can you give me?”

  “Some. But I haven’t the powers to remove whatever wards Corstic has on his home. He is far more powerful and proficient than I.”

  Hanse sat straight. “You are telling me that I am going against sorcerous protections Corstic has set about his house.”

  “We assume as much. Wouldn’t you, if you were all that he is?”

  “That’s no answer and proves nothing,” Hanse said, “but yes, of course I would. I don’t have to like it. Oh — what about dogs?”

  Shorty slapped his leg. “We will take care of the dogs! No sorcery about them!”

  “Tell me how, Shorty.”

  “He is to a bow,” Marll said, “as you are to…night work, Shadowspawn.”

  Hanse nodded. “Which of you is a worker in porcelain?”

  “What?”

  “By Ganeday afternoon I want a figurine,” Hanse said. “A cat that resembles Corstic’s as much as possible. People see what they expect to see. If he is accustomed to seeing the thing in a particular place, he will, or will think he does. If I leave one that is reasonably similar, days and even weeks or months may pass before he notices that it’s missing. I’ll take a cat-figurine in with me, and bring one out with me.”

  They sat gazing at him in silence until Thuvarandis said, “Very good
, Professional. My dear friends, this is one of the reasons we have found the best man for the job to hand!” Marll was nodding. “You shall have it, Shadowspawn. Since it is not a heavily detailed figure and I have seen it many times, I will see to it. I can even — well. It will be more than reasonably similar.”

  Hanse looked at Thuvarandis. “I asked what was in this for me and you said two things, Thuvarandis. What’s the other?”

  “The fact that several people have tried to break into the home of Corstic the master spellmaker, Professional. Only one man succeeded.”

  Hanse raised his eyebrows, which were just short of being one. “And why have you approached me, rather than him?”

  “I said he succeeded in breaking in” Thuvarandis told him. “He did not break out”

  The sense of challenge soared in Shadowspawn, enveloping itself with his pride, just as Thuvarandis had expected.

  *

  The maze called Red Row was a place of darkness and shadows when Shorty and Malingasa walked through it with Hanse, and out. Since he did not respond or speak, they too went quiet. They turned time after time, along one twisty or truncated street after another, and were approached by three beggars and four slatterns. They emerged onto Caravaner, just south of the open market. Hanse looked both ways, then turned to look back the way they had come.

  “Think you could find your way back?” Shorty asked.

  Hanse looked into his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Thuvarandis will see you tomorrow afternoon, in the bazaar,” Malingasa said.

  Hanse looked into his eyes. “So he said.” And he set off walking northward along Caravaner. They watched.

  “Friendly fellow,” Malingasa said.

  “A real professional, Malin. Lookit that walk!”

  “Like a cat,” Malingasa said.

  Shorty laughed.

  *

  First Hanse removed any trace of his grim look from his face, then knocked. Zrena acted a little strained when she opened the door, and he knew he was lucky. Mignureal had stayed with them, and could have no idea that he had not been home, either. While they were affable, both Quill and Turquoise shot looks at Mignureal, which told Hanse that she had told them something, at least. Mignue, obviously, didn’t know what to do or how to behave. She sat nervously fondling the medallion she wore; Strick’s gift.