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man bethought himself of the thick hardwood club he kept under the counter.
But Lone proved not the sort to take out his anger on the message-bearer.
"Not tonight, Aris. Damn! Damn him for an arrogant blaggard!"
Aristokrates considered that his wisest course was to say nothing.
"Shit!" the young man snapped, face still writhing, and with a swish of cloak
dark as midnight he whirled away toward the door.
"Oh, Lone," the man behind the counter said. "Wait a moment. He did bid me
give you a few words of council when you were about to leave."
Dark clothing did not rustle despite the speed of Lone's turn. Wickedly
menacing eyes met those paler ones of Aristokrates. "Council?"
"He bade me do you a favor," the proprietor of The Bottomless Well reported.
"I'll just bet!"
"Umm. He said to warn you not to enter Angry Alley."
Lone stared. "Huh! That's all?"
"Yes." Aristokrates nodded solemnly.
"Hey, Aris! How about another mug over here!" That call sounded in a voice
with a bit of surliness in it.
Aristokrates waved a hand at the patron, one of several at his table. Two of
them also signed for another.
"Oh oh. Sorry, Lone. Uh& good night& "
Lone did not return that ritual well-wishing as he glided to the door and in a
second as much as vanished into the darkness outside.
Naturally, being angry and more, being Lone, he headed directly for the dark,
dark opening between two close-set walls a passage that too often reeked of
urine. Although he saw no one in Angry Alley, someone was.
"The carelessness of rash-brash youth," a voice quiet as a tiptoe in shadow
said, "is not bravery, Lone.
The real
Shadowspawn would not be so rash as to charge in when such a clear warning was
issued."
"Shadowspawn!" Lone gasped, cloak swept back and hand frozen to hilt. It was
as if the darkness had spoken, for still he saw no hint of person or even
movement.
"The same. And well armed, and vexed at you with reason, but only talking
instead of letting steel speak for me."
Lone of the prickling scalp and armpits considered that, and swallowed, and
actually devoted a few seconds to thought, and for once he answered from his
brain, not his bravado.
"You left word that I must stay out of this alley only because you knew I
would have to accept the challenge!"
"It was a safe assumption," the darkness said. "You have just restrained
yourself. You must learn to do that much more often, which is to learn to
think. Else you will die a very young man, and who could possibly give a
damn."
The final words were no question, really, but spoken flatly as a statement of
fact. And once again Lone felt assaulted& and once again, somehow, he found
discipline within himself, and exercised it.
"I will try, Master of Thieves."
"I doubt it. And just 'master' will do, if you intend to apprentice yourself
to Shadowspawn and succeed him."
"You do not make it easy, do you."
"I have had no easy life, Lone. My mentor was hanged when I was only a boy,
younger than you. I was a cocky little piece of cat shit, but I learned that I
must learn, and so I tried, and I learned."
Lone swallowed and, even in pitch darkness, blinked. It had not occurred to
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him that his idol was capable of such profundity.
"Doubtless you think that was profound," the darkness said, in the
shadow-quiet voice of the master thief of Sanctuary.
Lone swallowed and managed to make no reply.
"If you can learn, I know things that you don't and can still do things that
you can't."
As I can do things that you no longer can, poor crippled Shadowspawn
, Lone mused, but again he strengthened himself to hold silent.
Then it occurred to him that the unseen owner of the ever-challenging voice
was also saying nothing, and he steeled himself to pronounce the simple words:
"I can learn, Master."
The man called Chance had not been so elated in a long, long time. But none of
that was apparent in his shadow-quiet voice: "You must be tested. To begin
with you have not I hope forgot the location of the home of the Spellmaster."
"I remember," Lone said, trying hard not to sound sheepish.
What an idiot I was, breaking into that mansion! What a friend such a man as
Strick could be
!
"Good," the shadows said. "Then we will meet there. Your first test is to
reach his door before I do."
After a time Lone realized that although he had heard no sound of movement, he
was alone in Angry
Alley. With a slight smile, he began walking. Rapidly.
With a fleet and eager horse hitched to the mule-cart and a pass to show any
law enforcement types who might stop him, Samoff made very, very good time
driving through the night to the home of his master.
Simple matter to wait near the end of the alley Chance had specified, say
nothing when the black-clad man appeared and climbed aboard, and set off. From
time to time as he guided the more than spirited young horse through the night
he heard a chuckle from the man seated behind him, and Samoff made a vow to
ask Chance at a more opportune, meaning safer, time if he had wet his
underpants in his gurgling glee.
If the younger cat-burglar wet his pants that momentous night, it was not in
glee. He was not short of breath but his legs were afflicted with spikes of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]