Read Online Uneasy alliances - Thieves World 11 by Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Fiction - Fantasy, Fantasy, Short Stories, Fantasy Fiction; American, Fantasy - General, Fantastic fiction, Science fiction; American, Fantastic fiction; American
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of witched gold—"
"It ain't witched!"
"It come from the burnin'! Ever'thing up there's witched! And I ain't makin' no jewelry out of it and sellin' it to my clients' You're goin'
to the
watch, girl, an' you can explain to your neighbors 'fore the magistrate what you done up there on the hill, / ain'tl"
"Let me out of here! Damn you, damn you, I got friends, Gorthis, I got friends'H fry your insides, you damned snitch! I got wizard friends!"
"No way," Gorthis said, pale-faced and sweating, and still ringing the bell for all he was worth. "No way you got friends like that, missy, or they'd melt that there gold for you and not need no furnace-I ain't no fool! And you're going to hang, that's what's going to happen to you—" An alarm was ringing in midtown, and Crit stopped the gray to listen. Not particularly his business: the watch and the guard responded to that sort of thing, and his own mind was on personal problems—a partner who had had a run-in with the watch last night, and who had been let go because the watch did not know what to do with him—and a PrinceGovernor whose orders were getting more and more arbitrary—now the damned be-curled and perfumed prig wanted a barrel tax and wanted all the taverns in town to pay a head tax ... per customer. And he was supposed to break the news to Walegrin, whose men were supposed to make the thing work.
An alarm was not the kind of thing the city commander took for a personal responsibility. But he was in a mood to crack heads. He debated
THE BEST OF FRIENDS
253
it a moment, then, set the horse off at a good clip—no run, counting the slick cobbles, just a businesslike jog that cornered well enough in the twisting streets, with their ghostly drift of cloaked, hooded figures themselves heading toward the trouble—daytime reflexes, the more so that the watch was surely on the way and folk figured there was some kind of entertainment to be had, watching the guard putter about after a thief who had probably run like hell when the bell went, and listening with delicious smugness to the shopkeeper tearing his hair and wailing ... a morning's worth of gossip, at least-And more of them would come, when they saw the city commander involved in it.
Damned busybodies.
He had an idea where the bell-ringing was coming from when he found the right street, about the time the bell went silent and he had an idea the
watch had gotten there ahead of him. There was a jeweler hereabouts notorious for his eccentricity—and a shady past; and he saw the crowd and the waiting horses that said that matters were tolerably well under control.
He almost turned the gray about to go back about his business, back to his troubles with Strat and with the Prince-Governor, figuring there was nothing here that needed intervention.
But the crowd ohhhed and aaaahed to a great deal of shouting, and pressed close upon the door, where there was evidently something going on. A guardsman was trying to keep spectators out.
Maybe, he thought, someone had cut the jeweler's throat. But the place was supposed to be a real obstacle course. So the rumor ran. Real crazy man.
Curiosity drew him, since the morning's business was not that attractive. He nosed the gray on through the crowd, figuring the guard could use a little help—might well be a few neighbors there hoping for free samples, if there had been some fracas inside and some stuff scattered.
"Get out of here!" the beleaguered guard was yelling, shoving with his sheathed sword at a clutch of women who wanted to get their noses in the door. The crowd booed that, and guffawed when a fat man appeared behind the guard and screamed at them to get out of his door.
"What's going on here?" Crit asked the guardsman, forcing the gray into service as a living barrier, and its teeth and the stamp of its feet made
a little room.
"Dunno, sir," the guardsman said. "We got a woman and a laundry basket and a damned great lump of gold old Gorthis says is witched
"It ain't witched!"
"It come from the burnin'! Ever'thing up there's witched! And I ain't makin' no jewelry out of it and sellin' it to my clients' You're goin'
to the
watch, girl, an' you can explain to your neighbors 'fore the magistrate what you done up there on the hill, / ain'tl"
"Let me out of here! Damn you, damn you, I got friends, Gorthis, I got friends'H fry your insides, you damned snitch! I got wizard friends!"
"No way," Gorthis said, pale-faced and sweating, and still ringing the bell for all he was worth. "No way you got friends like that, missy, or they'd melt that there gold for you and not need no furnace-I ain't no fool! And you're going to hang, that's what's going to happen to you—" An alarm was ringing in midtown, and Crit stopped the gray to listen. Not particularly his business: the watch and the guard responded to that sort of thing, and his own mind was on personal problems—a partner who had had a run-in with the watch last night, and who had been let go because the watch did not know what to do with him—and a PrinceGovernor whose orders were getting more and more arbitrary—now the damned be-curled and perfumed prig wanted a barrel tax and wanted all the taverns in town to pay a head tax ... per customer. And he was supposed to break the news to Walegrin, whose men were supposed to make the thing work.
An alarm was not the kind of thing the city commander took for a personal responsibility. But he was in a mood to crack heads. He debated
THE BEST OF FRIENDS
253
it a moment, then, set the horse off at a good clip—no run, counting the slick cobbles, just a businesslike jog that cornered well enough in the twisting streets, with their ghostly drift of cloaked, hooded figures themselves heading toward the trouble—daytime reflexes, the more so that the watch was surely on the way and folk figured there was some kind of entertainment to be had, watching the guard putter about after a thief who had probably run like hell when the bell went, and listening with delicious smugness to the shopkeeper tearing his hair and wailing ... a morning's worth of gossip, at least-And more of them would come, when they saw the city commander involved in it.
Damned busybodies.
He had an idea where the bell-ringing was coming from when he found the right street, about the time the bell went silent and he had an idea the
watch had gotten there ahead of him. There was a jeweler hereabouts notorious for his eccentricity—and a shady past; and he saw the crowd and the waiting horses that said that matters were tolerably well under control.
He almost turned the gray about to go back about his business, back to his troubles with Strat and with the Prince-Governor, figuring there was nothing here that needed intervention.
But the crowd ohhhed and aaaahed to a great deal of shouting, and pressed close upon the door, where there was evidently something going on. A guardsman was trying to keep spectators out.
Maybe, he thought, someone had cut the jeweler's throat. But the place was supposed to be a real obstacle course. So the rumor ran. Real crazy man.
Curiosity drew him, since the morning's business was not that attractive. He nosed the gray on through the crowd, figuring the guard could use a little help—might well be a few neighbors there hoping for free samples, if there had been some fracas inside and some stuff scattered.
"Get out of here!" the beleaguered guard was yelling, shoving with his sheathed sword at a clutch of women who wanted to get their noses in the door. The crowd booed that, and guffawed when a fat man appeared behind the guard and screamed at them to get out of his door.
"What's going on here?" Crit asked the guardsman, forcing the gray into service as a living barrier, and its teeth and the stamp of its feet made
a little room.
"Dunno, sir," the guardsman said. "We got a woman and a laundry basket and a damned great lump of gold old Gorthis says is witched
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