Stealers' Sky

He step-clonked his way to the counter.

"Are you Ahdio?"

The mailed man gri

Under the hat a black mustache moved, but was too full to allow teeth to flash in a rueful smile. "You know everything, don't you? You really a sorcerer, Ahdio?"

Ahdio set a hamlike hand to his chain-scintillant chest and took on a sweet and i

Under the hat, Hanse snorted. "Call me Skarth. I live in the Maze. You've known me for years. Draw me a beer and I'll leave it for Sweetboy."

"Nice of you," Ahdio said, moving for the beer, "but that cat hit a rat like a lightning strike this afternoon and ate everything but the viscera and the contents of its bowels. He always leaves those for me. Catsl Anyhow he's been sleeping it off for hours and probably couldn't even be bothered to stick his tongue into a bowl of beer. How's Notable?"

"Not that sleepy," Hanse assured him, "ever! Thanks." He slid his hand into the handle of the unglazed mug Ahdio set before him, watched a wrinkle or two flake off, and made a snarly noise. "You find out what Strick asked you about?"

"I did. That individual lives in Downwind." Ahdio leaned forward and lowered his voice, although that hardly seemed necessary, in the lowest and noisiest dive in the city and probably on the planet. "Brick, painted blue maybe twenty years ago, four stories high, on Happiness Street. Backs up to an alley just across from a small barn that looks more like a stable and used to be. He goes to sleep to the sound of goats, I reckon. His room's on the fourth floor, in back."

"Perrrfect," Hanse purred. "Top floor rear, hmmm? Just perfect. Look around, Ahdio. You see anybody who looks trustworthy?"

Starting to look, Ahdio snapped his gaze back to the man in the hat. "Where do you think you are, the Golden Oasis?"

Hanse chuckled. "Put it this way, then: I need someone who's strong enough and willing enough to help me with some night work and who I can trust to keep his mouth shut at least until tomorrow."

Ahdiovizun was frowning. "You aren't thinking of killing a man, are you, Hanse?"

"Absolutely not." A wrinkled brown finger rose between them, wiggled. Ahdio leaned closer to listen to what Hanse did plan to do. Suddenly every ounce of flesh on the tall, heavy man's form was jiggling with his seismic laughter. He was at least a minute letting that laugh run its course, and easing his belt. and wiping his eyes.

"Skarth, that-that's irresistible." Ahdio glanced over and called his limping helper, too often called "the Gimp" and supposedly Ahdio's cousin's son from Twand. "Throde! C'mere a moment, lad," Ahdio lifted his head, "Frax! Come 'ere a moment, will you?"

Thus it fell out that Strick's bodyguard served as manager ofSly's for a few hours, while Ouleh and Nimsy helped Ahdio's wife tend to business, and Hanse, with a cloaked and hatted Ahdio and Throde, drifted down into that lowest of low ghettos of poverty and stench. Downwind. There the other two learned that under his robe Hanse wore black, black, black, and knives. Both of them recognized the working clothes of the cat burglar called Shadowspawn. He had a lot of good strong rope, too.

Shadowspawn and Throde, wall-climbers both, had to work together: although Ahdio was mighty big, they got him up the side of the building.

Linza was the best thing that had happened to Tarkle in years. He could never understand why he wasn't more popular, among people of both sexes. Oh, no one had ever told him he was handsome or cute either, but what were looks after all when a man was bigger than big and could handle anybody, anybody at all, and really did try to be likable? He had bought beer, ale, even wine for more than one girl and a couple of women, but somehow or another before That Time of Night came around he had somehow or another alienated them and they somehow or other abandoned him to go home alone. Tonight he counted himself really lucky. Oh, true, Linza's eyebrows met in the middle about like those of that bastard Hanse, and under those brows-or that brow-one of Linza's eyes looked ahead and one sort of looked off to the side, and her nose wasn't so good (but only when looked at from the side) and she sure wasn't fussy about washing her hair either, or doing much of anything with it. And he wasn't too crazy about her voice. But after all what were those; just imperfections. The point was that she had a really good body and was willing to share it with Tarkle. That was what counted, after all.

Besides, she had run out of any kind of wherewithal whatever and didn't have anyplace to stay tonight.

So, holding her close as they climbed the stairs and sort of letting his hand slide up under that big soft bosom of hers so that he could feel the restless pendulum's warmth on the edge and back of his hand, he escorted her to his place and up the three flights to his room. They didn't talk much, but Tarkle wasn't too good at talking anyhow and by now Linza was lurching quite a bit from all those mugs of beer he'd bought her at the Vulgar Unicorn. This was a wonderful night, he thought, as he steered her leftward at the top of the steps, and it was going to be even wonderfuller. Plenty of bed-bouncing tonight! He was about to drownhappily-in big soft restless pendulums'

He knew Linza would like his room. Tarkle was big enough so he didn't have to worry about anything even in this neighborhood, but the fact that his room was on the fourth floor would make her feel safer. He had a pretty good chair and one not quite as good, and two rugs, and that nice piece of wood on the wall, and a good big window-with curtains, even-and a good large, padded sleeping pallet, and a table and even a washbowl. All that luxury was in addition to the two beer barrels he had stolen and cut in half, so that one made a lamp table and the other a nice seat or footrest or whatever it was a person might need. His clothing and the few valuables he kept here were in the big heavy press standing in the far comer.

"Ah, locked up tight," he said, and Linza with her arm around him squeezed his waist and made a sound somewhere between a giggle and a chuckle and a hiccup, and Tarkle congratulated himself on his good fortune and again counted himself really lucky to have her here with him.

He got the door unlocked and, with a sweeping gesture, pushed it open and swung his arm wide in welcome,

Linza started into the moonlit room, and shivered against him. "Quite a breeze comin' in that window," she said. "You ought to have curtainshey! Is this a joke er somethin'?"

Tarkle was staring into his room. His whole stomach felt as if it had sunk into his crotch but a great big lump had come up in his throat and despite the draft from the curtainless, open window he was hot, hot, prickly and sweaty in the armpits.

His room was empty.

No curtains. No rugs or cut-down beer kegs. No table and no chairs. No sleeping pallet. No piece of wood nicely mounted on the wall. No lamp and no washbowl. This was impossible; he'd had to plead and bully the aid of two other strong men to wrestle the big tall and very heavy clothespress up here and into his room, and even it was gone!

It simply was not possible. He was staring into a bare room without even a scrap of string. It looked larger, empty this way; and so lonely, so pitifully bare, so clean; and as a matter of fact even the floor seemed to have been swept clean.

One article, one of all his worldly possessions save what he wore and carried, remained. A pair of winter leggings lay neatly arranged on the floor with the bottoms of the legs pointed neatly toward the doorway where he stood. The legs were well apart; the leggings had been sliced all the way in half right up the middle, right up the crotch.