Majipoor Chronicles

An impromptu party buzzed about her for hours. The thieves seemed to be vying for her favor, each in turn cozying up to her, offering some little trinket, some intimate tale, some bit of confidential gossip. To the child of a long line of shopkeepers, thieves were natural enemies; and yet these people, seedy outcasts though they might be, seemed warm and friendly and open, and they were her only allies against a vast and indifferent city. Inya

She slept fitfully, dreaming vaporous fragmentary dreams and several times waking in total confusion, with no idea where she was. Eventually exhaustion seized her and she dropped into deep slumber. Usually it was dawn that woke her, but dawn was a stranger in this cave of a place, and when she awakened it might have been any time of day or night.

Liloyve smiled at her. "You must have been terribly tired."

"Did I sleep too long?"

"You slept until you were finished sleeping. That must have been the right amount, eh?"

Inya

"We have come out at Piliplok Gate," said Liloyve. "From here it's only a short walk to the Pontificate."

A short walk but a stu

The street was a grand curving one lined on one side by flat-faced towers all the same height, and on the other by an alternation of great buildings and short ones. These, apparently, were government offices. Inya

"Is this the Bureau of Probate?" she asked, as they went in.

"Apparently there's no such thing," said Liloyve. 'These are the proctors. If anyone can help you, they can."

A dour-faced Hjort, bloated and goggle-eyed like most of his kind, asked for her problem, and Inya

"Nineteenth?"

"To my knowledge. Others may not have bothered to report the fraud to the proctors."

"The fraud," Inya

"Oh, not simply to swindle you," said the Hjort. "Probably there are three or four heirs to Nissimorn Prospect in Velathys, and five in Narabal, and seven in Til-omon, and a dozen in Pidruid — it's not hard to get genealogies, you know. And forge the documents, and fill in the blanks. Twenty royals from this one, thirty perhaps from that, a nice livelihood if you keep moving, you see?"

"But how is this possible? Such things are against the law!"

"Yes," the Hjort agreed wearily.

"And the King of Dreams—"

"Will punish them severely, you may be sure of it. Nor will we fail to apply civil penalties once we apprehend them. You will give us great assistance by describing them to us."

"And my twenty royals?"

The Hjort shrugged.

Inya

"None."

"But I've lost eyerything, then!"

"On behalf of his majesty I offer my most sincere regrets," said the Hjort, and that was that.

Outside, Inya

"But surely you don't believe—"

"That it is really mine? No, of course not. But I want to see it! I want to know what sort of place it was that was sold to me for my twenty royals!"

"Why torment yourself?"

"Please," Inya

"Come, then," said Liloyve.

She hailed a floater and gave it its instructions. Wide-eyed, Inya

Inya

"Don't worry. We have all our lives before us, and a thief's life is a comfortable one. I mean to roam every street of Ni-moya in my time, and you can come with me. There's a Park of Fabulous Beasts out in Gimbeluc, off in the hills, you know, with creatures that are extinct in the wilds everywhere, sigimoins and ghalvars and dimilions and everything, and there's the Opera House, where the municipal orchestra plays — you know about our orchestra? A thousand instruments, nothing like it in the universe — and then there's — oh. Here we are!"