Dagger

"Yes, of course," Khamwas said with enough disinterest to hint at irritation. "But what I wanted to say was-Setios, you see, may not be avoiding you. There's been a recent upheaval in the structure of, you see-magic. He may have been frightened and fled from that."

The Napatan gri

"The plans of god are one thing," said the manikin on his shoulder. "The thoughts of men are another."

"Yeah, well," said the caravan master as he slipped the dagger back under his belt. It was the least obtrusive way to carry the weapon until he got a proper sheath. "Best get on with it unless we want t' grow roots down into the pavement."

He strode across the street with a swaggering assurance which immediately set him apart in a city where lone men habitually slunk. The watchman edged back from his window so that his eyes no longer reflected light.

"Ho, friend," Samlor called a half step back from the high iron fence. He spoke loudly enough for the watchman to hear him without difficulty; but he didn't want to arouse the entire street. There was a lot he had yet to do around here, and the last thing he needed was for somebody to start hammering on an alarm gong.

"Git yer butt away er I'll stitch ye right through the middle wi' me crossbow!" crackled a terrified voice from within the guard shack.

The air was dead still now, under heavy clouds, and noticeably warmer than it had been during the early evening. Samlor shivered, though the concern did not show on his face.

It wasn't likely the watchman had a crossbow; that was an expensive piece of equipment and not at all suited to the job for which he had been hired.

Besides, if the nervous bastard had a missile weapon chances were he'd've cut loose at the caravan master as he crossed the street. There were a lot of people who hadn't any business being armed. Through some sort of cosmic balancing of accounts, they tended to be the folks who most wanted enough hardware to equip an assault company.

"All I want to do is buy a little information, friend," said Samlor, reaching deliberately into the purse which balanced the long knife on the other side of his belt. He hoped the lantern on the guard shack illuminated his movement clearly. The sky'd gotten dark as a yard up a pig's ass, and he really didn't want this jumpy fathead to think that the threat level was going up.

Samlor carried five pieces of Rankan gold wrapped in chamois to keep the mint marks sharp and the metal bright. They were useful in just this sort of situation, where you had to convince somebody unmistakably that his best interests were your interests.

Now Samlor spilled the coins from his right hand to his left, letting them fall far enough through the air to wake shivers of light. Not even brass could mimic that color or the particular music of gold ringing on gold.

"Buy it at a pretty good rate, too," the caravan master added, relieved beyond measure to hear a sigh of wonder from the guard shack. There were enough people who wanted Samlor hil Samt dead that being killed by accident would be ridiculous.

"Here," he added. "Catch."

The Cirdonian spun one of the gold coins off the thumb of his left hand, aiming it between the bars of the fence and into the dark rectangle of the shack's window ten feet beyond.

There was a crash of objects within, a thump, and then the barely distinct pinging of the coin bouncing onto the floor despite the watchman's desperate attempts to catch it in the air.

Samlor waited, his face neutral, while the hidden watchman shuffled on his hands and knees and bumped the walls of his shack repeatedly. There was no light inside beyond what slipped between thoboards, and the coin-the price of an excellent donkey or a horse that might or might not carry an adult twenty miles-was not large physically.

The noises stopped. The watchman reappeared at the window and stuck his arm out so that he could see the coin in the light of the lantern on the shack's front. It winked, and Samlor winked cheerfully at the amazement of the man whom he saw for the first time.

Money was generally the best way to approach a stranger.

"What d'ye wa

"How long you been here?" Samlor asked. Then, realizing that he knew exactly what answer he would get-Huh? Since sundown-he added, "How many weeks, I mean?"

The watchman's hands reappeared in the light. He was counting on his fingers while his lips mouthed one, two, three-

He paused. "Pay me," he demanded.

"When I'm satisfied," the caravan master said, "you get all the rest of this. If I'm not satisfied, I'll take back the first, and I'll have your guts for garters."

Gold danced from one hand to the palm of the other in time with Samlor's broadening smile. The mixed message suddenly got home in the watchman's brain. He jumped back away from the window.

"No problem, friend," said Samlor. "I want to give you this money."

"Three weeks. An' a day," came the voice from the dark. "Look-"

"And have you seen any signs that anybody lives in the place opposite?" Samlor continued, trampling steadily over the notion that the watchman had something useful to say that wasn't an answer to a direct question. "People going in or out? Food deliveries? The lantern by the door lighted?"

"Gods and demons," the watchman mumbled, leaning forward again in his shack. "Well, I du

Like working with a camel, thought Samlor, except that a good camel was probably smarter. "The lantern by the doorway there," he repeated gently, pointing with the hand which held the money. "Has it ever been lighted while you're on duty here?"

"There's no lantern," said the watchman, stretching as far forward as he could from the window. He was a scrawny man, and the effect was rather that of a turtle trying to grasp a berry hanging well above it. "Say, but yer right, there was a light over there back. . Well, I du

That was going to have to do, the caravan master realized. There had been at least some evidence of occupancy at Setios' house three weeks ago, and now there wasn't. Samlor'd never been a big one on finesse if it looked like a quick and dirty way was going to accomplish the job.

"Fine," he said aloud to the watchman. "Now you bring me that screw jack over there-" he pointed " – and I give you this.

"Better yet-" he went on, because he saw the watchman's mouth drop open before the fellow skipped out of sight again in fear " – I'm going to drop the gold right here."

Samlor reached inside the grating and let the coins fall with a glittering song. "Now," he repeated. "All you have to do is bring me that jack. Then I'll go away, and you can scoop up the money safe as can be. Right? Look at it."

Despite himself, the watchman did peer out of his shack again. "But if they miss a tool. .," he said in a tone of desperate pleading.

"I'm paying you more than you'd make in a year doing this," said the caravan master reasonably. The coins shone on the ground as invitingly as the eyes of the most beautiful whore in the world. "For that matter, I'll bring the jack back if I've got a chance-but what d'yoit care?"

The watchman sidled out of his shack. As the caravan master had suspected, the fellow's weapon was not a crossbow but a pike which had been sawed ofP-or broken and smoothed-to a total length of about five feet, butt to point. It was useless except for prodding away a drunk who tried to climb into the site, but serious trouble was for soldiers summoned by the alarm gong-not for the cretin to deal with by himself.