Dagger

"A single plowing does not produce the crop," said Tjainufi.

"Don't get your bowels in an uproar," the caravan master grunted back.

He began levering more furiously, each stroke requiring him to reset the jack handle. The crack of metal breaking had been unexpected; and right now, the things the caravan master did expect included some that were really unpleasant.

The bar had broken at its lower end, where it took the strain of the jack. The top, where the displacement was less acute, remained in its stone transom-but it was just a matter of time before that gave way as well.

Each thrust of the handle now was against increased resistance. Samlor's shoulders were more than equal to the job, but the palm of his right hand felt as if it might be starting to bruise under the strain. The calluses were no help in this.

The second bar, driven by the broken end of the first, bent ahead of the jack's thrust until it touched the third. Samlor continued to crank.

Cement pattered down from the transom in bits ranging as large as fingernails. The bars were crushing their setting under a sidethrust which they had not been designed to resist.

The bar which had broken initially pulled free. Only luck and Samlor's reflexive grab kept it from dropping to the ground with enough inertia to crush any skull it met in its path.

"Heqt," the Cirdonian muttered as he found himself with a firm grip on the length of iron. "Heqt be praised." Before he resumed work, he pulled the silver medallion and its thong outside his tunic, so that the embossed face of the toad goddess could watch his eiforts.

After a moment's consideration, he slid the bar inside Setios' house instead of trying to pass it on to Khamwas. The clunk-cling! it made on the hard flooring within was less noticeable than the squeal inevitable as the screw jack forced its way onward.

The grill was begi

Only the integrity of the whole construct preserved its strength. That ended when the jack inexorably tore out the first bar.

For the next few minutes, Samlor's major problem was to avoid dropping a bar or, worse, the jack itself. When the fifth bar came out, he gripped the next with his left hand instead of advancing the screw again. The bar quivered, then toie loose to his mighty tug.

The caravan master's whole body was under strain from the position it had been holding. Some of his large muscles were begi

If one of them had remained firm, Samlor would have had to pause for an hour or more, shuddering on the ground while his muscles purged themselves of fatigue poisons. There was no need. The cement bonding had been cracked already by asymmetric compression. Bar after bar came away until there were no more in the right half of the window. Metal rang as the caravan master dropped them, but he could no longer hear any sound except the hammer of blood in his temples.

He couldn't stop now, and he certainly couldn't take the time to reco

"Heqt help and sustain me in this enterprise which 1 undertook for my daughter Star," Samlor prayed, though the only sound that came from his mouth was the wheeze of his breath. He gripped the sash with his left hand and a bar with his right, then drew himself into the opening with the clumsy certainty of a toad hopping.

The Cirdonian's hobnails slipped an instant after his shoulders curved away from the adjacent wall, but his torso was already half inside the building. He wriggled, trying to pull himself the rest of the way through the narrow opening. His boots clashed on the wall which had supported his shoulders-and pushed him inside with no trouble at all.

If he'd been thinking straighter, he'd've pla

A boobytrap-a spring-driven blade or a nest of spikes- would have gone off during Samlor's previous activities, but there was still the chance that someone-human or not- waited in the darkness to spear the intruder as he sprawled totally helpless. The Cirdonian was so played out by the sudden release of strain that he couldn't have moved for the next few seconds if he'd known he'd be slaughtered instead of just fearing it.

"Praised be Heqt in whom the world lives," murmured Samlor as his senses returned him to the world beyond his own effort and necessities. The marble floor beneath him was cold and slick with water. The glazed windows had not been closed the last time it rained; and that, from idle chatter overheard at the caravansary, had been more than a week ago.

Khamwas called from the alley, his words blurred but the worry in them clear.

Samlor rolled onto his right side. There was a sharp pain in his left thigh where the unsheathed dagger had prodded him during his contortions. He didn't think it had drawn blood through the double tunics.

"It's all right," the caravan master said, then realized that he wasn't sure he could understand the croaked words himself. He gripped the window ledge, brushing the scattered bars into muted chiming around his knees.

"It's all right," he repeated, leaning back through the opening by which he had entered. "Just a minute and I'll find-" his hand brushed fabric, curtains or tapestries, beside the window " – yeah, just a second and I'll have something for you t' climb by."

The Napatan might have been able to mount the way Samlor had, but Star was too small to fill the gap as comfortably as either of the adult males. It was risky to bring her into a magician's house, but a worse risk to leave her in a Sanctuary alley.

Life was, after all, a series of gambles which every creature lost on the final throw.

A fastening gave way; cloth tumbled down beside the Cirdonian. It was embroidered, partly with metallic threads that made it stiff to the touch. Something about the feel of the fabric suggested to Samlor that he didn't want to see the design.

He slipped an end of the tapestry out between the remaining bars instead of tossing it directly through the opening he had torn. He no longer felt lightheaded, but he didn't trust his muscles to anchor his companions against a straight pull.

"Come on up," the caravan master directed, speaking through the window. "Star first." The tapestry, belayed around the grill, wasn't going to pull out of his hands.

The window was scarcely visible as a rectangle, and the still air smelt of storm.

There was a discussion below. Star came up the tapestry, flailing her legs angrily behind her. There was a pout in her voice as she demanded, "What is this old place? I don't like it."

Maybe she felt something about the house-and maybe she was an overtired seven-year-old and therefore cranky.

There wasn't time to worry about it. The caravan master gripped the child beneath the shoulders with his left arm and lifted her into the room. Star yelped as her head brushed the transom, but she should've had sense enough to duck.

"My staff, Master Samlor," said Khamwas.

The Cirdonian leaned forward and caught the vague motion that proved to be the end of an ordinary wooden staff when his fingers enclosed it. Behind him, the room lighted vaguely with blue pastel.

Star shouldn't have done it without asking; but they needed light, and a child wasn't a responsible adult. Samlor slid the staff behind him with his left hand while supporting the tapestry with his right hand and using his full weight to pin the end to the floor.