Shadow Prowler

“Where’s the carriage?”

“Eeeh . . . ,” said the apprentice, embarrassed. “I’m on foot.”

“Magnificent! Then tell me, apprentice, how come you’re still alive after walking all the way through the Port City to reach me? Round here they leave naïve children like you floating under the pier. Or maybe you weren’t lying when you said you would break in the door, and you know how to shoot fireballs?”

The lad became even more embarrassed, and blushed.

“Well,” he mumbled, “just a little.”

“Okay, lead on,” I sighed.

Why on earth Artsivus would take on such an awkward child as an apprentice was beyond me.

Noon. The central street of the Port City was packed solid with people. There was everybody here—from idly wandering revelers to traders in all sorts of everything.

I spotted an elderly pickpocket with two of his apprentices training under his supervision right there in the crowd. They were cutting the strings of the idle onlookers’ purses. One apprentice evidently felt my gaze on him, and gave me a tense look, but then, realizing that I was on no closer terms with the law than himself, he winked gaily. I winked back.

In wonderful times of long ago I also began my career with the pockets of the idle public on the Market Square. Many years have passed since then. Nowadays no one remembers Harold the Flea, a ski

“Oi!” my guide shouted when someone in the crowd stepped on his foot.

“Wake up,” I whispered in his ear. “We have to get out of this crush. Keep left, along the wall.”

The torrent of people was thi

The crowd of humans and nonhumans was seething with gossip. Groups of gossipmongers sprang up spontaneously first in one spot, then another.

Rumors, rumors, rumors.

“Did you know the Nameless One is already on the march?”

“What’s the king doing?”

“No, that’s rubbish. There is no Nameless One!”

“Oh yes, there is! My gra

“What’s the king doing? He’s gathering an army. Taxes will go shooting up again, and the poor people will suffer.”

“Hey!” I called to Artsivus’s apprentice.

“Yes?”

“We’ve got a long, long walk to the Tower of the Order. Wouldn’t it be better to turn off onto the Street of the Bedbugs? There’s no crush there.”

“Mmmm . . . ,” the lad said hesitantly. “Milord Artsivus said you have no business in the Tower of the Order. He asked me to take you to one of the houses near here.”

“All right then, let’s go.”

Does Artsivus think a thief will defile his holy magical sanctuary?

The number of people in the streets could be explained in the first instance by the incredibly fine weather for June. At this time of year in north Valiostr—which means in Avendoom, too—it was usually still cool, more reminiscent of early April somewhere on the southern boundaries of the kingdom. What else could you expect, with the Desolate Lands so close? But the situation right now was rather different. The sun was blazing away with all its strength. I was streaming with sweat. And I wasn’t the only one. A citizen of the Border Kingdom walked past us with his apprentice. He was frying and smoking in his chain mail. The Borderland men never took their armor off, no matter where they were. It was a habit that came from living beside the Forests of Zagraba.

If this weather holds out until the end of August, then half the city will simply die of the heat. I’ve already heard people saying that it’s a new trial visited on us by the Nameless One.

“Harold! Hey, Harold!”

I turned toward the shout. There, standing outside the Knife and Ax, waving desperately to me, was the owner of said establishment, a good fellow and my “dearest friend” Gozmo.

What does he want with me? I already have a Commission. And what a Commission! Suicidally profitable, you could say. But all the same I gave a sharp tug on the sleeve of Artsivus’s apprentice and nodded for him to follow me. The lad opened his mouth to object that His Magicship was far more important than some i

“What is it, Gozmo?” I asked none too amiably. “Why shout and let the whole city know that I’m Harold?

“Ah. Eer . . .” The stoop-shouldered i

“Will you stand me a beer?” I asked, nodding significantly toward the door. “We can talk in there.”

“Come on in.”

The i

“Come over to the bar, Harold, and your friend can take a seat at that table over there. What will you have to drink, young man?”

“Water.” The magician’s apprentice obviously felt awkward—his face was set in an expression of astonishment that he could possibly have entered such a dubious place of his own free will.

Gozmo pulled a sour face and looked at me. “Who’s your new friend?”

I shrugged, and Gozmo took a glass of water over to the apprentice’s table, then came and stood facing me, behind the bar, and poured a full mug of beer from a barrel hidden underneath it. He drank that beer himself and rarely shared it with anyone. I took a large gulp and gave Gozmo an appreciative nod. It was genuinely magnificent porter, just as I had expected. My old mate Gozmo didn’t poison his own i

The former thief wasn’t drinking right now, though. He was shifting nervously from one foot to the other and casting wary glances in my direction. Why would that be? But he didn’t say anything, and I’ve never been unduly curious, so I simply sipped the beer, waiting for the i