A Warrior of Dreams Read Free Page A

know how to hide. Sunlight or words, whatever's handy, you make good use of it. But not forever, Joslyn. And the brothels are still waiting."
    Dyaros turned abruptly and hurried up the staircase to the roof to join the others.
    Joslyn, suddenly very weary, opened the door with the key she kept hanging about her neck. There was one large room behind their quarters, with several smaller rooms opening off of it. The remains of the evening meal - -breakfast, for the others - -were on a communal table in the center, but Joslyn wasn't hungry now. She dropped the coins on the table.
    She looked at the gold. That was a stroke of luck - -the buyer extending, the merchant reaching to receive, and Joslyn, flashing through at just the right moment to snatch the lovely gold away. Not many moments like that, not nearly enough to keep her place secure, if Dyarlos decided to turn her out. Joslyn knew the rules - -a thief without a place somewhere in the Guild wouldn't last very long.
    Joslyn yawned, went into the small room she shared with Merasys. She unrolled one of the two bundles of bedding, lay down and considered her problem. Dyaros, first. Maybe in the beginning it had been simple for him, too. Not now. Now it was a matter of pride.
    So I lie with him. And then ... Joslyn glanced at the other bedroll, giggled. And then there was the other problem. Sleeping in the same room with a girl who thought Dyaros was her special gift from the Dreamer. A girl who kept a very sharp little dagger under her pillow.
    A slit throat or the Street of Sighs. There's a lovely choice ...
    Joslyn closed her eyes, yawned again, and started the blessed process of forgetting.
    *
    Joslyn started to remember, but it never quite happened. She was only vaguely aware of herself at all, as if she were a ghost haunting her own life, at once seeing it from outside, and at once being there, saying the words, doing the deeds. But most of all, watching.
    "Time to divide the loot."
    The thieves were at breakfast, with Dyaros on one end of the table and Joslyn on the other and all the other thieves ranged between. Dyaros laid the coins on the table in little gold and silver stacks. "Yours," he said, sliding a stack to Merasys. "Yours," he said, and another pile went to Joar. One by one he went through them all until the money was gone.
    "You forgot me," Joslyn said.
    "You don't get any," Dyaros said, huffily. "You hurt my pride."
    It seemed like an excessive price for a wound that didn't even show. Joslyn stared at the coins, wishing she could do something about the injustice of it. Suddenly the coins weren't coins at all — a flock of yellow chicks scattered about the table, peeping in high, angry voices. "Catch them!" Merasys yelled. Someone else leaped across the table in pursuit of his fleeing share and the whole thing tipped over, spilling chicks and thieves and table scraps into one glorious heap.
    Joslyn was no longer a part of it. She was outside again, watching a girl with her face and form trying to extricate herself from the tangle on the floor.
    This is wrong ...
    She was back in the scene again. The chicks wandered aimlessly about the room. Dyaros glared at her. "You put them back!"
    “I didn’t do anything!”
    Joslyn thought she was speaking aloud, but of course Dyaros heard nothing because Joslyn was gone again, a spectator. She watched thieves chasing baby chickens around the room, heard Dyaros shouting about his pride, heard herself telling Dyaros what to do with his pride and how deep to do it. It was all just noise, now. Joslyn was tired of listening to them.
    Joslyn searched for the door to her room, found it, and when she went through she left the girl that looked like her behind with the others. The last thing she saw was herself wrestling Merasys for her share of the loot - -three little chicks who watched with polite disinterest from Joar's shoulder. Dyaros was loudly promising himself to the winner.
    Joslyn closed the door, and now there was no