Tales from the vulgar unicorn- Thieves World 02 Read Free Page A

get out. What weird tales he could tell if he survived! Masha could think of no similar event, no analogue, to the adventures he must have had.
    'Mofandsf!' she thought. In the thieves' argot of Sanctuary, ' Mind-boggling!'
    At that moment Benna's knees gave, and it was all she could do to hold him up. Somehow, she got him to the door to the next room and into a closet. If the Raggah came in, they would look here, of course, but she could get him no further.
    Benna's odour was even more sickening in the hot confines of the closet, though its door was almost completely open. She eased him down. He mumbled, 'Spiders
    ... spiders.'
    She put her mouth close to his ear. 'Don't talk loudly, Benna. The Raggah are close by. Benna, what did you say about the spiders?'
    'Bites ... bites,' he murmured. 'Hurt... the ... the emerald ... rich...!'
    'How'd you get in?' she said. She put her hand close to his mouth to clamp down on it if he should start to talk loudly.
    "Wha...? Camel's eye ... bu...'
    He stiffened, the heels of his feet striking the bottom of the closet door. Masha pressed her hand down on his mouth. She was afraid that he might cry out in his death agony. If this were it. And it was. He groaned, and then relaxed. Masha took her hand away. A long sigh came from his open mouth. She looked around the edge of the closet. Though it was dark outside, it was brighter than the darkness in the house. She should be able to make out anyone standing in the doorway. The noise the heels made could have attracted the hunters. She saw no one, though it was possible that someone had already come in and was against a wall. Listening for more noise. She felt Benna's pulse. He was dead or so close to it that it didn't matter any more. She rose and slowly pulled her dagger from the scabbard. Then she stepped out, crouching, sure that the thudding of her heart could be heard in this still room.
    So unexpectedly and suddenly that a soft cry was forced from her, a whistle sounded outside. Feet pounded in the room - there was someone here! - and the dim rectangle of the doorway showed a bulk plunging through it. But it was going out, not in. The Raggah had heard the whistle of the garrison soldiers - half the city must have heard it - and he was leaving with his fellows. She turned and bent down and searched under Benna's tunic and in his loincloth. She found nothing except slowly cooling lumpy flesh. Within ten seconds, she was out on the street. Down a block was the advancing light of torches, their holders not yet visible. In the din of shouts and whistles, she fled hoping that she wouldn't run into any laggard Raggah or another body of soldiers. Later, she found out that she'd been saved because the soldiers were looking for a prisoner who'd escaped from the dungeon. His name was Badniss, but that's another tale.
    4
    Masha's two-room apartment was on the third floor of a large adobe building which, with two others, occupied an entire block. She entered it on the side of the Street of the Dry Well, but first she had to wake up old Shmurt, the caretaker, by beating on the thick oaken door. Grumbling at the late hour, he unshot the bolt and let her in. She gave him a padpool, a tiny copper coin, for his trouble and to shut him up. He handed her her oil lamp, she lit it, and she went up the three flights of stone steps.
    She had to wake up her mother to get in. Wallu, blinking and yawning in the light of an oil lamp in the corner, shot the bolt. Masha entered and at once extinguished her lamp. Oil cost money, and there had been many nights when she had had to do without it.
    Wallu, a tall skinny sagging-breasted woman of fifty, with gaunt deeply-lined features, kissed her daughter on the cheek. Her breath was sour with sleep and goat's cheese. But Masha appreciated the peck; her life had few expressions of love in it. And yet she was full of it; she was a bottle close to bursting with pressure.
    The light on the rickety table in the corner showed a