Uneasy alliances - Thieves World 11 Read Free

respectable soirees, Hakiem eased back to the Sanctuary they could not imagine and harvested another crop of tales. He had an apprentice of sorts, the fisherman's lad, Hort, who did the first winnowing and pruning, but nothing could replace his own senses. And nothing could replace the parade of life in the Vulgar Unicorn.
    He let his eyes go out of focus—an easy task since his hair had begun turning white as well as gray—and was struck by a wild insight that shook him in his shoes: His beloved Unicorn and the palace weren 't so very
    different after all. He gulped his mug of wine and blamed his seeping eyes
    on it.
    But, no, the comparison was in his mind and the similarities would not go away. The Vulgar Unicorn and the palace were both places where style was generally more important than substance. They were both places where you belonged, or you didn't belong—and where you had to always prove that you still belonged. Both had reputations which exceeded reality, and—might as well admit it—both were parasites in the city's lifeblood.
    Dark Shalpa knew how many honest men it took to support a thief—
    even one who lied as all thieves lie. Hakiem guessed it took about as many as it took to support an aristocrat.
    "You look like you've seen a ghost," Hort said cheerfully as he took the chair opposite his mentor.
    Hakiem raised his head to see twins smiling at him. Puttering Nethergods! What did these people put in their wine? Old habits, however, died hard and stood him in good stead as he reestablished conscious control over his body with slow, deliberate gestures. Old habits, and the fact that
    he had drunk no more than half a mug of sour wine.
    "You've forgotten everything I've taught you," he said, using drawling sarcasm to mask the stiffness in his tongue.
    222 UNEASY ALLIANCES
    "What sort of introduction is that? Make a point, Hort. Get your audience's attention. Add color. What manner of ghost; what sort of look—"
    They had played this game before. Hort puffed up his chest and spread his arms wide. "Ye gods, old sot, your eyes are as red as the gutters in Shambles Cross; you're as pale as a man who's seen his mother's ghost dancing naked with Vashanka's tent peg!"
    Hakiem swallowed hard, and not because of the wine. The boy had talent; had learned everything he'd been taught. He didn't need a mentor any longer.
    "Better, lad. Much better. You do yourself, and myself, proud. Now, tell me, what have your pointed little ears heard this week?'*
    "Tales of vengeance: brothers for brothers, fathers for sons. Ordinary folk are confident that the worst is over and are stepping out to settle their own scores."
    Hakiem nodded. He'd sensed as much himself. The Nisibisi-funded PFLS anarchy was over and there was a sense that the future would not be like the past. But debts had to be evened before the future was embraced.
    "What else?"
    "A whole new society growing in Shambles where the rousters who moved Torchholder's stones make their homes. They think the streets of Sanctuary are paved with gold—or at least the walls are—and, dammit, if they don't seem to be right. Everybody's swinging a mallet or smoothing mortar, even our Prince, and the common folk think the world's getting better each day."
    "Are there any clouds on our cheerful horizon?" The young man shed his expansiveness. His eyes grew intense and he leaned across the table. Still good storytelling, but Hakiem sensed there
    was something more in Hort's eagerness.
    "Men are vanishing, maybe five or six a week. And they're not turning up in any of the usual places. Some say it's the Mageguild trying to get power back, but I've found a blind alley there. Best guess points toward the harbor."
    "You've checked that out?"
    Hort drew back a hand's breadth. He was the son of the best fisherman in town, and, while he had no taste for salt water himself, he had the confidence of those who did.
    "We're taking more trade up and down the coast: stone for the walls and