“Buy a monkey, good sir!”
“Thief! Stop that thief!”
“Catch him!”
“Best quality Sultanate carpets! Moths can’t touch them!”
“Hey! Be careful, that’s Nizin Masters porcelain, not your granny’s old clay chamber pot!”
“Sunflower seeds!”
“Milord, our establishment has the finest girls in this part of Valiostr! Come on in!”
“Mama! I want a biscuit!”
“Stop shoving!”
“Reins, bridles, saddles! Reins, bridles, saddles!”
“Get your pies here!”
The hubbub was worse than at the gates when we were trying to get into Ranneng. Eel was saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear him because a fat woman was howling in my ear and holding a fish up under my nose that was at least a month old and had a stupefying stench. I brushed the tradeswoman aside and dashed to catch up with the others.
Hallas, whose brain had obviously been completely addled by the pain, led us into the thick of a crowd of people watching a fairground show right in the middle of the market. The gnome had never been known for his courtesy toward others, and now he elbowed his way through the crowd, stepping on feet and swearing coarsely like a longtime inhabitant of the Port City. In just a few seconds the popularity of the race of gnomes plunged to an all-time low, well below prices for manure.
Somehow we managed to make our way through the crush and then Kli-Kli couldn’t resist climbing up on the stage, turning a cartwheel, standing on his hands, grabbing a flaming torch out of the juggler’s mouth and sitting on it, jumping up and climbing a post to the high wire, walking across to the other post, spitting on the strongman’s bald patch as he was lifting a weight, and then swanning off to thunderous applause.
“Still amusing yourself?” I asked the goblin gloomily when he caught up with me.
“And you’re still mumbling to yourself and expecting the worst, are you?” said Kli-Kli, giving as good as he got. “You have an idiotic outlook on life, Harold! Let’s get going, or we’ll get lost in this crowd.”
The goblin went dashing on ahead—his small size made it easy for him to weave his way through the crush. People stepped on my feet twenty times and made at least ten attempts to foist things I didn’t want on me—from a sponge to a mangy, squealing cat that was on its last legs.
Some inexperienced thief tried to slip his hand into my pocket, but I dodged aside and held Lamplighter’s dagger against his stomach, then pressed the young lad back against the wall of one of the shops.
“Who’s your teacher?” I roared at the pickpocket.
“Eh?” Cold steel against your stomach doesn’t really encourage clear thinking.
“I said, who’s your teacher, you young pup?”
“Shliud-Filin, sir!”
“Is he in the guild?”
“Eh?”
“Are you having difficulty hearing me? If so, you’ll never make a good thief!”
“Yes, my teacher is in the guild, sir.”
“Then tell him to show you who you should rob, and who you’d better leave alone until you have a bit more experience!”
“A-all right,” said the lad, petrified. “Are you not going to call the guard, sir?”
“No,” I barked, putting the dagger back in its sheath. “But if you come near me again … You take my meaning?”
“Yes.” The lad still couldn’t believe that he had got off so lightly.
“Then clear off!”
I didn’t have to say it again. The unsuccessful pickpocket darted away from me like a startled mouse and was lost in the crowd in a moment. I watched him leave. In the distant days of my youth I used to clean out punters’ pockets until I was picked up by my teacher For, who taught me the mysteries of the supreme art of thievery.
“Harold, are you planning to stand here much longer?” asked Kli-Kli, bounding up to me. “We’re all waiting for you! And who was that young lad you were having such a relaxed conversation with?”
“Just a passerby, let’s go.”
Deler, Eel, and Hallas were waiting impatiently for us in a small open area free of trading stalls.
“There’s a barber’s!” said Deler, jabbing a thick finger toward a shop. “Forward, Hallas!”
“Forward? Do you think I’m a horse, then?” The gnome really didn’t want to go.
“Go on, go on,” I said, backing up the dwarf. “You’ll see, you’ll feel better stra—”
I gazed hard into the crowd and never finished the phrase. Over beside the rows of horse traders, I’d caught a glimpse of a painfully familiar figure. Without thinking twice, I went dashing after Paleface, paying no heed to my comrades’ howls of surprise. My eyes could still see the face that I’d spotted just a second before. I had to catch that man, no matter what, and dispatch him into the darkness if I got a chance.
Along the way I almost knocked a tradesman off his feet and tipped over a basket of apples. Taking no notice of the abuse from all sides, I pulled my dagger out of its sheath and held it with the blade along my forearm, so that the weapon would be less obvious to the people around me, and I ran over to the spot where I had seen my old acquaintance just a second earlier.
“What is it?” asked Eel, springing up beside me like a shadow. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
“Yeah,” I answered, without taking my eyes off the crowd. “A ghost. But, unfortunately, a live one.”
“Who was it?”
“An old enemy,” I said gloomily, putting the dagger away in its sheath.
“There are so many people here … you could have been mistaken.”
“Yes…,” I said after a pause, and ran my eyes round the market again. “I hope I imagined it…”
But I couldn’t have imagined it! That man had been far too like the hired killer Rolio. As we walked back, I kept glancing round all the time, but I didn’t spot anyone who looked like Paleface.
The gnome and the dwarf had disappeared, and the goblin stood alone, hopping from one foot to the other.
“Harold, what’s happening to you? Are you well?” Kli-Kli asked, looking solicitously into my eyes. “Who was it you saw that sent you galloping across the market like a herd of crazed Doralissians?”
“Oh, no one. It was a mistake. Where have Deler and Hallas got to?”
“The dwarf dragged the gnome into a barber’s shop,” Kli-Kli answered. “And what kind of old acquaintance was it, if he deserves your knife blade under his ribs?”
“Paleface,” I replied tersely.
“Oh!” the goblin said, and paused. He had heard plenty about this character. “Did he see you?”
“You know, my friend, that’s the very question that’s bothering me. I hope not, otherwise there’s trouble in store, and not just for me. The character that Rolio works for would be glad to finish us all off.”
“The Master?” the goblin guessed.
“Yes.”
“What are you talking about?” Eel had never heard about any Master.
“Don’t bother your head about it,” I told the warrior. “Let’s just say you could get something sharp under your shoulder blade at any moment. As soon as Hallas gets his tooth fixed we’ll go back, and then Alistan and Miralissa can rack their brains over what to do next. I said we shouldn’t come into Ranneng!”
“The halt was absolutely necessary. You know that perfectly well.”
“You’re very talkative, Eely-beely! Is there some reason for that?” Kli-Kli asked.
“Go and grin at someone else, Kli-Kli,” the Garrakian said good-humoredly. “Let’s go. Deler might need help.”
“I’m warning you now,” I said hurriedly. “I didn’t volunteer to hold the gnome!”
It was annoying that the goblin and the Wild Heart both turned a deaf ear to my warning. I wonder why in certain situations certain people suffer from a selective loss of hearing. I sighed bitterly and trudged toward the barber’s shop, following my comrades.
Hallas, bright red in the face, came leaping toward us out of the door of the shop, almost knocking the jester
