Max Allan Collins

Another of the guards stepped forward and lifted up the thief's head by its hair, for inspection—Arpid didn't seem to mind, slumbering as he was.

'I know this dog,' the guard said. He let out a single nasty laugh. 'They'll behead the bastard for sure, this time!'

Mathayus patted the unconscious man's skull with mock affection. 'And how much prettier he'll be, for the alteration.'

The guards all laughed at that—the Akkadian had judged their sense of humor well—and they waved him on through the gate.

Soon the Akkadian found himself in a buzzing, bustling bazaar, leading his camel and his still-slumbering companion through an exotic array of belly dancers, flame blowers, snake charmers, fire walkers and sword swallowers, an open-air market where vendors sold fruit and vegetables and woven baskets and fine carpets and every other commodity known to man, and perhaps a few previously un­known as well. Dens of iniquity offered sustenance, if one could survive the clientele, and outside one of these rough bars, Mathayus stopped at a horse trough.

The Akkadian dragged the dazed thief down off the camel and dunked his head into the water, bring­ing the man suddenly around.

'What... what,' Arpid sputtered, 'what hap­pened?'

'Thanks to your wiles,' Mathayus said, 'we got past the guards. You got us in.'

'Ah ... yes.' Water trailed down his face from his sodden hair. 'A man who lives by his wits is hard to defeat!'

'Such true words,' Mathayus said, lifting the lit­tle thief by the scuff of the neck and hauling him over to a crude wooden stool outside the bar, de­positing him there.

The Akkadian called out to the proprietor. 'A jug of your finest wine for my road weary friend, here!'

Arpid just sat there, dripping wet, bleary-eyed, getting bis bearings, as Mathayus tied up the albino camel at a nearby hitching post. Carefully the as­sassin removed the pouch of rubies from the hiding place beneath his saddle, and tied the precious bag securely to his belt.

'Watch Hanna for me,' Mathayus told his groggy companion, who remained seated on that rough-wood stool.

'You can .. . can count on me,' Arpid said, ten­derly testing his jaw, which seemed to be sore, for some reason.

'Always,' the Akkadian said with a smile, and slipped into the chaos of the crowd.

The little thief stayed at his stool, blinking his way back to a more or less alert state. 'Wait a min­ute!' he said, calling to Mathayus, though the as­sassin had already disappeared into the flurry of activity that was the marketplace. 'The last thing I remember was this enormous fist...'

From the bar, carrying a jug of wine, came a gen­erously shapely, serviceably attractive serving girl overflowing her harem-like attire. She filled a glass for Arpid, who stared up at her appealing if slat­ternly countenance, already forgetting about the indignity of that Akkadian fist in his face.

'Please, sir,' she said, with a sublimely false smile of little-girl innocence, 'let me know if there's anything else you'd like.'

The horse thief sighed and returned the smile; he seemed dazed again, but it was no longer the effects of Mathayus's fist.

'It is so good,' he mused to her, 'to be back in the big city again.'

Elsewhere, the Akkadian was winding through the whirlpool of commerce, sin and decadence that was the bazaar, making his way toward the palace gates.

'Here they are,' a