The Deadliest Game

through the crowd with double handfuls of beer mugs, made not of glass or ceramic, but of leather, tarred inside. She was using the leather “jacks” as effective offensive weapons, and there was a small clear space around her as people backed off to avoid being splashed or trampled.

Leif drifted into the crowd outside the door and burrowed into it a little way, and Megan followed him. The rush of voices closed over her head like water over a swimmer.

“—don’t know why Ergen insists on coming in at night when it’s going to be the most crowded—”

“—get out of here—”

“—up in the big hall looking for Elblai, she didn’t stay there long, so I thought—”

“—too many idiots in here looking to get drunk and start a brawl, I wouldn’t—”

“—five malts and a burned-wine—”

Megan watched one of the earlier speakers head out of the crowd, followed by a couple of friends. She nudged Leif, and gestured him away.

He nodded, following her a little way out of the press. “It’s a pity they don’t have showers here,” he muttered. “I feel like I need one after that.”

“Hey, the night is young. Listen, I heard a name I know.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Elblai. See those guys? Going down that little lane. Come on.”

He looked around, located them in the crowd: two tall men, two smaller ones, and one who was very short indeed, heading off down a street which was more the size of an alley. Megan headed on after them.

Leif followed. “What did they say?”

“Just something that made me feel nosy.” She smiled slightly in the torchlit dimness. “When you spy long enough, you get hunches about what’s worth listening to. This could be something.”

Megan turned into the lane, with Leif behind her. The lane was no more than four feet wide, with shuttered doors and windows on both sides. “This isn’t a street,” Leif muttered, “it’s a walk-in closet.” Down at the end of the lane, one door was open a crack. The flicker of firelight streamed through it, and from inside came the mostly shut- in sound of more talk, laughter, shouting.

The door opened wider to let in the men who were ahead of Megan and Leif, then started to close again. Megan pushed forward to follow them before the door closed completely. She squeezed through, trying to make it look casual. Inside, there was a fireplace directly across from the door, and beside it a hatch leading through into the kitchen. The hatch had a broad sill with several pitchers of beer waiting on it, and as Megan and Leif came in, hands poked out through the hatch and handed a passing server a roast chicken on a plate. This was apparently a moderately classy place. Where other taverns might have had torches stuck in iron brackets in the walls, this one had real lamps, oil lamps with glass in them. On the old scarred tables scattered around there were rushlights, each rush clamped into a little iron holder and burning like a small smoky star. Most of the tables were full of people eating and smoking and drinking and talking.

Leif, behind Megan, nudged her, indicating an empty table off to one side, not too close to the one being taken by the men they had followed in, not too far away to make their conversation inaudible. Fortunately, the men seemed to have no concern about inaudibility. They shouted for the tavernkeeper, ordered wine, settled down around their table, and picked up their conversation more or less where it had left off.

“—just go away like that.”

“He got bounced. Everybody knows that.”

“Yeah, well, are they sure it’s genuine?”

“Oh, come on, whoever heard of anyone faking a bounce? I don’t think it can be done. The Rules.”

“Don’t know that there’s anything in the Rules against it,” said the smallest man, a fellow with a hawklike face and small wise eyes. “Might be an interesting new tactic. Vanish…then come back where you’re not expected.”

Megan was distracted as a tall slender woman stopped by their table and said, “Whaddayawant?”

“Your best honeydraft, good woman,” Leif said. “And for my companion—”

“Gahfeh, please,” Megan said. “Morstofian roast, thick cream, double sweet.”

The tall, slender woman tossed her long dark hair back and said, “No cream. Double sweet’s extra.”

“Oh, well, no cream, single sweet,” Megan said, resigned. The woman went away, making a face that suggested Megan’s sanity was in question for asking for extras.

“…think that’s a tactic I’d care to try,” said one of the men. “And it doesn’t sound like Shel either.”

“Oh, you know him well, do you?”

“No, but I hear the stories the same as everybody. If he—”

They broke off as the serving-woman came to their table, and there was a long digression mostly involving hot and cold drinks. Megan wasn’t interested in that, but she was interested in the reaction of some of the other people, warriors and merchants both, who were sitting near enough to hear what was going on. Some of them were leaning in the men’s general direction while trying to look as if they weren’t. When the serving-woman went away, the men to whom Megan had been listening had dropped their voices considerably. She frowned a little and became interested in her gahfeh, which had just arrived.

“Nasty theory,” Leif said under his breath.

“Sometimes people can’t stand believing what’s really happened,” Megan said. “They start rationalizing. I wish they’d mention that name again, is all.”

Leif shook his head, a “what’s-the-use” gesture. One of the men’s voices was growing louder. “—why we should be slumming it down here when the rest of them are up in the great hall.”

Megan found herself wishing that this were not a game, but some more mundane form of entertainment that you could simply turn up so as to hear better. “No way they’ll let us in there,” said the man the first one had addressed.

There was another pause as their drinks arrived. The first man lifted the leather jack with the ale he had ordered, and took a long swift drink from it. “Not us maybe, but all the big Players, they’re all gettin’ in. They can’t afford to piss anyone off up there tonight. Who knows who might turn up, not get in, go away angry…and turn up next week with five thousand people that nobody here’ll dare turn away? The city’s picking up the bill for executive entertainment tonight, I’ll bet. In their best interests. Tomorrow, who knows, they might run out of food and have an excuse to throw everyone out. But nobody’s gonna throw the big guys outa there, not tonight. Too many deals brewing.”

“Aah, what would you know about deals?”

“Oh, I know, all right.”

“Yeah, you’re Argath’s best buddy, I know all about it. That’s why you’re down here with the rest of us, drinking this watered stuff.”

There was laughter, and a growl that suggested that it might turn nasty if the others kept teasing its owner. Leif looked over at Megan.

“You heard a name? What name?” he said.

She told him.

“Well,” he said, “I think we just heard another one. Sounds like it might be worth a visit.”

“Yeah, sure, if we can find a way to sneak in there without getting tossed out on our ears.”

Leif looked thoughtful. Megan sat quiet for a few seconds — the chat at the other table had dropped out of audibility again as a couple of the men tried to calm down the one who had sounded ruffled — and then said very softly to Leif, “How good a hedge-wizard are you?”

He looked at her with slightly affronted professional pride. “Pretty good.”

“Want to do another transit?”

“What, from here? Miss a decimal place and we’ll both wind up inside a wall, and there go a couple of perfectly good characters. And this whole mission. No, thanks!”

“Okay. Can you do invisibility?”

Leif looked at her, slightly surprised. “Of course.”

“For two?”

He thought about that. “Not for long.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Just long enough to get us into the main hall where the bigwigs are having their meeting. After that we can hide behind a tapestry or something.”