'Therin, you and Maeve case the temple of the Red Priests. Mark their guards, whether the catchpoles are near at hand, and what the hour is of their walks. Maeve, use your charms to get yourself through their doors. Make friends with their servants. Note the hasps on their doors and what spells they lay about. Oh, and pay particular mind to their gossip. We're looking for this Cup and the Knife.'
Therin smirked, perhaps wondering if Pinch had finally gone mad. 'A cup and knife? Any old one or one that's particular?'
Pinch was suddenly alert and forward in his chair. 'Not a cup and knife, the Cup and Knife.'
'And what makes this set of trinkets so special?'
'They're the royal symbols of Ankhapur. Without them, a body can't be king or queen.'
'So you're going to steal them and become king of Ankhapur!' Sprite blurted in a dazzlingly ambitious leap of conclusions.
'Hah! Me, king?' Pinch actually broke into laughter at that one. 'Can you imagine me sitting on some throne. I've as much chance of becoming king as you, Sprite, have of becoming the lord high master of the Zhentarim.'
'I think I'd make a fine Zhent. Don't you, Therin?'
With a grin the Gur twirled up a dagger. 'Good Zhents are dead Zhents, Sprite. Want I should scrag you?'
The halfling comically ducked behind a bronzewood chest. 'Well taken. I'll not be a Zhentarim and Pinch'll not be king of Ankhapur. '
'But I don't understand,' Maeve said with a quizzical whine that cut through their play. 'If you had this cup and knife, why couldn't you be king?'
The regulator, playing the role of wise teacher of the lore, settled back into his chair. 'It's because of what the Cup and Knife do. You see, a long time ago-oh, back whatever ages of man it takes to forget such things-'
'Yesterday, for Maeve,' Sprite-Heels sniped. Therin guffawed. With a mouselike shriek, Maeve kicked a footstool the halfling's way.
'However long it was, there was a falling out of the royal household. The first king of Ankhapur was dead. Apparently, the old king had been fond of his bedchamber though, 'cause he left behind more than a score of sons and grandsons, at least as many as what people knew about.'
'One of the rewards of royalty,' smirked the Gur as he settled into the chair across from his senior. Sprite turned up the stool and plopped onto it while Maeve leaned over Therin's shoulder. It was beginning to look like a long tale and one that might merit their attention.
Pinch yawned as the morning sun warmed the chair. 'Of course, every one of those sons and grandsons considered himself the only fit successor to the old king. The rest were fools, idiots, and just plain enemies who didn't deserve the throne. It was a terrible time for the city.'
'Assassins stalking the halls and all that?' Sprite asked eagerly. To his mind, this was shaping to be a fine story. 'Lots of slaughter and only one survives?'
Pinch shook his head. 'If it were only that, it would hardly be a crisis at all. The gentlefolk of Ankhapur are long used to solving a problem with a quick and fortunate death. No, this was worse for them-'
'I'd think losing my head would be about the worst you could get,' Maeve whispered to Therin. She stroked the hangman's scar that peeked from under the scarf at his neck. 'You'd know about that, wouldn't you, moon- man?'
The Gur bristled at the slur but said nothing. He wanted to hear the rest of the story.
'Worse for them-civil war. It would have torn the city apart. There were factions in factions ready to fight for their man.'
Therin brushed Maeve away from the back of his chair. 'So what's it got to do with this cup and knife?'
'Patience with my tale,' Pinch advised as he held up one hand to restrain his lieutenant's impetuousness. 'It turns out this story has a wise man, a priest-like there always is in these things. He said the choice should be up to the gods; let them pick the royal heir who was most fit to lead the city. He pointed out they could all slaughter each other for no gain but a smoking ruin of a city, or they could take their chances with the gods. How he got them all to agree, I don't know, but he did.
'So as the story goes, this priest and his servants go off praying and doing whatever it is they do, and after some time they return with the answer. And that an- swer is the Cup and the Knife.'
'I don't see it,' Sprite protested.
'Whenever there's a new king to be chosen and there's more than one contender, it's the Cup and the Knife that decide. Each heir takes the Knife, pricks his wrist, drips a bit of blood into the Cup, and mixes it with wine. Then he drinks the stuff straight down. If he's the one chosen by the gods, he'll be wrapped up in a ball of holy light, or something such. I never saw it done for real.'
'So then, that's what's going to happen here soon, eh Pinch?' Maeve asked.
'And without this Cup and Knife, none of the princes can be crowned?' Therin added.
'So if someone were to steal them, they could name their price?' Sprite chimed in, scuttling to Pinch's feet. 'We're going to steal them, aren't we? And then we'll ask for a ransom and clean out the royal treasury! It's genius, Pinch. Why, they'll know our crime from here to Waterdeep!'
He'd told them too much already, the regulator decided, and there was no need to tell them any more- not about Manferic, the switch, or what their fates were likely to be when the job was done. They were with him now, and there was no point in giving them unnecessary details, especially ones that might make them question his plans.
'Yes, we're going to steal them and sell them back. Something like that.'
'Temple robbing again.' Given their last try, the halfling sounded almost cheerful at the prospect. He gave a nod to Maeve, who seemed in almost as good a cheer.
'It'll be the death of us yet,' Therin gloomily countered as he pulled the scarf up to cover the rope scar on his neck.
12
After he gave them their missions, arranged to meet, and slipped away; after he'd padded through the halls avoiding everyone and bluffed his way past the guards at his door, Pinch collapsed into bed. Bleak exhaustion flowed into him. He knew he should be drawing his plans, setting his traps like a master rogue, but his mind could not get his body to obey. His eyelids insisted on folding shut, his brow on sinking deep into the eiderdown pillows.
I'm getting old, he thought. The nights of carousing, dashing from rooftops to beds to taverns, the nights sitting in the cold alleys, they're sapping the youth from my marrow. I have to be smarter now, work from my web and pull the lines like the spider that senses its prey. I have to think.
A pox on all that, he decided. I'm old. I'm going to sleep.
As he slept, Pinch dreamed, and he remembered those dreams-a thing unwarranted for him.
A shadow shape stalked him. First it was Manferic who, weeping by his own tomb, tried to draw Pinch into his mourning. The dead king's face was hooded, but the fabric of it shifted ever so slightly with the mewling wriggling of something alive. 'Help me, son,' clacked the dry jaws.
A panic clenched Pinch's dream-self. Then the shadow became Cleedis in a Hellrider's colors, hangman's noose in hand. Pinch could feel, if he truly felt in a dream, the cut of the hemp on his neck, burning the flesh to leave a scar like that around Therin's neck. Cleedis became Iron-Biter and Vargo, two creatures so alike, height to height the same. His dream attached great importance to the fusing of that pair. The one-who-was-two converged on him with the gleaming blade of the Knife held high and the Cup eager to receive his blood. His legs struggled to run, but his toes only brushed the ground. The noose cut into his neck, lifting him higher and higher. He soared above the reach of the Knife, above the scrape of the ground, up to the gallows height. His menacer changed again, and there was Therin laughing on the ground below, past the view of his own dangling feet. The lieutenant wore Pinch's clothes and was counting out the silver of his purse. Somewhere a magistrate's voice read the roll of his
