spook, was not going to answer him straightly. The pain exhausted him so that all there was left was to let himself sink into aching stillness.
'Ikrit, take him out.'
'He attack lady,' the quaggoth argued as its duty.
The weakness faded from the woman's voice as if filled with kind strength, the will of a mother imposed on her child. 'Take him out-gently.'
'Yes, lady,' the big white creature rumbled obediently, even though it was clearly not happy with the command.
Pinch moaned as it picked him up. The lances were so constant now that their pain became almost bearable. The cracked bone had settled, not in the best place, but was at least no longer trying to reshape his muscle tissue. The quaggoth strode in great jolting strides, and with every lurch the rogue thought for sure he would pass out. They moved quickly through the total darkness, the quaggoth easily picking the way with eyes adapted to the dark. Even if he still had his full wits about him, the rogue could not have studied the way.
At last the beast stopped and lowered the rogue, weak and sweating, to the ground. 'Go there,' it growled. In the pitch blackness, Pinch had no hint of where 'there' was. Perhaps sensing this, a great clawed hand shoved him roughly forward, and he would have fallen if his body had not collided with a stone wall. 'There-the bright world. Your world.' No more was said as the thump and clack of clawed feet signaled the beast's departure.
Not ready to die in the darkness, Pinch forced himself to reason. The beast claimed this was the way out, therefore there had to be a door. With his trained touch, the rogue probed the stone searching for a knob, handle, crack, or catch. Patience rewarded him, and with only slight pressure, which was fortunate, he pushed a section of the wall aside.
It was the very last of twilight outside, the embered glow of the sun as it pulled the last of its arc below the horizon. The lamplighters were out, wizard-apprentices who practiced their cantrips activating the street lamps. Faint as it was, the wilting dusk blinded Pinch after his sojourn in darkness. Everything was orange-red and it hurt his eyes.
Blinking, he stumbled into the street, unable to clearly see where he'd emerged. It was good fortune that traffic was light at this hour and he was not trampled by some rag-picker's nag that chafed to be home in its stable. As the glare finally faded, the buildings resolved themselves into shapes and places. Here was a tavern, there a gated wall, and farther along it a cramped tower.
It was from these clues that Pinch realized he was standing outside the necropolis. The necropolis meant priests and priests meant healing. A plan already forming in his mind, Pinch stumbled toward the barred gate.
When the priests saw a bloody and bruised wretch staggering toward them, they reacted just as Pinch expected. Most held back, but a few, guided by the decency of their faith, hurried forward to aid this miserable soul. As hoped, among them was Lissa, and toward her Pinch steered his faltering steps.
As she caught up to him, Pinch collapsed dramatically in her arms. It wasn't that hard, considering his state. Real wounds added far more realism than what he could have done by pig's liver, horse blood, and a few spells.
'Lissa, help me,' he murmured. 'Take me to the temple of the Red Priests.'
'I will take you to the Morninglord,' she insisted, intent on repaying him with the works of her own faith.
'No,' he insisted, 'only the Red Priests. It is their charge to minister to the royal clan. Take me to another and you insult their god.'
Lissa didn't like it; it was against her inclinations, but she could not argue against custom. She called for a cart and horse, and Pinch knew she would take him.
Soon, as he lay on the straw and watched the rooftops go by, Pinch smiled a soft smile to himself, one that showed the satisfaction that broke through his pain. He'd be healed in the halls of the Red Priests, and he'd case those same halls for the job he intended to pull. Sometimes his plans realized themselves in the oddest of ways.
13
Healing hurt more than the whip that laid the wound, or so it seemed to Pinch as he lay on the cold marble platform that was the Red Temple's 'miracle seat.' The priests greeted his arrival with more duty than charity and proceeded to exact their fare from his body. There was no kindness as they reset his rib and pressed their spells into him to knit it together. Into his cuts they rubbed burning salves that boiled away any infection, then dried the ragged gashes and pulled the torn skin back together, all in a process designed to extract every fillip of pain they could from him.
As if the pain were not enough, the priests simply weren't content to let him suffer in silence. They chanted, intoned, and sermonized as they went about their task. Each laying on of hands was accompanied by exhortations to surrender himself to the workings of their god, to acknowledge the majesty of their temple over all others, and to disavow his allegiances to other gods. The Red Priests were not of the belief that all gods had their place or that man was naturally polytheistic. For them, the Red Lord was supreme and there was no need to consider the balances of others. It was little wonder why the princes preferred self-reliance to the aid of the temple.
It was long hours and well into darkness before the priests were done. At last Pinch was allowed to rise, naked and shivering, off the icy stone. For all the pain, the priests had been thorough. Drawing his fingertips over his back, Pinch felt no scars-better handiwork than the priest who'd left his knee a web of whitish lines.
'When you are dressed, you may leave,' urged the senior brother, who stood at the head of a phalanx of brothers, though no sisters, Pinch noted with disappointment
The elder was a dark-skinned man whose triangular face was pinched by constant sadness. He nodded, a curt little tilt that could only be mastered by those who'd been in command too long. Another brother produced a rough-stitched robe of itchy red wool, normally allotted acolytes to teach them patience through poverty and discomfort. 'Your own clothes were beyond repair, and suspect by their filth. They were burned. We give you these so that you do not go naked into the world.'
'Thanks, most beatific one,' Pinch drawled, though he hardly felt grateful for their mean furnishings. His doublet had cost three hundred golden lions and the hose had come all the way from Waterdeep. Itchy red wool was hardly providing him in the style he was due. 'Fortunate for my soul, perhaps, but I don't think I can depart so soon.'
The brother's sad face grew even more dour. 'Pray, why not?'
With a show of exhausted effort, Pinch struggled into the robe. 'This day's been an effort, patrico. Give me time to rest before sending me on my way.'
The elder yielded with sour grace. 'Indeed, it is sometimes the case. Your strength should return to you within the hour. I will return to give blessings on your way then.' The elder priest bowed slightly and left, sweeping his entourage out with him.
There was a deadline inherent in that hour, but Pinch didn't care. If he offended any of the Red Robes, it was only as they deserved. It was an old animosity carried over from his youth, when he sat in a palace chair at a palace desk and wrote the lessons of a droning temple tutor.
Although he was certain to be watched, Pinch made no effort to skulk about or slip away. Instead he ambled from the healing chapel and into a massive hall, the festival floor. The squat pillars of the temple fixed the high of the sky so large it almost took his breath away. The Red Priests clearly did not consider modesty a necessary virtue.
Sure as he'd sworn, Pinch had himself an escort, a lesser pater who lingered over the holy fonts with too little purpose and too much attention. The rogue noted the man with only the barest of glances. Years of spotting peelers and sheriff's men made this shaved-head plebe painfully obvious. Pinch wandered out of the hall with seeming aimlessness, half-feigning the weakness he felt.
The thief strolled through the soaring nave fixed with a mask of contemplative awe, the face of the impressed sinner confronted by the majesty of greater power. Inside, though, his thief's mind ran a cunning round of scheme
