Sprite sidled close to Pinch's side. 'It ain't proper. You can't let him do this to you so easy,' he pleaded, but the rogue held up a hand to silence him.
'Go on, do it.'
With an uncomfortable swallow, Therin nodded. The ease of his victory unnerved him. There was supposed to have been a battle. He expected Pinch to rise to his challenge, to fight with every trick the old man knew. He was ready for that. He wasn't prepared for this gutless surrender.
The Gur had won, though, and he couldn't show weakness now. He glared at the three, shouldered the bag, spun on his heels, and strode for the door.
When he was two steps from the table and one from a pillar, Therin's dagger, the one he'd left on the table, sang by his ear and drove, point in, to the scarred wood of the beam. The weak sunlight quivered off the blade as it hummed with the force of its throw.
'You'll need a better plan for dealing with a lich than you have with me,' Pinch announced darkly as the younger man wheeled about in frightened surprise. The older man sat upright, not nearly as drunk as he was before, his off-hand poised where it had stopped at the end of the throw. Sprite and Maeve had swung around to his side of the table, letting it show where their loyalty-such as it was-lay.
'Lich-you didn't say nothing about no lich.' Therin's voice was weakly brave. His face, flushed with temper moments before, was rapidly losing its color to an ashen pale. 'What lich?'
'Lich?' Sprite gulped, looking to Pinch. 'We been working for a lich?'
'Aye,' the old man answered, never once looking away from Therin. With his good hand, he drew another dagger from the scabbard at his wrist. 'We're dealing with a lich.'
Therin slowly came back to the table and set the bag down. 'Maybe I was being a bit hasty, Pinch. It wasn't like a challenge-just a chance for you to live a gentleman's life while we did your dark work for you.' The Gur looked desperately to the other two. 'It was like that, wasn't it?'
As if joined in a single malicious thought, Sprite and Maeve let him dangle for a bit before answering. A line of sweat trickled down the young man's temple.
'Sure, Pinch,' Maeve finally drawled, 'he was only thinking about you and your well-being. Can't you see?'
'S'right. I'm sure he's touched with concern,' the halfling added with a malicious grin. 'Indeed, he even told me yesterday how he was thinking of giving you his share of the swag from this job.'
'That's right, Pinch. I think you've earned it.' As costly as it was, Therin seized on the halfling's suggestion. The fact that he had almost blundered into trading with a lich had unnerved the man.
The now-undisputed regulator nodded his head. The Gur stifled a sigh of relief. The nod was all he would get, but it was a sign the peace was made-for now.
' 'Tis proper generous of you, Therin,' Pinch purred, 'but you're building the house before the foundation's set. For there to be shares, we got to collect our fee.'
'He's not likely to pay?' Maeve asked.
' 'It'-and it'll want us dead. Me, in particular.'
Sprite prodded the goods in the bag. 'Just who we dealing with, Pinch? This Cleedis ain't no lich.'
Pinch massaged the rough brand on his palm. The drink and facing down Therin made him feel expansive. 'Cleedis is just a go-between. Manferic's our real employer.'
'Manferic?'
'The late king.'
'Wounds!' Sprite sputtered wine all down his chin.
'Is he that vile?' Maeve asked hopefully.
'He's a lich. What do you expect?' Therin pointed out.
'Moreso and worse. I should know; he was my guardian. When I was ten, the peasants on the nobles' estates drew up a list of grievances against their lords. It seemed they were taxed at twice the rate demanded by the crown, old men were executed when they could no longer farm, and young boys were driven by whip into the ranks of the militia. Five of their bravest presented the list to Manferic-'
'And he killed them?'
'Nothing so simple,' Pinch corrected. 'That would have been almost human. No, he listened to their complaints and promised them action. The next day, while he 'considered' their request, he sent Vargo and Throdus with a detachment of priests to the houses of these five men. They killed the wife in each household and animated the corpse. The next day, Manferic said he would enact reforms-provided the men loved and honored their wives for the rest of their days. Should one of them fail, he would exact his revenge on all the rebels. It did not take long before he had the chance.'
Sentimental Maeve let a tear well up in her eye while the other two looked uncomfortably at the floor. 'Unnatural monster,' muttered Therin. 'The Gur know about lords like him-always persecuting our kind, blaming us for their crimes.'
'So what's this Cup and Knife got to do with it?' Maeve asked to change the subject. 'You told us how they use them to pick a king, but how's that going to help him? He's dead already.'
'Won't do him no good at all, since Iron-Biter interfered. The real Cup and Knife are still in the tower. Right, Pinch?'
'No.' Pinch looked about the common room. It was deserted at this time of the morning. Even the landlord, seeing there was to be no fight, had gone into the back to tend to the day's chores. As he spoke, the regulator unwrapped the pouch in front of them all. 'Like you said, Sprite, Iron-Biter's a fool. Remember that I had two copies of the regalia made?
'Well, when Iron-Biter made me pass over the garbage, he never thought to check for forgeries. All I did was give him the other fake-so he switched fake for fake. Never occurred to him that I had the real ones on me all that time.' With that, Pinch finished opening the pouch and drew out four golden, jewel-encrusted pieces. To the trained eyes at the table, the craftsmanship of the goldwork and the deep luster of the stones was readily apparent in the genuine pieces. A collective sigh of greed escaped the three.
Sprite scritched at his curly hair. 'Why give it to him, Pinch? We could scamper out and sell this for a good price in Amn or Waterdeep.'
'Cleedis found me once. If he did it once, he can do it again-and I don't think Manferic will be as forgiving the next time as he has been now.'
'Well, I don't see it. What's he gain from the stuff?' Maeve asked again.
'I'm not sure, but I think he means to control the choosing. Everybody's been saying Cleedis is backing a dead horse-my idiot cousin, Bors. Just suppose, though, that the idiot becomes king. Then Cleedis doesn't look so dumb. It's as certain as Sprite here rolling a rigged bale of dice that if Bors is chosen, Cleedis will name himself regent before anyone can protest.'
'Fine for Cleedis, but that doesn't do a thing for Manferic.'
'Cleedis is weak. His only strength is his loyalty. Make him regent and he'll be Manferic's lapdog for sure. Until Manferic does him in and takes over directly.'
Therin shrugged. 'So what's it matter to us if a lich takes the throne here or not?'
'Ever hear tales of Thay?' Maeve warned. Ruled by undying sorcerer-kings, Thay's excesses and cruelties were legendary throughout the Realms and were a particularly sore point with wizards of nearly every stripe.
'We don't,' Pinch interrupted. 'We don't a care a pizzle for who rules here. All we want is to get out of here alive.'
'And rich,' Sprite added.
A gloom fell over the group, one of those sullen silences that seems to strangle conversations at regular intervals, this one probably infected by Maeve's sour scowl. Drunkard and scalawag she might be, but she was still a mage and didn't like the notion of liches playing with their unnatural magic.
'Show us how it works, Pinch, this ceremony you were telling us about,' Sprite asked in an attempt to lift their dour moods. He hopped up onto his chair and set the genuine artifacts in front of his fellow rogue. 'Maybe that'll give us some clue.'
The question brought back memories of Pinch's youth, when he was Janol playing with his royal cousins Throdus and Vargo. The two princes used to insist he attend their 'coronations,' so they could make him bow and scrape at appropriate times and lord over him for being outside their blessed circle. They loved playacting the rite,
