[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
189
The Last Ring-bearer
of virtue. The caravan-bashi was already figuring what a closer encounter with the dancer
in her tent behind the stage was going to cost him, when fate brought a Hakimian preacher
out of nowhere. The bald mummy with his rotten rags and burning eyes immediately
poured out a storm of denunciations on the heads of lechers who gaze lustily on the vile
show put on by our fallen sister. The fallen sister did not give a damn, but the caravaner
decided to retire from the scene promptly, lest the holy man brand him with some
nightmarish curse.
He did want a woman something awful, though five days of withdrawal, man! He scanned
his immediate environs, and what do you know what he was looking for was right there, a
few steps away. The girl did not look like much at first glance a skinny kid of seventeen
or so with a large well-seasoned black eye to boot but the Khandian checked out her
supple figure with his trained eye and almost licked his lips openly this, guys, was quite
something! Cover her face with a rag and go ahead.
You bored, lass?
Keep moving, the girl responded indifferently in a husky but pleasant voice. I m not in
the business, buddy.
Not in the business, or haven t had a decent offer yet? Don t you worry, I pay real well!
With a laugh, as if jokingly, he grabbed her hand with an iron grip.
The girl responded with a short tirade that would easily make a pirate bosun blush, freed her
hand from the caravaner s paw with one precise learned movement, and quickly stepped
back into the alleyway between a patched tent and a rickety reed-mat pavilion. Actually,
there is nothing difficult about that you have to pull away strictly in the direction of the
assailant s thumb tip but it is impressive the first time around and usually leads to proper
conclusions. This time, though, the agitated caravan-bashi (some little whore will play
hard-to-get with me?!) stampeded into the alleyway after his elusive prey.
Not half a minute later the Khandian was back to the plaza. He was stepping gingerly now,
almost tip-toeing, hugging his right hand to his belly with his left and quietly moaning.
Sorry, man, you screwed up. It is child s play for even a rookie DSD operative to dislocate
the thumb of a hand extended in a threat, and the girl was far from a rookie. A short time
afterwards Fay (as she was known to her colleagues in the Department) was back to her
assigned section of the plaza, but the unlucky caravaner would not have recognized her even
were he to bump into her: the young whore was gone, replaced by a water-selling boy
ragged and dirty-faced, but with no sign of a black eye, and it is precisely such distinctive
features that observers typically notice. She was back to her post just in time: the blind
beggar sitting at the very entrance to the dam whined: Help me if you can, kind folks!
instead of his usual Kind folks, help me if you can! a come here signal.
Of course, Fay remembered their quarry s description (brown-haired northerner, six feet tall,
gray eyes, thirty-two but looks younger, slight right limp) word for word, despite only
working operation support today, reporting directly to the blind beggar who worked
recognition. Of course, she had no idea that the blind beggar was the Vice-Director for
190
The Last Ring-bearer
Operations himself, just like she had no knowledge of the stern warning Jacuzzi had
received the day before that if his Tangorn-catching venture did not bear fruit within a day,
he would not get away with just being fired without a pension. With a piercing Water,
water, cold water with ice! the girl slipped expertly into the crowd, trying to figure out who
had attracted the chief s attention.
A cart loaded with what appeared to be sacks of corn was just entering the dam. A tall
slender mountain man of about twenty-eight to thirty led a couple of mules pulling it; the
gap between his raspberry fez and the pavement was exactly the required six feet. As for
everything else& even discounting the lack of a limp (which could have been a distractive
ruse like her erstwhile black eye), the man s eyes were definitely not gray. What about the
sacks? The sacks are a serious possibility, which is why the baron has no hopes there. To
get past the dam in a barrel or a sack is too obvious a move; it is so overused, banal, and
ridiculed that its very kitschiness might tempt Tangorn, who is known for his paradoxical
solutions. This is why the customs inspectors are working especially hard today (a rumor
about undercover Treasury auditors had been planted among them), and a specially trained
dog surreptitiously checks every single cart (which move very slowly because of the road
repairs).
Having thus ruled out both the sacks and their owner, Fay glanced sharply at a team of
mounted gendarmes with their catch six mountain men chained in pairs that had cut into
the line ( Watch out! Move back want some whip? ), made sure they looked all right and
looked beyond them. Ah, so that s it!
A group of Hakimian pilgrims returning home from Shavar-Shavan a traditional three-
week pilgrimage to one of their mountain shrines. About thirty people with their faces
hooded as a sign of contrition, almost a half of them either epileptics or handicapped,
including lameness. A truly ideal cover even if they recognize the baron (practically
impossible), how will they extract him from the crowd of pilgrims? By force, employing the
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]