Limits by Larry Niven (tohfa e dulha read online TXT) 📗

“I ate it. What’s on your mind?”

“Oh, noble sir! The night will be cold, and I have a girl. Such a girl! A vision of delight, a morsel of sweetness…”

Sung Ko Ja waved an impatient hand. “All right. So she is everything you claim she is. How much?”

“Ten.”

“Too much. Six.”

Bayram Ali looked stunned, then hurt. “Sir, you insult this princess among women. Why, only last week she was a virgin. Nine.”

“Seven.”

“Eight and a half.”

“Done. And bring me another bottle of wine.” Sung tossed down the last few drops in his tankard and paid the innkeeper. Sparthera was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. He looked her over briefly and then started up the stairs, carrying his fresh bottle of wine. “Well, come on, girl.”

He stopped at the door to his room and made a few quick gestures with his left hand before he pushed it open.

“Why did you do that?” Sparthera asked in girlish innocence.

“To raise the spell that protects my room. Otherwise I couldn’t let you in, my sweet one.” He laughed softly and burped.

Sparthera stopped in the doorway. “If you have a spell on this room, does that mean I’ll be locked in?”

“No, no. You’re free to come and go—as often as you like.” He chuckled. “Until the dawn light comes through that window at the end of the hall and relinks the spell.”

She entered. The low bed—hardly more than a pallet—held a straw-filled mattress and bedding woven from the local cotton and wool. There was wood stacked in the small fireplace grate and flint and steel lay next to a single candle in a holder. The magician’s saddlebags were sitting on the floor by the bed.

Sung looked up at the small window where Sparthera had slashed out the paper and frowned. A cold draft was coming through the opening.

“I’ll light the fire, shall I?” Sparthera asked.

She hurried to start a small blaze while Sung, swaying slightly on his feet, considered the open window. Best that he be distracted. She asked, “Is it true that you’re a magician?”

He smiled. “There is only one sort of magic I have in mind at the moment.”

Sparthera hid her sudden nervousness behind a smile. “Ah, but did you bring your wand?”

The flickering firelight threw their shadows on the wall as Sung guided her to the narrow bed. What followed left Sparthera pleasantly surprised. For all his smooth skin and foreign ways the stranger proved more than equal to other men she’d known. He was considerate…almost as if she were paying, not he. Even if nothing came of this venture, the evening hadn’t been wasted.

Two hours later she was beginning to change her mind.

They were sitting up on the straw-filled mattress, sharing the last of the wine. Sparthera was naked; Sung still wore a wide cloth belt. He had opened one of his bags and was showing her a variety of small trinkets. There were birds that chirped when you tightened a spring, a pair of puppets on strings, flowers made of yellow silk, and squares of bright paper that Sung folded to look like bears and fish. He was very drunk, and talkative.

“The immortal Sung and his family rule in the land of the Yellow River, a mountainous land far to the east. I was head of the family for twenty years. Now I have abdicated the throne in favor of my son. But I carried away some magic. Watch: I put a half-twist in this strip of paper, join the ends, and now it has only one side and one edge…”

Sparthera was restless and bored. She had come upstairs expecting to deal with a magician. She had found a cheap toymaker who couldn’t hold his wine. She watched his strong agile fingers twisting a scrap of paper into a bird…and wondered. His forehead was high and smooth, his face a little too round for her taste, but undeniably good to look on. It was hard to believe that he could be a complete fool. There must be more to him than cheap toys and bragging and a way with women.

He was rummaging in his bag again and she caught a glimpse of gleaming metal.

“What is that? The box?”

“The pointer. The key to Gar’s treasure. A gift to set me on the road.”

“Gar’s treasure. What’s that?” It sounded vaguely familiar.

“It’s a secret,” Sung said, and he closed that saddlebag and reached across for the other. And while he was turned away from her, Sparthera pulled a twist of paper from her hair, and opened it, and shook white powder into Sung’s half-empty goblet.

She didn’t use it all, and it probably wasn’t needed. Sung was on his back and snoring a few minutes later, long before the drug could have taken effect. Sparthera watched him for a few cautious minutes more before she reached into the saddlebag.

She drew out a silver box. There were pieces of jade and carnelian set in mountings on the lid and sides.

She was half-afraid that a spell sealed this too, but it opened easily enough. The inside was lined with faded crimson velvet, and all it held was an elongated teardrop of tarnished bronze. There were tiny silver runes inlaid along the length of the dark metal.

Sparthera picked it up and turned it this way and that. It was thicker than her forefinger and just about as long. A conical hole had been drilled nearly through its underside.

The box was worth something; but was it worth angering a magician? Probably not, she decided reluctantly. And it certainly wasn’t worth killing for, not here. Bayram Ali would never allow such a thing. She would have to flee Tarseny’s Rest forever…and Sparthera had none of the tourist urge in her.

The same applied to Sung’s cloth belt. She had felt the coins in it when they made the two-backed beast, but it was no fortune.

Sung surely ought to be robbed. It would do him good, make him less