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

gullible. But not tonight. Sparthera dropped the pointer in its box, closed it, and was reaching for the saddlebag when she remembered.

Gar had been Kaythill’s magician.

And Kaythill was a bandit chief who had raided the lands around Rynildissen City, a hundred years ago. He had lasted some twenty years, until the King’s soldiers caught him travelling alone. Under torture Kaythill had steered them to some of his spoils. The rest? A wagonload of gold and jewels had been stolen by Gar the magician. Kaythill and his men had been scouting the countryside for Gar when the soldiers trapped him.

Of course the King’s men searched for Gar. Some vital pieces of military magic were among the missing treasure. There had been rewards posted, soldiers everywhere, rumors…and Gar’s treasure had grown in the telling, had grown into legend, until it reached Sparthera via her father. She had been…six? It was a wonder she remembered at all.

And this trinket would point the way to Gar’s treasure?

Sparthera dressed hurriedly, snatched up the silver box and left the room. She hesitated in the hall, looking first at her trophy and then back at the door. What would he do when he woke and found the box missing? She had only seen him drunk. A magician sober and looking for lost property might be an entirely different matter.

She pushed at the door. It opened easily. He hadn’t lied then. She could come and go as she pleased—until dawn.

Sparthera hurried down the stairs and out of the inn. It was nearly midnight and there were only a few jovial souls left in the common room. None saw her leave.

Patrols rarely came to the Thieves’ Quarter of Tarseny’s Rest; but in the Street of the Metalworkers they were common. Sparthera went warily, waiting until a pair of guards had passed before she began throwing pebbles at a certain upstairs window.

The window came alight. Sparthera stepped out of the shadows, showed herself. Presently Tinx appeared, rubbing his eyes, looking left and right before he pulled her inside.

“Sparthera! What brings you here, little thief? Are the dogs finally at your heels and you need a place to hide?”

“How long would it take you to copy this?” She opened the box and held out the bronze teardrop.

“Hmmm. Not long. The lettering is the hard part, but I do have some silver.”

“How long?”

“An hour or two.”

“I need it now, tonight.”

“Sparthera, I can’t. I need my sleep.”

“Tinx, you owe me.”

Tinx owed her twice. Once, for a pair of thieves who had tried to interest Sparthera in robbing Tinx’s shop. In Sparthera’s opinion, robbing a citizen of Tarseny’s Rest was fouling one’s own nest. She had informed on them. And once she had worked like a slave in his shop, to finish a lucrative job on time; for Sparthera was not always a thief. But Tinx had had other, more pressing debts, and he still owed Sparthera most of her fee.

The metalworker lifted his hands helplessly and rolled his eyes to heaven. “Will I be rid of you then?”

“Finished and done. All debts paid.”

“Oh, all right then!” He sighed and, still grumbling about his lost night’s sleep, went back inside to light some candles and a lantern to work by.

Sparthera prowled restlessly about the tiny shop. She found means to make tea. Afterward she prowled some more, until Tinx glared at her and demanded she stay in one place. Then she sat, while Tinx sawed and filed and hammered until he had a bronze teardrop; gouged grooves in the surface; pounded silver wire into the grooves; polished it, compared it to the original, then held it in tongs over a flame until tarnish dulled the silver. He asked, “Just how good are your client’s eyes?”

“I don’t really know, but by Khulm we’re running out of time!”

“Well, what do you think?” He handed her copy and original.

She turned them swiftly in her hands, then dropped the copy into the box and the original into her sleeve. “Has to be good enough. My thanks, Tinx.” She was already slipping through the door. “If this works out…” She was down the street and out of earshot, leaving Tinx to wonder if she had made him a promise. Probably not.

She stopped inside the front door of the inn. A moment to get her breath, else the whole inn would hear her. Then upstairs, on tiptoe. Third door down. Push. It swung open, and Sparthera swallowed her gasp of relief.

The magician was still asleep and still snoring. He looked charmingly vulnerable, she thought. Sparthera pushed the box into a saddlebag, under a tunic. It cost her a wrench to leave it, but far better to lose a trinket worth a few gold pieces than to face the wrath of an outraged sorcerer. Sparthera had bigger fish to fry. She tiptoed out and shut the door. The first gray glow of morning was showing through the window at the end of the hall.

Sparthera stayed out of sight until she saw Sung mount his odd shaggy horse and start off down the King’s Way to Rynildissen. He seemed unsteady in the saddle, and once he clutched at his head. That worried her. “Khulm bear witness, I did go easy on that powder,” she told herself.

She found Bayram Ali counting money at a table in the common room. He looked up at her expectantly.

“Well? What did you find?”

“A few toys. Some scraps of colored paper and an old silver box that isn’t worth the trouble it would get us.”

“No money?”

“Coins in a belt. He never took it off. There wasn’t much in it…not enough, anyway.”

Bayram Ali scowled. “Very intelligent of you, dear. Still, a pity. He left this for you.” He tucked two fingers into his wide cummerbund and fished out a pair of silver coins. “Perhaps you’ve found a new calling. One for you and one for me, hmm?”

Sparthera smiled, letting her strong, even white teeth show. “And how much did he pay you last night?”

“Six pieces of silver,” Bayram Ali