Althalus shrugged. "I'm the best," he said modestly. "Oh, one other thing. I know that Andine and Leitha have been trying to teach you correct language. Forget about it. I want you to go back to 'country boy.' Start saying 'he done,' and 'we was' and 'didn't mean nothing.' If you talk that way, maybe Ghend won't realize how clever you are."

Gher went back into the thicket, and Althalus walked on along the trail trying to remember every single detail of certain events that had happened some twenty-five centuries ago so that he could alter them slightly. He kept repeating the word "slightly" to himself as he plodded along.

Gher was sitting on a log at the crossroad, and the horses were tied to nearby bushes.

"I see you got my message," Althalus called out.

"Well," Gher said, "sort of. You didn't pick such a good messenger, Althalus. He was pretty drunk when he told me what you wanted, so I wasn't too sure I was getting it right."

"He was the only one I could find on short notice. It looks to me as if you got enough of the message to meet me here."

"I had to do a lot of guessing. Where are we going from here?"

"I want to go back to Hule, where I belong. I've had about as much of civilization as I can stand. Did you happen to see any taverns on your way here? I've been walking for a long time now, and I've worked up a powerful thirst."

"There's a village a few miles on up ahead," Gher said, rising to his feet. "Anyplace where there's a village, there's bound to be a tavern."

"Right," Althalus agreed. "Let's mount up and go see if we can find it."

They went to the horses and prepared to mount. "Did I do all right, Althalus?" Gher whispered.

"You did fine, Gher. If Ghend was listening, our little talk covered everything we want him to know."

"What if he wasn't listening?"

"I'll take care of that when we get to the tavern," Althalus assured him.

'You won't have to do that,' Eliar's voice silently spoke to Althalus. 'Ghend's about twenty feet away from where you are, and he's got Khnom with him.'

'Everything's going the way it's supposed to, then,' Althalus sent his thought back. 'Thanks, Eliar.'

'Don't mention it,' Dweia's voice murmured. 'Oh, by the way, I encouraged Khnom to think about "thirsty," so he and Ghend are probably going to be in that tavern when you two arrive.'

'Encouraged?'

'Someday I'll show you how to do it, love. It's not really very hard.'

'Good.' "Let's go, Gher," Althalus said, nudging his horse.

The tavern was much as Althalus remembered it-except for a shaggy grey horse and a tired-looking bay tied to a rail near the front door. "The grey's Ghend's horse," Althalus told his young friend quietly as they dismounted. "Let's tie ours to that same rail."

"Right," Gher agreed. "Do I get to drink mead, too?"

'No.' Dweia's voice was very firm.

Althalus overrode her. 'Sorry, Em. If he doesn't drink something, it might arouse suspicions in Ghend's mind. I'll see to it that our boy doesn't drink too much.'

'You and I are going to talk about this, Althalus,' she told him ominously.

'It's always a pleasure talking with you, Em,' he said blandly.

Althalus and Gher tethered their horses to the rail and went into the tavern. "They're right over there," Gher said quietly, thrusting his chin at a table off to one side.

"Right," Althalus agreed. "Let's not sit too close."

They sat down at a crude table near the door, and Althalus called for mead.

"That's a fine-looking tunic you've got there, friend," the tavern keeper said, placing two large earthenware cups of mead on the table.

Althalus shrugged. "It keeps the wind off my back," he replied.

"He charges how much?" one of the patrons of the tavern demanded incredulously of a man who'd evidently just said something astonishing.

"One full ounce of gold," the other man replied, "and Gosti Big Belly's got a dozen men with battle-axes standing right there to make sure you pay before you cross that bridge."

"That's outrageous!"

"It beats trying to swim, and there's no place where you can ford the river for five days' ride in either direction. That bridge is Gosti's license to steal. All the gold diggings are over on the other side of that river, but nobody's going to get to them-or get back out-unless he pays what Gosti Big Belly demands."

"Excuse me," Althalus said to them. "I wasn't eavesdropping or anything, but my young friend and I are on our way to Hule, and I think that we might have to pick another route if that bridge you were just talking about happens to stand in our way on this particular trail."

"If you're going to Hule, you won't have no problems, traveler. The Hule road runs along this side of that river, and you won't have to pay nobody to use it. It's the other side of the river that'll bite big chunks out of your purse. There's gold on that side, and Gosti Big Belly's going to make certain sure that anybody who wants to go a-looking for that gold is going to pay to get there."

"Where in the world did a Clan Chief get a name like that?" Althalus asked. "It doesn't sound very respectful to me."

"You'd almost have to know Gosti to understand," another tavern patron explained. "You're right about how a name like that would offend most of the Clan Chiefs of Arum, but Gosti's very proud of that belly of his. He even laughs out loud when he brags that he hasn't seen his feet in years."

"If he's charging people an ounce of gold to cross over that bridge of his, he must be getting fairly close to rich by now."

"Oh, he's rich, all right," the man who'd announced the amount of the toll confirmed. "He's way, way past rich."

"Did he have his men build that bridge as soon as he heard about that pocket of gold up there in the mountains?"

"No, he had his bridge in place even before word of the gold leaked out. It all started some years back. There was this clan war you see, and Gosti's father-who was Chief back then-got hisself killed in that war. That made Gosti the Chief, whether anybody liked it or not-and most of them didn't. Gosti weren't none too popular, since a Clan Chief's supposed to be some kind of hero, and a real fat man don't look none too heroic. Gosti's got a cousin, though-Galbak his name is-and Galbak's about seven feet tall and he's meaner than a snake. Nobody in his right mind crosses Galbak. Now, Gosti's not the most energetic fellow in the world, since he's real, real fat, and like most fat men, he's dog-bone lazy. Now, every so often, a Clan Chief has to visit other Clan Chiefs, and a five-day ride to the nearest river ford didn't hardly set Gosti's heart all aglow, so he ordered his men to build him a bridge across that river. Then, after it was finished, he came up with the idea of making anybody who wasn't a member of his clan pay to use his bridge. Right at first, the price was only a penny, but after the discovery of gold up in the mountains, the price went up considerable."

"A full ounce of gold goes beyond considerable, my friend," Althalus said drily. "Why would anybody in his right mind pay that kind of price?"

"They're glad to pay it. A man who's just spent six months digging a hole into a mountainside starts to get powerful thirsty, and he starts to get real lonesome for the company of pretty women who don't care how bad a fellow smells as long as he's got a pocket full of gold. Gosti's camped right across the only way out of the mountains, so he gets his share of every speck of gold that's dug up, and he don't even have to get his hands dirty. I don't think anybody's even come up with a word yet to describe just how rich Gosti Big Belly really is."

Gher nudged Althalus with his elbow. "Look at Ghend!" he hissed. "He's actually drooling!"

Althalus let his eyes casually drift across the faces of the other tavern patrons, giving Ghend only a quick glance in passing. The lank-haired man with burning eyes was pale, and the expression on his face was a grotesque exaggeration of undisguised yearning.

"I think he just swallowed our hook, Althalus," Gher said smugly. "All we have to do now is pull him in."

"Just exactly where is this toll bridge?" Ghend asked carefully in his harsh voice. "My friend and I are going north ourselves-probably in the same general direction as those two other travelers-and if this Gosti fellow's as greedy as you say, he might just start collecting toll on the Hule road as well as on that bridge of his."

"I don't think he'd go quite that far, traveler," the fellow who'd just recounted Gosti's history declared. "The other Clan Chiefs wouldn't stand for it, and that'd start a war."

"Maybe," Ghend said, "but I think my friend and I might want to get past the greedy man's territory before he happens to think of expanding his little empire." He drained his mead cup and stood up. "It's been a pleasure, gentlemen," he said sardonically, "and we'll have to do this again one of these days." And then he and Khnom left the tavern.

"Let's go," Althalus said quietly to Gher.

"I haven't finished my mead yet," the boy protested.

"Yes, you have. We're leaving right now."

They went out through the tavern door to join Ghend and Khnom at the rail where their horses were tethered. "Have you got a moment, friend?" Althalus asked.

"We're in sort of a hurry," Khnom told him.

"This won't take but a minute," Althalus assured him. Then he looked directly at Ghend. "If I read your face correctly-and I usually do-you found the story about Gosti Big Belly and all that gold that's piling up around him very interesting."

"It got my attention," Ghend admitted shortly.

"I thought it might have. You've got the look of a businessman about you."

"Which business are we talking about? I don't sell pots and pans or sheep, if that's what you mean."

"Neither do I, friend. I was referring to the business that involves the transfer of ownership of this, that, and the other thing."

"Oh, that business. My associate and I dabble in that now and then."

"I sort of thought you might. I saw the way your eyes lit up when those country bumpkins started talking about the fat man and his toll bridge. I'll tell you right out in front that those stories lit a little fire in my belly, too."

"So?"

"If it just happened that we both went to visit the fat man with the idea of transferring ownership of part of his gold, we'd probably be tripping over each other at every turn, right?"

"It's possible," Ghend conceded.

"Now, I am going to pay Gosti a call, and if you are, too, mightn't it be better if we joined forces instead of going into competition with each other? If I'm trying to outsmart you and you're trying to outsmart me, the fat man's likely to outsmart the both of us, and we could both end up getting ourselves hung."

"That does make sense," Ghend admitted. "Are you any good?"

"He's the best there is," Gher said proudly. "You wouldn't believe how much he's charging my family for my education. Althalus here could probably even steal things from God."

"Now that's something I'd like to see," Khnom chortled.

"Just point Althalus in the direction of God's house and get out of his way," Gher boasted.

"I think maybe we'd better talk about this just a little bit more," Ghend said. "Let's move away from here, though. The doorstep of a tavern's not the best place for this kind of discussion."

"I was just about to suggest that myself," Althalus said. "You've got good instincts."

They all mounted their horses and rode through the village, into the woods beyond.

"Find us a good place, Gher," Althalus told the boy.

"Right." Gher dug his heels into his horse's flanks and galloped off.

"He seems to be a very clever boy," Khnom observed.

"He's so clever he makes my teeth hurt," Althalus said sourly. "Every time I come up with a simple plan for a simple robbery, he starts adding complications."

"Oh, by the way," Ghend said, removing his peculiar bronze helmet, "my name's Ghend, and this is Khnom."

"That might be useful to know. My name's Althalus, and the boy's Gher."

"Pleased to meet you," Ghend said with a faint smile.

"I think I seen a good place," Gher called from just on ahead. "There's a meadow with a clump of trees in the middle. We can talk there without nobody seeing us together, and nobody can't sneak up on us to listen to what we're saying."

"Lead the way," Althalus told him.

"It's over there," Gher said, pointing off to the left.

The meadow was steeply sloped, and the small grove of trees in its center was several hundred yards from the edge of the surrounding forest.

"Are we going to do this like we usually do?" Gher asked as they dismounted in the grove. "You know-tenlike we don't know each other when we get there?"

"'Tenlike'?" Khnom asked with a look of bafflement.

"Gher makes up words sometimes," Althalus explained. "What he actually means is 'pretend like'-and he's probably right. We don't want Gosti to start thinking of us as a group. I think we should behave as if we're strangers and sort of avoid each other while we're inside Gosti's main building. We'll have to gain his confidence, and that's going to take a while. We'll need to make up a few fairly convincing lies, but that's no problem for professionals."

"Not really," Ghend acknowledged. "Then we should probably split up right here."

"Right," Althalus agreed. "Why don't you and Khnom ride out from this grove and go north? Then Gher and I'll wait for about an hour and ride off toward the east. If anybody's watching, he won't realize that we're together."

"You are good, Althalus," Ghend said admiringly. "You've got an excellent eye for details. When this is all over, we might want to talk again. I might just have a business proposition for you-but let's rob Gosti first, shall we?"

"One thing at a time, certainly. All right, have you got gold enough to buy your way across that bridge?"

"I've got plenty," Ghend replied. "Do you need some?" The question was slyly put.

"And if I happened to say 'yes,' our partnership would end right here, wouldn't it?"

"Probably, yes."

"That went by real quick, didn't it?" Gher said to Khnom.

"If we'd blinked, we'd have missed it," Khnom agreed. "We're dealing with a pair of masters here, my boy. We can tenlike we don't know it, but we'd better keep our eyes open."

"You're right about that."

"Gher and I'll cross Gosti's bridge a day or so after you and Khnom do," Althalus continued. "And we'll keep away from you when we get to Gosti's place. Have you noticed my tunic?"

"How could I miss it?" Ghend replied.