THIEVES' CARNIVAL.

by Karen Haber.

Mouse hated him on sight. He was a small, bandy-legged man in a tattered yellowtunic. Nut-brown, he had light s.h.a.ggy hair and a hard face. Just her luck to have drawn him as her partner for The Race at Thieves' Carnival, she thought. She watched his gray eyes darken as he appraised her. Apparently, the feeling was mutual. Angrily, Mouse brushed her wild black hair back from her forehead. To her left, Vandor was already plotting with his partner, a tall, slim redhead. Now why, Mouse wondered, couldn't she have drawn Vandor? Tall and dark, with long, graceful arms and legs, he was much more to her taste than this short, ugly stranger.

"Don't you eat regularly?" her partner asked. Mouse grabbed the knife in her belt.

She was sensitive about her thinness.

"Does anybody eat regularly in Thieves' Quarter?" she snapped. "If you weren't a stranger here, you wouldn't ask such stupid questions. Besides, you don't exactly look well fed yourself."

"I'm a traveling minstrel," he said, patting his harp. "Eating is a luxury."

Mouse sniffed. "If you're a minstrel, what are you doing in The Race?"

"The Race is famous in all the Four Quarters. And the prize would buy me a new harp." He shrugged. "How could I resist?" She was about to tell him just how much she wished he'd resisted the temptation when Vandor walked past them, his arm around his partner's shoulders. He winked at Mouse. She gave him a bright smile that only dimmed as she turned toward her partner.

"What's your name?" she asked, sighing. "Ciaran. And yours?" "I'm called Mouse." His gray eyes flickered with amus.e.m.e.nt. "I can see why."

"You know, I'm beginning to wish I'd drawn a Kald," Mouse said. "Even if they don't exist. Or maybe a Weirder. Anything would be better than a scruffy musician with bad manners."

She turned her back on him and studied the green cobblestones of the plaza as though she had not seen them a thousand times before, had not run across them as a child playing thievish games, had not crept over them in quest of bread, dream wine, or some other necessity that she could later sell. Mouse had been born in Thieves'

Quarter to a family five generations deep in thievery. She expected to die there. But not soon. And not, by Shuruun, until she'd won The Race at Thieves' Carnival. Even if she had to drag the dead weight of this harpist along behind her.

"All thieves, attention!" yelled Gray Tom, the crier for the Quarter. "Come now and pick your tasks."

He doffed his wide-brimmed orange hat and held it out toward the crowd. Eager fingers grabbed for the slips of vellum within; each a.s.signed a theft considered dangerous and daring. The thieves knew they would be judged not merely for agility, but for swiftness and style as well. Mouse darted between two heavyset men in brown wattle fur and s.n.a.t.c.hed a vellum slip. It was soft in her hands and stained from hard use. She swore as she read the markings on it.

"What's wrong?" Ciaran peered over her shoulder.

"Well, my luck is holding true," she said, scowling. "Here. Read it for yourself."

She tossed the slip to him.

The harpist caught the strip of hide and stared at it, a frown furrowing his brow.

Then he turned the slip around and squinted at it. Finally, his eyes met hers.

Mouse saw chagrin and embarra.s.sment in their gray depths. "I can't read," he said, his voice soft.She snorted. "Can't read? And you a minstrel? Well, you must have a good memory.

Remember this, then, Ciaran the Harpist: We must steal the Portal Cube from the Black Cathedral." With satisfaction, she watched his jaw drop in amazement.

"The Portal Cube?" he said. "Are they mad?" "No. They're thieves." She straightened her red tunic.

"Come on. Let's get started. The faster we do this, the happier I'll be."

She led him at a trot into the maze of streets behind the plaza. Here, the light of the twin sunb.a.l.l.s was shaded by odd walls and building angles. A soft twilight gloom pervaded the alley. Mouse watched her companion shiver.

"Chilly in here," he said.

Anger flared in her black eyes. "Delicate, aren't you? Well, brace yourself, musician.

It's about to get much colder." She slipped into a narrow span between two ancient houses and vanished down a dark stairwell. Ciaran stayed hard on her heels.

"Where are we going?" he whispered.

"A shortcut under the city. Watch your footing." She pulled a glowstone out of a pouch, kindled it against the wall, and held it at eye level. They descended into the gloom, slipping on the stone stairs, which grew slick with moisture as they descended. Six levels down, a landing gave way to two corridors. Mouse chose the leftward route, holding her glowstone high. In the distance, wall grids flickered with peculiar light, casting a cold, gray aura down the pa.s.sageway. Mouse extinguished her stone.

"What are these?" Ciaran asked, fingering the panels as he pa.s.sed them.

"Old things," Mouse answered. "From long ago."

Her companion stopped moving.

"What's wrong?" she asked irritably.

"These are part of the Legend of Bas," Ciaran said, eyes shining. "The Distance Song Cycle." He swung his harp around, paused, then ran his hand lightly over its strings. A bright chord danced out from under his fingers. As, in a clear, true voice, he sang out: "Bas showed the people how to walk along the ways that glowed. He led a thousand people out into the airless cold. Led them to a better place of double warmth and light. Beneath the streets, the legend says, the warmth pierced endless night."

The lively melody echoed down the pa.s.sage, turned a corner and was gone. Mouse stared at him. "So you really are a minstrel," she said. Ciaran bowed.

"Is that an old song?"

"No. But it will be. Someday." He smiled. Ciaran wasn't half as ugly when he smiled, Mouse thought.

"And you think these glowers are part of some legend?" she asked, tracing the outline of the one nearest her with a finger.

"Maybe." He shrugged. "They'll make part of a good song, anyway." He settled the harp on its sling behind his left shoulder. "Where are we?" "Under the Second Quarter. We'll take the next stairway up."

One hundred paces later, the panels' light faded behind them. Mouse rekindled her glowstone, turned right and stepped up into a notch in the wall. They climbed up eight levels before daylight illuminated their path and they emerged into a street of dark stone and hooded figures. "What is this?" Ciaran asked. Mouse gave him a sharp look. "Shh. It's Mentlan. The hour of silence. The Cators will all be going home to sit and twiddle their amulets. We can get the Cube now if we do it quietly."

"In the middle of the day?" "When else?" Mouse hissed. "Can you suggest a better time?"

Ciaran flung his arms up in surrender. "Lead on." They hurried past the hooded figures, who ignored them as though they were ghosts with no substance. Around a corner, the street widened into a marketplace. But the stalls were shuttered, the merchants vanished. At the south end of the market, a building cast long shadows.

"The Black Cathedral," Mouse said. She walked through the deserted plaza, strode up the steps, and pushed confidently against the dark gla.s.s doors of the building.

They were locked. Ciaran swore. "Patience." Mouse held up a warning finger. "Let's look for a side door. They're easier."

The glossy, dark stones of the Cathedral lay flush against the Parish House on the right. But on the left, a stone corridor measuring barely a child's width across separated the great building from its neighbor. A grown man could not negotiate that pa.s.sage. But a slender woman, a black-haired Mouse, could. And gamely, Ciaran followed behind her, sidling into the alleyway. Slowly, they inched along the path.

Mouse cursed softly. The side of the Cathedral was covered with lynchweed. Thick curtains of the curling vine cascaded down the stone walls. She probed carefully behind the barbed tendrils.

"It should be here somewhere," she muttered.

"Found it yet?" Ciaran's voice was a hoa.r.s.e whisper. Mouse didn't answer. She probed harder, feeling only stone and thorns, thorns and stone. Then her thumb touched cold gla.s.s.

"Got it!" She almost crowed with triumph. Mouse stripped off her leather belt and wrapped it around her palm for protection. She grasped the viney bramble and slashed at it with her knife until a Mouse-sized oblong had been cut through to the door. The lock was an old-style two-in-two. Mouse studied it for a moment. Pulling her knife free, she slipped the tip of her blade into the keyhole and rotated it. With a click, the tumblers gave. Mouse pushed the door gently. It would not budge. Her next effort was not so gentle. She landed on her tail in the dust.

"Allow me," Ciaran said. He reached past her, powerful shoulders flexing, and leaned into the door. It groaned and began to move slowly inward.

"I'd bet dinner that this door hasn't been used in years," he said. Mouse watched with surprise as he forced the door fully open. She'd never expected a musician to be so strong. Hopping to her feet, she poked her nose in the doorway. Thin daylight illuminated a cramped pa.s.sage behind what seemed to be an altar.

"Come on." Frowning, Ciaran squatted down and followed her. Slowly, the ceiling sloped upward, and soon both could walk freely. But anyone taller than Ciaran would still be crouching uncomfortably. Good thing he's short, Mousethought. Vandor would never have been able to fit through that alley, much less this tiny pa.s.sage. The hallway broadened at the far end into a large chamber filled with brown stone benches flanking a long gray slab. There were dark stains upon the slab that caused Mouse to shudder as she pa.s.sed it. Ciaran touched its worn surface. A harsh light kindled in his eyes.

"I've heard tales of these Cators. Nothing good." Mouse flashed a furious look at him.

"Shh!" "Frightened?" She spun on her heel and grabbed the front of his yellow tunic. "How would you like me to take you back down below and lose you?" she snapped. "Try paying attention to what we came here for. Start looking for the Portal Cube."

"I thought you knew where it was." "All I know is it's somewhere in here. Now get busy!" She scrambled through a doorway into the main hall. The walls were lined with headless statues. Small indentations in the floor indicated where generations of faithful knees had ground into the stone as their owners prostrated themselves before their G.o.ds. At the far end of the room, a huge black gla.s.s altar glinted in the half light.

Mouse surveyed its glittering facade hopefully, but it was all of one piece. No jewels winked back at her from gilded settings.

"d.a.m.n! This is the logical place for it," she muttered.

Ciaran appeared from behind the altar. "Any luck?"

"No. You?" "I found a lot of creepwebs but no stone." Mouse cursed again. She turned, looking for another door, another room, when a strange pink gleam from above made her eyes water.

"What was that?" Ciaran stood beside her, rubbing his eyes. "I don't know. It came from above, from the balcony, I think. There must be a staircase around here somewhere." She cast about the hall but found no hidden arch, no handclasp to open masked doorways. In futile search, the thieves pa.s.sed their hands over the walls.

Mouse sighed. "We'll just have to climb up." She unwound a st.u.r.dy cord from her pouch and secured one end of it to her belt. With a deft toss, she hooked the far end over the balcony and back upon itself. Planting her left foot firmly against the base of a headless statue, she pushed off with her right leg and pulled herself up the rope.

Sweating, hands slipping, she made her way up and up, until she had a solid grip upon the bal.u.s.trade. Muscles straining, the little thief swung herself over the railing to the gallery floor. With barely a moment to catch her breath, Mouse clambered to her feet and began to search for any sign of that red-tinged flare.

Three-quarters of the way around the gallery, she spied a blue gla.s.s table. Upon it sat a small grille, rusty with age. A neglected shrine? She reached toward it, but before she could touch either side of the hinged metalwork a pink light flashed out from behind the grille.

"Hsst! Mouse! Where are you?" Ciaran's urgent whisper rose up from the floor below.

She ignored him, intent on the light behind the metal doors. Taking a deep breath, she pried the right-hand gate of the shrine open. A small, squared gem about the sizeof a knucklebone sat in a web of tarnished silver wire. Its surface flashed with red and orange fires.

The Portal Cube! What else could it be? Mouse reached for the bauble gently and found it came away easily. Warm to the touch, the Cube glimmered in her palm like a dying glowstone. For a moment, Mouse felt like a robber bird, raiding a spring nest of its prize. Then she tucked the thought away with the Cube in her pouch, wrapped in the piece of vellum that had first decreed this crime. Mouse wanted to dance with glee.

I've done it, she thought. By the dreams of Sacred Bas, I've stolen the fabled Portal Cube.

She hurried to the balcony railing and waved down at her partner.

"I've got it," Mouse said. Her voice shook with excitement. "At least, I think I've got it. It's not very big."

Ciaran peered up at her. His light hair fell back from his face. "If you think you've got the Portal Cube, that's good enough for me. It's late. We should start ..."

Mouse lost the rest of his whisper in the clatter of shoes upon stone. There were many feet, and they were getting louder, coming toward her. Five hooded heads peered through a window of the gallery. Just as quickly, they disappeared, and a door in the wall began to open.

Heart pounding, Mouse pivoted, pulled out the Cube, and tossed it in a long arc down to Ciaran.

"Quick," she cried. "The Cators are back. But we can still win. Take the second doorway out of the plaza. Find Gray Tom to record our time. Hurry!"

Rough hands grabbed her and she couldn't see Ciaran anymore. Mouse kicked the nearest Cator full in the stomach. He dropped his hold on her, doubled over with pain. Furiously, clawing and scratching, she fought toward freedom. But there were too many of them, and her strength began to give out. A hard blow to her jaw drove the last bit of fight from her. Panting, she sagged in her captors' arms.

Well, she thought, whatever they do to me now, at least I've won The Race.

The Cators' faces remained hidden behind their deep black hoods. Fiercely, they whispered curses at her from unseen mouths. Thief, they called her. Cheat. Wh.o.r.e.

Right only the first time, Mouse thought. She was dragged across the balcony into a deep stone alcove and down a steep, narrow staircase into the room of benches. In the corner, a brazier she hadn't noticed before glowed red. Mouse's captors cast her onto the stone slab, spread-eagled.

The stone was cold against her back. Again, she struggled, but they were stronger, and cruel hands held her arms, her legs, her head.

Behind her, several Cators scrabbled in a cupboard. A metallic sound set Mouse's teeth on edge, followed by a wicked hissing. In horror, she watched a hooded one approach her holding a long metal rod. The end of the skewer formed a circle that glowed deep red. Mouse knew what it was. A thief's brand.

"No!" she screamed. "Please!"

She tried to kick out at them. Her legs were clamped tight by remorseless fingers.

The wicked red circle grew larger, blotting out the light, the room, the world.

"Thief!" the hooded one cried. "Wear our brand!"

His face was in shadow. Mouse tried to find his eyes, to entreat mercy throughpiteous glances, but the hood was deep and she had no time left.

Bright, sharp pain seared between her eyes. Mouse's ragged cry caught in her throat.

The smell of burning flesh was sickening. A high tenor voice cut through her agony.

"Brothers. A second thief is in the House of Worship!" A hooded figure stood at the door pointing in alarm down the balcony.

"In the great hall!" he cried. "Do not delay."

The brand was withdrawn. Mouse sobbed quietly as the wound throbbed with heat.

Mouse's tormentors dropped her arms and legs and raced out the door. Weakly, she watched as the Cator who had raised the alarm moved toward her. She managed to glare at him in fury, but even that effort was finally too much for her. She closed her eyes. Without a word, he lifted her off the table and flung her over his shoulder.

I don't care what else they do to me, she thought.

Then the world grew dark.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying on damp stone, lit only by a glowing panel. A hooded figure sat next to her. Mouse pulled back, gasping.

"Breathe easy," a familiar voice said. "It's only me." The hood was flung back to reveal Ciaran's face. Mouse didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She grasped his hand.

"Did you get the Cube back to Gray Tom?" she asked in a whisper. Ciaran frowned, "And leave you to those madmen?" He shook his head. Her hand curled into a fist. She tried to swing at him, but he caught her arm.

"You fool!" she cried. "By Immortal Bas, has this all been wasted, then? I've been branded a thief and it's all for nothing." Mouse hung her head and wept until Ciaran released his hold on her.