Thieves World1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

like embers showed, approximately where a human's eyes would be.
    This individual held in his right hand a scroll, partly unrolled. and with his left he was tapping on the table. The proportions of his fingers were abnormal, and one or two of them seemed either to lack, or to be overprovided with, joints. One of his nails sparked luridly, but that ceased after a little. Raising his head, after a fashion, he spoke.
    'A girl. Interesting. But one who has ... suffered. Was it punishment?'
    It felt to Jarveena as though the gaze of those two dull red orbs could penetrate her flesh as well as her clothing. She could say nothing, but had nothing to say.
    'No,' pronounced the wizard - for surely it must be none other. He let the scroll drop on the table, and it formed itself into a tidy roll at once, while he rose and approached her. A gesture, as though to sketch her outline in the air, freed her from the lassitude that had hampered her limbs. But she had too much sense to break and run.
    Whither?
    'Do you know me?'
    'I...' She licked dry lips. 'I think you may be Enas Yorl.'
    'Fame at last,' the wizard said wryly. 'Do you know why you're here?'
    'You ... Well, I guess you set a trap for me. I don't know why, unless it has to do with that scroll.'
    'Hmm! A perceptive child!' Had he possessed eyebrows, one might have imagined the wizard raising them. And then at once: 'Forgive me. I should not have said
    "child". You are old in the ways of the world, if not in years. But after the first century, such patronizing remarks come easy to the tongue ...' He resumed his chair, inviting Jarveena with a gesture to come closer. She was reluctant. For when he rose to inspect her, he had been squat. Under the cloak he was obviously thick-set, stocky, with a paunch. But by the time he regained his seat, it was equally definite that he was thin, light-boned, and had one shoulder higher than the other.
    'You have noticed,' he said. His voice too had altered; it had been baritone, while now it was at the most flattering a countertenor. 'Victims of circumstance, you and I both. It was not I who set a trap for you. The scroll did.'
    'For me? But why?'
    'I speak with imprecision. The trap was set not for you qua you. It was set for someone to whom it meant the death of another. I judge that you qualify, whether or not you know it. Do you? Make a guess. Trust your imagination. Have you, for example, recognized anybody who came to the city recently?'
    Jarveena felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She folded her hands into fists.
    'Sir, you are a great magician. I recognized someone tonight. Someone I never dreamed of meeting again. Someone whose death I would gladly accomplish, except that death is much too good for him.'
    'Explain!' Enas Yorl leaned an elbow on the table, and rested his chin on his fist ... except that neither the elbow, nor the chin, let alone the fist, properly corresponded to such appellations.
    She hesitated a second. Then she cast aside her cloak, tore loose the bow that held the cross-lacing of her jerkin at her throat, and unthreaded it so that the garment fell wide to reveal the cicatrices, brown on brown, which would never fade, and the great foul keloid like a turd where her right breast might have been.
    'Why try to hide anything from a wizard?' she said bitterly. 'He commanded the men who did this to me, and far far worse to many others. I thought they were bandits! I came to Sanctuary hoping that here if anywhere I might get wind of them - how could bandits gain access to Ranke or the conquered cities? But I never dreamed they would present themselves in the guise of imperial guards!'
    'They ...?' Enas Yorl probed.
    'Ah ... No. I confess: it's only one that I can swear to.'
    'How old were you?'
    'I was nine. And six grown men took pleasure of me, before they beat me with wire whips and left me for dead.'
    'I see.' He retrieved the scroll and with its end tapped the table absently.
    'Can you now divine what is in this