had noticed that Asher had the most nuanced chuckle he’d ever heard. In this case it indicated that the magician’s relations with women when he hadn’t enough gold for whores wouldn’t bear close scrutiny.
‘No, no girls,’ Jimmy said. ‘Men, big, heavy men, so if size is an issue you should plan for that.’
‘Men?’ the magician said as though he’d never heard of them before. After a moment he shrugged. ‘Ah, well, takes all kinds. I’ve got somethin’ – I c’n make it stronger. It’s that wall spell …’
His voice faded off and he looked over Jimmy’s head so steadily the boy thief turned around to look. There was no one there but the tavern keeper, dozing behind the bar, and a man weeping into his beer. That would normally have attracted derisive attention had anyone else been present, except that the man looked to weigh about half what a heavy cavalryman’s horse did, and had a scar like a young gully from the point of his jaw up over one empty eye-socket, not to mention layers of slick tissue half an inch thick over the knuckles of both hands.
Jimmy looked at the magician out of the corner of his eye, then back at the bar. If Asher wanted more wine he’d have to wait until they’d finished their negotiations and the goods had changed hands.
‘What’s wrong with the wall spell?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Doesn’t it work?’
‘Oh, aye, it works,’ Asher said slowly. He shook his head as though that might dislodge something in his mind. ‘There’s jist, somethin’ …’ He reached out with thumb and forefinger, as if to grasp something.
‘Is it dangerous?’ Jimmy asked, his voice sounding as though he could be.
The magician blew out his cheeks. ‘Only if ye’re not supposed to use it!’ he said. ‘It works! It works very well, I tell ye.’
‘What about the knock-out spell?’ Jimmy asked.
With a dismissive wave of his hand Asher plopped a small bag onto the table. ‘Hardly magic at all,’ he said. ‘But you want it for big strapping fellows, instead of skinny little girls …’ He paused, looked at Jimmy for a moment as if trying to understand something totally alien to his imagination, then said, ‘Never mind. Give me a moment.’ He closed his eyes, waved his hand over the bag and muttered for a few minutes.
The hair on the back of Jimmy’s neck rose. What he called his ‘bump of trouble’ let him know that Asher was indeed using magic. Since he could remember, Jimmy possessed a near supernatural ability to sense approaching danger or the presence of magic being used.
Asher finished, and said, ‘Now it’s stronger.’ He pushed the pouch toward Jimmy. ‘Take a pinch and blow it into the face o’ the one ye’re tryin’ to knock down and down he’ll go!’
‘And the wall?’
The magician grunted. Turning, he grabbed a sack behind his chair and hoisted it onto the filthy table. He opened it and began to rummage around inside, digging deeper and deeper until he was halfway into the bag. Things rattled and clinked as Asher sorted through them, occasionally chuckling, as though being reminded of some nasty trick he intended to play as soon as he got the time. ‘Ah!’ he said at last and withdrew his head; he slung the sack back behind his chair and put a tiny bottle sealed with lead on the table between them. ‘There ye are,’ he said proudly.
Jimmy peered at it. It was only as big as the first joint of his little finger and as far as he could tell in the dim light it was completely empty. He reached out to take a closer look at it but the magician’s hand came down over it before he could touch the bottle.
‘Ah!’ Asher said in warning. ‘We an’t discussed price yet.’
‘There’s nothing in that bottle,’ Jimmy pointed out.
‘Ah, but there is,’ the magician whispered. ‘One tiny drop. ’Tis all ye need to start the mortar turnin’ to sand. Don’t get it on yersel’ whatever ye do,’ he warned. ‘Put it on yer wall and the job is done! Doesn’t matter where – top, bottom, middle – because as long as stone and mortar are connected, it’ll do the job.’ He sat back. Judging from the position of his whiskers, he was smiling.
‘How much?’ Jimmy wasn’t absolutely certain about any of this, but it was still the best idea he’d had.
Really the only idea beside a hammer and chisel and a lot of prayers to Ruthia that the guards go deaf. Still, he wasn’t about to take the magician’s first price.
‘What’s it worth to ye?’ Asher demanded.
With a cheerful smile Jimmy suggested, ‘Let’s have another drop to ease our bargaining. Innkeeper!’ he shouted, waking the man. ‘Two more of the same!’
It was closing in on dawn when Jimmy left the tavern with his prizes. He held the bottle up and squinted at it against the light of a flickering lantern; the air was chilly and damp, and smelled the way it usually did in the blighted gap between night and morning, as discouraged as the young thief felt.
Still looks like nothing. But, the old man doesn’t have that sort of reputation. Asher was a lot of things, but in the years he had been plying his trade in Krondor, no one had accused him of cheating on a deal, which in the Poor Quarter was the next best thing to a Royal Death Warrant.
He hadn’t got a bargain by any means. Though even making painful inroads into Prince Arutha’s gold, he would never have been able to afford this much magic if the man hadn’t been a complete sot. Not my problem, not my fault. But the price was fair, so he shouldn’t have to worry about waking up covered in boils anytime soon. At least, the price was fair if there was actually something inside the bottle.
Something I mustn’t get on myself, he thought. A worrying idea if you thought it through. How did you pour out something that didn’t appear to exist? Very carefully, he supposed.
Think positively, he told himself. I’ve got the means to save Larry’s brother and Flora and the rest of them. Probably. Which means we’re all better off than we were before.
Now all they had to do was do it.
Larry’s eyes grew wide.
‘Alban Asher is a drunk!’ His small face showed more panic than disapproval and his tone was more surprised than angry.
Just think how you’d react if Larry had come to you with this stuff, Jimmy reminded himself. He’s not trying to hit you, and not even walking away.
‘You can’t be serious!’ the younger boy went on.
‘We’re desperate,’ Jimmy pointed out, making a shushing gesture; the Rest wasn’t as crowded as it had been after the new laws were announced, but it was still busier than usual: a lot of people, normally on the streets, were sleeping. ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures,’ he went on. Jimmy had heard that saying somewhere and liked the sound of it: he usually did, when something made for a good excuse.
‘Desperate, not stupid!’ Larry
