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 insisted.
‘Desperate measures often look stupid before they’re carried out,’ Jimmy said. ‘It’s a historical fact, you can look it up in the royal archives.’
‘I can’t get into the royal archives, and besides I can’t read!’ the younger boy shouted. His face was bright red and tears of frustration brightened his eyes. ‘But if I could I bet I could prove you wrong!’ He thumped his back against a wall and slid down to sit in a heap on the floor. ‘What are we gonna do?’ he wailed.
‘First,’ Jimmy said, leaning over him, ‘you can stop shouting, people are starting to stare.’
Actually, no one was looking. But then Mockers, being thieves and scoundrels, rarely stared; but they always eavesdropped and he couldn’t afford to be overheard. Nevertheless, saying so seemed to stiffen Larry’s spine. Jimmy had often noticed that nonsense at the right moment could do wonders, if it was the right nonsense.
‘Sorry,’ the boy said gruffly. ‘It’s just …’
‘Larry,’ Jimmy said, leaning close, ‘if you’ve got a better idea tell it to me. I want to hear it.’
His friend hung his head and slowly shook it.
‘All right. Look, if we get no further by using this we’re no further behind either. And even if Asher is a drunk he’s got the reputation for knowing his craft.’ He gave the boy a pat on the shoulder and a crooked grin. ‘If he didn’t someone from the Guild would have cut his throat by now. Which means he wouldn’t be working for me.’
Larry gave him a weak smile.
‘Have you got the rope?’ Jimmy asked.
The boy nodded. ‘Stowed it in the tunnel just behind the collapse and piled some rocks over it.’
‘Good.’ It must be well hidden, Jimmy thought. He had left a bunch of rags and a bottle of vinegar there before coming to Mocker’s Rest and he hadn’t seen it. ‘Well, let’s do it then,’ he said and started off.
Larry’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head and he caught up with the other thief quickly. ‘Now?’ he whispered.
‘The sooner the better,’ Jimmy said wisely. ‘And why not?’
Larry shook his head. ‘It’s daytime!’ he protested.
‘So, they won’t be expecting us,’ Jimmy replied, with a wink.
‘But there’ll be more guards, won’t there?’
‘Why should there be? Are the iron bars less sturdy during the day?’
‘No, I mean, they’re awake, in the keep walking around and acting like guards.’
Jimmy stopped abruptly and glared down at the younger boy. ‘You want to do this or not?’
‘Do!’ Larry said, nodding vigorously.
Looking him in the eye Jimmy said, ‘Then let’s do it!’
He strode off without looking back. After a brief silence, Jimmy smiled to hear Larry’s footsteps following. This would work and then he’d be a legend among the Mockers forever after. He carefully kept himself from thinking of the alternative – most of them involved ropes, sharp things or red-hot things, or things that were sharp and red-hot and applied to the tender parts of his body.
Jimmy the Hand was still less than fourteen years, more or less, and like most youngsters he felt as if he’d live forever. But like most Mockers he’d seen a great deal of death during those years; not enough to grant him a sense of his own mortality, but enough to teach him caution.
It was all Jimmy could do to force himself back into the half-collapsed tunnel and up the shaft that led into the main cell of Krondor’s dungeon. He’d spent most of his young life