any dealings with priests if I can avoid it. Every priest I’ve ever come across promises me a seat at the table of his god – if I’ll just hand over everything I’ve got in my purse. I’m sure the dining halls of the gods are very nice, but you have to die to get an invitation to have dinner with God, and I’m not really that hungry.’
Ghend frowned. ‘This might complicate things just a bit,’ he said. ‘A book is a collection of pages that people read.’
‘I don’t have to be able to read it, Ghend. To be able to steal it, all I have to know is what it looks like and where it is.’
Ghend gave him a speculative look, his deep sunk eyes glowing. ‘You may be right,’ he said, almost as if to himself. ‘I just happen to have a Book with me. If I show it to you, you’ll know what you’re looking for.’
‘Exactly,’ Althalus said. ‘Why don’t you trot your book out, and I’ll have a look. I don’t have to know what it says to be able to steal it, do I?’
‘No,’ Ghend agreed, ‘I guess you don’t at that.’ He rose to his feet, went over to his horse, reached inside the leather bag tied to his saddle, and took something square and fairly large out of the bag. Then he brought it back to the fire.
‘It’s bigger than I thought,’ Althalus noted. ‘It’s just a box, then, isn’t it?’
‘It’s what’s inside that’s important’, Ghend said, opening the lid. He took out a crackling sheet of something that looked like dried leather and handed it to Althalus. ‘That’s what writing looks like’, he said. ‘When you find a box like this one, you’d better open it to make sure it has sheets like that one inside instead of buttons or tools.’
Althalus held up the sheet and looked at it. ‘What kind of animal has a hide this thin?’ he asked.
‘They take a piece of cowhide and split it with a knife to get thin sheets,’ Ghend explained. ‘Then they press them flat with weights and dry them so that they’re stiff. Then they write on them so that other people can read what they’ve put down.’
‘Trust a priest to complicate things,’ Althalus said. He looked carefully at the neatly spaced lines of writing on the sheet. ‘It looks sort of like pictures, doesn’t it?’ he suggested.
‘That’s what writing is,’ Ghend explained. He took a stick and drew a curved line in the dirt beside the fire. ‘This is the picture that means “cow”,’ he said, ‘since it’s supposed to look like a cow’s horns.’
‘I thought learning to read was supposed to be difficult,’ Althalus said. ‘We’ve only been talking about it for a few minutes, and I already know how to read.’
‘As long as all you want to read about is cows,’ Ghend amended, half under his breath.
‘I don’t see anything about cows on this page,’ Althalus said.
‘You’ve got it upside down,’ Ghend told him.
‘Oh.’ Althalus turned the page and studied it for a little while. Some of the symbols carefully drawn on the parchment chilled him for some reason. ‘I can’t make any sense of this,’ he admitted, ‘but that’s not important. All I really need to know is that I’m looking for a black box with leather sheets inside.’
‘The box we want is white,’ Ghend corrected, ‘and it’s quite a bit bigger than this one.’ He held up his Book. The cover of the Book had red symbols on it, ones that chilled Althalus.
‘How much bigger than yours is the book we want?’ he asked.
‘It’s about as long and as wide as the length of your forearm,’ Ghend replied, ‘and about as thick as the length of your foot. It’s fairly heavy.’ He took the sheet of parched leather from Althalus and almost reverently put it back inside the box. ‘Well?’ he said then, ‘are you interested in the proposition?’
‘I’ll need a few more details,’ Althalus replied. ‘Just exactly where is this book, and how well is it guarded?’
‘It’s in the house at the end of the world over in Kagwher.’
‘I know where Kagwher is’, Althalus said, ‘but I didn’t know that the world ended there. Exactly where in Kagwher is this place? What direction?’
‘North. It’s up in that part of Kagwher that doesn’t see the sun in the winter and where there isn’t any night in summer.’
‘That’s a peculiar place for somebody to live.’
‘Truly. The owner of the Book doesn’t live there any more, though, so there won’t be anybody there to interfere with you when you go inside the house to steal the Book.’
‘That’s convenient. Can you give me any kind of landmarks? I can move faster if I know where I’m going.’
‘Just follow the edge of the world. When you see a house, you’ll know it’s the right place. It’s the only house up there.’
Althalus drank off his mead. ‘That sounds simple enough,’ he said. ‘Now, then, after I’ve stolen the book, how do I find you to get my pay?’
‘I’ll find you, Althalus.’ Ghend’s deep-sunk eyes burned even hotter. ‘Believe me, I’ll find you.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘You’ll do it then?’
‘I said I’ll think about it. Now, why don’t we have some more of Nabjor’s mead – since you’re the one who’s paying.’
Althalus didn’t feel very well the next morning, but a few cups of Nabjor’s mead quieted the shaking in his hands and put out the fire in his belly. ‘I’ll be gone for a while, Nabjor’, he told his friend. ‘Tell the wench with the naughty eyes that I said goodbye and that I’ll see her again someday.’
‘You’re going to do it then? Go steal that book thing for Ghend?’
‘You were listening.’
‘Of course I was, Althalus. Are you really sure you want to do this, though? Ghend kept talking about gold, but I don’t remember that he ever showed you any. It’s easy to say “gold”, but actually producing some might be a little more difficult.’
Althalus shrugged, ‘If he doesn’t pay, he doesn’t get the book.’ He looked over to where Ghend lay huddled under his excellent black wool cloak. ‘When he wakes up, tell him that I’ve left for Kagwher and that I’m going there to steal that book for him.’
‘Do you really trust him?’
‘Almost as far as I could throw him,’ Althalus replied with a cynical laugh. ‘The price he promised me sort of hints that there’ll be some fellows with long knives nearby when I demand my pay. Besides, if somebody offers to pay me to steal something for him, I’m always certain that the thing’s worth at least ten times what he’s offering me to steal it. I don’t trust Ghend, Nabjor. There were a couple of times last night after the fire had burned down when he looked at me, and his eyes were still on fire. They were glowing bright red, and the glow wasn’t a reflection. Then there was that sheet of parched leather he showed me. Most of those pictures were sort of ordinary, but some of them glowed red the same way Ghend’s eyes did. Those pictures are supposed to mean words, and I don’t think I’d like to have anybody saying those particular words to me.’
‘If you feel that way about it, why are you going to take on the job, then?’
Althalus sighed. ‘Normally I wouldn’t, Nabjor. I don’t trust Ghend, and I don’t think I like him. My luck’s turned sour on me here lately, though, so I sort of have to take what comes along – at least until fortune falls in love with me again. The job Ghend offered me is fairly simple, you know. All I have to do is go to Kagwher, find a certain empty house, and steal a white leather box. Any fool could do this job, but