Chapter
Seven Page 3
Life begins at sunset in Shelzar. From the cool mornings through
the blazing afternoons, trade and labor fill the city with the
raw energy of existence; but life begins at sunset.
From sunset to Bell's hour, on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams,
the city spins into a frenzy of life, light, music and dance.
Street vendors pull back their carts filled with pottery and
fabrics, and in their place street performers juggle rings of
fire, tumble on ropes, and play the music that causes laughter.
While the boulevards fill up with those seeking distraction
and release, other parts of Shelzar enjoy more refined entertainments,
and still others simply wait out the dark hours, so that labor
and wages can be made again.
Mac Anu adjusted the beggar's sash, making sure the copper
chip Crystalis gave him bounced enough to catch the eye. "Begging
is good business in Shelzar", Crystalis told him in the
Hanging Halfling while sipping a beer. "Get caught begging
out there without a chip, and you might get a broken hand for
your troubles." She saw his expression and warned "don't
take those beggars lightly. They are dangerous. Very dangerous.
Keep the chip visible on your sash."
He didn't like the threat directed at his hands. Rubart, one
of the drifters who raised him, once told him; "You need
to pay attention to the way people talk lad. You hear a guy
talk about breaking legs, he might be tough; he might just be
talking. But you hear a guy talking about snapping knee caps;
you need to be careful around him. Cause he knows his business.
Some call it trade talk if you wish, but what ever you want
to call it, when you hear a guy using it as part of his natural
language, pay attention, especially when his trade is the dismemberment
of humans."
A threat at his hands was a threat directed at rogues particularly.
A class of people who required their hands to make a living,
and for whom, the delicate feelings communicated through fingertips
meant the difference between getting the pot of gold, or becoming
a blood spot.
The Calastian Embassy structure was the closest, in architecture,
to a garrison that Shelzar had from the time of the great wars.
Mac Anu's experience in Darakeene told him the building barely
qualified as a military structure, though in contrast to the
open gardens and spires of the rest of the buildings around
him, it was closed and formal. A building with three stories,
four sides, and the look of a woman's jewelry box, the one she
keeps her every-day jewelry in.
Lasher's plan was fairly simple. Lasher and Crystalis were
going in a side door. Naill and Mac Anu were to create a distraction.
Tunk would be on the exit path, ready to back them up if trouble
was on their heels.
