THE THIEF OF KALIMAR (Graham Diamond's Arabian Nights Adventures) Page 5

  No sooner had he spoken than the crowd scattered into a dozen different directions, vanishing from sight before the soldier could have a change of heart. Even Vlashi was allowed to flee; the captain had marked him well and would know where to find him.

  Then the soldiers mounted their horses and thundered away as quickly as they had come.

  Ramagar stood watching these events until they were done and sadly shook his head. There was no doubt as to who Vlashi had accused; it could only be the same man from whom he stole the prize. And the thief, to his own surprise, found himself feeling pity for the unsuspecting beggar. He knew what would happen when the man was found; actual guilt or innocence meant little in the streets of Kalimar.

  4

  It was a sultry wind that descended on Kalimar that evening as the sun went down. It swept in low and fast from the mountains, across the plains, bringing with it thick clouds of dust that permeated the air and blew into every crevice and cranny from the palace to the Jandari.

  It was an ill omen, this hot wind, and the street people responded with shudders as they huddled behind their closely locked and guarded doors. In the streets the cohort of Inquisitors pressed on with their duty. Faces masked from the swirling dust, they marched from alley to alley, avenue to avenue, byway to byway, intent on capturing the man they sought. Long into the night their business continued, each grim step becoming more difficult. Faces harrowed, lungs aching, eyes grown red and blurry they searched. No force in Kalimar, not even the violent storm, could for a single moment deter them. One way or another they were determined to take their prisoner before the coming of the new dawn.

  In the shadows he hid, a tall figure, blending in with the undefined shapes of darkness until he appeared as no more than a shadow himself. Only a pair of small, beady eyes, cat’s eyes, were visible. Cunning, shrewd, frightened. Hour after hour they followed the obscured movements of the Inquisitors as they passed from alley to alley in their search. He heard them cough, heard them shout commands at one another, and heard them pass, unaware that he had been within their very grasp.

  Slinking his way from his hiding place, hunched low in the stance of a humble beggar, he dared at last to cross from the alley. A long hood covered his features, a rag of a kerchief served to filter the dust from his nostrils. He had lost many hours in evading the soldiers. Valuable time he was not sure he could make up. But his mission left no time for such thoughts; he must accomplish his goal, now, tonight, before it was too late. Find the pickpocket among a thousand others, single him out and regain what was his. For without it, his cherished dreams would become empty hopes—and a lifetime of planning would have been snatched away forever on the dusty, dirty streets of this wretched city that desert men called Kalimar.

  Vlashi raised himself slowly from his comfortable chair and moved to the door of the Demon’s Horn. His twenty-four-hour binge was beginning to show. Staggering, he poured the last contents of his bottle into his mouth and stepped out into the night. The wind was still howling, the dust still flying in his eyes. But the storm had eased somewhat, and he knew that calm would soon return.

  Leaning with his back to the wall he pushed down the sudden urge to vomit. He thought of the long hours spent this night in the tiny room and the pleasures they had brought. Bought was a better word; the girl had managed to wrest from him quite a few of his coins. In fact, when that expenditure was put together with the cost of his wine (the finest of the finest, naturally), Vlashi realized that the entertainment had cost almost half of his fortune. He put his hand into his pocket and frowned at the feel of the few paltry coppers. But he still had the emerald ring Ramagar had traded him, and also the gold locket. Tomorrow he would go to Oro and sell them both. Tonight, though, it was time he cleared his head enough to return to work.

  The soldiers would not bother him, he knew. So it was only a matter of finding a mark who was drunker than he was. Some poor merchant seeking the company of a woman would not be sober enough to notice when the pickpocket’s not-so-nimble fingers lifted his purse.

  Vlashi bundled up against the wind and stumbled away from the dim tavern light into the blackness of the street. The combination of foul weather and searching soldiers left the avenues nearly deserted. Normally the Street of Thieves and the Avenue of Pigs would be swarming. Tonight, all he saw was a scattering of locals. A few beggars, an occasional urchin, a group of dim-witted vagabonds fighting over a found dreg-filled bottle of cheap swill.

  The pickpocket ignored them all; preferring if not better company than none at all. For some time he walked, mostly among the arched streets which wound high and low against the hills. Once in a while he paused, as much to rest as to scrutinize some possible mark. But it seemed that luck was against him. There was not a soul worth the effort.

  Yawning, too sleepy to continue in the fruitless effort, his thoughts returned to the green-haired whore, who likely as not would still be available. Perhaps even anticipating his return. Ah, well, he ruminated, what is money if not to be spent and enjoyed? With a shrug and a sigh he turned around, content to let this night pass into oblivion. Tomorrow would be another day and—who knows?—maybe another prize to catch. This time, though, he warned himself, the master thief would not buy his wares so cheaply. Ramagar would have to pay full value—through the nose.

  Vlashi chuckled. How very much he would like to outwit Ramagar. Just once.

  Lost in his musings he was hardly aware of the beggar who set cross-legged before him at the edge of an alley.

  An open hand groped out, catching him unaware.

  “A coin, good sir. A single coin, if you please …”

  Vlashi looked down, startled. “You frightened me,” he growled. “Get out of here! Go sit under some light!”

  “Please, sir … A coin…”

  Vlashi narrowed his eyes and slid his hand under his tunic to where he kept a hidden dagger. “I told you to be gone. Now go!”

  The beggar nervously got to his feet and shuffled backward out of sight. For all he knew the pickpocket was a cutthroat and he was not about to take any chances.

  Vlashi snickered in self-importance as the man disappeared. Then, with a happy whistle upon his lips, he continued his journey back to the Demon’s Horn.

  It was a few moments later that he heard footsteps from behind. Turning, he stopped and stared at the shadowy man in rags. “You again,” he barked. “Are you following me?”

  The man stopped in his place and did not move. It took Vlashi a long time to realize that this beggar was not the same man he had encountered only minutes earlier. Vlashi squirmed. There was something about this beggar that made him uneasy. Without knowing quite why, he drew a copper from his tunic and threw it to the waiting man. “Here,” he sneered, “take it. Now go away.”

  The coin jingled loudly as it bounced on the flagstones. The beggar’s eyes followed the coin until it had stopped, but he neither made to pick it up nor to leave. Vlashi was now more afraid than before.

  “W-What do you want?” he whispered. His hand once more moved toward the unseen dagger. In all his years Vlashi had never had to use it. But something told him tonight could be different.

  The beggar came a step closer. He was a muscular man, and his bold, defiant stance was out of character for the role he played. Meeting the pickpocket’s widening gaze, he whispered, “Where is it?”

  Vlashi froze. Recognition was at last beginning to creep into his wine-dazed brain. And with recognition came terror.

  “W-W-Where is what?” he stammered. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The man in rags parted his lips in a hint of a smile. His hand reached out and grabbed Vlashi by the collar of his worn tunic. The pickpocket broke out in a cold sweat.

  “The scimitar,” hissed the man in rags. He threw his hood from his face, exposing a headful of curled blond hair that twisted over his ears and at the nape of his neck.

  Vlashi nearly passed out. “I don’t have any scimitar,” he
squealed.

  But the beggar was in no mood for the pickpocket’s games. His fist came up into Vlashi’s stomach. Vlashi wheezed and staggered and fell to the ground.

  “Now where is it?”

  “The soldiers will catch you!” Vlashi whined. “Catch you and kill you! You’re a murderer!”

  The beggar’s eyes blazed in anger. He knew well that he was being sought—sought for a crime of which he had not the slightest knowledge. He also knew who was responsible for his plight. But all that meant little to him. The scimitar was all that mattered. For that, he would face any danger, any host, any foreign army. Without it, his life had no meaning and he would just as soon succumb to Kalimar’s “justice.”

  Kneeling beside Vlashi, he pressed his thumb against the pickpocket’s right eye. Vlashi winced with pain.

  “I’ll blind you, pickpocket, if you don’t give it back to me—”

  Vlashi tried to squirm away but the beggar pushed him down hard against the ground, his free arm powerfully pinning the pickpocket and making it impossible to wriggle free. Meanwhile the thumb was applying more pressure; Vlashi could feel his eyeball squash under the weight.

  “I’ll tell you!” he moaned, tears streaming from his good eye.

  The beggar released his thumb and waited.

  Vlashi put his hand to his face and opened the eye. Its vision was blurred and dark. “I don’t have the blade any longer,” he cried. “I—I sold it—”

  The thumb resumed its work, only this time digging in an upward motion from under the eyelid, as if to gouge out the eye. Vlashi wailed. “I swear to you! I sold it! I sold your scimitar yesterday!”

  Stunned, his adversary released him. Vlashi quickly began to empty his pockets, letting the coppers roll across the ground, placing the ring and the locket at his side. “Here,” he wallowed, “this was my payment. Take it. Take it all. It’s yours, I give it to you.”

  The beggar was incredulous. Breathless and dazed, he said, “You’re telling me the truth? You actually sold it? For money?”

  Vlashi panted and nodded. A thin line of blood began to spill over his eyelids and onto his face.

  “You fool! You fool!”

  The man was in a rage. His lips and hands began to tremble with fury and Vlashi covered his head with his arms, burying himself into a ball and whimpering.

  The beggar wrenched him by the arm and sent him sprawling. Vlashi’s head hit against the stones; he tried to scramble to his feet. As he made it to his knees the beggar grabbed his neck from behind, yanked up under the pickpocket’s jaw, and slammed him against the wall.

  “Who?” he seethed, desperately trying to control his fury. “Who did you sell it to?”

  Now more than ever Vlashi felt his panic rise. If he told, Ramagar would kill him for it tomorrow. But if he didn’t tell, this deranged beggar would surely kill him for it today. He mumbled incoherently under his breath, wishing he could think a bit faster and concoct a story as he had for the soldiers.

  But the man in rags was too clever for any such ruse; twisting the pickpocket’s arm behind his back until it nearly snapped, he repeated his demand.

  “Tell me the name! Tell me the name!”

  “I sold it in a tavern,” cried Vlashi in pain. “To a thief—”

  “His name!”

  Vlashi saw stars as his head banged roughly against the stones.

  “Ramagar! I sold it to the thief called Ramagar!”

  The beggar’s breath was on his face. “And where can he be found? Where does this thief live?”

  “He has no home,” Vlashi swore truthfully. “He is of the Jandari, the alleys are his only home.”

  The beggar threw the pickpocket to the floor and stood over him with glaring eyes. “If you’ve lied to me, my gutter rat friend …”

  Vlashi shuddered. “Ramagar is … well-known. Ask, you will have no trouble in finding him.” And so, betraying his only friend, Vlashi slumped into a heap and wept, unaware that his assailant had gone back into the shadows and could no longer hear what he said.

  The door shook furiously. Mariana sat up straight at the side of the bed and put her hands to her ears. The flickering candle was nearing its end, the first light of a new dawn was little by little inching its way through the clefts and cracks of the shutters. The banging grew louder as she shook the sleep from her mind. Harsh, gravelly voices rang in her ears. “Open up! Open up at once!”

  Mariana threw her gown over her shoulders and ran to the door.

  “Who is it? Who’s there?”

  A deep resonant voice boomed in response: “King’s soldiers. Open the door or we’ll break it down!”

  Frightened, her hands trembling, she unbolted the latch. The door flew open, pushing her back and causing her to lose balance. Three husky men barged inside, each brandishing a short curved sword. Hand to her mouth, Mariana fell back against the wall. Two of the intruders paid her not the slightest bit of attention; they rummaged through the room, turning over everything in their way, pushing aside curtains, searching every inch of the floor and walls for hidden hatches and doors.

  As Mariana watched breathlessly the third of the soldiers wielded the tip of his blade before her eyes. Without hearing his voice she knew who he was. And the captain of the Inquisitors smiled grimly. “Where is he?” he demanded.

  “Where is who?”

  The wily soldier broadened his grin and Mariana shuddered as she felt his eyes poring over her. He pressed the tip of his sword lightly against the supple flesh of her breast. “Your lover. Where is Ramagar?”

  There was no way she could hide the fear in her eyes. “He’s … not here,” she replied truthfully, biting her lip to subdue her rising terror. Then she drew all her courage and lied. “I—I haven’t seen him for days.”

  The soldier applied just enough pressure on the blade so that a needle prick of blood was drawn.

  She stiffened and he snickered. His left hand reached out and gently caressed the side of her face. Her skin was a marvelous gold, softly blended against full lips and dark eyes whose quick intelligence showed even through fear. The soldier leered appreciatively. He knew her loveliness was due to natural beauty and not to the cosmetics so freely used by the more aristocratic women of Kalimar. And he recalled seeing Mariana in her dance, her lithe form twirling across sawdust floors, causing heartbeats to quicken and desire to rise while patrons sipped their honeyed wine. It was indeed a pity, he mused, that such a girl was wasted on a common thief. But then, after this day, perhaps that situation would be remedied.

  Mariana felt sickened and disgusted as his hardened fingers slipped gingerly across her mouth and played with the twisting curls at the edge of her hair. She wanted to squirm from his grasp but the feel of the blade prevented her from moving a muscle. Holding her slim, soft hands at her side, she forced herself to meet his glowering stare, and whispered, “I told you he’s not here. What do you want?”

  The soldier did not answer; he looked to his companions, who by now were busy tearing and breaking everything in sight. One of them took hold of the laced pillow at the edge of the divan and scrutinized it. Mariana held her breath. The scimitar had been carefully hidden within the feathers, the seams resewn. If he looked carefully enough he was sure to find it. Then the pillow was tossed haphazardly across the floor, and she secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Nothing here of any worth,” one soldier told the captain. “Just a lot of useless junk.” He was tinkering with her costume jewelry and frowning. The captain sheathed his sword and sighed. “All right. That’s enough.” While his men disappointedly marched from the room he returned his attention to the girl. “Best for you that the thief wasn’t with you tonight,” he snarled. “Consorting with a known criminal is a serious offense.” Here he smiled. “A very serious offense. I’d have been forced to take action.”

  Mariana stood defiant. “Not in the Jandari—”

  “Oh, no?” His face returned to its dour mask. “This time your lo
ver has outsmarted himself. And we’re going to catch him one way or another. This time Ramagar is going to pay with his head.”

  The panic was rising again, she knew. There was more afoot than she understood. Why indeed were the Inquisitors so intent on finding a mere thief? And what crime might he have committed that required his life in payment? Or could it be that they somehow knew about the scimitar?

  Wide-eyed, holding her breath, Mariana said, “What is he accused of? What has he done?”

  The captain laughed bitingly. “Murder. He’s killed a noble.”

  “But that’s impossible!” she cried. The girl was beside herself, unable to grasp what she had been told. “You’re lying! Ramagar never killed anyone!”

  It was a wicked, sly smile that crossed his lips. He knew that after tonight the dancing girl could be his for the taking. To enslave, to throw in the dungeons, or even to disfigure her brooding face so that no man would ever want to watch her dance again.

  His tone was cold and impassive. “We have a witness. The noble was murdered for his gold—and the killer was your lover.”

  Her head was spinning. “But they say a stranger murdered this noble. A foreigner. You yourself—”

  “We were deceived,” countered the captain. “Taken for fools. The beggar we sought does not exist. And the pickpocket who devised this deception will pay as dearly as your lover. We now have positive proof that Ramagar is the one who committed the crime. We have a witness whose word cannot be refuted—even in the Jandari.”

  “It’s not true!” Mariana flared. “This witness is a liar and I can prove it! Ramagar was with me yesterday. All day and all night. I’ll swear to it with my last breath.”

  He smiled thinly and cruelly, yet also with a tinge of admiration. The loyalty of the girl to her lover was without question and he would wager every copper he owned that rather than see him punished she would admit to the crime herself. But the word of a dancing girl, even if it were true, would carry little weight in the courts of Kalimar. No, the thief of thieves would have to pay, guilty or not. His cunning and wits would avail him no longer.