With a shriek and a horrid jolt that made him cry out, the sorcerous thing vanished. So did the pain in Hanse’s arm and the mark there. Yet his glance showed him a satisfying smear of blood on the dagger’s silver- inlaid blade. Pouncing to take up the unconscious Notable, Shadow- spawn ran.
I didn’t name Strick a high enough price!
Emerging like the shadow of a ghost into the Lily Garden, he ducked an amorously entwined couple who never saw him. A downward glance showed him that the big heavy cat in his arms had one eye slitted open. It gazed greenly up at him.
“Oh, Notable, you omery faker! See who gets the beer after this night’s work!”
Notable made a distinctly unpleasant remark. Hanse tarried to be cute with the Lily Garden’s proprietor, Amoli, but not for long.
A few minutes after his departure, Amoli was bustling along the tunnel to tell Marype a few things . . .
Early Anenday morning Strick himself arrived at the home ofNadeesh the leech. Using the earring with its brown-stained post, Strick easily “cured” the physician- Nadeesh upheld his bargain: he agreed to sell the Vulgar Unicorn (which he wanted to get rid of anyhow!) to Strick tiFiraqa. Strick kept the sorcerer’s box and the few strands of human hair. Marype’s hair.
“There, Snapper Jo. Do you have any further doubts that I have power over you?”
The cowering demon shook its hideous head.
“Good,” the new owner of the Vulgar Unicorn said. “You’ve just been replaced. Go find other employment.”
By the following night a native Ilsigi had been installed as night bar- man at the Vulg; seeing that former carpenter Abohorr had lost a digit, everyone immediately delighted in calling him One-Thumb. Later that evening those same patrons were astonished and proud to see in their favorite haunt here in the very heart of the Maze: the white spellmaster Strick and Lady Esaria (with two bodyguards, of course). They seemed to have a nice time. Even drunks were sensible enough to say nothing untoward to the spellmaster’s lady.