to return so early. Well, we must climb up the pull-ropes. I hope you’re up to
it.’
‘Better than you, fat one,’ Masha said.
He smiled. ‘We’ll see.’
Masha, however, pulled herself up faster than he. She had to climb up onto the
beam to which the wheel was attached and then crawl along it and swing herself
down into the entrance. Smhee caught her as she landed on the edge, though she
didn’t need his help. They were in a hallway the walls of which were hung with
costly rugs and along which was expensive furniture. Oil lamps gave an adequate
illumination.
‘Now comes the hard part,’ he said between deep breaths. ‘There is a staircase
at each end of this hall. Which leads to the mage?’
‘I’d take that one,’ she said, pointing.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t exactly know why. I just feel that it’s the right one.’ He smiled,
saying, ‘That’s as good a reason as any for me. Let’s go.’ Their hands against
each other inside their voluminous sleeves, but holding daggers, the hoods
pulled out to shadow their faces, they walked up the stairs. These curved to end
in another hall, even more luxuriously furnished. There were closed doors along
it, but Smhee wouldn’t open them.
‘You can wager that the mage will have a guard or guards outside his apartment.’
They went up another flight of steps in time to see the back of a Raggah going
down the hall. At the corner, Masha looked around it. No one in sight. She
stepped out, and just then a Raggah came around the corner at the right-hand end
of the hall. She slowed, imperceptibly, she hoped, then resumed her stride. She