better and possibly without peer. He was good at slipping in by high-set
windows, too.
His colouring and clothing were for the night, and shadows. They were old
friends, he and shadows.
He did not slip. He ascended. He muscled himself atop the broad wall of the
Governor’s Palace, of Sanctuary. Unerringly, he stepped through the crenel, the
embrasure between two merlons like blunt lower teeth. And he was at home, in
shadow.
Now, he gazed upon the palace itself; the palace of the golden prince sent out
from Ranke to (pretend to) govern Sanctuary. The thief smiled, but with his
mouth closed. Here there were tigers in the form of guards, and young teeth
would flash even in this most wan of moonlight. That precaution was merely part
of his competence.
At that, he had lived only about a score of years. He was not sure whether he
was nineteen or twenty or a bit older. No one was sure, in this anile town the
conquering Rankans called Thieves’ World. Perhaps his mother knew – certainly
not the father he had never known and whom she had known casually, for this
thief was a bastard by birth and often, even usually, by nature – but who knew
who or where his mother was?
Below, within the wall lay ancillary buildings and a courtyard the size of a
thoroughfare or a small community common, and guards. Across, just over there,
rose the palace. Like him it was a shadow, but it loomed far more imposing.
He had broken into it once before. Or rather he had previously gained nocturnal
entry in manner clandestine, for that other time he had help. A gate had been