Luthim left, bowing in haste.
Mama’s latest boarder. Moruth pondered the idea, hands clasped on his knees,
smiling and frowning at oruce because any link between his home territory and
the hawkmasks he hunted made him uneasy. There was, in the dark, on the back
side of the door, a mask pinned with an iron nail, and there was blood on it
that had dried like rust in the daylight; but only those that came to this shack
and had the door closed on them could see it. It was a joke of sorts. Moruth had
a sense of humor, like his half-brother Tygoth shambling along the alleys by
Mama’s, rapping his stick and mumbling slackwitted nonsense. He had one now, and
ordered Luth-im himself followed: the urchin was summoned to the door and given
a message to take.
So Tygoth would know.
“Good night,” Moruth told his lieutenant, and the man closed the shutters and
the door, leaving him his darkness and his sleep.
But he kept rocking and thinking, pondering this and that, shifting pieces on
his mental map of Downwind alleys, remembering this and that favor owed, and how
to collect.
Hawkmasks died, and either they were loyal (which seemed unlikely) or ignorant
where Jubal lay, even in extremity. He had had three so far. The one nailed to
the door had told him most, where these two lodged; but so far he had not
pounced. He knew the homes and haunts of others.
And suddenly the trail doubled back again, to Mama’s, to his own territory. He
was not amused.
* * *
And just the other side of the bridge, in a curious gardened house with well