The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [3]
Lilly's pace slowed. Her weariness returned, magnified by the fading dream until she felt as if she were running through water. She awoke abruptly and found herself still sitting on the edge of her sagging cot, staring at her own too-familiar reflection in the mirror that was no longer good enough for some unknown noblewoman.
Lilly stared bleakly at the image revealed in the scratched and faded glass. Gone were the silk and jewels. She was a serving wench once again, clad in a drab skirt of linsey-woolsey and a low-laced chemise that was too vigorously scrubbed and neatly pressed to be truly tawdry. Her eyes were wide and dark in her face, and the deep circles of exhaustion beneath her eyes and the impossible dreams within made them look as bruised as trod-upon pansies. One white-knuckled, grimy little hand clutched the dream sphere, which was now dull and milky, utterly and irrevocably drained of magic.
With a sigh, Lilly set aside the spent dream sphere and reached for a shawl. She draped the dark material over her bright hair and then hurried down the creaky back stairs toward the alley. Her feet nimbly avoided the loose boards, the spots that would draw groans of complaint from the ancient wood.
With a grim smile, she remembered the sweeping marble staircase that the dream sphere had shown her, the click of her delicate slippers as she fled the hall. In real life she was as silent as a shadow. That was the first skill a thief learned, and those who failed to do so rarely survived childhood.
Lilly didn't like her work, but she did it well. After all, a girl had to live. In a few nights more, she could enjoy another respite from the Dock Ward. In the meanwhile this was her life, and like it or not, she had to get on with it.
Her first mark was easy enough. A fat warehouse guard sprawled in the alley behind the Pickled Fisherman. His head was propped up on a discarded crate and his jowls vibrated with the force of each grating, ale-soaked snore. Lilly slid a practiced eye over him, then drew a knife from her pocket and dropped into a crouch. A single deft flick opened the worn leather of his boot, sending a few unspent coppers spilling into the street. She gathered them up and slipped them into her pocket as she stood.
She melted into the mist and shadows that clung to the alley wall as she considered her next move. A circle of greasy lamplight marked the alley's end. Beyond that, the distant murmur of voices and laughter from the Soaring Pegasus tavern suddenly swelled as the door opened for what was certainly the last time that night. The congenial babble spilled out into the street and then broke apart, as tavern mates took their leave of each other to stride or stumble off into the night. Lilly's experience indicated good odds that at least one of them would come her way.
The barmaid and thief pressed herself into the slim crevice between two stone buildings. Before long, a single set of footsteps began to tap along the cobblestone toward her.
A man, she surmised from the sound, and not a very large one. He wore new boots with the hard leather soles that marked the work of expensive cobblers. The uneven rhythm of his steps proclaimed that he'd imbibed enough to leave him tangle-footed, but he was still sober enough to whistle a popular ballad, more or less on tune.
Lilly nodded with satisfaction. One drunken man a night was her limit; robbing them was poor sport indeed. She drew a small, hooked knife from her pocket and waited for her mark to amble past.
And worth the wait he was! Richly dressed and fairly jingling with coin-a wealthy guildsman, or perhaps one of the merchant nobility. Lilly started to reach for the purse that swung from his belt.
"Maurice? Ah, there you are, you hopeless rogue!"
The voice came from the alley's end. It was female, dark with some exotic accent, full of laughter and flirtation and the sort of confidence that came only with wealth and beauty.