"Briggs, Patricia - Sianim 3 - When Demons Walk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Briggs Patricia)

protection of the shadows. With luck it would be months before anyone discovered the theft. She hoped
no one blamed some poor servant, but that was their business and none of hers.

This time she merely waved at the guard as she trotted past him, seemingly intent on the message she
carried back to her employer. By the time a week was gone, he’d never remember her at all.

She retrieved her bundle of clothing and stopped in the alley that marked the edge of the unofficial
but understood border of Purgatory. Quickly she exchanged the expensive silk for worn cotton pants, a
baggy shirt, and a stained leather jerkin that disguised her sex much more reliably than the courier’s garb.
The undershirt, with its pockets, she left on.

For most people, walking at night in Purgatory was a dangerous proposition. But Sham’s face was
known and stealing from a mage was sure to bring ill luck to the thieves. That was protection enough
from the Southwood natives, who already had more bad luck than they needed.

Like the rest of the Easterners who had come after the initial attack on Southwood, the Cybellian
gutter-thugs generally did not believe in magic. But they were wary enough of her skill with the knife or
dagger that they didn’t attempt the well-known emptiness of her purse and pockets. If any of them had
realized she was female, it might have been different.

Sham walked a while to make sure that no one followed her, casually nodding to one acquaintance
and exchanging warm insults with another. As she came down the hill to the old docks, she used her
magic to gather the shadows to her until they hid her from a casual glance.

It was strangely quiet at the docks without the constant murmurs that the waves usually made even in
the calmest time. The sea was at Spirit Tide, leaving a mile-wide stretch of wet, debris-covered sand well
below the lowest of the cliff tops.

The daily tides dropped the ocean level mere feet down the timbers of the docks and allowed only
the tops of the cliffs to be exposed to the air. Only once each month did the Spirit Tide expose the pale
stretch of beach for a tenth part of a day. One month it would fall during the night and the next during the
day.

The support pillars of the docks rose high into the air, backlit by moonlight. The barnacles that
covered them were drying for the few short hours that the tide was out. Years of salt water and tides had
marred the thick wooden posts, and neglect had left the upper surface laced with missing and rotting
boards.

The long expanse of beach was covered with the litter of the ocean; barrels and broken bits of refuse
lay between the cracked shells and swollen remains of sea denizens. Once in a while, the broken timbers
of a ship that the sea had taken would appear, only to be washed out with the next turn of the tide. Once,


it was said, an ancient gold-laden vessel had washed up on the desolate weed-covered sands, and the
king of Southwood had used the precious metal to form the great doors of the Castle.

Stories were told of the dead who walked the beach, searching for their loved ones to the creaking
of the drying dock-timbers. There was enough truth in that to keep the beach clear of all but the most
desperate slum-scavenger at night. By the light of day, the sands of Spirit Beach were fair hunting for all
who were willing to fight with their fellow thugs for what treasures the sea had left behind.