The outburst had won him only a measure of his length in the street, yet Pinnatte had never forgotten the despair and pain that had shone briefly through the old man’s bleary eyes. The memory returned to him whenever green crystals were spoken of. It was with him now. And in a way he could not define, it chimed with the cry that The Kyrosdyn had uttered when his purse was snatched – there had been a fearful despair in it.

He shook his head to dispel these thoughts. This was no time to be daydreaming. He must pay attention to what was happening about him. Was he still being sought? Had his flight and the pursuit been sufficient to let loose the Cry?

He paused momentarily, ostensibly looking at the fruit on a stall but, in reality, listening, and debating his next move. The Street was noisy, but the tension he had sensed when he emerged from the alley was no longer there. The pursuit had either ended or gone off in another direction. He let out a long, silent breath. He’d been lucky there. Luckier than he deserved. He resolved to be more careful in future – it was the third time that month he had made such a resolution. Even as he was reaffirming this oath however, he saw his hand about to slip an apple into his pocket. With an effort he stopped it and conspicuously replaced the apple on the stall. He’d have to steal something else to eat, later.

‘Don’t maul ‘em if you’re not buying,’ the stall-holder barked by way of acknowledgement. Pinnatte bit back a retort, but could not avoid curling his lip at the man as he rejoined the crowd.

Still a little unnerved by his escape, he wandered aimlessly for some time. Although he was calmer now, scenes kept playing themselves through his head, showing him talking his way out of the clutches of the Kyrosdyn and his bodyguard with ingenious and quite convincing excuses, or somehow dashing them both aside and escaping with the purse to become the most famous of Arash-Felloren’s thieves. In the wake of these came endless, wilder variations and, even though he tried to dismiss them as so much foolishness, Pinnatte could not help himself but rehearse each to a nicety.