Into the Thinking Kingdoms by Alan Dean Foster Page A

find yourself breaking into other people’s property?”
    “No. Usually I find myself breaking out.” Simna squinted as they advanced inward. “Shit!” He jerked back sharply, then relaxed. Something small and fast skittered away into the shadows. “Just a rat.”
    There was barely enough light to allow them to find their way between high desks and wooden cabinets. A back door led to a small storeroom that was piled high with exotic goods. It smelled wonderfully of fragrant spices and packages of incense, of fine silks and cloths brought from the far corners of the world. There were jars of aromatic liquids and wooden crates bound with hammered brass and copper. Clearly Haramos bin Grue was no dealer in baskets of fish or wagonloads of vegetables. If his tastes reflected his clientele, he would be likely to have powerful friends.
    All the more reason, Ehomba knew, to conclude their business and depart as quickly as possible.
    They found the big cat at the very back of the inner storeroom, slumped on his side in a cage walled with steel bars that crisscrossed in a herringbone pattern. In the dim light Simna tiptoed forward to whisper urgently at the sleeping feline.
    “Ahlitah! It’s Etjole and Simna, come to rescue you. Get up, cat! This is no time to nap.”
    Silent as a shadow, Ehomba peered past him. “He is not sleeping. He has been drugged. It is what I would do if I had to try and keep something like a black litah under control.”
    Searching for a way in, the swordsman located a half-height door at one end of the cage. It was secured with the largest padlock he had ever seen, a veritable iron monster the size of a melon. Its dimensions did not trouble him. The fact that it took three keys to unlock it did.
    “Can you solve it?” Ehomba had never seen such a thing. The Naumkib had no need of such devices.
    “I don’t know.” Simna had his face pressed right up against the heavy appliance, trying to peer within. “The biggest problem is that the multiple locks are most likely sequenced. If I solve the wrong set of tumblers first, it could cause the others to freeze up. Then we’ll never get it open.”
    “You have to try. Which one feels like the first?”
    Employing the same small knife he had used to pick the lock on the front door, the swordsman sweated over the three keyholes, trying to decide where to begin.
    “Trust your instincts,” Ehomba advised him.
    “I would, if I were dealing with three women instead of three locks. Metal gives you no clues.” Taking a deep breath, he prepared to ease the tip of the small blade into the middle keyhole. “Might as well try here as anywhere else.”
    “A good choice. Your friend is right, swordsman. You have excellent instincts.”
    Whirling, they found themselves confronted by a wide-awake Haramos bin Grue. The trader was standing before an open portal where none had appeared to exist. He had gained entrance to the storeroom via a secret door set in a blank wall, a not uncommon conceit of suspicious merchants. In one hand he held a small lamp that threw a halo of light around him. That their nocturnal visit had caught him by surprise was proven by the fact that he stood there in his elegant one-piece sleeping gown. The fingers of his left hand were curled tightly around some small object. On his right shoulder, chittering away as madly as any pet parrot, was the scruffy, naked-tailed rat Simna had nearly tripped over in the outer offices.
    As Simna continued to fumble with the lock, a solemn-faced Ehomba turned to step between him and the trader. Oblivious to the strained confrontation, the black litah slept on.
    “We have come for our friend,” the herdsman explained quietly.
    “Have you now?” Bin Grue was not smiling. “In the middle of the night, by breaking into my rooms?”
    “A thief has no claim on the protection of the law.”
    Now the merchant did smile, a slight parting of the lips that was devoid of humor. “I thought you were an