Jimmy the Hand by Raymond E. Feist, S. M. Stirling

there.’
    Leaning closer,
Jimmy asked, ‘Did you ever hear of anyone escaping?’
    The old beggar
began to giggle and wag a filthy finger at him. ‘Whatsa matta?
Jocko steal yer sweetie?’
    Jimmy made his
eyes hard. ‘You’ve only got three teeth left, Neville,’
he pointed out. ‘Do you want me to break ‘em for you?’
    Fast as a
striking snake the old man’s hand grabbed Jimmy’s arm
with shocking strength.
    ‘Like to
see you try it, I would,’ he snarled. ‘Little brat.’
He flung the young thief’s arm away from him. ‘Think I
stayed alive this long by accident? Maybe Lims-Kragma, the great
goddess of death, forgot about me? That what ya think? Hah! Stupid
brat.’ He spat to the side.
    Jimmy assumed
from that that the old man was still willing to earn his silver. If
he’d finished talking Neville probably would have spat on him. And then I’d have had to kill the old bastard. Or
himself. The idea of being spat on by Noxious Neville was that
revolting.
    ‘Did you,’
Jimmy repeated evenly, ‘ever hear of anyone escaping?’
    The old man
looked aside, shaking his head and waving the question away.
    ‘Is there
any way in or out that the guards don’t watch?’ Jimmy
asked desperately.
    ‘Only
thing I know about is the drain in the floor of the big cell.’
He chuckled, giving Jimmy an evil look. ‘But you wouldn’t
like that, it’s the hole we pissed in.’
    Jimmy just
stared at him, thinking hard. No, he didn’t like it, but it
might have possibilities.
    ‘This
drain, it leads directly to the sewers?’ he asked. ‘Or
does the keep have a separate outfall to the harbour?’
    Neville laughed
again and Jimmy reflected that the old coot was getting a lot more
pleasure out of this conversation than he should be.
    ‘How
should I know?’ Neville demanded. ‘Ye think I follow me
piss to see where it goes? The hole’s only this big!’ He
held his hands up to indicate a circle the size of a dinner plate and
Jimmy’s heart sank again.
    ‘Hey!’
Neville said and gave the boy a poke. ‘Maybe the Upright Man
knows a way out of the prison. Why don’t ye ask him?’ And
he laughed wildly.
    The young thief
rose and started to walk away.
    ‘Hey!’
the beggar screeched. ‘Where’s my money?’ He held
out a skinny hand.
    Jimmy flipped
him the single silver he’d first offered.
    ‘Hey!’
Noxious Neville cried. ‘Yer s’posed to gi’ me more!
That was the bargain.’
    “The
bargain,’ Jimmy said coldly, ‘was that if I thought your
information was worth more, I’d give you more. Give me
something I can use.’
    The old man made
grumbling noises and glared at him, but something made Jimmy wait.
‘Leads to the sewers,’ Neville finally conceded. ‘But
the tunnel’s half caved in, ain’t safe.’
    ‘And the
drain?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Can someone get down there?’
    Neville turned
his head this way and that, as though protesting the continued
questioning, then he nodded. ‘Drain used to be bigger,’
he admitted. ‘Filled it in a bit wi’ bits of stone and
mortar they did. Shaft’s big enough for someone skinny. Give it
a coupla good kicks and the drain’ll fall open, big enough for
someone to crawl down if’n he don’t have too much girth.’
    Light broke in
Jimmy’s mind and he stared at the old beggar. ‘You’ve
used it!’ he accused. ‘You used that shaft to escape!’
    Neville broke
out in a flurry of crazed motions meant to indicate go away and
leave me alone or there’ll be trouble— a move he’d
perfected over a long career of dealing with the public.
    Jimmy stabbed a
finger at him, unimpressed. ‘Stop it!’ He glared until
the old man settled down and glared back at him. ‘Now,’
he said evenly, ‘tell me what I want to know and if it turns
out to be the truth, I’ll give you this.’ He flashed a
gold coin for a fraction of a second. ‘If it turns out you’re
lying, you get nothing.’
    A gold coin was
a fortune to a man like Neville; it would get him