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Fable From a Cage [MultiFormat]
eBook by Tim Pratt
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$1.09 |
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$0.93 |
eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: A thief stumbles across a buried treasure, but finds trouble instead of wealth when he releases a mysterious woman imprisoned with the riches. The woman has an old grudge and lethal magic, and she needs the thief's assistance to complete her long-delayed revenge ... whether the thief is willing to help her or not. This story was selected for inclusion in The Year's Best Fantasy 4.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Realms of Fantasy, 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2004
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [287 KB], eReader (PDB) [42 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [29 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [27 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [85 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [98 KB], hiebook (KML) [78 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [61 KB], iSilo (PDB) [24 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [31 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [59 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [44 KB]
Words: 9346
Reading time: 26-37 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
Let me tell you a little fable, a story I crafted while sitting inside this dangling cage, where the rooks shit on me and steal my bread all day, and the smoke from your town fires stings my eyes all night.
Did you know the owls feed me? They bring me rats, mice, squirrels, and I eat them. That's why I haven't died yet. I'll never die, not here, wait all you like. My fable? Yes. Oh, yes. It will, most assuredly, have a moral. Hunker down and listen for it, boys. * * * *Once there was a thief who wandered in this country, passing from valley to valley in the night, loosening the ropes on cows and leading them away to sell in another town. He lifted bags of fruit from wagons, he picked up things that others put down. He was not a brigand, understand--he did not knock down defenseless women, he did not swagger with a looted sword on his hip, he did not terrorize the roads; indeed, he traveled between the roads more than on them. His crimes were all crimes of opportunity, but for an observant man, there are many opportunities for crime. Not a brigand, no, but also nothing so grand as a burglar or a master thief. For there are men who can be like artists of the criminal trades, and this thief had known such men, but he did not compare to them. His was a lonely life, always running from one village to another, and he wondered sometimes how he had come to live in such a way--he, who had been born in the city. Oh, yes, the city, you greedy little shits, look how your eyes widen and the drool falls from your lips. This thief had been born in the city, son of a banker, and he might have had a nice life there if he hadn't dallied with the daughter of a ship's captain ... but that is a different story, and not a fable at all--not a moral tale, in any sense, my young ones. So this thief--who had a fine black beard, his one vanity, a beard as fine as mine was before this month without trimming--had fallen on hard times. He was down to his last coins, and his fine clothes (lifted from a tailor's shop, and almost exactly the right size) were stained from trying to steal a pig the night before, an act below even his usual flexible standards.
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