"What," the fence asked, "am I supposed to do with that?"
Kordel would have ground her teeth, but her jaws were already aching. "Buy it," she said evenly.
The fence merely snorted.
Kordel flared her nostrils and shot a glance at the statue on the table between them. The silver figure of a man about ten inches high was chained to a miniature table with gem-encrusted bonds. One improbably proportioned part of the man's anatomy speared skyward. His head was thrown back in what was either a shudder of ecstasy or a grimace of agony. Since he was alone on the table and his hands were chained down, Kordel rather imagined it was the latter.
"What'll you give me for it?" Kordel said through still-clenched teeth.
The fence barked a short laugh that echoed slightly about the spartan white walls of his seemingly empty shop; a wise fence kept his merchandise out of sight. Two heavy velvet curtains obscured the back room while a single window threw a hard square of light on the stone floor.
"Look, Kordel," the fence said, ignoring Kordel's glare, "you stole the statue of Sybaritus from the temple downtown. Very nice. A feather in your cap, and all that."
"Any temple with a back door deserves to be burgled," Kordel muttered.
"But," the fence continued, waggling a thin, bony finger, "this piece is ... unique. If word gets out I have it, I'm going to have a bunch of murder-minded cultists on my hands." He steepled his fingertips. "Why don't you try pulling out the gems and melting it down?"
"I thought of that four fences ago," Kordel snapped. "But the thing isn't pure silver--only gilded. And the gems are barely semi-precious."
"Figures," the fence snorted. "A fake statue for a false god." He picked idly at the gilding, then noticed which part he was picking at and quickly dropped his hand. "I've never understood the Sybarites. Marks, all of them. They 'contribute' huge sums of money for a ritual orgy when they could get the same thing up the street for one-third the cost--and that without boring mumbo-jumbo to a god Anya Nightbond created for her own profit." He clucked his tongue. "I don't understand the attraction."
)
