Chapter fourIn a fetid alley in an unpleasant part of the city Naghan the Chik used his knife to cut the ropes from my wrists. There had been no alternative back in their hideout. I had been blindfolded and bound and led off along twisting alleys and up and down narrow steps so that all direction was lost. I’d not find my way back there easily. Naghan showed me his knife. He shoved it under my nose. “That’s for your eyes, one after the other. Then your throat, shint. Best you do not fail Kei-Wo the Dipensis.” “The Chik’s knife is very deadly,” quoth another of the thieves, a runt of a fellow with a yellow-scarred jaw and bad teeth, called Ping. The knife was not a terchick, the throwing knife of my clansfolk of the Great Plains of Segesthes, being heavier and, if my eye did not deceive