Tales From the Vulgar Unicorn Part 18

As the round-rumped eunuch sauntered off, Tempus decided the Vulgar Unicorn would do as well as any place to sit and sniff krrf and wait for his leg to finish healing. It ought to take about an hour - unless Vashanka was more angry at him than he estimated, in which case it might take a couple of days.

Shying from that dismal prospect, he pursued diverse thoughts. But he fared little better. Where he was going to get another horse like the one he had lost, he could not conjecture, any more than he could recall the exact moment when the last dissolving wisps of Vashanka's Weaponshop blurred away into the mists of dawn.

SHADOW'S p.a.w.n.

By Andrew J. Offutt

She was more than attractive and she walked with head high in pride and awareness of her womanhood. The bracelet on her bare arm flashed and seemed to glow with that brightness the G.o.ds reserve for polished new gold. She should have been walking amid bright lights illuminating the dancing waters of a fountain, turning its sparkling into a million diamonds and, with the aid of a bit of refraction, colourful other gemstones as well.

There was no fountain down here by the fish market, and the few lights were not bright. She did not belong here. She was stupid to be here, walking unescorted so late at night. She was stupid. Stupidity had its penalties; it did not pay.

Still, the watching thief appreciated the stupidity of others. It did pay; it paid him. He made his living by it, by his own cleverness and the stupidity of others. He was about to go to work. Even at the reduced price he would receive from a changer, that serpent-carved bracelet would feed him well. It would keep him, without the necessity of more such hard work as this d.a.m.nable lurking, waiting, for - oh, probably a month.

Though she was the sort of woman men looked upon with l.u.s.t, the thief would not have her. He did not see her that way. His l.u.s.t was not carnal. The waiting thief was no rapist. He was a businessman. He did not even like to kill, and he seldom had to. She pa.s.sed the doorway in whose shadows he lurked, on the north side of the street.

'G'night Praxy, and thanks again for all that beer,' he called to no one, and stepped out onto the planking that bordered the street. He was ten paces behind the quarry. Twelve. 'Good thing I'm walking - I'm in no condition to ride a horse t'night!' Fourteen paces.

Laughing giddily, he followed her. The quarry.

She reached the corner of the deserted street and turned north, onto the Street of Odours. Walking around two sides of the Serpentine! She was stupid. The dolt had no business whatever with that fine bracelet. Didn't have proper respect for it. Didn't know how to take care of it. The moment she rounded the corner, the thief stepped off the boardwalk onto the unpaved street, squatted to s.n.a.t.c.h up his shoes the moment he stepped out of them, and ran.

Just at the intersection he stopped as if he had run into a wall, and dropped the shoes. Stepped into them. Nodded affably, drunkenly to the couple who came around off Stink Street - slat and slattern wearing three coppers' worth of clothing and four of 'jewellery'. He stepped onto the planking, noting that they noted little save each other. How nice. The Street of Odours was empty as far as he could see. Except for the quarry.

'Uhh,' he groaned as if in misery. 'Lady,' he called, not loudly. 'My lady?' He slurred a little, not overdoing. Five paces ahead, she paused and looked back.

'H-h.e.l.lp,' he said, right hand clutching at his stomach.

She was too stupid to be down here alone at this time of night, all right. She came back! All solicitous she was, and his hand moved a little to the left and came out with a flat-bladed knife while his left hand clamped her right wrist, the unbraceleted one. The point of the knife touched the knot of her expensive cerulean sash.

'Do not scream. This is a throwing knife. I throw it well, but I prefer not to kill. Unless I have to, understand.me? All I want is that nice little snake you're wearing.'

'Oh!' Her eyes were huge and she tucked in her belly, away from the point of several inches of dull-silvery leaf-shape he held to her middle. 'It-it was a gift...'

'I will accept it as a gift. Oh you are smart, very smart not to try yelling. I just hate to have to stick pretty women in the belly. It's messy, and it could give this end of town a bad name. I hate to throw a knife into their backs, for that matter. Do you believe me?'

Her voice was a squeak: 'Yes.'

'Good.' He released her wrist and kept his hand outstretched, palm up. 'The bracelet then. I am not so rude as to tear such a pretty bauble off a pretty lady's pretty wrist.'

Staring at him as if entranced, she backed a pace. He flipped the knife, caught it by the tip. His left palm remained extended, a waiting receptacle. The right hefted the knife in a throwing att.i.tude and she swiftly twisted off the bracelet. Better than he had thought, he realized with a flash of greed and gratification; the serpent's eyes appeared to be nice topazes! All right then, he'd let her keep the expensive sash.

She did not drop the bracelet into his palm; she placed it there. Nice hard cold gold, marvellously weighty. Only slightly warmed from a wrist the colour of burnt sienna. Nice, nice. Her eyes leaped, flickered in fear when he flipped the knife to catch it by its leather-wrapped tang. It had no hilt, to keep that end light behind the weighted blade.

'You see?' he said, showing teeth. 'I have no desire for your blood, understand me? Only this bauble.'

The bracelet remained cold in his palm and when it moved he jerked his hand instinctively. Fast as he was he was only human, not a striking serpent; the bracelet, suddenly become a living snake, drove its fangs into the meaty part of his hand that was the inner part of his thumb. It clung, and it hurt. Oh it hurt.

The thief's smile vanished with his outcry of pain. Yet he saw her smile, and even as he felt the horror within him he raised the throwing knife to stab the filthy b.i.t.c.h who had trapped him.

That is, he tried to raise the knife, tried to shake his bitten hand to which the serpent clung. He failed. Almost instantly, the bite of that unnatural snake ossified every bone and bit of cartilage in his body and, stiffly, Gath the thief fell down dead.

His victim, still smiling, squatted to retrieve her property. She was shivering in excitement. She slipped the cold hard bracelet of gold onto her wrist. Its eyes, cold hard stones, scintillated. And a tremor ran all through the woman.

Her eyes glittered and sparkled.

'Oooohh,' she murmured with a shiver, all trembly and tingly with excitement and delight. 'It was worth every piece of silver I paid, this lovely bauble from that lovely shop. I'm really glad it was destroyed. Those of us who bought these weapons of the G.o.d are so unique.' She was trembling, excitement high in her and her heart racing with the thrill of danger faced and killing accomplished, and she stroked the bracelet as if it were a lover.

She went home with her head high in pride and continuing excitement, and she was not at all happy when her husband railed at her for being so late and seized her by the left wrist. He went all bright eyed and stiff and fell down dead. She was not at all happy. She had intended to kill only strangers for the thrill of it, those who deserved it. Somewhere, surely, the G.o.d Vashanka smiled.

'The G.o.d-d.a.m.ned city's in a mess and busy as a kicked anthill and I think you had more than a whit to do with it,' the dark young man said. (Or was he a youth? Street-wise and tough and hooded of eyes and wearing knives as a courtesan wore gems. Hair blacker than black and eyes nearly so above a nose almost meant for a bird of prey.) ' "G.o.d-d.a.m.ned" city, indeed,' said the paler, discomfitingly tall man, who was older but not old, and he came close to smiling. 'You don't know how near you are to truth, Shadowsp.a.w.n.'

Around them in the charcoal dimness others neither heard nor were overheard. In this place, the trick was not to be overheard. The trick was to talk under everyone else. A bad tavern with a bad reputation in a bad area of a nothing town, the tavern called the Vulgar Unicorn was an astonishingly quiet place.

'Just call me Hanse and stop being all cryptic and fatherly,' the dark young man said. 'I'm not looking for a father. I had one - I'm told. Then I had Cudget Swearoath. Cudget told me all I -all he knew.'

The other man heard; 'fatherly' used to mean 'patronizing', and the flash of ego in the tough called Shadowsp.a.w.n. Chips on his shoulders out to here. The other man did not smile. How to tell Hanse how many Hanses he had known, over so many years?

'Listen. One night a while ago I killed. Two men.' Hanse did not lower his voice for that statement-not-admission; he kept it low. The shadow of a voice.

'Not men, Hanse. Hawk-masks. Jubal's bravoes. Hardly men.'

'They were men, Tempus. They were all men. So is Hanse and even Kadaki - the prince-governor.'

'Kitty-Cat.'

'I do not call him that,' Hanse said, with austerity. Then he said, 'It's you I'm not sure of, Tempus. Are you a man?'

'I'm a man,' Tempus said, with a sigh that seemed to come from the weight of decades and decades. 'Tonight I asked you to call me Thales. Go ahead, Hanse.

You killed two men, while helping me. Were you, by the way? Or were you lurking around my horse that night thinking of laying hands on some krrf?'

'I use no drugs and little alcohol.'

'That isn't what I asked,' Tempus said, not bothering to refute.

Dark eyes met Tempus's, which impressed him. 'Yes. That is why I was there, T Thales. Why "Thay-lees"?'

'Since all things are presently full of G.o.ds, why not "Thales"? Thank you, Hanse. I appreciate your honesty. We can -'

'Honesty?' A man, once well built and now wearing his chest all over his broad belt and bulging under it as well, had been pa.s.sing their small round table.

'Did I hear something about Hanse's honesty? Hanse?' His laugh was a combination: pushed and genuine.

The lean youth called Shadowsp.a.w.n moved nothing but his head. 'How'd you like a hole in your middle to let out all that hot air, Abohorr?'

'How'd you like a third eye, Abohorr?' Hanse's tablemate said.

Abohorr betook himself elsewhere, muttering - and hurrying. Both Hanse's lean swift hands remained on the tabletop. 'You know him, Thales?'

'No.'

'You heard me say his name and so you said it right after me.'

'Yes.'

'You're sharp, Thales. Too ... smart.' Hanse slapped the table's surface. 'I've been meeting too many sharp people lately. Sharp as...' .

'Knives,' Tempus said, finishing the complaint of a very very sharp young man.

'You were mentioning that you were waiting for me to come out of that house-not home, Hanse, because you knew I was carrying. And then Jubal's bravoes attacked - me -and you took down two.'

'I was mentioning that, yes.' Hanse developed a seemingly genuine interest in his brown-and-orange Saraprins mug. 'How many men have you killed, Thales?'

'Oh G.o.ds. Do not ask.'

'Many.'

'Many, yes.'

'And no scars on you.'

Tempus looked pained. 'No scars on me,' he said, to his own big hands on the table. Bronzed, they were still more fair than Shadowsp.a.w.n's. On a sudden thought, he looked up and his expression was of dawning revelation and disbelief. 'Hanse? You saved my life that night. I saved yours - but they were after me to begin with. Hanse? How many men have you killed?'

Hanse looked away. Hair like a raven, nose of a young falcon. Profile carved out by a hand-axe sharper than a barber's razor, all planes and angles. A pair of onyxes for eyes, and just that hard. His look away was uncharacteristic and Tempus knew it. Tempus worked out of the palace and had access to confidential reports, one of which not even the prince-governor had seen. He wouldn't, either, because it no longer existed. Too, Tempus had dealt with this sp.a.w.n of Downwind and the shadows. He was here in this murkily-lit tavern of humanity's dregs to deal with him again.

Hanse, looking away, said, 'You are not to tell anyone.'

Tempus knew just what to say. 'Do not insult me again.'

Hanse's nod was not as long as the thickness of one of his knives. (Were there five, or did he really wear a sixth on one of his thighs? Tempus doubted that; the strap wouldn't stay up.) At last Hanse answered the question. 'Two.'

Two men. Tempus nodded, sighing, pushing back to come as close to slumping on his bench as his kind of soldier could. Damp. Who would have thought it? The reputation he had, this dark surly scary (to others, not the man currently calling himself Tempus) youth from the gutters he doubtless thought he had risen so far above. Tempus knew he had wounded a man or two, and he had a.s.sumed. Now Shadowsp.a.w.n said he had never slain! That, from such a one, was an admission.

Because of me he has been blooded, Tempus mused, and the weary thought followed: Well, he's not the first. I had my first two, once. I wonder who they were, and where? (But he knew, he knew. A man did not forget such.

Tempus was older than anyone thought; he was not as world-weary old as he thought, or thought he thought.) Just now he wanted to put forth a hand and touch the much younger man. He certainly did not.

He said, 'How do you feel about it?'

Hanse continued to gaze a.s.siduously at something else. How could a child of the desert with such long long lashes and that sensuous, almost pretty mouth look so grim and thin-lipped? 'I threw up.'

'That proves you are human and is what you did. How do you feel about it?'

Hanse looked at him directly. After a time, he shrugged.

'Yes,' Tempus sighed, nodding. He drained his cup. Raised a right arm on high and glanced in the general direction of the tap. The new nightman nodded. Though he had not looked at the fellow, Tempus lowered his arm and looked at Hanse. 'I understand,' he said.

'Do you. A while ago I told the prince that it is a prince's business to kill, not a thief's. Now I have killed.'

'What a wonderful thing to say to a bit of royalty! I wish you weren't so serious right now, so I could laugh aloud. Do not expect any gentle words from me about the kills, my friend. It happens. I didn't ask for your help - or for you to be waiting for me. You won't do that again.'

'Not that way, no.' Hanse leaned back while whatever-his-name-was (they called him 'Two-Thumb') set two newly-filled mugs between them. He did not take the other two, or wait for payment. 'I think things started when Bourne ... died, and you came to Thieves' World.'

'Thieves' World?'

Again that almost-embarra.s.sed shrug. 'It's what we call Sanctuary. Some of us.

Now the whole city's in a mess and a turmoil and I think you have to do with that.'

'I believe you said that.'

'You led me astray, "Thales". That temple or store or whatever it was. It ...

collapsed? - erupted, like a volcano? Something. Next the prince-'

'You really do respect him, don't you?'

'I don't work for him though,' Hanse pointed out; Tempus did. 'He impounded the ... the G.o.d-weapons? - that place sold, or _ tried to. h.e.l.l Hounds paying people for things they bought - or else! Things! New wealth in the city, because some of them had been stolen and now are bought from thieves. People are laughing at dealing with the new changer: the palace!'

Changer, Tempus knew, meant fence in this - city? 0 my G.o.d Vashanka - this? A city?!

'Two ships sitting out there in the harbour,' Hanse went on, 'guarded up to here. I know those Things, those dark weapons of sorcery, are being loaded aboard. Then what? Out to sea and straight to the bottom?'

'The very best place for them,' Tempus said, turning and slowly turning his glazed earthenware mug. This one was striped garishly in yellow waves.' Believe it. There is too much power in those devices.'

'Meanwhile some "enforcers" from the mageguild have been trying to get hands on them first.'

That Tempus also knew. Three of the toughs had been eliminated in the past twenty hours, unless another or two had been slain tonight, by local Watchmen or those special guardsmen called h.e.l.l Hounds. 'Unions will try to protect their members, yes. No matter what. A union is a mindless animal.'

'You paid me well -fair, to fetch you the diamond wand-things that woman wears in her hair. I did, and she has them back. You gave them back.'

Cime. Cime's diamond-rods in her fine fine wealth of hair. 'Yes. Did I?'

'You did. And strange things are happening in Sanctuary. Those . were soreerous weapons those hawk-masks used against you and me. A poor thief tried to s.n.a.t.c.h a woman's bracelet the other night, down in - never mind the street. She shouldn't have been there. The bracelet turned into a snake and killed him. I don't know what it did to him. He's dead and they say he weighs about twice as much as he did alive.'

'It solidified his bones. It was obtained this morning. And when didn't strange things happen in Sanctuary, my friend?'

'That is twice you have called me that.' Hanse's words had the sound of accusation about them.

'So I have. I must mean it, then.'