The Dead of Winter Part 26

Drowned rats and bigger things were swept onward- bodies thought long buried, pieces of rotting wood, wagon wheels, cracked dishes, a mercenary's scabbard, a beggar's precious heap of rags, all became part of the stream. And presently, where pallid waterweed had rooted in the underground channels or where bricks of ancient facings had fallen in, things stuck, each piece catching and trapping more until even the force of the water could not move it forward and it recoiled back into Sanctuary.

Rising waters from the sewer that ran beneath the Maze backed up and overflowed into one of the tunnels leading from the Palace grounds. At the same time, rising river water found an outlet in the escape tunnel that ended near the ford. These waters, meeting, clashed and rose. Some of the overflow splashed into the catacombs beneath the Street of Red Lanterns, but not all, and so, as the day wore on, water began to trickle slowly and inexorably up the tunnel whose entrance was in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Palace itself.

Water seeped into the dungeons unnoticed except by those few unfortunates who were still imprisoned there. But when it made its way into the portions of the lower Palace that had been remodeled into a nursery for the Child of the Temple, Gyskouras, and Arton and their companions, it was another matter. A storm impelled by alien magics and a flood in their own chambers was not only a threat but an insult as well.

Gyskouras screamed. Arton, face darkening as his own daemon sprang to life within him, screamed louder. The other children who enjoyed the dubious honor of being their companions wept or cowered. Alfi lost completely the edge of superiority that two years' seniority should have given him and clung like a leech to Vanda, while Latilla covered her face with her hands and closed up her fingers each time the noise level rose again.

Seylalha shouted desperate orders as Vanda and the nursemaids scuttled frantically to move children and bedding up to the playroom by the roof garden while above the Palace the sky rumbled echoes of the storm-children's rage.

Gyskouras picked up the vase that had been the gift of a royal amba.s.sador and threw it; Arton grabbed a wooden horse and flung it back at him. Lightnings clashed outside and sizzled down the sides of buildings fortunately too watersoaked to burn.

Conflicting winds made a chaos of the orderly banks of cloud, shook the Beysib ships at anchor, plucked off roof tiles and uprooted trees, and folk who had watched the rise of the waters with a nagging dread now trembled with active fear.

And Roxane, sensing the chaos in the heavens, laughed, for this was more than she had hoped for. She changed her strategy, using her control of the elementals to hold back the waters, forcing them to spread sideways into the town.

Gilla could feel the force of the winds even through the witch's wards. Roxane was still secluded, but though her minions knew no particulars, they reflected her emotions, and the growing atmosphere of malicious glee terrified Gilla. What was happening in Sanctuary?

She bent over a crate into which she had dumped half a dinner service-worth of broken crockery which she had found behind the bags of mouldering roots in the pantry and shoved it across the room. What this house needed was not a broom, but a shovel! Still bent over, she glanced around her.

The two house snakes were curled contentedly in their baskets before the stove.

Three thralled souls sat at the table, swaying reflexively. Snapper Jo stood between her and the kitchen door, sucking meditatively on an old bone.

He caught her glance and grinned. "Nice and clean! Mistress be pleased. Fat lady make house nice and clean and Mistress wash town!" Overcome with the wit of this observation, he began to laugh. "Wash all the children away, then Snapper Jo be fat lady's boy!"

Gilla clenched her hands in her ap.r.o.n to keep them from closing on the fiend's scrawny throat. At home, she would have thrown something-if she had been at home she would have been throwing things long ago! She felt fury boiling in her belly; she was a lidded kettle ready to explode. Shaking, she hefted the crate of shattered crockery and marched toward the door.

"Fat lady not go out-" Snapper Jo began.

"Great Mistress said to clean her house-I'm cleaning, you wart-upholstered cretin, so get out of my way!" Gilla said between set teeth.

The gray fiend frowned and moved an indecisive half-step, struggling to reconcile the contradictory ideas and unfamiliar vocabulary. Gilla shouldered him aside, shifted her weight, and kicked open the door. Watery light filtered through the shimmering underside of the protective bubble with which Roxane had warded her domain. Gilla took a deep breath of dank air, tensed, and heaved the crate outward with all the strength of her rage.

It arced up and outward, trailing a comet's tail of broken crockery, and burst through.

Gilla was already turning to send another load after it when she heard a sound like a tearing sheet and staggered beneath a gust of wind. Over her shoulder she glimpsed the last shards of the bubble whirling away on the storm.

The wind swept through the kitchen, upheaving the table so that Snapper Jo had to leap aside. Gilla picked up a trashbasket and flung it at one of the thralls, upended another over the serpents, saw the fiend recover and start toward her, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up her broom. Another of the soul-thralls lurched forward. Her swing connected with its head and knocked it bleeding into Snapper Jo's arms.

Gilla steadied herself and c.o.c.ked the broom for another swing, but the fiend's eyes were fixed on the trickle of red that crossed the thrall's skin. Bony fingers tightened and the body began to struggle. The Snapper's thin lips writhed back from his razor teeth.

"Fresh meat," he said thickly, and then, oblivious to the tumult around him, bent to feed.

Before anything else could come at her, Gilla kicked over the rest of the trashbaskets, launched herself through the door and slammed it behind her, and scrambled, panting, across a soggy wilderness of weeds. Before her loomed the rain-dark walls of the warehouses, and beyond them, the bridge, over the river, to home.

Lalo bent, shivering, grasped the end of the timber, and nodded to Wedemir.

Together they hefted it, and staggered forward to the edge of the river where a Stepson, four burly men from the 3rd Commando, and a couple of scrawny youths from Zip's collection of toughs were trying to build a bulwark. It was a motley construction, cobbled together with wood from the market pens nearby, logs from half-drowned woods upriver, and anything else they could carry away.

Already water was lapping at the bank. There was no way to protect the low ground below the bridge, but if they could build a d.y.k.e northward from the bridge to the end of the old city wall, they might be able to save the middle part of town.

As others took the weight of the timber Lalo straightened, rubbing his back.

Even Wedemir was panting, and he was young. Lalo wondered how much longer he could keep this up-it had been far too long since he had asked much of his muscles, and he feared they were betraying him now.

He looked numbly at the muddy serpent that was the river, heaving ominously as it digested what it had swallowed already and considered what next to devour. He was surprised it was not flowing faster, then realized that a south wind was holding back the waters and forcing them to spread rather than flowing harmlessly into the sea.

Witch-work, he thought grimly, and wondered how Randal was doing. It would take more than one Tysian mage to stop this. His shoulders sagged. He would have welcomed even a Rankan Storm-G.o.d's intervention now.

"Father-look at the bridge!" Wedemir shook his arm, shouting over the roar of the wind.

Lalo turned. He heard the moaning of overstressed timbers and saw the structure tremble as it was struck by an especially heavy surge. The waters were almost over the roadway now. Wedemir tugged at him again.

"There's somebody on it-someone's trying to get across!"

Lalo squinted into the rain. Wedemir must be mistaken -any Downwinder not already drowned like a rat in his hole must have sought higher ground by now.

But there was certainly something moving there....

Something stirred in him like a flicker of flame. He moved toward the bridgehead and the movement warmed him so that he could go faster. Wedemir started to protest, then splashed after him.

"It's a person-a woman-" panted Wedemir.

Lalo nodded and began to run. He heard the groan of tortured wood clearly now.

The bridge shuddered and the woman staggered, then plodded forward again, using the broom she carried as a staff. Her soaked gown clung to limbs with the ma.s.sive strength of an archaic G.o.ddess; one could almost imagine that it was not the a.s.sault of the waters that made the bridge tremble, but her stride.

Outer and inner sight were abruptly the same, and Lalo forgot his exhaustion. He sped forward, outstripping his son, knowing beyond impossibility who this woman had to be.

And then his feet thudded on the wood of the bridge; his hand closed on hers and new strength flowed through both of them. Sobbing for breath, Gilla stumbled the last few steps after him to the sh.o.r.e, and Wedemir pulled both of them up the bank.

And as if the will that had held it steady had been suddenly distracted, the wind disintegrated into a thousand whirling eddies. The river, no longer thwarted, raced through its narrow channel bare inches below the roadbed of the bridge and across Sanctuary's harbor in a great surge that lifted anch.o.r.ed vessels to the limits of their moorings and then pa.s.sed onward out to sea.

As the floodtide pa.s.sed the bridge it spread over the lower lands below. Spray and fragments of wood were still being tossed up by the billows, but through the confusion Lalo thought he saw something like an oily black bubble lift from beyond the warehouses and wobble through the air toward the hills.

But that was only a momentary distraction. It was Gilla he was grasping, Gilla whose warmth he felt through her wet garments, as if she were fueled by a tiny, unquenchable sun. Through the mud he felt earth solid beneath him. She rooted him against the buffets of water and wind.

They paid no attention to the babble of questions around them as they clung together, bedraggled and ridiculous, grinning into the wind.

Then Gilla's face changed. She tightened her grip and shouted into Lalo's ear.

"Where are the children?"

"At the Palace with Vanda," he shouted back. "They're safe-"

"In this?" Gilla frowned at the sky. "I should be with them. Come on!"

Lalo nodded. He had done his part here, and he could see that the fury of the river was already abating. But there was still chaos in the heavens, and abruptly he caught Gilla's urgency. With Wedemir close behind them, they picked their way around the lake that had been Caravan Square and slogged past the deserted stalls of the Bazaar.

By the time Lalo and Gilla reached the Palace Gate the terrified tantrums of two two-year-old incipient Storm G.o.ds were bidding to do more damage to the heart of Sanctuary than all Roxane's water demons. The flashes of lightning were almost constant now, and a strong scent of ozone hung in the air. Puddles dotted the great courtyard; doors on the ground floor were open as Beysib servants tried to sweep water outside.

Lalo stopped short, gazing around in consternation, and Gilla gave him a look that said "I told you so!"

"The nursery was in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I don't know where they've moved the children now."

"At least the Palace is still here," said Wedemir.

Gilla snorted, grabbed a fish-eyed female who was hurrying past with a mop and pail and began to question her. Her limited command of the language was no problem-as soon as Gilla mentioned children the maid paled and pointed upward, then slid from Gilla's grasp.

Upstairs, they found there was no need to ask directions. As they toiled up a staircase that had been well-known to Lalo in the days when he used the roof garden as a portrait studio, they could hear shrieks, punctuated by rolling thunder and the despairing murmur of female voices.

Gilla threw open the door to the sitting room and stood a moment, surveying the scene. Then she waded into the room and began smacking bottoms. Lalo stared, but he supposed that even these children would hold no terrors for someone who had managed to escape from Roxane.

There was a short, stunned silence. Then Gilla sat down between the two storm children and pulled them into her capacious lap. Gyskouras took a deep breath and began to hiccup fiercely, but Arton was still crying great, storm-colored tears. Illyra and Seylalha started toward Gilla just as Alfi detached himself from his sister.

Gilla motioned to the two other mothers to sit close beside her and carefully slid the children onto their laps just as her own children reached her. She was still making soothing noises, but the heavens continued their explosions outside.

"Quiet-quiet now, my little ones-see, your mamas are here! We'll keep you safe now, you don't need to make all this noise ..."

"Can't stop!" Gyskouras said between hiccups. His fair hair was plastered to his head and his cheeks were streaked with tears.

"'Fraid ..." echoed the dark child in Illyra's arms.

Both children were still trembling, as if only Gilla's steady voice kept them from giving way to their terror once more. Relative peace had returned to the room, making the noise outside seem louder. Lalo looked around desperately, wondering if it would help to distract or amuse them somehow.

Toys were scattered on the floor and building blocks, art materials, and games were stacked on shelves to one side. Lalo's eyes widened. He remembered abruptly how his colored flies had amused Alfi.

Painfully, for now he felt all the aches from his battle with the storm, Lalo went to the shelves and picked up a slate and a basket of colored chalks.

Holding them as if they might bite, he came back to the little group in the center of the room and squatted down.

"Do you like pretty pictures? What do you like- b.u.t.terflies?" A swift stroke of the chalk laid the sweep of a red wing; another suggested the long body and bright eyes.

Lightning flared in the window, blinding him. When Lalo could see again Arton's chubby hand was rubbing the picture away.

'Wot flutter' by! Bad bright things outside-" His dark gaze held the limner's, and in his eyes Lalo saw the angular, aetherial forms of the demons that lived on the energy of the storm. "Make them go 'way!"

I won't draw them, Lalo thought fearfully, they've too much life already! He took the child's hand gently, remembering how he had comforted his own children when they had spilled their milk or broken some favorite toy, not understanding their own power.

Now he felt Gyskouras's gaze upon him as well, filling him with knowledge of all the powers surging in the storm. Other images came to him too-emotions, desires as yet formless, characteristics that sought to coalesce into a Personality that would encompa.s.s the potential, for good or evil, inherent in the two children before him. He recognized the feeling-he had known it himself at the beginning of a project, when colors and shapes and images jostled in his consciousness and he strove for the form and balance that would organize them into a harmonious unity.

But the only loss had been a ruined canvas when he failed. If these children failed, they could destroy Sanctuary.

Thunder clapped great hands above the Palace; the room shuddered and a window blew open on a sudden gust of rain. Gyskouras whimpered, and Lalo reached for his hand. They need a mage to train them, just like me-but there must be something that we can do! Lalo closed his eyes, driven not by fear or the pressure of a stronger mind, but by pity, to seek that part of himself that had been a G.o.d.

When he opened them again the window was still banging against the wall.

Outside, clouds pulsed with a hundred shades of gray-always gray! G.o.ds, he was so tired of this colorless world! Lalo looked down, and saw that the chalk pressed between his hand and Gyskouras's plump fingers had left a smear of yellow on the slate. For a moment he stared at it, then he reached for an orange chalk and put it into Arton's slimmer hand.

"Here," he whispered, "draw me a line beside the other-yes, just so...." One by one he gave colors to the children and guided their awkward hands. Yellow, orange, red and purple, blue and turquoise and green-the chalk glowed against the dark stone. And when all the colors had been used, Lalo got to his feet, holding the slate carefully.

"Now, let's make something pretty-I can't do it alone. You both come here with me ..." Lalo held out his hand and drew first Arton, then Gyskouras, from his mother's arms. "Come to the window, don't be afraid ..."

Lalo was dimly aware that the room had gone very still behind him, but all his attention was on the two children beside him and the storm outside. They reached the window; Lalo knelt, his greying ginger head touching the dark child's head and the fair.

"Now blow," he said softly. "Blow on the picture and we'll make the nasty clouds all go away."

He felt the children's milky breath warm on his fingers. He bowed his head and expelled his own pent breath outward, saw chalk dust haze the damp air. His eyes blurred with the intensity of his staring, or was the blur in his eyes? Surely now there was more color in the air than they had ever blown into it, and the colors were shimmering. His ears rang with silence.

Lalo sank back on his heels and drew the two storm-children close against him, and together they watched as the rainbow arched over Sanctuary....

AFTERWORD.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, Which is the skungiest city of them all?"

You know what the mirror replied, with a sneer at having to state the obvious.

SOME BLATANTLY PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS.

Andrew Qffutt Hanse and I have been in Sanctuary since the foundation stones were set, in a February 1978 letter from genius-creator Asprin. We earliest settlers (eight of us writers then, I think) received maps and descriptions, Hakiem's original background tale, copies of each other's character sketches and sort-of-maybe outlines, and letters from HQ: the Asprin mind. Everybody was excited and pretty chattery. The little description I began of a fellow to be called Hanse became three pages, physical and psychological, with footnotes and sidebars. By the time I'd written all that three or four times, I knew what the first story was about and what sort of stories he had to be in, if there were to be more.

As it developed, letter by letter by letter and packet of Xeroxed materials and All-Points-Bulletins to and from us beginners of that project that seemed such fun, I addressed an envelope to "Robert L. Asprin COLOSSUS: The Thieves' World Project."

Only a few weeks later, came the next Asprin APB for us first Thieves' World partic.i.p.ants ... and derned if he hadn't made just that his letterhead!

Next, John Brunner, with the character sketches of his Enas Yorl and Jarveena, sent over a treatise on magic. It told us how it had to be in Thieves' World; a sort of logical system of rules of magic that has been ignored ever since. Then Boss Asprin was looking for a name for that first book, and I suggested Tales From the Vulgar Unicorn. Thank all G.o.ds he decided to call the first one simply Thieves' World! My t.i.tle went on the second volume.

(Send your proposed t.i.tle for the next one; Bob and Lynn just adore mail and if your t.i.tle is chosen, you will receive a genuine certified Thing. Maybe a no prize for you if you're one of my fellow comics fans.... If you're runner-up, your prize is a date-nocturnal only-with either Tarkle or Roxane, Zip or Ouleh the Man-killer; your choice.

(Send to me that detailed list of all the characters in all the books, with however brief ID for each-and whether still alive, KlA-and-dead, or Undead. I like to remember and include all those little people, such as Thumpfoot and Mungo and Shive the Changer and Frax, former Palace night-sentinel who's been out of work since the arrival of the Beysibs, and Weasel, and ... you know.

Spear-bearers, many of whom don't even have speaking roles or are only referred to. Seems to me I haven't referred to York or Jubal and various other big-ikes for several stories.) Oh, here's an Inside tip for you, Insider: go and look again at the cover of the original TW. Asprin long ago came up with a caption for it, and you'll love it.

It's "You're In The Wrong Place, Sucker."

The Solid Gold 50th Anniversary Volume It honestly seems over a decade ago when we all wrote those first stories. We were a team! We sent them in with gusto and love, having fun-for a nickel a word. That was as advance against royalties if the book sold enough copies to generate any royalties. Hey, did it ever! What now? Another S.F. Book Club volume, I hear, and is it three TW games or four? Translations into German and French and British and Swahili and Newjersese! Interplanetary rights up for bidding! Other publishers hot for novels about TW characters! Ace Books making plans for the solid gold 50th anniversary volume! Asprin and Abbey buying the state of Michigan and bidding for the Detroit Tigers!

You and we have made it quite a phenomenon. And I swear: it's still fun! Thanks, my fellow fan.

Without quite knowing why, I think I'm more comfortable in this town than any of my cohorts-the rest of the TW family. (Baghdad, that's the way I see it: Baghdad or the great old caravan city of Palmyra, about a year after someone put in the Interstate five or so miles away.) To h.e.l.l with the invasions by Rankans and Stepsons (their big horses making an even worse mess of our streets and consuming so much of our valuable grain); to h.e.l.l with the invading Beys and the Beysa and the lords 'n' ladies in their palatial manses; with vampires and walking dead and walking G.o.ds and Lon Chaney Jr.! Offutt's an Ilsig who writes about Sanctuary and its people. True, most often my people are Not What They Seem....

Who is, in Sanctuary?

Hanse called Shadowsp.a.w.n, and Ahdio, and the late, beloved Moonflower and Jubal are as real to me as the Maze. (I know it's real because the moment I start to write about it, very late at night usually, with soft pen and cheap lined paper and beer, I swear I can see it and hear its sounds. And smell it.) I abhor any such snotty, uncultured creep as Hanse, as I loved Moonflower, also my creation. (As you probably know already, since the rules are that we can Not do in each other's characters.) Hanse would be rotten company, so full of swagger and needs. I know. I've met his sort, time after time, at science fiction/fantasy conventions. Sometimes even with the knives! Yet I can't help but love my rotten thief, too, poor guy; sort of as an indulgent father. He was born of me, after all, although Shalpa takes the credit. Now, like Tempus, he's left town, with Moonflower's daughter Mignureal (that's Min-you-ree-Al, and Notable must be with them too, surely.) As a matter of fact Hanse is up northeast a bit, standing by to star in his own novel, Shadowsp.a.w.n. Yes, I've already signed the contract and this same publisher may already have the ma.n.u.script by the time you read this (eleven months after my writing it, a few days before Thanksgiving '84).