Tales From the Vulgar Unicorn Part 15

As the meaning finally came to him, Stulwig hastily closed the shutter. And stood there, s.h.i.+vering. It was an inner cold, not an outer one. Was this wise?

he wondered. Suppose the people in the palace came out to learn what all the uproar was? Suppose Vashanka, in his rage at being made to appear a loser, sent his lightning bolts down upon the city. Come to think of it, the sky above had already started to look very cloudy and threatening.

His entire body throbbing with anxiety, Stulwig nonetheless found himself accepting the celebration as justified. It was true. Ils was the victor. And he had deliberately sought the opportunity. So it could be that the ancient G.o.d of Ilsig was at long last ready for - what?

What could happen? How could the forces of the Rankan empire be persuaded to depart from Sanctuary?

Stulwig was back in bed, the wonder and the mystery of it still seething inside him.

And he was still awake, later, when there came a gentle knock on his outer door.

Instant shock. Fear. Doubt. And then, trembling, he was at the vent asking the question: 'Who is it?'

The voice of Illyra answered softly, 'I am here, Alten, as we agreed this morning, to pay my debt in kind.'

Long pause. Because the doubt and shock, and the beginning of disappointment, were absolutely intense. So long a pause that the woman spoke again: 'My blacksmith, as you call him, has gone to the temple of Ils and will not be back until morning.'

On one level - the level of his desire - it had the ring of truth. But the denying thought was stronger. Suppose this was Azyuna, forced by her shamed brother-lover to make one more entrance into the home of the healer; so that the brother could use some mysterious connection with her to penetrate hard walls.

Then, when death had been dealt, Ils would again be disgraced.

Thinking thus, a reluctant Stulwig said, 'You are freed of your promise, Illyra.

Fate has worked once more to deny me one of the great joys of life. And once more enabled you to remain faithful to that hulking monster.'

The healer uttered a long sigh; finished: 'Perhaps, I shall have better fortune next time.'

As he returned to his sheepskin he did have the male thought that a night when a man made love to a G.o.ddess, could surely not be considered a total loss.

In fact-Remembering, suddenly, that the affair had also included embracing, in its early stages, an Illyra look-alike, Stulwig began to relax. It was then that sweet sleep came.

VASHANKA'S MINION.

by Jante Morris

1.

The storm swept down on Sanctuary in unnatural fury, as if to punish the thieves for their misdeeds. Its hailstones were large as fists. They pummelled Wideway and broke windows on the Street of Red Lanterns and collapsed the temple of Ils, most powerful of the conquered Ilsigs' G.o.ds.

The lightning it brought snapped up from the hills and down from the devilish skies and wherever it spat the world shuddered and rolled. It licked round the dome of Prince Kadakithis's palace and when it was gone, the Storm G.o.d Vashanka's name was seared into the stone in huge hieratic letters visible from the harbour. It slithered in the window of Jubal's walled estate and circled round the slavetrader's chair while he sat in it, turning his black face blue with terror.

It danced on a high hill between the slaver's estate and the cowering town, where a mercenary named Tempus schooled his new Syrese horse in the art of death. He had bought the tarnished silver beast sight unseen, sending to a man whose father's life he had once saved.

'Easy,' he advised the horse, who slipped in a sharp turn, throwing mud up into his rider's face. Tempus cursed the mud and the rain and the hours he would need to spend on his tack when the lesson was done. As for the screaming, stumbling hawk-masked man who fled iron-shod hooves in ever-shortening circles, he had no G.o.ds to invoke - he just howled.

The horse wheeled and hopped; its rider clung tightly, reins flapping loose, using only his knees to guide his mount. If the slaver who kept a private army must flaunt the fact, then the mercenary-c.u.m-Guardsman would reduce its ranks.

He would teach Jubal the overweening flesh merchant that he who is too arrogant, is lost. He saw it as part of his duty to the Ranke Prince-Governor he was sworn to protect. Tempus had taken down a dozen hawk-masks. This one, stumbling, gibbering, would make thirteen.

'Kill,' suggested the mercenary, tiring of his sport in the face of the storm.

The flattened ears of the misty horse flickered, came forwards. It lunged, neck out. Teeth and hooves thunked into flesh. Screaming. Then screaming stopped.

Tempus let the horse pummel the corpse awhile, stroking the beast's neck and cooing soft praise. When bones showed in a lightning flash, he backed the horse off and set it at a walk towards the walled city.

It was then that the lightning- came circling round man and mount.

'Stand, stand.' The horse, though he shook like a newborn foal, stood. The searing red light violated Tempus's tight-shut lids and made his eyes tear. An awful voice rang inside his head, deep and thunderous: ' You are mine.'

'I have never doubted it,' grated the mercenary.

'You have doubted it repeatedly,' growled the voice querulously, if thunder can be said to carp. ' You have been unruly, faithless, though you pledged Me your troth. You have been, since you renounced your inheritance, a mage, a philosopher, an auditing Adept of the Order of the Blue Star, a-'

'Look here. G.o.d. I have also been a cuckold, a footsoldier in the ranks, a general at the end of that. I have bedded more iron in flesh than any ten other men who have lived as long as I. Now You ring me round with thunder and compa.s.s me with lightning though I am here to expand Your wors.h.i.+p among these infidels.

I am building Your accursed temple as fast as I can. I am no priest, to be terrified by loud words and bright manifestations. Get Thee hence, and leave this slum unenlightened. They do not deserve me, and they do not deserve You!'

A gust sighed fiercely, flapping Tempus's woollens against his mail beneath.

'I have sent you hither to build Me a temple among the heathens, 0 sleepless one! A temple you will build!'

'A temple I will build. Yes, sir, Vashanka, lord of the Edge and the Point. If You leave me alone to do it.' d.a.m.n pushy tutelary G.o.d. 'You blind my horse, 0 G.o.d, and I will put him under Your threshold instead of the enemies slain in battle Your ritual demands. Then we will see who comes to wors.h.i.+p there.'

'Do not trifle with Me, Man.'

'Then let me be. I am doing the best I can. There is no room for foreign G.o.ds in the hearts of these Sanctuarites. The Ilsig G.o.ds they were born under have seen to that. Do something amazing: strike the fear of You into them.'

'I cannot even make you cower, 0 impudent human!'

'Even Your visitations get old, after three hundred and fifty years. Go scare the locals. This horse will founder, standing hot in the rain.'

The thunder changed its tune, becoming canny. 'Go you to the harbour. My son, and look upon what My Majesty hath wrought! And into the Maze, where I am making My power known!'

With that, the corral of lightning vanished, the thunder ceased, and the clouds blew away on a west wind, so that the full moon shone upon the land.

'Too much krrf,' the mercenary who had sold himself for a h.e.l.l Hound sighed.

'h.e.l.l Hound' was what the citizenry called the Prince's Guard; as far as Tempus was concerned. Sanctuary was h.e.l.l. The only thing that made it bearable was krrf, his drug of choice. Rubbing a clammy palm across his mouth, he dug in his human-hide belt until searching fingers found a little silver box he always carried. Flipping it open, he took a pinch of black Caronne krrf and, clenching his fist, piled the dust into the hollow between his first thumb joint and the fleshy muscle leading to his knuckle. He sniffed deeply, sighed, and repeated the process, inundating his other nostril.

'Too much d.a.m.n krrf,' he chuckled, for the krrf had never been stepped on - he did not buy adulterated drugs - and all six and a half feet of him tingled from its kiss. One of these days he would have to stop using it - the same day he laid down his sword.

He felt for its hilt, patted it. He had taken to calling it his 'Wriggly-be good', since he had come to this G.o.dforsaken warren of magicians and changelings and thieves. Then, the initial euphoria of the drug past, he kneed his horse homewards.

It was the krrf, not the instructions of the lightning or any fear of Vashanka, that made him go by way of the harbour. He was walking out his horse before taking it to the stable the h.e.l.l Hounds shared with the barracks personnel. What had ever possessed him to come down-country among the Ilsigs? It was not for his fee, which was exorbitant, that he had come, for the sake of those interests in the Rankan capital who underwrote him - those who hated the Emperor so much that they were willing to back such a loser as Kadakithis, if they could do it without becoming the brunt of too many jokes. It was not for the temple, though he was pleased to build it. It was some old, residual empathy in Tempus for a prince so inept as to be known far and wide as 'Kitty' which had made him come.

Tempus had walked away from his primogeniture in Azehur, a long time ago, leaving the throne to his brother, who was not compromised by palace politics.

He had deposited a treatise on the nature of being in the temple of a favoured G.o.ddess, and he had left. Had he ever, really, been that young? Young as Prince Kadakithis, whom even the Wrigglies disparaged?

Tempus had been around in the days when (he Ilsigs had been the Enemy: the Wrigglies. He had been on every battlefield in the Rankan/Ilsig conflict. He had spitted more Ilsigs than most men, watched them writhe soundlessly until they died. Some said he had coined their derogatory nickname, but he had not, though he had doubtless helped spread it...

He rode down Wideway, and he rode past the docks. A s.h.i.+p was being made fast, and a crowd had gathered round it. He squeezed the horse's barrel, urging it into the press. With only four of his fellow h.e.l.l Hounds in Sanctuary, and a local garrison whose personnel never ventured out in groups of less than six, it was inc.u.mbent upon him to take a look.

He did not like what he saw of the man who was being helped from the storm wracked s.h.i.+p that had come miraculously to port with no sail intact, who murmured through pale cruel lips to the surrounding Ilsigs, then climbed into a Rankan litter bound for the palace.

He spurred the horse. 'Who?' he demanded of the eunuch-master whose path he suddenly barred.

'Aspect, the archmage,' lisped the palace lackey, 'if it's any business of yours.'

Behind the lackey and the quartet of ebony slaves the shoulder-borne litter trembled. The viewcurtain with Kitty's device on it was drawn back, fell loose again.

'Out of my way. Hound,' squeaked the enraged little pastry of a eunuch-master.

'Don't get flapped, Eunice,' said Tempus, wis.h.i.+ng he were in Caronne, wis.h.i.+ng he had never met a G.o.d, wis.h.i.+ng he were anywhere else. Oh, Kitty, you have done it this time. Alain Aspect, yet! Alchemist extraordinaire, a.s.sa.s.sin among magicians, dispeller of enchantments, in a town that ran on contract sorcery?

'Back, back, back,' he counselled the horse, who twitched its ears and turned its head around reproachfully, but obeyed him.

He heard t.i.tters among the eunuchs, another behind in the crowd. He swung round in his saddle. 'Hakiem, if I hear any stories about me I do not like, I will know whose tongue to hang on my belt.'

The bent, news-nosed storyteller, standing amid the children who always cl.u.s.tered round him, stopped laughing. His rheumy eyes met Tempus's. 'I have a story I would like to tell you. h.e.l.l Hound. One you would like to hear, I humbly imagine.'

'What is it, then, old man?'

'Come closer. h.e.l.l Hound, and say what you will pay.'

'How can I tell you how much it's worth until I hear?' The horse snorted, raised his head, sniffed a rank, evil breeze come suddenly from the stinking Downwind beach.

'We must haggle.'

'Somebody else, then, old man. I have a long night ahead.' He patted the horse, watching the crowd ofllsigs surging round, their heads level with his hips.

'That is the first time I have seen him backed off!': a stage-whisper reached Tempus through the buzz of the crowd. He looked for the source of it, could not find one culprit more likely than the rest. There would be a lot more of that sort of talk, when word spread. But he did not interfere with sorcerers. Never again. He had done it once, thinking his tutelary G.o.d could protect him. His hand went to his hip, squeezed. Beneath his dun woollens and beneath his ring mail he wore a woman's scarf. He never took it off. It was faded and it was ragged and it reminded him never to argue with a warlock. It was all he had left of her, who had been the subject of his dispute with a mage.

Long ago in Azehur...

He sighed, a rattling sound, in a voice hoa.r.s.e and gravelly from endless battlefield commands. 'Have it your way tonight, then, Wriggly. And hope you live 'til morning.' He named a price. The storyteller named another. The difference was split.

The old man came close and put his hand on the horse's neck. 'The lightning came and the thunder rolled and when it was gone the temple of Ils was no more. The Prince has bought the aid of a mighty enchanter, whom even the bravest of the h.e.l.l Hounds fears. A woman was washed up naked and half drowned on the Downwinders' beach and in her hair were pins of diamond.'

'Pins?'

'Rods, then.'

'Wonderful. What else?'

'The redhead from Amoli's Lily Garden died at moonrise.'

He knew very well what wh.o.r.e the old man meant. He did not like the story, so far. He growled. 'You had better astound me, quick, for the price you're asking.'

'Between the Vulgar Unicorn and the tenement on the corner an entire building appeared on that vacant lot, where once the Black Spire stood - you know the one.'

'I know it.'

'Astounding?'

'Interesting. What else?'

'It is rather fancy, with a gilded dome. It has two doors, and above them two signs that read, "Men", and "Women".'

Vashanka had kept his word, then.

'Inside it, so the patrons of the Unicorn say, they sell weapons. Very special weapons. And the price is dear.'

'What has this to do with me?'

' Some folk who have gone in there have not come out. And some have come out and turned one upon the other, duelling to the death. Some have merely slain whomsoever crossed their paths. Yet, word is spreading, and Ilsig and Rankan queue up like brothers before its doors. Since some of those who were standing in line were hawk-masks, I thought it good that you should know.'

'I am touched, old man. I had no idea you cared.' He threw the copper coins to the storyteller's feet and reined the horse sideways so abruptly it reared. When its feet touched the ground, he set it at a collected canter through the crowd, letting the rabble scatter before its iron-shod hooves as best they might.

2.

In Sanctuary, enchantment ruled. No sorcerer believed in G.o.ds. But they believed in the Law of Correspondences, and they believed in evil. Thus, since every negative must have its positive, they implied G.o.ds. Give a G.o.d an inch and he will take your soul. That was what the commoners and the second-rate prestidigitators lined up outside the Weaponshop of Vashanka did not realize, and that was why no respectable magician or Hazard Cla.s.s Enchanter stood among them.

In they filed, men to Tempus's left, towards the Vulgar Unicorn, and women to his right, towards the tenement on the corner.

Personally, Tempus did not feel it wise or dignified for a G.o.d to engage in a commercial venture. From across the street, he took notes on who came and went.

Tempus was not sure whether he was going in there, or not.

A shadow joined the queue, disengaged, walked towards the Vulgar Unicorn in the tricky light of fading stars. It saw him, hesitated, took one step back.

Tempus leaned forwards, his elbow on his pommel, and crooked a finger. 'Hanse, I would like a word with you.'

The youth cat-walked towards him, errant torch-light from the Unicorn's open door twinkling on his weapons. From ankle to shoulder, Shadowsp.a.w.n bristled with armaments.

'What is it with you, Tempus? Always on my tail. There are bigger frogs than this one in Sanctuary's pond.'

'Are you not going to buy anything tonight?'

'I'll make do with what I have, thanks. I do not swithe with sorcerers.'

'Steal something for me?' Tempus whispered, leaning down. The boy had black hair, black eyes, and blacker prospects in this desperadoes' demesne.