Tales From the Vulgar Unicorn Part 17

He wished he could wake up in Azehur, with his family, and know that he had dreamed this impious dream.

But instead he came to Amoli's wh.o.r.ehouse, the Lily Garden. Almost, but not quite, he rode the horse up its stairs. Resisting the temptation, he reflected that in every age he had ever studied, doom-criers abounded. No millenium is attractive to the man immured in it; enough prophecies have been made in antiquity that one who desires, in any age, to take the position that Apocalypse is at hand can easily defend it. He would not join that dour Order; he would not worry about anything but Tempus, and the matter awaiting his attention.

Inside Amoli's, Hanse the thief sat in full swagger, a p.u.b.escent girl on each knee.

'Ah,' he waved. 'I have something for you.' Shadowsp.a.w.n tumbled both girls off of him, and stood, stretching widely, so that every arm-dagger and belted sticker and thigh-sheath creaked softly. The girls at his feet stayed there, staring up at Tempus wide-eyed. One whimpered to Shadowsp.a.w.n and clutched his thigh.

'Room key,' Tempus snapped to no one in particular, and held out his hand. The concierge, not Amoli, brought it to him.

'Hanse?'

'Coming.' He extended a hand to one girl.

'Alone.'

'You are not my type,' said the thief, suspicious.

'I need just a moment of your evening. You can do what you wish with the rest.'

Tempus looked at the key, headed off towards a staircase leading to the room which bore a corresponding number.

He heard the soft tread of Shadowsp.a.w.n close behind.

When the exchange had been made, the thief departed, satisfied with both his payment and his gratuity, but not quite sure that Tempus appreciated the trouble to which he had put himself, or that he had got the best of the bargain they had made.

He saw the woman he had robbed before she saw him, and ended up in a different girl's room than the one he had chosen, in order to avoid a scene. When he had heard her steps pa.s.s by, stop before the door behind which the big h.e.l.l Hound waited, he made preclusive threats to the woman whose mouth he had stopped with the flat of his hand, and slipped downstairs to spend his money somewhere else, discreetly.

If he had stayed, he might have found out what the diamond rods were really worth; he might have found out what the sour-eyed mercenary with his high brow, suddenly so deeply creased, and his lightly carried ma.s.s, which seemed tonight too heavy, was worried about. Or perhaps he could have fathomed Tempus's enigmatic parting words: 'I would help you if I could, backstreeter,' Tempus had rumbled.

'If I had met you long ago, or if you liked horses, there would be a chance. You have done me a great service. More than that pouch holds. I am seldom in any man's debt, but you, I own, can call me anytime.'

'You paid me. h.e.l.l Hound. I am content,' Hanse had demurred, confused by weakness where he had never imagined it might dwell. Then he saw the h.e.l.l Hound fish out a snuffbox of krrf, and thought he understood.

But later, he went back to Amoli's and hung around the steps, cautiously petting the big man's horse, the krrf he had sniffed making him willing to dodge the beast's square, yellow teeth.

4.

She had come to him, had Cime. She was what she was, what she had always been.

It was Tempus who was changed: Vashanka had entered into him, the Storm G.o.d who was Lord of Weapons who was Lord of Rape who was Lord of War who was Lord of Death's Gate.

He could not take her, gently. So spoke not his physical impotence, as he might have expected, but the cold wash of wisdom: he would not despoil her; Vashanka would accept no less.

She knocked and entered and said, 'Let me see them,' so sure he would have the stolen diamonds that her fingers were already busy on the lacings of her Ilsig leathers.

He held up a hide-wrapped bundle, slimmer than her wrist, shorter than her forearm. 'Here. How were they thieved?'

'Your voice is hoa.r.s.er than I have ever heard it,' she replied, and: 'I needed money; there was this man ... actually, there were a few, but there was a tough, a streetbrawler. I should have known - he is half my apparent age. What would such as he want with a middle-aged wh.o.r.e? And he agreed to pay the price I asked, without quibbling. Then he robbed me.' She looked around, her eyes, as he remembered them, clear windows to her thoughts. She was appalled.

'The low estate into which I have sunk?'

She knew what he meant. Her nostrils s.h.i.+vered, taking in the musty reek of the soiled bedding on which he sprawled fully clothed, smelling easily as foul. 'The devolution of us both. That I would be here, under these circ.u.mstances, is surely as pathetic as you.'

'Thanks. I needed that. Don't.'

'I thought you wanted me.' She ceased unlacing, looked at him, her tunic open to her waist.

'I did. I don't. Have some krrf.' On his hips rode her scarf; if she saw it, then she would comprehend his degradation too fully. So he had not removed it, hoping its presence would remind him, if he weakened and his thoughts drowned in l.u.s.t, that this woman he must not violate.

She sat on the quilt, one doe-gloved leg tucked under her.

'You jest,' she breathed, then, eyes narrowed, took the krrf.

'It will be ill with you, afterwards, should I touch you.'

Her fingers ran along the flap of hide wrapped over her wands. 'I am receiving payment.' She tapped the package. 'And I may not owe debts.'

'The boy who pilfered these, did it at my behest.'

'Must you pander for me?'

He winced. 'Why do you not go home?' She smelled of salt and honey and he thought desperately that she was here only because he forced the issue: to pay her debt.

She leaned forwards, touched his lips with a finger. 'For the same reason that you do not. Home is changed, gone to time.'

'Do you know that?' He jerked his head-away, cracking it against the bed's wooden headboard.

'I believe it.'

'I cannot believe anything, any more. I surely cannot believe that your hand is saying what it seems to be saying.'

'I cannot,' she said, between kisses at his throat he could not, somehow, fend off, 'leave ... with ... debts ... owing.'

'Sorry,' he said firmly, and got out from under her hands. 'I am just not in the mood.'

She shrugged, unwrapped the wands, and wound her hair up with them. 'Surely, you will regret this, later.'

'Maybe you are right,' he sighed heavily. 'But that is my problem. I release you from any debt. We are even. I remember past gifts, given when you still knew how to give freely.' There was no way in the world he was going to hurt her. He would not strip before her. With those two constraints, he had no option. He chased her out of there. He was as cruel about it as he could manage to be, for both their sakes.

Then he yelled downstairs for service.

When he descended the steps in the cool night air, a movement startled him, on the grey's off side.

'It is me, Shadowsp.a.w.n.'

'It is I, Shadowsp.a.w.n,' he corrected, huskily. His face averted, he mounted from the wrong side. The horse whickered disapprovingly. 'What is it, snipe?'

As clouds covered the moon, Tempus seemed to pull all night's shadows round him.

Hanse might have the name, but this Tempus had the skill. Hanse s.h.i.+vered. There were no Shadow Lords any longer ... 'I was admiring your horse. Bunch of hawk masks rode by, saw the horse, looked interested. I looked proprietary. The horse looked mean. The hawk-masks rode away. I just thought I'd see if you showed soon, and let you know.'

A movement at the edge of his field of vision warned him, even as the horse's ears twitched at the click of iron on stone. 'You should have kept going, it seems,' said Tempus quietly, as the first of the hawk-masks edged his horse out past the intersection, and others followed. Two. Three. Four. Two more.

'Mothers,' whispered Cudgel Swearoath's prodigy, embarra.s.sed at not having realized that he was not the only one waiting for Tempus.

'This is not your fight, junior.'

'I'm aware of that. Let's see if they are.'

Blue night: blue hawk-masks: the sparking thunder of six sets of hooves rus.h.i.+ng towards the two of them. Whickering. The gleam of frothing teeth and bared weapons: iron clanging in a jumble of shuddering, straining horses. The kill trained grey's challenge to another stallion: hooves thudding on flesh and great mouths gaped, snapping; a blaring death-clarion from a horse whose jugular had been severed. Always watching the boy: keeping the grey between the hawk-masks and a thief who just happened to get involved; who just happened to kill two of them with thrown knives, one through an eye and the other blade he recalled clearly, sticking out of a slug-white throat. Tempus would remember even the wh.o.r.es' ambivalent screams of thrill and horror, delight and disgust. He had plenty of time to sort it out: Time to draw his own sword, to target the rider of his choice, feel his hilt go warm and pulsing in his hand. He really did not like to take unfair advantage. The iron sword glowed pink like a baby's skin or a just-born day. Then it began to react in his grip. The grey's reins, wrapped around the pommel, flapped loosely; he told it where he wanted it with gritted words, with a pressing knee, with his s.h.i.+fting weight. One hawk -mask had a greenish tinge to him: protected. Tempus's sword would not listen to such talk: it slit charms like b.u.t.ter, armour like silk. A blue wing whistled above his head, thrown by a compatriot of the man who fell so slowly with his guts pouring out over his saddle like cold mola.s.ses. While that hawk-mask's horse was in mid-air between two strides, Tempus's sword licked up and changed the colour of the foe-seeking boomerang. Pink, now, not blue. He was content to let it return its death to the hand that threw it. That left just two.

One had the thief engaged, and the youth had drawn his wicked, twenty-inch Ibarsi knife, too short to be more than a temporizer against the hawk-mask's sword, too broad to be thrown. Backed against the Lily Garden's wall, there was just time for Tempus to flicker the horse over there and split the hawk-mask's head down to his collarbones. Grey brains splattered him.. The thrust of the hawk-mask, undiminished by death, shattered on the flat of the long, curved knife Shadowsp.a.w.n held up in a two-fisted, desperate block.

'Behind you!'

Tempus had known the one last hawk-mask was there. But this was not the boy's battle. Tempus had made a choice. He ducked and threw his weight sideways, reining the horse down with all his might. The sword, a singing one, sonata'd over his head, shearing hairs. His horse, overbalanced, fell heavily, screaming, pitching, rolling onto his left leg. Pinned for an instant, he saw white anguish, then the last hawk-mask was leaping down to finish him, and the grey scrambled to its feet. 'Kill,' he shouted, his blade yet at ready, but lying in the dirt. His leg flared once again, then quieted. He tried it, gained his knees, dust in his eyes. The horse reared and lunged. The hawk-mask struck blindly, arms above his head, sword reaching for grey, soft underbelly. He tried to save it. He tried. He tackled the hawk-mask with the singing sword. Too late, too late: horse fluids showered him. Bellows of agony pealed in his ears. The horse and the hawk-mask and Tempus went down together, thras.h.i.+ng.

When Tempus sorted it out, he allowed that the horse had killed the hawk-mask at the same time the hawk-mask had disembowelled the horse.

But he had to finish it. It lay there thras.h.i.+ng pathetically, deep groans coming from it. He stood over it uncertainly, then knelt and stroked its muzzle. It snapped at him, eyes rolling, demanding to die. He acceded, and the dust in his eyes hurt so much they watered profusely.

Its legs were still kicking weakly when he heard a movement, turned on his good leg, and stared.

Shadowsp.a.w.n was methodically stripping the hawk-masks of their arms and valuables.

Hanse did not notice Tempus, as he limped away. Or he pretended he did not.

Whichever, there was nothing left to say.

5.

When he reached the Weaponshop, his leg hardly pained him. It was numb; it no longer throbbed. It would heal flawlessly, as any wound he took always healed.

Tempus hated it.

Up to the Weaponshop's door he strode, as the dawn spilled gore onto Sanctuary's alleys.

He kicked it; it opened wide. How he despised supernal battle, and himself when his preternatural abilities came into play.

'Hear me, Vashanka! I have had enough! Get this sidewalk stand out of here!'

There was no answer. Within, everything was dim as dusk, dim as the pit of unknowingness which sp.a.w.ned day and night and endless striving.

There were no weapons here for him to see, no counter, no proprietor, no rack of armaments pulsing and humming expectantly. But then, he already had his. One to a customer was the rule: one body; one mind; one swing through life.

He trod mists tarnished like the grey horse's coat. He trod a long corridor with light at its ending, pink like new beginnings, pink like his iron sword when Vashanka lifted it by Tempus's hand. He s.h.i.+ed away from his duality; a man does not look closely at a curse of his own choosing. He was what he was, vessel of his G.o.d. But he had his own body, and that particular body was aching; and he had his own mind, and that particular mind was dank and dark like the dusk and the dusty death he dealt.

'Where are You, Vashanka, 0 Slaughter Lord?'

Right here, resounded the voice within his head. But Tempus was not going to listen to any internal voice. Tempus wanted confrontation.

'Materialize, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

I already have; one body; one mind; one life - in every sphere.

'I am not you!' Tempus screamed through clenched teeth, willing firm footing beneath his sinking feet.

No, you are not. But I am you, sometimes, said the nimbus-wreathed figure striding towards him over gilt-edged clouds. Vashanka: so very tall with hair the colour of yarrow honey and a high brow free from lines.

'Oh, no...'

You wanted to see Me. Look upon Me, servant!

'Not so close, Pillager. Not so much resemblance. Do not torture me, My G.o.d! Let me blame it all on You - not be You!'

So many years, and you yet seek self-delusion?

'Definitely. As do You, if You think to gather wors.h.i.+ppers in this fas.h.i.+on! 0 Berserker G.o.d, You cannot roast their mages before them: they are all dependent on sorcery. You cannot terrify them thus, and expect them to come to You.

Weapons will not woo them; they are not men of the armies. They are thieves, and pirates, and prost.i.tutes! You have gone too far, and not far enough!'

Speaking of prost.i.tutes, did you see your sister? Look at Me!

Tempus had to obey. He faced the manifestation of Vashanka, and recalled that he could not take a woman in gentleness, that he could but war. He saw his battles, ranks parading in endless eyes of storm and blood bath. He saw the Storm G.o.d's consort, His own sister whom He raped eternally, moaning on Her couch in anguish that Her blood brother would ravish Her so.

Vashanka laughed.

Tempus snarled wordlessly through frozen lips.

You should have let us have her.

'Never!' Tempus howled. Then: '0 G.o.d, leave off! You are not increasing Your reputation among these mortals, nor mine! This was an ill-considered venture from the outset. Go back to Your heaven and wait. I will build Your temple better without Your maniacal aid. You have lost all sense of proportion. The Sanc-tuarites will not wors.h.i.+p one who makes of their town a battlefield!'

Tempus, do not be wroth with Me. I have My own troubles, you know. I have to get away every now and again. And you have not been warring, whined the G.o.d, for so very long. I am bored and I am lonely.

'And You have caused the death of my horse!' Tempus spat, and broke free of Vashanka, wrenching his mind loose from the mirror mind of his G.o.d with an effort of will greater than any he had ever mounted before. He turned in his steps and began to retrace them. The G.o.d called to him over his shoulder, but he did not look back. He put his feet in the smudges they had left in the clouds as he had walked among them, and the farther he trudged, the more substantial those clouds became.

He trekked into lighter darkness, into a soft, new sunrise, into a pink and lavender morning which was almost Sanctuary's. He continued to walk until the smell of dead fish and Downwind pollution a.s.sailed his nostrils. He strode on, until a weed tripped him and he fell to his knees in the middle of a damp and vacant lot.

He heard a cruel laugh, and as he looked up he was thinking that he had not made it back at all - that Vashanka was not through punis.h.i.+ng him.

But to his right was the Vulgar Unicorn, to his left the palimpsest tenement wall. And before him stood one of the palace eunuchs, come seeking him with a summons from Kittycat to discuss what might be done about the Weaponshop said to be manifesting next to the Vulgar Unicorn.

'Tell Kadakithis,' said Tempus, arduously gaining his feet, 'that I will be there presently. As you can see...' He waved around him, where no structure stood or even could be proved ever to have stood '... there is no longer any Weaponshop. Therefore, there is no longer any problem, nor any urgency to attend to it. There is, however, one very irritable h.e.l.l Hound in this vacant lot who wants to be left alone.'

The blue-black eunuch exposed perfect, argent teeth. 'Yes, yes, master,' he soothed the honey-haired man. 'I can see that this is so.'

Tempus ignored the eunuch's rosy, outstretched palm, and his sneer at the h.e.l.l Hound pretending to negotiate the humpy turf without pain. Accursed Wriggly!