Tales From the Vulgar Unicorn Part 20

It did not happen that way. The thief who had slain without intending to kill laughed, but he too was scared, and disconcerted. He fled, slinking, in another direction. Hanse stumbled-staggered-snivelled on, on. Instinct was not gone but was heightened; he clung to the shadows as a frightened child to its mother. But he made noise, noise.

Attracted at the same time as she was repulsed by that whining fearful gibbering, Mignureal came upon him. 'What - it's Han -what are you doing?'

He was seriously considering ending the terror by ending himself with the knife in his fist. Anything to stop this enveloping, consuming agony of fear. At her voice he dropped the knife and fell weeping to his knees.

'Hanse ~ stop that!'

He did not. He could not. He could a.s.sume the foetal. He did. Uncomprehending, the garishly-dressed girl acted instinctively to save him. Her mother liked him and to Mignureal he was attractive, a figure of romance. In his state, saving him was easy, even for a thirteen-year-old. Though his hysterical sobbing pleas brought tears to her eyes, for him, Mignureal tied his wrists behind him. The while, she breathed prayers known only to the S'danzo.

'You come along now,' she said firmly, leaking tears and gulping. 'Come along with me!'

Hanse obeyed.

She went straight along the well-lit Governor's Walk and turned down Shadow Lane, conducting her bound, snivelling captive. At the corner of Shadow and Slippery, a couple of uniformed men accosted her.

'Why it's Moonflower's darter. Whafve you got there, Mineral?'

'Mignureal,' she corrected. 'Someone put a spell on him - over on the Processional,' she said, choosing an area far from where she had found him. 'My mother can help. Go with Es.h.i.+.'

'Hmm. A spell of fear, huh? That d.a.m.ned a.n.u.s Yorl, I'll wager a cup! Who is it, snivelling under your shawl that way?'

Mignureal considered swiftly. What had happened to Hanse was awful. To have these City Watchmen know, and spread it about - that would be insupportable.

Again Mignureal lied. It was her brother Antelope, she told them, and they made sympathetic noises and let her be on her way, while they. muttered about dam'

sorcerers and the nutty names S'danzo gave their get. Both men agreed; they would make a routine check of Awful Alley and stop in at the Alekeep, just down the street.

Mignureal led Hanse a half-block more and went into her parents' shop-and living-quarters. They were asleep. The tautly overweight Moonflower did not heed summonses and did not make house calls. Furthermore her husband was an irrepressibly randy man who bedded early and insisted on her company. At her daughter's sobbing and shaking her, the seer awoke. That gently-named collection of talent and adipose tissue and mammalia sufficient to nurse octuplets, simultaneously, sat erect. She reached comfortingly for her daughter. Soon she had listened, was out of bed, and beside Hanse. Mignureal had ordered him to remain on the divan in the shop.

'That just isn't Hanse, Mother!'

'Of course it isn't. Look on sorcery, and hate it.'

'Name ofTiana Saviour-it's awful, seeing him, hearing him this way...'

'Fetch my shawl,' Moonflower said, one by one relieving Hanse of his knives, 'and do make some tea, sweetheart.'

Moonflower held the quaking young man and crooned. She pillowed his tear-wet face in the vastness of her bosom. She loosed his wrists, drew his hands round, and held their wiry darkness in her large paler dimple-backed ones. And she crooned, and talked low, on and on. Her daughter draped her with the shawl and went to make tea.

The ray of moonlight that fell into the room moved the length of a big man's foot while the seer sat there with him, and more, and Hanse went to sleep, still s.h.i.+vering. She held his hands until he was still but for his breathing.

Mignureal hovered close, all bright of eye, and knew the instant her mother went off. Sagging. Gla.s.sy-eyed. She began murmuring, a woman small inside and huge without; a gross kitten at her divining.

'A yellow-furred hunting dog? Tall as a tree, old as a tree ... he hovers and with him is a G.o.d not of Ilsig. A G.o.d of Ranke - oh, it is a h.e.l.l Hound. Oh Hanse it is not wizard-sorcery but G.o.d-sorcery! And who is thi - oh. Another G.o.d. But why is Theba involved, who has so few adherents here? Oh!'

She shuddered and her daughter started to touch her; desisted.

'I see Ils Himself hiding His face... a shadow tall as a tree and another, not nearly so big. A shadow and its p.a.w.n? Why it has no head, this smaller shad oh. It is afraid, that's it; it has no face left. It is Ha - I will not say even though he sleeps. Oh Mignue, there is a corpse on the street up in front of the farmers' market and - ahhh.' Her relief was apparent in that great sigh. 'Hanse did not kill her. Another did, and Theba hovers over her. Hmm. I see - I s- I will not say what I s ... it fades, goes.'

Again she sighed and sat still, sweating, overflowing her chair on both sides.

Gazing at the sleeping Shadowsp.a.w.n. 'He has spoken with the governor who is the emperor's kinsman, Mignureal my dear, did you know that? He will again. They are not enemies, our governor and Shadowsp.a.w.n.'

'Oh.' And Mignureal looked upon him, head to one side. Moonflower saw the look.

'You will go to bed and tomorrow you will tell me what you were doing abroad so late, Mignue. You will not come near Hanse again, do you understand?'

'Oh, mother.' Mignureal met the level gaze only briefly. 'Yes, mother. I understand.' And she went to bed.

Moonflower did not; she stayed beside Hanse. In the morning he was all right and she totd him what she had Seen. He would never be the same again, she knew, he who had met quintessential fear. Lord Terror himself, face to face. But he was Hanse again, and not afraid, and Moonflower was sure that within a few hours he would have his gliding swagger back. She did note that he was grim-facedly determined.

The message left at the little Watchpost at the corner of Shadow and Lizard's Way suggested that the 'tall as a tree h.e.l.l-hound take a walk between stinky market and the cat storage' at the time of the fifth night.w.a.tch 'when the shadows are sp.a.w.ning fear in all hearts'. The message was delivered to Tempus, who ordered the sub-prefect to forget it, and looked fierce. The wriggly agreed and got thence.

In private, his mind aided by a pinch of his powdered friend, Tempus worked backwards at the cipher. The. last line had to be the signature: Shadowsp.a.w.n.

Hanse wanted to meet him very privately, an hour past midnight. Good. So ...

where? 'Stinky market' could mean lots of places. 'Cat storage' meant nothing.

Cat storage; cat - the granaries? - where cats not only were kept but migrated, drawn by the mice drawn by the grain? No; there was no way to walk between any of the granaries and anything deserving to be characterized as stinky market beyond any other stenchy place. What stinks most? Easy, he answered himself. The tanners - no! Don't be stupid, second thought told him. Fish stink worse than anything. Hmm. The fish market then, down on Red Clay Street - which might as well be called Warehouse Street. So all the natives called it. The stinking fish market, then, and ... cat storage? He stared at the map.

Oh. Simple. The governor was called Kitty-Cat and a warehouse was a place for storage. The Governor's Warehouse then, down beside the fish market. Not a block from the Watchpost at Shadow and Lizard, the rascal! Tempus shook his head, and hours and hours later he was there. He made sure no one tried to 'help' him; twice he played thief, to watch his own trail. He was not followed. Wrinkling his nose at the stench and slipping on a discarded fish-head, he resolved to get a clean-up detail down here, and recommend a light as well.

'I am glad you look like you,' the shadows said, from behind and above him.

'A G.o.d has marked me, Hanse,' Tempus explained, without turning or looking up.

'He helped me, in the Vulgar Unicorn. I didn't care to be seen there, compromising you. Did you leave the message because you have changed your mind?'

'There will be a bargain.'

' I can appreciate that. Word is that you have bargained before, with my employer.'

'That is as obviously impossible as breaking into the palace.'

'Obviously. I am empowered to bargain, Hanse.' I 'A woman was found dead on Farmer's Run just at the west end of the market,' the shadows said quietly. 'She wore a cloak the colour of red clay.' I 'Yes.' ' *

'She had a walking stick. It has a ... horrible effect on a man. Her killer stole it, after she used it on his partner. He abandoned him.'

'No thief's corpse was found.'

'It does not kill. Its effect is ... obscene.' A pause; while the shadow shuddered? 'I saw it happen. They were hooded.'

'Do you know who they are?'

'Not now. I canUnd out-easily. Want the stick?'

'Yes.'

'How many of those foul things remain in ... circulation?'

'We think two. A clever fellow has done well for himself by counting the people who came out of the shop with a purchase, and recording the names of those he knew. What is the bargain, Hanse?'

'I had rather deal with him.'

'I wish you would trust me. Setting up interviews with him takes time.'

'I trust you, Tempus, just as you trust me. Get me something in writing from him, then. Signed. Give it to the seer, Moonflower. This is costing me time, pulling me away from my work-'

'Work?'

' - and I shall have to have compensation. Now.'

0 you d.a.m.ned arrogant boy, Tempus thought, and without a word he made three coins clink as he dropped them. He was sure Hanse's ears could distinguish gold from copper or silver by the sound of the clink. He also dropped a short section of pig's intestine, st.i.tched at one end and tied off at the other. He said, 'Oops.'

'I want a.s.sistance in recovering something of mine, Tempus. Just labour, that's all. What's to be recovered is mine, I guarantee it.'

'I'll help you myself.'

'We'll need tools, a horse, rope, strength...'

'Done. I will get it in writing, but it is done. Deliver and I deliver. We have a bond between us.'

'So have he and I. I do want that paper signed and slipped to the S'danzo seer.

Very well then, Tempus. We have bargained.'

'By mid-afternoon. Good night, sp.a.w.n of shadows.'

'Good night, shadow-man. You didn't say "p.a.w.n", did you?'

'No.' And Tempus turned and walked ba.ck up between the buildings to light, and less stenchy air. Behind him, soundlessly, the three gold coins and little bag ofkrrfhe had dropped vanished, into the shadows.

Next day not long after dawn Hanse gave Moonflower a great hug and pretended to find a gold piece in her ear.

'I Saw for you, not for coin,' she told him.

'I understand. I know. Why look, here's another in your other ear, for Mignureal. I give you the gold because I found it, not because you helped me.

And a message will be given you today, for me.'

Moonflower made both coins disappear beneath her shawl into what she called her treasure chest. 'Don't frown; Mignue shall have the one as her very own. Will you do something for me I would prefer to coin, Hanse?'

Very seriously, relaxing for once, he nodded. 'Without question.'

' My daughter is very young and thinks you are just so romantic a figure. Will you just pretend she is your sister?'

'Oh you would not want that. Pa.s.sionflower,' he said, in one of those rare indications of what sort of childhood he must have had. 'She is my friend's daughter and I shall call her cousin. Besides, she saw me ... that way. I may not be able to look her in the eyes again.'

She took those lean restless hands of a thief proud never to have hurt any he robbed. 'You will, Hanse. You will. It was G.o.d-sorcery, and no embarra.s.sment.

Will you now be careful?'

'I will.'

She studied his eyes. 'But you are going to find him.'

'I am.'

The adherents of the most ancient G.o.ddess Theba went hooded to their little temple. This was their way. It also made it easier for the government to keep them under surveillance, and made it easy for Hanse to slip among them. A little tilt to his shoulder, a slight favouring of one leg under the dull brown robe, and he was not the lithely gliding Shadowsp.a.w.n at all.

The services were dull and he had never liked the odour of incense. It made him want to sneeze and go to sleep, both at once. Insofar as he ever gave thought to religion, he leaned towards a sort of loyalty to the demiG.o.d Rander Rehabilitatus. He endured, and he observed. This G.o.ddess's wors.h.i.+p in Sanctuary included two blind adherents. Both carried staffs. Though only one was white, it was not in the grip of a left-handed man.

Finding his quarry really was as simple as that. On deserting his partner, the murderous thief had sneered 'Theba take you,' and Moonflower had Seen that G.o.ddess, or at least the likeness of her icons and amulets. She had no more than forty wors.h.i.+ppers here, and only this one (part-time) temple. The thief had also struck away the terror-stick with his right hand and used his left to drive the dagger into his victim - and to use the staff on Hanse.

There came the time of Communing In Her. Hanse watched what the others did. They mingled, and a buzz rose as they said nice silly loving peace-things to each other in the name of Her. The usual meaningless ritual; 'peace' was a word and life and its exigencies were another matter. Hanse mingled.

'Peace and love to you, brother,' a woman said from within her wine-dark cowl, and her hand slipped into Hanse's robe and he caught her wrist.

'Peace and defter fingers to you, sister,' he said quietly, and went around her towards his goal. To be certain, he came cowl to cowl with the man with the white stick and, smiling, made a shamefully obscene gesture. The cowl and the staff did not move; a hand moved gently out to touch him.

'Her peace remain on you, my brother,' the blind man said in a high voice, and Hanse mouthed words, then turned.

'You rotten slime,' a cowl striped in green and red hissed. 'Poor blind Sorad has been among us for years and no one ever made such a nasty gesture to him.

Who are you, anyhow?'

'One who thinks that other blind man is not blind and not one of us, and was testing - brother. Have you ever seen him before?'

His accoster - burly, in that striped Myrsevadan robe, looked around. 'Well ...

no. The one in the gloves?'

'Yes. I think they are because his stick - yes, peace to you too, sister - has just been painted.'

'You think it's a disguised weapon? That.he's from the... palace?'

'No. I think the prince-governor couldn't care a rat's whisker about us.'

Subst.i.tuting the p.r.o.noun was a last instant thought, and Hanse felt proud of that touch. Playing 'I'm just like you but he is bad' had got him out of several sc.r.a.pes. 'I do think he is a spy, though. That priest from Ranke, who thinks every temple should be closed down except a glorious new one to Vash - Vas.h.i.+ whatever they call him. I'll bet that's his spy.'

That made the loyal Thebite quiver in rage! He went directly towards the man in the forest green cloak, with the brown stick. Hanse, edging along towards the entrance of what was by day a belt-maker's shop, watched Striped Robe speak to the man with the staff. An answer came, as Hanse moved.

Hanse didn't hear the reply; he heard 'May all your days be bright in Her name and She take you when you are tired of life, brother.' This from the fat man beside him, in a tent-sized cloak.

'Oh, thank you, brother. And on you, peace in Her n-' Hanse broke off when the terrified screaming began.

It was the big fellow in the robe of green and red stripes, and his cowl fell back to show his fear-twisted face. Naturally no one understood, and other cries arose amid the milling of robed, faceless people. Two did understand, and both moved towards the door. One was closer. He hurried forth, running - and outside, cut left out of view of the doorway and swung swiftly back. He already had the little jar of vinegar out of his dull brown robe, and the cork pulled. Inside the temple: clamour.