Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn

SHADOW'S PAWN 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 gods 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 damnable lurking, waiting, for - oh, probably a month.

Though she was the sort of woman men looked upon with lust, the thief would not have her. He did not see her that way. His lust 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 passed 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 snatch 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-hellp,' 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 attitude 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 bitch 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 god 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 god Vashanka smiled.

'The god-damned 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.)

' "God-damned" 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, Shadowspawn.'

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 Shadowspawn. 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 gods, 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 passing 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 Shadowspawn 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 gods. 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 Shadowspawn'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 spawn 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 assumed. Now Shadowspawn 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 assiduously 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-embarrassed 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 god-weapons? - that place sold, or _ tried to. Hell 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 God 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 Hell 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 snatch 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.'

Hanse became visibly uncomfortable: 'I am Hanse. I was ... apprentice to Cudget Swearoath. Prince Kitty-Cat had him hanged. I am Shadowspawn. I have breached the palace and because of me a Hell Hound is dead. I have no friends.'

And you slip and call him 'Kitty-Cat' when you think of your executed mentor, do you? Not seeking a father, eh? Do you know that all men do, and that I have mine, in Vashanka? Ah Hanse how you seek to be enigmatic and so cool - and are about as transparent as a pan of water caught from the sky!

Tempus waved a hand. 'Save all that. Just tell me not to be your friend. Not to call you friend.'

A silence fell over them like a struck banner and something naked stared out of Hanse's eyes. By the time he knew he must speak into the silence, it was too late. That same silence was Tempus's answer.

'Yes,' Tempus said, considerately-cleverly changing the subject. 'What old whatsisname Torchholder yammers about is true. Vashanka came, and He claimed Sanctuary. His name is branded into the place, now. The very temple of Ils lies in rubble. Vashanka created the Weaponshop, from nothing, and-'

'A pedlar-god?'

'I didn't think much of the lactic myself,' Tempus said, hoping Vashanka heard him while noting how good the youth was at sneering. 'And the Weaponshop destroyed the mage the governor imported to combat him. Vashanka is not to be combated.'

Hanse snapped glances this way and that. 'Say such things a time or two more in Sanctuary, my friend, and your body will be mourning the loss of its head.'

The blond man stared at him. 'Do you believe that?'

Hanse let that pass, while he rowed into the current of other conversations in the tavern. A current restless as a thief on a landing outside a window, and conversations just as stealthy and dark. He tuned it out again, stepping out of the flow yet flowing with it. Quietly.

'And how many of those fell Things do you think are still loose?'

'Too many. Two or four? You know our job is to collect them.'

'Our?'

'The Hell Hounds.'

'Who's your bearded friend, Hanse?'

The speaker stood beside the table, only a bit older than Hanse and just as cocky. Older in years only; he had not benefited from those years and would never be so much as Hanse. Self-consciously he wore self-consciously tight black. Oh, a brilliant thief! About as unobtrusive as hives.

Hanse was staring at Tempus, who was pink and bronze of skin, gold and honey of hair, lengthy and lengthy of legs, and smoothshaven as a pair of doeskin leggings. Hanse did not take his dark-eyed gaze off the Hell Hound, while his dark hand moved out to close on the (black-bracered) wrist of the other young man.

'What colour would you say his beard is, Athavul?'

Athavul moved his arm and proved that his wrist would not come loose. His arrogance and mask of cocky confidence fled him faster than a street girl fled a man revealed poor. Tempus recognized Athavul's chuckle; nervousness and sham. Tempus had heard it a thousand or a million times. What was the difference? He reflected on temporality, even while this boy Athavul temporized.

'You going blind, Shadowspawn? You think myself is, and testing he and I?' With a harsh short laugh and a slap with his other hand on his own chest, Athavul said, 'Black as this. Black as this!' He slapped his black leather pants - self consciously.

Tempus, leaning a bit forwards, elbows on the little table, big swordsman's shoulders hunched, continued, to gaze directly at Hanse. Into Hanse's eyes. His face looked open because he made it that way. Beardless. -

'Same's his hair?' Hanse said, and his voice sounded brittle as very old harness-leather. His eyes glittered.

Athavul swallowed. 'Hair...' He swallowed again, looking from Hanse to Tempus to Hanse. 'Ah ... he's your, ah, friend, Hanse. Let go, will you? You twit him about his ... head if you want to, but I won't. Sorry I stopped and tried to be civil.'

Without looking away from Hanse, Tempus said, 'It's all right, Athavul. My name is Thales and I am not sensitive. I've been this bald for years.'

Hanse was staring at Tempus, blond Tempus. His hand opened. Athavul yanked his arm back so fast he hit himself in his (nearly inexistent) stomach. He made no pretence of grace; with a dark glance at Hanse, he betook himself elsewhere, sullenly silent.

'Nicely done,' Tempus said, showing his teeth.

'Don't smile at me, stranger. What do you look like?'

'Exactly what you see, Hanse. Exactly.'

'And ... what did he see?' Hanse's wave of his arm was as tight as he had become inside. 'What do they see here, talking with Hanse?'

'He told you.'

'Black beard, no hair.'

Blond, beardless Tempus nodded.

Neither had taken his gaze off the other's eyes. 'What else?'

'Does it matter? I am in the employ of that person we both know. What you people call a Hell Hound. I would not come here in that appearance! I doubt anyone else would be in this room, if they saw me. I was here when you came in, remember? Waiting for you. You were too cool to ask the obvious.'

'They call me spawn of the shadows,' Hanse said quietly, slowly, in a low tone. He was leaning back as if to get a few more centimetres between him and the tall man. 'You're just a damned shadow!'

'It's fitting. I need your help, Shadowspawn.'

Hanse said, enunciating distinctly, 'Shit.' And rising he added, 'Sing for it. Dance in the streets for it.' And he turned away, then back to add, 'You're paying of course, Baldy,' and then he betook himself elsewhere.

Outside, he glanced up and down the vermiform 'street' called Serpentine, turned right to walk a few paces north. Automatically, he stepped over the broken plank in the boardwalk. He glanced into the tucked-in courtyard that was too broad and shallow to be dangerous for several hours yet. Denizens of the Maze called it variously the Outhouse, Tick's Vomitory., or, less seriously. Safe-haven. From the pointed tail of the shortcloak on the man back within that three-sided box, Hanse recognized Poker the Cadite. From the wet sounds, he made an assumption as to Poker's activity. The man with the piebald beard glanced around.

'Come on in, Shadowspawn. Not much room left.'

'Looking for Athavul. Said he was carrying and said I could join him.' Lying was more than easy to Shadowspawn; it was almost instinctive.

'You're not mad at him?' Poker dropped his tunic's hem and turned from the stained rearmost wall.

'No no, nothing like that.'

'He went south. Turned into Slick Walk.'

'Thanks, Poker. There's a big-bearded man in the Unicorn with no hair on top. Get him to buy you a cup. Tell him I said.'

'Ah. Enemy of yours, Hansey?'

'Right.'

Hanse turned and walked a few paces north towards Straight, his back to Slick Walk (which led into the two-block L whose real name no one remembered. Nary a door opened onto it and it stayed dark as a sorcerer's heart. It smelled perpetually sour and was referred to as Vomit Boulevard). When Poker said the weather was sunny, turn up your cloak's hood against rain. When Poker said right, head left.

Hanse cut left through Odd Birt's Dodge, angling around the corner of the tenement owned by Furtwan the dealer in snails for dye - who lived way over on the east side, hardly in tenement conditions. Instantly Hanse vanished into the embrace of his true friend and home. The shadows.

Because he had kept his eyes slitted while he was in the light filtering down from Straight Street, he was able to see. The darkness deepened with each of his gliding westward steps.

He heard the odd tapping sound as he passed Wrong Way Park. What in all the - a blind man? Hanse smiled - keeping his mouth closed against the possible flash of teeth. This was a wonderful place for the blind! They could 'see' more in three quarters of the Maze than anyone with working eyes. He eased along towards the short streetlet called Tanner, hearing the noises from Sly's Place. Then he heard Athavul's voice, out in the open.

'Your pardon, dear lady, but if you don't hand myself your necklace and your wallet I'll put this crossbow bolt through your left gourd.'

Hanse eased closer, getting himself nearer the triple 'corner' where Tanner sort of intersected with Odd Birt's Dodge and touched the north-south wriggle of the Serpentine as well. Streets ; in the Maze, it has been said, had been laid out by two love-struck snakes, both soaring on krrf. Hanse heard the reply of Ath's intended prey: 'You don't have a crossbow, slime lizard, but see what I have!' The scream, in a voice barely recognizable as Athavul's, raised the hairs on the back of Hanse's neck and sent a chill running all the way down his coccyx. He considered freezing in place. He I considered the sensible course of turning and running. Curiosity urged him to edge two steps farther and peek around the building housing Sly's. Curiosity won.

By the time he looked, Athavul was whimpering and gibbering. Someone in a long cloak the colour of red clay, hood up, stepped around him and Hanse thought he heard a giggle. Cowering, pleading, gibbering in horribly obvious fear - of what? - Athavul ^ fell to his knees. The cloak swept on along Tanner towards the i Street of Odours, and Hanse swallowed with a little effort. A knife had got itself into his hand; he didn't throw if. He edged down a few more steps to see which way the cloak turned. Right. Hanse caught a glimpse of the walking stick. It was white. The way the person in that cloak was moving, though, she was not blind. Nor was she any big woman.

Hanse put up his knife and started towards Athavul. 'No! Please plehehehease!' On his knees, Ath clasped his hands ; and pleaded. His eyes were wide and glassy with fear. Sweat and [ tears ran down his face in such profusion that he must soon have i salt spots on his black jerkin. His shaking was wind-blown wash on the line and his face was the colour of a priming coat of whitewash.

Hanse stood still. He stared. 'What's the matter with you, Ath? I'm not menacing you, you fugitive from a dung-fuelled stove! Athavul! What's the matter'th you?' 'Oh please pleoaplease no no oh ohh ohohohono-o-o...' Athavul fell on his knees and his still-clasped hands, bony rump in the air. His shaking had increased to that of a whipped, starved dog.

Such an animal would have moved Hanse to pity. Athavul was just ridiculous. Hanse wanted to kick him. He was also aware that two or three people were peering out of the dump still called Sly's Place though Sly had taken dropsy and died two years back.

'Ath? Did she hurt you? Hey! You little piece of camel dropping - what did she do to you?'

At the angry, demanding sound of Hanse's voice, Athavul clutched himself. Weeping loudly, he rolled over against the wall. He left little spots of tears and slobber and a puddle from a spasming sphincter. Hanse swallowed hard. Sorcery. That damned Enos Y - no, he didn't work this way. Ath was absolutely terrified. Hanse had always thought him the consistency of sparrow's liver and chicken soup, with bird's eggs between his legs. But this - not even this strutting ass could be this hideously possessed by fear without preternatural aid. Just the sight of it was scary. Hanse felt an urge to stomp or stick Ath just to shut him up, and that was awful.

He glanced at the thirty-one strands of dangling Syrese rope (each knotted thirty-one times) that hung in the doorway of Sly's. He saw seven staring eyeballs, six fingers, and several mismatched feet. Even in the Maze, noise attracted attention ... but people had sense enough not to go running out to see what was amiss.

'BLAAAH!' Hanse shouted, making a horrid face and pouncing at the doorway. Then he rushed past the grovelling, weeping Athavul. At the corner he looked up Odours towards Straight, and he was sure he saw the vermilion cloak. Maroon now, in the distance. Yes. Across Straight, heading north now past the tanners' broad open-front sheds, almost to the intersection with the Street called Slippery.

Several people were walking along Odours, just walking, heading south in Hanse's direction. The lone one carried a lanthorn.

All six walkers - three, one, and two - passed him going in the opposite direction. None saw him, though Hanse was hurrying. He heard the couple talking about the hooded blind woman with the white staff. He crossed well-lighted Straight Street when the red clay cloak was at the place called Harlot's Cross. There Tanner's Row angled in to join the Street of Odours at its mutual intersection with the broad Governor's Walk. He passed the tiny 'temple' ofTheba and several shops to stop outside the entrance of the diminutive Temple of Eshi Virginal - few believed in that -and watched the cloak turn left. Northwest. A woman, all right. Heading past the long sprawl of the farmers' market? Or one of the little dwellings that faced it?

Heading for Red Lantern Road? A woman who pretends to be blind and who put a spell of terror on Athavul like nothing I ever saw.

He had to follow her. He was incapable of not following her.

He was not driven only by curiosity. He wanted to know the identity of a woman with such a device, yes. There was also the possibility of obtaining such a useful wand. White, it resembled the walk-tap stick of a sightless woman. Painted though, it could be the swagger stick of ... Shadowspawn. Or of someone with a swollen purse who could put it to good use against Hanse's fellow thieves.

He looked out for himself; let them.

Hanse did not follow. He moved to intersect, and could anyone have done it as swiftly and surefootedly, it must have been a child who lived hereabouts and had no supervision.

He ran past Slippery - fading into a fig-pedlar's doorway while a pair of City Watchmen passed - then ran through two vacant lots, a common back yard full of dog droppings and the white patches of older ones, over an outhouse, around a fat tree and then two meathouses and through two hedges - one spiny, which took no note of being cursed by a shadow on silent feet - across a porch and around a rain barrel, over the top of a sleeping black cat that objected with more noise than the two dogs he had aroused - one was still importantly barking, puffed up and hating to leave off- across another porch ('Is that you, Dadisha? Where have you been?'), through someone's scraps and - long jump! - over a mulchpile, and around two lovers ('What was that, Wrenny?'), an overturned outhouse, a rain barrel, a cow tethered to a wagon he went under without even slowing down, and three more buildings.

One of the lovers and one of the dogs actually caught sight of the swift fleeting shadow. No one else. The cow might have wondered.

On one knee beside a fat beanberry bush at the far end of Market Run, he looked out upon the long straight stretch of well-kept street that ran past the market on the other side. He was not winded.

The hooded cloak- with the walking stick was just reaching this end of the long, long farmers' market. Hanse crimped his cheeks in a little smile. Oh he was so clever, so speedy! He was just in time to-

- to see the two cloakless but hooded footpads materialize from the deep jet shadows at the building's corner. They pounced. One ran angling, to grasp her from behind, while his fellow came at her face-on with no weapons visible. Ready to snatch what she had, and run. She behaved surprisingly; she lunged to one side and prodded the attacker in front. Prodded, that Hanse saw; she did not strike or stab with the white staff.

Instantly the man went to his knees. He was gibbering, pleading, quaking. A butterfly clinging to a twig in a windstorm. Or ... Athavul.

Swiftly - not professionally fast, but swiftly for her, a civilian, Hanse saw (he was moving) - she turned to the one coming up behind her. He also adjusted rapidly. He went low. The staff whirred over his head while his partner babbled and pleaded in the most abject fear. The footpad had not stopped moving. (Neither had Hanse.) Up came the hooded man from his crouch and his right hand snapped out edge-on to strike her wrist while his other fist leaped to her stomach. That fist glittered in the moonlight, or something glittered in it. That silvery something went into her - and she made a puking gagging throaty noise and while she fell the white stick slid from her reflexively opening fingers. He grabbed it.

That was surely ill-advised, but his hand closed on the staffs handle without apparent effect on him. He kicked her viciously, angrily - maybe she felt it, gutted, and maybe she did not - and he railed at his comrade. The latter, on his knees, behaved as Athavul had when Hanse shouted at him. He fell over and rolled away, assuming the foetal posture while he wept and pled.

The killer spat several expletives and whirled back to his victim. She was twitching, dying. Yanking open the vermilion cloak, he jerked off her necklace, ripped a twisted silver loop out of each ear, and yanked at the scantling purse on her girdle. It refused to come free. He sliced it with the swift single movement of a practised expert. Straightening, he glanced in every direction, said something to his partner - who rolled foetally, sobbing.

'Theba take you, then,' the thief said, and ran.

Back into the shadows of the market building's west corner he fled, and one of the shadows tripped him. As he fell, an elbow thumped the back of his neck.

'I want what you've got, you murdering bastard,' a shadow-voice said from the shadows, while the footpad twisted to roll over. 'Your kind gives thieves a bad name.'

'Take it then!' The fallen man rammed the white staff into the shadow's thigh as it started to bend over him.

Instantly fear seized Hanse. Viced him; encompassed him; possessed him. Sickening, stomach-fluttering fear. His armpits flooded and his sphincter fluttered.

Unlike the stick's victims he had seen, he was in darkness, and he was Shadowspawn. He did not fall to his knees.

He fled, desperately afraid, snivelling, clutching his gut, babbling. Tears flowed to blind him, but he was in darkness anyhow. Staggering, weeping, horribly and obscenely afraid and even more horribly knowing all the while that he had no reason to be afraid, that this was sorcery; the most demeaning spell that could be laid on a man. He heard the killer laugh, and Hanse tried to run faster. Hoping the man did not pursue to confront him. Accost him, Snarl mean things at him. He could not stand that.

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 assume 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 Eshi.'

'Hmm. A spell of fear, huh? That damned Anus 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 shivering. 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. Glassy-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 god not of Ilsig. A god of Ranke - oh, it is a Hell Hound. Oh Hanse it is not wizard-sorcery but god-sorcery! And who is thi - oh. Another god. 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 pawn? 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 Shadowspawn. '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 Shadowspawn.'

'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 Hell-hound take a walk between stinky market and the cat storage' at the time of the fifth nightwatch 'when the shadows are spawning 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: Shadowspawn. 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 god 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 damned 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, stitched at one end and tied off at the other. He said, 'Oops.'

'I want assistance 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, spawn of shadows.'

'Good night, shadow-man. You didn't say "pawn", 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. Passionflower,' 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 god-sorcery, and no embarrassment. 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 goddess 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 Shadowspawn 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 demigod Rander Rehabilitatus. He endured, and he observed. This goddess's worship 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 goddess, or at least the likeness of her icons and amulets. She had no more than forty worshippers 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.' Substituting the pronoun 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 scrapes. '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 - Vashi 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.

The man with the gloves and brown walking stick hurried through the door and turned left; had he not, Hanse would have called. The fellow had no time for anything before Hanse sent the vinegar sloshing within his hood.

'Ah!' Naturally the man ducked his head as the liquid drenched him and entered both eyes. Since he was not blind and not accustomed to carrying a staff as a part of him, he dropped it to rush both hands to his face. Hanse swallowed hard before snatching up the stick by its handle. He kicked the moaning fellow in the knee-cap, and ran. The god-weapon seemed hummingly alive in his hand, so much that he wanted to throw it down and keep running. He did not, and it exerted no other effect on him. Just around the corner he paused for an importuning beggar, who soon had the gift of a nice brown, cowled robe. Since it was thrown over him as he sat, he never saw the generous giver. He had been swallowed by the shadows once the beggar got his head free of the encumbering woollen.

'Here, you little lizard, where do you think you're running to, hah?'

That from the brutish swaggering desert tradesman who grabbed at Hanse as he ran by. Well, he was not of the city, and did not know who he laid big hand on. Nor was he likely to aught but hie himself out of Sanctuary, once he returned to normal - doubtless robbed. Besides, a test really should be made to be sure, and Hanse poked him.

This was the staff of ensorcelment, all right.

Hurrying on his way, Hanse began to smile.

He had the stick and the murdering thief who had used it on him would not be too nimble for a long, long time, and the robe he had snitched off a drying line was in the possession of a beggar who would be needing it in a few months, and Hanse had his little message from the prince-governor. It avowed - so Hanse was told, as he did not read - that 'he you specify shall lend full aid in the endeavour you specify, provided it is legal in full, in return for your returning another wand to us'.

Hanse had laughed when he read that last; even a prince had a sense of humour and could allude to Hanse's having stolen his Savankh, rod of authority, less than a month ago. And now Shadowspawn would have the aid of big strong super legal Tempus in regaining two bags of silver coin from a well up in the supposedly haunted ruins of Eaglenest. Hanse hoped Prince Kadakithis would appreciate the humour in that, too: the bagged booty had come from him, as ransom for the official baton of his imperial authority in Sanctuary. Even Tempus's krrf had brought in a bit of silver.

And now ... Hanse's grin broadened. Suppose he just went about a second illicit entry of the palace? Suppose a blind man showed up among the swarm of alms seekers to be admitted into the courtyard two days hence, in accord with Kadakithis's people wooing custom? Shadowspawn would not only hand this awful staff to the prince-governor, he would at the same time provide ., graphic demonstration of the palace's pitiable security.

Unfortunately, Tempus had taken charge of security. The hooded blind beggar was challenged at the gate two days thence, and the Hell Hound Quag suspiciously snatched the staff from him. When the disguised Hanse objected, he was struck with it. Well, at least that way it was proven that he had brought the right stick in good faith, and that way he did get to spend a night in the palace, however unpleasant in his state of terror.