Storm Season tw-4

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  "Is that smoke? Theba's paps, it's the Palace! Leave the wagon, Tarn, we can give the beasts their slops in the morning!" The wagon heaved again and Lalo heard two sets of footsteps pounding back the way they had come.

  He settled back down, realizing with wonder that for the moment at least, he was saved.

  And what will I do now? Zanderei would tell everyone that Lalo had killed the guard and started the fire. If caught, he would be cast into the dungeons, if they did not kill him out of hand. And if he offered to demonstrate his skill in his defense, he might wish that they had...

  He could not return to the Palace to accuse the 'Commissioner', but if he could reach the Maze he could hide indefinitely-there were still a few who owed him favors there.

  And then . . . Zanderei would either assassinate Prince Kadakithis, or go peacefully home. The former seemed more likely, for one does not return a honed blade to the sheath without blooding it, and in that case Coricidius would fall as well.

  And what would become of Sanctuary? The thought troubled his satisfaction. What kind of tyrant would the Empire send to avenge its son? For all his clumsiness, at least Prince Kittycat meant well, and if they must be ruled by foreigners, surely the ones they were accustomed to would be best.

  And it's all in my hands... Trying to control laughter, Lalo unwisely took too deep a breath, and began to cough again. Here I wallow in the Prince's garbage, deciding what his fate shall be? Power bubbled in his veins like wine of Caronne. I could send word to Coricidius-he started this, he might believe me ... or-he remembered rumors he had heard about Shadowspawn-I might be able to get word to the Prince himself...

  But first I have to get out of here?

  Cautiously Lalo poked his head over the rim of the cart. There was a whiff of smoke in the air, and above the wall he could see torches winking like glowworms in the upper windows of the Palace, but he saw no glare of fire-perhaps they had put it out in time. The cart in which he was sitting was parked just outside the Zoo Gardens, a few feet from the Processional Gate.

  Sighing with relief, Lalo clambered over the side and began to strip off his smock and brush away the worst of the filth that coated him-

  -And stopped, feeling a gaze that was not the dispassionate stare of the mangy lions beyond the barrier. He turned then, and looked across the square to the Palace Gate from which a familiar grey-robed figure had just emerged. For a moment fear froze him again, but he was still glowing with the inebriation of power. He let his smock fall to the ground.

  Zanderei's robe was of rich silk, while his own worn shirt and stained breeches would attract no attention. If he could entice the Rankan into the town, Lalo would be on his own ground, and the City itself might rid him and the Prince of their enemy.

  Grinning nervously, Lalo walked into plain view, and then urged his stiff limbs into an awkward dash through the Gate as Zanderei and half a dozen Hell-Hounds leaped into motion across the Square after him.

  Looking back over his shoulder at every other step, Lalo pressed his cramped limbs to greater speed along the Processional Way. Hearing the guards close behind him, he dodged among the merchants' houses to Westgate Street and down Tanner's Row, heading for the Serpentine. And as he ran, the blood began to course freely through his limbs once more, and he shed middle-age and awkwardness as he had shed his ruined smock, and his fear.

  Lalo leaped over a handcart that had been abandoned in the road and paused to send it spinning broadsides. That would not long delay them, but he could hear mercenaries laying bets on a dogfight in the next street. Laughing like the boy who had raced through these streets so long ago, he let his pursuers follow him around the corner, slid eel-like through the crowd, and laughed again as the tinny clash of weapons told him that the Hell-Hounds and the mercenaries had met.

  But what about Zanderei? Lalo waited in the shadow of a quiet doorway and watched the gap at the entrance to the street. Night had fallen, and the moon, now almost at the full, was drawing free of the distorting smoke of the City and transforming the shape and shadows of the street with its own deceptive dappling. How could he tell which one-

  Ah, there, a shadow moved of itself, and Lalo knew that his enemy was here.

  So soon! Shock tingled through his veins and set every hair on end. I must run ... the man moves too subtly-before those who would attack him for the silk he wears can note him, he is away. I am a dead man if I cannot trap him somehow. The glory he had tasted seemed now as inconstant as the moon. In a moment Zanderei would reach his hiding place.

  And yet it was almost as if he had done all this before-he remembered a time in his boyhood, when he had come with his mates into the Maze in search of excitement and been set upon there. He had escaped by-he looked up and saw that this house too had an external stair. Without allowing himself time to think of failure, Lalo launched himself upward.

  The wooden structure swayed alarmingly. Lalo clutched at a railing and nearly fell when it gave way beneath his hand. He could hear loud voices inside-a window opened and then slammed shut as he was seen, and for a moment the quarreling was stilled. Then he was on the roof, leaping over trays of drying fruit and ducking under clotheslines. He saw the dark shape behind him and jerked one end of the line free so that the hanging clothes clung damply to the man who was following him.

  Something flashed by his cheek in the moonlight like a line of white fire. Lalo threw himself across the gap between two buildings, clutched at the ledge of a parapet and lay across it, gasping, staring at the quivering blade that matched the one he had seen in the throat of the slain guard. He hauled himself the rest of the way into the dubious protection of the gable end.

  Two Hell-Hounds trotted down the street below, paused momentarily at the corner and gave a whistle which was answered from two streets away. Lalo wondered what had happened to the mercenaries. Then a shadow rose from the opposite rooftop, glimmering like silver as it came into the full light of the moon.

  "Limner!" Zanderei called, "The soldiers will kill you if they catch you before I do-give yourself up to me now!"

  Lalo thought of the blade which he had wedged uncomfortably into his sash and gritted his teeth. They call us Wrigglies, he remembered, Well, I had better do some quick wriggling now? Cautiously he squirmed across the tiles. A quiver beneath him told him that Zanderei had also crossed the gap, and he scrambled for the opposite stair.

  But there was none. Unable to stop, Lalo leaped to the balcony in a crash of

  breaking crockery, and swung himself from the railing to the street below. The upper way would not save him, but as he had lain gasping he had remembered an alternative, darker and more dangerous both to the pursuer and the pursued.

  Shards of terra cotta smashed and rattled in the street behind him as the owner of the balcony glimpsed Zanderei and pelted him with his broken wares. Lalo sped down the street and past a group wavering along from the direction of the Vulgar Unicorn.

  I wanted to be a hero-he thought, forcing his legs to more speed, but how do you tell the difference between a dead hero and a dead fool? The singing behind him faltered and someone screamed. Zanderei-for a moment Lalo saw the assassin clearly in the moonlight-he had shed his grey silk and his shirt was torn-he looked as if he had been bred to the streets of Sanctuary. And as if he had felt Lalo's gaze, he turned, and his teeth flashed in a brief smile.

  Lalo took a deep breath and stared around him-he dared not move too quickly now lest he miss the spot, though every sense was clamoring to him to flee. There, at the end of the alley-a wooden cover that capped a circle of crumbling stones. Lalo pulled it free-the covers were usually left unbolted in hopes that people would throw refuse directly in-then, gritting his teeth, he lowered himself down the shaft.

  It was not so deep as a well. Lalo landed with a splash in a sluggish stream slippery with things he would rather not try to name. Fighting his stomach, he realized that the Prince's garbage had been fragrant compared to the sewers which were his last hope against his
enemy.

  He slogged grimly forward, counting his steps and putting out a reluctant hand to the slimy walls to guide his passage, listening behind him for the small sounds that would tell him that Zanderei had followed him even here. Catching his breath, he felt for the knife, but in all his scrambling it had been lost.

  Just as well-he told himself, I would not have known how to use it anyway/

  "You-Limner, you've done well, but what made you think you could win this game against me?" The voice echoed dankly from water-scoured stone walls. "I'll catch up with you soon-wouldn't you have preferred to have died cleanly?"

  Lalo shook his head, though the other man could not see. He had reckoned his achievements and found them wanting, but if he died now at least he had tried to act like a man. He forced his way onward, fingers questing for the next break in the stone. What if he was wrong? Had he misremembered, or had the tunnels changed in thirty years?

  "You will die, you know. This is the last bolthole. Your end is here."

  An end for both of us then, Lalo thought numbly. I will not mind-Then his trembling fingers found the crack. He moved his hand along the wall, lips whispering the numbers that had become a litany-sixty-six, sixty-seven steps... Please, Lord Ils, Jet it be here... sixty-eight... Shalpa help me, sixty nine, seventy?

  His fingers closed on a rusting semicircle of iron, and stifling a gasp of relief he hauled himself upward, though his fingers slipped on the rungs. The splashing behind him slowed as if his enemy had paused to listen, then became a tumult as Zanderei began to run.

  Lalo gained the top, shoved the wooden cover aside, and heart bursting, rolled over the edge into the clean air. But he could not rest now, not yet, not until the trap was sprung. Summoning strength where he had thought there could be no more, he hauled the cover over the shaft and drove home the wooden bar. And without waiting to see if it would hold, he staggered back to the first shaft and did the same thing there.

  Then he sank to the cobbles beside it, pulse hammering, knowing that this last, god-given strength was gone and he could do not more. This was the only place in the network of sewers where two shafts entered the conduits so close together. Zanderei was trapped there now.

  How sweet the air was to his lungs. From some upper room Lalo heard the tinkle of a gittem and a woman's low laughter. A soft wind comforted his burning cheeks-a sea wind. And then Lalo remembered with mingled satisfaction and horror that Zanderei was doubly doomed. With the sea wind would come a rush of dark water from the Swamp of Night Secrets, propelled by the tidal bore.

  "You-Assassin-you've done well-but what made you think you could win this game with me?" Lalo whispered through cracked lips. Laughter rasped his throat, and he sat shaking by the locked well-mouth while the slime of the tunnel dried on his skin. A stray pickpocket, passing by, made the sign against madness and scuttled away. He heard a whistle and then the clink of a sword as a Hell-Hound passed the mouth of the alley, but he supposed he looked like nothing human, crouching there.

  "Limner, are you there?"

  Lalo jumped, hearing the voice so close to him. The wood of the shaft-top shuddered as it was struck from below, and Lalo leaned on the bar. Hanging from the rungs by one hand, there was no way Zanderei could gain enough leverage to break free. That was what Lalo had heard in dark tales whispered by childhood friends, and later, overwinecups in the Vulgar Unicorn. If he lived, he too would have a tale to tell. ...

  "Assassin, I am here and you are there and there you will stay," croaked Lalo when the dull hammering finally stilled.

  "I will give you gold-I have never broken my word . . . You could establish yourself in the capital."

  "I don't want your gold." I don't even want to go to Ranke, his thought continued, not anymore.

  "I will give you your life..." said Zanderei. "Coricidius won't believe you, you know, and the Hell-Hounds will have your skull for a drinking bowl. At the very least they will strike off your hands ..."

  Involuntarily, Lalo's fingers clasped protectively around his wrists, as if a bright blade were already descending. It was true-surely he had lost all he had ever gained. Better to meet Zan-derei's knife than to live without being able to take brush in hand. If I cannot paint I am nothing, he thought. I will surely die.

  But he did not move. Shivering with exhaustion and despair, still he would not throw away this victory, even though he hardly understood his reasons anymore.

  "Limner, I will give you your soul..."

  "You can only give death, foreigner! You cannot trick me!"

  "I do not need to-" the voice seemed very tired. "I only need to ask you a question. Have you ever painted your own portrait, Limner with the sorcerer's eye?"

  The silence stretched into eternity while Lalo tried to understand. He felt a subtle quiver in the earth that told him the tide was beginning to turn. What did Zanderei mean? Of course he had done self-portraits by the dozen, when he could get no one else to pose for him-

  -In the old days, before Enas York had taught him to paint the soul ...

  I've been too busy-no... the awareness came reluctantly, I was afraid.

  "What will you see on your canvas when you have murdered me?" The voice echoed his fear.

  "Stop it! Leave me alone!" Lalo cried aloud. He heard a deep voice shout orders in the street beyond the alley, and saw for a moment the flicker of lanterns bobbing by, pallid in the moonlight.

  In a few minutes the poisoned waters would be driven from their bed by the inexorable pressure of the tide, and rush through the sewers of Sanctuary like a host of angry serpents seeking their prey. In a few minutes Zanderei would be dead.

  If he disappears, maybe they will blame Zanderei for the Fire. When the stir dies down I'll be free to paint again. His hand twitched as if he held a brush, but the motion triggered Zanderei's words in his memory.

  "Have you ever painted your own portrait?"

  Lalo shuddered suddenly, violently. Could even Enas Yorl lift the curse this man had laid upon his soul? He heard the irregular tramp of men trying to march in close order over an uneven road. The sound was louder now-in a few moments they would pass his alleyway. In a few moments the waters would be here.

  "What will you see when you have murdered me?"

  Without conscious decision, Lalo found himself running stiffly towards the Serpentine.

  "Ho there! Guards-he is hiding in the sewers-down this alley!" He held his ground while they debated, knowing that they could not recognize him under the sodden clothes and mud, and motioned to them to follow him.

  Then he pounded down the alley, bent to wrestle the bar from the shaft-cover and ran on until he found the dark overhang of a staircase to shelter him. Below he felt a trembling and heard the hiss of many waters, and, just as the wooden lid of the shaft was knocked aside, the hollow boom of water forced upward through too narrow a way.

  Something dark clung to the rim of the shaft, like a rat flooded from its hole, then clambered the rest of the way out once the fury of the waters had passed. But now the Hell-Hounds surrounded the shaft. There was a flurry of movement and Lalo heard swearing and a cry of pain. Among the voices he distinguished the soft tones of the Emperor's Commissioner.

  "Is that who you say you are?" A deep voice, Quag's voice, replied. "Well, if we've lost the dauber, at least we have you. My Lord Prince will be interested to learn what sharp-toothed rats his brother keeps to guard his granaries! Come along, you!"

  Lalo sank back against the post of the stair. It was over. The Hell-Hounds were dragging Zanderei away as once they had dragged him into the night.

  He would find a way to let Coricidius know what the painting had shown and what Zanderei had confessed to him. Would they call him into court to prove it? Would they dispose of the assassin quietly, or send him back to Ranke to report his failure? With a dim wonder Lalo realized that it did not matter anymore.

  Gilla would have harsh words for him when he reached home, but her arms would be soft and comforting ...r />
  But still he did not move, for below the surface questions in his mind pulsed one more perplexing-Why did I let Zanderei go?

  Today he had faced death, and fought for his life, and conquered fear. He had realized that the evil of the world was not confined to Sanctuary. But if he could do all this, he was not the person that he had thought he knew.

  He held out his magic hands, his painter's hands, so that the moonlight silvered them, staring as if they held his answer. And perhaps that was true, for if he had beaten Zanderei, the other man's final question had also vanquished him. And he could only answer it by facing his mirror with a paintbrush in his hand.

  The moon was poised above the tattered rooftops, resting after the labor of drawing in the tide. Like a silver mirror, she blessed the tortured streets of Sanctuary, and the tear-streaked face of the man who gazed at her, with the reflected splendor of the hidden sun.

  * * *

  STEEL by Lynn Abbey

  1

  Walegrin listened carefully to the small noises carried on the night breeze. His survival depended on his ability to untangle the sounds of the night-and on the steel sword he clutched, unsheathed, at his side. Ambushers crept toward his small camp in the darkness.

  Two bright Enlibar wagons sat, unguarded and garish, in the ruddy light of a neglected fire. Their cargo had been scattered in tempting disarray; chunks of aquamarine ore shimmered in the moonlight. Walegrin's cloak lay close by the fire, covering an armload of thorny sticks-a ruse to convince the brigands that he and his men were more weary than careful and valued sleep above their lives.

  They'd had little enough rest since leaving the ruined mine with the precious ore; and of the twenty-five men who had left Sanctuary only seven remained. But Walegrin trusted his six stalwarts against four times that many hillmen.

  Walegrin's thoughts were stopped by the warning cry of a mountain hawk; Malm, who had a shepherd's eye for ominous movements, had spotted the enemy. Walegrin held his ground until the camp swarmed with dark, scuttling shapes, until someone stabbed a cloak and heard wood splintering, not bone. Then, sword raised, he led his men out of the shadows.