Soul of the City tw-8

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  And Tempus found the hair on his arms raising up and the skin under his beard crawling as the wine dregs spattered on the floor began to smoke and steam and the dented goblet to shimmer and gleam and, inside his head, a rustle-familiar and unfamiliar-began to sound as a god came to visit there.

  He really hated it when gods intruded inside his skull. He managed to mutter "Crap! Get thee hence!" before he realized that it was neither the deep and primal breathing of Father Enlil-Lord Storm-nor the passionate and demanding boom of Vashanka the Pillager which he was hearing so loud that the shimmer and thunder and smoke issuing from the goblet and dregs before him were diminished to insignificance. It was neither voice from either god; it was comprised of both.

  Both! This was too much. His own fury roused. He detested being invaded; he hated being an instrument, a pawn, the butler of one murder god, the batman of another.

  He fought the heaviness in his limbs which demanded that he sit, still and pop eyed, like Theron across the table from him, and meekly submit to whatever manifestation was in the process of coalescing before him. He snarled and cursed the very existence of godhead and managed to get his hands on the stout edge of the plank table.

  He squeezed the wood so hard that it dented and formed round his fingers like clay, but he could not rise nor could he banish the babble of divine infringement from his head.

  And before him, where a cup had rolled, wheels spun- golden-rimmed wheels of a war chariot drawn by smoke-colored Tros horses whose shod hooves struck sparks from the stones of the palace floor. Out of a maelstrom of swirling smoke it came, and Tempus was so mesmerized by the squealing of the horses and the screech of unearthly stresses around the rent in time and space through which the chariot approached that he only barely noticed that Theron had thrown up both hands to shield his face and was cowering like an aged child at his own table.

  The horses were harnessed in red leather that was shiny, as if wet. Beyond the blood-red reins were hands, and the arms attached were well-formed and strong, brown and smooth, without hair or scar above graven gauntlets. The'driver's torso was covered by a cuirass of enameled metal, cast to the physique beneath it, jointed and gilded in the fashion chosen by the Sacred Band at its inception.

  Tempus did not need to see the face, by then, to know that he was not being visited by a god, nor an archmage, nor even a demon, but by a creature more strange: as the chariot emerged fully from the miasma around it and the horses snorted and plunged, dancing in place, and the wheels screeched to a halt, Tempus saw a hand raise to a brow in a greeting of equals.

  The greeting was for him, not for Theron, who cowered with wide eyes. The face of the man in the chariot smiled softly. The eyes resting upon Tempus so fondly were as pale and pure as cool water. And as the vision opened its mouth to speak, the god-din in Tempus's ears subsided to a rustle, then to whispers, then to contented sighs that faded entirely away when Abarsis, dead Slaughter Priest and patron shade of the Sacred Band, wrapped his blood-red reins casually around the chariot's brake and stepped down from his car, arms wide to embrace Tempus, whom Abarsis had loved better than life when the ghost had been a man.

  There was nothing for it, Tempus realized, but to make the best of the situation, though seeing the materialization of a boy who had sought an honorable death in Tempus's service wrenched his heart.

  The boy was now a power on his own-a power from beyond Death's Gate, true, but a power all the same.

  "Commander," said the velvet-voiced shade, "I see from your face that you still have it in your heart to love me. That's good. This was not an easy journey to arrange."

  The two embraced, and Abarsis's upswept eyes and high curved cheeks, his young bull's neck and his glossy black hair, felt all too real-as substantial as the splinters that had somehow gotten under Tempus's fingernails.

  And the boy was yet strong-that is, the shade was. Tem-pus, stepping back, started to speak but found his voice choked with melancholy. What did one say to the dead? Not "How's life?" surely. Certainly not the Sacred Band greeting....

  But Abarsis spoke it to Tempus, as he had said it so long ago in Sanctuary, where he'd gone to die. "Life to you, Riddler, and everlasting glory. And to your friend ... to our friend... Theron of Ranke, salutations."

  Hearing his name shook Theron from his funk. But the old fighter was nearly speechless, quaking visibly.

  Seeing this, Tempus recovered himself: "You scared us half to death. Is this your darkness, then?" Tempus stepped back and waved a hand toward the sky beyond the corbeled ceiling overhead. "If so, we could do without it. Scares the locals. We're trying to settle in a military rule here, not start a civil war."

  A shadow passed quickly over the beautiful face of the Slaughter Priest and Tempus, seeing it, wanted to ask, "Are you real? Are you reborn? Have you come to stay?"

  The shade looked him hard in the eye and that glance struck his soul and shocked it. "No. None of that, Riddler. I am here to bring a message and ask a favor-for favors done and yet to be done."

  "Ahem. Tempus, will you introduce me? It's my palace, after all," the emperor growled, bluffing annoyance, straining for composure, and casting covetous glances at the horses- if such they were-which stood at parade rest in their traces, ears pricked forward, just a bit of steam issuing from their nostrils. "Favors," Theron murmured, "done and yet to be done...."

  "Theron, Emperor of Ranke, General of the Armies and so forth, meet Abarsis, Slaughter Priest, former High Priest of Vashanka, former-"

  "Former living ally," Abarsis cut in, smooth as a whetted blade, "and ally still, Theron. We've a problem, and it lies in Sanctuary. Speaking through priests is a matter for gods; my mandate is different. Tempus, whom we both love, must listen to gods, not priests, but on this occasion, I am... well equipped..." His grin flashed as it had once in life: "... to interpret." Then he shifted and his gaze caught Tempus's and held: "The message is: the globes of Nisibisi power must be destroyed; all the gods will rejoice when it is done. Destroyed in Sanctuary, where there are tortured souls of yours and mine to be released. The favor is: grant Niko's wish in a matter of children ... yours and Ours."

  Ours? There was no mistaking the upper-case tone Abarsis had used-a tone reserved for deific matters and one word 'spoken by the dead High Priest of Vashanka who had come so far to utter it. Liking the smell of things less and less, Tempus took a step backward and sat upon the table's edge, thinking, For this, he comes to me. Wonderful. Now what?

  For Tempus, who could refuse a god and obstruct an arch-mage, knew, looking at Abarsis, that he could refuse this one nothing. It was an old debt, a mutual responsibility stretching far beyond such trifles as life and death. It was a matter of souls, and Tempus's soul was very old. So old that, seeing Abarsis yet young, yet beautiful in his spirit and his honor in a way Tempus no longer could be, the man called the Riddler felt suddenly very tired.

  And Tempus, who never slept-who had not slept since he had been cursed by an archmage and taken solace in the protection of a god three centuries past-began to feel drowsy. His eyelids grew heavy and Abarsis's words grew loud, echoing unintelligibly so that it seemed as if Theron and Abarsis spoke together in some room far away.

  Just before he collapsed on the table, snoring deeply in a sleep that would last until the weather broke the following day, Tempus heard Abarsis say clearly, "And for you, Tempus, whom I love above all men, I have this special gift... not much, just a token: on this one evening, my lord, I have haggled from the gods for you a good night's rest. So now, sleep and dream of me."

  And thus Tempus slept, and when he woke, Abarsis was long gone and preparations for Theron, Tempus, and a hand-picked contingent to depart for Sanctuary were well under way.

  Trouble was coming to Sanctuary; Roxane could feel it in her bones. The premonition cut like a knife to the very quick of the Nisibisi witch, once called Death's Queen, who now huddled in her shrouded hovel on Sanctuary's White Foal River, beset from within and without.


  Once she had been nearly all powerful; once she had been a perpetrator, not a victim; once she had decreed Suffering and marshalled Woe upon human cattle from Sanctuary's sorry spit to Wizardwall's wildest peaks.

  But that was before she'd fallen in love with a mortal and paid the ancient price. Perhaps if that mortal had not been Stealth, called Nikodemos, Sacred Bander and member in good standing ofTempus's blood-drenched cadre of Stepsons, it would not seem so foolish now to have traded in immortality for the ability to shed a woman's tears and feel a woman's fleeting joy.

  But Niko had betrayed her. She should have known; if she'd been a human woman she would have-no man, and most especially no thrice-paired fighter who'd taken the Sacred Band oath, would feel loyalty or honor toward a woman when it conflicted with his bond with men.

  She should have known, but she hadn't even guessed. For Niko was the tenderest of souls where women were concerned; he loved them as a class, as he loved fine horses and young children-not lasciviously, but honestly and freely. Now that she understood, it was an insult: She was no waif, no fuddle -headed twat, no inconsequential piece of fluff. And there was injury to add to insult's sting: Roxane had given up immortality to love a mortal who wasn't capable of appreciating such a gift.

  She had been betrayed by her "beloved" over a matter that should have been towering only in its insignificance: the "life" of a petty mageling, a would-be wizard called Randal, a flop-eared, freckled fool who fooled now with forces beyond his ability to control.

  Yes, Niko had dared to trick Roxane, to distract her with his charms while this posturing prestidigitator, whom she'd thought to have for dinner, got away.

  And now Niko lurked in priestholes, palaces, and princely bedrooms, protected by Randal (who had a Globe of Power similar to Roxane's own, and more powerful) and the countermagical armor given Niko by the entelechy of dreams. Not once did sweet Stealth venture riverward, though his de facto commander, Straton of the Stepsons, rode this way on evenings to visit another witch.

  This other witch, too, was an enemy of Roxane's-Ischade the necromant, whom by rights the Stepsons should have hated more than they did Roxane, vilified in their prayers as they nightly did Death's Queen.

  There was some irony to that: Ischade, a tawdry soul-sucker with limited power and unlimited lust, was a friend of the Stepsons, ally of the mercenary army that was all that stood between Sanctuary and total chaos now that the town was divided into blood feuds and factions as the Rankan Empire's grasp grew weak and the Rankan prince, Kadakithis, was barricaded in his palace with some salmon eyed Beysib slut from a fishy foreign land.

  And Roxane, who'd been Death's Queen on Wizardwall and flown high, ruler of all she once surveyed, was shunned by Stepsons and even by lesser factions in the town-all but her own death squads, some truly dead and raised from crypts to do her bidding, some only a hair's-breadth away from mossy graves like One-Thumb, the Vulgar Unicorn's proprietor, a.k.a. Lastel, and Zip, guttersnipe leader of the PFLS (Popular Front for the Liberation of Sanctuary) rebels who couldn't get along without her help.

  And Snapper Jo, of course, her single remaining fiend-a warty, gray-skinned, wall-eyed beast, snaggle-toothed and orange-haired, whom she'd summoned from a nearby hell to serve her-she still had Snapper, though lately he'd been taking his spy's job of day-barkeep at the Vulgar Unicorn too much to heart, thinking silly thoughts of camaraderie with humans (who'd no more accept a fiend as one of them than the Stepsons had accepted Roxane).

  And she had her snakes, of course, a fresh supply, whom she could witch into human form for intervals (though Sanctuary's snakes weren't bred for masquerading and turned out small, sleepy in cold weather, and even more dull witted than the northern kind).

  Still, it was a pair of snakes-a butler-snake and a bodyguard-whom she called to build a fire in her witching room, to bring her chalcedony water bowl and place it on a column of porphyry near the hearth, to stay and watch and wait with her while she poured salt into the water and words came from her mouth to make the salt into her will and the water bowl into the open wounds in Sanctuary. Not wounds of flesh, but wounds of spirit-the arrogance of loyalty given and withheld, the gall of greed, the acne of innocence, the lacerations of love, the pustules of passion which prickled such hearts as Straton's, as Randal's. as those of the prince/governor and his flounder-faced consort, Shupansea (fool enough to keep snakes herself, thinking that Beysib snakes might be immune to Nisibisi snake magic), and even as Niko's own consuming compassion for a pair of children he wet-nursed like some useless Rankan matron.

  And the water in her bowl took chop as the salt hit it, then began to cloud and then to bubble as if salt had turned to acid in hearts all around the town. The color of the water grew grayer, more opaque, and outside her skin-covered window, snow began to fall in giant flakes.

  "Go, snakes," she crooned, "go meet your brothers in the palace of the prince. Meet and eat them, then defeat the peace between the Beysib and her Rankan host. And find those children, both, and bite them with the poison of your fangs, so that death beats down on midnight wings and Niko will be forced to come to me... to me to save them." Almost, she didn't get those last words out, because a chuckle rose to block the speech's end-especially the word "save."

  For as she'd looked into the bowl she'd seen a vision, then another. First she'd seen riders, and a boat with a lion rampant on its prow: one rider was her ancient enemy, Tempus, called the Sleepless One, avatar of godly mischief; another was Jihan, a more potent enemy. Froth Daughter, princess of the endless sea, a copper-colored nymph of matchless passion, a sprite with all the strength of moon and tides between her knees; another was Critias, Strat's partner and better half, the coldest and boldest of the Stepsons, and the only man among the lot of them who didn't need more-than mortal help to do his job. And on the boat, now seeming like a wedding gift, all wrapped in gilt and gloriously colored sails as it drew nearer, was a man she'd helped become a king, one who owed an unequivocal debt to Death's Queen-Theron, Emperor of Ranke, who was so anxious to pay Roxane's price he was trekking to the empire's anus to bow his knee.

  Oh, yes, she thought then. Trouble, let it come. For Roxane, once the visions were cleared from the salted water of her bowl by an impatient, dusky hand, had an idea-a thought, an inspiration, a vengeful task to undertake fitting to all the harm past and present denizens of Sanctuary had done her: She'd seen the error of her ways, and now she'd seen a new solution. She'd given up too much for Nikodemos, who'd turned on her and spumed her. She'd trade this batch of hapless souls to get back what she'd so foolishly bargained away.

  And then it was left to her only to dismiss the snakes, drink the water in the bowl, and settle down spread-legged in the middle of her summoning room floor, awaiting the Devils of Demonic Deals, the Negotiators of Necromancy, the Underworld's Underwriters, to appear, to take the bait a witch could offer and then, when sated, be tricked into giving Roxane back immortality in exchange for the deaths of a pair of children who might be gods if ever they grew up, and that of Nikodemos, who deserved no better if he'd thought to spurn the witch who loved him and survive it. Of course, she'd throw in Tempus, too, for fun. He'd make an undead of choice to send raping and pillaging up and down the streets of Sanctuary of an evening, streets so thick with hatred and slick with blood no one would even think to worry about what kind of death they got.

  For Sanctuarites cared only for this life, not the next. They were ignorant of choices made beyond the grave, or given up today for trifles. They didn't know or care that an eternity of hell could be had for cheap, or that the gods offered out another way. • -

  This was why she liked it here, did Roxane. Even once she'd sacrificed Niko and his ilk-the entire Sacred Band and unpaired Stepsons, if she got lucky-she'd stay around. Once there was no more Ischade to interfere, no silly priests like the Torchholder to try to resurrect a dead god's cult, the place would let her have her way.

  And so, decided, she crooked a finger and, from nowh
ere visible, a sound like hellish hinges squeaking reverberated through her chamber, a non-door swung down, and a Globe of Power could be glimpsed, spinning gently on its axis of golden glyphs, its stones beginning to glow as its song of sorcery spun louder aild, from hells Sanctuary wasn't used to accommodating, a demon choir began to chant.

  It was the old way, the only way: evil for evil, tenfold. And she'd promised hell to pay, visited upon this town for its of-fenses and its slights.

  There remained only to touch flesh and nail to the globe spinning larger, closer, right before her eyes.

  She reached out and braced herself, for a demon lover would come with contact: One did have to pay as one went, even if one was Nisibis's finest witch.

  Her nail screeched into the high peaks' clay, and a demon screeched into existence between her knees, and a hellish gale whose like was known as wizard weather up and down the land stretched from Sanctuary's southernmost tip up along the Ran-kan seaboard where the imperial ship was under way.

  And everywhere men remarked that, even for wizard weather, the gale was fierce and loud, and full of sounds the like of a goddess being raped in some forgotten passion play.

  Sanctuary promised nothing of the sort to Critias, who'd ridden downcountry at an ungodly rate with Tempus and his inhuman consort, Jihan, daughter of the primal power men called Stormbringer (when they were so unlucky as to have to call Him anything at all).

  The ride-across No Man's Land, a shortcut full of shades and mirages through a desert the party shouldn't have been able to cross in twice the time-hadn't been the sort of trip Crit liked. It was too fast, too easy, too full of magic-or whatever the equivalent was when power was fielded not by a human mage, but by Jihan, daughter of Stormbringer, lord of wind and wave.

  Now that they'd nearly reached the town, it was too late for Crit to ask his commander questions-whether, as rumor had it, Abarsis had really appeared to the Riddler in Theron's palace; why, even if that were true, Tempus had seen fit to split his forces: the three of them were worth more than the score of fighters accompanying Theron on his ocean voyage.