Tales From The Vulgar Unicorn

by Edited By Robert Asprin

  “There is no evidence that there was any jewel,” he said, “aside from the story this Benna told, and he was dying from venom and in great pain. My doctor has examined his body, and he assures me that the swellings were spider bites. Of course, he doesn’t know everything. He’s been wrong before.

  “But people are going to believe that there was indeed a jewel of great value, and nothing anyone says, including myself, will convince them otherwise.

  “However, all their frantic activity will result in one great benefit… We’ll be rid of the rats for a while.”

  He paused, frowning, then said, “It would seem, however, that this fellow Benna might have been foolish enough to steal something from the purple mage. I would think that that is the only reason he’d be pursued by the Raggah. But then there might be another reason. In any event, if there is a jewel, then the finder is going to be in great peril. The mage isn’t going to let whoever finds it keep it.

  “Or at least I believe so. Actually, I know very little about the mage, and from what I’ve heard about him, I have no desire to meet him.”

  Masha thought of asking him why he didn’t send his soldiers out to the isle and summon the mage. But she kept silent. The reason was obvious. No one, not even the governor, wanted to provoke the wrath of a mage. And as long as the mage did nothing to force the governor into action, he would be left strictly alone to conduct his business—whatever that was.

  At the end of the questioning, the governor told his treasurer to give a gold shaboozh to Masha.

  “That should more than take care of any business you’ve lost by being here,” the governor said.

  Thanking him profusely, Masha bowed as she stepped back, and then walked swiftly homewards.

  The following week was the great cat hunt. It was also featured, for Masha anyway, by a break-in into her apartment. While she was off helping deliver a baby at the home of the merchant Ahloo shik-Mhanukhee, three masked men knocked old Shmurt the doorkeeper out and broke down the door to her rooms. While the girls and her mother cowered in a corner, the three ransacked the place, even emptying the chamberpots on the floor to determine that nothing was hidden there. They didn’t find what they were looking for, and one of the frustrated interlopers knocked out two of Wallu’s teeth in a rage. Masha was thankful, however, that they did not beat or rape the little girls. That may have been not so much because of their mercifulness as that the doorkeeper regained consciousness sooner than they had expected. He began yelling for help, and the three thugs ran away before the neighbours could gather or the soldiers come.

  Eevroen continued to come in drunk late at night. But he spoke very little, just using the place to eat and sleep. He seldom saw Masha when she was awake. In fact, he seemed to be doing his best to avoid her. That was fine with her.

  Chapter 6

  SEVERAL TIMES, BOTH by day and night, Masha felt someone was following her. She did her best to detect the shadower, but whether she got the feeling by day or night, she failed to do it. She decided that her nervous state was responsible.

  Then the great dog hunt began. Masha thought this was the apex of hysteria and silliness. But it worried her. After all the poor dogs were gone, what would next be run down and killed and gutted? To be more precise, who? She hoped that the who wouldn’t be she.

  In the middle of the week of the dog hunt, little Kheem became sick. Masha had to go to work, but when she came home after sundown, she found that Kheem was suffering from a high fever. According to her mother, Kheem had also had convulsions. Alarmed, Masha set out at once for Doctor Nadeesh’s house in the Eastern quarter. He admitted her and listened to her describe Kheem’s symptoms. But he refused to accompany her to her house.

  “It’s too dangerous to go into the Maze at night,” he said. “And I wouldn’t go there in the day unless I had several bodyguards. Besides, I am having company tonight. You should have brought the child here.”

  “She’s too sick to be moved,” Masha said. “I beg you to come.”

  Nadeesh was adamant, but he did give her some powders which she could use to cool the child’s fever.

  She thanked him audibly and cursed him silently. On the way back, while only a block from her apartment, she heard a sudden thud of footsteps behind her. She jumped to one side and whirled, drawing her dagger at the same time. There was no moon, and the nearest light was from oil lamps shining through some iron barred windows in the second story above her.

  By its faintness she saw a dark bulk. It was robed and hooded, a man by its tallness. Then she heard a low hoarse curse and knew it was a man. He had thought to grab or strike her from behind, but Masha’s unexpected leap had saved her. Momentarily, at least. Now the man rushed her, and she glimpsed something long and dark in his uplifted hand. A club.

  Instead of standing there frozen with fear or trying to run away, she crouched low and charged him. That took him by surprise. Before he could recover, he was struck in the throat with her blade.

  Still, his body knocked her down, and he fell hard upon her. For a moment, the breath was knocked out of her. She was helpless, and when another bulk loomed above her, she knew that she had no chance.

  The second man, also robed and hooded, lifted a club to bring it down on her exposed head.

  Writhing, pinned down by the corpse, Masha could do nothing but await the blow. She thought briefly of little Kheem, and then she saw the man drop the club. And he was down on his knees, still gripping whatever it was that had closed off his breath.

  A moment later, he was face down in the dry dirt, dead or unconscious.

  The man standing over the second attacker was short and broad and also robed and hooded. He put something in his pocket, probably the cord he’d used to strangle, her attacker, and he approached her cautiously. His hands seemed to be empty, however.

  “Masha?” he said softly.

  By then she’d recovered her wind. She wriggled out from under the dead man, jerked the dagger from the windpipe, and started to get up.

  The man said, in a foreign accent, “You can put your knife away, my dear. I didn’t save you just to kill you.”

  “I thank you, stranger,” she said, “but keep your distance anyway.”

  Despite the warning, he took two steps towards her. Then she knew who he was. No one else in Sanctuary stank so of rancid butter.

  “Smhee,” she said, equally softly.

  He chuckled. “I know you can’t see my face. So, though it’s against my religious convictions, I will have to take a bath and quit smearing my body and hair with butter. I am as silent as a shadow, but what good is that talent when anyone can smell me a block away?”

  Keeping her eyes on him, she stopped and cleaned her dagger on the dead man’s robe.

  “Are you the one who’s been following me?” she said. She straightened up.

  He hissed with surprise, then said, “You saw me?”

  “No. But I knew someone was dogging me.”

  “Ah! You have a sixth sense. Or a guilty conscience. Come! Let’s get away before someone comes along.”

  “I’d like to know who these men are … were.”

  “They’re Raggah,” Smhee said. “There are two others fifty yards from here, lookouts, I suppose. They’ll be coming soon to find out why these two haven’t shown up with you.”

  That shocked her even more than the attack.

  “You mean the purple mage wants me? Why?”

  “I do not know. Perhaps he thinks as so many others do. That is, that Benna told you more than you have said he did. But come! Quickly!”

  “Where?”

  “To your place. We can talk there, can’t we?”

  They walked swiftly towards her building. Smhee kept looking back, but the place where they had killed the two men was no longer visible. When they got to the door, however, she stopped.

  “If I knock on the door for the keeper, the Raggah might hear it,” she whispered. “But I have to get in. My daughter is very sick.
She needs the medicine I got from Dr Nadeesh.”

  “So that’s why you were at his home,” Smhee said. “Very well. You bang on the door. I’ll be the rearguard.”

  He was suddenly gone, moving astonishingly swift and silently for such a fat man. But his aroma lingered.

  She did as he suggested, and presently Shmurt came grumbling to the door and unbolted it. Just as she stepped in she smelled the butter more strongly, and Smhee was inside and pushing the door shut before the startled doorkeeper could protest.

  “He’s all right,” Masha said.

  Old Shmurt peered with runny eyes at Smhee by the light of his oil lamp. Even with good vision, however, Shmurt couldn’t see Smhee’s face. It was covered with a green mask.

  Shmurt looked disgusted.

  “I know your husband isn’t much,” he croaked. “But taking up with this foreigner, this tub of rotten butter … shewawl”

  “It’s not what you think,” she said indignantly.

  Smhee said, “I must take a bath. Everyone knows me at once.”

  “Is Eevroen home?” Masha said.

  Shmurt snorted and said, “At this early hour? No, you and your stinking lover will be safe.”

  “Dammit!” Masha said. “He’s here on business!”

  “Some business!”

  “Mind your tongue, you old fart!” Masha said. “Or I’ll cut it out!”—

  Shmurt slammed the door to his room behind him. He called, “Whore! Slut! Adulteress!”

  Masha shrugged, lit her lamp, and went up the steps with Smhee close behind her. Wallu looked very surprised when the fat man came in with her daughter.

  “Who is this?”

  “Someone can’t identify me?” Smhee swore. “Does she have a dead nose?”

  He removed his mask.

  She doesn’t get out much,” Masha said. She hurried to Kheem, who lay sleeping on her rag pile. Smhee took off his cloak, revealing thin arms and legs and a body like a ball of cheese. His shirt and vest, made of some velvety material speckled with glittering sequins, clung tightly to his trunk. A broad leather belt encircled his paunch, and attached to it were two scabbards containing knives, a third from which poked the end of a bamboo pipe, and a leather bag about the size of Masha’s head. Over one shoulder and the side of his neck was coiled a thin rope.

  “Tools of the trade,” he said in answer to Masha’s look.

  Masha wondered what the trade was, but she didn’t have time for him. She felt Kheem’s forehead and pulse, then went to the water pitcher on the ledge in the corner.

  After mixing the powder with the water as Nadeesh had instructed and pouring out some into a large spoon, she turned. Smhee was on his knees by the child and reaching into the bag on his belt.

  “I have some talent for doctoring,” he said as she came to his side. “Here. Put that quack’s medicine away and use this.”

  He stood up and held out a small leather envelope. She just looked at him.

  “Yes, I know you don’t want to take a chance with a stranger. But please believe me. This green powder is a thousand times better than that placebo Nadeesh gave you. If it doesn’t cure the child, I’ll cut my throat. I promise you.”

  “Much good that’d do the baby,” Wallu said.

  “Is it a magical potion?” Masha said.

  “No. Magic might relieve the symptoms, but the disease would still be there, and when the magic wore off, the sickness would return. Here. Take it! I don’t want you two to say a word about it, ever, but I was once trained in the art of medicine. And where I come from, a doctor is twenty times superior to any you’ll find in Sanctuary.”

  Masha studied his dark shiny face. He looked as if he might be about forty years old. The high broad forehead, the long straight nose, the well-shaped mouth would have made him handsome if his cheeks weren’t so thick and his jowls so baggy. Despite his fatness, he looked intelligent; the black eyes below the thick bushy eyebrows were keen and lively.

  “I can’t afford to experiment with Kheem,” she said.

  He smiled, perhaps an acknowledgement that he detected the uncertainty in her voice.

  “You can’t afford not to,” he said. “If you don’t use this, your child will die. And the longer you hesitate, the closer she gets to death. Every second counts.”

  Masha took the envelope and returned to the water pitcher. She set the spoon down without spilling its contents and began working as Smhee called out to her his instructions. He stayed with Kheem, one hand on her forehead, the other on her chest. Kheem breathed rapidly and shallowly.

  Wallu protested. Masha told her to shut up more harshly than she’d intended. Wallu bit her lip and glared at Smhee.

  Kheem was propped up by Smhee, and Masha got her to swallow the greenish water. Ten minutes or so later, the fever began to go down. An hour later, according to the sandglass, she was given another spoonful. By dawn, she seemed to be rid of it, and she was sleeping peacefully.

  Chapter 7

  MEANTIME, MASHA AND Smhee talked in low tones. Wallu had gone to bed, but not to sleep, shortly before sunrise. Eevroen had not appeared. Probably he was sleeping off his liquor in an empty crate on the wharf or in some doorway. Masha was glad. She had been prepared to break another basin over his head if he made a fuss and disturbed Kheem.

  Though she had seen the fat little man a number of times, she did not know much about him. Nobody else did either. It was certain that he had first appeared in Sanctuary six weeks (sixty days) ago. A merchant ship of the Banmalts people had brought him, but this indicated little about his origin since the ship ported at many lands and islands.

  Smhee had quickly taken a room on the second floor of a building, the first of which was occupied by the Khabeeber or “Diving Bird” Tavern. (The proprietor had jocularly named it thus because he claimed that his customers dived as deeply into alcohol for surcease as the khabeeber did into the ocean for fish.) He did no work nor was he known to thieve or mug. He seemed to have enough money for his purposes, whatever they were, but then he lived frugally. Because he smeared his body and hair with rancid butter, he was called “The Stinking Butterball” or “Old Rotten”, though not to his face. He spent time in all the taverns and also was often seen in the farmers’ market and the bazaar. As far as was known, he had shown no sexual interest in men or women or children. Or, as one wag put it, “not even in goats”.

  His religion was unknown though it was rumoured that he kept an idol in a small wooden case in his room.

  Now, sitting on the floor by Kheem, making the child drink water every half hour, Masha questioned Smhee. And he in turn questioned her.

  “You’ve been following me around,” Masha said. “Why?”

  “I’ve also investigated other women.”

  “You didn’t say why.”

  “One answer at a time. I have something to do here, and I need a woman to help me. She has to be quick and strong and very brave and intelligent. And desperate.”

  He looked around the room as if anybody who lived in it had to be desperate indeed.

  “I know your history,” he said. “You came from a fairly well-to-do family, and as a child you lived in the Eastern quarter. You were not born and bred in the Maze, and you want to get out of it. You’ve worked hard, but you just are not going to succeed in your ambition. Not unless something unusual comes your way and you have the courage to seize it, no matter what the consequences might be.”

  “This has to do with Benna and the jewel, doesn’t it?” she said.

  He studied her face by the flickering light of the lamp.

  “Yes.”

  He paused.

  “And the purple mage.”

  Masha sucked in a deep breath. Her heart thudded far more swiftly than her fatigue could account for. A coldness spread from her toes to the top of her head, a not unpleasant coldness.

  “I’ve watched in the shadows near your building,” he said. “Many a night. And two nights ago I saw the Raggah steal in
to other shadows and watch the same window. Fortunately, you did not go out during that time to midwife. But tonight…”

  “Why would the Raggah be interested in me?”

  He smiled slowly.

  “You’re smart enough to guess why. The mage thinks you know more than you let on about the jewel. Or perhaps he thinks Benna told you more than you’ve repeated.”

  He paused again, then said, “Did he?”

  “Why should I tell you if he did?”

  “You owe me for your life. If that isn’t enough to make you confide in me, consider this. I have a plan whereby you can not only be free of the Maze, you can be richer than any merchant, perhaps richer than the governor himself. You will even be able to leave Sanctuary, to go to the capital city itself. Or anywhere in the world.”

  She thought, if Benna could do it, we can. But then Benna had not got away.

  She said, “Why do you need a woman? Why not another man?” Smhee was silent for a long time. Evidently, he was wondering just how much he should tell her. Suddenly, he smiled, and something invisible, an unseen weight seemed to fall from him. Somehow, he even looked thinner.

  “I’ve gone this far,” he said. “So I must go all the way. No backing out now. The reason I must have a woman is that the mage’s sorcery has a weakness. His magical defences will be set up to repel men. He will not have prepared them against women. It would not occur to him that a woman would try to steal his treasure. Or … kill him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t think it would be wise to tell you that now. You must take my word for it. I do know far more about the purple mage than anyone else in Sanctuary.”

  “You might, and that still wouldn’t be much,” she said. “Let me put it another way. I do know much about him. More than enough to make me a great danger to him.”

  “Does he know much about you?”

  Smhee smiled again. “He doesn’t know I’m here. If he did, I’d be dead by now.”

  They talked until dawn, and by then Masha was deeply committed. If she failed, then her fate would be horrible. And the lives of her daughters and her mother would become even worse. Far worse. But if she continued as she had, she would be dooming them anyway. She might die of a fever or be killed, and then they would have no supporter and defender.