Stealers' Sky tw-12

by Robert Asprin

  Then Vomistritus went to the table and sat down to eat, uncovering dishes and behaving as if the battle were won. Then, then that overbred imitation of a downwind pud had the colossal gall to quote your speech at me. Master Feltheryn, the one from the second act of The Falling Star!"

  "Men call me venal, yet they do not know, the depths of my depravity and desire ..." Feltheryn began.

  "Yes, that one!" Sashana cut him off. "Can you imagine it? And he delivered it badly! Well, of course I took my cue and went to the table, but Vomistritus is not that much an imbecile. There were no knives. The whole repast was finger-food, and none of it very good-looking, either."

  "He might at least have had a decent meal prepared," said Glisselrand.

  "How would a critic know the difference?" Rounsnouf asked.

  "I told him I would as soon couple with the corpse of a poxed leper," Sashana said coldly. Then a burst of bitter laughter escaped her lips. "I should have known coarse language would inflame him! He rose from the table and came after me, exactly as in the play. But he had not counted on my regular wariness, nor on the dagger I keep in my stocking, under the skirts of my gown. I slashed for his throat, and by t?ie gods, my cut should have killed him!"

  Her green eyes flashed like demon fire.

  "What happened?" asked Feltheryn, by habit and nature as good an audience as he was an actor.

  "I cut, but his damned fat saved him! He yowled, blood spurted, but my dagger didn't reach the vein. At that his men rushed in and seized me. I think one of them is missing a finger, at least, but there were too many and they got me down. Then things got worse.

  "He wrapped a linen round his throat and his eyes bulged all the more, and his servants brought in my bodyguards, all stripped and bound. My men were held and forced to watch as he ..."

  Once more Sashana's voice broke, and rage and desperation and horror all warred for supremacy on her face. One of her servants wept.

  "He ... He quoted more of the play," she said at last. "How I do love to break the tigress of her fight ..."

  There was a cold, horrible, quiet moment. Then:

  "He raped you," Myrtis said quietly.

  It was the cue Sashana needed.

  "Yes, the bastard raped me!" she cried, and in a swift moment she was on her feet, her dagger in her hand and somehow the delicate cup from which she had been drinking smashed against the opposite wall. "And I will kill him!"

  Myrtis alone of the company was able to move, able to act against the icy tide of horror and anger which engulfed them all. She moved to Sashana and took her in her arms, where Sashana finally was able to let her tears come, her sobs break.

  After a while Sashana quieted, then whispered again, against Myrtis's breast: "I will kill him."

  "No, child," Myrtis said. "You will not kill him. If you kill him then it will be over for him, and you will be left with this pain and no place to put it."

  "What do you mean?" Sashana asked-

  "I mean that justice is a matter of balance," the madam said. "He did not take your life, so taking his life is an inappropriate punishment. We must seek instead to take exactly the things he took from you. We must seek to relieve your pain by putting it upon him."

  "Are you talking magic?" Feltheryn asked. "Or ..."

  "Myrtis," Glisselrand said, "I don't think we will find anyone who will want to rape Vomistritus."

  Myrtis snorted in a very uncourtesanly way.

  "This is Sanctuary, Glisselrand," she said. "That would be the least of our difficulties. It is not the sexual part of the crime with which I am concerned, but the violence and the humiliation. And more than that, a means by which we may mete out this villain's punishment without bringing down the town around us."

  Sashana drew away a little.

  "Oh, he is very aware of that!" she said. "When he was finished he said that I was powerless to gain revenge because if he was harmed the Emperor would tear down Sanctuary and decimate the population. He was very proud of knowing what decimate meant. He joked about it, asking me which friend out of each ten I would like to see murdered before my eyes!"

  "My lady!" cried the servant who had wept, "let me deal with him, and after I am done I will give myself up to the prince for execution! That will save Sanctuary and revenge us a!! as well!"

  "Nobly offered, Miles," Sashana said. "But I cannot sacrifice you in exchange for a creature so far beneath you in worth."

  "Lady Sashana," R-ounsnouf said, and for once his comic's voice was pitched in dead seriousness. "If I might offer a plan?"

  Sashana turned to him. She still trembled, but the prospect of some action, any action, seemed to calm her. "Yes?"

  The comic addressed the madam: "Myrtis, how well do you know the proprietor of the House of Whips?"

  "Well enough," Myrtis answered.

  "There is a small courtyard in that house, with stocks," said Rounsnouf. "It was a popular place when the Stepsons were here, or so I am told, but now its fortunes have declined; especially since that goat farmer ..."

  "Yes, yes!" Feltheryn interrupted, beginning to see the drift of what the comic was saying. "About the stocks?"

  "They seem a gentle torture to anyone who has not endured them," Rounsnouf said, "but in fact being forced to stand bent over at the waist, one's head and wrists through the board and one's rear end exposed, can be an agony. The back hurts first, then the muscles of the shoulders, the legs, and so on. They ache, they cramp, and by the end of the first day one is willing to do anything to escape. And that even without the assistance of the patrons of that particular house, many of whose chief pleasure lies in the infliction of various other tortures upon a bound victim."

  "A good beginning," said Lady Sashana, now regaining some of her composure. "But we are not discussing some attractive slave, we are discussing Vomistritus."

  "My lady," said Rounsnouf, his little eyes beginning to glitter with creativity, "the courtyard is there for that special taste of public humiliation. There are windows round it from which one may watch what transpires without being seen. That too is a taste to which the house caters. One could stand thus concealed and drop a soldat or two to anyone who gave an especially fine performance. And I am sure there are many in the Downwind who have never been able to afford a night in the Street of Red Lanterns, many whose tastes might be beyond our darkest imagination. Word could be dropped with the Beggar King, Morruth, and who knows what might transpire? Though you might not guess it, there are those in Sanctuary who are even less attractive than Vomistritus!"

  Sashana took one long breath and her shuddering stopped. Her proud chin lifted, but still she looked to Myrtis for some council.

  The smile, and the nod, that Myrtis gave might have frozen even mighty Tempus with fear.

  "It were best," said Glisselrand, her rich voice suddenly an emblem for reason, "that none involved be recognized- Moreover, what is to stop Vomistritus from announcing himself to his tormentors and offering more money than any of us possess for his freedom?"

  Rounsnouf giggled.

  "That very glue by which Lempchin and I were bound shall be brushed across his lips," the comic said. "Before we deliver him to his particular purgatory he shall be prevented from praying his way out!"

  "Better!" said Sashana.

  "And Master Feltheryn," Rounsnouf continued, "we have not performed The Fat Gladiator for some years; can we perhaps use the demon costumes from the last scene? We shall wait, and we shall lure him to the woods with some sort of tryst, just as in the play, and there he shall be set upon by horrors, bound up, his mouth glued shut, and he will not be able to swear who it was who delivered him! Then we can bum the costumes, eliminating the evidence."

  They all looked to Feltheryn, but Feltheryn did not answer at once. That they were asking to destroy some old costumes was nothing. Neither did he mind the risk. Of course Vomistritus would recognize the plot of The Fat Gladiator at some point in the proceedings and understand that it was the theater troupe taking reve
nge upon him; that didn't matter, for the critic could not have them all killed. Emperor Theron would not tolerate that, not even from his cousin. And the criminal in such a case would be obvious to all.

  No, Feltheryn hesitated for Sashana's sake. If he approved the plan he would be putting her into a position wherein she inflicted such cruelties as she felt she had endured. Wherein she could achieve a catharsis, but at what cost to her? She was a fine-bom lady; but she had also survived the murder of her parents and the rigors of the desert. How might this chance wind twist the very finest sapling?

  But then, how had it already been bent?

  Feltheryn nodded.

  "But still," the master player added, "there is an untied string. We may prevent Vomistritus gaining any evidence against us, but he will know, and he will try to take a counter revenge if I am any judge of him. We need some sharp and terrible sword to hold over his head, that he may never come back against us again."

  There was another silence in the room, then a quiet cough sounded from the doorway. They turned to look and there stood Lalo the Limner, his ginger fringe of hair awry, his fingers stained with paint where he had come early to adjust a few things about the set with which he had not been satisfied.

  "I believe I can help with that," Lalo said.

  Thus it was that in a strangely deserted park called the Promise of Heaven, a heavy man dressed in goose-turd green was assaulted by demons. He cried out, but his minions were appalled, when they rushed to his aid, to find their way blocked by a contingent of gladiators from Lowan Vigeles's school at Land's End. The cries of their master soon ceased, or at least became muffled, and those minions (having only the loyalty born of cash) quickly retired from the fray.

  It was not the first time that park had played host to demons; but later on, the ladies too much enslaved to krrfor too ill featured to work in the Street of Red Lanterns returned, their time well compensated.

  It might have been noted that for a few nights the Schoolgirl disguised as a Schoolboy (in The Chambermaid's Wedding) was a little less springy of step. That perhaps the play took on a tenderer note than it had shown on opening night. That certain aspects of the ensemble were sharpened while others were softened.

  It might have been noted, but it was not, for in Sanctuary few people came to see a show more than once. And there were thenceforth no critics to be concerned.

  For to be a True and Just Critic is a risky business. One must have standards against which one measures, but one must also become submerged in the emotions of the work. One must, like the director, be able to see the play from the point of view of an entire audience. One must, in fact, be an entire audience.

  Yet an audience does not simply observe a work of art. An audience participates. If a play is performed perfectly, but with nobody to see it, it is not a play. A painting unseen does not exist, not even for the painter; for the purpose of art (and of everything else of value in life) is communication. A tree falling in the forest does not make any. sound. At least, not any sound that an artist could understand.

  An audience does not merely come to the theater, it brings with it Observation, Participation, Response. If the audience comes unwilling to submerge itself in Feeling and Understanding, then it is like a lover who merely lies there, waiting to be acted upon.

  It is the difference between those sad women who walk the paths of the Promise of Heaven and the beautiful ladies who sail the satin sheets of the Aphrodisia House. The difference between a courtesan and a whore.

  In short, the audience unwilling to act its part is incompetent, and nothing in the performance, nothing in the painting, nothing in the book, nothing in the music will alter its state; and the critic stands in for the audience.

  A rain came, brief but enough to wash the ink from the broadsides that defaced the town's walls. On the back wall of a closet in the palace a new portrait appeared, one which Prince Kadakithis was pleased to receive from Lalo the Limner but which he did not desire to display in public, as it showed, with the preternatural accuracy of Lalo's brush, the True Soul of a naked ugly man in the stocks at the House of Whips. It was a portrait which might be of use to the prince should the new Emperor plan another visit to Sanctuary, and its subject knew the prince possessed it.

  A small dog had to be told point-blank not to do so many tricks, as she was stealing the scene in which she appeared from the star,

  And one night, when the actors all repaired to the greenroom, the jardinieres were filled with fragrant black roses.

  OUR VINTAGE YEARS by Duane McGowen

  Rumor had it that some measure of prosperity was once again gracing the streets of Sanctuary. The reign of terror that had lasted since the False Plague Riots had abated, as the various factions which had fractured Sanctuary into warring districts crumbled in upon themselves or left town for new frontiers or more profitable battles. The streets seemed to be peaceful and relatively calm recently, and business seemed to be returning to normal. "Seemed" being the operative word on both counts.

  There could be no doubt, however, that commerce was on the up-andup these days. Beysib and Rankan invaders alike seemed to favor diplomacy over military action and turmoil. Terrorist activities by the PFLS, which had all but brought the business world to a standstill, were on the decline. If one were inclined to believe the wildest rumors, it was said among some that Zip, the former PFLS leader, was now in charge of assuring peace on Sanctuary's streets. Though many shook their heads in doubt at this bit of highly speculative information, there could be no denying that the nights were now free of terrorist raids, and that young toughs no longer came to the merchant stalls by day to collect "protection" money from bullied peddlers.

  "Sanctuary is finally what Sanctuary should be," the merchant class agreed. For they were making the most profit out of the town's newfound prosperity. The masons, workers, and craftsmen who had poured into town to build the walls commissioned by Molin Torchholder were now plying their respective trades in the city at targe. The enriched artisans increased the wealth of the local merchants as buying and selling became the backbone of Sanctuary's upward-rising economy. The most shrewd entrepreneurs were looking into the future for wise and lucrative business investments. The town that had once been considered "the anus of the Empire" was now a place for people of that broken and war-torn Empire to come and rebuild their lives.

  This was true of many refugees from troubled Ranke, who paid the caravan-masters handsomely to bring them across the desert to the port city under the rulership of the Rankan Prince Kadakithis and his Beysib consort, Shupansea. Some of these refugees had relatives in the Rankan populace who took them in and gave them shelter and comfort. Others, like Mariat, were not so lucky. Having no one else to turn to, Mariat had brought her three grandchildren, the surviving remnants of her once powerful and affluent family, to Sanctuary to rebuild their lives from scratch. With only her own determination and wit to rely on, she was still optimistic about the future.

  Mariat drew her wagon to a halt at the entrance to the Bazaar. Behind her, the other wagon driven by her eldest grandson, Keldrick, also came to a stop. Keldrick and his sister, Darseeya, kept an alert watch to make sure that no one approached the two wagons without .warning. Though the boy was only fourteen and the girl twelve, the events of the past year had matured them beyond the normal bounds of childhood. They knew that no unscrupulous eyes should be allowed to view the contents hidden in the two covered wagons. For there lay the future of Mariat's family.

  While her two older grandchildren kept watch and the youngest one slept in the back of her wagon, Mariat scanned the Bazaar for the safest, least crowded route through it to the residential parts of Sanctuary. Her little troupe formed an island of motionless calm in a sea of swirling activity. Around them danced the brightly colored skirts of the S'danzo. Merchants cried their wares and buyers bought them. Garrison soldiers strode boldly through the crowd with the seeming, if not the actuality, of purpose. Here and there, beggars begged and
pickpockets dodged artfully from purse to purse. The bleating, baying, and neighing of the animals in their pens were almost indistinguishable from the noises made by the buyers, sellers, and thieves of the Bazaar.

  It was not the first time in the past several months that Mariat realized she was out of her element. She passed a hand through her gray hair which had rapidly been turning white as the days dragged by since her former life had come to an abrupt and bloody close. It never even occurred to the middle-aged woman to dye her hair to the color of youth, as many of the women in her former social sphere had done. She bore her gray hair as a badge of honor which should rightly come with age. And her determination and positive outlook kept her face and bearing young and graceful, despite the horrors she had suffered recently.

  She was a tall, stately, slim woman in her mid-fifties. Her posture was straight and perfect, and she exuded the cultured mannerisms and grace of a woman of station, which she had indeed been scant months before.

  Mariat had been impressed with her first sight of Sanctuary: the city's tall new walls shining in the morning light. Now she was once again faced with nagging doubts, which nibbled like little demons at the back of her mind, as she surveyed the chaos and pandemonium of the Bazaar. It was an environment alien to a woman from the upper strata of Rankan society.

  "Ah, there you are, madame," called a friendly and pleasant baritone voice which Mariat had come to love during her journey to this place.

  She turned and saw the minstrel Sinn heading toward her through the crowd. As he squeezed between two fat merchants haggling over the price of a chicken, his hand deftly intercepted a street urchin reaching for his purse. The bearded, brown-haired bard looked at the quaking youth with mild amusement. The young beggar and thief was astonished at the quickness with which the man had caught him, and now fully expected to be turned over to the watch for due punishment. But Sinn merely smiled, and forced the boy's palm open. The minstrel inserted a silver piece into the urchin's hand, then closed the boy's fingers over it.