Wings of Omen tw-6

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  "So-I will wear all this cloth, and my women as well- and we will all look like clan-Setmur fisherwomen. This is not the gentle land of Bey; I have been cold to the bone since we arrived. But, Ki-thus, I will not take you as my husband. I am the Beysa. My consort is No-Amit, the Corn-King, and his blood must be sacrificed to the land. Even if your violent barbarians would accept your death at my hands, I will not take a man I love as No-Amit only to cut his heart from his breast twelve months later."

  "Not No-Amit-Koro-Amit, Storm-King. Like you said: you're not in the gentle lands of Bey anymore. Nothing has to be the way it has always been. Sanctuary may not be much, but if it's ours no one will question what we do with it.

  "Besides, no matter what you think of what Molin says- you've seen that child down in the temple. You've seen his eyes when he starts the storms, and you've seen them when the storms that he hasn't started are rattling the rafters. Even your great-uncle Terrai Burek says we've got to make that child think he belongs to us and not to whatever else is raising the storms around here."

  The Beysa nodded and sank onto a damp stone bench. She reached out, and the beynit serpent began a spiraling climb up her arm. "I am the Avatar of Bey. Mother Bey is within me, guiding me; She is real for me, yet I am not like that little boy. I hear him in my sleep and Bey, Herself, is disturbed. Always She has taken the conquered Corn gods-and, yes Stormgods into her bed, and always She has absorbed them into Herself.

  "But this time we have not conquered the people of the Stormgod; the Stormgod was conquered without us, and we do not know what will rise in his place. Bey doesn't know. If I must take a Koro-Amit to appease this new god, then it will be the boy's true father: this Tempus Thales. I must believe that Mother Bey will take him to Her-and when it is over, I will still have you."

  Both the Prince and Illyra blanched; the Prince for his own reasons, Illyra because the Sight revealed Vashanka, Tempus, and the child together in one twisting, godlike apparition.

  "Molin will kill me if he finds out that not only am I not that little demon's father but that Tempus is. And, Shu-sea, if half the stories of Tempus Thales are true, when you cut out his heart he'll just grow a new one. I'd rather you cut my heart out than think of you bound to Tempus and his son. I never foresaw what would happen when I sent Tempus to take my place at the Great Feast of Ten Slaying-but I won't run away from it now."

  Illyra Saw, however, both the truth of the Prince's confession and the holocaust which would follow Tempus's ravishment of Shupansea-if that Sight were allowed to happen. Visions of war and carnage gripped her, but the Sight showed a single, silver path that led out of her comer.

  "I can help you," she announced as she stepped into the sunlight.

  The Beysa screamed, and the Prince, unmindful of the agitated serpent on her arm, pushed her behind him to confront Illyra alone. Calmly, patiently, and with the certainty of Sight around her, Illyra told the Prince that they had met before-when he had taken Walegrin's oath and almost immediately given Walegrin's gift, an Enlibar steel sword, to Tempus. Kadakithis, whether he truly remembered Illyra or not, was sufficiently impressed with her display of S'danzo prowess to take Arton in his own arms and lead the way to Molin Torchholder as she requested.

  They found the priest not far from the nursery, giving orders to the frightened women who were the child's nursemaids. He looked first at the Beysa and the Prince, then at Illyra, and finally at the bundle in Kadakithis's arms. Illyra looked at the huge black bird preening its wings above the doorway and remembered she had Seen something like this before, at the Aphrodisia House-just before she had left to find her half-brother, who worked for the priest-and had forced herself to forget it.

  "You have won," Illyra acknowledged. There were other parts of that vision as well. "I cannot watch Sanctuary be destroyed. I will not see with my eyes what I See in my heart. I should have given him to you before. He is dying now; it may be too late...."

  "I could have taken him," Molin reminded her gently. "I have neither Sight nor, at the moment, a god. Still, it did not seem right that I could help that child in there become what he must become if Sanctuary is to survive if I stole your son from you. I had to believe that somehow you would understand and bring him to me. If I could still believe that, then I do not think it could be too late. Take your child in your arms again and come." He turned and ordered the door to the nursery to be opened.

  Chaos reigned in the nursery. Tom pillows lay everywhere. Feathers clung to the nursemaids, and the weary-looking woman who appeared to be the child's mother was inspecting a deep-purple bruise on her arm. The child himself turned to glare at his visitors and discarded a half-empty pillow in favor of a short wooden sword. He charged at Illyra.

  "Gyskouras! Stop!" Molin thundered. The boy, and everyone else, obeyed. The little sword clattered to the marble floor. "That is better. Gyskouras, this is Illyra, who has heard your crying." Though he held still, the boy met the priest's eyes with a cold defiance no one else would have dared. "She has brought her son to be with you."

  Illyra pulled the blankets back from her son's face, unsurprised that his eyes were open. She kissed him, and thought he smiled at her, then she knelt down an allowed the children to see each other.

  The child whom Molin had named Gyskouras had eyes which were truly frightening when confronted face-to-face, but they softened when Arton smiled and reached out with his hand to touch the other's face. The gyskourem were gone; even the shifting images of Vashanka and Tempus were gone-there were only Gyskouras and Arton.

  "Will you leave him here with me?" Gyskouras asked. "My mother will take care of him until my father gets here."

  He took no notice of the Prince and, fortunately, for the moment Molin was taking no notice of him. Illyra set Alton, already struggling from his blankets, onto the floor and stood up just in time for the room to contain an eruption of a different sort, as Dubro, Walegrin, and a half a dozen Beysib guards squeezed through the doorway. But by then Gys-kouras was showing Arton how to hold the sword. The smith could accept, even if he could not wholly understand, that his son belonged here now, and however painful and unpleasant the consequences might be, things were better than they might have been.

  A FISH WITH FEATHERS IS OUT OF HIS DEPTH by Robert Lynn Asprin

  "You there! Back to the Maze! There be no easy targets on the wharves!"

  Monkel, head of the clan Setmur, turned in astonishment to look for his comrade. A moment ago, the Old Man had been walking quietly by his side. Now, he was six paces behind, shouting angrily down a narrow alley between two of the buildings that lined the edge of Sanctuary's wharves.

  "And don't come back!" the Old Man finished, kicking dirt toward the alley dramatically. "The last bravo we caught got cut up for bait. Hear me? Don't come back!"

  Now Monkel was at his side, craning his neck to peer down the alley. The gap was littered with barrels and crates, and shrouded with shadows in the dim light of early evening. Still, there was some light... but Monkel could see nothing unusual. No figures, not even a glimpse of furtive movement greeted his unblinking gaze. If nothing else, though, Monkel had learned to trust his friend's judgment in detecting danger in this strange new town.

  "Makes me mad to see trash like that on our wharf," the Old Man muttered, resuming their walk. "That's the trouble with money, though. As soon as you get a little extra, it draws scum who want to take it away from you."

  "I saw nothing. Was someone there?"

  "Two of them. Armed," the Old Man said flatly. "I tell you again, you'd best leam to use those funny eyes of yours if you're going to stay alive in this town."

  Monkel ignored the warning, as he did the friendly jibe at his eyes.

  "Two of them? But what would you have done if they had answered your challenge and attacked you?"

  A flashing glitter appeared as the Old Man twirled the dagger he had been palming.

  "Gutted them and sold 'em at the stall." He winked, dropping the weapon back into its be
lt scabbard.

  "Buthfoofthem..."

  The Old Man shrugged.

  "I've faced worse odds before. Most people in this town have. That kind isn't big on fair fights. Besides, there are two of us."

  Monkel was suddenly aware of his own knife, still undrawn in its belt scabbard. The Old Man had insisted that he buy it and wear it at all times. It was not the sort of knife used by men working nets and lines, but a vicious little fighting knife designed for slipping between ribs or slashing at an extended hand or fist. In its own way, it was as fine a tool as a fishing knife, but Monkel hadn't even drawn it.

  A wave of fear broke over the little Beysib as he suddenly realized how close he had just been to being embroiled in a knife-fight. The fear intensified as the knowledge settled on him that, had the fight occurred, it would have been over before he could have reacted. Whether he was alive or not at the end would have depended entirely on the Old Man's skill.

  The Old Man seemed to read his thoughts, and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

  "Don't worry," he said. "What's important is the spotting, not the fighting. It's like fishing: If you can't figure out where they are, you can't catch 'em."

  "But if they attacked..."

  "Show 'em your back and they'll attack. Once you spot 'em, they won't. They're looking for a victim, not a fight. If you're sober and facing them, they'll fade back and go looking for easier pickings. Thieves... or assassins. They're all the same. Just keep your eyes open and you'll be safe. You and yours."

  Monkel slowly shook his head, not in disagreement, but in bewilderment. Not a year of his life had gone by without the passing of a friend, relation, or acquaintance into the shadow realms. Death wore many faces for those who challenged the sea for a livelihood: a sudden storm, an uncharted sandbar or reef, the attack of a nameless monster from the deep, or even just a careless moment leading to an accident. The head of clan Setmur had seen them all before reaching manhood, much less assuming his current position of leadership, and he thought he was accustomed to the shadow of death which haunted those of his profession. "We pay for the catch in blood," was an idiom he had used as often as he had heard it.

  Violent death, however, the act of murder or assassination, was new to him. The casualness with which the people of this new land fought or defended themselves was beyond his comprehension. That was what frightened him the most; not the violence, but his newfound friends' easy acceptance of it. They no more questioned or challenged the existence of random violence than they did the tides or sunset. It was a constant in this Old Man's world... a world that was now his own as well.

  The Old Man's comment about assassins was not lost on Monkel. Too many Beysib were being killed-so many that not even the most callous citizen of Sanctuary could pretend it was random violence. Someone, or perhaps a group of someones, was actively hunting the immigrants. Clan Burek was being hit harder than his own clan Setmur, and the theories to explain this oddity were many: the Burek were richer and drew more attention from the local cutthroats; they were more inclined to venture into the town at night than the fisher-folk of clan Setmur; and their arrogance and pride made them more susceptible to being lured into fights against the Beysa's orders. While Monkel acknowledged these reasons and agreed with them to a limited extent, he felt there were also other factors to be considered. His lessons from the Old Man in basic street survival, which he had, in turn, passed on to his clan, had much to do with Setmur's low casualty rate. And perhaps most important was the local fishing community's acceptance of the clan, a phenomenon Monkel had grown to appreciate more" and more as time wore on. As a result of his appreciation, he had privately decided to expand his duties as clan head to include doing everything in his power to further the friendships between his people and the locals, whether it involved endorsing a boat-building project or simply accompanying the Old Man on his weekly visit to the Wine Barrel, as he was doing tonight.

  The Wine Barrel had changed, even during Monkel's brief time in town. Much of the new money in Sanctuary was being tunneled into its only readily expandable food source-the waterfront. The fishing community was enjoying an unprecedented affluence, and it was only to be expected that a portion of that wealth would be spent at their favorite gathering point and tavern, the Wine Barrel.

  Once a rickety wharfside dive, the Wine Barrel had been upgraded to near respectability. Chairs purchased secondhand from a bordello had replaced the mismatched benches and crates that once adorned the place, and years of grime were beginning to give way to a once-a-month, top-to-bottom scrubbing; still, some of the old traditions remained.

  As Monkel followed the Old Man into the tavern, he noted several of his clansmen scattered through the room, all sitting with other Beysib, but there unchallenged nonetheless. There was one table, however, none of them sat at... in fact, no Sanctuary fishermen sat at without an invitation. That was the table that exploded with noise upon their entrance.

  "It's about time. Old Man!"

  "We already drank your share. You'll have to order more."

  "Hey, Monkel. Can't you get the Old Man to walk any faster? The streets are dangerous to those who dawdle."

  Sitting at their table were the elite of Sanctuary's fishing community, the senior captains of which the Old Man was the unofficial leader. It was no different from the other tables, but because they sat there, the service was quicker and their drinks arrived in portions noticeably larger than those served at other tables.

  Of all the Beysib, Monkel was the only one accepted as an equal at the captains' table, partially because of his status as head of the Setmur clan, but mostly because the Old Man said he was welcome.

  Prior to their relocation to Sanctuary, a Beysib scout ship had picked up the Old Man and his son Hort and fetched them back to the Beysa's court for interrogation. Once it became apparent that the Old Man would not willingly yield any useful information about their planned destination, the majority of the court had turned their attention to Hort, who was both more talkative and more knowledgeable about the politics and citizenry of Sanctuary. Only Monkel had continued dealing with the Old Man, plying him with specific questions only a fisherman would ask: questions about tides and reefs, the feeding patterns and nature of the native fish. The Old Man recognized them as the questions of a working man as opposed to those asked by the military or the politicians, and began to trade information for information. Their mutual respect had grown into a cautious friendship, and Monkel had made a point of protecting the Old Man from the curiosity and jibes of his own countrymen. Now they were in Sanctuary, and the Old Man was returning the favor by helping Monkel and his clan settle into their new home.

  The next round of drinks arrived, and Monkel started to reach for his purse. The Old Man caught his eye with a glare of stem disapproval, but the Beysib merely smiled and withdrew a small coin barely large enough to pay for his own refreshment. Though poor by comparison with the royal Burek clan, the Setmurs were still substantially wealthier than their Sanctuary-raised counterparts. Soon after his arrival in town, the Old Man had warned Monkel against needless displays of money... such as buying a round of drinks for the captains' table. Rather than a gesture of endearing generosity, he had been told, such a move would be interpreted as an attempt to flaunt his financial superiority, hindering rather than advancing his acceptance by the local fisherfolk. Normally a bit tight-fisted by nature, Monkel had no difficulty following this advice, though the Old Man still tended to fret at him about it from time to time.

  The cheap wine favored by the other captains was distasteful to Monkel, who was used to the more delicate, subtle texture of Beysib beverages, but he drank it anyway to avoid appearing overly critical of the tastes of his new-found friends. In a compromise with his own palate, he merely sipped cautiously at one glass while listening to the fishermen gossip.

  The Sanctuary fishermen were a close-knit community, caring little for the affairs of the "city folk," and it showed in their conversations. From
discussions with his clansmen who had more contact with clan Burek, Monkel had obtained a wealth of rumors speculating on whether or not the Rankan Emperor was dead and the effect it would have on Prince Kadakithis, currently the object of their own Beysa's affection. None of this was even mentioned at the captains' table... their conversation, instead, centered on the movements of various schools of fish, and occasionally touched on the unpredictable winds and storms which seemed to spring from nowhere to threaten the fishing fleet even at anchor. There was also still talk about the solar eclipse, though Monkel's assurances that such phenomena were not unheard of in the chronicles of the Beysib Empire had kept the fishing community from joining the town's panic at the time.

  Monkel entered into the "fish" discussions wholeheartedly enough, particularly those concerning the deep-water species he was familiar with, but remained silent during the "storm" speculations. He had his own opinions, of course, but was more than reluctant to voice them, even here. There was a stink of sorcery over the harbor these days, but Monkel had been raised a fisherman by fisherfolk. He knew better than to stir their superstitious nature unnecessarily; He was lost in these thoughts when he suddenly noticed the conversation had stopped... in fact, all talk in the tavern had stopped as the assembled fishermen stared at the front door. Since he was sitting with his back to that door, Monkel had to turn in his seat to see what it was they were looking at.

  It was Uralai of clan Burek, resplendent in her guards' uniform as she nervously surveyed the Wine Barrel's interior. She caught sight of Monkel as he turned, and strode through the silent tables to where he sat.

  "Monkel Setmur," she said formally, "the Beysa wishes to see you in the morning for a report on the progress of the new boat."

  Monkel started to reply, but the Old Man cut him off.

  "Tell the Beysa we'll see her tomorrow afternoon."