Shadowspawn (Thieves' World Book 4)

by Andrew J Offutt

  How long should I keep my eyes closed, he wondered, and realized that he was hearing nothing save a few crickets and katydids. No cracking sounds. No whishy rushings through the air.

  He opened his eyes. He had not moved his head. He was still gazing at the road. That was what it was, and all it was. No branch lay there. When he jerked his head to look, the branch he had touched, the bough that had broken off and driven at him, was still there. Or again there, right where and as it belonged: attached to the tree.

  Damn, Hell, and Eyes of the All-Father! It was illusion! Mignureal was right again!

  And so, likely, was the rest of the warning and injunction from her Sight. And now he knew why. Because it is illusion! Illusion can kill me, too…but if I can’t see it, it is nothing! I’ve got to charge the place — and walk in!

  Exultation soared in him so that he trembled. “Hang on, friends,” he said to the cats, “because here we go in! Haiya!”

  *

  The knock at the door was an unpleasant surprise for Mignureal, since Hanse had not had time to accomplish the mission he had set for himself. Because of that she was apprehensive for him, rather than properly fearful for herself, at this hour. She hurried to the door and opened it to look questioningly at the man in the hall. His large eyes were intensely blue and looked right at her, almost as if into her.

  Of average height and rising thirty-five or so, he was balding averagely around a centre lock of gold-red hair that made him look high of forehead. That hair was a bit darker than his moustache, which was of the droop-tip variety, and well-trimmed. He was slim and small of bone but not thin, as if he had been thin but ate well and did not labour. That was borne out by the excellent fabric and superb colour of his medium blue tunic. It was girt with a loose belt of soft white leather and worn over dove-grey leggings and tall black boots. They must be of everted leather or pigskin, since they looked soft and were without sheen. His very long cloak was as black as Hanse’s working clothes, but again, fine; lined with deep red. She noted that he wore no weapons, not even a dagger. Only a thin staff or rod, white and about a foot and a half long, was tucked through his belt. That loop in the belt had been made there, she realized, for the round-tipped rod. It still did not resemble a weapon.

  She had never seen him before, nor had she ever seen the two armed men who stood just behind and to either side of him.

  “You are the source of the emanations?” he said, in a pleasant and well-modulated tenor. “One pretty girl?”

  Suddenly Mignureal was intensely aware of the low, low “neck” of her gift-robe.

  “But pardon that outburst, please,” he said with a smile. “My name is Arcala.”

  *

  The mane of the Tejana horse streamed in the wind of its own fleet passage. Shadowspawn’s hair blew so that he squinted his eyes. The fur of the cats ruffled and the animals crouched behind the high cantle of the saddle to cut that wind. Up the road paralleled by the wall the big grey horse bucketed. When his rider nudged and tugged, he veered through the open gateway to gallop wildly onto Cor Stic’s grounds. Eleven-foot monsters with foot-long fangs rose asnarl in yellow and black and vomitous chartreuse, talons clutching, and Shadowspawn shuddered as he muttered “Vaspa!” Yet even in his fear he dared use one hand to clutch the medallion while he closed his eyes and clung to the horse with all the strength of his legs.

  Iron-mouth galloped on and his rider felt only the wind. Nothing touched him. The horrid guardians, too, were illusion.

  Straight up a pretty lane to the looming porticoed mansion the grey galloped, and kept right on up the broad redstone steps while Shadowspawn leaned on the reins and shouted “Whoa! Mip, damn you, mip! WHOA!”

  The iron-mouthed beast skidded to a stop on the porch, averting his big head at the last instant to avoid the tall and wide front door of Corstic’s home. Shadowspawn swung off. Even as he dropped lightly to the porch he heard the high-pitched bee-sound followed by the thump. He glanced at the arrow that quivered in the door. It has missed him only because he had dismounted so swiftly. The arrow was no illusion.

  His snarl sounded hardly human. He whirled with a missile cocked over his shoulder.

  In an instant he saw the kneeling man twenty feet away, nocking another arrow to his bow, and without a thought Shadowspawn’s arm swept forward. He bent far in a long follow-through. This was no ordinary roach job; this was a raid on a murderer on behalf of Notable and a horribly wronged woman named Shurina, and no time for his scruples against using weapons on a job. Besides, this bow-toting piece of cess was the employee of a monster. The steel star appeared in his forehead with three of its six needly points still showing, and he crumpled like a cut weed.

  Excited, full of pumping adrenaline, Shadowspawn lowered the unneeded second star. He whirled, prepared to kick in the door of Corstic’s manse and charge in. He was only just able to regain control and abort that act. Again he considered the rest of Mignureal’s words, the second part of that Seeing which he had thought was lunacy:

  “When you turn the handle to enter the house, close your eyes and keep them so until you are inside.

  Sucking deep breaths, he glanced around. The cats stood poised, waiting. Shadowspawn seized the big brass handle with one hand, clasped Stack’s amulet in the other, and closed his eyes. Then he turned the handle and shoved the door.

  With his eyes closed, he never knew what horrors Corstic had conjured as illusion-guards of his lofty entry hall. Shadowspawn paced in, scalp and armpits prickling. The soft soles of his buskins brought only a whispery sound from the marble floor. He felt the brushing sensation against his leg and knew that a big red cat had just bolted past him. Heart pounding, he took two more steps before he heard the hideous shrieking sound, and knew it was no illusion. Shadowspawn opened his eyes.

  He clutched the medallion hard, sharp edges biting even through the glove, and squeezed shut his eyes.

  When he squinted one open, however, the thigh-thick serpent was still there, a dozen feet Jong and revoltingly, eye-searingly green and orange. It reared, head weaving, held at bay only by a large hissing cat with its back arched up to here and its tail straight up and ugly: every red hair stood straight out. Shadowspawn knew three facts at once: Mignureal’s Sight had caught the illusory menaces here but somehow been blinded to the real one. That awful shriek he had heard had been Notable, saving his life once again; this overgrown snake was no illusion.

  Shadowspawn forgot the amulet and reached for weapons.

  Two blurred movements of a black-clad arm sent a knife into each of the reptile’s eyes, despite the creature’s violent lurch of pain after the first impact. Notable drove in at once, mouth wide and fangs gleaming, and Hanse was right with him. The Ilbarsi knife chopped and slashed. The improbable serpent became two, each half spewing its juices. One of those halves was being viciously shaken by the head housing the feline fangs that pierced it.

  “Leave it, Notable. It’ll flop around that way for an hour or longer maybe, but that big worm is dead, believe me. Let’s go!”

  The stairwell was three paces away and directly ahead. As Hanse leaped lightly over one lashing half of the late snake, a calico cat blurred past him and hit the steps running. Notable let go his hold and followed, drooling serpent juice.

  “Would you non-professionals wait just one moment? Some of us don’t have our weapons built in!”

  Shadowspawn retrieved his knives from the eyes of the dead but wildly flopping reptile, was struck by it, and grunted at the heaviness of the blow to his leg. He crouched to wipe the knives on a fine oval rug, multicoloured. He was just returning the knives to their sheaths when the thick rug came up at him, seeking to envelop his face. Holding it down with one foot and a good deal of difficulty, Hanse grasped the amulet and closed his eyes. The predatory carpet subsided.

  A chunk of dead snake bashed his leg again. That was too much. Angrily he grasped it, whirling, and hurled it out through the open front doorway. Since a cry followed, Sh
adowspawn dropped into a crouch while drawing Ilbarsi knife and steel star. He leaped past the doorway, looking that way as he flew by. A great shudder rushed through him, along with a flood of adrenaline.

  He had just seen Shorty, blindly batting away half of a giant serpent while wearing a throwing star in his forehead.

  “To the cold hell with the amulet!” Hanse snarled.

  The steps and Corstic would wait a little longer. This could not be real because it could not be Shorty, but it could damned well be stopped. He pounced back and through the doorway and struck at a thigh as hard as he could. The Ilbarsi knife jarred on bone. Shadowspawn had to wiggle it to get it out while Shorty collapsed, without a sound. Hanse used both hands on the hilt and all his strength in another blow to the fallen man or Sending, and pain rushed up his arms as he chopped through the neck and the long blade slammed into Corstic’s redstone porch. Sparks flashed and danced, bright in night’s darkness. His horse whickered.

  The head rolled away, no longer resembling Shorty at all, and Hanse lost interest in retrieving his throwing star just now.

  He whirled back to the door only to face a drooling spider the size of a horse and the colour of excrement. Such an arachnid parody could not be, but he nevertheless dived sidewise before he grasped the amulet and closed his eyes. When he peeped, the spider was gone.

  The trouble is, a body doesn’t know what’s illusion and what’s real, he thought, and was about to dive through the doorway when he remembered: first he grasped the amulet and closed his eyes. He pounced through the opening lightly, Shadowspawnly, and opened his eyes. It was actually pleasant to see only an empty stairwell and the twitching front half of a bisected snake.

  He bounded up the marble stair two steps at a time until the eighth sprouted a man with a terribly long and silver-gleaming sword. That could not be, but Shadowspawn parried automatically before grasping the amulet and closing his eyes — briefly. When he opened them the man was gone and the step was only a step and he went on up, fast. Had he been slower, the six-foot steel shaft that hurtled down from the ceiling above the stairwell would have ended his heroism and his career. It was not an illusion.

  Damn! This Corstic had more tricks than a silver-piece uptown whore!

  “Notable! Shu — Rainbow! Dammit, wait for me!”

  At least he had managed to revise the calico’s name at the last moment. Shouting out the name of Corstic’s supposedly dead wife seemed definitely the wrong thing to do. He bounded on up, ducking the lion’s head that erupted from the wall and squeezing shut his eyes to send it into oblivion.

  Then he saw the small calico cat awaiting him at the top of the stairs, and he smiled. At least he thought he did; what the cat saw was a dark-skinned human grimace akin to a feline snarl. Tail straight up, she whirled and trotted down a corridor dimly lit by no visible means.

  Shadowspawn did what he knew he was supposed to do: he followed. When he saw her swerve wide to the left, so did he. He never knew what trap they avoided, illusory or otherwise. A noise behind him brought him spinning about to face a charging Marll. The blond bore a huge crescent-moon axe. In seconds he also wore a throwing star in the chest and a knife in the crotch — an accident — but kept on coming. Hanse tried the amulet-and-closed eyes ploy, and heard his blades drop to the floor. He opened his eyes to see weapons and no Marll.

  Fleetingly, while he picked up the weapons, he wondered how these stickers could have stuck in an illusion through which they should have passed. But that was not as important as whirling again to hurry after the calico cat.

  She fled, tail high, past a doorway from which a head emerged to look after her. It turned to look with wide eyes at a downrushing blade. That one must have been real; its thudding and bouncing on the floor was real enough. The calico glanced back.

  “Right with you, Shurina! I don’t know about you, but I’m running on pure adrenaline. Never have I been in such a place so full of horrors and death-dealers!”

  The cat trotted on — and stopped, and turned. Side by side with the big red cat, she stood watching while their pet human caught up. He was actually panting a little. The animals waited with twitching tails before a tall, narrow, cream-colored door set flush with the cream-colored wall and only just visible.

  “Mignue’s told me that cats tolerate humans only because you can’t open doors,” he muttered, trying not to pant. “The trouble is, I don’t see any way to open this one! Sure wish you could talk, Shurina.”

  The cat replied by hurling her tiny self against the door.

  “Oh,” Shadowspawn said, and with one hand grasping the amulet and the other poising a leaf-shaped throwing blade, he tried that.

  The door flew inward and he was four running steps beyond before he could stop himself. That was the way he came into the presence of the man he thought he had never seen: the master spellmaker of Firaqa.

  He saw Corstic just as the tall and very leggy fellow in the snowy tunic and tight beige leggings turned his head to stare. The flat knife shot from Hanse’s hand without his thinking, on full automatic because he was a professional; had he paused long enough to register the face he recognized, he might have aborted the throw.

  Not that it would have mattered: The master monster of Firaqa avoided it. Not with a majestic, magisterial and magicker’s extending of arms and fluttering of fingers, but by undramatically and unsorcerously dropping into a squat. The slender leaf of steel whished over his head to thud into the wall beside a window. It was that same window through which Hanse had seen him, only two nights agone.

  “That,” Thuvarandis said, “is an exceedingly rude way to enter the presence of the most powerful man in Firaqa, not to mention your banker!”

  *

  The large chamber was wooden-floored, lit by at least a half-score lamps, six of which were wall-mounted. A broad long desk of oak was littered with the paraphernalia of reading and writing, along with a goblet, two mugs, a fancily wrapped wine bottle, and a platter bearing a bone and some scraps that must have been the mage’s dinner. Two long tables against two different walls were obviously a sorcerer’s work tables, cluttered with just about everything. Aye, Shadowspawn saw even some of those jars and closed pots all mages were supposed to have, likely containing things only Corstic wanted to see. Amid the clutter, in plain sight as he had been told by the plotters, rested a lustrous little figurine the colour of pearl: a cat.

  To the right of that table and a few feet out from that same wall, a curtain of emerald green hung from ceiling to floor. Hanse assumed that it concealed something; another table, perhaps; probably something that only Corstic wanted to see. Against another wall was a beautifully covered divan. He saw a tall wooden stool and a single chair, behind the desk. And he saw…Corstic?

  Stupidly, Hanse said, “Thu…varandis? But…”

  “You’re not going to tell me it is impossible are you, young man? Obviously it is possible and true, since you see me. Since you come stomping in here with blood in your eye and in company with two darling pussycats I do believe I recognize, I must assume that you know their story. That little psychic whore you live with, no doubt. No no, don’t strain yourself trying to draw and throw another sticker in anger, now; you cannot move your arms and will not until I wish it. Try to restrain your anger and I will try to restrain my language. She’s doubtless a nice little girl, hmmm? It’s just that this is a mages’ city, and I and some others have had certain laws and regulations passed, concerning the S’danzo.”

  Smiling only a little, looking serene and confident, Thuvarandis pointed. “Sit down”

  Shadowspawn’s body immediately wished to sit. He tried to fight the urge. It was irresistible. It wasn’t that his mind had to obey; his body did. Striving, he fell back against the wall and slid down it into a sitting position on the floor — hard, since his arms might as well have been loaded with chains for all the good they were to him. This man controlled his very muscles, and reflexes.

  “Doubtless now you want a
n explanation. That’s the way it would be in a tale told by a storyteller, hmmm? Well, you can whistle for that, thief! I’ve no time to waste on explaining matters to such as you. I will show you something, however. Doubtless it will prove enthralling to you, young man; even instructive, if not overly enlightening!”

  Thuvarandis drew aside the green curtain to reveal another table. To it, Hanse could see even from his seated position on the floor, was strapped an unclothed man. Shadowspawn could see the shallow, shuddery rise and fall of his chest; a white-haired man held supine by broad black straps. He was unbelievably pale. The mage turned back to the intruder.

  “Rise,” he said, making a lifting gesture with both hands. “Stand. Walk over here.”

  Horripilation took Hanse as he was impelled to his feet. They moved; his legs moved. He had nothing to do with it. His arms remained useless; totally moveless. The mage impelled him to walk over to that newly revealed table, an armless prisoner in his own body. He stared down at the victim strapped there, and shuddered in a mingling of horror and outrage. A closed fist could have gone into the gory hole in this pitiful man’s middle. Illusory or no, the tree-branch had done that, and Hanse had seen it, for this was Thuvarandis. The transpiercing branch could not, however, account for the fact that the long-legged man had also been emasculated. And still Thuvarandis breathed.

  Hanse’s lips moved, but no words emerged. He looked back at the mage, and gasped. His stomach lurched. He was looking into the face of Marll!

  “No, I am not your kindly fellow-plotter. That is Thuvarandis, the treacherous swine. Illusion, remember? I thought perhaps your amulet allowed you to see through my appearance, until you called me Thuvarandis and I knew that was what you saw. I can appear to be anyone, roach. No one has seen me in my real form for a number of years now. It amuses me. It is something to do. Wonder, young man: perhaps I am hideous and misshapen, hmm?”

  “In the name of all gods, mage — let that man die!” Marll smiled. “Oh, I shall. But not for a while. He hears us, he feels, he sees us, he feels his pain. As he should. The treacherous bastard put together a plot to gain something that is not his and that I worked very hard to obtain. He’d have sent in a common thief, wouldn’t he, thief! A roach! I trapped him as I would have trapped a rat — or a harmless mouse!”