For well over a year now, Corstic has put off his final stroke to seize all authority in Firaqa. Instead he has spent thousands of hours seeking to divine the secret of a ‘talisman’ that had no secrets save that it was only a pearl-coloured cat made of porcelain! Meanwhile, my associates and I met, we talked, we tried to plan. We considered and even tried about everything — except employing a supernally brave man to storm boldly into Corstic’s home in company with an attack-trained cat!” They all glanced at Notable, who was quite asleep beside an empty bowl.
“I appreciate the cleverness of that plan, and that you doubtless saved your lives as well as Firaqa’s,” Hanse said, urged to more careful speech by Arcala’s apparent devotion to it, and by the wine. “Yet why did Marll and Thuvarandis and the others plot to steal a worthless statue?”
Arcala shrugged. “None of those four was an intimate of mine, so I cannot say with any certitude. Malingasa I am unfamiliar with, and I actively disliked Marll. We had differing ideas about the employment of spells. We three can only guess. The rumour spread, you see, and others believed the tale of the cat-figure that was a great talisman. They may have wanted it out of Corstic’s hands for the very reason Marll gave you: to save Firaqa from Corstic, and to destroy what they, too, thought was a talisman. More likely, they planned to use its great magic to gain control of the city, themselves.”
Hanse sighed, shaking his head. “Every bit of it was a mistake, then. Corstic didn’t need the statue, and neither did they. They never needed to approach me, and I never needed to go in at all! None of them needed to die so horribly.”
He did not sip; he drank.
“Obviously all of it served a purpose, Hanse. Corstic is dead. Firaqa is saved. I assure you that I have no desire to be sole ruler. It would not help bring back my wife, and it would take me away from my children even more. I can do more for people by dealing in white magic. Yet I am in a position to see that no one else gains full power in my city, and I shall! Hanse…what were you to receive, for stealing the cat?”
“An early death, probably.”
“Hanse,” Mignureal said, “is a very suspicious individual, Lord Arcala.”
“It pays,” the mage said. “And I told you that my name is Arcala, not lord. What I meant, Hanse, is what did they promise you?”
Hanse took sudden interest in the wine pitcher. As he refilled his cup he told the truth: “Whatever I could carry out of there in addition to the figurine.”
Arcala chuckled. “Please pardon me. I do not intend to laugh at you. It’s just that you and that cat saved this city, and you come away from there with nothing at all for yourself!”
“That feels good,” Hanse said. “And this wine is good.” He shrugged, feeling an unaccustomed sensation: embarrassment. Too, he thought briefly on the ornate ring worn by the dead Corstic. It reposed snugly in Shadowspawn’s concealed purse.
“You both have my admiration and friendship,” Arcala said, looking at Mignureal. “And you would have the admiration and gratitude of many others, too, if we chose to reveal all that took place this night.”
Very warm, Hanse looked up. “If?”
Arcala gestured with spread hands. “Do you want it known throughout the city what it is that you are very, very good at?” He paused, not quite smiling, gazing at Hanse from large and intensely blue eyes. “And that it was you personally Who accomplished the impossible; destroyed the undestroyable?” Hanse regarded him. “Uh…he had plenty of friends, cronies, didn’t he. Mages and the like.”
“Such men always do. Who knows what promises he had made to others, what they looked forward to, when he was dictator of Firaqa!”
“Or what threats he made,” Mignureal said.
“That too,” Arcala said, nodding. “As it is, we know of no one in Corstic’s employ who saw you tonight, and lived. I and my two men and Gaise know, and you, Mignureal, and the cats. Gaise has promised to say nothing until he contacts me on the morrow. As it stands right now, Corstic has been found mysteriously dead in his home: murdered, along with two of his guards. Many people will rejoice at the news. Others will not.”
Hanse bristled. “Murdered?”
“That is the way it looks, doesn’t it.”
“Oh.”
“But Arcala,” Mignureal said; “Gaise is a city employee, a sergeant of the Watch. Would he lie?”
Arcala rose and walked a few paces before facing them again. “No, but he could forget that he ever saw you there, Hanse. He and my men would know only that we went up there, just the four of us, and found Corstic dead.” Seeing Hanse’s openmouthed stare, he smiled. “Hanse, you are beyond expert at what you do. Give me credit: so am I! This would be no great exertion of my talent, and certainly the cause is worthy.”
“It would…It would put me in your power.”
“Sometimes, Hanse, sometimes a man can be too suspicious! I am offering you a favour, and that’s all. Oh, I would ask one in return: as a favour, consider this house out of bounds should you decide to practice your…talent, again.”
Hanse couldn’t help it: he laughed.
*
Only when he awoke in the morning did he realize that he had slept at Arcala’s. Furthermore, the thickness of his head and furry feeling of his tongue told him why. Lying still on the divan in Arcala’s receiving room, Hanse once again vowed never to drink wine. I like the damned stuff too much. Far better than it likes me.
He sat up, muffling his groan, to discover Notable on the floor right beside his couch. He was stroking that cat’s soft fur, thinking about last night, when Mignureal came into the room. She bore Rainbow in her arms as she might have borne an infant. Hanse gave her a sheepish smile.
“Oh don’t look that way, Hanse. After all, you had a very active and dreadful night. And think what Arcala said: you and Notable saved Firaqa!”
“And you,” he said, “and Shurina, and, I guess, Strick’s amulet.”
“Anyhow, Arcala and I have already breakfasted.”
“Oh! You should have wakened me!”
“We didn’t think so. What do you think you’re going to do, Hanse?”
“About wha — oh, his suggestion, or offer. For once I’m going to welcome sorcery. Let him adjust the memories of Gaise and his bodyguards. I believe I had rather be Firaqa’s great unsung hero than the target of ten or twenty angry mages!”
She nodded. “That’s exactly what Arcala and I thought. Good!”
His lower lip poked out a bit. “You and Arcala, hmm?”
“Yes.”
Hanse sighed and decided he’d better not pursue that. Her serenely succinct response while looking directly into his eyes was unusual for her, unwontedly self-confident and almost challenging. He wanted no arguments today.
She squatted to lay the calico cat gently on the tabletop. The same table on which lay the two coins and the fold-over tablet, and Hanse gazed at them.
“It isn’t over yet,” he murmured. “What about the other two coins! Where are those men?”
“Oh, oh faint — oh my!” Mignureal was staring at Rainbow, as Hanse was.
Weakly that most unnatural of cats moved closer to the tablet. It was incredible and eerie to watch, as an extruded claw traced a shaky and misshapen S into the beeswax, and then an A, and an N; and then Shurina in Rainbow’s form slumped, panting. Hanse put back a hand to the tingling hair on the back of his neck.
“Oh poor darling, you needn’t try to do this,” Mignureal said in a shaky voice, reaching for the cat.
“Mignue.”
With a little jerk, she froze to turn her head and large questioning eyes toward Hanse. She had heard that intense, warning tone before, but very, very seldom. She did not like it, but knew that she had better heed it.
He nodded to indicate the cat. “Leave her alone.”
She looked back at Rainbow, who had summoned strength to go on with her message. C, she scratched, TU, and Hanse gasped, sure that he knew the rest of it. It took her another minute o
f rest and even more effort, but the cat completed the scratching of a single word into the tablet before she slumped again. He and Mignureal stared at it, her hand moving out automatically to his leg.
SANCTUARY
“Oh, shit.”
“Oh, Hansel”
“Same thing.”
“No no,” she said, sobbing; “it’s Rainbow! She’s stopped breathing!”
“Oh,” he said, “no…”
Mignureal’s voice was wistful, choking a little to hold back her weeping. “Remember when I ca-called her a S-S’danzo kitty…”
Notable moved to the table, reared up to place both front paws on it. A moment later he dropped to the floor and relieved himself of a long cry that rode the line between pitiful and horrible.
Rainbow was dead, and no matter how long Hanse watched, she did not turn into a woman, beautiful or otherwise, or anything else save a small dead S’danzo kitty.
At last he said, “Rainbow is dead. But Shurina will never know peace until all ten rapists are dead.”
Her pale face was all tear-streaked as Mignureal swung to him. “What?”
He nodded. “That’s what Corstic said. The monster meant it, too. He was gloating, and I believe him. The human kas in the cats will never know peace until all ten rapists are dead — whether the cats are alive or not.”
“Oh,” Mignureal sobbed, “oh, oh…” And she dropped head and arms onto the table, touching Rainbow, and wept.
Hanse touched her bowed head without looking at her. With stricken eyes he was staring at the tablet, and the word crudely scratched there. It was a word he had seen enough to recognize, even if Mignureal had not gasped it out just before Shurina completed the final letter.
“Sanctuary,” he said. “Damn. Sanctuary! The coins say that two of the raping swine still live, and obviously Rainbow-I-mean-Shurina just told us where they are: in Sanctuary. I am a vengeful ass, Mignue, and I like these cats, and this is all vengeance and justice. Damn! I — I have to go back to Sanctuary, Mignue!”
Shadowspawn (Thieves' World Book 4) Page 31