Shadows of Sanctuary

by Edited By Robert Asprin

  And more and more as he waited in this unlikely place, he gnawed on the thought of his hoped-for patron … dead, it might be, victim along with Sjekso, lying unfound as yet in some other alleyway. He had been mad to have gone off and left a woman in the backways of the Maze; a cat among hounds, that piece… and gone, snatched up, swallowed up—with friends, gods, more than likely money like that had friends and enemies. His mind built more and grimmer fancies … of princes and politics and clandestine meetings, this Sjekso perhaps more than he had seemed, this woman casting about money to be rid of a witness too much for the man she was with, an expedience—

  He built such fancies, paced, stalked finally halfway up the creaking length of the stairs and came back down in indecision—then up again, gathering his courage and his resolve. He reached the swaying balcony, tried the door.

  It swung inward, never locked or barred. That startled him. He slipped the knife from his belt and pushed the door all the way open—smelled incense and spices, perfumes. He walked in, pushed the door very gently shut again. A dim light came from a milky parchmented casement, cast colour slantwise on a couch spread with russet silk, on dusty draperies and stacks of cloth and oddments.

  Wings snapped and rustled. He spun about into a crouch, found only a large black bird chained to a perch against the wall in which the door was set. His heart settled again. He straightened. He should have smelled the creature: no large bird lived in a place without some fetor … but the perfume and the incense were that strong, that he had not. He ignored the creature, poked about amid the debris on a table, feminine clutter of small boxes and brocade.

  And the steps creaked, outside. He cast about him in a sudden fright, knife at the ready, slid in among the abundant shadows of the room. The steps reached the top, and the bird stirred and beat his wings in gusts as the door opened.

  Black robes cast a silhouette against the daylight; the lady turned unerringly in his direction, took no fright at him or the knife, merely closed the door and reached up and dropped her hood from a tumble of midnight hair about a sombre face. “Mradhon Vis,” she said quietly. She belonged in the dark of this place, amid the clutter of worn and beautiful things. It was incredible that she could ever have walked through sunlight.

  “Here,” he said, “lady.”

  “Ischade,” she named herself. “Do you make free of my lodgings?”

  “The man you were with last night. He’s dead.”

  “I’ve heard, yes.” The voice was unreadable and cool. “We parted company. Sad. A handsome boy.” She walked to the slight illumination of the parchment panes, drew an incense wand from others in a dragon vase and added it to the one which was dying, a curl of pale smoke in the light. She looked back then. “So, I have employment for you. I trust you’re not fastidious.”

  “Not often.”

  “You’ll find rewards. Gold. And it might be—further employment.”

  “I don’t shy off at much.”

  “I’ll trust not.” She walked near him, and he recalled the knife and nipped it into its sheath. Her eyes followed the move and looked up at him … grave, so very grave. Women of quality he had seen tended to flutter the eyes; this one stared eye to eye, and he found himself inclined to break the contact, to look down or elsewhere. She extended her hand, close to touching him, a move he thought might be an invitation to take liberties of his own.

  And then she drew the hand back and the moment passed. She walked over and offered the bird a morsel from the cup at the side of the stand. The creature took it with a great flapping of wings.

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked, vexed at this mincing about, with so much at stake. “It’s not legal, I’ll guess.”

  “It might involve powerful enemies. I can guarantee—equally powerful protections. And the reward. Of course that.”

  “Who’s to die? Someone else … like that boy last night?”

  She looked about, lifted a brow, then turned her attentions back to the bird, stroked black feathers with a forefinger. “Priests, perhaps. Does that bother you?”

  “Not unduly. A man wonders—”

  “The risk is mine. So are the consequences. Only I need someone to take care of physical difficulties. I assure you I know what I’m about.”

  There was more than the scent of incense about the place. Of a sudden there was quite another thing… the smell of wizardry. He gathered that, as he had been picking up the pieces all along. It was not a thing a man expected to find everywhere. But it was here. And there were crimes done in the Maze, by that means and others. Spells, he had dealt with, at least at distance… had a hint then of more rewards than gold. “You have protections, do you?”

  A second time that cool look. “I assure you it’s well thought out.”

  “Protections for me as well.”

  “They’d be far less interested in you.” She walked back to the table, to the light, a shadow against it. “This evening,” she said, “you’ll earn the gold I gave you. But perhaps, just perhaps, you ought to go out again. And come back again when I tell you. To prove you know that my door isn’t yours.”

  Heat surged to his face, words into his mouth. He thought of the money and it stifled the rest.

  “Now,” she said. “About the other thing you have in mind … well, that might come later, mightn’t it? But you choose, Mradhon Vis. There’s gold … or other rewards. And you can tell me which you’d like. Ah. Both, perhaps. Ambition. But know me better, Mradhon Vis, before you propose anything aloud. You might not like my terms. Take the gold. The likes of Sjekso Kinzan is commoner than you. And far less to regret.”

  So she had killed the boy. Markless, and cold and stiff within sight of the doorway which might have saved him. He thought about it… and the ambition persisted. It was power. And that was more than the money, much more.

  “You’ll go now,” she said very, very softly. “I wouldn’t tempt you. Consider we have a bargain. Now get out.”

  No one talked to him after that fashion … at least not twice. But he found himself silenced and his steps tending to the door. He stopped there and looked back to prove he could.

  “I’ve needed a man of your sort,” she said, “in certain ways.”

  He walked out, into the sun.

  Chapter 4

  IT WAS ONE of those neighbourhoods less frequented by the inhabitants of the Maze, and Hanse had a dislocated, uncomfortable feeling in this guide and this place, creeping as they did through the cleaner, wider backways of Sanctuary at large. It was not his territory or close to any of his known boltholes.

  And in the shadows of an alley far along the track, his guide paused and shed an inner and ragged cloak from beneath the outer one, proffering it. “Put it on. You’ll not want to be noticed hereabouts for yourself.”

  Hanse took it, not without distaste: it was grey and a mass of patches. He swung it about his shoulders and it was long enough to hide him down to midcalf.

  His guide held out a dingy bandage as well. “For your eyes. For your own safety. The house has … protections. If I told you only to shut your eyes, you’d forget at the worst moment. And my master wants you whole.”

  Hanse stared at the offered rag, liking all of this less and less; and very softly he drew the dagger from his arm sheath and extended the blade towards the guide’s face.

  Not a flinch or blink. That sent a prickling up his spine. He brought the point of the blade very close to the blind eyes and, truth, the man did not react. He flipped the blade into its sheath.

  “If you have doubts,” the blind man said, “accept my master’s assurances. But don’t under any account look from beneath the bandage once inside. My blindness … has reasons.”

  “Huh.” Hanse took the dirty bandage, feeling far from assured; but he had dealt with nervous uptowners before, and under conditions and precautions more bizarre and hazardous. He wound it about his eyes and tied it firmly: it was true—about Enas Yorl’s doorway there were rumours, and bad ones.<
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  And when the blind man grasped his sleeve and began to guide him a quiet panic set in: he had no liking of this helplessness—they entered a street, he guessed, because he heard a change in the sound of their footsteps; he sensed watchers about, stumbled suddenly on an unevenness in the paving and heard the blind man hiss a warning, wrenching at his sleeve: “Three steps up.”

  Three steps to the top and a moment waiting while his guide opened a door. Then a tug at his sleeve drew him inside, where a cold draught blew on his face until the door boomed solidly shut behind him. Instinctively he put a hand on his wrist sheath, keeping the knife hilt comfortingly under his fingers. Again a tug at his sleeve drew him on … the guide; it must still be the guide and no stranger by him. He wanted a voice. “How much further with this?” he asked.

  Claws scrabbled on stone on his left, a heavy body slithered closer in haste. He made a frantic move to get the knife out, but the guide jerked him to a standstill. “Don’t offend it,” the guide said. “Don’t try to look. Come on.”

  A reptile hissed; and by that sound it was a big one. Something flicked over the surface of his boot and coiled about his ankle, instantly withdrawing. The guide drew him on, away from the touch and down a hall which echoed more closely on either hand, where the distance was all in front of them … and into a place which smelled of coals and hot metal and strange, musky incense.

  The guide stopped, on his right. “Shadowspawn,” a new voice said, a throaty sigh, low, and to his left. He reached for the blindfold, hesitated. “Go ahead,” the new voice invited him, and he pulled it down.

  A robed and hooded form sat in this narrow marble hall—fine robes, in midnight blue and bright silver, in deep shadow, beside a heating brazier. Hanse blinked in the recent pressure on his eyes—the robes seemed to swell and sink in the vicinity of the chest, and the right arm, the hand resting visible … it went dark, that hand, and then, a deception of his abused eyes, went pale and young. “Shadowspawn.” The voice too was clearer, younger. “You lost a friend last night. Do you want to know how?”

  That unnerved him, a threat on a level he understood. His hand fidgeted towards his sheath-bearing wrist, his mind conjuring more and unblinded servants in the shadows.

  “Ischade is her name,” the voice of Enas Yorl continued, rougher now … and was the figure itself smaller and wider? “She’s also a thief. And she killed Sjekso Kinzan. Do you want more?”

  Hanse assumed a more careless stance, flipped the hand outward, palm up. “Money got me here. If you, want more of my time to listen to this, it costs.”

  “She’s in your own neighbourhood. That information might be worth even more than money to you.”

  “What, this name of yours?”

  “Ischade. A thief. She’s better than you, Shadowspawn. Your knives might not stop her.” The voice roughened further. “But you’re good and you’re smart. I’ve heard so. From—no matter. I have my sources. I’m told you’re extraordinarily discreet.” He moved the fingers, a gesture sideways. “Darous, give him the amulet.”

  The blind man drew something from the heart of his robes; Hanse’s eyes darted nervously from the wizard he was trying to watch to that distraction, a gold teardrop that spun and dazzled on a chain.

  “Take it,” Enas Yorl said. A degree rougher yet. A sigh like the sea, or like hot iron plunging into water. “This Ischade—steals from wizards. Steals spells and suchlike. Her own abilities are small in that regard… but she made a mistake once, and the spell on Ischade is nothing small or harmless. A man who shares her bed, shall we say?—discovers that. He dies … of no apparent cause. Like your friend Kinzan. Like a number of others I know of. The curse affects her humour. Imagine—to pursue lover after lover and kill them all. If I hire you, Shadowspawn, you might be glad of such protections as I offer you. Take it.”

  “Who says I’m to hire?” Hanse looked unhappily from servant to master. The hand which now peeped from the shifting robe was woman-delicate. “Who says that a dozen Sjeksos are any of my concern? I’m my concern. Me. Hanse. I don’t have any interest in Sjekso. So I just stay out of the whole business. That’s what interests me.”

  “Then you’ll run, will you, and find some safer place to steal.” The voice ground like rocks tumbling. “And you’ll ignore my gold and protection. Both of which you may need—It’s no great thing I ask, simply a matter of spying out where she is. Did I ask you to go against her yourself? No. A small favour, well paid. And you’ve done favours like that before. Would you have that known—that you’ve worked in high places? Your past patron wouldn’t appreciate that publicity. He wouldn’t retaliate against me, no. But you—how long do you think you’d live, thief, if your connections went public?”

  Hanse had sucked in his breath. He forced a grin then, struck a lighter pose, hand on hip. “So, well, paid in gold, you said?”

  “After.”

  “Now.”

  “Darous, give the man sufficient as earnest. And give him the amulet.”

  Hanse turned from the wizard, whose voice had acquired a hissing quality: and the hand—had vanished into one of those blinks of the eye that deceived the mind and memory that anything had—a moment earlier—been there. Hanse took the chain and put it over his head. The amulet itself hit his bare throat and it was bitter and burning cold. The servant held out a purse. Hanse took that, felt the weight in his hand, opened the neck of it and looked at the gold and silver abundance inside. His heart beat wildly, while against his neck the metal failed to be warmed as metal ought, stayed there like a lump of ice. It sent a vague malaise through him, which changed character from moment to moment like—”So what am I supposed to do?” he asked. “And where do I look?”

  “A house,” a woman’s voice said to his right, and he looked, blinked, found only the hooded form in the chair. “Seventh in the alley called Snake. On the right as you go from the Serpentine at Acban’s Passage. She lodges there. Mark what she does and where she goes. Don’t attempt to prevent her. I only want to know the business that brought her to Sanctuary.”

  Hanse let go a sigh, relief, for all that the robes shifted again—felt a wild confidence in himself (it might have been the money) that he could get out of this easily, and with still more money, and an employer satisfied, who was powerful and rich. Hanse Shadowspawn, Hanse the thief, small Hanse the knife … had friends in high places, a condition unexpected. He expanded in this knowledge and stood loose, dropped the purse into his shirt, ignoring the chill at his neck. “So, then, and I come here from time to time and report to you.”

  “Darous will find you from time to time,” the same voice said. The changing seemed to have settled for the moment. “Depend on that contact. Good-day to you. Darous will show you out.”

  Hanse made a flourish of a bow, turned to the servant and indicated they should go.

  “The blindfold,” the blind servant said. “Use it, master thief. My master would regret an accident, especially now.”

  Hanse put his hand on the metal droplet that hung like ice at his throat, turned to glower at the wizard. “I thought this was supposed to take care of things like that.”

  “Did I say so? No, I didn’t say. I wouldn’t be rash in relying on it. Against some things it has no protection at all. My guardians in the hall, for instance, would never notice it.”

  “Then what good is it?”

  “Much … in its right place. Afraid, thief?”

  “Huh,” Hanse said critically. Laughed and swung on his heel, caught the blind servant by the arm and started out with him. But remembering the movements in the outer hall, the thing which had brushed at his leg—”All right, all right,” he said suddenly, and let go the man’s arm to put the blindfold back in place. “All right, rot you, wait.”

  ****

  THE THIEF WENT, and Enas Yorl rose from his chair. His shape had settled again into a form far more pleasant than most. He walked to a hall more interior to his house, examined hands delicate and fine, that wer
e purest pleasure to touch—and all the worse when they would begin … next moment or next day … to change.

  It was a revenge, a none too subtle revenge, but then the wizard who had cursed him had never been much on subtleties, which was why his young wife had had Enas Yorl in her bed in the first place—a younger Enas Yorl in those days, but age meant nothing now. The forms his affliction cast on him might be old or young, male or female, human or—not. And the years frightened him. All the time he had had, to become master of his arts, and his arts had no power to undo another’s spell. No one could. And some of his forms, still, were young, which suggested that he did not age, that there was no end to this torment—for ever.

  Yet wizards died, lately, in Sanctuary. Tell the thief that was the name of the game, and even threats might not persuade him. But in these deaths, Enas Yorl was desperately, passionately interested. Ischade … Ischade: the name tasted of vile rumour; a wizardous thief, a preyer upon wizards, a conniver in shadows and dark secrets, this Ischade, with reason to hate the prey she chose.

  And all her lovers died, softly, gently for the most part; but Enas Yorl was not particular in that regard.

  He paused a moment, hearing the great outer doors boom shut. The thief was on his way, thief to take a thief. And Enas Yorl felt a sudden cold. Wizards died, in Sanctuary, and this possibility fascinated him, taunted him with hope and fear: with fear—because shapes like this he wore turned him coward, reminding him there were pleasures to be had. He feared death at such times … while the thief he had sent out went to find it for him.

  Darous came back, softly stopped on the marble paving. “Well done,” Enas Yorl said.

  “Follow him, master?”

  “No,” Enas Yorl said. “No need. None at all.” He looked distractedly about again, with the queasiness of impending change upon him. He fled suddenly, his steps quicker and quicker on the pavings. Darous could see nothing—Darous sensed, but that was another matter. There was, however, pride.

  And within the hour, in a dark recess of the house with the basilisks prowling the halls unchecked, something gibbered within a pile of midnight robes, and with keen sense of beauty imprisoned in that moaning heap, longed towards oblivion.