Shadows of Sanctuary

by Edited By Robert Asprin

  By the time Kadakithis arrived in that very same chariot, its braces sticky with Wriggly blood, Tempus was in a humour darker than the drying clots, fully as dark as the odd, round cloud coming fast from the northeast.

  Kadakithis’s noble Rankan visage was suffused with rage, so that his skin was darker than his pale hair: “But why! In the name of all the gods, what did the poor little creature ever do to you? You owe me a eunuch, and an explanation.” He tapped his lacquered nails on the chariot’s bronze rim.

  “I have a perfect replacement in mind,” smiled Tempus smoothly, “my lord. As for why… all eunuchs are duplicitous. This one was an information conduit to Jubal. Unless you would like to invite the slaver to policy sessions and let him stand behind those ivory screens where your favourites eavesdrop as they choose, I have acted well within my prerogatives as marshal. If my name is attached to your palace security, then your palace will be secure.”

  “Bastard! How dare you even imply that I should apologize to you! When will you treat me with the proper amount of respect? You tell me all eunuchs are treacherous, the very breath after offering me another one!”

  “I am giving you respect. Reverence I reserve for better men than I. When you have attained that dignity, we shall both know it: you will not have to ask. Until then, either trust or discharge me.” He waited, to see if the prince would speak. Then he continued: “As to the eunuch I offer as replacement, I want you to arrange for his training. You like Jubal’s work; send to him saying yours has met with an accident and you wish to tender another into his care to be similarly instructed. Tell him you paid a lot of money for it, and you have high hopes.”

  “You have such a eunuch?”

  “I will have it.”

  “And you expect me to conscion your sending of an agent in there—aye, to aid you—without knowing your plan, or even the specifics of the Wriggly’s confession?”

  “Should you know, my lord, you would have to approve, or disapprove. As it lies, you are free of onus.”

  The two men regarded each other, checked hostility jumping between them like Vashanka’s own lightning in the long, dangerous pause.

  Kadakithis flicked his purple mantle over his shoulder. He squinted past Tempus, into the waning day. “What kind of cloud is that?”

  Tempus swung around in his saddle, then back. “That should be our friend from Ranke.”

  The prince nodded. “Before he arrives, then, let us discuss the matter of the female prisoner Cime.”

  Tempus’s horse snorted and threw its head, dancing in place. “There is nothing to discuss.”

  “But… ? Why did you not come to me about it? I could have done something, previously. Now, I cannot…”

  “I did not ask you. I am not asking you.” His voice was a blade on whetstone, so that Kadakithis pulled himself up straight. “It is not for me to take a hand.”

  “Your own sister? You will not intervene?”

  “Believe what you will, prince. I will not sift through gossip with any man, be he prince or king.”

  The prince lost hold, then, having been “princed” too often back in Ranke, and berated the Hell Hound.

  The man sat quite still upon the horse the prince had given him, garbed only in his loinguard though the day was fading, letting his gaze full of festering shadows rest in the prince’s until Kadakithis trailed off, saying, “… the trouble with you is that anything they say about you could be true, so a man knows not what to believe.”

  “Believe in accordance with your heart,” the voice like grinding stone suggested, while the dark cloud came to hover over the beach.

  It settled, seemingly, into the sand, and the horses shied back, necks outstretched, nostrils huge. Tempus had his sorrel up alongside the chariot team and was leaning down to take the lead-horse’s bridle when an earsplitting clarion came from the cloud’s translucent centre.

  The Hell Hound raised his head then, and Kadakithis saw him shiver, saw his brow arch, saw a flicker of deepset eyes within their caves of bone and lid. Then again Tempus spoke to the chariot horses, who swivelled their ears towards him and took his counsel, and he let loose the lead-horse’s bridle and spurred his own between Kadakithis’s chariot and what came out of the cinereous cloud which had been so long descending upon them in opposition to the prevailing wind.

  The man on the horse who could be seen within the cloud waved: a flash of scarlet glove, a swirl of burgundy cloak. Behind his tasselled steed he led another, and it was this second grey horse who again challenged the other stallions on the beach, its eyes full of fire. Farther back within the cloud, stonework could be seen, masonry like none in Sanctuary, a sky more blue and hills more virile than any Kadakithis knew.

  The first horse, reins flapping, was emerging, nose and neck casting shadows upon solid Sanctuary sand; then its hooves scattered grains, and the whole of the beast, and its rider, and the second horse he led on a long tether, stood corporeal and motionless before the Hell Hound, while behind, the cloud whirled in upon itself and was gone with an audible “pop”.

  “Greetings, Riddler,” said the rider in burgundy and scarlet, as he doffed his helmet with its blood-dark crest to Tempus. “I did not expect you, Abarsis. What could be so urgent?”

  “I heard about the Trôs horse’s death, so I thought to bring you another, better auspiced, I hope. Since I was coming anyway, our friends suggested I bring what you require. I have long wanted to meet you.” Spurring his mount forward, he held out his hand. Red stallion and iron grey snaked arched necks, thrusting forth clacking teeth, wide-gaped jaws emitting squeals to go with flattened ears and rolling eyes. Above horse hostilities could be heard snatches of low wordplay, parry and riposte: “… disappointed that you could not build the temple.”… welcome to take my place here and try. The foundations of the temple grounds are defiled, the priest in charge more corrupt than even politics warrants. I wash my hands …”… with the warring imminent, how can you … ?”

  “Theomachy is no longer my burden.”

  “That cannot be so.”

  “… hear about the insurrection, or take my leave!”

  “… His name is unpronounceable, and that of his empire, but I think we all shall learn it so well we will mumble it in our sleep …”

  “I don’t sleep. It is a matter of the right field officers, and men young enough not to have fought upcountry the last time.”

  “I am meeting some Sacred Band members here, my old team. Can you provision us?”

  “Here? Well enough to get to the capital and do it better. Let me be the first to …”

  Kadakithis, forgotten, cleared his throat.

  Both men stared at the prince severely, as if a child had interrupted adults. Tempus bowed low in his saddle, arm out-swept. The rider in reds with the burnished cuirass tucked his helmet under his arm and approached the chariot, handing the second horse’s tether to Tempus as he passed by.

  “Abarsis, presently of Ranke,” said the dark, cultured voice of the armoured man, whose hair swung black and glossy on a young bull’s neck. His line was old, one of court graces and bas-relief faces and upswept, regal eyes that were disconcertingly wise and as grey-blue as the huge horse Tempus held with some difficulty. Ignoring the squeals of just-met stallions, the man continued: “Lord Prince, may all be well with you, with your endeavours and your holdings, eternally. I bear reaffirmation of our bond to you.” He held out a purse, fat with coin.

  Tempus winced, imperceptibly, and took wraps of the grey horse’s tether, drawing its head close with great care, until he could bring his fist down hard between its ears to quiet it.

  “What is this? There is enough money here to raise an army!” Scowled Kadakithis, tossing the pouch lightly in his palm.

  A polite and perfect smile lit the northern face, so warmly handsome, of the Rankan emissary. “Have you not told him, then, O Riddler?”

  “No, I thought to, but got no opportunity. Also, I am not sure whether we will raise it, or
whether that is my severance pay.” He threw a leg over the sorrel’s neck and slid down it, butt to horse, dropped its reins and walked away down the beach with his new Trôs horse in hand. The Rankan hooked his helmet carefully on one of the saddle’s silver rosettes. “You two are not getting on, I take it. Prince Kadakithis, you must be easy with him. Treat him as he does his horses; he needs a gentle hand.”

  “He needs his comeuppance. He has become insufferable! What is this money? Has he told you I am for sale? I am not!”

  “He has turned his back on his god and the god is letting him run. When he is exhausted, the god will take him back. You found him pleasant enough, previously, I would wager. He has been set upon by your own staff, men to whom he was sworn and who gave oaths to him. What do you expect? He will not rest easy until he has made that matter right.”

  “What is this? My men? You mean that long unexplained absence of his? I admit he is changed. But how do you know what he would not tell me?”

  A smile like sunrise lit the elegant face of the armoured man.

  “The god tells me what I need to know. How would it be, for him to come running to you with tales of feuding among your ranks like a child to his father? His honour precludes it. As for the … funds … you hold, when we sent him here, it was with the understanding that should he feel you would make a king, he would so inform us. This, I was told you knew.”

  “In principle. But I cannot take a gift so large.”

  “Take a loan, as others before you have had to do. There is no time now for courtship. To be capable of becoming a king ensures no seat of kingship, these days. A king must be more than a man, he must be a hero. It takes many men to make a hero, and special times. Opportunities approach, with the up-country insurrection and a new empire rising beyond the northern range. Were you to distinguish yourself in combat, or field an army that did, we who seek a change could rally around you publicly. You cannot do it with what you have, the Emperor has seen to that.”

  “At what rate am I expected to pay back this loan?”

  “Equal value, nothing more. If the prince, my lord, will have patience, I will explain all to Your Majesty’s satisfaction. That, truly, is why I am come.”

  “Explain away, then.”

  “First, one small digression, which touches a deeper truth. You must have some idea who and what the man you call Tempus is. I am sure you have heard it from your wizards and from his enemies among the officials of the Mageguild. Let me add to that this: Where he goes, the god scatters His blessings. By the cosmological rules of state cult and kingship, He has invested this endeavour with divine sanction by his presence. Though he and the god have their differences, without him no chance remains that you might triumph. My father found that out. Even sick with his curse, he is too valuable to waste, unappreciated. If you would rather remain a princeling forever, and let the empire slide into ruin apace, just tell me and I will take word home. We will forget this matter of the kingship and this corollary matter of a small standing army, and I will release Tempus. He would as soon it, I assure you.”

  “Your father? Who in the God’s Eye are you?”

  “Ah, my arrogance is unforgivable; I thought you would know me. We are all so full of ourselves these days, it is no wonder events have come to such a pass. I am Man of the God in Upper Ranke, Sole Friend to the Mercenaries, the Hero, Son of the Defender, and so forth.”

  “High Priest of Vashanka.”

  “In the Upper Land.”

  “My family and yours thinned each other’s line,” stated Kadakithis baldly, no apology, no regret in his words. Yet he looked differently upon the other, thinking they were of an age, both wielding wooden swords in shady courts while the slaughter raged, far off at the fronts.

  “Unto eradication,” remarked the dark young man. “But we did not contest, and now there is a different enemy, a common threat. It is enough.”

  “And you and Tempus have never met?”

  “He knew my father. And when I was ten, and my father died and our armies were disbanded, he found a home for me. Later, when I came to the god and the mercenaries’ guild, I tried to see him. He would not meet with me.” He shrugged, looking over his shoulder at the man walking the blue-grey horse into blue-grey shadows falling over the blue-black sea. “Everyone has his hero, you know. A god is not enough for a whole man; he craves a fleshly model. When he sent to me for a horse, and the god approved it, I was elated. Now, perhaps, I can do more. The horse may not have died in vain, after all.”

  “I do not understand you, Priest.”

  “My Lord, do not make me too holy. I am Vashanka’s priest: I know many requiems and oaths, and thirty-three ways to fire a warrior’s bier. They call me Stepson, in the mercenaries’ guild. I would be pleased if you would call me that, and let me talk to you at greater length about a future in which your destiny and the wishes of the Storm God, our Lord, could come to be the same.”

  “I am not sure I can find room in my heart for such a god; it is difficult enough to pretend to piety,” grated Kadakithis, squinting after Tempus in the dusk.

  “You will, you will,” promised the priest, and dismounted from his horse to approach Tempus’s ground-tied sorrel. Abarsis reached down, running his hand along the beast’s white-stocking’d leg. “Look, Prince,” he said, craning his neck up to see Kadakithis’s face as his fingers tugged at the gold chain wedged in the weight-cleat on the horse’s shoe. At the end of the chain, sandy but shining gold, was an amulet. “The god wants him back.”

  Chapter 3

  THE MERCENARIES DRIFTED into Sanctuary dusty from their westward trek or blue lipped from their rough sea passage and wherever they went they made hellish what before had been merely dissolute. The Maze was no longer safe for pickpocket or pander; usurer and sorcerer scuttled in haste from street to doorway, where before they had swaggered virtually unchallenged, crime lords in fear of nothing.

  Now the whores walked bowlegged, dreamy-eyed, parading their new finery in the early hours of the morning while most mercenaries slept; the taverns changed shifts but feared to close their doors, lest a mercenary find that an excuse to take offence. Even so early in the day, the inns were full of brawls and the gutters full of casualties. The garrison soldiers and the Hell Hounds could not be omnipresent: wherever they were not, mercenaries took sport, and they were not in the Maze this morning.

  Though Sanctuary had never been so prosperous, every guild and union and citizens’ group had sent representatives to the palace at sunrise to complain.

  Lastel, a/k/a One-Thumb, could not understand why the Sanctuarites were so unhappy. Lastel was very happy: he was alive and back at the Vulgar Unicorn tending bar, and the Unicorn was making money, and money made Lastel happy, always. Being alive was something Lastel had not fully appreciated until recently, when he had spent aeons dying a subjective death in thrall to a spell he had paid to have laid upon his own person, a spell turned against him by the sons of its deceased creator, Mizraith of the Hazard class, and dispelled by he knew not whom. Though every night he expected his mysterious benefactor to sidle up to the bar and demand payment, no one ever came and said: “Lastel, I saved you. I am the one. Now show your gratitude.” But he knew very well that someday soon, someone would. He did not let this irritation besmirch his happiness. He had got a new shipment of Caronne krrf (black, pure drug, foil stamped, a full weight of it, enough to set every mercenary in Sanctuary at the kill) and it was so good that he considered refraining from offering it on the market. Having considered, he decided to keep it all for himself, and so was very happy indeed, no matter how many fistfights broke out in the bar, or how high the sun was, these days, before he got to bed …

  Tempus, too, was happy that morning, with the magnificent Trôs horse under him and signs of war all around him. Despite the hour, he saw enough rough hoplites and dour artillery fighters with their crank-bows (whose springs were plaited from women’s hair) and their quarrels (barbed and poisoned) to let him know h
e was not dreaming: these did not bestir themselves from daydreams! The war was real to them. And any one of them could be his. He felt his troop-levy money cuddled tight against his groin, and he whistled tunelessly as the Trôs horse threaded his way towards the Vulgar Unicorn. One-Thumb was not going to be happy much longer. Tempus left the Trôs horse on its own recognizance, dropping the reins and telling it, “Stay.” Anyone who thought it merely ripe for stealing would learn a lesson about the strain which is bred only in Syr from the original line of Trôs’s.

  There were a few locals in the Unicorn, most snoring over tables along with other, bagged trash ready to be dragged out into the street.

  One-Thumb was behind his bar, big shoulders slumped, washing mugs while watching everything through the bronze mirror he had had installed over his stock.

  Tempus let his heels crack against the board and his armour clatter: he had dressed for this, from a box he had thought he might never again open. The wrestler’s body which Lastel had built came alert, pirouetted smoothly to face him, staring unabashedly at the nearly god-sized apparition in leopard-skin mantle and helmet set with boar’s tusks, wearing an antique enamelled breastplate and bearing a bow of ibex-horn morticed with a golden grip.

  “What in Azyuna’s twat are you?” bellowed One-Thumb, as every waking customer he had hastened to depart.

  “I,” said Tempus, reaching the bar and removing his helmet so that his yarrow honey hair spilled forth, “am Tempus. We have not chanced to meet.” He held out a hand whose wrist bore a golden bracer.