Soul of the City tw-8

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  "I-t-tr-tried. I tried to do what she w-wanted. Then I-1-lost the m-m-money."

  "You mean you drank it! You gambled it, you spent it on drugs, you fool! Oh, damn you, damn you!"

  He cringed. Her tall, her once-handsome brother-he cringed down and his shoulderblades were sharp against the rags, his dirty hands were like claws clutching his knees as he crouched rocking in the cream-and-lace of her bed. "I got to have m-m-money, Mo-ri-a. I got to go to Her, I got to make it g-g-good-"

  "Damn, all I've got is Her money, you fool! You're going to take Her money and pay Her back with it?"

  "You g-g-got to, you g-g-got to, the p-pain, Moria, the pain-"

  "Stay here!"

  She set the knife down and fled, a flurry of satin and ribbons and bare feet down the polished, carpeted stairs, down into the hall and back where even in this night Cook's minions labored over the dinner-the infamous Shiey had acquired a partner with a monumental girth and a real skill, who co-ruled the kitchen: one-handed Shiey managed the beggar-servants and Kotilis stirred and mixed and sliced with a deft fury that put an awe into the slovens and dullards that were the rule in this house. They thought She had witched this cook, and that the hands that made a knife fly over a radish and carve it into a flower could do equally well with ears and noses: that was what Shiey told them. And work went on this night. Work went on in mad terror; and if anyone thought it was strange that one more beggar went padding in the front door at night (with a key) and Little Mistress came flying downstairs in her night-gown to rummage the

  desk in the hall for the money not one thief in the house dared steal-

  No one said a thing. Shiey only stood in the door in her floured apron, and Kotilis went on butchering his radishes, while Moria ignored them both, flying up the stairs again with the copper taste of a bitten lip and stark fear in her mouth.

  She loved her brother, gods help a fool. She was bound to him in ways that she could not untangle; and she stole from Her to pay Her, which was the only thing she could do. It was damnation she courted. It was the most terrible ruin in the world.

  It was for the arch-fool Mor-am, who was the only blood kin she had, and who had bled for her and she for him since they were urchins in Jubal's employ. It was not Mor-am's fault that he drank too much, that he smoked krrf when the pain and the despair got to be too much; he had hit her and she forgave him in a broken hearted torment-all the men she loved had done as much, excepting only Haught, whose blows were never physical but more devastating. It was her lot in life. Even when Ischade clothed her in satin and Haught touched her with stolen glamor. It was her lot that a drunkard brother had to show up wanting money; and adding to the sins that she would carry into Ischade's sight tomorrow. It was men's way to be selfish fools, and women's to be faithful fools, and to love them too much and too long.

  "Here," she said, when she had come panting up the stairs, when she had found Mor-am huddled still amid her bed, weeping into his thin, dirty hands. "Here-" She came and sat down and put her hand on his shoulders and gave the gold to him. He wiped his eyes and snatched it so hard it hurt her hand; and got up and shambled out again.

  He would not go to Ischade. He would go to the nearest dope-den; he would give it all to some tavemkeeper who would give him krrf and whatever else the place offered to the limit of that gold; and maybe think to force food down him; then throw him out on the street when he had run through his account.

  And when Ischade knew where he was-if Ischade got on his track and remembered him among her other, higher business-

  Moria sank down on her soiled bed and hugged her arms about herself, the satin not enough against the chill.

  She saw the bureau surface. The ivory-and-silver knife was gone. He had stolen it.

  The starlit face of Tasfalen's mansion was buff stone; was grillwork over the windows, and a huge pair of bronze doors great as those which adorned many a temple. The detail of them was obscured in the dark and the windows were shuttered and barred against the insanity of uptown.

  But Haught had no trepidation. "Stay here," he told Stilcho, and Stilcho turned a worried one-eyed stare his way and wrapped his black cloak tighter about him, melting into the ornamental bushes with which (unwisely) Lord Tasfalen's gardener decorated the street side.

  Haught simply walked up to the door and took the pull-ring of the bell-chain, tugged it twice and waited, arms folded, face composed in that bland grace which he practiced so carefully. A dog barked in some echoing place far inside; was hushed; there was some long delay and he rang again to confirm it for them-no, it was no drunken prankster.

  And now inside there had to be a consultation with the major domo and perhaps even with the master himself, for it was not every door in Sanctuary that dared open at night.

  Eventually, in due course, there came a step to the door, an unbarring of the small barred peephole in the embrace of two bronze godlets. "Who is it?"

  "A messenger." Haught put on his most cultivated voice. "My mistress sends to your master with an invitation."

  Silence from the other side. It was a message fraught with ambiguities that might well make a nobleman's nightwarder think twice about asking what invitation and what lady. The little door snapped shut and off went the porter to more consultation.

  "What are they doing?" Stilcho asked-not a frequenter of uptown houses, or one who had dealt with nobility in life or death. "Haught, if they-"

  "Hush," said Haught, once and sharply, because more steps were coming back.

  The peephole opened again. "It's an odd hour for invitations."

  "My mistress prefers it."

  A pause. "Is there a token?"

  "My mistress' word is her token. She asks your master to attend tomorrow night at eight, at a formal dinner in the former Peles house; dinner at sundown. Tell Lord Tasfalen that my lady will make herself known there. And he will want to see her, by a token he will know." He reached up and handed a black feather toward the entry, a flight-feather of one of Sanctuary's greater birds. "Tell him wear this. Tell him my lady will be greatly pleased with him."

  "Her name?"

  "She is someone he will know. I will not compromise her. But this for taking my message-" He handed up a gold coin. "You see my lady is not ungenerous."

  A profound pause. "I'll tell my lord in the morning."

  "Tell him then. You needn't mention the gold, of course. Good rest to you, porter."

  "Good night and good sleep, young sir."

  Young sir. The peephole closed and a tight small smile came to the ex-slave's face; a fox's smile. He stepped briskly off the porch with a light swirl of his russet cloak and a wink of his sword-hilt in the starlight.

  "Gods," Stilcho said, "the ring- the ring, man-"

  "Ah," Haught said, pressing a hand to his breast. "Damn. I forgot it." He looked back at the door. "I can't call them back-that wouldn't impress them at all."

  "Dammit, what are you up to?"

  Haught turned and extended a forefinger, ran it gently up the seam of Stilcho's cloak, and dragged him a safe distance from the door. "You forget yourself, dead man. Do you need a lesson here and now? Cry put and I'll teach you something you haven't felt yet."

  "For the gods' sake-"

  "You can be with me," Haught said, "or you can resign this business here and now. Do you want to feel it, Stilcho? Do you want to know what dying can be like?"

  Stilcho stepped away from him, his eye-patched face a stark pale mask under black hood and black fall of hair. He shook his head. "No. I don't want to know." There was a flash of panicked white in the living eye. "I don't want to know what you're doing either."

  Haught smiled, not the fox's smile now, but something darker as he closed the distance between them a second time. He caught Stilcho's cloak between thumb and forefinger. "Do me a favor. Go to Moria's place. Tell her expect one more for dinner tomorrow; and wait for me there."

  "She'll kill you."

  Moria was not the She Stilcho meant. There was te
rror in the single eye. Stilcho's scarred mouth trembled.

  "Kill you," Haught said. "That's what you're afraid of. But what's one more trip down there, for you? Is hell that bad?"

  "Gods, let me alone-"

  "Maybe it is. You ought to know. Tell the Mistress, dead man, and you lose your chance with me." Haught inhaled, one great lungful of Sanctuary's dust-ridden air. "There's power to be had. I can see it, I breathe it-you like what I can do, don't deny it."

  "I-"

  "Or do you want to run to Her, do you really want to run to Her tonight? She told us to leave Her alone-But you've dealt with Her when the killing-mood is on Her, you know what it's like. You heard the fires tonight; have you ever heard them bum like that? She's taken Roxane, she's drunk on that power, the gates of hell reel under her-do you want that to take you by the hand tonight and do you want that to take you to Her bed and do what She's done before? You'll run to hell for refuge, man, you'll go out like a candle and you'll rot in hell whatever there is left of you when She's done."

  "No-"

  "No, She wouldn't, or No, you won't go there, or Yes, you're going to do exactly what I asked you to do?"

  "I'll take your message." Stilcho's voice came hoarse and whispered. And in a rush: "If you get caught it's your doing, I won't know anything, I'll swear I had no part in it!"

  "Of course. So would I." He tugged gently at Stilcho's cloak. "I don't ask loyalty of you. I have ways to ensure it. Think about that, Stilcho. She's going to kill you. Again. And again. How long will your sanity take it, Stilcho? Shut your eyes. Shut them. And remember everything. And do it."

  Stilcho made a strangled sound. Flinched from him.

  Stilcho remembered. Haught took that for granted; and smiled in Stilcho's distraught face.

  Before he swept the russet cloak back, set a fine hand on the elegant sword, and walked on down the street like a lord of Sanctuary.

  Straton stood still and blindfolded as the door closed behind, as the little charade played itself out. He heard the tread of men on board and the scrape of a chair and smelled the remnant of dinner and onions in this small, musty room.

  "Do I take this damn thing off?" he asked, after too much of this shifting about had gone on.

  "He can take it off," a deep voice said. "Get him a chair."

  So he knew even then that his contact had not played him false; and that it was Jubal. He reached up and pulled off the tight blindfold and ran a hand through his hair as he stood and blinked at the black man who faced him across a table and a single candle-a black man thinner and older than he ought to be, but pain aged a man. White touched the ex-slaver's temples, amid the crisp black: lines were graven deep beside the mouth, out from the flaring nostrils, deep between dark, wrinkle-set eyes. Jubal's hands rested both visible on the scarred tabletop; those of the hawknosed man in the chair beside him were not visible at all. And Mradhon Vis, who lately sported a drooping black mustache to add to his dusky sullenness, sat in the comer with one booted foot on the rung of the next chair and elbow on knee, a broad-bladed knife catching the candlelight with theatrical display.

  A man shoved a chair up at Straton's back; he turned a slow glance that way, took the measure of that man the same as he had of the two more in the comer. Thieves. Brigands. Ilsigis. A Nisi renegade. Jubal from gods knew where. And himself, Rankan; the natural enemy of all of them.

  "Sit down," Jubal said, a voice that made the air quiver. Straton did that, slowly, without any haste at all. Leaned back and put his hands in his belt and crossed his ankles in front of him.

  "I said I had a proposal," Straton said.

  "From you or from the witch? Or from your commander?"

  "From me. Privately. In regard to the other two."

  Jubal's square-nailed finger traced an obscure pattern on the aged wood. "Your commander and I have a certain-history."

  "All the more reason to deal with me. He owes the witch. She owes me. I want this town quiet. Now. Before it loses whatever it's got. If Tempus is here he's here for reasons more than one."

  "Like?"

  "Like imperial reasons."

  Jubal laughed. It was a snarl, a slow rumbling. He spoke something in some tongue other than Rankene. The man by him laughed the same. "The Emperor, is it? Is it treachery you propose? Treachery against your commander?"

  "No. Nobody benefits that way. You make your living in this town. I have interests here. My commander has interests only in getting out of here. That's in your interest. You can go back to business. I get what I want. My commander can get out of here without getting tied down in a fight in Sanctuary streets. All that has to happen is a few weeks of quiet. Real quiet. No theft. No gangs. No evidence of sedition."

  "Stepson, if your commander heard you promise that he'd have your guts out."

  "Give me the quiet I need and I'll give you the quiet you need. You and I understand each other. You won't have a friend left in our ranks-if I fall. Do you understand me?"

  "Do I understand you've got your price, Rankan?"

  "Mutual advantage." Heat rose to his face. Breath came shorter. "I don't give a damn what you name it, you know where we all are: trade's slowed to a stop, shops are closed, taverns shut down-are you making money? Merchants aren't; you aren't; no one's happy. And you know and I know that if this PFLS craziness goes on we've got a town in cinders, trade gone down the coast, revolutionary fools in control or martial law as long as it takes, and corpses up to the eaves. You see profit in that?"

  "I see profit everywhere. I survive, Rankan."

  "You're not fool enough to go up against the empire. You make money on it."

  Bodies stiffened all around the room. Strat folded his arms across his chest and recrossed his ankles top to bottom.

  "He's right." Jubal snapped his fingers. "He said the right word. Let's see if he goes on making sense. Keep talking."

  There was disturbance on the Street of Red Lanterns; but the crowd that gathered did it in the discreet way of Red Lantern crowds: peered through windows and out of doorways of brothels and taverns and just stopped in ordinary passages down the Street if they were far enough away. It was glitter and drama, was this district; and a great deal of the tawdry, and in this thunder-rattling night and the bizarre quiet in town since the fire, it was a rougher-than-usual place, the clients that showed up being the sort who were less delicate about their own safety, the sort who took care of themselves. So the whores on the Street were unsurprised at the commotion down by Phoebe's: the small office where Zaibar and the remaining Hell-Hounds served quiet duty as policemen on the Street-that office was unastonished tod, and tried to ignore the matter as long as possible. Zaibar in fact was deliberately ignoring it, since rumor had spread who was on the Street.

  He poured himself another drink, and looked up as a rider on a sorrel horse went clattering past his office as if that man had business.

  Stepson. He was relieved, and took a studied sip of the drink he had poured, feeling his problem on its way to resolution without him. The disturbance was far from the house in which he had a personal interest; and that rider headed down the Street was one of Tempus's own, which interference stood a much likelier chance of curtailing the trouble down the street. So it was wise to have sat still a moment and trust the problem to go away; the screams went on, but they would stop very shortly, only one life was in the balance, and the madam of the house (if not the whore) would probably agree that this intervention was better than police.

  They were nothing if not pragmatic on the Street.

  "Well," said Jubal. "I like your attitude. I like a sensible man. Question is, is your commander going to like you tomorrow?"

  "An empire runs on what works," Straton said. "Or it doesn't run. We can be very practical."

  Jubal considered a moment. A grin spread on his dark, lined face, all theater. "This is my friend." He looked left and right at his lieutenants, and his voice hit registers that ran along the spine. "This is my good friend." Looking back at
Straton. "Let's call it a deal-friend Straton."

  Straton stared at him, with less of relief than of a profound sickness in his gut. But it was a victory. Of sorts. It just did not come with parades and shouting crowds. It came of common sense. "Fine," he said. "Does this include a deal about that stupid blindfold? Where's my horse?"

  "At the contact point. I'm afraid it doesn't include my whereabouts, friend. But I'll send you back with a man you know, how's that? Vis."

  Mradhon Vis slipped his knife into sheath and let the front legs of his chair meet the floor as he got up.

  It was not the man Strat would have chosen to go with, blindfolded and helpless, down an alley. Protesting it sounded like complaint and complaint did nothing for a man's dignity in this situation that had little enough of dignity about it and precious little leeway. Straton stood up, his arms at his sides as a man behind him took the chair away. Another man put the blindfold back in front of his eyes and tied it with no less uncomfortable firmness. "Dammit, watch it," Straton muttered.

  "Be careful of him," Jubal's deep voice said. But no one did anything about the blindfold.

  It was less trouble finding Tempus than Crit had anticipated when he talked to Niko and knew where Tempus had gotten to. He reined in at Phoebe's Inn (so the sign said) and shoved the sorrel's reins through a ring at the building's side. There were bystanders; and part of their interest diverted to him, who added himself to the diversion-he scowled blackly and glanced around him with the quiet promise what would befall the hand that touched his horse or his gear. Then he walked on into Phoebe's front room and confronted the proprietor, a fat woman with the predictable amount of gaud and matronly decorum. "Seen my commander?" he asked directly.

  She had. Chins doubled and undoubled and painted mouth formed a word.

  "Where?"

  She pointed. "T-two of them," she said. "F-foreign lady, sh-she-"

  That took no guesswork. "Tell my commander Critias is downstairs. Do it."

  There was another scream from upstairs. Of a different pitch. For a whorehouse the desertion of the front room was remarkable. Not a whore of either gender came out of the alcoves. The madam ran the stairs and went careening down the upstairs hall, vanishing into the dark.