Tales From The Vulgar Unicorn

by Edited By Robert Asprin

  “Illyra?”

  A man drew back the heavy cloth curtain. Illyra did not recognize his voice. His silhouette revealed only that he was as tall as Dubro, though not as broad.

  “Illyra?—I was told I’d find Illyra, the crone, here.”

  She froze. Any querent might have cause to resent a S’danzo prophecy, regardless of its truth, and plot revenge against the seeress. Only recently she had been threatened by a man in the red-and-gold livery of the Palace. Her hand slid under the folds of the tablecloth and eased a tiny dagger loose from a sheath nailed to the table leg.

  “What do you want?” She held her voice steady; greeting a paying querent rather than a thug.

  “To talk with you. May I come in?” He paused, waiting for a reply and when there was none continued, “You seem unduly suspicious, S’danzo. Do you have many enemies here, Little Sister?”

  He stepped into the room and let the cloth fall behind him. Illyra’s dagger slid silently from her hand into the folds of her skirts.

  “Walegrin.”

  “You remember so quickly? Then you did inherit her gift?”

  “Yes, I inherited it, but this morning I learned that you had returned to Sanctuary.”

  “Three weeks past. It has not changed at all except, perhaps, for the worse. I had hoped to complete my business without disturbing you but I have encountered complications, and I doubt any of the other S’danzo would help me.”

  “The S’danzo will never forget.”

  Walegrin eased his bulk into one of Dubro’s chairs. Light from the candelabra fell on his face. He endured the exposure, though as Dubro had guessed, there was no trace of youth left in his features. He was tall and pale, lean in the way of powerful men whose gentler tissues have boiled away. His hair was sun bleached to brittle straw, confined by four thick braids and a bronze circlet. Even for Sanctuary he cut an exotic, barbarian figure.

  “Are you satisfied?” he asked when her gaze returned to the velvet in front of her.

  “You have become very much like him,” she answered slowly.

  “I think not, ‘Lyra. My tastes, anyway, do not run as our father’s did—so put aside your fears on that account. I’ve come for your help. True S’danzo help, as your mother could have given me. I could pay you in gold, but I have other items which might tempt you more.” He reached under his bronze-studded leather kilt to produce a suede pouch of some weight which he set, unopened, on the table. She began to open it when he leaned forwards and grasped her wrist tightly.

  “It wasn’t me, ‘Lyra. I wasn’t there that night. I ran away, just like you did.”

  His voice carried Illyra back those fifteen years sweeping the doubts from her memories. “I was a child then, Walegrin. A little child, no more than four. Where could I have run to?”

  He released her wrist and sat back in the chair. Illyra emptied the pouch onto her table. She recognized only a few of the beads and bracelets, but enough to realize that she gazed upon all of her mother’s jewellery. She picked up a string of blue glass beads strung on a creamy braided silk.

  “These have been restrung,” she said simply. Walegrin nodded. “Blood rots the silk and stinks to the gods. I had no choice. All the others are as they were.”

  Illyra let the beads fall back into the pile. He had known how to tempt her. The entire heap was not worth a single gold piece, but no storehouse of gold could have been more valuable to her.

  “Well, then, what do you want from me?”

  He pushed the trinkets aside and from another pouch produced a palm-sized pottery shard which he placed gently on the velvet.

  “Tell me everything about that: where the rest of the tablet is; how it came to be broken; what the symbols mean—everything!”

  There was nothing in the jagged fragment that justified the change that came over Walegrin as he spoke of it. Illyra saw a piece of common orange pottery with a crowded black design set under the glaze; the sort of ware that could be found in any household of the Empire. Even with her S’danzo gifts focused on the shard it remained stubbornly common. Illyra looked at Walegrin’s icy green eyes, his thought-protruded brows, the set of his chin atop the studded greave on his forearm, and thought better of telling him what she actually saw.

  “Its secrets are locked deeply within it. To a casual glance its disguises are perfect. Only prolonged examination will draw its secrets out.” She placed the shard back on the table.

  “How long?”

  “It would be hard to say. The gift is strengthened by symbolic cycles. It may take until the cycle of the shard coincides…”

  “I know the S’danzo! I was there with you and your mother—don’t play bazaar games with me, Little Sister. I know too much.”

  Illyra sat back on her bench. The dagger in her skirts clunked to the floor. Walegrin bent over to pick it up. He turned it over in his hands and without warning thrust it through the velvet into the table. Then, with his palm against the smooth of the blade, he bent it back until the hilt touched the table. When he removed his hand the knife remained bent.

  “Cheap steel. Modern stuff; death to the one who relies on it,” he explained, drawing a sleek knife from within the greave. He placed the dark-steel blade with the beads and bracelets. “Now, tell me about my pottery.”

  “No bazaar-games. If I didn’t know from looking at you, I’d say it was a broken piece of ‘cotta. You’ve had it a long time. It shows nothing but its associations with you. I believe it is more than that, or you wouldn’t be here. You know about the S’danzo and what you call “bazaar-games”, but it’s true right now I see nothing; later I might. There are ways to strengthen the vision—I’ll try them.”

  He flipped a gold coin onto the table. “Get what you’ll need.”

  “Only my cards,” she answered, flustered by his gesture. “Get them!” he ordered without picking up the coin. She removed the worn deck from the depths of her blouse and set the shard atop them while she lit more candles and incense. She allowed Walegrin to cut the pack into three piles, then turned over the topmost card of each pile.

  Three of Flames: a tunnel running from light to darkness with three candle sconces along the way.

  The Forest: primeval, gnarled trunks; green canopy; living twilight.

  Seven of Ore: red clay; the potter with his wheel and kiln. Illyra stared at the images, losing herself in them without finding harmony or direction. The Flame card was pivotal, but the array would not yield its perspective to her; the Forest, symbolic of the wisdom of the ages, seemed unlikely as either her brother’s goal or origin; and the Seven must mean more than was obvious. But, was the Ore-card appearing in its creativity aspect? Or was red clay the omen of bloodletting, as was so often true when the card appeared in a Sanctuary-cast array?

  “I still do not see enough. Bazaar-games or not, this is not the time to scry this thing.”

  “I’ll come again after sundown—that would be a better time, wouldn’t it? I’ve no garrison duties until after sunrise tomorrow.”

  “For the cards, yes, of course, but Dubro will have banked the forge for the night by then, and I do not want to involve him in this.” Walegrin nodded without argument. “I understand. I’ll come by at midnight. He should be long asleep by then, unless you keep him awake.” Illyra sensed it would be useless to argue. She watched silently as he swept the pile of baubles, the knife, and the shard into one pouch, wincing slightly as he dribbled the last beads from her sight.

  “As is your custom, payment will not be made until the question is answered.”

  Illyra nodded. Walegrin had spent many years around her mother learning many of the S’danzo disciplines and rousing his father’s explosive jealousy. The leather webbing of his kilt creaked as he stood up. The moment for farewell came and passed. He left the stall in silence.

  ****

  A PATH CLEARED when Walegrin strode through a crowd. He noticed it here, in this bazaar where his memories were of scrambling through the aisles, taunted,
cursed, fighting, and thieving. In any other place he accepted the deference except here, which had once been his home for a while.

  One of the few men in the throng who could match his height, a dark man in a smith’s apron, blocked his way a moment. Walegrin studied him obliquely and guessed he was Dubro. He had seen the smith’s short aquiline companion several times in other roles about the town without learning the man’s true name or calling; they each glanced to one side to avoid a chance meeting.

  At the entrance to the bazaar, a tumble-down set of columns still showing traces of the Ilsig kings who had them built, a man crept out of the shadows and fell in step beside Walegrin. Though this second had the manner and dress of the city-born, his face was like Walegrin’s: lean, hard, and parched.

  “What have you learned, Thrusher?” Walegrin began, without looking down.

  “That man Downwind who claimed to read such things…”

  “Yes?”

  “Runo went down to meet with him, as you were told. When he did not return for duty this morning Malm and I went to look for him. We found them both … and these.” He handed his captain two small copper coins.

  Walegrin turned them over in his palm, then threw them far into the harbour. “I’ll take care of this myself. Tell the others we will have a visitor at the garrison this evening—a woman.”

  “Yes, captain,” Thrusher responded, a surprised grin making its way across his jaw. “Shall I send the men away?”

  “No, set them as guards. Nothing is going well. Each time we have set a rendezvous something has gone wrong. At first it was petty nuisance, now Runo is dead. I will not take chances in this city above all others. And, Thrusher…” Walegrin caught his man by the elbow, “Thrusher, this woman is S’danzo, my half sister. See that the men understand this.”

  “They will understand, we all have families somewhere.”

  Walegrin grimaced and Thrusher understood that his commander had not suddenly weakened to admit family concerns.

  “We have need of the S’danzo? Surely there are more reliable seers in Sanctuary than scrounging the aisles of the bazaar. Our gold is good and nearly limitless.” Thrusher, like many men in the Ranken Empire, considered the S’danzo best suited to resolving love triangles among house-servants.

  “We have need of this one.”

  Thrusher nodded and oozed back into the shadows as deftly as he had emerged. Walegrin waited until he was alone on the filthy streets before changing direction and striding, shoulders set and fists balled, into the tangled streets of the Maze.

  The whores of the Maze were a special breed unwelcomed in the great pleasure houses beyond the city walls. Their embrace included a poison dagger and their nightly fee was all the wealth that could be removed from a man’s person. A knot of these women clung to the doorway of the Vulgar Unicorn, the Maze’s approximation to Town Hall, but they stepped aside meekly when Walegrin approached. Survival in the Maze depended upon careful selection of the target.

  An aura of dark foul air enveloped Walegrin as he stepped down into the sunken room. A moment’s quiet passed over the other guests, as it always did when someone entered. A Hell Hound, personal puritan of the prince, could shut down conversation for the duration of his visit, but a garrison officer, even Walegrin, was assumed to have legitimate business and was ignored with the same slit-eyed wariness the regulars accorded each other.

  The itinerant storyteller, Hakiem, occupied the bench Walegrin preferred. The heavy-lidded little man was wilier than most suspected. Clutching his leather mug of small ale tenderly, he had selected one of the few locations in the room that provided a good view of all the exits, public and private. Walegrin stepped forwards, intending to intimidate the weasel from his perch, but thought better of the move. His affairs in the Maze demanded discretion, not reckless bullying.

  From a lesser location he signalled the bartender. No honest wench would work the Unicorn so Buboe himself brought the foaming mug, then returned a moment later with one of the Enibar oranges he had arranged behind the counter. Walegrin broke the peel with his thumbnail; the red juice ran through the ridges of the peel forming patterns not unlike those on his pottery shard.

  A one-armed beggar with a scarred face and a pendulant, cloudy eye sidled into the Unicorn, careful to avoid the disapproving glance of Buboe. As the ragged creature moved from table to table collecting copper pittance from the disturbed patrons, Walegrin noted the tightly wound tunic under his rags and knew the left arm was as good as the one that was snapping up the coins. Likewise, the scar was a self-induced disfigurement and the yellow rheum running down his cheek the result of seeds placed under his eyelids. The beggar announced his arrival at Walegrin’s table with a tortured wheeze. Without looking up Walegrin tossed him a silver coin. He had run with the beggars himself and seen their cunning deceit become crippling reality many times too often.

  Buboe split the last accessible louse in his copious beard between his grimy fingernails, looked up, and noticed the beggar, whom he threw into the street. He shuffled a few more mugs of beer to his patrons, then returned to the never ending task of chasing lice.

  The door opened again, admitting another who, like Walegrin, was in the Maze on business. Walegrin drew a small circle in the air with a finger and the newcomer hastened to his table.

  “My man was slain last night by following your suggestions.” Walegrin stared directly into the newcomer’s eyes as he spoke.

  “So I’ve heard, and the Enlibrite potter as well. I’ve rushed over here to assure you that it was not my doing (though I knew you would suspect me). Why, Walegrin, even if I did want to double-cross you (and I doubly assure you that such thoughts never go through my mind) I’d hardly have killed the Enlibrite as well, would I?”

  Walegrin grunted. Who was to say what a man of Sanctuary might do to achieve his goals? But the information broker was likely to be telling the truth. He had an air of distracted indignation about him that a liar would not think to affect. And if he were truthful then, like as not, Runo had been the victim of coincidental outrage. The coins showed that robbery was not the motive. Perhaps the potter had enemies. Walegrin reminded himself to enter the double slaying in the garrison roster where, in due course, it might be investigated when the dozens preceding it had been disposed of.

  “Still, once again, I have received no information. I will still make no payment.” Walegrin casually spun the beer mug from one hand to the other as he spoke, concealing the import of his conversation from prying eyes.

  “There’re others who can bait your bear: Markmor, Enas Yorl, even Lythande, if the price is right. Think of this only as a delay, my friend, not failure.”

  “No! The omens here grow bad. Three times you’ve tried and failed to get me what I require. I conclude my business with you.” The information broker survived by knowing when to cut his losses. Nodding politely, he left Walegrin without a word and left the Unicorn before Buboe had thought to get his order.

  Walegrin leaned back on his stool, hands clenched behind his head, his eyes alert for movement but his thoughts wandering. The death of Runo had affected him deeply, not because the man was a good soldier and long-time companion, though he had been both, but because the death had demonstrated the enduring power of the S’danzo curse on his family. Fifteen years before, the S’danzo community had decreed that all things meaningful to his father should be taken away or destroyed while the man looked helplessly on. For good measure the crones had extended the curse for five generations. Walegrin was the first. He dreaded that day when his path crossed with some forgotten child of his own who would bear him no better will than he bore his own ignominious sire.

  It had been sheer madness to return to Sanctuary, to the origin of the curse, despite the assurances of the Purple Mage’s protection. Madness! The S’danzo felt him coming. The Purple Mage, the one person Walegrin trusted to unravel the spell, had disappeared long before he and his men arrived in town. And now the Enlibrite potter and Ru
no were dead by some unknown hand. How much longer could he afford to stay? True, there were many magicians here, and any could be bought, but they all had their petty loyalties. If they could reconstruct the shard’s inscription, they certainly could not be trusted to keep quiet about it. If Illyra did not provide the answers at midnight, Walegrin resolved to take his men somewhere far from this accursed town.

  He would have continued his litany of dislike had he not been brought to alertness by the distress call of a mountain hawk: a bird never seen or heard within the walls of Sanctuary. The call was the alarm signal amongst his men. He left a few coins on the table and departed the Unicorn without undue notice.

  A second call led him down a passageway too narrow to be called an alley, much less a street. Moving with stealth and caution, Walegrin eased around forgotten doorways suspecting ambush with every step. Only a third call and the appearance of a familiar face in the shadows quickened his pace.

  “Malm, what is it?” he asked, stepping over some soft, stinking mass without looking down.

  “See for yourself.”

  A weak shaft of light made its way through the jutting roofs of a half-dozen buildings to illuminate a pair of corpses. One was the information broker who had just left Walegrin’s company, a makeshift knife still protruding from his neck. The other was the beggar to whom he’d given the silver coin. The latter bore the cleaner mark of the accomplished killer.

  “I see,” Walegrin replied dully.

  “The ragged one, he followed the other away from the Unicorn. I’d been following the broker since we found out about Runo, so I began to follow them both. When the broker caught on that he was being followed, he lit up this cul-de-sac—by mistake, I’d guess—and the beggar followed him. I found the broker like this and killed the beggar myself.”

  Two more deaths for the curse. Walegrin stared at the bodies, then praised Malm’s diligence and sent him back to the garrison barracks to prepare for Illyra’s visit. He left the corpses in the cul-de-sac where they might never be found. This pair he would not enter into the garrison roster.