Tales From The Vulgar Unicorn

by Edited By Robert Asprin

  In private, his mind aided by a pinch of his powdered friend, Tempus worked backwards at the cipher. The last line had to be the signature: Shadowspawn. Hanse wanted to meet him very privately, an hour past midnight. Good. So … where? “Stinky market” could mean lots of places. “Cat storage” meant nothing. Cat storage; cat—the granaries?—where cats not only were kept but migrated, drawn by the mice drawn by the grain? No; there was no way to walk between any of the granaries and anything deserving to be characterized as stinky market beyond any other stenchy place. What stinks most? Easy, he answered himself. The tanners—no! Don’t be stupid, second thought told him. Fish stink worse than anything. Hmm. The fish market then, down on Red Clay Street

  —which might as well be called Warehouse Street

  . So all the natives called it. The stinking fish market, then, and … cat storage? He stared at the map.

  Oh. Simple. The governor was called Kitty-Cat and a warehouse was a place for storage. The Governor’s Warehouse then, down beside the fish market. Not a block from the Watchpost at Shadow and Lizard, the rascal! Tempus shook his head, and hours and hours later he was there. He made sure no one tried to ‘help’ him; twice he played thief, to watch his own trail. He was not followed. Wrinkling his nose at the stench and slipping on a discarded fish-head, he resolved to get a clean-up detail down here, and recommend a light as well.

  “I am glad you look like you,” the shadows said, from behind and above him.

  “A god has marked me, Hanse,” Tempus explained, without turning or looking up. “He helped me, in the Vulgar Unicorn. I didn’t care to be seen there, compromising you. Did you leave the message because you have changed your mind?”

  “There will be a bargain.”

  “I can appreciate that. Word is that you have bargained before, with my employer.”

  “That is as obviously impossible as breaking into the palace.”

  “Obviously. I am empowered to bargain, Hanse. A woman was found dead on Farmer’s Run just at the west end of the market,” the shadows said quietly. “She wore a cloak the colour of red clay.

  “Yes.”

  “She had a walking stick. It has a … horrible effect on a man. Her killer stole it, after she used it on his partner. He abandoned him.”

  “No thief’s corpse was found.”

  “It does not kill. Its effect is … obscene.” A pause; while the shadow shuddered? “I saw it happen. They were hooded.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “Not now. I can find out—easily. Want the stick?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many of those foul things remain in … circulation?”

  “We think two. A clever fellow has done well for himself by counting the people who came out of the shop with a purchase, and recording the names of those he knew. What is the bargain, Hanse?”

  “I had rather deal with him.”

  “I wish you would trust me. Setting up interviews with him takes time.”

  “I trust you, Tempus, just as you trust me. Get me something in writing from him, then. Signed. Give it to the seer, Moonflower. This is costing me time, pulling me away from my work—”

  “Work?”

  “—and I shall have to have compensation. Now.”

  O you damned arrogant boy, Tempus thought, and without a word he made three coins clink as he dropped them. He was sure Hanse’s ears could distinguish gold from copper or silver by the sound of the clink. He also dropped a short section of pig’s intestine, stitched at one end and tied off at the other. He said, “Oops.”

  “I want assistance in recovering something of mine, Tempus. Just labour, that’s all. What’s to be recovered is mine, I guarantee it.”

  “I’ll help you myself.”

  “We’ll need tools, a horse, rope, strength…”

  “Done. I will get it in writing, but it is done. Deliver and I deliver. We have a bond between us.”

  “So have he and I. I do want that paper signed and slipped to the S’danzo seer. Very well then, Tempus. We have bargained.”

  “By mid-afternoon. Good night, spawn of shadows.”

  “Good night, shadow-man. You didn’t say “pawn”, did you?”

  “No.” And Tempus turned and walked back up between the buildings to light, and less stenchy air. Behind him, soundlessly, the three gold coins and little bag of krrf he had dropped vanished, into the shadows.

  ****

  NEXT DAY NOT long after dawn Hanse gave Moonflower a great hug and pretended to find a gold piece in her ear.

  “I Saw for you, not for coin,” she told him.

  “I understand. I know. Why look, here’s another in your other ear, for Mignureal. I give you the gold because I found it, not because you helped me. And a message will be given you today, for me.”

  Moonflower made both coins disappear beneath her shawl into what she called her treasure chest. “Don’t frown; Mignue shall have the one as her very own. Will you do something for me I would prefer to coin, Hanse?”

  Very seriously, relaxing for once, he nodded. “Without question.”

  “My daughter is very young and thinks you are just so romantic a figure. Will you just pretend she is your sister?”

  “Oh you would not want that. Passionflower,” he said, in one of those rare indications of what sort of childhood he must have had. “She is my friend’s daughter and I shall call her cousin. Besides, she saw me … that way. I may not be able to look her in the eyes again.”

  She took those lean restless hands of a thief proud never to have hurt any he robbed. “You will, Hanse. You will. It was god-sorcery, and no embarrassment. Will you now be careful?”

  “I will.”

  She studied his eyes. “But you are going to find him.”

  “I am.”

  ****

  THE ADHERENTS OF the most ancient goddess Theba went hooded to their little temple. This was their way. It also made it easier for the government to keep them under surveillance, and made it easy for Hanse to slip among them. A little tilt to his shoulder, a slight favouring of one leg under the dull brown robe, and he was not the lithely gliding Shadowspawn at all.

  The services were dull and he had never liked the odour of incense. It made him want to sneeze and go to sleep, both at once. Insofar as he ever gave thought to religion, he leaned towards a sort of loyalty to the demigod Rander Rehabilitatus. He endured, and he observed. This goddess’s worship in Sanctuary included two blind adherents. Both carried staffs. Though only one was white, it was not in the grip of a left-handed man.

  Finding his quarry really was as simple as that. On deserting his partner, the murderous thief had sneered “Theba take you,” and Moonflower had Seen that goddess, or at least the likeness of her icons and amulets. She had no more than forty worshippers here, and only this one (part-time) temple. The thief had also struck away the terror-stick with his right hand and used his left to drive the dagger into his victim—and to use the staff on Hanse.

  There came the time of Communing In Her. Hanse watched what the others did. They mingled, and a buzz rose as they said nice silly loving peace-things to each other in the name of Her. The usual meaningless ritual; “peace” was a word and life and its exigencies were another matter. Hanse mingled.

  “Peace and love to you, brother,” a woman said from within her wine-dark cowl, and her hand slipped into Hanse’s robe and he caught her wrist.

  “Peace and defter fingers to you, sister,” he said quietly, and went around her towards his goal. To be certain, he came cowl to cowl with the man with the white stick and, smiling, made a shamefully obscene gesture. The cowl and the staff did not move; a hand moved gently out to touch him.

  “Her peace remain on you, my brother,” the blind man said in a high voice, and Hanse mouthed words, then turned.

  “You rotten slime,” a cowl striped in green and red hissed. “Poor blind Sorad has been among us for years and no one ever made such a nasty gesture to him. Who are y
ou, anyhow?”

  “One who thinks that other blind man is not blind and not one of us, and was testing—brother. Have you ever seen him before?”

  His accoster—burly, in that striped Myrsevadan robe, looked around. “Well … no. The one in the gloves?”

  “Yes. I think they are because his stick—yes, peace to you too, sister—has just been painted.”

  “You think it’s a disguised weapon? That he’s from the … palace?”

  “No. I think the prince-governor couldn’t care a rat’s whisker about us.” Substituting the pronoun was a last instant thought, and Hanse felt proud of that touch. Playing “I’m just like you but he is bad” had got him out of several scrapes. “I do think he is a spy, though. That priest from Ranke, who thinks every temple should be closed down except a glorious new one to Vash—Vashi whatever they call him. I’ll bet that’s his spy.”

  That made the loyal Thebite quiver in rage! He went directly towards the man in the forest green cloak, with the brown stick. Hanse, edging along towards the entrance of what was by day a belt-maker’s shop, watched Striped Robe speak to the man with the staff. An answer came, as Hanse moved.

  Hanse didn’t hear the reply; he heard “May all your days be bright in Her name and She take you when you are tired of life, brother.” This from the fat man beside him, in a tent-sized cloak.

  “Oh, thank you, brother. And on you, peace in Her n—” Hanse broke off when the terrified screaming began.

  It was the big fellow in the robe of green and red stripes, and his cowl fell back to show his fear—twisted face. Naturally no one understood, and other cries arose amid the milling of robed, faceless people. Two did understand, and both moved towards the door. One was closer. He hurried forth, running—and outside, cut left out of view of the doorway and swung swiftly back. He already had the little jar of vinegar out of his dull brown robe, and the cork pulled. Inside the temple: clamour.

  The man with the gloves and brown walking stick hurried through the door and turned left; had he not, Hanse would have called. The fellow had no time for anything before Hanse sent the vinegar sloshing within his hood.

  “Ah!” Naturally the man ducked his head as the liquid drenched him and entered both eyes. Since he was not blind and not accustomed to carrying a staff as a part of him, he dropped it to rush both hands to his face. Hanse swallowed hard before snatching up the stick by its handle. He kicked the moaning fellow in the knee-cap, and ran. The god-weapon seemed hummingly alive in his hand, so much that he wanted to throw it down and keep running. He did not, and it exerted no other effect on him. Just around the corner he paused for an importuning beggar, who soon had the gift of a nice brown, cowled robe. Since it was thrown over him as he sat, he never saw the generous giver. He had been swallowed by the shadows once the beggar got his head free of the encumbering woollen.

  “Here, you little lizard, where do you think you’re running to, hah?”

  That from the brutish swaggering desert tradesman who grabbed at Hanse as he ran by. Well, he was not of the city, and did not know who he laid big hand on. Nor was he likely to aught but hie himself out of Sanctuary, once he returned to normal—doubtless robbed. Besides, a test really should be made to be sure, and Hanse poked him.

  This was the staff of ensorcelment, all right.

  Hurrying on his way, Hanse began to smile.

  He had the stick and the murdering thief who had used it on him would not be too nimble for a long, long time, and the robe he had snitched off a drying line was in the possession of a beggar who would be needing it in a few months, and Hanse had his little message from the prince-governor. It avowed—so Hanse was told, as he did not read—that “he you specify shall lend full aid in the endeavour you specify, provided it is legal in full, in return for your returning another wand to us”.

  Hanse had laughed when he read that last; even a prince had a sense of humour and could allude to Hanse’s having stolen his Savankh, rod of authority, less than a month ago. And now Shadowspawn would have the aid of big strong super legal Tempus in regaining two bags of silver coin from a well up in the supposedly haunted ruins of Eaglenest. Hanse hoped Prince Kadakithis would appreciate the humour in that, too: the bagged booty had come from him, as ransom for the official baton of his imperial authority in Sanctuary. Even Tempus’s krrf had brought in a bit of silver.

  And now … Hanse’s grin broadened. Suppose he just went about a second illicit entry of the palace? Suppose a blind man showed up among the swarm of alms seekers to be admitted into the courtyard two days hence, in accord with Kadakithis’s people wooing custom? Shadowspawn would not only hand this awful staff to the prince-governor, he would at the same time provide a graphic demonstration of the palace’s pitiable security.

  ****

  UNFORTUNATELY, TEMPUS HAD taken charge of security. The hooded blind beggar was challenged at the gate two days thence, and the Hell Hound Quag suspiciously snatched the staff from him. When the disguised Hanse objected, he was struck with it. Well, at least that way it was proven that he had brought the right stick in good faith, and that way he did get to spend a night in the palace, however unpleasant in his state of terror.

  To Guard The Guardians

  By Robert Lynn Asprin

  THE HELL HOUNDS were now a common sight in Sanctuary so the appearance of one in the bazaar created little stir, save for the concealment of a few smuggled wares and a price increase on everything else. However, when two appeared together, as they did today, it was enough to silence casual conversation and draw uneasy stares, though the more observant vendors noted that the pair were engrossed in their own argument and did not even glance at the stalls they were passing.

  “But the man has offended me…” the darker of the pair snarled.

  “He offends everyone,” his companion countered, “it’s his way. I tell you, Razkuli, I’ve heard him say things to the prince himself that would have other men flayed and blinded. You’re a fool to take it personally.”

  “But, Zalbar…”

  “I know, I know—he offends you; and Quag bores you and Arman is an arrogant braggart. Well, this whole town offends me, but that doesn’t give me the right to put it to the sword. Nothing Tempus has said to you warrants a blood feud.”

  “It is done.” Razkuli thrust one fist against his other palm as they walked.

  “It is not done until you act on your promise, and if you do I’ll move to stop you. I won’t have the men in my command killing each other.”

  The two men walked silently for several moments, each lost in his own dark thoughts.

  “Look, my friend,” Zalbar sighed, “I’ve already had one of my men killed under scandalous circumstances. I don’t want to answer for another incident particularly if it involves you. Can’t you see Tempus is trying to goad you into a fight?—a fight you can’t win.”

  “No one lives that I’ve seen over an arrow,” Razkuli said ominously, his eyes narrowing on an imaginary target.

  “Murder, Razkuli? I never thought I’d see the day you’d sink to being an assassin.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath and Razkuli faced his comrade with eyes that showed a glint of madness. Then the spark faded and the small man’s shoulders relaxed. “You’re right, my friend,” he said, shaking his head, “I would never do that. Anger speeds my tongue ahead of reason.”

  “As it did when you vowed blood-feud. You’ve survived countless foes who were mortal; don’t try the favour of the gods by seeking an enemy who is not.”

  “Then the rumours about Tempus are true?” Razkuli asked, his eyes narrowing again.

  “I don’t know, there are things about him which are difficult to explain by any other logic. Did you see how rapidly his leg healed? We both know men whose soldiering career was ended after they were caught under a horse—yet he was standing duty again within the week.”

  “Such a man is an affront against Nature.”

  “Then let Nature take vengeance on him,”
Zalbar laughed, clapping a friendly hand on his comrade’s shoulder, “and free us for more worthwhile pastimes. Come, I’ll buy you lunch. It will be a pleasant change from barracks food.”

  Haakon, the sweetmeats vendor, brightened as the two soldiers approached him and waited patiently while they made their selections from his spiced-meat turnovers.

  “That will be three coppers,” he smiled through yellowed teeth. “Three coppers?” Razkuli exclaimed angrily, but Zalbar silenced him with a nudge in the ribs.

  “Here, fellow…” the Hell-Hound commander dropped some coins into Haakon’s outstretched hand, “take four. Those of us from the Capitol are used to paying full value for quality goods—though I suppose that this far from civilization you have to adjust the prices to accommodate the poorer folk.”

  The barb went home and Zalbar was rewarded by a glare of pure hatred before he turned away, drawing Razkuli with him. “Four coppers! You were being overcharged at three!”

  “I know.” Zalbar winked. “But I refuse to give them the satisfaction of haggling. I find it’s worth the extra copper to see their faces when I imply that they’re selling below value—it’s one of the few pleasures available in this hellhole.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” Razkuli said with a laugh, “but you’re right. My father would have been livid if someone deliberately overpaid him. Do me a favour and let me try it when we buy the wine.”

  Razkuli’s refusal to bargain brought much the same reaction from the wineseller. The dark mood of their conversation as they had entered the bazaar had vanished and they were ready to eat with calm humour.

  “You provided the food and drink, so I’ll provide the setting,” Razkuli declared, tucking the wine-flask into his belt. “I know a spot which is both pleasant and relaxing.”

  “It must be outside the city.”

  “It is, just outside the Common Gate. Come on, the city won’t miss our presence for an hour or so.”