He no more coveted blades that would bring acquisitive men down upon him hoping to acquire them in combat than he looked forward to needing ensorceled swords for battles that could not be joined in the way he liked. The cuirass he wore kept off supernal evil—should it prove impregnable to mortal arms, that knowledge would eat away at his self-discipline, perhaps erode his control, make him careless. In the lightfight, when Tempus had flickered out of being as completely as a doused torch, he had felt an inexplicable elation, leading point into Chaos with Janni steady on his right hand. He had imagined he was indomitable, fated, chosen by the gods and thus inviolate. The steadying fear that should have been there, in his mind, assessive and balancing, was missing … his maat, as he had told Tempus in that moment of discomfitting candor, was gone from him. No trick panoply could replace it, no arrogance or battle-lust could substitute for it. Without equilibrium, the quiet heart he strove for could never be his. He was not like Tempus, preternatural, twice a man, living forever in extended anguish to which he had become accustomed. He did not aspire to more than what his studies whispered a man had right to claim. Seeing Tempus in action, he now believed what before, though he had heard the tales, he had discounted. He thought hard about the Riddler, and the offer he had made him, and wondered if he was bound by it, and the weapons Askelon had given him no more than omens fit for days to come. And he shivered, upon his horse, wishing his partner were there up ahead instead of Janni, and that his maat was within him, and that they rode Syrese byways or the Azehuran plain, where magic did not vie with gods for mortal allegience, or take souls in tithe.
When they dismounted at the Alekeep, he had come to a negotiated settlement within himself: he would wait to see if what Tempus said was true, if his maat would return to him once his teammate’s spirit ascended to heaven on a pillar of flame. He was not unaware of the rhythmic nature of enlightenment through the precession of events. He had come to Ranke with his partner at Abarsis’ urging; he remembered the Slaughter Priest from his early days of ritual and war, and had made his own decision, not followed blindly because his left-side leader wished to teach Rankans the glory of his name. When the elder fighter had put it to him, his friend had said that it might be time for Nikodemos to lead his own team—after Ranke, without doubt, the older man would lay down his sword. He had been dreaming, he had said, of mother’s milk and waving crops and snot-nosed brats with wooden shields, a sure sign a man is done with damp camps and bloody dead stripped in the field.
So it would have happened, this year, or the next, that he would be alone. He must come to terms with it; not whine silently like an abandoned child, or seek a new and stronger arm to lean on. Meditation should have helped him, though he recalled a parchment grin and a toothless mouth instructing him that what is needed is never to be had without price.
The price of the thick brown ale in which the Alekeep specialized was doubled for the holiday’s night-long vigil, but they paid not one coin, drinking, instead, in a private room in back where the grateful owner led them: he had heard about the manifestation at the Mageguild, and had been glad he had taken Niko’s advice and kept his girls inside. “Can I let them out, then?” he said with a twinkling eye. “Now that you are here? Would the Lord Marshal and his distinguished Stepsons care for some gentle companionship, this jolly eve?”
Tempus, flexing his open hand on which the clear serum glistened as it thickened into scabby skin, told him to keep his children locked up until dawn, and sent him away so brusquely Janni eyed Niko askance.
Their commander sat with his back against the wall opposite the door through which the tavern’s owner had disappeared. “We were followed here. I’d like to think you both realized it on your own.”
The placement of their seats, backs generously offered to any who might enter, spoke so clearly of their failure that neither said a word, only moved their chairs to the single table’s narrow sides. When next the door swung open, One Thumb, not their host, stood there, and Tempus chuckled hoarsely in the hulking wrestler’s face. “Only you, Lastel? I own you had me worried.”
“Where is she, Tempus? What have you done with her?” Lastel stomped forward, put both ham-hands flat upon the table, his thick neck thrust forward, bulging with veins.
“Are you tired of living, One-Thumb? Go back to your hidey-hole. Maybe she’s there, maybe not. If not… easy come, easy go.”
Lastel’s face purpled; his words rode on a froth of spray so that Janni reached for his dagger and Niko had to kick him.
“Your sister’s disappeared and you don’t care?”
“I let Cime snuggle up with you in your thieves’ shanty. If I had ‘cared,’ would I have done that? And did I care, I would have to say to you that you aspire beyond your station, with her. Stick to whoremistresses and street urchins, in future. Or go talk to the Mageguild, or your gods if you have the ears of any. Perhaps you can reclaim her for some well-bartered treachery or a block of Caronne krrf. Meanwhile, you who are about to become ‘No-Thumbs,’ mark these two—” He gestured to either side, to Niko and Janni. “They’ll be around to see you in the next few days, and I caution you to treat them with the utmost deference. They can be very temperamental. As for myself, I have had easier days, and so am willing to estimate for you your chances of walking out of here with all appendages yet attached and in working order, though your odds are lessening with every breath I have to watch you take…” Tempus was rising as he spoke. Lastel gave back, his flushed face paling visibly as Tempus proposed a new repository for his prosthetic thumb, then retreated with surprising alacrity toward the half-open door in which the tavern’s owner now stood uncertainly, now disappeared.
But Lastel was not fast enough; Tempus had him by the throat. Holding him off the ground, he made One-Thumb mouth civil farewells to both the Stepsons before he dropped him and let him dash away.
Chapter 8
AT SUNDOWN THE next day (a perfectly natural sundown without a hint of wizard weather about it), Niko’s partner’s long-delayed funeral was held before the replied stones of Vashanka’s field altar, out behind the arena where once had been a slaver’s girl-run. A hawk heading home flew over, right to left, most auspicious of bird omina, and when it had gone, the men swore, Abarsis’ ghost materialized to guide the fallen mercenary’s spirit up to heaven. These two favorable omens were attributed by most to the fact that Niko had sacrificed the enchanted cuirass Askelon had given him to the fire of his left-man’s bier.
Then Niko released Tempus from his vow of pairbond, demurring that Nikodemos himself had never accepted, explaining that it was time for him to be a left side fighter, which, with Tempus, he could never be. And Janni stood closeby, looking uncomfortable and sheepish, not realizing that in this way Tempus was freed from worrying that harm might come to Niko on account of Tempus’ curse.
Seeing Abarsis’ shade, wizard-haired and wise, tawny skin quite translucent yet unswept eyes the same, smiling out love upon the Stepsons and their commander, Tempus almost wept. Instead he raised his hand in greeting, and the elegant ghost blew him a kiss.
When the ceremony was done, he had sent Niko and Janni into Sanctuary to make it clear to One-Thumb that the only way to protect his dual identity was to make himself very helpful in the increasingly difficult task of keeping track of Mygdonia’s Nisibisi spies. As an immediate show of good faith, he was to begin helping Niko and Janni infiltrate them.
When the last of the men had wandered off to game or drink or duty, he had stayed at the shrine awhile, considering Vashanka and the god’s habit of leaving him to fight both their battles as best he could.
So it was that he heard a soft sound, half hiccough and half sniffle, from the altar’s far side, as the dusk cloaked him close.
When he went to see what it was, he saw Jihan, sitting slumped against a rough hewn plinth, tearing brown grasses to shreds between her fingers. He squatted down there, to determine whether a Froth Daughter could shed human tears.
Dusk was his favorite ti
me, when the sun had fled and the night was luminous with memory. Sometimes, his thoughts would follow the light, fading, and the man who never slept would find himself dozing, at rest.
This evening, it was not sleep he sought to chase in his private witching hour: he touched her scaled, enameled armor, its gray/green/copper pattern just dappled shadow in the deepening dark. “This does come off?” he asked her.
“Oh, yes. Like so.”
“Come to think of it,” he remarked after a strenuous but rewarding interval, “it is not so bad that you are stranded here. Your father’s pique will ease eventually. Meanwhile, I have an extra Trôs horse. Having two of them to tend has been hard on me. You could take over the care of one. And, too, if you are going to wait the year out as a mortal, perhaps you would consider staying on in Sanctuary. We are sore in need of fighting women this season.”
She clutched his arm; he winced. “Do not offer me a sinecure,” she said. “And, consider: I will have you, too, should I stay.”
Promise or threat, he was not certain, but he was reasonably sure that he could deal with her, either way.
Godson
By Andrew J. Offutt
HANSE DID NOT want to be a soldier or a member of the Sacred Band of Tempus, the Stepsons, and most especially not a Stepson-in-training or any other dam’ thing in-training. He wanted most definitely and most desperately to be Shadowspawn; to be Hanse. That remained elusive. It was a problem, just being. He did not know that many spent their lives looking for whoever or whatever it was that they were or might be, and if he had known it would not have helped a midge worth. He was Hanse, by Ils! Not Hons or Honz or Hanz; I am Hanse!
The problem was that he was not sure what that meant.
Who was Hanse? What was Hanse?
O Cudget, if only they had not slain you! You’d have shown me and told me, wouldn’t you?
It had used to be so simple. Life was simple. There was the city called Sanctuary, and in it were empty bellies, and some that were full. That was simple: it described lions (or jackals, but never mind that) and prey. And there was Cudget Swearoath, and Hanse his apprentice in whom he was well pleased, and there were the marks—the human sheep. And the shadows, to facilitate their fleecing.
It was all the world there was or needed be; a microcosm, a thieves’ world.
And now! Now there were the Rankans who swaggered and Prince Kadakithis who really did not but who ruled, governed; and Tempus—O ye gods, there was Tempus! and his mercenary friends, who swaggered—and nothing was simple.
Now a god had spoken to Hanse—Hanse!—and then another, and Hanse had rather they just kept to themselves. The business of soldiers was killing and the business of Prince-Governors was ruling and killing and the business of gods was godding and the business of one smallish dark thief of thieves’ world was thieving.
But now Shadowspawn was agent for gods.
Sword clanged on sword and well-guided blade slid along brilliantly interposed blade with a screech as loud as the grinding of a personal ax. That shrill ugliness was punctuated by a grunt chorused from two throats.
“Stopped me again, Stealth,” one combatant grunted, stepping back and twitching his head sharply to the side. Sweat crept like persistent oil from his black mop under the blood-red sweat-band and into his eyebrows. He jerked his head to send it flying; the gesture carried all the constant impatience of youth.
“Barely,” the other man said. He was bigger though not much older and in a way his face was more boyish than that of his opponent, who had for years cultivated a mean, menacing look he knew made him look older, and dangerous. The bigger man was fair in contrast to the other. His hair was as if splashed or streaked with silver so that it was cinerous.
“I own it, Shadowspawn: you are good and you are a natural. Now, want to work a bit from the saddle?” His enthusiasm showed in his face and added bright color to his voice.
“No.”
The one called Stealth waited a moment; the one called Shadowspawn did not embellish on that word which, when spoken flat and unadorned, was one of the four or five harshest and most unwelcome words in any language.
The man called Stealth masked his disappointment. “All right. How about… your stones, then?”
His last words emerged in a shout as the paler man moved, at speed. His sword was a silver-gray blur, up-whipping. It rushed on up, too, for the wiry fellow in the dust-colored tunic pounced up and aside, not quite blurring. He simply was not present to receive the upward cut at the source of progeny he might produce, like more bad virus upon the world. The other man arrested his movement to prepare alertly for a counter-stroke.
No counter-stroke was attempted. It did not come. Shadowspawn had quit the game. They looked at each other, the expert teacher called Stealth and the superb student he called Shadowspawn.
The latter spoke. “Enough, Niko. I’m weary of the sham.”
“Sham? Sham, you weed-sprout? Had you not moved you’d be a candidate for the temple choir of soprano boys, Hanse!”
Hanse called Shadowspawn smiled little and when he did he smiled small, and often the smile was a sneer that fitted and mirrored his inner needs. It was a sneer now. Still, it was not of disdain or contempt for this member of the so called Sacred Band, the Stepsons, who had taught him so much. He had been a natural fighter and unusually swift. Now he was a trained one, with knowledge and ways of combative science that made him even swifter.
“But I did move, Niko; I did move. Tell Tempus how I move, you he set to teach me to be a bladesman. And tell him that still I have no desire to be a soldier. No desire to do murder, ‘nobly’ or no.”
Niko stared at him.
Damned… boy, he mused. Oh, but I’m weary of him and his sneers and his snot. I have known only war. He, who has never known it, dares sneer at it and its practitioners. Neither of us had a father—I because mine was slain—in war when I was a child; this posturing backstreet blade-bristling night-thief because his mother and his father were nodding acquaintances at best. Nor would I change places with this … this little gutter-rat, so happy in his provincial ignorance and his total inconsequence. I had rather be a man.
And I have made him a fighter, a real fighter, so that now he swaggers even more!
“And look you to keep your valuables ‘neath your pillow, Niko. Stealth, for I am shadow-spawned stealth, and have seen even the bed of the Prince-Governor … and of Tempus.”
Niko of the Stepsons showed nothing and did not respond. Inside, he seethed only a little. Petty insults were cheap, cheap. As cheap as barely nubile yet experienced professional girls in the shadowy Maze that spawned this naive youth and served him as nest and den. Niko stepped back a pace, formally. Holding his blade up before squinting eyes, he turned it for his examination before putting it away in one swift smooth motion.
The Sanctuarite was not so insolent as to keep his weapon naked in his hand. He too held it out and turned it for inspection at the squint, and took hold of his scabbard with his right hand, and turned his blade toward himself without ever moving the dark, dark eyes that now gazed at his teacher. And he housed the blade ‘neath but not through the hand on its sheath. With pride.
“Nicely done,” Niko could not quite help saying.
Not because he felt the need to compliment, or enjoyed it; but because there was both edge and gratification in reminding both of them who had taught this wearer of so many blades the maneuver he had just demonstrated.
(A man might draw at an untoward sound or to dispatch an enemy, Niko had told Hanse. And having done, see to the housing of his blade at his side. At that moment, while he held scabbard and looked down to see to its filling, he was vulnerable. It was then the clever maker of the “innocent” noise or the hidden confederate of the new-slain man might pounce, and there was an end to sheathing and unsheathing, all at once. Thus a sensible man of weapons learned to bring his blade up and over and back, its point toward himself, and guide it into its sheath with a waiting
off-hand. Meanwhile his eyes remained alert for the sudden charge.
(Yes, Nikodemos called Stealth had taught even that to Hanse. For Tempus owed him debt, and yet he and Tempus were no longer quite friends. And so Niko paid as Tempus’s agent: he trained this wiry, cocky hawk-nose called Hanse.)
“Your shield!” Hanse called.
Niko glanced at it, leaning against a mud-brick wall with Hanse’s buckler beside it. They had slipped them off and set them there a pint of sweat ago, to practice with blades alone. Now Hanse turned and drew and threw all in one motion fluid as a cat’s pounce, arm going out long and down in fellow—through, andthunk one of his damned knives appeared in Niko’s shield. It stood there, quivering like a breeze-blown cat-tail.
Hanse pounced after it, all wiry and cat—lithe and dark.
He retrieved the knife, giving his wrist the little twist that plucked forth an inch of flat blade from bossed wood capable of withstanding a good ax-blow. Almost distractedly he slipped it back into its sheath up his right arm.
Hanse half-turned to flash teeth at his teacher-at-arms but not at knife throwing, and he saluted. Then he turned and faded around the building and was gone, although the sun was still orangey-yellow and the late-day shadows only thinking about gathering to provide him his natural habitat.
“Shadowspawn,” Niko muttered, and went to retrieve his shield and seek out Tempus. Deliver me from this insolent Ilsigi in his painful youth, Tempus? Take away this bitter cup you have had me lift, and lift to my lips, and lift!
****
HANSE MOVED AWAY, wearing a tight little smile that really did not enhance his looks.
He was proud. Pleased with himself. Too, he liked Niko. There was no way he could not, and not respect him too, just as there was (almost, at least) no way he could admit or show it.
He had let Tempus know he liked him while claiming to care about no one, and had gone and got him out of the dripping hands of that swine, Kurd. Kurd the vivisectionist. One who sectioned, who sliced, the vibrantly living. Tempus, for instance. Among others.
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