Uneasy Alliances tw-11

by Robert Asprin

  Uneasy Alliances

  ( Thievs World - 11 )

  Robert Asprin

  Robert Asprin

  Uneasy Alliances

  Dramatis Personae

  The Townspeople

  AHDIOVIZUN; AHDIOMER viz; AHDIO-Proprietor of Sly's Place, a legendary dive within the Maze.

  THRODE-An employee at Sly's Place.

  CLEYA; JODEERA-The woman Ahdio loves, and who works for him at Sly's Place. Since she is far too beautiful to travel safely through the Maze, Ahdio has arranged for her to be protected by a disguise of ugliness.

  LALO THE LIMNER-Street artist gifted with magic he does not fully understand.

  GILLA-His indomitable wife.

  GANNER-Their middle son, slain during the False Plague Riots of the previous winter which signaled the end of severe civil unrest in Sanctuary.

  VANDA-Their daughter, employed as nursemaid to the Beysib at the palace.

  WEDEMIR-Their eldest child and son. A member of Walegrin's guard patrol.

  LATILLA-Their youngest daughter.

  ALFI-Their infant son.

  HAKIEM-Storyteller and confidant extraordinaire.

  HORT-Son of a fisherman and Hakiem's apprentice.

  JUBAL-Prematurely aged former gladiator. Once he openly ran Sanctuary's most visible criminal organization, the Hawkmasks, now he works behind the scenes.

  SALIMAN-His aide and only friend.

  MORIA-Once one ofJubal's Hawkmasks, then a servant of Ischade. She was physically transformed into a Rankan noblewoman before the magic died, and the transformation endures. She is in hiding with Stilcho.

  MYRTIS-Madam of the Aphrodisia House.

  SNAPPER JO-A fiend who survived the destruction of magic in Sanctuary. Once employed as a bartender in the Vulgar Unicorn.

  STILCHO-Once one oflschade's resurrected minions. He was "cured" of death when magic was purged from Sanctuary.

  zip-Sitter young terrorist. Leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Sanctuary (PELS). Now he and his remaining fighters have been designated as officials responsible for peace in the city.

  The S'danzo

  ILLYRA-Half-blood S'danzo seeress with True Sight. Wounded by PELS in the False Plague Riots.

  DUBRO-Bazaar blacksmith and husband to Illyra.

  THE TERMAGANT-Oldest of the S'danzo women practicing her craft in Sanctuary.

  The Magicians

  ILSIGI MAGES:

  MARKMOR-A powerful, ambitious, youthful wizard.

  MARYPE-His arrogant, yet blundering, apprentice.

  MIZRAITH-Marype's father, slain by Markmor shortly after the Prince arrived in Sanctuary.

  RANKAN HAZARDS DWELLING AT THE MAGEGUILD;

  RANDAL; WITCHY-EARS-The only mage ever admitted into the Sacred Band of Stepsons or trusted by them. Now a teacher at the Mageguild.

  Those who adhere to no hierarchy or discipline but their own:

  ENAS YORL-Quasi-immortal mage cursed with eternal life and a constantly changing physical form.

  ISCHADE-Necromancer and thief. Her curse is passed to her lovers who die from it. Since the diminution of magic in Sanctuary, she has been in isolation at her house on the White Foal River.

  STRICK;TORAZELAN STRICK TIFIRAQA-White Mage who has made Sanctuary his home. He will help anyone who comes to him, but there is always a Price, sometimes trivial and sometimes not, for his aid.

  Visitors in Sanctuary

  THE SHEPHERD-A figure of considerable mystery. By his panoply he might be an Ilsigi warrior-but all such men have been dead for years.

  The Rankans Living in Sanctuary

  CHENAYA; DAUGHTER OF THE sw-A beautiful and powerful young woman, the Prince's cousin, who is fated never to lose a fight. In her arrogance and innocence she made more enemies in Sanctuary than even fate could handle and has left town until her reputation repairs itself.

  DAYRNE-Her companion and trainer.

  LEYN, QUIJEN, DISMAS AND GESTUS-Her friends and gladiators at her father's school.

  DAPHNE-Rankan noblewoman and first wife of Prince Kadakithis. Ostensibly sent to safety before the arrival of the Beysib, she was actually kidnapped and sold into slavery on Scavenger's Island where Chenaya rescued her. She is estranged from her husband.

  PRINCE KADAKITHIS-Charismatic but somewhat naive half-brother of the assassinated Emperor, Abakithis.

  LOWAN VIGELES-Half-brother ofMolin Torchholder, father of Chenaya. A wealthy aristocrat self-exiled to Sanctuary and hoping to return to the Rankan capital in triumph someday. He operates a gladiator school at his Land's End estate and has built a small, temporary arena there.

  MOLIN TORCHHOLDER; TORCH-Archpriest of Sanctuary's wargod (whichever deity that is at the moment). Architect for the rebuilt walls of Sanctuary, Supreme bureaucratic administrator of the city.

  RASHAN; THE EYE OF SAVANKALA-Priest and Judge of Savankala. Highest ranking Rankan in Sanctuary prior to the arrival of the Prince, now allied with Chenaya's disaffected Rankans at Land's End.

  STEPSONS; SACRED BANDERS-members of a mercenary unit loyal to Tempus. Their years in Sanctuary were among the worst in their history and all but a few of them have gratefully left town.

  CRITIAS;CRIT-Longtime mercenary in the company. Tempus left him in charge of peace-keeping in Sanctuary when everyone else left. Also the partner of Straton, though that pairing has been in disarray for some time now.

  STRATON; STRAT; ACE-Partner ofCritias. Injured by the PELS at the start of the False Plague Riots. He has been Ischade's lover and though her curse has not killed him, most of his former associates count him among Sanctuary's damned.

  WALEGRIN-Rankan army officer assigned to the Sanctuary garrison where his father had been slain by the S'danzo many years before. He is now one of three officers responsible for the peace in Sanctuary. He is also Illyra 's half-brother.

  The Beysib

  SHUPANSEA; sw-SEA-Head of the Beysib exiles in Sanctuary; mortal avatar of the Beysib mother goddess. Lover of Prince Kadakithis whom she wishes to marry.

  INTRODUCTION by Lynn Abbey

  "No! No more blood! Make it stop!"

  Shupansea awoke at the sound of her own scream. The nightmare had propelled her out of bed and to the window of her bedchamber. With a trembling hand she pulled the casement shut- This wasn't the first time she'd found herself before an open window; wasn't the first time she shed a cold sweat wondering what would happen if some night she did not scream herself awake.

  "0 Beysa, forgive my intrusion. I-I heard you scream ..."

  Shupansea turned to the lamplight and faced the frightened eyes of Kammesin, the woman who had cared for her since infancy. "It was nothing-a noise in the dark. Nothing at all."

  Kammesin did not relax. The old woman's eyes remained wide, round and steadily unblinking. Mother Bey! Had she been exiled so long among the fluttering Rankans that her own people looked strange and unnerving? Was her soul forgetting that the fixed stare was a gesture of honesty and transparency as much as it was a measure of uncontrolled anxiety? And had she, herself, blinked even once since waking from the nightmare?

  "Yes, Kam-sin," she admitted, forcing the membrane to withdraw and her eyelids to descend. "It was the nightmare, again. But I'm all right now. Just light my lamp, then you go back to sleep."

  The woman gave a shrug that every servant knew. It meant the same to both Rankans and Beysibs; disbelief and resignation. "As you wish, 0 Beysa." She lit the lamp beside the bed as she left.

  A flush of shame burned across the Beysa's face as she heard the door close. Those folk who believed aristocrats were unaware of their servants had no understanding of the matter at all. Shupansea felt her old nurse's censure as a sad, painful twinge in her heart. All her life she ha
d confided in Kammesin, but now, when she was overflowing with despair, she could speak to no one.

  In point of fact, the Beysa wished to speak to the goddess Bey. She wanted to know why, after these seasons in Sanctuary, her sleep was haunted by memories of the final, bloody days of her brief, unsanctified reign over the Beysin Empire. But it had been more than a year since the Mother's voice had resounded within her head. Mother Bey, like everything else magical or divine in Sanctuary, had been reduced to shadow strength.

  The town which had been god-ridden was now virtually god-less. Mother Bey was the merest whisper of empathy in Her avatar's mind. A calming whisper nonetheless, and it seemed to say that the goddess was content with exile and did not plan to return home soon.

  That's not enough, the Beysa thought loudly enough, she hoped, for the goddess to hear. / can't stay here and remember the past, too.

  The flicker of empathy shifted, resonating love and the smiling face of Prince Kadakithis. Shupansea grit her teeth and shook the feeling away. Mother Bey had strengthened every cynic's hand when She tumbled into a divine infatuation with the wargod, Stormbringer. Half the people in Sanctuary-if not the known world-had shared hot frustration in their dreams as the would-be lovers contended with a mismatch of immortal anatomy.

  Such divine emissions had ceased when the magical nouma of Sanctuary was burned away, but Shupansea knew the pair chased each other still and she was more than slightly embarrassed by her progenitor's lusty behavior.

  Though Shupansea purged the goddess from her thoughts and feeling, the prince was not so easily removed. Surely it was no coincidence that the nightmares had started right after they'd announced their intended. but still unscheduled, marriage. Right after she'd decided to abide by Rankan standards of acceptable behavior and moved her personal entourage out of Kadakithis's suite.

  Love had never been part of Shupansea's emotional vocabulary. Indeed, no Beysa had ever dared to love-not when her blood was venom and all her male offspring were condemned to death in her womb. At home they sacrificed the royal consort, and the Beysa insured her line with casual, guilt-free affairs.

  Could she doubt for one heartbeat that the nightmares-the cold fear that lived in her belly-were the underside of her love for an unlucky Rankan prince?

  Shupansea shivered from the fear, and the everpresent dampness that permeated the palace. She shrugged her gown over her shoulders and looked beside the bed for her slippers. It was no wonder that Rankan women swaddled themselves in layer upon layer of cloth. Sanctuary was always damp; it was hot and damp in the summer, then chilly and damp the rest of the time. Either way you wrapped yourself in soft, absorbent cloth for comfort.

  She opened the door quietly, half expecting to find Kammesin crouched beside the latch-hole. The corridor was empty, but her lamplight caught the final sway of a nearby drapery. Despite her age, Kam-sin had retreated to her alcove and, after another moment, began snoring gently.

  A faint smile crossed the Beysa's lips as she headed for the sunrise wing. Twice a year everyone who was anyone changed residence from one side of the palace to the other-adjusting the social hierarchy in the process. The best people had sunrise suites in the warmer months and sunset suites in the dreary winter.

  At first Shupansea and her comrades-in-exile had taken all the good rooms for themselves-winning themselves no friends among the Rankans. Moving days had been tense, bristly affairs with frequent brawls between the servants and the occasional duel between the incoming and outgoing residents.

  The palace, like the city, had mellowed in the last year. Some of the Beysibs had moved to renovated estates beyond the walls; some of the Rankans had as well. Those who remained got along better-as well as any court in either empire-and Beysibs began mixing with Rankans on both sides of fortune's wheel.

  The man whom Shupansea sought could have had an apartment on the sunset side, but he chose, for reasons of his own, to live in counterpoint to both the Beysa and his prince.

  "Ambitious people have stronger stories," Hakiem always insisted when moving day found him marshalling his possessions against the tide. "And unhappy people have tragic ones."

  The Beysa never argued with the storyteller, who was her closest friend among the natives. Privately she thought he was wrong, at least about tragedy. She knew her own story, and that of Prince Kadakithis, and she'd gladly have changed with a sunrise resident whose life was both comfortable and dull.

  Trusted servants slept in alcoves and on pallets beside their masters' doors. The more alert and reliable managed to be wide-awake as Shupansea walked by with her lamp. Most of the Beysibs kowtowed to her shadow, some of the Rankans glowered with scant respect-but not as many as once had done. The Beysa ignored them, which was what they all expected anyway.

  Hakiem's knotted latchstring was drawn to the inside of his door, and Shupansea was suddenly aware of the late hour. The storyteller said he was always ready to be her ears-any day, any night-but he wasn't a young man. Men and women offered themselves to a Beysa or a Prince in the sublime confidence that their gift would never be called.

  Twice Shupansea pulled her knuckles soundlessly back from the door. The third time she touched the wood, but still there was no sound as the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.

  "Hakiem? Friend?"

  The room was empty; the storyteller's pallet was rolled up into a daycushion. Shupansea felt awkward and foolish. Hakiem was old enough to be her father, but that didn't quite make him old. Certainly he was charming, witty, and-now that he was better groomed and bathed regularly-cut a handsome figure among the court ladies who commonly complained that men talked only of war and politics. Surely he had offers -no doubt his assignations were more easily arranged from this side of the palace.

  She resolved to make no mention of her untimely visit and was about to leave when the lamplight fell on a pile of drawings. She saw her prince with a bloody sword, and herself with bloody hands-and curiosity got the better of her good sense.

  Lighting Hakiem's lamp from her own, Shupansea settled down to examine the colored sketches more closely.

  Not all of Sanctuary ran on palace time. The Street of Red Lanterns was ablaze well past midnight. The Maze didn't start to get interesting until respectable people pulled their shutters in. And a dive like the Vulgar Unicorn hit its stride a good deal later than that.

  Through all Sanctuary's vicissitudes, the Vulgar Unicorn had been a touchstone of a sort of stability. Its bartenders-human and otherwisewere uniformly ugly; its wenches were invariably on the downside of careers that had never looked promising. Its food was uncompromisingly vile, and the swill they tapped from their kegs ... The beer at the Vulgar Unicorn was generally regarded to be the worst of mixing sludge from the harbor and goat urine; the wine-well, the beer was better than the wine.

  Irony of ironies: Hakiem the Storyteller, who had spent the better part of his adult life in a drunken stupor, begging coppers to squander on the vulgar wine, now had enough money to buy the tavern's entire cellar, and he could no longer drink the bilge. The taste was the same in his mouth, and it brought back bittersweet memories of a vanished Sanctuary, but he dared not swallow. Fortunately no one noticed when he hawked the bloody liquid at the floor.

  He was in disguise-that is, he wore the old clothes he'd sworn to incinerate years ago. Most people knew he'd come up in the world; most people didn't recognize him when he looked liked his old self. A few even worried about him and warned him away from the Unicorn now that he had a few coins in his pouch and access to the palace. Those few were probably right, but he could no more live without the Vulgar Unicorn than he could ... Than he could live in the palace day after day.

  Late at night, long after his respectable patrons had shut down their respectable soirees, Hakiem eased back to the Sanctuary they could not imagine and harvested another crop of tales. He had an apprentice of sorts, the fisherman's lad, Hort, who did the first winnowing and pruning, but nothing could replace his own senses. And no
thing could replace the parade of life in the Vulgar Unicorn.

  He let his eyes go out of focus-an easy task since his hair had begun turning white as well as gray-and was struck by a wild insight that shook him in his shoes: His beloved Unicorn and the palace weren 't so very different after all. He gulped his mug of wine and blamed his seeping eyes on it.

  But, no, the comparison was in his mind and the similarities would not go away. The Vulgar Unicorn and the palace were both places where style was generally more important than substance. They were both places where you belonged, or you didn't belong-and where you had to always prove that you still belonged. Both had reputations which exceeded reality, and-might as well admit it-both were parasites in the city's lifeblood.

  Dark Shalpa knew how many honest men it took to support a thiefeven one who lied as all thieves lie. Hakiem guessed it took about as many as it took to support an aristocrat.

  "You look like you've seen a ghost," Hort said cheerfully as he took the chair opposite his mentor.

  Hakiem raised his head to see twins smiling at him. Puttering Nethergods! What did these people put in their wine? Old habits, however, died hard and stood him in good stead as he reestablished conscious control over his body with slow, deliberate gestures. Old habits, and the fact that he had drunk no more than half a mug of sour wine.

  "You've forgotten everything I've taught you," he said, using drawling sarcasm to mask the stiffness in his tongue.

  "What sort of introduction is that? Make a point, Hort. Get your audience's attention. Add color. What manner of ghost; what sort of look-"

  They had played this game before. Hort puffed up his chest and spread his arms wide. "Ye gods, old sot, your eyes are as red as the gutters in Shambles Cross; you're as pale as a man who's seen his mother's ghost dancing naked with Vashanka's tent peg!"

  Hakiem swallowed hard, and not because of the wine. The boy had talent; had learned everything he'd been taught. He didn't need a mentor any longer.