'You'll pay when you get coin, or if you don't, then in songs and magic stunts. They're good for trade.' One-Thumb fell silent and peered at his guest.
When Cappen was done, the innkeeper said, 'While you slept, I sent out a couple of fellows to ask around. Maybe somebody saw something that might be helpful. Don't worry - I didn't mention you, and it's natural I'd be interested to know what really happened.'
The minstrel stared. 'You've gone to a deal of trouble on my account.'
'I told you, I want to know for my own sake. If deviltry's afoot, where could it strike next?' One-Thumb rubbed a finger across the toothless part of his gums. 'Of course, if you should luck out - I don't expect it, but in case you do remember who gave you a boost.' A figure appeared in the door and he went to render service.
After a bit of muttered talk, he led the newcomer to Cappen's place. When the minstrel recognized the lean youth, his pulse leaped. One-Thumb would not have brought him and Hanse together without cause; bard and thief found each other insufferable. They nodded coldly but did not speak until the tapster returned with a round of ale.
When the three were seated, One-Thumb said, 'Well spit it out, boy. You claim you've got news.'
'For him?' Hanse flared, gesturing at Cappen.
'Never mind who. Just talk.'
Hanse scowled. 'I don't talk for a single lousy mugful.'
'You do if you want to keep on coming in here.'
Hanse bit his lip. The Vulgar Unicorn was a rendezvous virtually indispensable to one in his trade.
Cappen thought it best to sweeten the pill: 'I'm known to Molin Torchholder. If I can serve him in this matter, he won't be stingy. Nor will I. Shall we say hm - ten gold royals to you?'
The sum was not princely, but on that account plausible. 'Awright, awright,' Hanse replied. 'I'd been casing a job I might do in the Jewellers' Quarter. A squad of the watch came by towards morning and I figured I'd better go home, not by the way I came, either. So I went along the Avenue of Temples, as I might be wanting to stop in and pay my respects to some god or other. It was a dark night, overcast, the reason I'd been out where I was. But you know how several of the temples keep lights going. There was enough to see by, even upwards a ways. Nobody else was in sight. Suddenly I heard a kind of whistling, flapping noise aloft. I looked and -'
He broke off.
'And what?' Cappen blurted. One-Thumb sat impassive.
Hanse swallowed. 'I don't swear to this,' he said. 'It was still dim, you realize. I've wondered since if I didn't see wrong.'
'What was it?' Cappen gripped the table edge till his fingernails whitened.
Hanse wet his throat and said in a rush: 'What it seemed like was a huge black thing, almost like a snake, but bat-winged. It came streaking from, oh, more or less the direction of Molin's, I'd guess now that I think back. And it was aimed more or less towards the temple of Ils. There was something that dangled below, as it might be a human body or two. I didn't stay to watch, I ducked into the nearest alley and waited. When I came out, it was gone.'
He knocked back his ale and rose. 'That's all,' he snapped. 'I don't want to remember the sight any longer, and if anybody ever asks, I was never here tonight.'
'Your story's worth a couple more drinks,' One-Thumb invited.
'Another evening,' Hanse demurred. 'Right now I need a whore. Don't forget those ten royals, singer.' He left, stiff-legged.
'Well,' said the innkeeper after a silence, 'what do you make of this latest?'
Cappen suppressed a shiver. His palms were cold. 'I don't know, save that what we confront is not of our kind.'
'You told me once you've got a charm against magic.'
Cappen fingered the little silver amulet, in the form of a coiled snake, he wore around his neck. 'I'm not sure. A wizard I'd done a favour for gave me this, years ago. He claimed it'd protect me against spells and supernatural beings of less than godly rank. But to make it work, I have to utter three truths about the spellcaster or the creature. I've done that in two or three scrapes, and come out of them intact, but I can't prove the talisman was responsible.'
More customers entered, and One-Thumb must go to serve them. Cappen nursed his ale. He yearned to get drunk and belike the landlord would stand him what was needful, but he didn't dare. He had already learned more than he thought the opposition would approve of- whoever or whatever the opposition was. They might have means of discovering this.
His candle flickered. He glanced up and saw a beardless fat man in an ornate formal robe, scarcely normal dress for a visit to the Vulgar Unicorn. 'Greetings,' the person said. His voice was like a child's.
Cappen squinted through the gloom. 'I don't believe I know you,' he replied.
'No, but you will come to believe it, oh, yes, you will.' The fat man sat down. One-Thumb came over and took an order for red wine - 'a decent wine, mine host, a Zhanuvend or Baladach.' Coin gleamed forth.
Cappen's heart thumped. 'Enas Yorl?' he breathed.
The other nodded. 'In the flesh, the all too mutable flesh. I do hope my curse strikes again soon. Almost any shape would be better than this. I hate being overweight. I'm a eunuch, too. The times I've been a woman were better than this.'
'I'm sorry, sir,' Cappen took care to say. Though he could not rid himself of the spell laid on him, Enas Yorl was a powerful thaumaturge, no mere prestidigitator.
'At least I've not been arbitrarily displaced. You can't imagine how annoying it is, suddenly to find oneself elsewhere, perhaps miles away. I was able to come here in proper wise, in my litter. Faugh, how can anyone voluntarily set shoes to these open sewers they call streets in the Maze?' The wine arrived. 'Best we speak fast and to the point, young man, that we may finish and I get home before the next contretemps.'
Enas Yorl sipped and made a face. 'I've been swindled,' he whined. 'This is barely drinkable, if that.'
'Maybe your present palate is at fault, sir,' Cappen suggested. He did not add that the tongue definitely had a bad case of logorrhea. It was an almost physical torture to sit stalled, but he had better humour the mage.
'Yes, quite probably. Nothing has tasted good since - Well. To business. On hearing that One-Thumb was inquiring about last night's incident, I sent forth certain investigators of my own. You will understand that I've been trying to find out as much as I can.' Enas Yorl drew a sign in the air. 'Purely precautionary. I have no desire whatsoever to cross the Powers concerned in this.'
A wintry tingle went through Cappen. 'You know who they are, what it's about?' His tone wavered.
Enas Yorl wagged a finger. 'Not so hasty, boy, not so hasty. My latest information was of a seemingly unsuccessful interview you had with Illyra the seeress. I also learned you were now in this hostel and close to its landlord. Obviously you are involved. I must know why, how, how much - everything.'
'Then you'll help - sir?'
A headshake made chin and jowls wobble. 'Absolutely not. I told you I want no part of this. But in exchange for whatever data you possess, I am willing to explicate as far as I am able, and to advise you. Be warned: my advice will doubtless be that you drop the matter and perhaps leave town.'
And doubtless he would be right, Cappen thought. It simply happened to be counsel that was impossible for a lover to follow ... unless - 0 kindly gods of Caronne, no, no! - unless Danlis was dead.
The whole story spilled out of him, quickened and deepened by keen questions. At the end, he sat breathless while Enas Yorl nodded.
'Yes, that appears to confirm what I suspected,' the mage said most softly. He stared past the minstrel, into shadows that loomed and flickered. Buzz of talk, clink of drinking ware, occasional gust of laughter among customers seemed remoter than the moon.
'What was it?' broke from Cappen.
'A sikkintair, a Flying Knife. It can have been nothing else.'
'A-what?' -
Enas focused on his companion. 'The monster that took the women,' he explained. 'Sikkintairs are an attribute of Ils. A pai
r of sculptures on the grand stairway of his temple represent them.'
'Oh, yes, I've seen those, but never thought -'
'No, you're not a votary of any gods they have here. Myself, when I got word of the abduction, I sent my familiars scuttling about and cast spells of inquiry. I received indications ... I can't describe them to you, who lack arcane lore. I established that the very fabric of space had been troubled. Vibrations had not quite damped out as yet, and were centred on the temple of Ils. You may, if you wish a crude analogy, visualize a water surface and the waves, fading to ripples and finally to naught, when a diver has passed through.'
Enas Yorl drank more in a gulp than was his wont. 'Civilization was old in Ilsig when Ranke was still a barbarian village,' he said, as though to himself; his gaze had drifted away again, towards darkness. 'Its myths depicted the home of the gods as being outside the world - not above, not below, but outside. Philosophers of a later, more rationalistic era elaborated this into a theory of parallel universes. My own researches - you will understand that my condition has made me especially interested in the theory of dimensions, the subtler aspects of geometry - my own researches have demonstrated the .possibility of transference between these different spaces.
'As another analogy, consider a pack of cards. One is inhabited by a king, one by a knight, one by a deuce, et cetera. Ordinarily none of the figures can leave the plane on which it exists. If, however, a very thin piece of absorbent material soaked in a unique kind of solvent were laid between two cards, the dyes that form them could pass through: retaining their configuration, I trust. Actually, of course, this is a less than ideal comparison, for the transference is accomplished through a particular contortion of the continuum -'
Cappen could endure no more pedantry. He crashed his tankard down on the table and shouted, 'By all the hells of all the cults, will you get to the point?'
Men stared from adjacent seats, decided no fight was about to erupt, and went back to their interests. These included negotiations with street-walkers who, lanterns in hand, had come in looking for trade.
Enas Yorl smiled. 'I forgive your outburst, under the circumstances,' he said. 'I too am occasionally young.
'Very well. Given the foregoing data, including yours, the infrastructure of events seems reasonably evident. You are aware of the conflict over a proposed new temple, which is to outdo that of Ils and Shipri. I do not maintain that the god has taken a direct hand. I certainly hope he feels that would be beneath his dignity; a theomachy would not be good for us, to understate the case a trifle. But he may have inspired a few of his more fanatical priests to action. He may have revealed to them, in dreams or vision, the means whereby they could cross to the next world and there make the sikkintairs do their bidding. I hypothesize that the Lady Rosanda - and, to be sure, her coadjutrix, your inamorata - are incarcerated in that world. The temple is too full of priests, deacons, acolytes, and lay people for hiding the wife of a magnate. However, the gate need not be recognizable as such.'
Cappen controlled himself with an inward shudder and made his trained voice casual: 'What might it look like, sir?'
'Oh, probably a scroll, taken from a coffer where it had long lain forgotten, and now unrolled - yes, I should think in the sanctum, to draw power from the sacred objects and to be seen by as few persons as possible who are not in the conspiracy -' Enas Yorl came out of his abstraction. 'Beware! I deduce your thought. Choke it before it kills you.'
Cappen ran sandy tongue over leathery lips. 'What ... should we ... expect to happen, sir?'
'That is an interesting question,' Enas Yorl said. 'I can but conjecture. Yet I am well acquainted with the temple hierarchy and - I don't think the Archpriest is privy to the matter. He's too aged and weak. On the other hand, this is quite in the style of Hazroah, the High Flamen. Moreover, of late he has in effect taken over the governance of the temple from his nominal superior. He's bold, ruthless - should have been a soldier - Well, putting myself in his skin, I'll predict that he'll let Molin stew a while, then cautiously open negotiations - a hint at first, and always a claim that this is the will of Ils.
'None but the Emperor can cancel an undertaking for the Imperial deities. Persuading him will take much time and pressure. Molin is a Rankan aristocrat of the old school; he will be torn between his duty to his gods, his state, and his wife. But I suspect that eventually he can be worn down to the point where he agrees that it is, in truth, bad policy to exalt Savankala and Sabellia in a city whose tutelaries they have never been. He in his turn can influence the Emperor as desired.'
'How long would this take, do you think?' Cappen whispered. 'Till the women are released?'
Enas Yorl shrugged. 'Years, possibly. Hazroah may try to hasten the process by demonstrating that the Lady Rosanda is subject to punishment. Yes, I should imagine that the remains of an ancilla who had been tortured to death, delivered on Molin's doorstep, would be a rather strong argument.'
His look grew intense on the appalled countenance across from him. 'I know,' he said. 'You're breeding fever-dreams of a heroic rescue. It cannot be done. Even supposing that somehow you won through the gate and brought her back, the gate would remain. I doubt Ils would personally seek revenge; besides being petty, that could provoke open strife with Savankala and his retinue, who're formidable characters themselves. But Ils would not stay the hand of the Flamen Hazroah, who is a most vengeful sort. If you escaped his assassins, a sikkintair would come after you, and nowhere in the world could you and she hide. Your talisman would be of no avail. The sikkintair is not supernatural, unless you give that designation to the force which enables so huge a mass to fly; and it is from no magician, but from the god.
'So forget the girl. The town is full of them.' He fished in his purse and spilled a handful of coins on the table. 'Go to a good whorehouse, enjoy yourself, and raise one for poor old Enas Yorl.'
He got up and waddled off, Cappen sat staring at the coins. They made a generous sum, he realized vaguely: silver lunars, to the number of thirty.
One-Thumb came over. 'What'd he say?' the taverner asked.
'I should abandon hope,' Cappen muttered. His eyes stung; his vision blurred. Angrily, he wiped them.
'I've a notion I might not be smart to hear more.' One-Thumb laid his mutilated hand on Cappen's shoulder. 'Care to get drunk? On the house. I'll have to take your money or the rest will want free booze too, but I'll return it tomorrow.'
'No, I - I thank you, but - but you're busy, and I need someone I can talk to. Just lend me a lantern, if you will.'
'That might attract a robber, fellow, what with those fine clothes of yours.'
Cappen gripped swordhilt. 'He'd be very welcome, the short while he lasted,' he said in bitterness.
He climbed to his feet. His fingers remembered to gather the coins.
Jamie let him in. The Northerner had hastily thrown a robe over his massive frame; he carried the stone lamp that was a night light. 'Sh,' he said. 'The lassies are asleep.' He nodded towards a closed door at the far end of this main room. Bringing the lamp higher, he got a clear view of Cappen's face. His own registered shock. 'Hey-o, lad, what ails you? I've seen men pole-axed who looked happier.'
Cappen stumbled across the threshold and collapsed in an armchair. Jamie barred the outer door, touched a stick of punk to the lamp flame and lit candles, filled wine goblets. Drawing a seat opposite, he sat down, laid red-furred right shank across left knee, and said gently, 'Tell me.'
When it had spilled from Cappen, he was a long span quiet. On the walls shimmered his weapons, among pretty pictures that his housemates had selected. At last he asked low, 'Have you quit?'
'I don't know, I don't know,' Cappen groaned.
'I think you can go on aways, whether or no things are as the witchmaster supposes. We hold where I come from that no man can flee his weird, so he may as well meet it in a way that'll leave a good story. Besides, this may not be our death-day; and I doubt yon dragons are unkillable, but it cou
ld be fun finding out; and chiefly, I was much taken with your girl. Not many like her, my friend. They also say in my homeland, "Waste not, want not".'
Cappen lifted his glance, astounded. 'You mean I should try to free her?' he exclaimed.
'No, I mean we should.' Jamie chuckled. 'Life's gotten a wee bit dull for me of late - aside from Butterfly and Light-of-Pearl, of course. Besides, I could use a share of reward money.'
'I ... I want to,' Cappen stammered. 'How I want to! But the odds against us -'
'She's your girl, and it's your decision. I'll not blame you if you hold back. Belike, then, in your country, they don't believe a man's first troth is to his woman and kids. Anyway, for you that was no more than a hope.'
A surge went through the minstrel. He sprang up and paced, back and forth, back and forth. 'But what could we doT
'Well, we could scout the temple and see what's what,' Jamie proposed. 'I've been there once in a while, reckoning 'twould do no hurt to give those gods their honour. Maybe we'll find that indeed naught can be done in aid. Or maybe we won't, and go ahead and do it.'
Danlis-
Fire blossomed in Cappen Varra. He was young. He drew his sword and swung it whistling on high. 'Yes! We will!'
A small grammarian part of him noted the confusion of tenses and moods in the conversation.
The sole traffic on the Avenue of Temples was a night breeze, cold and sibilant. Stars, as icy to behold, looked down on its broad emptiness, on darkened buildings and weather-worn idols and rustling gardens. Here and there flames cast restless light, from porticoes or gables or ledges, out of glass lanterns or iron pots or pierced stone jars. At the foot of the grand staircase leading to the fane of Ils and Shipri, fire formed haloes on the enormous figures, male and female in robes of antiquity, that flanked it.
Beyond, the god-house itself loomed, porticoed front, great bronze doors, granite walls rising sheer above to a gilt dome from which light also gleamed; the highest point in Sanctuary.
Thieves World tw-1 Page 9
