Wings of Omen - Thieves World 06 (28 page)

"There... I've said it. Now you know, Hanse, oh, Hanse. Now you know... I have loved you, loved you, oh loved you for years-ever since first I saw you, surely, although I was only a girl then."

Hanse swallowed. He felt like melting wax and his eyes had gone all blurry. Me!

Shadowspawn! Who ever loved me?! It's all I ever wanted-but I had to pretend, didn't I, so that when it happened, if it happened, I would know it was real... but I never would because I've always had to test, to try so hard not to be hurt....

He tried to be unobtrusive about wiping the damned unmanly embarrassing glistening tear off his cheek. As soon as he had done, the other eye let go. I hope she doesn't see, he thought, and was not even thinking about the power of the wish.

He asked her question after question about the whole Ils/Eshi/Vashanka business. She remembered none of it. She had had a horrible dream about his being forever lost to her, beyond her, because he was in the arms of a goddess, and she had wakened weeping. Her mother had held her and held her and crooned and spoken soft words to her and made her see that was silly, not at all logical or likely or possible.

Of course, Hanse thought, and said, "Me! With a goddess? Oh Mignureal!"

"I know," she said, darting a look-at him and looking away just as swiftly. "But we can't control our dreams, and sometimes they're so real!" He steeled himself, and swallowed hard, and said, "This is a dream, of course." She looked sharply at him. "What?"

"I said," he said, exerting all his strength to look at her and to say the words, "that this is a dream, of course. You could not be here in my room. You could not have been waiting naked for me, in my bed. It is not S'danzo; it is beneath that great soaring wonderful mother of yours, and your fine and proud old people, and... above all, Mignue, it is not you. You would not do such a thing. It is... it is beneath you. It is not what I want or you want, not in such a way, not now. It is not in accord with your pride or your dignity." She was staring at him, and tears were flowing in long glistening tracks all down her cheeks and onto his cloak.

"It has to be a dream, don't you see?"

Mignureal raised her eyebrows, and no girl but a woman said, "It is not a dream, Hanse."

Again it hurt, and he had to steel himself and swallow hard and take a deep breath as well, that his voice might hold without breaking: "It is a dream, Mignue. And you will remember every bit of it. I wish that this were a dream for you, Mignureal, dear sweet Mignureal, and that you would remember every bit of it, and that you were at home asleep in you bed."

She said nothing in return, because she was not there. Only the new red cloak was, crumpled on his bed. He could still see the tear-spots, even from the windowsill. The wet darker spots from her tears, and he knew that she was home in bed.

He sat there feeling really stupid and feeling really sorry for himself, and yet after a time he seemed to hear a soft female chuckle in his head, inside his head, and knew that it was Eshi who chuckled and said, inside his head. And you wondered why I came to you as Mignureal, ass-an ass and lovable being an ass, like all men!

His purpose had been to spend this night abed with Mignureal as he had others, and then to go to her home and leam what her mother and she, what her father and siblings, knew and thought and remembered. Now he would not know, for Hanse had at last discovered that which was not worthy of him. / wish that I could be worthy ofMignureal and her love, he thought, without thinking at all of Ils or , of the power of the wish, and the entirety of his life was changed in an instant. Without knowing that, he undressed and went to bed. The torture began.

Nearly an hour later he gave it up and made a wish.

The very very shapely daughter of that customs man and investigator Cushariain was all soft writhing femininity in his bed and just wonderfully loving and amorous and wonderful to feel and think about and want, but after a while in her arms a poor pitifully surprised Hanse had to make the wish that he cease thinking about Mignureal and get over this very first experience with impotence. Somewhere Ils smiled. In Hanse's bed, an ultra-shapely young woman did, too. At first Hanse simply sighed in relief, but that was soon replaced by both stronger emotion and stronger physical activity.

After that night a rather befogged Shadowspawn indulged himself in a very great deal of thinking. He could hardly wait for the time to be up and to be summoned again into the presence of the gods!

As it turned out, Ils had meant ten days and nights, not years or months. Then once again the tumbled lightless ruins of Eaglenest were transformed into a dazzling palace of gods, and Hanse of Downwind and the Maze was gazing down that long table at the faceless Shadow that was Shalpa, and the great light that was Us of the Thousand Eyes, He from whom the Ilsigi had taken their name, and at the most absolutely incredibly beautiful and shapely woman any man ever saw. For that was the form Eshi chose to take this night, and Hanse realized: the goddess was showing him how magnificent She could be, how far beyond mortal Mignureal, and a great warmth and pride soared in him.

It occurred to him to ask if his wishes were done with, and the Great God replied that aye, all were done with save only the final lifelong desires, and Hanse said that was too bad, for a diplomat rose up in him and avowed that he'd have wished that the woman he loved, Mignureal, could be touched with the beauty and magnificence and sexuality of the goddess Eshi, who was beyond him.

"Father-r-" Eshi began, and her father silenced her.

"And so you face me again, Hanse," He said. "Tell me that which is your desire."

"My desire is threefold," Hanse said. "First, that neither I nor anyone close to me, dear to me, ever knows the true moment of my unavoidable death. Have I expressed that aright?"

"It is specific, and well-expressed," that quiet sonorous voice of Power said,

"and it is Done. And?"

"I desire superior ability with weapons, as well as good health and good fortune," Hanse said. "And to forget all that has happened. All that I have done and thought and wished (saving only for a dream that I share with Mignureal, daughter of the S'danzo), since that time when first You did approach me, in the matter of Vashanka."

For a long moment there was silence, and then the Shadow spoke, the living god who was shadow itself and who sat at the right hand of his father. "What? You would forget that you are my son?!" The voice was rustly, as befitted that of a shadow among shadows, but the last word boomed.

Hanse looked down. "Yes."

"What?" Eshi demanded. "You would forget all that you have done-forget that you have lain with me?" And again Hanse waxed diplomatic: "I choose to be a human and mortal, 0 Beauty Itself. How could any man live at peace, when he has seen You and even held You, and knows it? It is too much, Goddess, Eshi. You must not let me remember and be tortured with memory of what was and might have been." She waxed even more beautiful then, and as irresistible as the word itself, and her smile was sun and moonbeams bathing him in warmth. "Let it be," she said, and became a handsome and shapely woman in white, and no more.

"Your son, Shalpa my son, is touched with genius," He of the Thousand Eyes said.

"Yet I would remind you, Hanse, Godson. Much, much of the world is within your grasp. We have conferred; you could even opt to join us, to preside perpetually over the mortals of the earth. Would you be one of them instead?"

"I am..." (Hanse swallowed hard) "... grandfather."

"You might also continue to have your every wish so long as you are within our precincts, or the greatest of wishes: that your every desire and wish be yours."

"That one," Shalpa's voice rustled, "and then forgetful-ness." Hanse fell to his knees and his voice shook. "Let me be Hanse!"

"It's the damned eternal truth," Eshi said. "Your charming bastard is a damned genius, Shalpa!"

"Yet damned," her brother answered. "Damned by his own tongue and his own wish. The terminator of a god, the savior of his city and toppler of Empire, the son of a god and lover of a god-and beloved of a god, eh?-damned to mortality, humanity, by his own asinine wish!" And the Shadow of Shadows... vanished.

"Tell my father," Hanse said very quietly, "that I have known misery not knowing the identity of my father, and now in knowing it. Tell him that... that his son is strong."

"True," Ils said, "and I'd never have thought it. Done!" When Hanse awoke he was in the ruins of Eaglenest and wondered what in all Hells he was doing here. Yet he had had this wonderful joyous dream involving Mignureal, and he felt a glow as he dragged himself to his feet on that pocked, cracked stone floor and, stepping around fallen columns and detritus, left the mansion that had been. He glanced over at the old well but shrugged. It was going to take a lot of labor and gear to get those moneybags up out of there. He sighed and started pacing down the hill toward Sanctuary. On the day following, Moonflower told him seriously that she might have been mistaken in forbidding him to see Mignureal; perhaps gods were at work, here. That day only three persons were slain, one way or another, by the Fish-Eyed Folk-From-Oversea, but many more lives were ruined by them and their doings. That evening while three of her siblings peeked and giggled from this vantage point and that, Hanse and the very young S'danzo Mignureal discovered together that they had both had the same dream last night, and that gods must be at work here.

Considerably later a much-bejeweled Beysib amused herself by punishing an Ilsigi offender-never mind the minor offense-by handing the youth a pouch from her belt. When he opened it, the beynit inside bit him at once. The snake's neurotoxin worked swiftly. The Sanctuarite was dead in less than a minute, and the Beysib was not punished. The PFLS burned a wagonload of hay on the Processional. That was the day Hanse received the message to meet Zip in Sly's Place.

(Rumor was that Throde the Gimp was set upon that night after closing, but he was fine next day, limping around Sly's without a mark, and no one took the rumor seriously.)

She had been a fixture of the Maze for a hundred years, or maybe it was a dozen. She sat outside the family home/shop in which her husband sold... things, and raised their several children well while keeping her husband happy. And she Saw. She did not charge a great deal of money for her Seeings, this S'danzo named Moonflower. She Saw danger and felicities to come, pain and pleasure to come, and she Saw linkages.

She had Seen enough once to let Hanse know that he was involved in a very large plot emanating from Ranke itself; a treacherous governor's concubine had quite charmed Hanse and, with a treacherous Hell-Hound, aided him into the palace one night to steal the Savankh.[i] Warned by Moonflower, Hanse had wriggled out of that one, and the two plotters paid the supreme penalty. Moonflower had Seen other things for Hanse, whom she could not help liking and thinking of as a good boy even though she knew he was not. And she had Seen many things for many others. Ilsigi and Twanders, Mrsevadans and Rankans, Syrese and Aurveshi... and now Beysibs.

Oh yes, even the newest conquering invaders came to the gross diviner Hanse called "Passionflower" (for he did charm that woman and bring out the kitten in her), sitting just outside the shop on a stool which she overflowed all around, wearing yards and yards of fabrics in divers colors and hues and patterns and more colors. She made a Seeing for the Beysib Esanssu on Anenday, and again on Ilsday, and the following Anenday as well. The fish-folk woman complained about the brevity of the first reading, and then on her return she dared complain of its accuracy even though it did help her rediscover both lost objects she had sought. And so Moonflower gave her another divining at half-rate, and damned if the oversea bitch didn't complain that this time she was not treated with sufficient respect. (An eight-year-old child, Moonflower's, stared at her was all; it was hard, not staring at freaks.)

At least she went away all elated after the third session, because the S'danzo had Seen an upturn in Esanssu's love-life. All races had losers, even conquerors, and Esanssu botched it. Naturally she came back to blame Moonflower. She railed and screamed and threatened to such an extent that Moonflower's husband came rushing out, fearful for his wife. Blind with rage, Esanssu hardly saw him as she drew and slashed him. He fell spurting blood. Moonflower screamed. All huge-eyed, she started to collapse, but caught herself, or perhaps it was adrenaline that caught her and powered her to her feet in a lurch and flaring rustle of skirts and shawls of many colors and hues and patterns. All on automatic she slapped the murderous creature from oversea, with all her considerable weight behind the blow. The Beysib was dashed against the wall of the shop with frightful impact. Her head struck first. She slid down the wall, leaving a bright red smear on the stucco, until she reached a sitting position. Her eyes were open and her legs twitched. To Moonflower's horror (had she not been crouched over her wounded husband, weeping but curbing her wails while she ripped skirts to stem the tide of his blood) Esanssu was dead. All that was bad enough and everyone knew that Moonflower was in trouble. Justice was a word, and the Beysib were conquerors. Unfortunately there was more; a Beysib soldier, just insulted by three Ilsigi children who had run and seemingly vanished into a warren of alleys and alley-like streets, came arunning. Already irate, and having lost her head along with having taken on the arrogance of all conquering occupation forces everywhere, she drew her long single-bladed sword from her back and struck, all in a rush. Moonflower's husband would live; Moonflower died there on the street. Hanse arrived only a few minutes after that flurry of senseless violence and murder. Half in shock, he tried to cope with the weeping of Mignureal and the screams and wails of her siblings, and could not. He was too choked with grief to talk coherently and too blinded with tears even to see. Without even knowing it he ran, blindly and full of the agony of grief. And rage. Upon turning a comer a couple of blocks away he ran full into a Beysib peacekeeper. He never knew whether it was the same who had murdered Moonflower, beloved Moonflower, mother of Mignureal.