Wings of Omen - Thieves World 06 (29 page)

"Here you, what's all this ru-"

"Excuse me," Hanse said sobbing, and buried his dagger in the creature's belly, and twisted it and drew it out and, hardly having paused, ran on. Everyone got out of his way, for Hanse called Shadowspawn seemed to have gone mad.

"Here, you-what the (deleted) are you doing here?-this is Zip's turf. Mazer, and you're carryin' an awful lot of sharp metal. Me an' my buddy here will just take-"

That one of Zip's Boys named Jing broke off. He knew this interloper at the edge of the several blocks of Downwind that Zip controlled, and he'd never seen the sinister fellow look so-so sinister. Mean. His black eyes below his black hair and above his russet peasantish tunic looked so ugly. His face was working as with a tic and his expression was one of rage barely controlled by mighty effort.

"I don't know you but I know Speaklittle there with you. You reach for one of your weapons and you are deader than the Stare-Eye froggy I ran into a few hours ago. I promise not to use the same knife on you, though-don't want to contaminate the blood of a fellow Ilsig with the cess they have for blood... even if you are busy dying at the time." An arm jerked up and pointed. "I'm outside Zip's line. Go and tell him I'm here to see him. Zip and I know each other and he's expecting me. I'll see him but I'll be wearing my stickers when I do, and I expect him and you and his bodyguards to be armed, too. Go on, Speaky, hurry! Get Zip!"

Jing frowned, made a sneery face, and reached for his sword. That quick, he was looking at a slender throwing knife in the hand poised just above the interloper's left shoulder. It stayed there, ready, and Jing left his short nasty sword where it was. The world knew that the former Down-winder named Hanse knew how to throw a knife, and Jing thought that continuing to live was just what he wanted to do.

The knife went back into its sheath so fast that Hanse might just have flipped it there, except that he hadn't. With an expression of seething and only just controlled rage, he looked at Speaklittle.

"Speaky, go on and tell Zip. I and your friend will stay right here and make mean-eyes at each other. Go, damn it!"

Speaklittle departed at speed while Jing looked at Hanse, mean-eyed. For some reason he said, "You really kill a fish-eyes today, Hanse?"

"A few hours ago. Since then I've been trying to think and I've been grieving. That makes two of 'em I've killed. I'm ashamed that it hasn't been more, but I'm slow about some things. And the knife I had out to warn you-believe that. It's not the one I stuck into the Stare-Eyes. This is the one that's been into two Stare-Eyes."

"Ahhh. And... you say Zip's expecting you?"

"Can't imagine why you didn't have the word," Hanse lied, catching Jing's respectful look. "What's your name?"

A few minutes later Speaklittle came running back, to escort Hanse to Zip. No one said anything about Hanse's arsenal. They went about a block and a half, and into a building and out again, and into a barrel. That led into a very secret passage, a short one, which led to Zip. He was flanked by two bodyguards and looked as hungry as ever.

"Hanse. You're presuming a bit, but I go along. What's so-"

"I'm breaking into the god-damned palace to remove the Beyswine's god-damned scepter and the heart of any goddamned Stare-Eye murderer that gets in my way and I hope some do, Zip. I thought you'd be interested. You want to help? I could use some good line, silk, and a very good archer with guts. Decide fast, man-I'm goin' in tonight."

The first time Shadowspawn had entered the governor's lofting manse he had walked in, with help from Prince-Governor Kadakithis's traitor-concubine, Lirain. He'd had only to break out, with the Savankh. The second time had been on his own and, as he realized only after he was in the Prince's privy apartment

'way, 'way up in the palace, ill-advised. He had stolen nothing, and again he had to break out.

This time he had no inside help, but he had help. PFLS members, working hard to look unobtrusive, haunted every street within blocks. Others were way over on the other side of town, raising a ruckus and attracting lots of armed Beys. From the shadowy granary across from the palace's outer defense wall, Hanse watched while Zip's best archer sent the arrow up. It whizzed past the spire atop the palace and, checked by the long line it trailed, swung back. It went around the spire about six times and the archer and his assistant really leaned on the line.

Shadowspawn raised his eyebrows and nodded. "You do good work," he muttered, and nudged himself out of his natural habitat, the shadows. The PFLSer didn't even flash his teeth. Once Hanse had hold of the silken line strong enough to support two Hanses, the archer did his best to emulate the thief. Into the shadows, with arrow ready for any interfering Beysib-or even nosey fellow Ilsigi, since this mission was more important than individuals. Right now Hanse, not a member of the Front, was the most important person in the Front. Zip had said so. The best archer in Sanctuary figured that made him fourth, after Zip and Kama. Right now Kama was fourth, since she was an archer's assistant.

He watched while the wraith all in black squirreled up onto the roof of the granary, poised, and swung out across the street. Looked like he hit the palace wall hard. Went right on up, though, after just a moment. He was without that long swordlike knife, but with a leathern pouch boiled to rocky hardness and strapped to his chest, and with a pair of throwing stars, and that strange four-foot staff, too, and of course the prepared arrows and the short bow. Step after step and hand over hand, he went up that wall in an impressive sort of reverse rappel.[ii] Eventually the archer and Kama and the other secretly watching PFLSers lost sight of him, but they continued to wait and to stare upward just as if they could see.

They could not; they could see only shadows. The thing was, any one of those shadows might be Hanse.

It had been weird, really weird. The elated Zip and Kama arranged this and that help, and offered all sorts of other aid that Hanse neither needed nor wanted. Yet as he was returning from Downwind, he had met a person he had never seen before in his life. A skinny ugly girl with warts and a facial birthmark the size of a lemon but the color of dried blood, and a figure so unfortunate that even her mother must wince.

"You are he called Shadowspawn, and you are going climbing. My master bids me give you this wand, and trebly urge you to take it with you. Just push it into your boots or something, and leave it behind when you leave your... destination."

"My name is Mudge Kraket," Hanse impatiently said, "and I am not going aclimbing. Heights scare me. Why not find someone else to hand that funny stick?

Looks like a good piece; a dune-viper carved from mahogany, isn't it?"

"Because you are Hanse and you are on a mission for all Ilsigi and thus Ils Himself, and because you will need this. It is important. Gods are at work this night, Hanse." She continued to proffer the staff.

"Orders?" he came back, and he was truculent.

"Oh stop being silly." And suddenly she was all aglow, and the glow was bright, like Love itself, so that Hanse squinted and shielded his eyes and wished that sorcery would leave him alone. "Take it! Have you really forgot so soon, Godson, lover?"

Since she then vanished utterly, and the stick had got itself somehow into his hand, Hanse decided that it were best to take the damned thing up the wall with him. He respected sorcery; only idiots did not. He just didn't like it, any more than did most non-adepts. Definitely hoping he must have to do with no more this night, he went on.

He was swinging down Tanner when the true light appeared-Mignureal, all wan and red-eyed and droopy in her dark red dress of mourning. She ran into his embrace and at once commenced to weep. Hanse, who had sworn off weeping two hours ago, immediately began anew. Meanwhile he hugged her close and stroked her long dark hair.

"I'm about to have to leave this damned town, Mignue," he told her very quietly,

"and I want you to come with me."

"But," she said, pushing herself back to look into his face, "why-why would you want to 1-" And her eyes went blank while a jerk went through her. Then so stiff that she quivered while she spoke in that strange voice: "Hanse-take the red cat."

"What?!"

"When you go up the silken rope for Sanctuary, Hanse, take along the red cat." Hanse held her automatically while he stared at nothing. God and gods damn it all, sorcery's all over the place and everybody in Sanctuary knows what I'm going to do and has advice! If this goes en I'II be so laden I couldn't climb into bed!

Yet he knew that was not so; only two knew, one by sorcery and Mignue by a sudden seizure of her S'danzo Seeing. And he remembered the brown pot, and as she suddenly said, "Oh. What am I doing-I have to go home and get ready," he knew that he had to go to Sly's Place. She whirled and ran. Hanse heaved a great sigh and rubbed his face. He started walking, feeling dizzy. A short time later he was staring at Ahdiovizun with eyes like dying coals.

"Ahdio, I-"

"Hanser! Lord God Ils and Shalpa, Hanser! I've wanted to see you! You'll never believe what happened the other night after you three left! Ole Notable pounced up on the table in back and lapped up every bit of the beer in your mug that he could reach, then cried and pawed for me to help him get the rest!-and he wouldn't touch the mugs of those other two! What'd you do to that cat, anyhow you a sorcerer, Hanse?"

"Ahdio," Hanse said as if he hadn't heard and without changing expression, "I need to borrow Notable. Just for awhile, just tonight. Please, Ahdio, don't give me a hard time. I've got to."

"Hanser, that cat wouldn't ever-"

Ahdio broke off to watch as Notable came in and started in rubbing Hanse's buskined legs.

And so Shadowspawn bore a cat in a claw-proof, fang-proof pouch on his chest when he went up the wall this night, and a flask, and a (presumably sorcerous) wand-thing and bow and two arrows on his back. The cat was a bit weighty and Hanse was used to climbing light. Still, the junk on his back aided the balance and Notable was still and quiet. The cat was no heavier than a glazed brown pot with a cross on it, Hanse told himself, and up he went. Eventually he peered downside up through the diamond-shaped window, into the luxurious apartment that had been Prince-Governor Kadakithis's and now was the dwelling of the Beysa herself. It was unoccupied.

Hanse swung in. Without even looking around he saw to his egress, as planned. The silken cord dangling from the pinnacle was a loss. The one he'd come down on was bound and braced on the roof-wall above. So was the third one, which was very long. Lacing its end through the prepared arrow, he dumped the rest of the cord out the window. Then, awkwardly bracing himself, he nocked arrow to short bow and took aim as well as he could.

I can do it. Have to. Don't want to have to pull the thing back up and shoot again! You can do it, Hanse! Breathe out, in, out; suck in a good deep one. Pull. Sight. Oops. NowThe string twanged and the arrow zipped out the window, trailing its line. Peering out, Hanse saw at once that it was a rotten shot, way wide of the mark, arcing leftward. Oh Thousand-Eyed Ils, and there was someone down there, too, watching. Suppose it's a Stare-Eye...

That one of many posted PFLS members let the arrow pass, caught the cord, held it aloft and waved it, and started running to where Kama and the archer waited. Knew I could do it, Hanse thought smiling. He turned, opening the rocky-hard pouch on his chest. Without a sound Notable emerged and bounced feather-light onto the pillow-strewn, silken-sheeted bed. It sat, examined a paw, and began to lick it.

Oh, really wonderful, Hanse mused, and supposed that he would just have to accept that Mignureal was a young S'danzo and inexperienced, and couldn't be right every time. And he had to get the fool cat back down, too-but thinking of Mignue had reminded him of Moonflower, and that put mist in his eyes. Once he had angrily rubbed them clear, he saw two things.

The first was not the Beysa's wand of office but her crown, a coiled snake done in gold with emeralds set as eyes; with markings of coral and of ruby and twinkling bits of glass banding the body again and again. That was the first thing he saw: a golden snake of far more value to the PFLS than a mere wand. The second thing he saw, however, was the real thing.

A beynit, he knew. A nasty-tempered snake with a bite that killed in a minute or less-and no way of stopping or countering that toxin. This one was probably trained-a watch-snake. It was about four feet away on the carpet, and it was staring at him.

Oh my god, Hanse thought, I'm dead!

At the very edge of the bed, not two feet directly above the beynit. Notable arched its back and hissed. The snake snapped its head over to stare up at the cat. Notable made a mean sound in its throat. The beynit recoiled just a bit, a sinuous rope, and Notable made another nasty remark. Then it hissed with what seemed to Hanse enough volume to rouse every unblinking sword-backed fish-eyed guard in the palace. Sliding his feet, Hanse moved back and to the side. He moved more slowly than ever he had, as he eased one of the throwing stars off his belt. The beynit caught that motion, and twitched its head to stare... and with a low growly sound Notable pounced at its tail. The snake's nerve broke. It rushed into the nearest nice, dark haven-the pouch so recently occupied by Notable.

Hanse whipped the flap over and back up and over again, winding the bag, and fastened it tight. The chances were that not even a worm could have gotten out of that pouch, but Hanse dumped a pillow out of its nice striped satin casing and popped the pouch in. The fit was very snug. With an azure robe-sash he tied that pillowcase as tightly as he had ever bound anything in his life.