Thieves World1 (27 page)

Now the blue star blazed rage, but not for the minstrel. They both knew it. The crowd around them had all mysteriously discovered that they had business elsewhere. The minstrel looked at the empty benches.

'I must go elsewhere to sing for my supper, it seems.'

'I meant you no offence when I refused to share a drink,' said Lythande. 'A magician's vow is not as lightly overset as a lute. Yet I may guest-gift you with dinner and drink in plenty without loss of dignity, and in return ask a service of a friend, may I not?'

'Such is the custom of my country. Cappen Varra thanks you, magician.'

'Tapster! Your best dinner for my guest, and all he can drink tonight!'

'For such liberal guesting I'll not haggle about the service,' Cappen Varra said, and set to the smoking dishes brought before him. As he ate, Lythande drew from the folds of his robe a small pouch containing a quantity of sweet-smelling herbs, rolled them into a blue-grey leaf, and touched his ring to spark the roll alight. He drew on the smoke, which drifted up sweet and greyish.

'As for the service, it is nothing so great; tell me all you know of this other wizard who wears the blue star. I know of none other of my order south of Azehur, and I would be certain you did not see me, nor my wraith.'

Cappen Varra sucked at a marrow-bone and wiped his fingers fastidiously on the tray-cloth beneath the meats. He bit into a ginger-fruit before replying.

'Not you, wizard, nor your fetch or doppelganger; this one had shoulders brawnier by half, and he wore no sword, but two daggers cross-girt astride his hips. His beard was black; and his left hand missing three fingers.'

'Us of the Thousand Eyes! Rabben the Half-handed, here in Sanctuary! Where did you see him, minstrel?'

'I saw him crossing the bazaar; but he bought nothing that I saw. And I saw him in the Street of Red Lanterns, talking to a woman. What service am I to do for you, magician?'

'You have done it.' Lythande gave silver to the tavern keeper - so much that the surly man bade Shalpa's cloak cover him as he went - and laid another coin, gold this time, beside the borrowed lute. 'Redeem your harp; that one will do your voice no boon.' But when the minstrel raised his head in thanks, the magician had gone unseen into the shadows. Pocketing the gold, the minstrel asked, 'How did he know that? And how did he go out?'

'Shalpa the swift alone knows,' the tapster said. 'Flew out by the smoke-hole in the chimney, for all I ken! That one needs not the night-dark cloak of Shalpa to cover him, for he has one of his own. He paid for your drinks, good sir; what will you have?' And Cappen Varra proceeded to get very drunk, that being the wisest thing to do when one becomes entangled unawares in the private affairs of a wizard.

Outside in the street, Lythande paused to consider. Rabben the Half-handed was no friend; yet there was no reason his presence in Sanctuary must deal with Lythande, or personal revenge. If it were business concerned with the Order of the Blue Star, if Lythande must lend Rabben aid, or the Half-handed had been sent to summon all the members of the Order, the star they both wore would have given warning.

Yet it would do no harm to make certain. Walking swiftly, the magician had reached a line of old stables behind the governor's palace. There was silence and secrecy for magic. Lythande stepped into one of the little side alleys, drawing up the magician's cloak until no light remained, slowly withdrawing farther and farther into the silence until nothing remained anywhere in the world -anywhere in the universe but the light of the blue star ever glowing in front. Lythande remembered how it had been set there, and at what cost - the price an adept paid for power.

The blue glow gathered, fulminated in many-coloured patterns, pulsing and glowing, until Lythande stood within the light; and there, in the Place That Is Not, seated upon a throne carved apparently from sapphire, was the Master of the Star.

'Greetings to you, fellow star, star-born, shyryu.' The terms of endearment could mean fellow, companion, brother, sister, beloved, equal, pilgrim; its literal meaning was sharer of starlight. 'What brings you into the Pilgrim Place this night from afar?'

'The need for knowledge, star-sharer. Have you sent one to seek me out in Sanctuary?'

'Not so, shyryu. All is well in the Temple of the Star-sharers; you have not yet been summoned; the hour is not yet come.'

For every adept of the Blue Star knows; it is one of the prices of power. At the world's end, when all the doings of mankind and mortals are done, the last to fall under the assault of Chaos will be the Temple of the Star; and then, in the Place That Is Not, the Master of the Star will summon all of the Pilgrim Adepts from the farthest corners of the world, to fight with all their magic against Chaos; but until that day, they have such freedom as will best strengthen their powers. The Master of the Star repeated, reassuringly, 'The hour has not come. You ace free to walk as you will in the world.'

The blue glow faded, and Lythande stood shivering. So Rabben had not been sent in that final summoning. Yet the end and Chaos might well be at hand for Lythande before the hour appointed, if Rabben the Half-handed had his way. It was a fair test of strength, ordained by our masters, Rabben should bear me no ill-will... Rabben's presence in Sanctuary need not have to do with Lythande. He might be here upon his lawful occasions - if anything of Rabben's could be said to be lawful; for it was only upon the last day of all that the Pilgrim Adepts were pledged to fight upon the side of Law against Chaos. And Rabben had not chosen to do so before then.

Caution would be needed, and yet Lythande knew that Rabben was near ... South and east of the governor's palace, there is a little triangular park, across from the Street of Temples. By day the gravelled walks and turns of shrubbery are given over to predicants and priests who find not enough worship or offerings for their liking; by night the place is the haunt of women who worship no goddess except She of the filled purse and the empty womb. And for both reasons the place is called, in irony, the Promise of Heaven; in Sanctuary, as elsewhere, it is well known that those who promise do not always perform. Lythande, who frequented neither women nor priests as a usual thing, did not often walk here. The park seemed deserted; the evil winds had begun to blow, whipping bushes and shrubbery into the shapes of strange beasts performing unnatural acts; and moaning weirdly around the walls and eaves of the Temples across the street, the wind that was said in Sanctuary to be the moaning of Azyuna in Vashanka's bed. Lythande moved swiftly, skirting the darkness of the paths. And then a woman's scream rent the air. From the shadows Lythande could see the frail form of a young girl in a torn and ragged dress; she was barefoot and her ear was bleeding where one jewelled earring had been torn from the lobe. She was struggling in the iron grip of a huge burly black-bearded man, and the first thing Lythande saw was the hand gripped around the girl's thin, bony wrist, dragging her; two fingers missing and the other cut away to the first joint. Only then - when it was no longer needed - did Lythande see the blue star between the black bristling brows, the cat-yellow eyes of Rabben the Half handed!

Lythande knew him of old, from the Temple of the Star. Even then Rabben had been a vicious man, his lecheries notorious. Why, Lythande wondered, had the Masters not demanded that he renounce them as the price of his power? Lythande's lips tightened in a mirthless grimace; so notorious had been Rabben's lecheries that if he renounced them, everyone would know the Secret of his Power.

.

For the powers of an Adept of the Blue Star depended upon a secret. As in the old legend of the giant who kept his heart in a secret place outside his body, and with it his immortality, so the Adept of the Blue Star poured all his psychic force into a single Secret; and the one who discovered the Secret would acquire all of that adept's power. So Rabben's Secret must be something else ... Lythande did not speculate on it.

The girl cried out pitifully as Rabben jerked at her wrist; as the burly magician's star began to glow, she thrust her free hand over her eyes to shield them from it. Without fully intending to intervene, Lythande stepped frem the shadows, and the rich voice that had made the prentice-magicians in the outer court of the Blue Star call Lythande 'minstrel' rather than 'magician', rang out: 'By Shipri the All-Mother, release that woman!'

Rabben whirled. 'By the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth eye of Ils! Lythande!'

'Are there not enough women in the Street of Red Lanterns, that you must mishandle girl-children in the Street of Temples?' For Lythande could see how young she was, the thin arms and childish legs and ankles, the breasts not yet full-formed beneath the dirty, torn tunic.

Rabben turned on Lythande and sneered, 'You were always squeamish, shyryu. No woman walks here unless she is for sale. Do you want her for yourself? Have you tired of your fat madame in the Aphrodisia House?'

'You will not take her name into your mouth, shyryu!'

'So tender for the honour of a harlot?'

Lythande ignored that. 'Let the girl go, or stand to my challenge.'

Rabben's star shot lightnings; he shoved the girl to one side. She fell nerveless to the pavement and lay without moving. 'She'll stay there until we've done. Did you think she could run away while we fought? Come to think of it, I never did see you with a woman, Lythande - is that your Secret, Lythande, that you've no use for women?'

Lythande maintained an impassive face; but whatever came, Rabben must not be allowed to pursue that line. 'You may couple like an animal in the streets of Sanctuary, Rabben, but I do not. Will you yield her up, or fight?'

'Perhaps I should yield her to you; this is unheard of, that Lythande should fight in the streets over a woman! You see, I know your habits well, Lythande!'

Damnation of Vashanka! Now indeed I shall have to fight for the girl!

Lythande's rapier snicked from its scabbard and thrust at Rabben as if of its own will.

'Ha! Do you think Rabben fights street-brawls with the sword like any mercenary?' Lythande's sword-tip exploded in the blue star-glow, and became a shimmering snake, twisting back on itself to climb past the hilt, fangs dripping venom as it sought to coil around Lythande's fist. Lythande's own star blazed. The sword was metal again but twisted and useless, in the shape of the snake it had been, coiling back toward the scabbard. Enraged, Lythande jerked free of the twisted metal, sent a spitting rain of fire in Rabben's direction. Quickly the huge adept covered himself in fog, and the fire-spray extinguished itself. Somewhere outside consciousness Lythande was aware of a crowd gathering; not twice in a lifetime did two adepts of the Blue Star battle by sorcery in the streets of Sanctuary. The blaze of the stars, blazing from each magician's brow, raged lightnings in the square.

On a howling wind came little torches ravening, that flickered and whipped at Lythande; they touched the tall form of the magician and vanished. Then a wild whirlwind sent trees lashing, leaves swirling bare from branches, battered Rabben to his knees. Lythande was bored; this must be finished quickly. Not one of the goggling onlookers in the crowd knew afterwards what had been done, but Rabben bent, slowly, slowly, forced inch by inch down and down, to his knees, to all fours, prone, pressing and grinding his face further and further into the dust, rocking back and forth, pressing harder and harder into the sand ... Lythande turned and lifted the girl. She stared in disbelief at the burly sorcerer grinding his black beard frantically into the dirt.

'What did you -'

'Never mind - let's get out of here. The spell will not hold him long, and when he wakes from it he will be angry.' Neutral mockery edged. Lythande's voice, and the girl could see it, too, Rabben with beard and eyes and blue star covered with the dirt and dust She scurried along in the wake of the magician's robe; when they were well away from the Promise of Heaven, Lythande halted, so abruptly that the girl stumbled.

'Who are you, girl?'

'My name is Bercy. And yours?'

'A magician's name is not lightly given. In Sanctuary they call me Lythande.'

Looking down at the girl, the magician noted, with a pang, that beneath the dirt and dishevelment she was very beautiful and very young. 'You can go, Bercy. He will not touch you again; I have bested him fairly upon challenge.'

She flung herself on to Lythande's shoulder, clinging. 'Don't send me away!' she begged, clutching, eyes filled with adoration. Lythande scowled. Predictable, of course, Bercy believed, and who in Sanctuary would have disbelieved, that the duel had been fought for the girl as prize, and she was ready to give herself to the winner. Lythande made a gesture of protest.

'No -'

The girl narrowed her eyes in pity. 'Is it then with you as Rabben said - that your secret is that you have been deprived of manhood?' But beyond the pity was a delicious flicker of amusement - what a tidbit of gossip! A juicy bit for the Street of Women.

'Silence!' Lythande's glance was imperative. 'Come.'

She followed, along the twisting streets that led into the Street of Red Lanterns. Lythande strode with confidence, now, past the House of Mermaids, where, it was said, delights as exotic as the name promised were to be found; past the House of Whips, shunned by all except those who refused to go elsewhere; and at last, beneath the face of the Green Lady as she was worshipped far away and beyond Ranke, the Aphrodisia House. Bercy looked around, eyes wide, at the pillared lobby, the brilliance of a hundred lanterns, the exquisitely dressed women lounging on cushions till they were summoned. They were finely dressed and bejewelled - Myrtis knew her trade, and how to present her wares - and Lythande guessed that the ragged Bercy's glance was one of envy; she had probably sold herself in the bazaars for a few coppers or for a loaf of bread, since she was old enough. Yet somehow, like flowers covering a dungheap, she had kept an exquisite fresh beauty, all gold and white, flowerlike. Even ragged and half-starved, she touched Lythande's heart.