Shadows of Sanctuary

THE VIVISECTIONIST Andrew Offutt

1

A minaret topped the Governor's Palace, naturally. The narrow, eventually pointed dome resembled an elongated onion. Its needle-like spire thrust up to pierce the sky. That spire, naturally, flaunted a pennon. It bore the device of Imperial Ranke (Ranket Imperatris). Below, the dome was clamped by a circular wall like upended herbivorous teeth. If ever the palace were attacked, that crenellated wall promised, beware archers in the embrasures between the merlons! Beware dumpers of boiling oil.

Every bit of it was haughty and imperious, insultingly imperial. And high.

Even from the top of the (lower) wall of the granary across the avenue from the wall surrounding the Governor's Palace complex, no grapnel could be hurled, for no human was so strong.

An arrow, however, could be shot.

On a night when the moon over Sanctuary was not a maiden's pale round breast but a niggling little crescent hardly worthy of the business end of a scythe, a bow twanged like a dying lute. An arrow rushed at the pennon spire of the Governor's Palace. After it, like the web-trail of an industrious spider or a wind-blown tent caterpillar, sped a silken cord so slim as to be invisible.

And then it was laboriously and time-consumingly drawn and dragged back, for the archer had missed his shot.

He aimed anew, face set for curses rather than prayers. Elevating his bow a bit, he drew to the cheek and, daringly endangering the springy wood, drew even further. Uttering not a prayer but a curse, he released. Away sped the arrow. It trailed its spidery line Hke a strand of spittle in the pallid moonlight.

It proved a night for the heeding of curses, if not the answering of prayers. That was appropriate and perhaps significant in Sanctuary called Thieves' World.

The shaft streaked past the spire and reached the end of its tether if not its velocity. It snapped back. The line forced it into a curving attempt to return. It snapped around the spire. Twice, thrice, four times. The archer was dragging hard. Keeping taut the silken line bought at the expense of a pair of lovely ear pendants of gold and amethyst and chrysoprase stolen from -never mind. The archer pulled his line, hard. That maintained and increased tension, tightened the arrow's whipping about the spire which was, naturally, gilded.

Then all motion ceased. A mourning dove spoke to the night, but no one believed that dolorous call presaged rain. Not in Sanctuary! Not at this time of year. The archer leaned into his line, and braced his heels to lean his full weight on it. The cord was a taut straight-edge of immobility and invisibility under the un-anposing one-ninth moon.

Teeth flashed in the dimness. The archer's, standing atop the granary behind the Governor's Palace of Sanctuary. His mop of hair was blacker than shadowed night and his eyes nearly so, under brows that just missed meeting above a bridged nose that Just missed being falcate.

He collected his other gear, collected himself, swallowed hard, choked up all he could on his line until he was straining, stretched, on tipetoe.

Then he thought something rather prayer-like, and out he swung.

Out above the street made broad enough to accommodate several big grain wagons abreast he swung, and across it. The looming wall rushed at him.

Even with the bending of his knees until they were nearly at his chest, the jar of his impact with the unyielding wall was enough to rattle teeth and turn prayers to curses. Nothing broke, neither legs nor silken line. Certainly not the wall, which was of stone, quarried and cut to form a barrier four feet thick.

He went up the rope in a reverse rappel, step after step and hand over hand. Dragging himself up the wall, walking up the fine perfectly set stones, climbing above death, for that was the penalty for slipping. The street was far below and farther with each pulling step.

He never considered that, or death, for he never considered the possibility of slipping.

A mighty warrior he was not. As an archer he had many peers and many betters. As a youth he was perfect, lean and wiry and strong. He was a highly competent thief in a citylet named for thieves. Not a cutpurse or a street-snatcher or an accoster; a thief. A burglar. As such, he was a superb climber of walls, without better and possibly without peer. He was good at slipping in by high-set windows, too.

His colouring and clothing were for the night, and shadows. They were old friends, he and shadows.

He did not slip. He ascended. He muscled himself atop the broad wall of the Governor's Palace, of Sanctuary. Unerringly, he stepped through the crenel, the embrasure between two merlons like blunt lower teeth. And he was at home, in shadow.

Now, he gazed upon the palace itself; the palace of the golden prince sent out from Ranke to (pretend to) govern Sanctuary. The thief smiled, but with his mouth closed. Here there were tigers in the form of guards, and young teeth would flash even in this most wan of moonlight. That precaution was merely part of his competence.

At that, he had lived only about a score of years. He was not sure whether he was nineteen or twenty or a bit older. No one was sure, in this anile town the conquering Rankans called Thieves' World. Perhaps his mother knew - certainly not the father he had never known and whom she had known casually, for this thief was a bastard by birth and often, even usually, by nature - but who knew who or where his mother was?

Below, within the wall lay ancillary buildings and a courtyard the size of a thoroughfare or a small community common, and guards. Across, just over there, rose the palace. Like him it was a shadow, but it loomed far more imposing.

He had broken into it once before. Or rather he had previously gained nocturnal entry in manner clandestine, for that other time he had help. A gate had been left unlocked for him, and a door ajar.

Entering that way was far easier and much preferable to this. But that time the opener of the gate had been bent on the public embarrassment and downfall of the Governor, and the thief was not.

Prince-Governor Kadakithis was no enemy, as a matter of fact, to this youth spawned in the shadows of the wrong end of town. The thief had rendered the Rankan prince two considerable services. He had been rewarded, too, although not in such a manner that he could live happily ever after.

Now, on this night of the most niggling of crescent moons, he stood atop the wall and took in his line from behind and below. It stretched upward still, to the pennon spire. It remained taut. He had to believe that it would continue to do. Elsewise he was about to splatter on to the pave below like a dropped pomegranate, a fruit whose pulp is plentiful and whose juice is red.

When the line was again taut he yanked, dragged, braced, yanked, swallowed hard, and kicked himself off the wall into Space. His stomach fell two storeys to the pave; he did not. His soft-booted but padded feet struck another wall of cut fulvistone. Impact was no fun and he had to stifle his grunt.

Then he went up.

'D'you hear something, Frax?' A voice like a horse-drawn sledge gliding over hard earth. Not stone, or sand, but packed dry earth.

'Mmm? Hm? Huh? Wha'?' A deeper voice.

'I said: Frax, did you hear something?'

Silence. (At sound of the voice the thief had frozen. Hands-forearms-torso atop the very palace; tail in space and legs adangle.)

'Uh-huh. I heard something, Purter. I heered her say "Oh Frax you han'some dawg, you're the best. Now suck on thisun awhile, darling," and then you woke me up, you bastard.'

'We're supposed to be on guard duty not sleeping, Frax, damn it. - Who was she?'

'Not gonto tell you. No I din't hear nothing. What's to hear? An army of Downwinders comin' over the friggin' walls? Somebody riding in on a hootey-owl?'

'Oh,' Purler's higher voice said, with a shiver in it. 'Don't say that. It's dark and creepy enough tonight.'

'Stuporstishus rectum,' Prax accused, with more austerity than skill, and lowered his head again on to his uplifted knees.

During their exchange the thief had got his rangy self on to the wall. He made hardly any sound, but those idiots would have drowned out something even as loud as snapping fingers. He wriggled through another embrasure and on to the defence gallery that ran around the top of the palace, below the dome and spire that rose on up, higher than the outer wall. Men trusted with guard duty, he was thinking contemptuously, heard something and blabbered. He shook his head. Idiots! He could teach these stupid soft-butted 'soldiers' a thing or three about security! It took a civilian to know about the best security measures, in such a town as this. For one thing, when you thought you heard something, you shut the hell up and listened. Then you made just a little noise to pretend unconcern, and froze to catch the noise-maker in another movement.

The shadow of a shadow, he moved along the gallery, between the smooth curve of the dome and the crenellations of a wall. After thirty-one paces he heard the scuffing footsteps and tap-tapping pikestaff butt of a careless sentry. That persuaded him to squat, get as close to the wall as he could, and lie down. Flat, facing the wall, whose merlons rose above the gallery. He lay perfectly still, a shadow in shadow.

A spider wandered over his shoulder and up his cheek and began struggling in his black mop of hair, and was unmolested. The spider felt warmth, but no movement, not so much as a twitch. (If mental curses could have effect, the spider was a goner.)

The sentry ambled by, scuffing and tapping. The thief heard him yawn. Dumb, he thought, dumb. How nice it was of sentries to pace and make noise, rather than be still and listen!

The sentry having moved on leftward along the perimeter of the wall, the thief moved on rightward; northwestward. He'd an armlet of leather and copper well up his right upper arm, and a long bracer of black leather on that wrist. Each contained a nasty leaf-bladed throwing knife of dull blue-black. There was another in his left buskin, where sheath and hilt were mere decoration. He wore no other weapons, none that showed. Certainly he bore neither sword nor axe, and the bow lay at the base of the granary wall.

He stopped. Stepped into a crenel just above two feet deep. Stared, off into the darkness. Yes. There was the spire of the Temple of Holy Allestina Ever Virgin, poor thing. It was the first of the markers he had so carefully spotted and chosen, this afternoon.

The thief did not intend to enter the palace by just any window. He knew precisely where he was going.

The task of regaining line and arrow was more difficult than he had anticipated. He silenced snarls and curses. Knot a rope ten times and try swinging on it and the accursed thing might well work itself loose. Shoot an arrow to wrap a cord slimmer than a little finger around a damned gilded brass flagpole, and he had to fight to get the damned thing to let go!

Within four or six minutes (with silenced snarls and curses) he had sent enough loops and twitches ripple-writhing up the line to loosen the arrow. It swung once around the spire, twice, encountered the line, and caught. More curses, a sort of prayer, and more twitches and ripples riding up the line. Reluctantly the arrow ended its loving embrace of the pennon spire. The line fluttered loose. Down came the arrow. It fell with a clatter that, to a shadowy thief in shadows, sounded like thunder on a cloudless day.

Sleepy sentries heard no thunder. Only he noticed. He reeled in line and arrow. In a crouch, he reached behind him into hi snugly fitted backpack. From it he drew two cylinders of hard wood wrapped with black cloth. Around them he looped his line arrow detached. He held silent for a time, listening. A fly hummed restless and loud. The thief heard nothing to indicate that any o his actions had been noticed with anything approaching alarm.

Rising, he went on his way. Along the perimeter of the palace along the flagged walkway betwixt dome and toothy wall.

Moving with a cat suppleness that would have been scary to an] observer, he reached his second marker. Nicely framed betweer two merlons, he could see it, away off in the distance. The purple' black shape ofJulavain's Hill. Again he smiled, tight of lip.

A merlon became a winch, aided by the two wooden cylinders brought for the purpose. They would pay out the silken cord and prevent the stone from slicing it. Its other end he secured to his ankles. And froze, waiting while the sentry clumped by. He was not importantly thumping his pike's butt, now. He no longei cared to keep himself awake. The thief gritted his teeth against the ghastly noise of the hardest of wood grating over harder flagstones. The porker was dragging his pike!

Then silence was thick enough to cut with a knife, of which the thief owned an abundance. He waited. And waited.

At last he stepped, still crouching, into the crenel. Turning, he carefully winched himself, backwards, down the wall. Down and down, until he came to a particular window. It was cut in the shape of a diamond. That decision had involved more than aesthetics; the damned thing was harder to enter.

Most carefully indeed, he turned. He paid out the cord with his hands until he was quite upside down outside that window. Blood flowed into his head while he strained muscles and vision until he was assured that the chamber was uninhabited.

Then, grinning, Hanse the thief flipped down and dropped lightly into the bedchamber of H.R.H. Kadakithis, Prince-Governor of Sanctuary.

He had done it again! And this time all on his own and without aid. He had breached the wall, eluded the guards, broken into the palace, and was in the very privatemost chamber of the Prince-Governor himself!

Well, lord Prince, you wanted to see Shadowspawn - here he is, awaiting you! Thus he thought while he freed his ankles of expensive silken line and removed his gloves. At least this time no bedmate waited here for her youthful lord.

It was all Hanse could do to keep from laughing aloud in sheerest prideful delight.

'A nice-looking girl left this here for you, Hanse,' Moonflower the Seer had told him. 'She got it from another - along with a coin for her trouble - who got it from still another.'

Hanse raised his dark, dark brows and hooked a thumb in the shagreen belt he wore over a screamingly red sash. From one side of the belt was slung a dagger. An Ilbarsi knife, long as his whole arm, hung down his other leg.

'This you ... Saw, Passionflower?'

She smiled, a hugely fat and grossly misnamed woman who overflowed two cushions atop a low stool. She saw him as a boyish boy and had ever let him turn her head with his charm, which she was almost alone in seeing.

'Oh no,' Moonflower said almost archly, 'I needed to go to no such trouble. I know things, you know.'

'Oh, I know you know things, you clever darling,' he told that gross dumpling in her several skirts, each of more than one unrepeated colour. 'And this time you're going to let me know how you know, I know.'

She nodded at the wax-sealed walnut shell he was idly tossing in his left hand. 'You know me too well, don't you, you naughty scamp! Smell it.'

Up went his close-snuggling brows again, and he brought the shell to his nose. He rolled his eyes. 'Aha! Perfume. A good one. Times are good for the only true mage of Sanctuary, then.'

'You know that is not my perfume,' she said, not without a sideward turn of her blue-tressed head to give him an arch look.

'Now I know that,' Shadowspawn said, jocular and easygoing and almost cute in the sunlight, 'because you tell me so. The walnut was given you by a well-off girl wearing good perfume, then. Betwixt her breasts, I'll bet, where she bore this charming charm.'

She lifted a dimpled finger. 'Ah! But that is the point. The scent on that charm is not mine, and the girl who gave it me wore none at all.' -

'Oh Moonflower, pride of the S'danzo and of Sanctuary! By Ils if the P-G knew of your genius, he'd not have that ugly old charlatan at court, but you, only you! So. By the perfume you know that there was a third woman, who gave this and a coin to another to give to you to give to me.' He wagged his head. 'What a game of roundabout! But what makes you think this thing was given her by still another, to begin with?'

'I saw the coin,' Moonflower said, all kittenish inside a body to block a door or bring groans to a good steed.

'It bore still another scent?'

Moonflower laughed. 'Ah Hanse, Hanse. I know that. Soon you will know too, surely, once you open the walnut shell. Surely it contains a message from someone who wanted no one to know he sent it to you.'

'He?'

'Do you care to make a wager?'

He who was called Shadowspawn clutched the walnut to him in mock terror. With his other hand he clutched his purse theatrically. 'Wager with you about your wisdom? Never! No one has accused me of being stupid.' Well, almost no one, he mentally added, thinking of that burly stranger, Tempus the Hell Hound ... Tempus the ... what?

'Be off with you and open it privily then. You're standing between me and paying clients!'

There were none present, Hanse assured himself before he said, 'In a moment,' and thumb-nailed the brownish wax along the lip-like closure of the walnut shell. He knew Moonflower was frowning, believing that he should be more secretive, but he also knew what he wanted to do. A gesture, merely a gesture. The scrap of extra fine leaf-paper he took out and poked, still folded, into his sash. Pressing the shell closed and thumbing the wax into a semblance of seal, he proffered it to the S'danzo seer who consistently proved that she was no charlatan.

'For Mignureal,' he said, pretending shyness. 'To scent her... her clothing, or something?'

For a moment the flicker of a frown appeared on Moonflower's doughy face, for her big-eyed daughter was quite taken with this dangerous youth from Downwind, whose means of income was no secret. Then she smiled and accepted the scented shell. It swiftly vanished into the vast cleavage of what she called her treasure chest, under her shawl.

'You're such a nice boy, Hanse. I'll give it to her. Now you git, and inspect your message. Maybe some highborn lady wants a bit of dalliance with your handsome self!'

The rangy young man called Shadowspawn had left her then. Smile and even pleasant expression left his face and he swaggered like a Mrsevadan gamecock. Face and walk were part of his image, which none would dare say might stem from insecurity. Still, Moonflower's words would not have made him smile anyhow. He was not handsome and knew it, as he knew that his height was no more than average. The biggest thing about him was his ego - although his lips, which some thought were sensuous, were to him too full. His nickname others had given him. He did not dislike it; his mentor Cudget Swearoath had told him a nickname was good to have - even such a one as 'Swearoath'. Hanse was just a name; Shadowspawn was dramatic, with a romantic and rather sinister sound that appealed to the youth.

He left Moonflower remembering how he had indeed dallied with a beauty of means. Highborn she was not, though she had been from the palace, and richly garbed. Hanse had been touched both in his ego and in his greed, by her attentions. Only later had he discovered that it was not truly he she was interested in. She and a fellow plotter were in the employ of someone back in Ranke -the Emperor himself, perhaps envious or wary of Kadakithis's good looks? - who wanted to discredit and destroy the new Prince-Governor, him they called Kitty-K-at. They had elected to use Hanse in their plot; Hanse had been their dupe! - for a while.

But that was done with, and on this later day he left Moon-flower and swaggered along the streets. His eyes were hooded and the weapons all too obvious on him. Some stepped off the narrow planking of the sidewalk for him, and (quietly) cursed themselves for it. Still, they would do it again. In appearance, all tucked in behind his eyes and abristle with sharp blades, he was 'about as pleasant as gout or dropsy', as a certain merchant had once described him.

Well, he was alive. Both the lovely plotter and her traitorous Hell Hound co conspirator were not. Further, Kadakithis was grateful. And now, as Hanse discovered to his astonishment back in his quarters, the Prince-Governor had actually sent him a note!

Hanse recognized the seal and the scrawl at the bottom from other documents. Since Prince Kadakithis knew that Hanse could not read, the bit of fine paper contained not writing, but clever drawings. The Governor's seal, with a hand extending from it, beckoning to a dark splotch. It was man-shaped - a shadow. Under that was an untidy jumble of (turnip slices?) with straight lines raying up from them. Shadowspawn's frown was a momentary thing. Then he was nodding in comprehension - he hoped.

'The P-G wants me to come calling on him, and here's a promise of reward: shiny coins. He sealed up the message in the walnut shell and gave it to one of his harem, with instructions. No one should see Hanse the thief receive a message from the Prince-Governor, else Hanse's name become Plague and he be avoided the same. So that girl found another, and passed on the walnut and a coin, with her lord's instructions: "Take this to Moonflower for Hanse."'

And she had actually done it, without prying open the shell in an attempt to gain greater treasure than one coin! Well, miracles had happened before, Hanse mused, gazing pensively at the strange message. Had she opened the shell, she'd likely have discarded the note.

Or nervously pressed it back into the shell to scuttle to Moonflower with it. Maybe someone does know that Hanse received a message that shows a beckoning hand from the Rankan seal, and a pile of coin. I hope she's the quiet sort! If I knew who she is, I'd scare her into silence. But then maybe she didn't open it at all...

The point is, I hate to walk into the palace, day or night. How would that look? Me!

Besides, someone inside probably spies for someone out here, and the word would be passed. Hanse just walked right up and in, and he was passed, too! Better watch him; maybe he's a spy for that golden-haired Rankan boy in the palace!

And so Hanse had thought on that, and begun to grin, and then to plan, and out he went to reconnoitre and plan, and now he had broken in, all unseen and unknown, to await his summoner in the latter's own privy apartment!

And now, sitting there waiting, Hanse reflected and contemplated the more, and his face clouded. The prickling in his arms started slowly, and grew.

Unwittingly the tool of that pretty Lirain who had so cleverly seduced or 'seduced' him (with no trouble at all!), he had gained this apartment before, also by night and secretly. That time he had stolen the very symbol of Rankan power, that wand called the Savankh. Eventually all that had turned out, and governor and thief reached an understanding. By way of reward, Hanse was granted pardon for all he might have done - once he had assured the royal youth that he had never slain. (He had, since. It afforded him little enjoyment or pride.) Hanse also came out of that painful adventure with a nice little fortune. Unfortunately it was in two saddlebags currently reposing at the bottom of a well. He hoped those saddlebags were of good leather.

Now he had broken in here twice. This time he had proven that he could enter this apartment without help from inside or out. What then, when Kadakithis gave thought to that?

Hanse had respect for the youthful Rankan's mind. It even possessed a devious quality. Hanse had seen and felt proof of that, when as Kadakithis's unwilling agent he had participated in the ruin of the two plotters. Bourne and Lirain.

Suppose, the frowning Hanse mused, that Kadakithis pondered and kept thinking.

There existed in Sanctuary one who could gain his chambers and thus his royal and gubernatorial self, at will. At any time, and never mind guards and sentries! Suppose that one chose to come again, as thief? - or was hired to do, as assassin? Would such a possibility not tend to prey on Kadakithis's good mind? Might he not decide that he was less than wise to trust him called Shadow spawn, a thief and ruthless besides? Might he not go even further in his thinking, and decide - wisely, as he would see it - that all things considered, Hanse was more dangerous than valuable?

In that case, the Prince-Governor might very well conclude, he and thus Sanctuary and thus Ranke were better off without such worries, such a possibility. In that event, it might occur to him that the world were better off without Hanse's continued presence in it. Nor would the world take heed of the timely demise of a cocky young thief.

Hanse swallowed, blinked. Sitting stiffly on a divan in the luxurious apartment, he put it all through his mind again and chased its tail. He came to his own conclusion.

I have been a fool. I did all this for my pride, to be such a clever fellow. I am a clever thief, but a stupid fellow! Being here thus when he comes in could gain me another signature on another document from him - this time my death order! Oh damn plague and pox, what have I done!?

Nothing, he thought as he rose with a great sigh, that could not be undone... he hoped. All he had to do was betake himself from here so that neither Kadakithis nor anyone else would ever know he had broken in. He glanced around and swallowed hard. It certainly was hard and against the grain not to steal something!

And so Shadowspawn went to the window, and wearily began the process of breaking out of the Governor's Palace and its grounds.

2

'It develops that I need help,' Prince-Governor Kadakithis said, 'and I cannot see a way to threaten it out of anyone.'

'Including me?'

'Including you, Hanse. Furthermore, if you won't help, I can't see how I can punish you either.'

'I'm glad to hear it. But I didn't know there were things a governor couldn't do, much less a prince.'

'Well, Shadowspawn, now you know. Even Kitty-Kat isn't all powerful.'

'You need help and the Hell Hounds can't provide it?'

'That is close, Hanse. The Imperial Elite Guardsmen cannot help me with this. Or so I perceive it.'

'I sure do wish you would sit down. Highness, so I can.'

Kadakithis walked across the rich carpet of his privatemost chamber and sat on the edge of the peacock spread of his bed. He gestured. 'Do take that divan, Hanse, or those cushions as it pleases you.'

Hanse nodded his thanks. He sank among the cushions, curbing a grin at their luxury. Last night he had sat on the divan, and only he knew it. This day he chose the luxury of the jumble of stuffed Aurveshan silk. (Quag the Hell Hound had been on duty at the gate. He had recognized the hooded blind beggar, who winked at him. Having been secretly apprised that Hanse was invited. Quag conducted the blind beggar to His Highness. The hooded robe lay on the bed beside the prince now, who had congratulated Hanse on the cleverness of his entry. Hanse forbore to tell him how much more clever he had been last night.)

Now he decided that he could afford a modicum of daring: 'Either I'm hearing sideways or you just told me you need me for something the Hell Hounds, I mean Imperial Elites, can't do. Or that your Highness can't trust them with? Or that you don't want them to know about.' Revelation: 'Or ... something illegal?'

'I will not affirm or deny anything that you have said.' That said, the prince merely gazed at him. The boy did a good job of looking enigmatic, Hanse mused, overlooking the fact that they were about the same age.

'If the prince will forgive me saying it... his Chief of Security is surely not one to baulk at such a ... mission.'

The prince continued to stare. One pale eyebrow rose slightly under that disgustingly handsome shock of yellow hair. And then Hanse was staring.

Tempus! It's about Tempus, isn't afl I haven't sees him for weeks.'

'Kadakithis turned his gaze on an ornate Yenizedish tapestry. 'Hanse: neither have I.'

'He is not on a mission for your Highness?'

'Just use the pronoun for me, Hanse, and we can save whole days of our lives. No. He is not. He is missing. Who might wish him to be missing?'

Hanse was wary of being used as informant, but saw no reason not to answer that one. 'Oh, half the people in town. Maybe more. About the same number that would wish the governor to be missing. Your pardon of course. Governor. Or the Emperor. Or Ranke.'

'Hmm. Well, Empire is built on conquest, not love, however often they are the same. But I have striven to be decent here. Fair.'

Hanse considered. 'It is possible that you have been fairer than we might have expected.'

'Nicely put. Carefully chosen words. You may well become a diplomat yet, Shadowspawn. And the Hell Hounds'! What of them?'

Hanse smiled briefly at the slim noble's calling his elite guards by the people's name for them; indeed, even the Hell Hounds called themselves Hell Hounds these days. It was a dramatic name with a romantic and rather sinister sound that appealed to their sort.

'Shall I answer that, to one from Ranke, with all the power there is? What power have I?' .

'You have influence with the Prince-Governor, Hanse, and with his Chief of Security. You uncovered the plot against me and helped break it up. You regained that awful fear-rod, and it cost you. Recently you helped Tempus in a matter, too. Now we are even in one area at least, aren't we?'

'Even? I? Me? Hanse of Sanctuary and the Emperor's brother?'

'Stepbrother,' the prince corrected, and fixed Hanse with a wide-eyed gaze, all blue. It reminded Hanse of his own ingenuous pose. 'Yes. Now we have both killed. I, Bourne. You... the night Tempus lost his horse.'

'The Prince-Governor is not without knowledge,' Hanse observed.

'Another careful, diplomat's phrasing! Now: Tempus set himself to destroying the minions of that Jubal fellow. Do you know why?'

'Maybe Tempus is a racist,' Hanse said, trying to look wide-eyed and ingenuous.

It didn't appear to be working. Damn. This golden-locked boy was smarter than Moonflower, despite her extra-human ability. Hanse sighed. 'You know. Jubal is a slaver and those weird-masked employees of his are feared. He has respect, and power. Tempus works for you, for Ranke's power.'

'Let's don't go making wagers on that. Would you say his killing of those in the blue birdmasks might be called murder, Hanse?'

'It might if it was one of us,' Hanse said, to the gleaming top of a low table. 'Surely not for him that calls us Wrigglies, though.'

The prince failed to disguise his little start. 'Strong words, Hanse of Sanctuary. And to one who does not call the Children of Ils "Wrigglies"!'

'Yes, and I really wish I hadn't said it. As a matter of fact I wish I wasn't here at all. How can I share confidences here? How can I say my mind to you, when you aren't a you, but both prince and governor?'

'Hanse: we have been through some things together.' In a manner of speaking, Hanse thought. You weren 't poked with

that damned terror-stick, and you didn't spend half the night down a well and the other on a torturer's table!

'I might even consider myself in your debt,' Kadakithis went on.

'I am getting awfully uncomfortable, my lord ofRanke,' Hanse said elaborately. 'Will my lord Prince tell me why I am here?'

'Damn!' Kadakithis regarded the carpet and heaved a great sigh. 'I've an idea it would be a waste of time to offer you wine, my friend. So I -'

'Friend!'

'Why yes, Hanse,' Kadakithis said, all large of eye and open-looking. 'I call you friend. We are even of an age.'

Hanse erupted to his feet in a jerk that was still admirably sinuous. He paced. 'Oh,' he said, and paced. 'Oh gods. Prince -don't call me friend! Don't let anyone else hear that!'

The prince looked very much as if he wanted to touch him, and was sure that Hanse would shrink away. 'How lonely we both are, Hanse. You won't have any friends, and I can't! I dare trust no one, and you who could trust - you reject even an extended hand.'

Hanse was almost stricken. Friends? He thought of Cudget, dead Cudget. OfMoonflower. OfTempus. Was Tempus a friend? Who could trust Tempus? Who could trust anyone wearing the title 'governor'?

'Ranke and Sanctuary are not friends,' he said slowly, quietly. 'You are Ranke. I am of Sanctuary, and... more. Not, uh, noble.'

'Trusted friend of the governor? The thief Shadowspawn?'

Hanse caught himself about to say 'Thief? Who, me, Governor?' and stopped the words. Kadakithis knew. Nor was he Moonflower or that melon-pedlar Irohunda, to be taken in by Hanse's cultivated (and seldom used) boyish act. But.. .friendf It was a frightening word, to Shadowspawn from Downwind and the Maze.

'Let's try to be bigger than Ranke and Sanctuary. Let's try, Hanse. I am reaching out. Speaking plainly: Tempus declared war on Jubal - not on my orders - and Jubal retaliated or tried to. You were there and you didn't run. Tempus lost a horse and gained a friend. You defended Tempus, helped him. More Hawkmasks died. Are you in danger for that, from Jubal?'

'Probably. I've been trying not to think about that.'

'And me?'

'The Empire's governor in Sanctuary knows to go forth armed and with guards, because he is governor,' Hanse said, not so enigmatically.

'Diplomatic, careful words again! - And Tempus?'

It was then that Hanse knew why he was here. 'You ... you think Jubal has Tempus!'

The prince regarded him. 'Hanse, some people don't try to be particularly likeable. Tempus seems to try not to be. I cannot imagine calling him friend.' Kadakithis paused to be certain Hanse grasped his implication. 'Still, I represent the Empire. I govern for Ranke, subject to the Emperor. Tempus serves and represents me, and Ranke. I do not have to love him, or like him. But! How can I tolerate anyone's taking action against any of my people?' Kadakithis made a two-handed gesture while Hanse thought: How strange that I think more of Tempus - Thales - than the Prince-Governor he serves! 'I cannot, Hanse! Nor can I use the Hell Hounds to investigate, not in a really sensitive matter such as this. Nor can I launch attack on Jubal, or even arrest him - not and govern the way I wish to do.'

He really does want to do well, to be friends with Sanctuary! What a strange RankanI 'You could call him in for questioning.' Hanse was hopeful.

'I had rather not.' The young Rankan called Kitty-Kat shot to his feet with admirable use of legs alone, if not with a thief's sinuous grace. 'I had rather acknowledge his existence, can you see that?' He waved a hand in a rustle of aquamarine silk sleeve, took a pace, turned his earnest face on Hanse. 'I am governor here. I am Empire. He is -'

'Gods, Prince, I'm only a damned thief!'

Kadakithis frowned and glanced around, ignoring Hanse's look of horror at his blurted words. 'Did you hear someone say something, just then?'

'No.'

'Neither did I. As I was saying, Tempus doesn't mean that much to me and I don't mean that much to Tempus. Tempus, I fear, serves Tempus and whatever he fancies is his destiny. I might not even miss him. Still, there are some things I dare not allow, dare not tolerate. Oh how I wish you could understand a bit of how difficult it is, being bom royal, and holding this job!'

Hanse, who had never held any job, tried. And without trying, he looked earnest and sympathetic. With a prince!

'Now I think that you are Tempus's friend, Hanse. Would Jubal torture him?'

Hanse felt himself about to develop a taste for strong drink. Looking at the other very young man's sash - an Ilsigi sash - he nodded. Abruptly he wanted to curse. Instead he felt an unwonted and unwanted prayer come cat-sidling into his mind: 0 Ils, god of my people and father ofShalpa my patron! It is true that Tempus-Thales serves Vashanka Tenslayer. But help us, help us both, Lord Ils, and I swear to do all I can to destroy Vashanka Sister-wifer or drive him hence, if only You will show me the way! . And Hanse blinked, and hurled that ridiculous and unwelcome thought bodily from his mind. Prayers indeed!

'Hanse... consider the limits to my power. I am not a man named Kadakithis; I am governor. I cannot do anything about it. I cannot.'

Hanse looked up to meet those cerulean eyes. 'Prince, if someone broke in here to kill you right now, I'd probably defend you. But I would not try to sneak into Jubal's keep for half your fortune and all your women.'

'Alone against Jubal? Lord, neither would I!' Kadakithis came to him then, and laid hands on a thief's shoulders. His eyes were intense and large. 'My only request of you, Hanse, is... I just wish you'd agree to try to learn where Tempus is. That's all. Your way, Hanse, and for a lot less reward than half my fortune and the women I brought here.'

Hanse backed from under those hands, from those staring eyes so full of sincerity. He paced to the bed, and the hooded robe of a blind beggar.

'I wish to leave by the fourth window down. Prince. That way I can let myself on to the roof of your smokehouse. If you were to call in your sentinels for review, I'd be out of here by the time they reached your presence.'

Kadakithis nodded.'And?'

'And I -I don't want any reward but don't dare ever tell anyone I said that, or remind me! You'll hear from me -' he whirled and skewered the other very young man with a gaze like an accusation - 'friend.'1

Kadakithis was wise enough to nod without smile or comment. Besides, he looked more as if he wanted to cry, or reach out.

'I understand your reason, Hanse. But, are you sure you can manage to break out of here ... the palaceT

Hanse turned away to roll his eyes. 'With your help. Prince, I may be able to do it. I'd hate to have to try to break in. though!'

3

It might have taken a trained investigator from Ranke a week, or a lifetime. It might have taken a Hell Hound a month or two lifetimes (a Tempus lifetime?), or a couple of days with the aid of shining ugly instruments of suasion. It took a thief of Sanctuary less than a full day to collect the information. Had he had letters, he'd have made a list.

Since he was unlettered, he must reckon and account in his head, once he had talked with this one and that one and some others. Only one realized that he was actively seeking information, and that was because Hanse let her know. Now he made his list, in his head, while he sprawled on his own bed and stared at nothing in particular.

Tempus did not get on with the other Hell Hounds.

Tempus waged private war on Jubal. It was his own decision. (Not a good one; Jubal's business profited Thieves' World and Empire as well.)

Jubal was a merchant who dealt in human merchandise. He provided some few to that scrawny Kurd fellow of whom even hardened Sanctuarites spoke susurrantly and with glances cast uncomfortably this way and that.

In the barracks, Tempus had had serious trouble with Razkuli and that snarly growly Zaibar. (Quag had mentioned that to a certain woman under the most intimate of circumstances. A bad but common time for the imparting of confidences.)

Stulwig Northbom had spent a shining coin bearing the Emperor's likeness. Such coinage was not all that common here, although it was welcome. People of the governor's staff occasionally spent such coins. Likely then someone had bought something off Stulwig; someone from the palace. Stulwig dealt in potions and drugs and worse.

Harmocohl Dripnose had most recently seen two men conveying a sizeable burden to the lovely gardened home of Kurd. Harmocohl's impression was that the two were hood-cloaked Hell Hounds.

Hell Hounds were elite Imperial guardsmen and did not deal with such as Stulwig or Kurd. Indeed, at least one of them hated Kurd. Hardly likely that Hell Hounds would deliver a human package to him. Unless there was someone they hated more than the dark experimenter.

Tempus was missing.

The word was out that Jubal heroically sold no more human merchandise to Kurd the vivisectionist... a man with a Rankan accent.

Why would such as Jubal cut off such a source of revenue? For moral reasons, because Kurd did evil things to people? Hardly. Because Jubal had made a deal with other enemies of Tempus? Zaibar and Razkuli, perhaps? Because Tempus was now in the mysterious experimenter's foul and reeking hands, perhaps?

In an ugly dark stenchy room Hanse learned more of Kurd and his business. Kurd claimed to be dedicated to the god Science. Medicine. That required experimentation. But Kurd was not content to experiment with the wounded and victims of accidents. The pallid fellow created his own. And, Hanse thought with rather more than distaste, Kurd could occupy himself for a life time with one whose wounds - Hanse suspected and thought he knew - healed with inhuman speed and completeness. Make that superhuman, or preternatural. Tempus call-me -Thales was a man of war who had participated in many battles. Yet there were no scars on the man. Not one.

Tempus/Thales.

'You, I own, can call me anytime,' he had told Hanse, and 'my friend', he had called Hanse, and 'Just tell me not to call you friend', he had dared Hanse. And Hanse had not been able to tell him that, thus revealing and silently replying that he was close on to desperate for friends, a friend; for someone to care about him. For someone to care about.

Hanse sprawled supine on his bed in an upstairs room in the heart of the Maze, and he pondered what he had learned. He rose to pace and chew his full lower lip and ponder, with his soul and heart and longing all naked in his eyes so that it was good no one was there to see, for Hanse wanted others to see only what he deliberately projected.

All I need do is report all this to KUt-to Kadakithis, he thought. The Prince Governor who had begun his term here by announcing that there would be law and order and safety for citizens and had hanged, among others, one Cudget Swearoath, mentor (and father image?) to Hanse. The P-G did not like Tempus (and father image?) to Hanse.

It was all Hanse need do. Just report what he had learned and now suspected. Then it was up to Kadakithis. He had the power and the resources. The men and the swords. The savankh.

Surely that was as far as Hanse's responsibility extended, to Kadakithis and to Tempus. If he had any responsibility to that krff-snorting bully.

And... suppose H.R.H. Kadakithis, P-G, did nothing? Or if his Hell Hounds, the charming Razkuli and Zaibar, received their orders but only pretended to act? Did not Rankans protect their own? Did not soldiers obey authority? Was there not honour among those thieving over-Lords?

If not, then Hanse's world would be a-teeter. Despite his pretences there had to be trust and some sort of order, didn't there, and trustworthiness? Hanse frowned and looked about almost wildly. An animal in a cage it feared but could not escape, yet also feared what lay beyond the bars. Even the spawn of shadows did not want to live in a world that was askew and a teeter. If it existed, if the world was truly a thing of Chance and Chaos, he preferred not to know. Fighting it, he had learned to trust Tempus. He had been/orce(/to trust Kadakithis, because he was down a well up at Eaglenest. Later, disbelieving and resisting, he had learned that he could trust the Rankan. That disturbed his haven of cynicism and was hard to admit. But was not cynicism merely a mask on an idealist seeking more, seeking perfection, seeking disproof of his cynical assumptions?

Far better just to report what I know and leave it at that and go on about my business. That would be enough. Tempus already owed him a debt, anyhow, and had promised him a service.

Shadowspawn began collecting his materials for a night of stealth, of breaking and entering. It was a thief's business and these were the tools. Yet he knew that he was not preparing for theft.

You are a fool, Hanse, he told himself with a curse in Shalpa's name, and he agreed. And he continued with what he was doing.

At the door he stopped, blinking. He looked back with a frown. Only now did he remember the look Mignureal had given him just two hours ago, and her strange words. They meant nothing and connected to nothing. 'Oh, Hanse,' she had said with a strange intensity on her girlish face. 'Hanse - take the crossed brown pot with you.'

'With me where?'

But she had to flee, for her glowering mother was calling.

Now Hanse stared at the brown crock with the etched pair ofYs. Mignureal did not know about it. She could not. Mignureal had mentioned it specifically! She was Moonflower's daughter ... Name of the Shadowed One, she must have some of the power too!

Hanse turned back to pick up that well-stoppered container, a fired pot a bit larger than a soldier's canteen. Why. Mignureal? Why, Lord I'Is?

He had acquired it months ago, easily and quickly, without knowing what it contained. Mignureal had never seen it and could not know about this container of quicklime. She could not know where he was going this night for he had only just decided (and that without quite admitting it to himself); she was Moonflower's daughter...

Stupid, cumbersome, senseless, he thought while he slipped the crock into a good oilskin bag he had lifted in the Bazaar. He secured it to his belt so that it rested on one buttock. And he touched the sandal of Thufir tacked above the door, and went forth.

The white blaze of the sun had hours since become yellow in its daily waning, and then orange. Now it squatted low and seemed to spray streamers of crimson across the darkening sky. It did not look at all like blood, Hanse told himself. Besides, soon it would be dark and his friends would be everywhere, in black and indigo and charcoal. The shadows.

I could use a good sword, the shadow thought, blending into another shadow. An eerie feeling still lay on him, from that business with Mignureal. Surely not even Kurd deserved quicklime! This long 'knife' from the Ilbarsi Hills is a good tool, he thought, to keep his mind on sensible, practical matters. But it's time I had a good sword.

I'll have to try and steal one.

'Thou shalt have a sword,' a voice said sonorously inside his head, a lion within the shadowed corridors of his mind, ';/ thou free'st my valued and loyal ally. Aye, and a fine sheath for it, as well. In silver!'

Hanse stopped. He was still and dark as the shadow of a tree or a wall of stone. He was good at it; six minutes ago four cautious people had passed close enough to touch him, and never knew he was there.

I want nothing of you, incestuous god of Ranke, he thought, almost speaking while a thousand ants seemed at play along his spine. Tempus serves you. I do not and will not.

Yet you do this night, seeking him, that silent voice that was surely the god Vashanka's said. And a cloud ate the moon.

No! I serve - I mean... I do not... No!... Tempus is my... my... I go to aid a fr- man who might help me! Leave me and go to him, jealous god of Ranke! Leave Sanctuary to my patron Shalpa the Swift, and Our Lord Ils. Ils, Ils, 0 Lord of a Thousand Eyes, why is it not You who speaks to me?

There was no reply. Clouds rolled and they seemed dark men astride dark horses that loped with manes and long tails aflow. Hanse felt a sudden chill absence of that presence in his mind. In a few seconds he was praying not to gods but cursing himself for giving heed to the delusions of a dark night, a night badly ruled by a moon pale as a Rankan concubine and now covered like the whore she was. The Swift-footed One ruled this night.

And Hanse went on, not in shadows now for there were no shadows; all the land was one vast shadow. Out of Sanctuary. Past lovers who neither saw nor heard this son of Shalpa the Shadowed One. On, to the beautifully tended gardens surrounding the house of a pasty-faced walking skeleton called Kurd and worse. The little crescent of moon pretended to return. It was only a ghost struggling weakly against clouds like restless shadows blotting the sky.

The well-tended, scented gardens provided a pleasant if un-needed cover. A gliding anthropomorphic shadow amid herbaceous shapes like looming shadows. Hanse went right up to the house. It too was dark.

No one wants to visit Kurd. No one considers trying to steal from Kurd. Why should it not be easy, then? Kurd must think he needs no precautions or defenders!

Still, he kept his lips over his teeth when he smiled. He glided into the fragrant shrubs, odd deciduous shrubs with long thin branchlets, set up close against Kurd's house, exulting in how simple it was, and then the bush's trailing tendrils moved, rustling, and turned, and twined, and clutched. And clamped. And Shadowspawn understood then that Kurd was not without exterior defences.

Even as he struggled - fruitlessly, against frutescence - he knew that the knowledge was gained too late. Whether this thing was bent on strangling him or twisting his limbs until they broke or merely holding him until someone came, it was more horribly effective than human guards or three watchdogs. Amid silent rustling horror Hanse tugged at the tendril more slender than a brooch-pin, and only cut his fingers. His knife he only dulled, sawing at a purposeful tendril that gave but refused to be cut. And they moved, twining, rustling, insinuating themselves between his arms and body and around his legs and arms and torso and -throat!

That one he fought until his fingers bled. It was relentless. Oye gods, no, no, not like this - he was going to die, silently strangled by a damned skinny plant's tendril!

He was, too. His 'N-' disposed of his last breath. He could not draw another. As his eyes started to bulge and a dull hum commenced to invade his ears on the way to becoming a roar and then eternal silence, it occurred to him that Kurd's garden could do more than strangle him. If it continued to tighten, it would slice in and in until it beheaded a strangled corpse.

Hanse fought with all his strength and the added power of desperation. As well have resisted the tide, or the sand of the desert. His movements became more restricted as his limbs were more and more constricted. Dizziness began to build like storm clouds and the hum rose to the roar of a gale.

So did the clouds above, and great big drops of water commenced to fall from the laden sky. That was just as eerie and impossible, for rain in Sanctuary fell in accord with the season, and this was not that season. The land was weeks away from the time called Lizard Summer, when lizards fried or were said to fry in their own juices, out on the desert.

What matter? Plants loved rain. And this one loved to kill. And it was killing Hanse, who was losing consciousness and feeling while his hearing became restricted to the roar inside his head. More rain fell and Hanse, dying, tried to swallow and could not and did what he thought he could never do: he began to give up.

Memory came like a white flash of late summer lightning. He heard her words as clearly as he had hours ago. 'Hanse - take the crossed brown pot with you.'

Even that blazing flare of hope seemed too late, for how could his bound arms detach the bag from his belt, open it, open the crock inside, and give this predatory plant a message it might understand?

Answer: he could not.

He could, however, dying, jerk his forearm four or five inches. He did, again and again, breathless, dying, losing consciousness but still moving, puncturing the leather bag again and again and banging the point of his knife off the pot which was smooth, glazed, well made, and 0 damn it all too damned hard\

It broke. Shards punched through knife holes and widened them to let quicklime spill down in a candent stream. Hanse was sure it hissed in the moist grass about the moist base of the strangler plant - but Hanse could not hear that hissing or anything else save the roar of a surf more powerful than life could withstand.

He slumped, dead now with streamers of caustic steam rising above his legs - and a suddenly frenetic shrub began waving and snapping its tendrils about as if caught by the very Compass Bag itself, whence issues the wind of every direction at once. In those whipping throes it not only released its prey, it hurled him several feet backwards. He lay sprawled, away from the plant and clear of the smoking corrosive death about its base, and the soles of his buskins smoked. Rain pelted his face and he lay still, still, while the killer plant died.

It was not raining in Sanctuary but out of a clear night sky came a sizzling bolt that hardly rocked the structure that grounded it. The graven name VASHANKA, however, abruptly disappeared from the facade of that structure, which was the Governor's Palace.

4

Oh damn, but my damned head aches!

Pox and plague, that's rain on my face and I'm getting soaked!

Holy cess- I'm alive!

None of these thoughts prompted Hanse to move, not for a longish while. Then he tried opening his mouth to let rain assuage a sore throat, and choked on the fifth or sixth drop. He sat up hurriedly. His grunt was not from his head, which felt fat and swollen and stuffed to bursting. He rolled swiftly leftward off a source of sharper pain. He had been lying on his back. Under him, thonged to his belt, had been the ruins of a nice leathern bag of broken pottery.

If I don't bleed to death I'll be picking pieces of pottery out of my tail for a week!

That thought made him angry and with a low groan he rose to glare triumphantly on the faintly smoking remnant of a destroyed shrub. Its neighbour looked almost as bad. Shadowspawn took no chances with it. Avoiding shrubs and indeed anything herbaceous that was larger than a blade of grass, he went to the nearest window. Just as he completed his slow slicing of the sheet of pig's bladder stretched over the opening, he heard the awful sound from within. A groan, long and wavery and hideous. Hanse went all over gooseflesh and considered heading for home.

He did not. He peeled aside the ruined window and peered into a dark room containing neither bed nor person. Mindful of his punctured and lacerated buttock, he went in. There was nothing to do about his head. He had, after all, been strangled to death. Or come so close that the difference wasn't worth considering -save that he was alive, which was absolutely all the difference that mattered.

After a long measured while of standing frozen, listening, staring in effort to make his eyes see, he moved. He heard nothing. No groan, no movement, no rain. The moon was back. It was not in line with the window, but it was up there and a little light sneaked in to aid a thief.

He found a wall, a jamb. Squatted, then went lower, wincing at rearward pain, to ensure that no light showed under the door. The latch was a simple press-down hook. He took his time depressing it. He took more time in slowly, slowly pulling open the door. It revealed a corridor or short hall.

While he wondered whether to go right or leftward, that ghastly sound of agony came again. This time a pulpy mumble underlay the moaning groan, and once again Hanse felt the icy, antsy touch of gooseflesh.

The sound came from his right. He slipped his knife back into its sheath, patted other sheathed knives, and undid the thong at his belt to get the bag off. That hurt, as a shard of pottery emerged from his clothing, and him. That hand he moved very slowly, mindful of the clink of broken pottery. He squinted before he glanced back, because he did not want his enlarged pupils to shrink.

The window showed a pretty night, small-mooned but dark of sky, without clouds or rain. Without even knowing that the rain had been confined to Kurd's grounds, Shadowspawn shivered. Did gods exist? Did gods help?

Hanse took a long step into the corridor and turned right. The bag swung at the end of its thong from his right hand. Just in case someone popped up, that might make him look less deadly: anyone sensible would assume him to be normally right-handed.

As he reached the end of the hall with a big door ahead and another on his left, someone popped up. The side door opened and light rushed forth. It flared from the oil lamp in the hand of a gnome-like man who wore only a long ungirt tunic; a nightshirt. 'Here -' he began and Hanse said 'Here yourself and hit him with the wet, rent bag of broken pottery. Since it struck the fellow in the face, he moaned and let go the lamp to rush both hands to . his bloodied face. 'Damn,' Hanse said, watching hot oil slosh on to the man's tunic and bare legs and feet. It also splashed wall and door and ran along the floor, burning. At the same time, a third groan of unendurable agony rose behind the other door, the big one still closed.

'Master!' Hanse screeched, high-voiced. 'FIRE!' And he shoved the squatty fellow backwards, kicked the burning lamp in after him, and yanked the door shut. Instantly he attacked the other one, and soon entered Hell.

Part of a man lay on a table, a short skinny fellow. He was even shorter and skinnier now, bereft of both legs and both arms, all his hair, and his left nipple with part of the pectoral. Even as Hanse shuddered, he knew there was only one form of rescue for this wretch. Ignoring the shining sharp instruments Kurd used, Hanse drew the arm-long blade those crazies up in the Ilbars Hills called a knife, got his best two-handed grip, and struck with all his might. Blood gushed and Hanse clamped his teeth against vomit. He had to strike again to complete the job. Now only a torso lay on the table, and a shuddering Shadowspawn clung to the weapon as he squinted around a chamber full of tables and thoughtfully provided with graded runnels in the floor, for the carrying off of blood.

'Thales?'

Two groans replied. One of them ended with 'help', weak as a kitten. It was not Tempus's voice, but Hanse went to that table.

'He - he - he's cut off my right arm and... and three fingers of my-my 1-1-le eft hannnd ... just 10 ... just to...' An enormous bodyshaking shudder refused to let the man finish.

'You do not bleed. Your legs? Feet?' Hanse was squinting without really wanting to see.

'I -I - they ... there...'

'Think,' Shadowspawn said, swallowing hard. 'I can cut these straps or your throat. Think, and choose.' He started to turn away.

'I am ... ali-i-ive ... I can wa-a-alk...'

Hanse sliced off the man's restraining straps. 'I seek Tempus.'

'You seek death here, thief!' a voice said, and light flooded the chamber.

Hanse didn't pause to reply or look to see who bore the light. He turned, plucking forth a guardless knife like a leaf of steel, and threw. Only then did he really look at the man in the doorway; throw once to disconcert, the second time with aim. Lean and more than lean the man was, pallid skin taut. A man in a voluminous nightshirt, a man to get a chill from a south wind in June. A man who held a cocked crossbow in one hand, awkwardly, and a closed lamp or lanthorn in the other, sleeve sliding back to show an arm of bone plated with parchment. Kurd.

He was ducking the whizzing knife that missed by several inches. The lanthorn Swung wildly, splashing lunatic flashes of yellow light off walls and floor and tables with ghastly stains. The doke should have put the light down first, Hanse thought, plucking out another sliver of sharp steel. With both hands on that little crossbow Kurd might be dangerous. Instead his arm was nailed to the door by a knife that caught cloth but only raked skin - there was no flesh - so that the monster cried out more in fear than in pain. The crossbow hit the floor, thunked, and sent its bolt thunk-twanging into a wall or a table leg or - Hanse didn't care.

'I'm here for Tempus, butcher. Just stand there and provide light. Move and I'll throw again.' He showed Kurd a third bright blade, sheathed it. 'You'd look good with another navel, anyhow.' Then he went to the source of the third groan. 'Oh, oh gods, oh, oh gods, why is this allowedT

No god answered the anguished query torn from Shadowspawn by the sight of Tempus.

Big blond Tempus answered, scarless and armless, and the answer came from a mouth without a tongue. He managed to make Hanse understand that three pins were stuck into each stump. Hanse steeled himself to pull them out before turning to gush vomit on to the grooved floor of Kurd's laboratory of torment, and whirled back to send such a glare at the vivisectionist that Kurd shivered and stood still as a statue, lanthorn held high.

Hanse cut Tempus loose and helped him sit up. The big man did not bleed. He bore various cuts, all of which looked old. They were not. He made stomach and heart wrenching sounds, ghastly noises that Hanse interpreted as 'I'll heal', which was just as ghastly. What was this man?

'Can you walk?'

More noises. Repeated. Again. Hanse thought he understood, and bent to look. Yes. Minus some toes, Tempus had said. He was. Three. No, four. The middle one was gone from the left foot

'Thales, there's only me and I can't carry you. I freed another and he can't help. What shall I do?'

It took Tempus a long while to make him understand, trying to form words without a tongue, and once Kurd moved. Hanse turned to see the other freed wretch fleeing past the vivisectionist. Hanse threatened and Kurd froze. He held the lantern in a quivering hand at the end of a wavering arm.

Strap Kurd to a table, Tempus had said. Where's servant?

Kurd answered that one, once he had a knife at his flat gut. His gardener and sole retainer was unconscious.

'Oh,' Hanse said, 'he'll want to be bound, then,' and worked the blade out of sleeve and door. With a knife in either hand, he gestured. 'Hang the lanthorn.'

'You can't -'

Hanse poked him with sharp steel. 'I can. Run complain to the Prince-Governor as soon as you can. You can also die now, which would be a shame. But I'll try to stick you in the belly, low, just deep enough so you'll be a day or three about dying. Of gangrene, maybe. Hang that lanthorn, monster!'

Kurd did, on the hook that was, naturally enough, beside the door. He turned to meet Hanse's foot driving straight up between his skinny shanks. It impacted with a jar.

'Something for your balls, if you have one,' Hanse said, and didn't even glance at the man who sank all bulge-eyed and gasping to his knees, with both hands in the predictable position. Hanse hurried to where the gardener lay, not even covered by the blanket his master had used to smother the fire. By the time Hanse finished trussing him with strips of his nightshirt, the gnomish fellow would starve before he freed himself.

Minutes later his master was strapped to one of his own tables. Hanse gagged him, because Kurd had left off threatening to plead and make the most ridiculous promises. Hanse returned to Tempus.

'They couldn't get loose for a roomful of gold, Thales. Now how in the name of every god am I to get you out of here and back to town, friend?'

Tempus required five minutes and more to make himself understood. Don't. Lay me back. I'll heal. The toes first. Tomorrow I'll be able to walk. Wine?

Hanse laid him back. Hanse fetched wine and blankets and some sort of gruelly pudding. Knowing that Tempus hated his helplessness, Hanse fed him, helped him guzzle about a gallon of wine, arranged him, covered him, checked Kurd and his servant, made sure the house was locked, and roamed it.

Surgeon's tools, a bag of coins, and a pile of bedding he piled outside the door to the chamber of scientific experimentation. He would not lie in a monster's bed, or on one of those tables! He slept, at last, on the floor. On bedding from the gardener's chamber, not Kurd's. He wanted nothing of Kurd's.

Valuable knives and the bag of money were different.

He awoke at dawn, looked in on three sleeping men, marvelled, and left that place that was nine times more horrible by day. He found a sausage, considered, and chose flatbread instead. Only the gods and Kurd knew what sort of meat comprised that sausage. In a shed Hanse found a cart and a mule. He had to do some chopping and some seating. At last he got Tempus out of the ruined house and into the cart padded with hay. Hanse covered him amid shudders. Tempus's cuts looked days older, nearly healed.

'Would you like a few fingers or nose or something of Kurd to accompany you out of here, Thales?'

Almost, Tempus frowned. '

'0,' he said, and Hanse knew it was a, no. 'You want to, uh, leave them for ... later?' Tempus's reply was almost a yes, for me.

Hanse got him out of there. He used much of Kurd's money to buy the place and services of a tongueless, nearly blind old woman, along with some soft food, wine, blankets and cloak, and he went away from them with a few coins and hideous memories.

The coins bought him expensive treatment from a leech who dared not chuckle or comment as he cleaned and bandaged a buttock with multiple lacerations, which he said would heal beautifully.

After that Hanse was sick in his room for the better part of a week. The remaining three coins bought him anaesthetic in the form of strong drink.

For another week he feared that he would encounter Tempus on the street or someplace, but he did not. After that, amid rumours of some sort of insurrection somewhere near, he began to fear that he would never see Tempus, and then of course he did see him. Healed and scarless. Hanse went home and threw up.

He traded a few things for more strong drink, and he got drunk and stayed that way for a while. He just didn't feel like stealing, or facing Tempus, or Kadakithis either. He did dream, of two gods and a girl of sixteen or so. Ils and Shalpa and Mignureal. And quicklime.