Storm Season

GODSON by Andrew J. Offutt

Hanse did not want to be a soldier or a member of the Sacred Band ofTempus, the Stepsons, and most especially not a Stepson-in-training or any other dam' thing in-training. He wanted most definitely and most desperately to be Shadowspawn; to be Hanse. That remained elusive. It was a problem, just being. He did not know that many spent their lives looking for whoever or whatever it was that they were or might be, and if he had known it would not have helped a midge worth. He was Hanse, by Ils! Not Hons or Honz or Hanz; I am Hanse?

The problem was that he was not sure what that meant.

Who was Hanse? What was Hanse?

0 Cudget, if only they had not slain you! You'd have shown me and told me, wouldn't you?

It had used to be so simple. Life was simple. There was the city called Sanctuary, and in it were empty bellies, and some that were full. That was simple: it described lions (or jackals, but never mind that) and prey. And there was Cudget Swearoath, and Hanse his apprentice in whom he was well pleased, and there were the marks-the human sheep. And the shadows, to facilitate their fleecing.

It was all the world there was or needed be; a microcosm, a thieves' world.

And now! Now there were the Rankans who swaggered and Prince Kadakithis who really did not but who ruled, governed; and Tempus-0 ye gods, there was Tempus! and his mercenary friends, who swaggered-and nothing was simple.

Now a god had spoken to Hanse-Hanse!- and then another, and Hanse had rather they just kept to themselves. The business of soldiers was killing and the business of Prince-Governors was ruling and killing and the business of gods was godding and the business of one smallish dark thief of thieves' world was thieving.

But now Shadowspawn was agent for gods.

Sword clanged on sword and well-guided blade slid along brilliantly interposed blade with a screech as loud as the grinding of a personal ax. That shrill ugliness was punctuated by a grunt chorused from two throats.

"Stopped me again, Stealth," one combatant grunted, stepping back and twitching his head sharply to the side. Sweat crept like persistent oil from his black mop under the blood-red sweat-band and into his eyebrows. He jerked his head to send it flying; the gesture carried all the constant impatience of youth.

"Barely," the other man said. He was bigger though not much older and in a way his face was more boyish than that of his opponent, who had for years cultivated a mean, menacing look he knew made him look older, and dangerous. The bigger man was fair in contrast to the other. His hair was as if splashed or streaked with silver so that it was cinerous.

"I own it, Shadowspawn: you are good and you are a natural. Now. Want to work a bit from the saddle?" His enthusiasm showed in his face and added bright color to his voice.

"No."

The one called Stealth waited a moment; the one called Shadowspawn did not embellish on that word which, when spoken flat and unadorned, was one of the four or five harshest and most unwelcome words in any language.

The man called Stealth masked his disappointment. "All right. How about... your stones, then?"

His last words emerged in a shout as the paler man moved, at speed. His sword was a silver-gray blur, up-whipping. It rushed on up, too, for the wiry fellow in the dust-colored tunic pounced up and aside, not quite blurring. He simply was not present to receive the upward cut at the source of progeny he might produce, like more bad virus upon the world. The other man arrested his movement to prepare alertly for a counter-stroke.

No counter-stroke was attempted. It did not come. Shadowspawn had quit the game. They looked at each other, the expert teacher called Stealth and the superb student he called Shadowspawn.

The latter spoke. "Enough, Niko. I'm weary of the sham."

"Sham? Sham, you weed-sprout? Had you not moved you'd be a candidate for the temple choir of soprano boys, Hanse!"

Hanse called Shadowspawn smiled little and when he did he smiled small, and often the smile was a sneer that fitted and mirrored his inner needs. It was a sneer now. Still, it was not of disdain or contempt for this member of the so called Sacred Band, the Stepsons, who had taught him so much. He had been a natural fighter and unusually swift. Now he was a trained one, with knowledge and ways of combative science that made him even swifter.

"But I did move, Niko; I did move. Tell Tem-pus how I move, you he set to teach me to be a bladesman. And tell him that still I have no desire to be a soldier. No desire to do murder, 'nobly' or no."

Niko stared at him.

Damned... boy, he mused. Oh, but I'm weary of him and his sneers and his snot. I have known only war. He, who has never known it, dares sneer at it and its practitioners. Neither of us had a father-I because mine was slain-in war when I was a child; this posturing backstreet blade-bristling night-thief because his mother and his father were nodding acquaintances at best. Nor would I change places with this . . . this little gutter-rat, so happy in his provincial ignorance and his total inconsequence. I had rather be a man.

And I have made him a fighter, a real fighter, so that now he swaggers even more!

"And look you to keep your valuables 'neath your pillow, Niko. Stealth, for I am shadow-spawned stealth, and have seen even the bed of the Prince-Governor . . . and of Tempus."

Niko of the Stepsons showed nothing and did not respond. Inside, he seethed only a little. Petty insults were cheap, cheap. As cheap as barely nubile yet experienced professional girls in the shadowy Maze that spawned this naive youth and served him as nest and den. Niko stepped back a pace, formally. Holding his blade up before squinting eyes, he turned it for his examination before putting it away in one swift smooth motion.

The Sanctuarite was not so insolent as to keep his weapon naked in his hand. He too held it out and turned it for inspection at the squint, and took hold of his scabbard with his right hand, and turned his blade toward himself without ever moving the dark, dark eyes that now gazed at his teacher. And he housed the blade 'neath but not through the hand on its sheath. With pride.

"Nicely done," Niko could not quite help saying.

Not because he felt the need to compliment, or enjoyed it; but because there was both edge and gratification in reminding both of them who had taught this wearer of so many blades the maneuver he had just demonstrated.

(A man might draw at an untoward sound or to dispatch an enemy, Niko had told Hanse. And having done, see to the housing of his blade at his side. At that moment, while he held scabbard and looked down to see to its filling, he was vulnerable. It was then the clever maker of the "innocent" noise or the hidden confederate of the new-slain man might pounce, and there was an end to sheathing and unsheathing, all at once. Thus a sensible man of weapons learned to bring his blade up and over and back, its point toward himself, and guide it into its sheath with a waiting off-hand. Meanwhile his eyes remained alert for the sudden charge.

(Yes, Nikodemos called Stealth had taught even that to Hanse. For Tempus owed him debt, and yet he and Tempus were no longer quite frinds. And so Niko paid as Tempus's agent: he trained this wiry, cocky hawk-nose called Hanse.)

"Your shield!" Hanse called.

Niko glanced at it, leaning against a mud-brick wall with Hanse's buckler beside it. They had slipped them off and set them there a pint of sweat ago, to practice with blades alone. Now Hanse turned and drew and threw all in one motion fluid as a cat's pounce, arm going out long and down in fellow-through, andthunk one of his damned knives appeared in Niko's shield. It stood there, quivering like a breeze-blown cat-tail.

Hanse pounced after it, all wiry and cat-lithe and dark.

He retrieved the knife, giving his wrist the little twist that plucked forth an inch of flat blade from bossed wood capable of withstanding a good ax-blow. Almost distractedly he slipped it back into its sheath up his right arm.

Hanse half-turned to flash teeth at his teacher-at-arms but not at knife throwing, and he saluted. Then he turned and faded around the building and was gone, although the sun was still orangey-yellow and the late-day shadows only thinking about gathering to provide him his natural habitat.

"Shadowspawn," Niko muttered, and went to retrieve his shield and seek out Tempus. Deliver me from this insolent Ilsigi in his painful youth, Tempus? Take away this bitter cup you have had me lift, and lift to my lips, and Irft?

Hanse moved away, wearing a tight little smile that really did not enhance his looks.

He was proud. Pleased with himself. Too, he liked Niko. There was no way he could not, and not respect him too, just as there was (almost, at least) no way he could admit or show it.

He had let Tempus know he liked him while claiming to care about no one, and had gone and got him out of the dripping hands of that swine, Kurd. Kurd the vivisectionist. One who sectioned, who sliced, the vibrantly living. Tempus, for instance. Among others.

After the horror of the house of Kurd, Hanse was an uncharacteristically pensive fellow; a different Hanse. The eeriness of a regenerated Tempus was almost more than he could bear. Immortal! 0 gods of us all-immortal, a human newt who survived all and healed all and regrew even vivisectioned parts-scarless!

Nor had that enigmatic and ever-scornful immortal said aught concerning Hanse's expenses in freeing him, or his promise to retrieve a certain set of laden moneybags from a certain well up on Ea-a certain place.

Oh, it had cost.

For weeks Hanse had been idle. He did nothing. No; he did do something; he drank. His income stopped. He even sold some of his belongings to buy the unwatered wine he had always avoided.

Even so he did not sell the gift of a dead Stepson; an entirely mortal one. It hung now on the wall of Hanse's lodgings: a fine, fine sword in a silvered sheath. He would not wear it. He would not touch it. Only he was sure that it was not the gift of that dead man but of a god. Tempus's god, Who had spoken to Hanse and rewarded him for his rescue of His servant Tempus-as that god, Vashanka, had promised.[i]

That sword hung, minus its silver sheath, on Hanse's wall. The scabbard trailed down his right leg. It was wrapped all in dull black leather, knotted and pegged and knotted again. Nor was he one with the mercenaries cluttering the city, bullying the city, and he had no wish to be.

Hanse had another need for becoming proficient with arms, and better than proficient. It was Hanse's secret, and it was bigger than Sanctuary itself.

He collected from Tempus, though not in coin. That immortal had offered to make him a bladesman. (As for the horse . . . well, it was something of value and prestige, at least. Horses and Hanse were not friends and he hoped never never to fight from the back of one. But for a horse, he'd be rich!)[ii]

Tempus did not know why Hanse had changed his mind and sent word that he was minded to learn swordsmanship. He was pleased, Hanse was sure of that. Just as he and his ego were sure that he must be the best student Niko had ever had. Already, he was sure, he was incredibly good. Hanse never needed the same instruction twice. He never repeated an error. He was good. Niko said so, and Niko spoke for Tem-pus.

Leaving Niko now, the thief called Shadowspawn wore a tight little smile. It was the pleased smile of one on whom a god has smiled; a pleased but enigmatic smile. He says that I am good.

I hope so, Vashanka's minion, he mused. Oh, I hope so. And I hope Vashanka finds me better than good!

Hanse wended home, compact and lithe and darkly menacing, weighted with blades at leg and hips and arms. There were those who were in the act of departing this place or that but waited within doorways until he had passed; there were those who stepped aside for him though he made no hostile move. They did not like it, or like themselves for doing it, but they would do it again, for this menacing street-tough.

Hanse went home. I'm ready, he thought, and tight-smiled.

After that business with Kurd and with Tempus and the absolute ghastliness of Tempus's mutilations-and the ghastlier reality of his complete recovery even unto regrowing several parts-Hanse had taken to drink.

He was not a drinker. Never had been. That was no deterrent to millions of others and it was not to Shadowspawn. So he drank. He drank to find an alternate state, an alternate reality, and he succeeded admirably in achieving the unad mirable.

The problem was that he did not like that. Getting away from everything was getting away from Hanse, and Hanse was the poor wight he was trying to find.

0 Cudget, if only they had not slain you-you'd have shown me and told me as always, wouldn't you?

(Put another way, he had been shaken badly and dived for solace into a lake of alcohol. He stayed there, and he was drunk quite a lot of the time. He didn't like that either; he didn't even like the taste of the stuff. Most especially he didn't like the way he felt when sleep stopped his body and let it awake with a mouth like vinegar and the desert all at once, a mouth with the feel of a public restroom for horses and a tongue in need of a curry-comb and a stomach he'd willingly have traded for a plate of pigs' trotters and a head he'd have traded for nearly anything at all. Something had come loose in there and was rolling around, and it banged against the inside of his head when he moved it. Alcohol helped. More scales off the snake that had bit him. That merely started the whole process again. Besides, he preferred control, control or some feeling of it. Strong drink washed that away on a river of vomit and sank it with explosive belches and retching.

(He had the need for control, back there in the barely lighted shadows of his mind. All dark, back in there, in the mind of the bastard son from the wrong side of everything. He had never been in control, and so sought it, or its semblance. He had no need for any drug, and now he knew he had no desire for it either. Not to mention head or stomach.

(That was that. Hanse was off the sauce.)

He returned to being what most others were, certainly most who were his age: a creature of his own subconscious, a stranger dwelling within him, and he lived as its captive.

One day someone mentioned his "obvious sense of honor"-and it was obvious-as he put it. Learned, that fellow said, from Hanse's respected mentor Cudget Swearoath, master thief. And Shadowspawn sneered and looked menacing. That the innocent spewer of insults offered to buy him a drink did not advance his cause or Hanse's mental state in the least measure. The poor fellow soon remembered an important appointment elsewhere, well apart from Hanse, and he repaired there at speed. Hanse predictably spent the rest of that day behaving as if he had no notion what honor might be.

And still he sought, and remembered.

"Thou shalt have a sword," that voice had said inside his head, a lion agrowl in the shadowed corridors of his mind, "if thou free'st my valued and loyal ally. Aye, and a fine sheath for it, as well. In silver!"

Hanse knew fear and some anger; he wanted nothing of that incestuous god of Ranke, for it had to be Vashanka whom Tempus served close. No? I serve-I mean... I do not... No? Tempus is my... my... I go to aid a fr-a man who might help me, he tried to tell that god in his mind, for he admitted to no friends and had sworn to Tempus that he had none and wanted none. He who had friends was vulnerable, and Hanse much preferred his image of himself as a separate room, a person apart, an island.

Leave me and go to him, jealous god of Ranke? Leave Sanctuary to my patron Shalpa the Swift, and Our Lord Ils. Ils, 0 Lord of a Thousand Eyes, why is it not You who speaks to me?

Yet a miracle surely transpired that night, and it served to save the life of Hanse and thus of Tempus, whom Hanse freed. Hanse knew no pride in having served and been saved by the god of the Rankan overlords, and he found his lake of alcohol. When he emerged and dried out, he was still troubled.

He was not the first in such straits to have turned god-ward.

Not Vashanaka-ward! On four separate occasions he had visited the sanctuaries of Us and Shipri All-mother, His spouse. Ils, god of the Ilsigi who long ago fled one land and found this one, and founded Sanctuary. (There was no temple to their fourthborn, Shalpa, who shared birthdate with his sister Eshi. Shalpa was He to Whom There is no Temple, and The Shadowed One, in his night-dark cloak. He was Shalpa the Swift, too. Shalpa of the night, and untempled: patron of athletes and of thieves.)

Hanse went avisiting the house of gods, and came the time there he felt his hair quiver and start up while his stomach went chill and as if empty, for he felt sure that one of Them spoke to him. A god, aye.

Us Himself? Shalpa His son? (Considering his recent drinking, Hanse later wondered if it might more likely have been Anen. He was firstborn of Ils and Shipri, and he was patron of bibbers and taverners.)

Whoever it was spoke to him in his head, it was not Vashanka, not there in the house of the gods of Ilsig.

Hanse of the Shadow, Chosen of Ilsig, Son of the Shadow.

We exist. We are here. Believe. And look for this ring.

He saw it. The gaud appeared from nowhere and hung there before his eyes. Now it was as if solid, and now he seemed to see through it, into the temple appointments beyond. A ring that seemed a single piece of gold, unfused, and set all about with twinkling little blue-white stones like stars. In its center a big tiger's-eye, caged in gold bands. And that orange-yellow gemstone, that tiger-eye-seemed to stare at him, as if it was more than merely a chatoyant stone of quartz fibers.

And then it was gone, and so was the voice that had been inside his head, addressing him- hadn't it? Had it?-and he was left slumped and slick all over with sweat. He had to apply his mind and then make conscious effort even to close his mouth. The temple's coolth had become chill.

After a while he felt strong enough to move. Move he did, for he was not minded to remain there in that joint temple ofllshipri. He departed, all prickly still and wet with sweat even down his legs. He squinted on leaving the dimness of the temple, for the time was mid-afternoon, not night at all.

Had it begun then, even in daylight?-the hallucinations, the false feeling of importance that was a lie swarming up like a nest of spiders from the lees of swilled wine?

Or did I hear-could I have heard ... a god? . The god?

He had walked from the temple, seeing nothing and no one. A person apart and an island indeed! Until, as if a hood had been lifted off his head to bare his eyes, he saw Mignureal.

She came directly toward him, looking at him, that S'danzo daughter of his friend Moonflower of the Seeing eyes. Moonflower who so well knew him-and did not want him having aught to do with her daughter. Mignureal. Heading purposefully toward him, gazing at him. A girl who looked thirteen and was older, long since pubertous and interested in Hanse-fascinated with Hanse as a woman is ever fascinated by and with the rascal. It pleased her to act as if she was thirteen, not a woman of sixteen, most of whose age-peers were wedded or at least bedded.

"My daughter is very young and thinks you are just so romantic a figure," that great big woman said, who was such a pretty little woman inside the masses of flesh her husband so loved. "Will you just pretend she is your sister?"

"Oh you would not want that," Hanse had assured her, in one of those rare revelations as to the sort of childhood he must have had. "She is my friend's daughter and I shall call her cousin."

Hanse meant that promise. Besides, Mignureal had seen him quaking and blubbering with fear, a victim of that fear-staff of the perverse gods, and he did not care to look her in the eyes. It was she who had rescued him and led him, a tremulous mouse helpless against the power turned on him, back to her mother.

And now here she came, bearing some colorful bundle. Small and dark and yet not at all a creature of night and shadows as he was. Mignureal was a creature of day and this day in her bright yellow skirt she wore a strange look, as if she was drugged.

If she is, Hanse thought fiercely, I will beat her and take her home and curse Moonflower for allowing it to happen to this... this dear maiden.

But then he stopped thinking. She was before him, stopping and forcing him to stop. And when she spoke her voice was odd and flat as her eyes, emotionless as her face. She spoke as if she said words she had only learned-the words, not their meaning-like a girl who had leamt her part for some temple rite on a god day.

Dark brown eyes like garnets and just as lacking in softness, she said, "You are invited to dinner tomorrow night. You will be in no danger. Wear this clothing. The place is known to you. It is long unpeopled, but its water is a silver pool. The silver is your own, Son of the Shadow, Chosen ofllsig. Come, tomorrow even as the sun sets, .to the aerie of the great ruler of the air."

Without blinking, she pressed into his hands that which she carried, and turned and ran in a butterfly flurry of yellow skirts and streaming blue-black hair. Hanse stood, stupidly staring after her until she rounded a corner and was gone down another street. Then he looked down at his gift. All in shades of blue and some green, with a flash of yellow-gold embroidery. A fine tunic, and a cloak considerably better than good. Good clothing!

Clothing so fine existed in Sanctuary, of course. No S'danzo girl had any of it though, nor did a youth who gained his living by stealth.

Whence, then, came this soft fabric?

From the same place those words came from, he thought, for they were not Mignureal's words. And again the phrases Son of the Shadow and Chosen of Ilsig! A shiver claimed Hanse then, and possessed him for a long moment.

" 'Day to you, Hanse-ah! I see you had a good night, 's more like it, hum?" And that acquaintance went on smiling, for what else could he think? Where else could Hanse have gained such a bundle of finery, save through a bit of climbing and breaking-and-entering on yesternight?

Hanse stood directing thoughts to his feet, and at last they began to respond. He walked on, trying to make his bundle as small as he could, lest some member of the City Watch espy him, or a Hell-Hound from the palace, or someone nosy enough to consider turning him in or blabbing it about that Hanse had stolen good soft, decorated clothing sufficient to pay his room's rent for the next twelvemonth.

Hanse had received coded messages beforetimes, and had devised the meaning. He did so this time. He knew where he was invited. (Invited? Bidden! Summoned!) Away up on the craggy hill now called Eaglebeak was a long untenanted manse. It lay partially in ruins, that magnificent home its long-ago builder and tenant had called Eaglenest. Nearby, beyond scattered fallen columns and tumbled stones, rotted planking marked a well. Down in that well languished two leathern bags. Saddlebags. Hanse knew they were there, for he had put them there, in a way, though it had not been his intent.

He hoped they were there, for they contained a great deal of silver coins, and a few that were gold.

They were the ransom of the Rankan symbol of power, the staff called Savankh, which a thief called Shadowspawn had stolen from the palace of the Prince Governor. The P-G knew they were there, but had agreed that they would remain Hanse's property. Hanse had, after all, uncovered a spy and a plot and saved Prince Kadakithis's face, if not his life.

But for a horse and a dead man named Bourne, Hanse would have had all that gleaming fortune in his possession, rather than "banked" down in the earth, atop a hill, in a narrow well that was like to have been the death of him!

He was to go to Eaglebeak, then. To dine in dark and deserted aerie: Eaglenest! So he quietly told Moonflower. For aye, once again he betook himself to her in quest of information and advice. (Mignureal was not about when he approached, and neither he nor Moonflower was sorry.)

He sat before her now in his nondescript tunic the color of a field mouse, his feet in dusty buskins, knees up. And only three blades showing on him. He sat on the ground and she on her stool. The fact that she overflowed all around was disguised by her voluminous skirts; Moonflower wore red and green and ochre and blue and another shade of green. Across her lap lay his new clothing.

She fondled and sniffed and tasted it, closed her eyes and drew it through her dimple-backed hands. And all the while she was moving her lavender-tinted lips. The vastness of her bosom was almost still as her breathing slowed, her heartbeat slowed, her muttering slowed and she slid away from herself, a great gross kitten at her divining.

No charlatan, this mother of eleven who had raised nine, but one with the Gift, the power. Moonflower Saw.

Now she Saw for Hanse as she had before, and he was not all that happy with it. Nor was she, even in trance.

"I See you, darling boy, all nobly turned out in this finery, and I See a great light hosting y-oh! Oh, oh Hanse ... it is, it is He! Here is Hanse, aye, and here is He, Himself-Us, god of gods! And I See... ah! Hmp. I like not what else I See, for it is Mignue, my Mignue, with you and the Lord of Lords."

He nodded, frowning. That was her pet name for her daughter. He accepted that somehow Mignureal was a part of this... whatever this was.

"Ah! Here is Hanse with a sword, and wielding it well, well ... for a god, Hanse, soldierly Hanse I See... for a god, against a god!"

Against a god. Father Ils, what means this all? What would you make of me? And he had an idea: "Who... who gave me the sword?"

"A bas-no, no, a foster son. Ah-a stepson. Yes. A s-"

"And who gave me the clothing? Is that Mignureal?"

"Mignue? No, oh no, she is a good g-ah. I see her. Eshi! It is Eshi Herself who has given you this clothing, Han-" And she shuddered of a sudden, and sagged, and her eyes came alive to stare into his. "Hanse? Did I See? Was it of value?"

He nodded. He was unable to look other than grim. "You Saw, 0 Passionflower. This time I must owe you, beyond the binding coin." (Which she had already dropped into that warm crevasse she called her Treasure Chest.)

Eshi, Hanse thought. Eshi!

A jealous and passionate god, Ils created all the world, and from his bodily wastes He peopled it. The gods He created from his two extra toes, and the eons passed and the first-created challenged Ils. This was Gunder, and he lost. He was hurled to the earth. His daughter Shipri, though, was thrice-fair, and her the great Lord Ils spared-and couched. By him Shipri became All-mother; of him she bore Shils, and Anen, and Thufir, and the twins Shalpa and Eshi, their first daughter, and another; the god no one spoke of. Now Anen was called firstborn, for jealous, passionate Ils sinned; in rage he slew his firstborn son, Shils.

Eshi. Much spoken of She was, and prayed to as well, but it was little reverence she gained. Everyone knew that she was a sensuous beauty who sought out and had her way with each of her brothers, and indeed sought to bring to couch even her father. In that She failed; even Ils was not that passionate, and one sin for a god was enough.

Eshi was fond of jewellery, and so gemworkers took a manifestation of her as patron. She was known to love love, and thus lovers, of course. Cows were special to her, and so were cats. Her sign was the liver, which any child learned early was the seat of love and its younger sibling, infatuation. Eshi!

Aye, Hanse thought. She loves jewellery and thus the ring; cats are sacred to her and thus the stone: the eye of a cat. Somehow it was pleasant thus to find some small comfort of logic in all this that clearly had naught to do with logic. Gods! He was involved with the very gods!

Mignureal came along just as he was departing. She asked about the handsome clothing he carried! Obviously she had never seen it before, and Hanse blinked. His eyes swerved in her mother's direction. She was staring at her daughter.

"Into the house, Mignue," she said, with uncommon sharpness. "See to the preparation of the leeks and yeni-sprouts your father fetched home for dinner."

Hanse went away thoughtful and shaken while Moonflower sat staring at nothing. She was a mother, and she too was shaken, and passing nervous.

For Hanse the next twenty-six hours rode by on the backs of snails. He slept not well and his dreams were not for the repeating.

Attired in such a way as to arouse the envy of a successful merchant, Hanse completed his ascent to Eaglebeak just after the sun began sliding off the edge of the world. Continuing cautious and too apprehensive to hurry, he picked his way through a jumble of tumbled columns and jagged stones habited only by spiders and serpents, lizards and scorpions, a few snails, and the most insistent of scrubby plants. These owned Eaglebeak now, and Eaglenest. All here had been murdered long and long ago. They were said still to haunt the place, that merchant and his family. And so the hilltop and once-fine estate-house were avoided.

Even so a great portion of the manse stood, and some of it was even under roof. Green-bordered blue cloak fluttering, his emerald-hued tunic with its purfling of yellow gold an unwontedly soft caress on his thighs, Hanse approached a doorless entry. It yawned dark, and still the ancient dark stains splashed the jamb; the blood of murder. He cast many anxious looks this way and that, and he did not hurry. For once he was not pleased to go into shadows.

He was met and greeted. Not by Ils or a beauteous woman, either!

Oh she was female, all right, and indeed shapely in a warm deep pink, a long gown sashed with red and hemmed with silver. The dress was lovely and rich and her figure was lovelier than that but even so the most striking aspect of her was her face. She had none.

Hanse stopped very abruptly and stared. At nothing. It was as if his gaze somehow swerved away from the face of this woman who greeted him, putting forth one lovely smooth hand.

The hand was adorned with a single ring. Hanse recognized it. He had seen it yesterday, in the sky-aspiring temple of Ilshipri.

"Don't be fearful, Hanse of the Shadows, Chosen of Ilsig, Son of Shadows." It was a very nice voice, and unconditionally female.

"Of one who has no face on her? Oh, of course not!"

Her laughter was a stream of bright quicksilver in sunshine. "Choose a face then," she bade him, and proceeded to give him a choice.

The air shimmered above her shoulders and a head formed, and a face. It was not comforting. Hanse was looking at Lirain. Lirain, who had conspired with another against Kadakithis, and sought to use Hanse (and succeeded), and who was dead for her crime, and her pretty face gone with her. It disappeared now, to become the piquant features of the royal concubine who had been unlucky enough to be present the night he stole the Savankh from the Prince-Governor's own bedchamber. When last Hanse had seen this one she was bound as he'd left her. He could not even remember her na-oh. Taya. No matter. She was becoming someone else.

"Uh!"

That gasp was elicited by Taya's vanishing to be replaced by ... Moonflower! Aye, Moonflower, earrings, chins and all!

"No thank you," Hanse was able to say, and felt better for it.

Far more shocking was the next visage, one he recognized after a few moments of gaping. The woman he had seen murdered for her terror rod out by Fanner's Market, less than two months ago! Before he could protest, she had flickered away after the others, and Hanse swallowed. Now he gazed close upon a face he knew and had always wished could be closer. She was the smiling and truly beautiful daughter of Venerable Shafralain. Esaria her name, a girl of seventeen or eighteen-the Lady Esaria! A beauty he had watched and about whom he had entertained phantasies rather more than once or thrice.

"You know," Hanse blurted, with more breath than voice. "You bring out these faces from my own memory!"

Already Esaria was becoming Mignureal, sweet-faced Mignureal, who gazed serenely at him-and spoke.

"You are invited to dinner tomorrow night. You will be in no danger. Wear this clothing. The place is known to you. It is long unpeopled, and its water is a silver pool. The silver is your own, Son of the Shadow, Chosen of Ilsig."

And of course now he knew who his greeter was. It was not possible, but then none of it was.

"Whom shall I be to your eyes tonight, Son of Shadow?"

Hanse replied with surely a great stroke of genius, and made the most brilliantly diplomatic utterance of his life.

"The thrice-beauteous face of the Lady Eshi from the statue in the temple of Eshi Radiant," he said-

And She was, smiling delightedly, ever so pleased. She embraced him with warmth and Hanse nearly collapsed.

Her hand clasping his with warmth, she led him into that ruined and murkily shadowed once-luxury manse ... and it was again! Everywhere candles sprang into lambence, with constant flashes and continuing unnatural brightness. Bright, bright light, revealing perfect inlaid floors that were works of art and walls all alive and acolor with mosaic-work. Along a high-soaring hall he was led, and into a palatial dining hall, and here too all came alight with the brightness of day.

At the far-far!-end of a genuinely long table of fine inlaid wood sat ... a shadow. And a man ...

Hanse tore loose his hand from the warm grasp of a god and backed a pace with a hissing whisper of soft-soled buskins.

"Cudget!" he all but shouted. "Oh no, no, Cudget-they killed you, Cudget!" And his voice broke. _

The voice that replied was not Cudget's, but was male, and warmth itself. Somehow it made Hanse feel good; all warm.

"It is in the nature of gods to be self-directed, what you call selfish. Sometimes we forget your mortal attachments, unbroken by death. I thought you would like the face of your mentor and late best friend and foster father, my beloved friend and servant Hanse. My own visage is only Light; Lambence; Candence. For I have not a thousand eyes you know, not really."

"You... cannot be ..."

"Hanse-take the crossed brown pot with you," Cudget said in Mignureal's voice, and only she and Hanse knew that she had said those words to him one night of evil. (Or did she?) And then Cudget was speaking on, in another voice that Hanse did not at first recognize. Then he did-it was his own! He remembered the words, from the night he had gone to Kurd's and nearly died-no! He had not uttered those words! He had but thought them, and only he could know them: "0 Ils, god of my people and father of Shaipo my patron? It is true that Tempus Thaies serves Vashanka Tenslayer. But help us, help us both, lord Ils, and I swear to do all I can to destroy Vashanka Sister-wrfer or drive him hence, if only You will show me the way!"

On hearing those words issue in his voice from the Being at the far end of the long table, Hanse could only stare.

"Only two could know that prayer of yours, Hanse. Only two not just in all the world, but in all the universe. You are one; the other is He who hears all words directed to him, whether they are uttered by tongue or mind only."

Pale, Hanse could only gasp forth shaky words: "Lord... God."

"Yes," the warm voice spoke from that lam-bence.

Hanse had elected not to genuflect on meeting a prince of Ranke. Now, upon meeting that god Who was god of gods, he was far too shaken to think of falling to his knees.

Lord Ils proved that he was no mere king or emperor or religious leader, to insist upon such displays. Neither egoism nor egotism marked gods. They had no need of either. They were gods. Cudget's face vanished and again Hanse was forced to squint. Someone still sat at table's end in that big dining hall, but there was no face at all now. There was only light.

Eyes almost closed, Hanse was forced to look away from it-and discovered that now he looked upon a goddess, all in deep warm pink bordered with silver and sashed with scarlet. With jewels flashing in the deep indigo silk of her hair; or perhaps they were stars.

The voice of warmth spoke.

"Yes," it said again. "Cheated of strength in my own lands, but not drained, Hanse Son of Shadow. The intensity of belief of one who had sneered at gods, and his loyalty that is not automatic but learned, volunteered-it is you I speak of, Hanse-these aided Me. For gods and mortals are mutually dependent, Hanse.

"My cousin Savankala's son Vashanka has waxed here by the power of belief of one variously called the Riddler, and Thales, and Tem-pus, as well as the Engineer, and Sea-born. We need not concern you with who he really is. Vashanka wished his freedom one night; wished it enough to bargain with Me. It required only the efforts of Shalpa my son to cloud the skies that night. Because the climate of your land is what it is, both Vashanka's power and Mine were required to send rain that night, when you needed water to survive the plant-that-kills. Naturally I made bargain with Vashanka ere I helped him-because I knew Vashanka would bargain to help you save Tempus!

"Having agreed, Vashanka himself made a concession: Vashanka himself struck his name from the palace of My people. Nor will Vashanka use such power displays here again. It were not wise of Me to raise my murdered temple, which Vashanka struck down; that is the business of you humans. Such edifices please you humans; gods have no need of such aggrandizement for there is no aggrandizement beyond godhead."

Hanse's brain was awhirl and he wished he were sitting down. He said, "And... and Mig-nureal?"

It was Eshi who replied to that. "We have acted through her twice now, and she remains more powerful than she knows. For none can be touched by a god without receiving some of that which is the essence of gods-a form of strength, a form of dominion over time and space. Those are after all creations of gods, and bounded about my mortals. The girl Mignureal remembers nothing of having twice acted for us. But she dreams-0 how she dreams, now!"

Now that shadow-presence spoke, at table's end, and its voice was as a shadow might sound; was as a piece of good leather drawn slowly across a whetstone. "The power of Vashanka remains at bay, and now you may make use of Vashanka's servant, who is ... lost."

"How-why?" Hanse asked, and indeed he was not sure if either question was the right one. Seismic disruptions disturbed his brain and his stomach felt both hollow and drawn together.

Because they needed him, they told him without equivocation, for what was pride to gods?

The Ilsigi his people, and Sanctuary called Thieves' World needed him, and the world needed him. It was not just that Ils and his family would wane and shrink and perish. Ranke would rule supreme over all the world, and Ranke was ruled by men other than good ("for my cousin Savankala is old and weary of the strife of his offspring") and Savankala's warlike, war-loving son ruled Ranke, through its emperor. .

"I may not do battle with Vashanka, though," Ils said, light speaking in the voice of warmth, "for son must battle son."

And with that stated He vanished, and much light left with him. Now the big chamber was draped with shadows, and the Shadow at table's end spoke, in the rustly voice of shadows, hooded and cloaked.

"You think you know me, Hanse, and you are right. I am He to Whom There is no Temple. I am the Shadowed One, Hanse who are Son of the Shadow. It is I who must combat Vashanka, for I am son of Ils as he is son of Savankala my uncle. But the presence here of Ranke, and of Vashanka and his so-powerful servant-these have robbed me of abilities. I can act only through you, Hanse, as my sister may act only through Mignureal. With the sword from him called Stepson, Hanse, who is Godson, is to combat a god."

"Vash- Vashanka?"

Hanse saw the shadowy nod that was his only reply, and again he blurted words: "But I am not skilled with a sword!-Lord of Shadows," he added.

That fortunate fact was not to be his succor as he hoped. Fight a god! Shadowspawn? Hanse? No no, he wanted only to fly from here and lose himself in that cess-warren called the Maze, forever!

But: "There is one in Sanctuary who is more than expert with the sword and the business of killing, and he allows that he owes you. With him now are those who are skilled at teaching use of the sword, and they are his liege-men, Hanse. Hanse: use him. He will see to your instruction, and with pleasure. You shall learn prodigiously and surprise them, for I shall be there with you, Hanse who are the Chosen of Ilsig."

Now Hanse was propping himself with both hands on a high-backed chair, and at last Eshi took notice.

"We are cruel, brother! Shadowspawn-seat yourself."

Shadowspan obeyed with gratitude and alacrity. He almost collapsed into the chair. He took a very deep breath, let part of it out, and was able to form words by letting them ride the breath: "But ... uh ... then what?"

"You will know, Hanse."

Then Shadowspawn twitched away at a sound beside him. He looked at the floor beside his chair, at what had only just appeared there, and could not possibly be there. Clinking, dripping, running water, were the bags off the saddle of a dead man named Bourne. Hanse's saddlebags, from the deeps of the well just outside! The ransom of the Savankh, which he had stolen for little purpose other than his own ego and pride-which had soared, then. The ransom Prince Kitty-cat had told him was his-if he could get it out of the well.

It was irresistible. He bent to the bags, opened one, took forth a few wet silver coins. And he sighed. He dribbled them back in, listening to their sweet lovely clink, and he did it again- keeping a few in his fist. Then, staring thoughtfully down at those bags sending wet runnels along the floor, he sighed.

"You are god and my god, Shadowed One. This... this is safe in the well. Uh, can you put it back?"

Hanse jerked when the bags vanished, and he wondered if he were not the greatest fool in Sanctuary. How silly I am going to feel when I wake up from this dream?

"It is back in the well, Son of the Shadow, and aye, it is safe indeed! And we must go, my sister and I. Our time on this plane is necessarily limited."

Hanse raised an expostulating hand, said "But-" and was alone in Eaglenest. The candles remained, burning. So now did food and wine, on the table before him. He glanced down. The puddles and dark run-stains of water remained. And so did the coins in his hand, a few pieces of silver.

Did that mean it had all indeed happened?

No, of course not. When I wake, the coins will be gone.

The food he took with him, eating as he left, tasted very good in his dream, and the wine was the very best he had ever sipped. Only sipped; the sack remained heavy as he climbed the steps to his room deep in that area of Sanctuary called the Maze. (It was even more dangerous now than ever before, what with all these damned swaggering soldiers, all foreigners; that was one reason he had chosen to leave his money in the well. Even the Maze could no longer be considered safe, Hanse thought.)

He entered his room and closed the door with care, and bolted it with as much care. A window leaked in a little moonlight, and by the time he had the cloak unclasped and off and the tunic over his head, he was able to see pretty well. That was how he discovered that a woman waited in his bed.

A girl, rather. The truly beautiful Lady Esaria. In his bed. She sat up, showing that all she wore was the bedspread, and held out her arms.

Hanse was somehow able to avoid yelling or collapsing. He made it to the bed. She was real. She was waiting for him. It was wonderful, all of it with her. Even his wondering, Is she Eshi?, did not inhibit him or her or his enjoyment or hers. What matter whether she was the Esaria she appeared to be or the goddess; she was higher than he could have aspired, and the experience was supernal.

He deduced that it really was Esaria, not Eshi (in his dream, of course, he reminded himself) because surely Eshi wouldn't have been eating so much garlic.

She was gone in the morning, and he lay smiling, thinking about his dream. Lying on his back, he rolled his head.

He could see cloak, tunic, and wine-sack from here. That brought him wide awake, and sent his hand swinging down beside the pallet to check his buskins. The silver coins were still there. Hanse demonstrated the cliche of sitting bolt upright. Hurling back the spread, he inspected his bed. That required no effort. The evidence of Esaria's visit and her late virginity were vehemently present.

I was not dreaming, he thought, and then he spoke aloud: "I see and I believe. I will do it, 0 Swift-footed One, 0 All-father Ils! I will do it, holiest-but-one Lady Eshi, and Venerable Lady of Ladies Shipri?"

The voice was there, inside his head: All depend on you,son.

Not "all depends," Hanse realized later. "All depend." Meaning "all the gods of Ilsig and the Ilsigi!"

He took up the last of the strong drink he had used all too much since That Night, the night at Kurd's, and he poured it out onto the sheet on the floor, which already showed the scarlet of another form of sacrificial outpouring.

"A libation to the gods of Ilsig!" Hanse said firmly, and-he meant it.

From the secret hiding place it had occupied for a month and more, somehow resisting alcoholic urges to sell it, he took out a packet. It was the one he had brought away the morning after That Night. It contained the shining and obviously valuable surgical instruments of Kurd the vivisectionist, whom Tempus had lately sent off to another plane of existence or inexistence. Thieving was out of the question now, and such excellent tools would bring him plenty of coin, the naked Hanse thought, and he opened the package on the rickety little table.

And he stared.

The surgical instruments were gone. The packet contained some forty feet of supple, slim, inch-wide black leather strap; a shirt of superb mail, black; a plain black helmet with nose-, temple-, and neck-guards. And a ring. It was not black. It was of gold, and it was set with a large tiger's-eye, caged in bands of gold and surrounded by small blue-white sones.

He spent a lot of time that day wrapping and tightening the leather strapping around the silver sword-sheath given him by him called Stepson. Thus its ornate value was concealed. He tried on the mailcoat and marveled at its suppleness and spent many many minutes learning to get it off. Over the head, yes, but one could not hoist it up and over as one did a tunic-not just under forty pounds of boiled leather covered with rings of black metal! The helmet fitted perfectly, of course.

The ring he would not try on. It was hers, Hers and his sign; he could not consider it his ring. It and four of his five silver coins he carefully stashed before he went down, rather late in the afternoon, for something to eat. He wore the old camel-hued tunic with the raveling hem.

He ate well, drinking only barley water.

"Saw you going out last night, Shadow-spawn," the taverner said quietly, admiring the silver coin and trying to be cool about it. "Musta been a good night, hmm?"

"Aye. A good night. Aye! Don't forget my change."

It was too late to do much of anything. He wandered a bit, hoping to catch sight ofTempus. He did not, andhad to go back. pretending notto hurry, to check his new possessions.

He did. It was all there. The change from the silver coin was still in the draw top bag he was not stupid enough to wear on his belt. And there were five silver coins in his stash.

Hanse sat on the edge of his bed, thinking about that.

Looks as i;fmy, uh, immortal allies want me to have no financial worries' They'd maybe not wish to be served by what I had to remind Kadakithis I am for was?} "Just a damned thief!"

Over the next several days he spread the money around, happily giving a silver coin to dear old Moonflower ("because you're beautiful, why else?") and two to a one-armed beggar with two fingers missing, because Hanse recognized a victim of Kurd; and he gave to others. The krrf dealer was suspicious on receiving a silver Ran-kan Imperial ("for the future, just in case; don't forget my face, now!") but he took the coin.

And always when the spawn of shadows returned to his room above a tavern, always his secret hiding place offered one ring and five silver coins.

Tempus, meanwhile, had been astonished, but certainly agreed to the training. He assigned Nikodemos called Stealth to the daily duty. And now it had gone on, and on, day after day of practice and sweating and cursing, and now Niko had told him that he was good, and a natural. Elated, Hanse had sunk a knife into the fellow's shield while of course pretending that it was a sneer become action. Then he had saluted and betaken himself around that building while Niko stood looking long-suffering and boyish, and on the way home Hanse had given away a silver coin. He had already spent another this day. And there were five remaining in his room, too.

He opened his eyes. He knew absolutely that a moment ago he had been sleeping soundly, and had come instantly awake. There was no time to wonder why; all he had to do was turn his head to see that it was still dark, the middle of the night, and that he had a visitor.

She was Mignureal, looking a bit older and truly beautiful, all in white and palest spring-yellow. And surrounded by a pale glow, a sort of all-body nimbus of twilight.

"Gird thyself, Hanse. It is time."

Weeks and weeks ago, when first he returned from that night up at Eaglenest, he would have shuddered at such words. Not now. Now Hanse was a trained fighter and he had given it plenty of thought and he was more than ready. He had not known it would come this way, but as he rose to obey he was glad that it had. This way he had no time to think about it, to worry about what might happen to him. It was time. He girded himself.

He donned tights and leathern pants; woolen footsers and a thief's soft, padded sole buskins. Next the new cotton tunic, long, and over that the padded one. The glow remained in his room; Mignureal remained, this Mignureal, from attractive moth into beauteous butterfly. The mail-coat jingled into place and he buckled on the sword. Not the practice sword; the sword of the Stepson, with which he had privately practiced.

The figure in his room stretched forth a hand. "Come, Hanse. We have to go now. It is time, Son of Shadow."

He picked up his helm. "Mignureal? Have you ... a brother? A twin?"

"You know that I have."

"And what do you call him?" He took her hand. It was cool, soft. Too soft, for Mignureal.

"You know what I call him, Hanse. I call him Shadow, for shadows he rules and births, Shadowspawn. Come Hanse, Godson."

He went, under the helmet. Surely there were some awake even at this hour, and surely some saw the strange couple. As surely, none recognized Hanse the thief in his warlike attire and under the helm, for anyone who knew him or knew of him would never expect to see him so accoutred and so accompanied.

Under a frowning parlous sky, in an eerie almost-silence kept alive and made bearable only by insects, they went away out of the Maze, and out of Sanctuary, and up to Eaglenest. And into Eaglenest they went, all dark and ancient now that place of ghosts and gods. Their way was lit by the nimbus of a goddess, whose hand remained soft in Hanse's.

A place of gods indeed, for they went through the manse and out the back and the world changed.

Here was an eerie sky shot through with ribbons of gold and pale yellow and citrine and marred by clouds whose underbellies were mauve. Here was a weird vista from the nightmares of poison. Stone formations rose in impossible shapes, bent and snaked along the ground to rise again; ugly rockshapes in red and burnt ochre and siena, imitating vines fighting their way through an invisible stone wall or plants tortured into convoluted shapes by alkali or lime.

The strange stone-shapes stretched out and out to become only shadows on a plain, a vista that stretched out gray to meet that nacreous sky. And there was no sound. Not the faintest hum of a single lonely insect; not the merest peep of a nightbird or the scuttle of tiny feet or of fronds whispering in a night breeze. Here was no sun and yet no night, and no flora or fauna either.

Here were only Hanse, armored and armed, and Mignureal, and here came Vashanka, at the charge.

Purple was his armor, hawk-beaked his helm and tall-spiked atop; black his shield and the blade of his sword so that there was no gleam to announce its onrush. Hanse drew, hurriedly shifted his buckler into place, thought of Mignureal and knew he had no time to glance aside. Here came a god, armed and armored, charging to end this now, right now.

The god did not, nor did Hanse. Sparks were struck by a blow parried, and feet shifted and Vashanka was past and Hanse turning, unharmed.

The god came in with the arrogant precipi-tousness of a god set to slay a snotty little mortal. In rushed his dark sword, to be caught and turned by a round shield so that he was jarred by the impact and the snotty human's return stroke nearly bit his leg. Still Vashanka did not leam, could not respect this wiry little foeman in its untested mail, and again he struck, his shield still down from protecting his leg, and this time Hanse jerked his shield on impact so that the god's blade was directed aside, drawing Vas-hanka's arm and thus his body that way, and only the projections of his unorthodox, twisted body-armor saved his neck from Hanse's edge. The god grunted as he was struck but un-wounded, and Hanse showed him teeth, sidestepping, back-stepping, feinting with sword and then with buckler and showing a preparedness that turned another godly attack into a feint.

Vashanka had been taught respect.

They circled, each with his shield-side to the other, each staring above the arcing rim of the shield. Pacing, watching. Each a moving target and moving menace. Arms slightly amove so that neither blade was still in that dead air.

Somewhere the moon moved in the sky and hourglasses were turned, while those two circled and stared, paced and glared, paced and feinted as fighting men with respect each for the other. Now and again steel hissed and sang and steel rang or wood boomed under the impact of swordblade on reinforced shield. Now and again a man grunted, or a god. One swift awful flurry of strokes traded left each bruised under armor still intact.

How could Hanse knew that they fought so for an hour? Staying alive meant staying alert; being alert meant having no time to think of time or of tiring. It was guard and parry, strike and cover, and pace to seek another opportunity. Silver twinkled as the sword-bitten winding on Hanse's sheath came loose and dangled.

How long was it, ere Vashanka was there no more but become a rock-leopard that snarled and sprang with awful talons extended-

-to be met by Hanse become bear; a big bear that caught the huge cat and squeezed it in mid-leap, staggering back, feeling its claws as he shook it and hurled it from him to hit the ground, hard, and roll, snarling with a whining note, twisting, becoming a cobra.

Both were blooded now, and blood marked the hissing serpent that reared, striking-

It struck neither man nor bear, for neither was there, but a small ferocious collection of teeth and fur and boneless speed that avoided the strike and pounced to clamp its teeth on a hated enemy-

But as soon as the mongoose had the cobra, the serpent swelled huge and then huger so that its tiny antagonist fell away. That still-growing cobra was blooded again, however, and when it became horse with Vashanka atop or part of it, it turned to canter away. And away, prancing easily over ugly shapes of stone . . . only to wheel and come back at the gallop. Charging, hooves pounding, striking sparks off stone, bounding over twisted rock-formations at the small shape who seemed gone all fearful, scurrying back and forth in its path, then whirling and racing away, fleeing on a straight line easily overtaken ...

The legs of that racing horse rushed into the long strip of leather Hanse had just bound in place for it, and it stumbled with a scream and flew through the air so that. Hanse, swerving, heard its mighty impact behuyd him. Then he whirled and rushed back, shiald ready and sword up and back, gathering velocity for the stroke to carry all.

He was forced to slow. A man-shape stood there waiting, a god in armor and helm beaked in imitation of a bird of prey, shield up and ready, sword a dark silver of death ready in his fist. Shield took blow and shield took blow, but its bottom edge was banged in to impact Hanse's body at the waist so that he groaned and half-doubled and staggered back, trying not to fall, but falling, sprawling backward, a grounded target ready for the death-stroke of a god he never should have fought. His elbow banged into a snake-shape of ochreous rock and the sword leaped from it as if eager to flee.

Hanse had the ridiculous thought I knew I should never have done this as he tried to writhe and wriggle and watched death rushing at him with upraised sword. Mignureal saved him, leaping in from the side with a screech. Hanse, flailing and groaning, trying to will himself onto his feet and yet despairing utterly, saw the vicious black-bladed stroke that cut her nearly in two almost precisely at the waist.

Now it was a god's turn to show his teeth in feral smile worthy of the lowest beast, and after spinning completely around from the exertion of destroying that poor pale-clad body, he came bounding again, sword rising for the second death blow in seconds, and the absolutely desperate Hanse reverted: he thrust his left hand up his tunic sleeve, half-rolling as he did to free his arm all the way, and hurled the long flat knife.

He watched its rush as he had never tracked a cast before, none of his thousands and thousands of practice casts. The leaf of shining metal seemed to take minutes, floating through eternity to reach the rushing oncoming god who, though racing toward Hanse, took as long to near. Lightning sundered the sky and thunder followed, but it was the voice of enraged, triumphant Vashanka, at the charge.

"I CANNOT BE SLAIN BY WEAPONS OF YOUR PLANE, IDIOT, LITTLE THIEF, POOR DEMI MORTAL, INCONSEQUENTIAL INSEC-"

And then his charge met the knife's. The knife struck, beautifully and perfectly point-first, just under the adam's apple. Vashanka shrieked and the shriek burbled. That impossible plane of infinity came alive with blinding and coruscating light.

... down in Sanctuary those up at dawn saw the late-rising moon vanish as the sky was hurled alight by heat lightning bright as day...

that surrounded Vashanka utterly, that was Vashanka, as his bellow of rage and pain was thunder and lightning. Pierced, he went flying backward as if by smashing impact, and the wind of his passage was as the gale of a storm booming in off the sea. And on he went, until he was so distant to the staring, squinting Hanse that he was tiny, and then that tiny Vashanka vanished.

Us appeared before Hanse then, radiant. His face was that of the statue in the destroyed temple.

At that, Hanse wondered; he saw the radiance and yet dimly. Why was it darker; why was his god not all triumphant in pure lambence?

Why can't I move my damned head, damn it? "m the end," Ils said, "he was right and yet not wise enough. He said true in that he cannot be slain by weapons of this plane. But the knife flew true, the mortal knife off its proper plane here on the Plane of Infinity, and it struck him a killing blow, so that he began to die. But that was not possible. Thus a paradox existed. That is against the nature of things, Hanse, for the God of Gods who created all existence-aye, and who created Me-that god is Reality. Since my cousin's son Vashanka could not be slain by weapons of your plane, this dimension, he could not die in this chamber of the House of Infinity that is the domain of Lord Reality."

Of course Hanse said, "I don't understand."

"Hmp! I am sure you don't! It's heady stuff for a god! Explanations for all this won't be discovered by your kind for thousands of years, Son of Shadow. Suffice it to say that Vashanka is gone from here, and that meaning of 'here' is a broad one, indeed and in deed! Vashanka is gone from here because he cannot exist here, in this universe. He has been blown backward through a wormhole in space, which is no easier for you to understand, eh? Accept this truth, Hanse: Vashanka is ElseWhere. And though there is an infinity of possibilities, of dimensions or chambers, one is closed to him forever; used up. That one-yours-is impossible to him and does not exist for him.

"That which can never exist is the combination of Vashanka on this plane of Reality. Since he is dead but gods may not die from the weapons of mortals, he cannot be here. He can never return to this chamber of the House of Infinity."

Hanse felt that Ils had said the same thing three several ways, and all were nicely logical and avoided paradox, but ... A wormhole? In space? Yet he was not concerned with that and could not be. Vashanka was gone; Hanse must have won. He felt fine, too, except that he could not seem to lift his head or feel anything. Yet somehow being a hero made him behave as one; he did not mention that but asked a hero's question: "And Mignureal?"

"She is asleep in her bed. Was-she is risen now, and seeing to her siblings, for in Sanctuary it is dawn. As I and mine are all-powerful here now.... !"

And Eshi rose, whole and unscarred, and rushed to the prostrate Hanse.

She knelt beside him and he knew her hands were on him because he could see them. She looked up at the Lord of Lords.

"I want him, father! I want him!"

"But-me!" Hanse said. "What of me?"

Us gazed down on him. "You, beloved Son of Shadow, have defeated a god and restored Me to my own people in Sanctuary. Further, as Va-shanka had become the most powerful of the gods of Ranke, that people's power will wane. Empires die slowly, but it has begun, as of this moment."

"Yes," Hanse said almost plaintively, not even realizing the enormity of his service to gods and Ilsigi and world, "but... now? What of me- now?"

"Fa-ther," Eshi said with the sound of accusation in her voice, "his neck is broken!"

Us said quietly, "Now, Hanse, hero, you are dying."

"But-"

"His head struck this nasty damned stone and he's paralyzed from the neck down! He feels nothing, nothing!"

"But that cannot be," Ils went on, as if he had heard neither of them. "You cannot be dying, for you cannot be dead, for he who did death on you does not exist on this plane. Therefore a paradox exists, if you are dying. Therefore you cannot be dying."

Pain rose up in Hanse then, as again his body came alive, and he moved his head to look down at Eshi, whose weight was partially on him, and then that was all he felt, for all pain fled and so did each scratch and bruise.

"Uh-pardon me, uh, Lady Goddess," he grunted, and Hanse rose to face his god. To him clung the daughter of that god, herself a god. "And now? After all this, my god-what am I?"

"Now, Hanse, you return. For ten circuits of your world around the s-that is, for ten circuits of the sun-you shall have what you wish. All that you desire. We shall not be available to you. Then we shall, and you will face me again, beloved Hanse, and tell me what is your desire."

"But-"

Eshi clung to him, but her grip was broken, her fingers torn free of the mailed hero of the Ilsigi by the wind of Ils that rushed him back to Sanctuary; back to his own beloved, squalid little Thieves' World.

A glance upward showed him more of the impossible that had lately become all too commonplace for the Son of Shadow. The sky was precisely as it had been when he departed on his mission. He even recognized the oddly formed little cloud 'way out there above Julavain's Hill. It looked just like a-

But even as he paced along the narrow Maze "street," the cloud was coming apart, changing, never to be the same again.

Information was yielded Hanse by that. But it was for realization later, the fact that while hours or days had been consumed in that mighty combat in a chamber of the House of Infinity, in Sanctuary exactly no time had passed at all.

Just now, in the darkness of Slick Walk, an accoster separated itself from the shadows along one wall and glided into his path. The fellow bulked large, too.

"You're not in a hurry are you, little fellow?" the voice said, mocking him. "Carrying a purse?"

"Not tonight," Hanse said, stepping into the light that fell between them.

He drew a long sword from a silver-flashing sheath buckled over fine dark armor that rang softly with the movement of mailed sleeve on chest. At the same time he showed teeth and the blade moved up to catch the light and the footpad whirled and ran for absolutely all he was worth.

Chuckling softly, Hanse moved on along Slick toward the Serpentine.

Now those gods with whom he was so intimate had a strange way of expressing themselves sometimes, but he was sure Ils had said that he could have anything he wished for... what did He mean? Ten circuits of the sun was subject to interpretation.

Did the god mean only ten days? Surely He had not meant ten years?

Oh well. Ten days or ten months or ten years, Hanse would take them as they came-each as it came. One at a time, he mused, and he yawned.

To begin with he wished that he were not at all tired, and then he made another wish as well, grinning, and when he entered his room there she was, waiting all low-lashed and smoky-eyed, in his bed.

(Sleeping entwined, they were awakened later by a horrific vivid lighting of the sky that quite occluded the late-rising moon, but that was the sort of paradox that both Reality and minor gods such as Vashanka and Ils allowed, and countenanced. It was enough to bring anyone wide awake and it was frightfully early, but Hanse found something to do.)

FOOTNOTES:

[i] "The Vivisectionist," in Shadows Of Sanctuary; Ace Books, 1981.

[ii] "Shadowspawn," in Thieves' World; Ace Books, 1979.