Wings of Omen - Thieves World 06 (15 page)

For a moment Shadowspawn stared, then he moved.

But Lalo had forgotten him. Bench clattering over behind him, he darted past Cappen Varra to reach his place by the wall, glimpsed Gilla's bulk moving surprisingly quickly to the spot the Adept had assigned to her. As if she had tel-eported, Lythande was already standing, wand at the ready, at the point between the door and the wall.

Then it crashed open and Wedemir hurtled through, hesitated for a moment as he saw the place he had expected to fill already occupied by Shadowspawn, then stumbled into the middle of the circle, blood from his arm spattering across the floor. Lalo's stomach churned; he reached for the boy and pulled him to his side.

"The blood-" he gasped. "Did the Unicorn get you?" Wedemir shook his head and touched the knife at his side. Lythande darted them a quick glance.

"I told him to wound himself," the Adept said. "Innocent blood-and your blood, Lalo-the smell of it would be irresistible-"

Then a darkness filled the doorway, deeper than the shadows, in which flamed two glowing eyes. It had grown. Lalo swallowed sickly as the Unicorn forced its expanding bulk through the doorway. The black muzzle bent, snuffling for the blood-trail. Wedemir swayed, and Lalo saw that blood was still welling from between the fingers clenched around his arm to fall smoking to the stained floor. Lalo's altered vision perceived the life-force radiating from each drop. That, then, was what the Unicom desired.

Us of the Thousand Eyes, look down and help me! his spirit cried. Gilla's invocation ofShipri vibrated in the heavy air, and beyond her Lalo sensed the blur of Shalpa's power, Lythande's blue glow, and the murmur of Cappen Varra's plea to his northern gods.

The Unicom reared back: Lalo could not tell whether it went on two legs or four. Did those red eyes see puny human victims, or did it sense the inflowing power of the gods? The monster must not be frightened away, though his every nerve quivered with hope that it would go. Lythande's stem gaze commanded him. Now was the time-the Adept had done her part and he was on his own. Great Ils! He could not do it; but somehow his feet were carrying him between

Wedemir and the Unicom.

"Unicom!" Lalo's voice was a crow's croak. He tried again. "Unicom, come to me!

Blood of my blood, here is what you desire!"

The dark form shuddered with thunder and deep laughter. It took a step toward him and then another, contemptuous of the others who stood there. Its gaze was like a horribly intimate touch upon his soul, and Lalo remembered suddenly that it was his-his own evil had been joined to that of the rest of Sanctuary in the Unicorn's conception. Lalo's part in the creature yearned for reunion; an answering yearning resonated in the secret depths of his soul. How easy it would be to... simply give in.

Lythande poised like a beast of prey, absolutely still. As Lalo wavered, the Unicorn stepped past her; her wand flashed out like a sword of fire, and blue light snapped across the circle to Gilla, back to Cappen Varra, over to Wedemir, occupying Lalo's old place by the wall, up to Shadowspawn and back to Lythande again before the Thing could move.

It roared and whirled, but it was imprisoned by the glowing lines of the pentagram. Lalo realized with horror that he was imprisoned too. Then the Unicorn grew still, senses questing outward to test the barriers. Its darkness pulsed softly; Lalo recognized faces contorted in voiceless torment, blinked away a vision of his own features swirling among the throng, and fumbled to unroll the canvas still clutched in his arms.

The Unicorn heard the rustle of canvas and began to turn. The results of half a night's labor unrolled stiffly, and Lalo wondered desperately whether it would serve. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, seeking the Face of Ils in memory. Awareness faltered, fixed, and for one

timeless moment he was There, but this time he did not look away. The brightness of the Divine Face blinded and burned him, searing that part of him that had responded to the Unicorn. And still the light grew, until Lalo realized that even the Shining Face of Ils had been only a mask for that radiance whose least

part burned in the sun and the other stars.

And then he was falling, spiraling dizzily back into the prison of his human body. Still dazzled, Lalo released his pent breath across the canvas in his clenched hands.

The Unicorn shrieked as if it sensed the birth of its enemy. Lalo felt the canvas quiver in his hands. Light shattered and scattered across the floor as crystal wings beat upward into three-dimensionality. He had set out to draw a white bird like something he had once painted for the gods, and Lythande's cool voice and fluttering fingers had tranced him as an aid in recovering the memory. But he did not recognize the wonder that was emerging now-it was an eagle, it was a phoenix, it was a swan-it was all of these and none. The great bird opened its bright beak in a piercing cry, talons clutched and unclenched, wings swept wind across the room, and it was free.

Lalo sank back upon his heels, gasping as the Unicorn's darkness gave way before a storm of white wings. The war of fire and ice and darkness sent fierce coruscations of opal light around the room. Roaring, the Unicorn charged against its foe, and Lalo huddled, a still speck at the eye of the storm. Between one flurry and another he heard someone call his name. Blue light stabbed his eyes. "Lalo-open the Gate!"

Lalo forced his limbs to pull him toward Lythande. The pentagram burned him; then the Adept's wand broke it and he was through. And just in time, for the Bird of Light was driving the Unicorn after him in a tempest Vashanka would have been proud to claim. Lalo struggled upright. Light followed his finger as he traced a line around the pale area on the plaster where he had drawn the Unicom. He finished, his hand fell, and the space he had outlined began to shimmer. The plaster thinned, cleared, disappeared to reveal a black gulf that pulsed with sparkling lights. Lalo's ears sang with subliminal vibration, his vision blurred, a strong hand closed on his arm and jerked him out of the path of the bolt of blackness that hurtled past him toward the void, followed by a beam of light.

Lalo thrust out one arm in self-protection as he fell, and screamed as it took the final buffet of the Bird of Light's crystal wing. Then an explosion of radiance dispersed the darkness. The tavern shook as the Gate between the dimensions slammed shut, and both the Unicom and its opposite were gone. Two bodies lay in the lee of a wall where Dyer's Alley turned off from Slippery Street. Lythande took a swift step aside to peer at the pallid faces and eyes that stared unseeing at the rising sun, then returned.

"Knifed-" the Adept said. "Nothing unusual. I'll be going now." She nodded abruptly, and began to walk away from them toward the Bazaar. Lalo stopped rubbing his numbed arm for a moment and stared after her, wanting to call her back. But what could he say? The Adept had favored him with more good advice than he could understand all the way back from the Vulgar Unicorn. By the time Lalo had recovered consciousness, Shadowspawn was long gone, and Cappen Varra, with voice unsteady and hands that still reached for his amulet at any unexpected sound, had taken his leave as soon as he could thereafter. By the time they got Wedemir's wound stanched and Lalo was able to walk again, the sun was striking gold from the dome of the Temple, and Hakiem was peering through the tavern door. With the tables and benches back in place, only the bare spot on the wall and an unnaturally wholesome atmosphere would have enabled anyone to guess what had happened there; but Lalo supposed that the storyteller would find out. He always did, somehow.

But as Lythande had pointed out, it hardly mattered what the rest of Sanctuary thought of him-it was the wizards he must watch out for now. As the style of a painting proclaimed its creator, so it was with magic, and the Black Unicorn had been signed "Lalo the Limner" for any with eyes to see.

"One way or another they will be after you, and you must learn to use your power..." Lythande's words still rang in Lalo's ears. He sighed, and Gilla eased more of her arm under his, supporting him. Wedemir, leaning on her other arm, lifted his head, and father and son exchanged apprehensive grins. They knew Gilla's frown, and the twist of lips clamped shut over hard words.

At the foot of their stairs Lalo halted, gathering his strength for the climb.

"All right, 0 Mighty Magician, do you want my help or can you make it under your own power?" asked Gilla. In the full light of morning he saw clearly for the first time the new lines of anguish by her mouth and the bruise marks beneath her eyes. And yet her body was as steady as the earth below him. It was her strength that had got him this far.

"You are my power, all of you-" His eyes moved from Gilla to Wedemir, meeting his son's steady gaze, accepting him at last as an equal and a man. "Don't let me forget it again."

Gilla's eyes were suspiciously bright. She squeezed his hand. Lalo nodded and began to climb the staircase, and in his labored breathing they heard the whisper of white wings.

Diane Duane

The ephemerals have no help to give.

Look at them!

They are deedless and cripple,

strengthless as dreams. All mortalkind

is bound with a chain;

all their eyes are darkened....

The sound of screaming slowly aroused Harran from the mechanical business of pounding out the Stepson Raik's hangover remedy in the old stone mortar. Raik scrambled to his feet, his face ashen, staring toward the gates of the Stepsons'

barracks compound. "Just a little more business for the barber," Harran said, not looking up. "More serious than your head, from the sound of it."

"Shal," Raik said, sounding wounded himself. "Harran, that's Shal-"

"Knew the damned careless fool would get himself chopped up one day," Harran said. He measured the last ounce or so of grain spirits into his mortar and picked up the pestle again.

"Harran, you son of a-"

"A moment ago you didn't care about anything, including where your partner was," Harran said. "Now you know... Mriga!"

Over in the comer of the rough stone hut someone sat in the shadows on the packed dirt floor, hitting two rocks together-grinding a third rock to powder between them in a steady, relentless rhythm. The hut's small windows let in only a couple of dust-dancing arrows of sun; neither came near the bundle of skinny arms and legs and filthy rags that sat there and went pound, pound, pound with the rocks, ignoring Harran.

"Mriga!" Harran said again.

Pound, pound, pound.

Another scream strung itself on the air, closer. From under Harran's worktable, by his feet, came a different sound: an eager whimper, and then the thumping of a dog's wagging tail.

Harran huffed in annoyance and shoved the mortar and pestle aside. "You start one thing around here," he said, getting up without looking anywhere near Raik's wild eyes, "and there's no finishing it. Never fails. -Mriga!" This time there was a grunt from the pile of rags, though certainly not in response to anything Harran was saying-just a kind of bark or groan of animal pleasure in the rhythm. Harran reached down and grabbed Mriga's hands. They jerked and spasmed in his grasp, as they always did when someone tried to stop anything she was doing. "No more, Mriga. Knives now. Knives." The hands kept jerking. "Knives," Harran said, louder, shaking her a bit. "Come on! Knives...."

"Nhrm," she said. It was as close as Mriga ever got to the word. From under the tangle of matted, curly hair, from out of the bland, barren face, eyes flashed briefly up at Harran-empty, but very much alive. There was no intelligence there, but there was passion. Mriga loved knives better than anything.

"Good girl," he said, dragging her more or less to her feet by one arm, and shaking her to make sure of her attention. "The long knife, now. The long knife. Sharp."

"Ghh," Mriga said, and she shambled across the hut toward Harran's grindstone oblivious of the disgusted Raik, who nearly kicked her in passing until he saw Harran's eyes on him. "Vashanka's blazing balls, man," Raik said in the voice of a man who wants to spit, "why're you waiting till now to do your damned knife grinding?!"

Harran set about clearing his herbs and apothecary's tools off the table.

"Barracks cook 'borrowed' it for his joint last night," said Harran, bending to stir the fire and dropping the poker back among the coals. "Didn't just slice up that chine you were all gorging on, either. He used the thing to cut through the thighbone for the marrow, instead of just cracking it. Thought it'd be neater." Harran spat at Raik's feet, missing them with insolent accuracy. "Ruined the edge. Fool. None of you understands good steel; not one of you-" Yet another scream, weaker, ran up and down the scale just outside the door. Shal was running out of breath. "Bring him in," said Harran; and in they came lean blond Lafen, and towering Yuriden, and between them, slack as a half-empty sack of flour, Shal.

The two unhurt Stepsons eased Shal up onto the table, with Raik trying to help, and mostly getting in the way. The man's right hand was bound up brutally tight with a strip of red cloth slashed from Lafen's cloak; the blood had already soaked through the red of it and was dripping on the floor. From under the table came more thumping, and a whine.

'Tyr, go out," said Harran. The dog ran out of the room. "Hold him," Harran said to the three, over the noise of the grindstone.

He pulled a penknife out of his pocket, slit the tourniquet's sodden knot, peeled the sticking cloth away, and stared at the ruin of Shal's lower arm.

"What happened?" Raik was demanding of the others, his voice thick with something Harran noticed but did not care to analyze.