Robert Asprin - Wings of Omen

He flinched as something buzzed past his ear, and saw the colored flies he had created spiral downward toward the richer feeding-grounds of the refuse heap in the alleyway. For a moment he wondered wryly if they would breed true, and if anyone in Sanctuary would notice the winged jewels hatching from their garbage; then a shift in the wind brought him the smell.

He choked, banged closed the shutters, and stood leaning against them, covering his face with his hands. In the country of the gods, every breeze bore a different perfume. The robes of the immortals were dyed with liquid jewels; they shone in a lambent light. And he, Lalo the Limner, had feasted there, and his brush had brought life to a thousand transcendent fantasies.

He stood, shaken by longing for the velvet meadows and aquamarine skies. Tears welled from beneath shut eyelids, and his ears, entranced with the memory of birds whose song surpassed all earthly melodies, did not hear the long silence behind him, the stifled, triumphant giggle of the child, or the heavy tread on the stairs outside.

"Alfi! You get down from there right now!"

Dreams shattering around him, Lalo jerked back to face the room, blinking as dizzied vision tried to sort the image of an angry goddess from the massive figure that glared at him from the doorway. But even as Lalo's sight cleared, Gilla was charging across the room to snatch the child from the shelf over the stove.

Wedemir, a dark head barely visible above piled parcels and bulging baskets, stumbled after her into the room, looking for somewhere to set his burdens down.

"Want to make it pretty!" Alfi's voice came muffled from Gilla's ample bosom. He squirmed in her arms and pointed. "See?"

Three pairs of eyes followed his pointing finger toward the ceiling above the stove, where the soot was now smudged with swirls of blue and green.

"Yes, dear," said Gilla evenly, "but it's all dark up there, and the colors won't show up very well. And you know that you are not to meddle with your father's colors-you certainly know better than to climb on the stove! Well?" Her voice rose. "Answer me!"

A small, smudged face turned to her, lower lip trembling, dark eyes falling before her narrowed gaze. "Yes, Mama...."

"Well, then-perhaps this will help you to remember from now on!" Gilla set the child down and smacked his bottom hard. Alfi whimpered once and then stood silently, rubbing his abused rear while the slow tears welled from his eyes.

"Now, you go lie down on your bed and stay there until Vanda brings your sister Latilla home." She gripped his small shoulder, propelled him into the children's room, and shut the door behind him with a bang that shook the floor.

Wedemir slowly set his last basket on the kitchen table, watching his mother with an apprehension that belied the broad shoulders and sturdily muscled arms he had gotten working the caravans.

Lalo's own gaze went back to his wife, and his stomach knotted as he recognized Sabellia the Sharp-Tongued in full incarnation standing there.

"Perhaps that will keep him earthbound another time," said Gilla, settling her fists on her broad hips and glaring at Lalo. "I wish I could fan your arse as well! What were you thinking of?" Her voice rose as she warmed to her subject. "When you said you'd look after the baby, I thought I could trust you to watch him! You know what they are at that age! There are live coals in that stove would you have noticed when Alfi started screaming? Lalo the Limner- Lalo the Lack-Wit they should call you! Pah!"

Wedemir eased silently backward toward the chair in the comer, but Lalo could not return his commiserating smile. His tight lips quivered with words that twenty-seven years with this woman had taught him not to say; and it was true that... his vivid imagination limned a vision of his small son writhing in flames. But he had only looked out the window for a moment! In another minute he would have seen and pulled the child down!

"The gods know I've been patient," raged Gilla, "scrimping and striving to keep this family together while the Ran-kans or the Bey sin, or hell knows who, came marching through the town. The least you could do-"

"In the name of Ils, woman-let be!" Lalo found his voice at last. "We've a roof above us, and whose earnings paid-"

"Does that give you the right to burn it down again?" she interrupted him. "Not to mention that if we don't pay the taxes we will not have it long, though Shalpa knows to whom we'll be paying them this year. What have you painted lately. Limner?"

"By the gods!" Lalo's fingers twitched impotently. "I have painted-" a_scarlet Sikkintair that soared through azure skies, a bird with eyes of fire and crystal wings-his throat closed on the words. He had not told her-he would show her the rainbow-hued flies he had drawn for Alfi, and then she would know. He had the powers of a god-what right had she to speak to him this way? Lalo looked wildly about him, then remembered that he had opened the shutters and the insects had flown away.

"I saved your life, and this is all the thanks you have for me?" Gilla shouted. "You'd burn the last babe I will ever bear?"

"Saved my life?" Abruptly the end of his vision replayed in memory-he had been painting a goddess who had wrenched him away from heaven, a goddess who had Gilla's face! "Then it was you who brought me back to this dung-heap, and you want me to thank you?" Now he was shrieking as loudly as she. "Wretched woman, do you know what you have done? Look at you, standing there like a tub of lard! Why should I want to return, when Eshi herself was my handmaiden?"

For one astounding moment struck speechless, Gilla stared at him. Then she snatched and threw a wooden spoon from the pot on the stove. "No, don't thank me, for I'm sorry I did it now!" A colander followed the spoon. She reached for the copper kettle and Lalo ducked as Wedemir got to his feet, protesting.

"You've a goddess to sleep with? Worm! Then go to her-we'll do fine without you here!" Gilla exclaimed.

The copper pot hurtled toward Lalo like a sunwheel, struck, and clattered to the floor. He straightened, holding his arm.

"I will go-" He fought his voice steady. "I should have left long ago. I could have been the greatest artist in the Empire if you hadn't tied me here-I still could-by the Thousand Eyes of Ils you do not know what I can do!" he went on. Gilla was gasping, her work-roughened hands clenching and unclenching as she looked for something else to throw. "When you hear of me again you'll know who I really am, and you'll regret what you said this day!"

Lalo drew himself up stiffly. Gilla watched him with a face like stone and something he could not trouble to interpret in her eyes. A whisper of memory told him that if he let go of his anger he would see the truth of her as he had before. He swatted the thought away. The anger burned in his belly, a furnace of power. He had not felt like this since he outwitted the assassin Zanderei.

Silent, he stalked to the door, belted on his pouch, and flung across his shoulder the short cape that hung there.

"Papa-what do you think you're doing?" Wedemir found his voice at last. "It's almost sunset. The curfew will close the streets soon. You can't go out there!"

"Can't I? You'll see what I can do!" Lalo opened the door.

"Turd, slime-dauber, betrayer!" shouted Gilla. "If you leave now, don't think you'll find a welcome home here!"

Lalo did not answer, but as he hurried down the creaking staircase the last thing he heard was the bone-shaking thud as the cast-iron pot hit the closing door.

A rat-patter of feet behind him sent fear sparking along every nerve to clash painfully with the dull anger that had fueled Lalo's swift stride. Fool! the lessons of a lifetime dinned in his memory- Your back is your betrayer. Watch it! Alert is alive!