Robert Asprin - Wings of Omen

In the old days, everyone knew Lalo was not worth robbing, but in the current confusion, running footsteps could mean anyone. Frantically Lalo tried to remember if this block belonged to the PFLS or Nisibisi death squads; to the returning Stepsons or the 3rd Commando; or to Jubal's renascent hordes; or maybe it was to someone else he hadn't heard of yet.

His little dagger glinted in his hand-not much use against anyone with training, but enough perhaps to discourage a man looking for easy pickings before the daylight was gone.

"Papa-it's me!" The shadow behind him came to a halt a safe man's length away. Lalo blinked and recognized Wedemir, flushed a little from his run, but breathing easily.

The lad's in good shape, Lalo thought with a fugitive pride, then unclenched tense muscles from his defensive crouch and jammed the knife back into its sheath.

"If your mother sent you, you might as well go home again."

Wedemir shook his head. "I can't. She cursed me too, when I said I was coming after you. Where were you going, anyway?"

Lalo stared at him, taken aback by his unconcern. Didn't the boy understand? He and Gilla had quarreled finally. His future loomed before him like a splendid, lightning-laden cloud.

"Go back, Wedemir-" he repeated. "I'm on my way to the Vulgar Unicorn."

Wedemir laughed, white teeth bright against his bronzed skin. "Papa, I've spent two years with the caravans, remember? Do you think I haven't seen the inside of a tavern before?"

"Not one like the Unicorn...." Lalo said darkly.

"Then it's time you completed my education-" the boy said cheerfully. "If you're tougher than I am, then knock me down. If not, surely two will walk safer than one through this part of town!"

A new kind of anger tickled Lalo's belly as he stared at his son, noting the balanced stance, the measuring eyes. He's grown up, he thought bitterly, remembering the last time he had thrashed the boy-it didn't seem so long ago. Wedemir is a man. But gods! Did I ever have such innocent eyes? Aman, and a strong one... .Even when Lalo had been that age he had not been much of a fighter, and now-the taste of the knowledge that his son could beat him was like bile.

"Very well," Lalo said at last, "but don't blame me if it's more than you bargained for." He turned to move on, then stopped again. "And for Shalpa's sake, take that grin off your face before we go inside!"

Lalo tipped back his tankard, let the last sour wine flow smoothly down his throat, then banged it on the table to call for more. It had been a long time since he had come to get drunk here at the Vulgar Unicorn-a long time since he had gotten drunk anywhere, he realized. Maybe the wine would taste better if he had some more.

Wedemir raised one eyebrow briefly and took another rationed sip of ale, then set his own tankard back down. "Well, I haven't seen anything to shock me so far...."

Lalo swallowed a surge of resentment at the boy's self-discipline. He's probably despising me... .As the oldest, Wedemir must have known what was happening in the days when Lalo was trying to drink his troubles away and Gilla took in washing to keep the family alive. And during the recent years of prosperity the boy had been away with the caravans. Small wonder if he thought his father was a sot!

He doesn't understand- Lalo held out his tankard to the skinny serving girl. He doesn't know what I've been through....

He let the cool, tart liquor ease the ache in his throat and sat back with a sigh. Wedemir was right about the Unicorn, anyway. Lalo had never known such a quiet evening here. The age-polished wooden slats of the booth creaked to his weight as he relaxed against them, looking around the big room, trying to understand the altered atmosphere.

The familiar reek of sweat and sour ale brought back memories; oil lamps set shadows scurrying among the sooty beams overhead and beneath the sturdy tables. Empty tables, mostly, even now, when night had fallen and the place should have been as thick with patrons as a Bazaar cur is with fleas. Not that it was entirely deserted. He recognized the pale, scarred boy they called Zip in one of the booths on the other side of the room, sitting with three others, a little younger and darker than he was, without his protective veil of cynicism to shield their eyes.

As Lalo watched. Zip pounded the table with his fist, then began to draw some kind of diagram in spilled beer. The artist let his gaze unfocus, saw through the masks of flesh a mix of fear and fanaticism that made him recoil. No, he thought, perhaps I had better not use that particular talent here. There were some souls whose truth he did not want to see.

He forced himself to keep scanning the room. In one comer a man and woman were drinking together, the scars of old fights marking their faces, and of old passions clouding their eyes. They looked like some of Jubal's folk, and he wondered if they were serving their old master again. Beyond them he saw three men whose tattered gear could not disguise some remnants of soldierly bearing mutineers from the northern wars or mercenaries too dissolute even for the 3rd Commando? Lalo did not want to know.

He took a deep breath and coughed convulsively. That was it; his new senses were at work despitr his will, and his nostrils flared with the smell of death and the stink of sorcery. He remembered a rumor he had heard-the tavern-master One Thumb was somehow mixed up with the Ni-sibisi witch, Roxane. Perhaps he should gather up Wedemir and get out of here....

But as he started to stand up, his head spun dizzily and he knew that he was in no condition to survive the streets of Sanctuary at this hour. Wedemir would laugh at him, and besides, he had nowhere else to go! Lalo sat back, sighed, and began to drink again.

It was two, or perhaps three tankards later that Lalo's blurring gaze fixed on a familiar dark head and the angular shape of a harpcase humping up the bright cloak its owner wore. He blinked, adjusted his focus, and grinned.

"Cappen Varra!" He gestured broadly toward the bench across from him. "I thought you'd left town!"

"So did I-" the harper answered wryly. "The weather's been too chancy for sailing, so I hooked up with a caravan to Ranke. I was hoping to find someone going from there to Carronne." He shrugged the harpcase from his shoulder and set it carefully on the bench, then squeezed into the booth beside Wedemir.

"To Ranke!" the boy exclaimed. "You're lucky to be alive!"

"My son Wedemir-" Lalo gestured. "He's been working Ran Alleyn's string."

Cappen looked at him with new respect, then went on, "I suppose I am lucky-I got there just after they did the old Emperor in. There's a new man-Theron, they call him-in charge there now, and they say your life's not worth a whore's promise if you're in the Imperial line. So I thought, 'There's Prince Kittycat sitting safe in Sanctuary-things might just be picking up down there!'"

Lalo started to laugh,-choked on his wine, and coughed until Wedemir thumped him on the back and he could breathe again.

"You don't have to tell me-" said Cappen Varra ruefully. "But surely there's something to be made from the situation here. Those Beysin women now-do you suppose there's some way I..."

"Don't even think about it, Cappen." Lalo shook his head. "At least not the way you usually do! They might like your music, but it's worth your life to even look as if you were offering anything more!"

The harper gave him a speculative look. "I've heard that, but really..."

"Really-" Wedemir said seriously. "My sister works for one of their royal ladies, and she says it's all true."

"Oh well!" Cappen saluted them with his tankard. "There's nothing wrong with their gold!" He drank, then glanced at Lalo with a smile. "When I left, you were the toast of the court. I hardly expected to see you here...."