Robert Asprin: Wings of Omen

"And you'd like to make your home in Sanctuary?"

"Remains to be seen. But if we try this, we'd like you to be a part of it working with us. Nobody's going to take and hold Sanctuary without your active cooperation, we've heard."

"How do you know the Beysibs haven't heard it too?" Jubal asked cannily.

The old black was sharp, but Sync could feel that he was buying the deal-lock, stock, and misrepresentations. "Because they're having too much trouble, from too many unidentified quarters."

Jubal laughed. The laugh was amplified by his hawkmask and boomed so loud in the small room that its curtains quivered. "That may be, that may be. But flattery won't get you everywhere-just somewhere. Now, let's hear the specifics." The ex gladiator's arms came out from under his cloak and Sync could see purple scars that told one seasoned veteran of too many wars that he was looking at another.

Sync said honestly: "You can't believe I'd go into that here, with all those ears you've got. I want you to come to a little party we're having, at Marc's Weapons Shop on the Street of Smiths, this evening. Representatives of every faction my Long Recon people think useful will be there. I want to put them together-with your help, of course- in one well-coordinated, working unit."

"Intriguing." Jubal's hawkmask bobbed slowly. "And then what?"

"Then we're going to make this town what it ought to be, what it used to be, what it wants to be: a freehold, a thieves' world, a safe haven where men like you and I don't have to kiss any pomaded pederasts' rings and women do what women do best."

Again, Jubal laughed. When he sobered, he raised his mask-not enough for Sync to see the face beneath; just enough to wipe his eyes. "You, me, and what army?"

"You, me, the 3rd Commando, and Tempus's original Stepsons. Plus, perhaps, the local death squads and revolutionaries, your odd mercenary, the downtrodden Ilsig populace, and the regular army garrison-the ranking officer over there is an old friend of mine. That enough manpower for you?"

"Might be, might be," Jubal chuckled.

"Then you'll come, tonight?"

"I'll be there," Jubal agreed.

Marc's Weapons Shop had a trap door behind the counter, as well as a firing range out back, two display cases filled with blades, and two walls of high torque crossbows.

Beneath, in the cellar, arcane and forbidden weaponry was kept-alchemical incendiaries, wrist slingshots such as Zip's, instruments of interrogation and of silent kill: poisons and persuaders.

It was early, before the scheduled evening meeting, and Zip and Marc were arguing, alone, while above Marc's blonde and nubile wife minded the store.

"You can't ask me to do this, Marc," Zip said from the comer in which he was hunched, bowstring-taut and feral, his eyes darting from shadow to shadow, looking for the trap he was sure would soon be sprung.

"I've got to ask you, boy, or watch you commit suicide: you can't fight this bunch. You trained with Stepsons; you know that now they're drifting into town again, things are going to change. You stayed out of trouble when they were around last time; now, you can't. They'll tan your hide and use it for a saddle blanket; your polished teeth'll decorate some war-horse's headstall. I don't want to see that happen."

"So you gave them my name? I trusted you. I got into this whole thing by accident. I don't want to be any rebel leader; I don't want to incite any riots or start any twelve-gods-damned revolutions; I just want to protect my own self. Why did you do this to me?"

"They're smart. They've had reconnaissance people in town for weeks-they knew about you already. If you aren't with them, that bunch assumes you're against them."

"Who? The Buggemauts? The Whoresons? Who cares?"

"You'll care, when they make you two inches taller before they make you six inches shorter-mercenaries are a very suspicious breed. I know Strat's Stepsons, and I trust them: they have to be trustworthy-it's all they've got: one another and the value of their word. Tempus will be along, Strat says, presently: that means the Storm God-if you still care about Vashanka-is coming home. I'm not good with words..." Marc rubbed his beard miserably; his round, brown eyes pleaded with the gutterbred fighter jammed against the joint of two walls as if he were already at bay. "Please just stay and listen to their proposal: without you, the death squads will never give this alliance a chance."

"You're addled. Bewitched. Most of the death squad members got their start with Roxane, the Nisibisi witch. It's a trap: the Stepsons and the 3rd are looking for revenge. Roxane didn't exactly lose gracefully fighting the Stepsons; they lost men; meres never forget."

"You've got to stay... if not for yourself, for me. They've spotted you; they know you're using this place to rearm, to meet, to get in and out of the tunnels. If you don't pretend to join them, I'm having this conversation with a dead man-it's just a matter of days."

"Well, at least you're being honest, now." Zip pushed himself up against the wall. He had a two-day growth of beard and looked a decade older than the years he'd lived. Erect, leaning back in his comer, he said despairingly, "I don't suppose it would do any good to make you promise not to reveal any more of our names?..."

"On pain of death? Kill me now, then. And my wife. And everyone else that's helped you. I own, boy, I've seen a lot of action, too many wars to suit me, and I'm telling you: the only way to live through what's brewing in Sanctuary is to make a deal with the 3rd Commando."

"Just so long as it isn't the damn Rankan army-it isn't, you can promise me that, can't you? Can't you?"

Marc looked at his big-knuckled hands. The slit-eyed, scruffy youth before him had been orphaned in the Rankan takeover of Sanctuary. He didn't remember his parents and he'd grown up fast and hard, hating Rankans all the way. He'd had no connections, no advantages, no mentors: Marc had known Zip for years, and never dared to get involved- this kind died young and they died unpleasantly.

Now, for some reason known only to the gods. Marc was involved: it was a matter of pride, of gut resentment, of life and death.

"No, boy, I can't promise you that. But maybe they can. All / can promise is that if you don't show up, not me, or my wife, or this shop is going to exist in the morning: they'll level the place and bury us in it."

"Thanks for not pressuring me."

"You're welcome. Thanks for making my shop your favorite haunt."

"I give. Look, tell me who's going to be here."

With a sick feeling in his stomach, fingering an amulet of Shalpa in hopes that the goddess could keep this boy from diving through the open hole by his side into the tunnels and never coming up. Marc began to explain about the vampire woman, Ischade; the crime lord, Jubal; the Rankan 3rd Commando leader, Sync; the storyteller, Hakiem, and the acting garrison commander, Walegrin.

As he did, watching Zip's unbelieving eyes go icy and hostile. Marc couldn't even convince himself that tonight's meeting wasn't going to be a wholesale slaughter. Judging by the guest list, somebody could get rid of every troublemaker in Sanctuary worth mentioning in one cleansing fire- he hoped to hell that "somebody" didn't turn out to be Strat.

The only element missing from the list of invited guests was a representative of black magic-some honcho from the mageguild, or Enas Yorl, or some Hazard-class enchanter who might be able to keep order through fear of mortal curse.

And if the Stepsons hadn't been allergic to magicians, they'd probably have invited one of them, too.

By the time Sync got to the meeting, the air was already blue with krrf smoke, the packed-clay floor littered with wine dregs.

Kama was presiding, as best she could, over a crowd of thirty-five people who, under any other circumstances, would have been locked in mortal combat by now.