Robert Asprin: Uneasy Alliances

"0-0-0 Bey-" Words failed him as they had never failed before.

The Beysa reacted with more aplomb. She tittered like an apprentice handmaid and scattered a pile of drawings clear across the floor. Only the slender serpent retained its dignity; it yawned, showing its ivory fangs and crimson maw, then wove itself deep into her hair.

Shupansea grabbed the nearest of the drawings. She got to her feet and held it out as a peace offering. "I'm sorry. Storyteller ..." Her lamp was guttering. A swathe of pale light came through the narrow window. She realized she'd spent the night in his room-with him or without him. "Oh, I'm really sorry."

Hakiem bent down to pick up another drawing, and to look at something besides her face. A successful drunk leams that death is not the likely consequence of embarrassment. He had mastered that lesson years ago, but the Beysa, obviously, had not. She was redder than her serpent's mouth.

"Had I known it was you, 0 Beysa," he tried to keep the absurd amusement from his voice and reached for another drawing. "Had I but known, I would have come home much sooner."

Time froze for a moment, then thawed as Shupansea exhaled in a long, trembling sigh. "I-I had nightmares. I thought you might be able to help ... If I could think of an ending for the dreams, perhaps they'd go away. You always seem to know how things should end."

Hakiem shook his head sadly. "That's because stories may end while the hero-or heroine-is still alive. Life is different, 0 Beysa. But I would be glad to listen."

"No, I guess I understand that they're my dreams, and I must conquer them." She crouched down and gathered more of the colorful parchment scraps. Her fingers paused above a portrait of Prince Kadakithis standing uneasily beside a corpse. "I think maybe I learned something just looking at your pictures. It's strange-I've never thought of Ki-this using his sword. I mean, he's not weak, but I love him because he's gentle. He's strong and gentle-and someday maybe his people will realize that. But looking at this-well, I could see it happening. I knew. this man was a traitor, and that Ki-this had to kill him. He was proud and disgusted both at the same time-and he grew up that night.

"I'll have to do the same thing-well, maybe not with a sword, but I've got to grow up if I'm to help him turn Sanctuary into one city for everyone, You should draw more pictures and put them where everyone can see them."

Hakiem made a sour grimace and took the scraps from her hand. "That, I fear, is the general idea. I tell stories while an artist sketches, and then the Torch-excuse me. Lord Torchholder-intends to have them painted on his new walls."

Shupansea straightened as if the priest had entered the room. She had a half-dozen contradictory opinions about the omnipresent bureaucrat. Not that anyone claimed to understand Molin Torchholder. He was a black-haired Rankan, a dedicated priest of a vanquished god and the driving force behind the resurrection of a city he openly loathed.

"It's a good idea. He hasn't mentioned it yet, but he will, and both Kithis and I will tell him so. He'll grumble something about doing what's necessary and walk away under a dark cloud. It must be hard, I think, to work as hard as Lord Torchholder does, and get so little satisfaction."

"They say hate is as satisfactory a mistress as love."

"I prefer love."

"Lord Torchholder does not."

The last drawing had slipped beneath the cushions. They both saw it at the same time and Hakiem, who recognized the subject from the visible corner, dove to retrieve it first. He would have had it, but his sudden lunge aroused Shupansea's serpent. Discretion was always the better part of valor, still a lump hardened in his throat as she pulled the sketch out.

Torchholder's orders had been precise: illustrations from Hakiem's stories of the events that had shaped Sanctuary since the Prince had arrived as governor. There had been few occasions more momentous than the afternoon when Kadakithis had handed the Savankh to the Beysa and her court-in-exile for "safe-keeping." Hakiem liked Shupansea now-the Prince wanted to make her his wife-but they'd hated her that afternoon and it showed clearly in Lalo's sketch.

Draped in jewels and cloth-of-gold, hard-eyed, her face and naked breasts painted an iridescent green, Shupansea had been the archetype of arrogance. The storyteller seldom connected the young woman he'd come to know and the alien creature he remembered, but he could not deny that the Beysib, with their abundant gold and equally abundant contempt for all non-Beysib things, had been the prime cause of Sanctuary's horrors. The Rankan campaign against the Nisibisi in the north would scarcely have touched the city-much less divided it-if the Beysib hadn't riled it first.

"Does he intend to have them all painted?" Shupansea asked in carefully measured tones, her gaze never rising from the picture.

"With the Prince's approval, and yours-of course."

The parchment fluttered in her hand. Her eyes went wide and glassy, the beynit rose from her hair, and Hakiem began to doubt that she had, in fact, truly changed during the years he'd been advising her. She had returned the Savankh to the prince's keeping, but not the power behind it.

"We looked like that, didn't we?" Shupansea whispered as she put the parchment on top of the pile. "And nothing I ever do will erase that picture, will it?"

Hakiem caught her hand and squeezed it gently. "I don't tell stories about the future, you know, but it's my guess that Lord Molin means to leave the largest space-the space above the main gate-for a commemoration of your wedding with Prince Kadakithis-"

Shupansea sighed and pulled her hand away. "If we marry. Maybe hate is stronger than love." She stood in the doorway, looking over her shoulder, waiting for Hakiem to deny what she did not believe could be denied.

"Hope is the strongest of all," he assured, and watched her walk slowly down the corridor.

Saliman did not have to stretch his acting talents-to maintain an air of disdain as he carefully picked his way through the rows of chained slaves. He had performed this task hundreds of times before, so though unpleasant, the odor of so many close-packed, unwashed bodies was not new to him. The fact that he was on board a ship only added a new batch of musty smells to the proceedings. Pulling his cloak high to keep it from the filth on the floor would do no good. The air itself would invade the fabric until it would either have to be thoroughly cleaned or discarded altogether. One didn't wear one's best clothes to shop for slaves.

No, it was not the distasteful nature of the job that had Saliman in such a vile mood, but rather the hour. The fact that he had been rousted from a warm bed shared by an even warmer bed partner to carry out this mission in the pre-dawn hours virtually guaranteed that he would be less than generous in his negotiations with the slavers.

"I shouldn't be doing this," the man holding the lantern grumbled loudly. "I got better things to do, what with the ship to get underway and all."

This was, of course, the reason for this sudden assignment. The ship was due to sail on the morning tide, and it was important to carry out this mission before it left Sanctuary's waters. Still, it gave Saliman a focus for his irritation.

"Do you want me to tell that to Jubal?" he said, his expression bland. "I'm sure if I alert him to your inconvenience, he'll be careful to only bother you with important matters in the future."

The thinly veiled threat was not lost on the slaver.

"No! I ... that won't be necessary."

The slavers had paid well to be sure that Sanctuary's crime lord did not interfere with their operation, and did not wish to raise that price by denying his request. Particularly not when Jubal's prices were known to occasionally include blood as well as money.