Robert Asprin - Uneasy Alliances

"That's right!" she shot back. "You made me insane when you abandoned me to the gentle mercies of Scavengers' Isle!"

Only Shupansea kept a measure other composure. She leaned forward, regarding Daphne with sudden interest. "Why our commander?"

Daphne faced Walegrin again. "You betrayed the Lady Chenaya," she charged, "and let Zip go free after she handed the little bastard over to you. Now, the common people of the city shower her name with praise and beflower her gate while Molin and the powerbrokers of Sanctuary rant and rave about her so-called treachery. Yet, no one speaks of your treachery, Walegrin. You made love to her, then you betrayed her. You helped shape her plan, and you killed piffles right beside the rest of us." She stabbed a finger at the Torch and Kitty-Kat. "Then, on their orders, you freed the man who murdered your little niece and gutted your own sister with an ax." She gave him a cold look, finding small reward when he turned away from her gaze. "You've thrown away your honor, Commander. Molin and his cronies may praise you for your obedience and sense of duty. But the common men and women of this town know you now. Look in their eyes the next time you walk the streets. You'll find reflected there nothing but scorn."

She turned to Molin who seemed ready to swoop down on her like the carrion bird he so resembled. "Keep your toy soldier, Torchie. But keep him away from me. He pollutes the air."

"I am curious," Shupansea spoke, leaning forward. "If you wanted our commander's finger, why did you change your mind?"

Daphne allowed a wan smile. "It's nothing any of you will ever grasp," she answered. "But I found true honor in this city last night among some whores in a dirty park, where a group of women struggle every moment of their lives to eke out an existence you and I would die to avoid. For all their misery they take care of each other like a kind of family." She hesitated. "I've found a similar kind of honor at Land's End, but you wouldn't understand that, either. Walegrin can keep* his finger." She cocked her head to one side, recalling her night in the tunnel and an odor that still lingered unpleasantly in her memory. "It would have made a smelly bauble, anyway."

She gave her back to the masterplayers, then, winning her best victory by walking away from the game.

Just beyond the Processional Gate she found Dayme waiting. He'd washed and changed since the morning's training session, and his essence was sweeter than the day, itself. "I thought I'd walk you back," he said.

She grinned up at him. He really was the hugest man she'd ever seen, yet she found in him the most unexpected gentleness. Chenaya was a fool not to love him. Daphne shielded her eyes from the sun as she gazed at his face. The brightness lent a halo to his features.

"How about I buy you a mug, instead," she offered. "You pick the tavern. Make it someplace raunchy."

He frowned. But then, he clapped an arm around her shoulders, and his lips curled upward into the barest smile: "I think I can find a place to make you blush," he said.

"A gold sheboozh," she answered, "that you can't."

Lalo twitched the mask back into position over his nose and mouth and dipped his brush into the gray paint once more. Another three feet of this wretched wall and he could stop for a bit. The brush rasped the coarse canvas, deftly suggesting texture; a touch of black gave it depth, and another stone was finished. From somewhere out front he heard hammering. The opening of the second production of Sanctuary's first and only resident theatre troupe was two days away. The painter wondered if either their rehearsals or his sets would be finished in time.

Lalo stepped back to consider his work and grimaced beneath the mask. Even with shading the canvas looked like a collection of blobs. He supposed that from the audience the flat would create the illusion of reality. It occurred to him then that if he took off his mask and breathed on those rocks that they would be reality... . Was he resisting the temptation because he was not sure the stage would take the weight of the stones, or because he feared that he had lost the power to make them real?

Lalo told himself it was a small price to pay for the return to (relative) normalcy in Sanctuary. Perhaps his son Wedemir and that girl he was courting up at the Palace would be able to raise all of their children in peace. Except when some spell-supported building collapsed as its magic decayed, the debris of the explosion of sorcery that had nearly destroyed Sanctuary had been cleared away- The town was rebuilding. Lalo supposed he should be glad. But the period of escalation in magic had also seen the flowering of his own creativity. He was not sure now which of his talents were magic, and which had been simple craftsmanship. He felt half-blinded-see.

-"head-blind" the mages called it. But he dared not try to

And so he was painting scenery for a production of something called The Accursed King, which seemed more depressing the more of it he heard.

"We'll take it again from the beginning, then," said Feltheryn over his shoulder as he strode onto the stage- "Two days to opening, dear gods! But at least this piece can offend no one . . ," The repercussions of the troupe's first production were only now beginning to fade in public memory.

Feltheryn the Thespian, the troupe's founder, director and star, took his place before a post that was going to become a tree as soon as the carpenters got around to it, and thumped his staff against the floor. Simpering girlishly, Glisselrand scurried across the stage after him and took his elbow.

"Tell me, my daughter, where have you come to now

With your blind old father? What is this place, my child?"

Feltheryn's stentorian tones rang out with remarkable resonance for a monarch as enfeebled as he was supposed to be.

"It's little I ask, and am well content with less.

Three masters-pain, time, and the royalty in the blood-

Have taught me patience-"

The stage shuddered as something large and heavy hit the floor. Feltheryn broke off and turned. "Patience!" he roared. "Gods give me patience-I have to work with fools!"

"It was the hoist," came a plaintive voice from backstage. "It wasn't my fault, master-the rope slipped-"

"Lempchin! You misbegotten son of a sheep-swiving Rankan!" He gathered breath, and ominous tones rolled across the stage. "What fell?"

There was a silence, and Lalo bent to gather up the brushes that had been knocked from their stand.

"It was ... the thunder machine."

"Vashanka's rod! Do you know how much that thing cost? A gift from the Prince himself it was, and after everything-" he took a deep breath, then launched into a monologue of sorrows as eloquent as anything in the play.

Lalo found that he had put the brushes back into their case instead of on the stand, and grimaced. How could anyone be expected to painteven to paint scenery-with this sort of thing going on? Darkness had fallen an hour ago. Gilla would already be angry with him for being late, but perhaps dinner would not be completely cold. He was hungry and tired. As Feltheryn stormed backstage to survey the damage, Lalo finished capping his paints and putting them away, strapped the brush case to his belt, and headed for the door.

"Oh Lalo, are you going already?" Glisselrand called after him. He mumbled something about Gilla and continued up the aisle. "Yes, do give my love to dear Gilla-I'm working on a shawl for her-rose-colored yarn with lemon yellow and a lovely purple from Carronne... ." As the door closed behind him Lalo could still hear her describing the color scheme.

He shook his head. The tea cozy had been bad enough. The thought of a shawl large enough to cover Gilla. ... He shuddered. And Gilla would insist on keeping it! He wondered if he could persuade her to keep it somewhere out of sight... . Still contemplating the horror of Glisselrand's sense of color unleashed on something the size of a shawl, he hurried on through the darkness.