Robert Asprin: The Face of Chaos

'No,' he replied, to all of it, then added: 'Gods don't die; men die. Boys die in multitudes. The thief, Shadowspawn, is no threat to us, just misguided, semi literate, and vain, like all boys. Bring me a conduit to Jubal, or the slaver himself. Contact Niko and have him report - if the witch needs a lesson, I myself will undertake to teach it. And keep your watch upon the fish-eyed folk from the ships -I'm not sure yet that they're as harmless as they seem.'

Having given Crit enough to do to keep his mind off the rumours of the god Vashanka's troubles - and hence, his own - he rose to leave. 'Some results, by week's end, would be welcome.' The officer toasted him cynically as Tempus walked away.

Outside, his Tros horse whinnied joyfully. He stroked its mist-dappled neck and felt the sweat there. The weather was close, an early heatwave as unwelcome as the late frosts which had frozen the winter crops a week before their harvest and killed the young sets just planted in anticipation of a bounteous fall.

He mounted up and headed south by the granaries towards the palace's north wall where a gate nowhere as peopled or public as the Gate of the Gods was set into the wall by the cisterns. He would talk to Prince Kitty-Cat, then tour the Maze on his way home to the barracks.

But the prince wasn't receiving, and Tempus's mood was ill -just as well; he had been going to confront the young popinjay, as once or twice a month he was sure he must do, without courtesy or appropriate deference. If Kadakithis was holed up in conference with the blond-haired, fish-eyed folk from the ships and had not called upon him to join them, then it was not surprising: since the gods had battled in the sky above the Mageguild, all things had become confused, worse had come to worst, and Tempus's curse had fallen on him once again with its full force.

Perhaps the god was dead - certainly, Vashanka's voice in his ear was absent. He'd gone out raping once or twice to see if the Lord of Pillage could be roused to take part in His favourite sport. But the god had not rustled around in his head since New Year's day; the resultant fear of harm to those who loved him by the curse that denied him love had made a solitary man withdraw even further into himself; only the Froth Daughter Jihan, hardly human, though woman in form, kept him company now.

And that, as much as anything, irked the Stepsons. Theirs was a closed fraternity, open only to the paired lovers of the Sacred Band and distinguished single mercenaries culled from a score of nations and diverted, by Tempus's service and Kitty-Cat's gold, from the northern insurrection they'd drifted through Sanctuary en route to join.

He, too, ached to war, to fight a declared enemy, to lead his cohort north. But there was his word to a Rankan faction to do his best for a petty prince, and there was this thrice-cursed fleet of merchant warriors come to harbour talking 'peaceful trade' while their vessels rode too low in the water to be filled with grain or cloth or spices - if not barter, his instinct told him, the Burek faction of Beysib would settle for conquest.

He was past caring; things in Sanctuary were too confused for one man, even one near-immortal, god-ridden avatar of a man, to set aright. He would take Jihan and go north, with or without the Stepsons - his accursed presence among them and the love they bore him would kill them if he let it continue: if the god was truly gone, then he must follow. Beyond Sanctuary's borders, other Storm Gods held sway, other names were hallowed. The primal Lord Storm (Enlil), whom Niko venerated, had heard a petition from Tempus for a clearing of his path and his heart: he wanted to know what status his life, his curse, and his god-bond had, these days. He awaited only a sign.

Once, long ago, when he went abroad as a philosopher and sought a calmer life in a calmer world, he had said that to gods all things are beautiful and good and just, but men have supposed some things to be unjust, others just. If the god had died, or been banished, though it didn't seem that this could be so, then it was meet that this occurred. But those who thought it so did not realize that one could not escape the intelligible light: the notice of that which never sets: the apprehension of the elder gods. So he had asked, and so he waited.

He had no doubt that the answer would be forthcoming, as he had no doubt that he would not mistake it when it came.

On his way to the Maze he brooded over his curse, which kept him unloved by the living and spurned by any he favoured if they be mortal. In heaven he had a brace of lovers, ghosts like the original Stepson, Abarsis. But to heaven he could not repair: his flesh regenerated itself immemorially; to make sure this was still the case, last night he had gone to the river and slit both wrists. By the time he'd counted to fifty the blood had ceased to flow and healing had begun. That gift of healing - if gift it was - still remained his, and since it was god-given, some power more than mortal 'loved' him still.

It was whim that made him stop by the weapons shop the mercenaries favoured. Three horses tethered out front were known to him; one was Niko's stallion, a big black with points like rust and a jughead on thickening neck perpetually sweatbanded with sheepskin to keep its jowls modest. The horse, as mean as it was ugly, snorted a challenge to Tempus's Tros - the black resented that the Tros had climbed Niko's mare.

He tethered it at the far end of the line and went inside, among the crossbows, the flying wings, the steel and wooden quarrels and the swords.

Only a woman sat behind the counter, pulchritudinous and vain, her neck hung with a wealth of baubles, her flesh perfumed. She knew him, and in seconds his nose detected acrid, nervous sweat and the defensive musk a woman can exude.

'Marc's out with the boys in back, sighting-in the high-torque bows. Shall I get him. Lord Marshal? Or may I help you? What's here's yours, my lord, on trial or as our gift -' Her arm spread wide, bangles tinkling, indicating the racked weapons.

'I'll take a look out back. Madam; don't disturb yourself.'

She settled back, not calm, but bidden to remain and obedient.

In the ochre-walled yard ten men were gathered behind the log fence that marked the range; a hundred yards away three oxhides had been fastened to the encircling wall, targets painted red upon them; between the hides, three cuirasses of four-ply hardened leather armoured with bronze plates were propped and filled with straw.

The smith was down on his knees, a crossbow fixed in a vice with its owner hovering close by. The smith hammered the sights twice more, put down his file, grunted and said, 'You try it, Straton; it should shoot true. I got a hand breadth group with it this morning; it's your eye I've got to match...'

The large-headed, raw-boned smith, sporting a beard which evened a rough complexion, rose with exaggerated effort and turned to another customer, just stepping up to the firing line. 'No, Stealth, not like that, or, if you must, I'll change the tension -' Marc moved in, telling Niko to throw the bow up to his shoulder and fire from there, then saw Tempus and left the group, hands spreading on his apron.

Bolts spat and thunked from five shooters when the morning's range officer hollered 'Clear' and 'Fire', then 'Hold', so that all could go to the wall to check their aim and the depths to which the shafts had sunk.

Shaking his head, the smith confided: 'Straton's got a problem I can't solve. I've had it truly sighted - perfect for me - three times, but when he shoots, it's as if he's aiming two feet low.'

'For the bow, the name is life, but the work is death. In combat it will shoot true for him; here, he's worried how they judge his prowess. He's not thinking enough of his weapon, too much of his friends.'