Robert Asprin - The Dead of Winter

And Strat had to turn away; he couldn't watch Niko, full of life, embrace that thing who'd once ridden at his side.

And when he did, Ischade was waiting there to take Strat's hand and cool his brow and usher him inside.

But no matter the depth of her eyes or the quality of her ministrations, this time Straton knew he had no chance of forgetting what he saw when a Sacred Band pair was reunited, the living and the dead.

Niko was drinking off his chill in the Ale keep, which opened with the rising sun, when he realized that somebody was drawing his picture.

A little fellow with a pot belly and black circles under his eyes, who was sitting in the beamed common hall's far corner, was looking at him too often, then looking down at a board he held on his lap.

Just the day barman was present, so Niko didn't try to ignore a problem in the making. He'd had too rough a night, at any rate, to have patience with anyone let alone a limner who didn't ask permission.

But when he was halfway to the other man, his intention clear enough, the day barman reached out a hand to stay him. "I'd not, were I you, sir. That's Lalo the Limner, who drew the Black Unicorn that came alive in the Maze and killed so many. Just let the scribbler be."

"As far as I know, I'm alive already, man," Niko said, knowing that his accursed temper had already slipped its bonds and that things would doubtless get worse before he got it in check again. "And I don't like having my picture scrawled on anything-walls, doors, hearts. Maybe I'll turn the tables and draw my sign on that fat, soft belly...."

By then, the little, rat-faced limner was scrabbling up, running for the door, his sketching board under his arm. Niko didn't chase him.

He went back to his table and sat there, digging in the wood with the point of his blade the way Janni used to do, thinking of the meeting he'd had and wanted to forget with a dead thing happy to fight beyond mortal battles at the bidding of the necromant, wondering if he should-or could-find a way to put Janni's soul to rest despite its assurance that it was content enough as it was. Did it know? Was it really Janni? Did the oath they'd sworn still obtain when one respondent wasn't a man any longer?

Niko didn't know. He couldn't decide. He tried not to drink too much, but drink dulled the picture in his mind's eye, and at nightfall he was still sitting there, trying unsuccessfully to get thoroughly drunk, when the priest known as Torchholder happened to come in with others of his perfumed breed, all with their curl-toed winter shoes and their gaudy jewelry.

Torchholder knew him, but Niko didn't have the sense to leave before the High Priest of Vashanka recognized the fighter who'd been with Tempus at the Mageguild's Fete two winters past.

So when the priest sat down opposite him, Niko raised his head from the palm on which he'd been propping it and stared owlishly at the priest. "Yeah? Can I help you, citizen?"

"Perhaps, fighter, I can help you."

"Not if you can't lay the undead, not a chance of it."

"Pardon?" Torchholder was watching the half drunk Sacred Bander closely, looking for some sign. "We can do whatever the god demands, and we know you are pious and well disposed to-"

"Enlil," Niko interrupted firmly. "Gotta have a god around here, so I'm making it plain: Mine's Enlil, when I need one. Which is as infrequently as possible." Stealth's hand went to his belt and Torchholder froze in place.

But Niko only patted his weaponbelt and brought the hand back to the table, where he propped his chin on it. "Weapons'11 do me, mosttimes. Other times ..." The Sacred Bander leaned forward. "You any good at fighting witches? I've got a friend I'd like to get out of one's clutches ..."

Torchholder made a warding sign with practiced fluency before his face. "We'd like to show you something, Nikodemos called-"

"Ssh!" Niko said with exaggerated care, and looked around, right and left, before leaning forward to whisper. "Don't call me that. Not here. Not ever. I'm just visiting. I can't stay. Too much magic. Hurts, you know. Dead partners that aren't dead. Ex-partners that aren't ex.... Very confusing-"

"We know, we know," soothed the priest with wicked eyes. "We're here to help you sort it out. Come with us and-"

"Who's we?" Niko wanted to know, but two of Molin's cohort already had him by the armpits. They lifted the only mildly protesting fighter up and eased him out the door to where a carriage with ivory screens was waiting and, after some little difficulty, boosted him inside and closed the door.

Niko, who'd been abducted more than once in his life, expected the carriage to jerk and horses to lunge and to be carried off into the night. He also expected to fight being bound hand and foot. And he expected to be alone in there, after that, or at least alone but for the company of guards.

None of his expectations came to pass. Before him, on the other side of the carriage, were two children, one on either side of a harried looking woman who might once have been beautiful and whom Niko, who liked women, vaguely recalled: a temple dancer. The two children were hardly more than babes, but one of them, the fair-haired, sat right up and clapped his little hands.

And the sound of those hands clapping rang in Niko's ears like the thunder of the god Vashanka, like the Storm God's own lightning that seemed to issue from the childish mouth as the boy began to giggle in joy.

Niko sat back, slouched against the opposite corner of the wagon, and said, "What the ... ?"

And though the child was now just a child again, another, deeper voice, rang in the Stepson's head, saying, Look on Me, favorite of the Riddler, and take word back to your leader that I am come again. And that 1 would take advantage of all you have to give before the little world that is thine suffers unto perishing. The boy from whose mouth the words could not have issued was saying, "Sowdier? Hewo? Make fwiends? Fwiends? Take big ride? Water pwace? Soon? Me want go soon!"

Niko, stone sober, sat up, looked at the woman sharply and then nodded politely, as he hadn't before. "You're that one's mother? That temple dancer-Seylalha, the First Consort who bore Vashanka's child." It wasn't really a question; the woman didn't bother to answer.

Niko leaned forward, toward the two children, the darker of whom had his thumb in his mouth and regarded Niko with round black eyes. The fair child smiled beatifi-cally. "Soon?" the boy said, though it was too young a child to be discussing anything as sensitive as Niko knew it was.

He said, "Soon, if you're worthy, boy. Pure in heart. Honorable. Loving of life all life. It won't be easy. I'll have to get permission. And you've got to control-what's inside you. Or they won't have you in Bandara, no matter how they care for me."

"Good," said the fair child, or maybe just "Goo"; Niko wasn't sure.

These were toddlers, the both. Too young and, if Niko's maat was right and a god had chosen one as His repository, too dangerous. Niko said to the woman, "Tell the priests I'll do what I can. But he must be taught restraint. No child can control his temper at that age. Both of them, then, must be prepared."

And he pushed on the wagon's door, which opened and let the sobered fighter out into the blessedly cold and normal Sanctuary night.

Normal, except for the presence of Molin Torchholder and the little scribbler, whom the priest held by the collar. "Nikodemos, look at this," said the priest without preamble as if Niko were now his ally-which, so far as Stealth was concerned, he indubitably was not.

Still, the picture that the scribbler, who was protesting that he had a right to do as he willed, had scribed was odd: It was of Niko, but with Tempus looking over his shoulder and both of them seemed to be enfolded in the wings of a dark angel who looked altogether too much like Roxane.