Robert Asprin: The Dead of Winter

Not even Bandara's gravel ponds or deep seaside meditation had cleansed his soul of its longing for the flesh of the witch who loved him.

So he'd come down again to Sanctuary, on the excuse of answering Randal's ephemeral summons. But it was Roxane he'd come to see. And touch. And talk to.

For Niko had to exorcise her, take her talons from his soul, cleanse his heart of her. He'd admitted it to himself this season in Bandara. At least that was a start. The lore of his mystery whispered that any problem, named and known, was soluble. But since the name of Niko's problem was Roxane, Stealth wasn't sure that it was so.

Thus, he must confront her. Here, somewhere. Make her let him go.

But he didn't find her in the Alekeep, just a fat old man with a wispy pate who'd aged too much in the passing seasons, who had a winter in his eyes with more bite to it than any Sanctuary ever blew in off the endless sea.

The old man, when Niko told him of his daughter's fate, simply nodded, chin on fist, and said to Niko, "You did your best, son. As we're all doing now. It seems so long ago, and we've such troubles here...." He paused, and sighed a quavery sigh, and wiped red eyes with his sleeve then, so Niko knew that the father's hurt was still fresh and sharp.

Niko got up from the marble table where he'd found the father, alone with the night's receipts, and looked down. "If there's ever anything I can do, sir anything at all. I'm at the mercenaries' guildhall, will be for a week or two."

The old barkeep blew his nose on the leather of his chiton's hem, then craned his neck. "Do? Leave my other daughters be, is all."

Niko held the barkeep's feisty gaze until the man relented. "Sorry, son. We all know none's to blame for undeads but their makers. Luck go with you. Stepson. What is it your brothers of the sword say? Ah, I've got it: Life to you, and everlasting glory." There was too much bitterness in the father's voice for Niko to have misunderstood what remained unsaid.

But he had to ask. "Sir, I need a favor-don't call me th at here, or anywhere. Tell no one I'm in town. I came to you only because ... I had to. For Tamzen's sake." That was the first time either man had used the name of the girl who'd been daughter to the elder and lover to the younger, a girl now safe and peacefully dead, who hadn't been for far too long while Roxane had made use of her, and other children she'd added to her crew of zombies, children taken from among the finest homes of Sanctuary and now buried on the slopes of Wizardwall.

He got out of there as soon as the old man shielded his eyes with his hand and muttered something like assent. He shouldn't have come. It had done the Alekeep's owner harm, not good. But he'd had to do it, for himself. Because the girl had been used by the witch against him, because he'd had to kill a child to save a childish soul. He wondered whether he'd expected the old man to absolve him, as if anyone could. Then he wondered where he'd go as he stepped out into the Green Zone streets and saw torches flaring Mazeward-tiny at this distance, but a warning that there was trouble in the lower quarter of the town.

Niko didn't want to mix in any of Sanctuary's internecine disputes, to be recruited by any side-even Strat's- or even know specifics of who was right and wrong. Probably everyone was equally culpable and innocent; wars had a way of blotting out absolutes; and civil wars, or wars of liberation, were the worst.

He wandered better streets, his hand upon his scabbard, until he came to an intersection where a corner estate had an open gate and, beyond, a beggar was crouched. A beggar this far uptown was unlikely.

Niko was just about to turn away, reminding himself that he was no longer policing Sanctuary as a Stepson on covert business, but here on his own recognizance, when he heard a voice he thought he knew.

"Seh," said a shadow separating itself out from shadows across from where the beggar sat. The curse was Nisi; the voice was, too.

He stepped closer and the shadows became two, and they were arguing as they came abreast of the beggar, who stood right up and demanded where they'd been so long.

"He's drunk, can't you see?" said the first voice and Niko's gift gave him a different kind of light to place the face and find the name he'd known long since.

The first speaker was a Nisi renegade named Vis, a man who owed Niko at least one favor, and might know the answer to the question Niko most wanted to ask: the whereabouts of the Nisibisi witch.

The second shadow spoke, as the drunken beggar clawed at its clothes and Niko's sight grew sharper, showing him bluish sparks swirling round the taller of the two shadows solidifying despite the moonless dark. "Mor-am, you idiot! Get up! What's Moria going to say? Fool, and worse! There's death out here. Don't get too cocky...." The rest was a hostile hiss from a lowered voice, but Niko had placed this man easier than the first: The deeply accented voice, the velvet tones, had made him know the other speaker was an ex-slave named Haught.

This Haught was a freedman. The Nisibisi witch had freed him. And Niko had saved him from interrogation, long ago, at Straton's hands. Strat, the Stepsons' chief inquisitor, was no man to cross and one who was so good at what he did that his mere reputation loosened tongues and bowels.

So it was not that these were strangers, or even that they picked the beggar up between them and carried him toward the open gate beyond which lights blazed in skin-covered windows, that gave Niko pause. It was that Haught, who'd been little more than a frightened whelp, the slave's collar bound 'round his very soul, when last Niko had chanced across him, was giving orders with assurance and had, by the way his aura glittered blue, magical attributes to back him up.

There was nothing magical about Vis's aura, just the red and pink of distress and passion held in check-and fear, the spice of it tingling Niko's nerves as he moved to intercept them at the gate, sword drawn and warming as it always did when in proximity to magic.

"Vis, he's got a weap-"

"Remember me, puds?" Niko said, halting all three in a practiced interception. "Don't move; I just want to talk."

Vis's hand was on his hip and a naked blade would surely follow; Niko let his attention dwell on Vis, though Haught ought to have been his first concern.

And yet Haught didn't push the beggar (moaning, "Whaddya mean, Haught, 's nothin' wrong with a little fresh air ...") at Niko or cast a spell, just said, "Years ago-the northern fighter, isn't it? Oh yes, I remember you. And so does someone else, I'd bet-"

Vis-too taut, planning something-interrupted, "What is it, soldier? Money? We'll give you money. And work for an idle blade if ... Remember you?" Vis took a step forward and Niko felt, rather than saw, eyes narrow: "Right, that's right. I know who you are. We owe you one, is that it? For saving us from Tempus's covert actors downtown. Well, come on in. We'll talk about it indoors."

"If," Haught put in on that silken tongue that made Niko wonder what he might be walking into, "you'll sheath that blade and treat our invitation as what it is ... a luxury. If you want to fight, we'll not be using bronze or steel in any case."

Niko looked between the two, still holding up their beggar friend, and sheathed his blade. "I don't want your hospitality, just some information. I'm looking for Roxane -and don't tell me you don't know who I mean."

It was Haught's laughter that made Niko know he'd found more than he'd bargained for: It sent chills screeching up and down his spine, so self-assured it was and so full of taunt and anticipation. "Of course I know-me and my mistress both know. But don't you think, fighter, that by now Roxane's looking for you? Come in, don't come, wait here, go your way-whatever choice, she'll find you."