Robert Asprin - Storm Season

Now Hanse was propping himself with both hands on a high-backed chair, and at last Eshi took notice.

"We are cruel, brother! Shadowspawn-seat yourself."

Shadowspan obeyed with gratitude and alacrity. He almost collapsed into the chair. He took a very deep breath, let part of it out, and was able to form words by letting them ride the breath: "But ... uh ... then what?"

"You will know, Hanse."

Then Shadowspawn twitched away at a sound beside him. He looked at the floor beside his chair, at what had only just appeared there, and could not possibly be there. Clinking, dripping, running water, were the bags off the saddle of a dead man named Bourne. Hanse's saddlebags, from the deeps of the well just outside! The ransom of the Savankh, which he had stolen for little purpose other than his own ego and pride-which had soared, then. The ransom Prince Kitty-cat had told him was his-if he could get it out of the well.

It was irresistible. He bent to the bags, opened one, took forth a few wet silver coins. And he sighed. He dribbled them back in, listening to their sweet lovely clink, and he did it again- keeping a few in his fist. Then, staring thoughtfully down at those bags sending wet runnels along the floor, he sighed.

"You are god and my god, Shadowed One. This... this is safe in the well. Uh, can you put it back?"

Hanse jerked when the bags vanished, and he wondered if he were not the greatest fool in Sanctuary. How silly I am going to feel when I wake up from this dream?

"It is back in the well, Son of the Shadow, and aye, it is safe indeed! And we must go, my sister and I. Our time on this plane is necessarily limited."

Hanse raised an expostulating hand, said "But-" and was alone in Eaglenest. The candles remained, burning. So now did food and wine, on the table before him. He glanced down. The puddles and dark run-stains of water remained. And so did the coins in his hand, a few pieces of silver.

Did that mean it had all indeed happened?

No, of course not. When I wake, the coins will be gone.

The food he took with him, eating as he left, tasted very good in his dream, and the wine was the very best he had ever sipped. Only sipped; the sack remained heavy as he climbed the steps to his room deep in that area of Sanctuary called the Maze. (It was even more dangerous now than ever before, what with all these damned swaggering soldiers, all foreigners; that was one reason he had chosen to leave his money in the well. Even the Maze could no longer be considered safe, Hanse thought.)

He entered his room and closed the door with care, and bolted it with as much care. A window leaked in a little moonlight, and by the time he had the cloak unclasped and off and the tunic over his head, he was able to see pretty well. That was how he discovered that a woman waited in his bed.

A girl, rather. The truly beautiful Lady Esaria. In his bed. She sat up, showing that all she wore was the bedspread, and held out her arms.

Hanse was somehow able to avoid yelling or collapsing. He made it to the bed. She was real. She was waiting for him. It was wonderful, all of it with her. Even his wondering, Is she Eshi?, did not inhibit him or her or his enjoyment or hers. What matter whether she was the Esaria she appeared to be or the goddess; she was higher than he could have aspired, and the experience was supernal.

He deduced that it really was Esaria, not Eshi (in his dream, of course, he reminded himself) because surely Eshi wouldn't have been eating so much garlic.

She was gone in the morning, and he lay smiling, thinking about his dream. Lying on his back, he rolled his head.

He could see cloak, tunic, and wine-sack from here. That brought him wide awake, and sent his hand swinging down beside the pallet to check his buskins. The silver coins were still there. Hanse demonstrated the cliche of sitting bolt upright. Hurling back the spread, he inspected his bed. That required no effort. The evidence of Esaria's visit and her late virginity were vehemently present.

I was not dreaming, he thought, and then he spoke aloud: "I see and I believe. I will do it, 0 Swift-footed One, 0 All-father Ils! I will do it, holiest-but-one Lady Eshi, and Venerable Lady of Ladies Shipri?"

The voice was there, inside his head: All depend on you,son.

Not "all depends," Hanse realized later. "All depend." Meaning "all the gods of Ilsig and the Ilsigi!"

He took up the last of the strong drink he had used all too much since That Night, the night at Kurd's, and he poured it out onto the sheet on the floor, which already showed the scarlet of another form of sacrificial outpouring.

"A libation to the gods of Ilsig!" Hanse said firmly, and-he meant it.

From the secret hiding place it had occupied for a month and more, somehow resisting alcoholic urges to sell it, he took out a packet. It was the one he had brought away the morning after That Night. It contained the shining and obviously valuable surgical instruments of Kurd the vivisectionist, whom Tempus had lately sent off to another plane of existence or inexistence. Thieving was out of the question now, and such excellent tools would bring him plenty of coin, the naked Hanse thought, and he opened the package on the rickety little table.

And he stared.

The surgical instruments were gone. The packet contained some forty feet of supple, slim, inch-wide black leather strap; a shirt of superb mail, black; a plain black helmet with nose-, temple-, and neck-guards. And a ring. It was not black. It was of gold, and it was set with a large tiger's-eye, caged in bands of gold and surrounded by small blue-white sones.

He spent a lot of time that day wrapping and tightening the leather strapping around the silver sword-sheath given him by him called Stepson. Thus its ornate value was concealed. He tried on the mailcoat and marveled at its suppleness and spent many many minutes learning to get it off. Over the head, yes, but one could not hoist it up and over as one did a tunic-not just under forty pounds of boiled leather covered with rings of black metal! The helmet fitted perfectly, of course.

The ring he would not try on. It was hers, Hers and his sign; he could not consider it his ring. It and four of his five silver coins he carefully stashed before he went down, rather late in the afternoon, for something to eat. He wore the old camel-hued tunic with the raveling hem.

He ate well, drinking only barley water.

"Saw you going out last night, Shadow-spawn," the taverner said quietly, admiring the silver coin and trying to be cool about it. "Musta been a good night, hmm?"

"Aye. A good night. Aye! Don't forget my change."

It was too late to do much of anything. He wandered a bit, hoping to catch sight ofTempus. He did not, andhad to go back. pretending notto hurry, to check his new possessions.

He did. It was all there. The change from the silver coin was still in the draw top bag he was not stupid enough to wear on his belt. And there were five silver coins in his stash.

Hanse sat on the edge of his bed, thinking about that.

Looks as i;fmy, uh, immortal allies want me to have no financial worries' They'd maybe not wish to be served by what I had to remind Kadakithis I am for was?} "Just a damned thief!"

Over the next several days he spread the money around, happily giving a silver coin to dear old Moonflower ("because you're beautiful, why else?") and two to a one-armed beggar with two fingers missing, because Hanse recognized a victim of Kurd; and he gave to others. The krrf dealer was suspicious on receiving a silver Ran-kan Imperial ("for the future, just in case; don't forget my face, now!") but he took the coin.

And always when the spawn of shadows returned to his room above a tavern, always his secret hiding place offered one ring and five silver coins.