Robert Asprin - Shadow Of Sanctuary

'Here,' he said, 'lady.'

'Ischade,' she named herself. 'Do you make free of my lodgings?'

'The man you were with last night. He's dead.'

'I've heard, yes.' The voice was unreadable and cool. 'We parted company. Sad. A handsome boy.' She walked to the slight illumination of the parchment panes, drew an incense wand from others in a dragon vase and added it to the one which was dying, a curl of pale smoke in the light. She looked back then. 'So. I have employment for you. I trust you're not fastidious.'

'Not often.'

'You'll find rewards. Gold. And it might be - further employment.'

'I don't shy off at much.'

'I'll trust not.' She walked near him, and he recalled the knife and nipped it into its sheath. Her eyes followed the move and looked up at him ... grave, so very grave. Women of quality he had seen tended to nutter the eyes; this one stared eye to eye, and he found himself inclined to break the contact, to look down or elsewhere. She extended her hand, close to touching him, a move he thought might be an invitation to take liberties of his own.

And then she drew the hand back and the moment passed. She walked over and offered the bird a morsel from the cup at the side of the stand. The creature took it with a great flapping of wings.

'What do you have in mind?' he asked, vexed at this mincing about, with so much at stake. 'It's not legal, I'll guess.'

'It might involve powerful enemies. I can guarantee - equally powerful protections. And the reward. Of course that.'

'Who's to die? Someone else ... like that boy last night?'

She looked about, lifted a brow, then turned her attentions back to the bird, stroked black feathers with a forefinger. 'Priests, perhaps. Does that bother you?'

'Not unduly. A man wonders -'

'The risk is mine. So are the consequences. Only I need someone to take care of physical difficulties. I assure you I know what I'm about.'

There was more than the scent of incense about the place. Of a sudden there was quite another thing... the smell of wizardry. He gathered that, as he had been picking up the pieces all along. It was not a thing a man expected to find everywhere. But it was here. And there were crimes done in the Maze, by that means and others. Spells, he had dealt with, at least at distance... had a hint then of more rewards than gold. 'You have protections, do you?'

A second time that cool look. 'I assure you it's well thought out.'

'Protections for me as well.'

'They'd be far less interested in you.' She walked back to the table, to the light, a shadow against it. 'This evening,' she said, 'you'll earn the gold I gave you. But perhaps, just perhaps, you ought to go out again. And come back again when I tell you. To prove you know that my door isn't yours.'

Heat surged to his face, words into his mouth. He thought of the money and it stifled the rest.

'Now,' she said. 'About the other thing you have in mind ... well, that might come later, mightn't it? But you choose, Mradhon Vis. There's gold ... or other rewards. And you can tell me which you'd like. Ah. Both, perhaps. Ambition. But know me better, Mradhon Vis, before you propose anything aloud. You might not like my terms. Take the gold. The likes of Sjekso Kinzan is commoner than you. And far less to regret.'

So she had killed the boy. Markless, and cold and stiff within sight of the doorway which might have saved him. He thought about it... and the ambition persisted. It was power. And that was more than the money, much more.

'You'll go now,' she said very, very softly. 'I wouldn't tempt you. Consider we have a bargain. Now get out.'

No one talked to him after that fashion ... at least not twice. But he found himself silenced and his steps tending to the door. He stopped there and looked back to prove he could.

'I've needed a man of your sort,' she said, 'in certain ways.'

He walked out, into the sun.

4

It was one of those neighbourhoods less frequented by the inhabitants of the Maze, and Hanse had a dislocated, uncomfortable feeling in this guide and this place, creeping as they did through the cleaner, wider backways of Sanctuary at large. It was not his territory or close to any of his known boltholes.

And in the shadows of an alley far along the track, his guide paused and shed an inner and ragged cloak from beneath the outer one, proffering it. 'Put it on. You'll not want to be noticed hereabouts for yourself.'

Hanse took it, not without distaste: it was grey and a mass of patches. He swung it about his shoulders and it was long enough to hide him down to midcalf.

His guide held out a dingy bandage as well. 'For your eyes. For your own safety. The house has ... protections. If I told you only to shut your eyes, you'd forget at the worst moment. And my master wants you whole.'

Hanse stared at the offered rag, liking all of this less and less; and very softly he drew the dagger from his arm sheath and extended the blade towards the guide's face.

Not a flinch or blink. That sent a prickling up his spine. He brought the point of the blade very close to the blind eyes and, truth, the man did not react. He flipped the blade into its sheath.

'If you have doubts,' the blind man said, 'accept my master's assurances. But don't under any account look from beneath the bandage once inside. My blindness ... has reasons.'

'Huh.' Hanse took the dirty bandage, feeling far from assured; but he had dealt with nervous uptowners before, and under conditions and precautions more bizarre and hazardous. He wound it about his eyes and tied it firmly: it was true - about Enas Yorl's doorway there were rumours, and bad ones.

And when the blind man grasped his sleeve and began to guide him a quiet panic set in: he had no liking of this helplessness - they entered a street, he guessed, because he heard a change in the sound of their footsteps; he sensed watchers about, stumbled suddenly on an unevenness in the paving and heard the blind man hiss a warning, wrenching at his sleeve: 'Three steps up.'

Three steps to the top and a moment waiting while his guide opened a door. Then a tug at his sleeve drew him inside, where a cold draught blew on his face until the door boomed solidly shut behind him. Instinctively he put a hand on his wrist sheath, keeping the knife hilt comfortingly under his fingers. Again a tug at his sleeve drew him on ... the guide; it must still be the guide and no stranger by him. He wanted a voice. 'How much further with this?' he asked.

Claws scrabbled on stone on his left, a heavy body slithered closer in haste. He made a frantic move to get the knife out, but the guide jerked him to a standstill. 'Don't offend it,' the guide said. 'Don't try to look. Come on.'

A reptile hissed; and by that sound it was a big one. Something flicked over the surface of his boot and coiled about his ankle, instantly withdrawing. The guide drew him on, away from the touch and down a hall which echoed more closely on either hand, where the distance was all in front of them ... and into a place which smelled of coals and hot metal and strange, musky incense.

The guide stopped, on his right. 'Shadowspawn,' a new voice said, a throaty sigh, low, and to his left. He reached for the blindfold, hesitated. 'Go ahead,' the new voice invited him, and he pulled it down.

A robed and hooded form sat in this narrow marble hall - fine robes, in midnight blue and bright silver, in deep shadow, beside a heating brazier. Hanse blinked in the recent pressure on his eyes - the robes seemed to swell and sink in the vicinity of the chest, and the right arm, the hand resting visible ... it went dark, that hand, and then, a deception of his abused eyes, went pale and young. 'Shadowspawn.' The voice too was clearer, younger. 'You lost a friend last night. Do you want to know how?'