Robert Asprin: Shadow Of Sanctuary

'Our tireless Wess,' Chan said. 'I'm tired, too!' Wess said. 'Do you want to try camping in the street again?'

'No,' he said. Behind him. Quartz chuckled.

In the first village they had ever seen - it seemed years ago now, but was only two months - they tried to set up camp in what they thought was a vacant field. It was the village common. Had the village possessed a prison, they would have been thrown into it. As it was they were escorted to the edge of town and invited never to return. Another traveller explained inns to them - and prisons - and now they all could laugh, with some embarrassment at the episode.

But the smaller towns they had passed through did not even approach Sanctuary in size and noise and crowds. Wess had never imagined so many people or such high buildings or any odour so awful. She hoped it would be better beyond the marketplace. Passing a fish stall, she held her breath and hurried. It was the end of the day, true, but the end of a cool late fall's day. Wess tried not to wonder what it would smell like at the end of a long summer's day.

'We should stop at the first inn we find,' Quartz said.

'All right,' Wess said.

By the time they reached the street's end, darkness was complete and the market was deserted. Wess thought it odd that everyone should disappear so quickly, but no doubt they were tired too and wanted to get home to a hot fire and dinner. She felt a sudden stab of homesickness and hopelessness: their search had gone on so long, with so little chance of success.

The buildings closed in around them as the street narrowed suddenly. Wess stopped: three paths faced them, and another branched off only twenty paces farther on.

'Where now, my friends?'

'We must ask someone,' Aerie said, her voice soft with fatigue.

'If we can find anyone,' Chan said doubtfully.

Aerie stepped towards a shadow-filled corner.

'Citizen,' she said, 'would you direct us to the nearest inn?'

The others peered more closely at the dim niche. Indeed, a muffled figure crouched there. It stood up. Wess could see the manic glitter of its eyes, but nothing more.

'An inn?'

'The closest, if you please. We've travelled a long way.'

The figure chuckled. 'You'll find no inns in this part of town, foreigner. But the tavern around the corner - it has rooms upstairs. Perhaps it will suit you.'

'Thank you.' Aerie turned back,.a faint breeze ruffling her short black hair. She pulled her cloak closer.

They went the way the figure gestured, and did not see it convulse with silent laughter behind them.

In front of the tavern, Wess puzzled out the unfamiliar script: the Vulgar Unicorn. An odd combination, even in the south where odd combinations were the style of naming taverns. She pushed open the door. It was nearly as dark inside as out, and smoky. The noise died as Wess and Chan entered - then rose again in a surprised buzz when Aerie and Quartz followed.

Wess and Chan were not startlingly different from the general run of southern mountain folk: he fairer, she darker. Wess could pass unnoticed as an ordinary citizen anywhere; Chan's beauty often attracted attention. But Aerie's tall white-skinned black-haired elegance everywhere aroused comment. Wess smiled, imagining what would happen if Aerie flung away her cloak and showed herself as she really was.

And Quartz: she had to stoop to come inside. She straightened up. She was taller than anyone else in the room. The smoke near the ceiling swirled a wreath around her hair. She had cut it short for the journey, and it curled around her face, red, gold, and sand-pale. Her grey eyes reflected the firelight like mirrors. Ignoring the stares, she pushed her blue wool cloak from her broad shoulders and shrugged her pack to the floor.

The strong heavy scent of beer and sizzling meat made Wess's mouth water. She sought out the man behind the bar.

'Citizen,' she said, carefully pronouncing the Sanctuary language, the trade tongue of all the continent, 'are you the proprietor? My friends and I, we need a room for the night, and dinner.'

Her request seemed ordinary enough to her, but the innkeeper looked sidelong at one of his patrons. Both laughed.

'A room, young gentleman?' He came out from behind the bar. Instead of replying to Wess, he spoke to Chan. Wess smiled to herself. Like all Chan's friends, she was used to seeing people fall in love with him on sight. She would have done so herself, she thought, had she first met him when they were grown. But they had known each other all their lives and their friendship was far closer and deeper than instant lust.

'A room?' the innkeeper said again. 'A meal for you and your ladies? Is that all we can do for you here in our humble establishment? Do you require dancing? A juggler? Harpists and hautbois? Ask and it shall be given!' Far from being seductive, or even friendly, the innkeeper's tone was derisive.

Chan glanced at Wess, frowning slightly, as everyone within earshot burst into laughter. Wess was glad her complexion was dark enough to hide her blush of anger. Chan was bright pink from the collar of his homespun shirt to the roots of his blond hair. Wess knew they had been insulted but she did not understand how or why, so she replied with courtesy.

'No, citizen, thank you for your hospitality. We need a room, if you have one, and food.'

'We would not refuse a bath,' Quartz said.

The innkeeper glanced at them, an irritated expression on his face, and spoke once more to Chan.

'The young gentleman lets his ladies speak for him? Is this some foreign custom, that you are too high-bred to speak to a mere tavern-keeper?'

'I don't understand you,' Chan said. 'Wess spoke for us all. Must we speak in chorus?'

Taken aback, the man hid his reaction by showing them, with an exaggerated bow, to a table.

Wess dumped her pack on the floor next to the wall behind her and sat down with a sigh of relief. The others followed. Aerie

looked as if she could not have kept on her feet a moment longer.

'This is a simple place,' the tavern-keeper said. 'Beer or ale, wine. Meat and bread. Can you pay?'

He was speaking to Chan again. He took no direct note of Wess " or Aerie or Quartz.

'What is the price?'

'Four dinners, bed - you break your fast somewhere else, I don't open early. A piece of silver. In advance.'

'The bath included?' Quartz said.

'Yes, yes, all right.'

'We can pay,' said Quartz, whose turn it was to keep track of what they spent. She offered him a piece of silver.

He continued to look at Chan, but after an awkward pause he shrugged, snatched the coin from Quartz, and turned away. Quartz drew back her hand, then, under the table, surreptitiously wiped it on the leg other heavy cotton trousers.

Chan glanced over at Wess. 'Do you understand anything that has happened since we entered the city's gates?'

'It is curious,' she said. 'They have strange customs.'

'We can puzzle them out tomorrow,' Aerie said.

A young woman carrying a tray stopped at their table. She wore odd clothes, summer clothes by the look of them, for they uncovered her arms and shoulders and almost completely bared her breasts. It is hot in here, Wess thought. That's quite intelligent of her. Then she need only put on a cloak to go home, and she will not get chilled or overheated.

'Ale for you, sir?' the young woman said to Chan. 'Or wine? And wine for your wives?'

'Beer, please,' Chan said. 'What are "wives"? I have studied your language, but this is not a word I know.'

'The ladies are not your wives?'

Wess took a tankard of ale off the tray, too tired and thirsty to try to figure out what the woman was talking about. She took a deep swallow of the cool bitter brew. Quartz reached for a flask of wine and two cups, and poured for herself and Aerie.