Robert Asprin: Shadow Of Sanctuary

'My companions are Westerly, Aerie, and Quartz,' Chan said, nodding to each in turn. 'I am Chandler. And you are -?'

'I'm just the serving girl,' she said, sounding frightened. 'You could not wish to be troubled with my name.' She grabbed a mug of beer and put it on the table, spilling some, and fled.

They all looked at each other, but then the tavern-keeper came with platters of meat. They were too hungry to wonder what they had done to frighten the barmaid.

Wess tore off a mouthful of bread. It was fairly fresh, and a welcome change from trail rations - dry meat, flatbread mixed hurriedly and baked on stones in the coals of a campfire, fruit when they could find or buy it. Still, Wess was used to better.

'I miss your bread,' she said to Quartz in their own language. Quartz smiled.

The meat was hot and untainted by decay. Even Aerie ate with some appetite, though she preferred meat raw.

Halfway through her meal, Wess slowed down and took a moment to observe the tavern more carefully.

At the bar, a group suddenly burst into raucous laughter.

'You say the same damned thing every damned time you turn up in Sanctuary, Bauchle,' one of them said, his loud voice full of mockery. 'You have a secret or a scheme or a marvel that will make your fortune. Why don't you get an honest job - like the rest of us?'

That brought on more laughter, even from the large, heavyset young man who was being made fun of.

'You'll see, this time,' he said. 'This time I've got something that will take me all the way to the court of the Emperor. When you hear the criers tomorrow, you'll know.' He called for more wine. His friends drank and made more jokes, both at his expense.

The Unicorn was much more crowded now, smokier, louder. Occasionally someone glanced towards Wess and her friends, but otherwise they were let alone.

A cold breeze thinned the odour of beer and sizzling meat and unwashed bodies. Silence fell suddenly, and Wess looked quickly around to see if she had breached some other unknown custom.

But all the attention focused on the tavern's entrance. The cloaked figure stood there casually, but nothing was casual about the aura of power and self possession.

In the whole of the tavern, not another table held an empty place.

'Sit with us, sister!' Wess called on impulse.

Two long steps and a shove: Wess's chair scraped roughly along the floor and Wess was rammed back against the wall, a dagger at her throat.

'Who calls me "sister"?' The dark hood fell back from long, grey-streaked hair. A blue star blazed on the woman's forehead. Her elegant features grew terrible and dangerous in its light.

Wess stared up into the tall, lithe woman's furious eyes. Her jugular vein pulsed against the point of the blade. If she made a move towards her knife, or if any other friends moved at all, she was dead.

'I meant no disrespect -' She almost said 'sister' again. But it. was not the familiarity that had caused offence: it was the word itself. The woman was travelling incognito, and Wess had breached her disguise. No mere apology would repair the damage she had done.

A drop of sweat trickled down the side of her face. Chan and Aerie and Quartz were all poised on the edge of defence. If Wess erred again, more than one person would die before the fighting stopped.

'My unfamiliarity with your language has offended you, young gentleman,' Wess said, hoping the tavern-keeper had used a civil form of address, if not a civil tone. It was often safe to insult someone by the tone, but seldom by the words themselves. 'Young gentleman,' she said again when the woman did not kill her, 'someone has made sport of me by translating "frejojan", "sister".'

'Perhaps,' the disguised woman said. 'What does frejojan mean?'

'It is a term of peace, an offer of friendship, a word to welcome a guest, another child of one's own parents.'

'Ah. "Brother" is the word you want, the word to speak to men. To call a man "sister", the word for women, is an insult.'

'An insult!' Wess said, honestly surprised.

But the knife drew back from her throat.

'You are a barbarian,' the disguised woman said, in a friendly tone. 'I cannot be insulted by a barbarian.'

'There is the problem, you see,' Chan said. 'Translation. In our language, the word for outsider, for foreigner, also translates as "barbarian".' He smiled, his beautiful smile.

Wess pulled her chair forward again. She reached for Chan's hand under the table. He squeezed her fingers gently.

'I meant only to offer you a place to sit, where there is no other.'

The stranger sheathed her dagger and stared down into Wess's eyes. Wess shivered slightly and imagined spending the night with Chan on one side, the stranger on the other.

Or you could have the centre, if you liked, she thought, holding the gaze.

The stranger laughed. Wess could not tell if the mocking tone were directed outward or inward.

'Then I will sit here, as there is no other place.' She did so. 'My name is Lythande.'

They introduced themselves, and offered her - Wess made herself think of Lythande as 'him' so she would not damage the disguise again - offered him wine.

'I cannot accept your wine,' Lythande said. 'But to show I mean no offence, I will smoke with you.' He rolled shredded herbs in a dry leaf, lit the construction, inhaled from it, and held it out. 'Westerly, frejojan.'

Out of politeness Wess tried it. By the time she stopped coughing her throat was sore, and the sweet scent made her feel lightheaded.

'It takes practice,' Lythande said, smiling.

Chan and Quartz did no better, but Aerie inhaled deeply, her eyes closed, then held her breath. Thereafter she and Lythande shared it while the others ordered more ale and another flask of wine.

'Why did you ask me, of all this crowd, to sit here?' Lythande asked.

'Because...' Wess paused to try to think of a way to make her intuition sound sensible. 'You look like someone who knows what's going on. You look like someone who might help us.'

'If information is all you need, you can get it less expensively than by hiring a sorcerer.'

'Are you a sorcerer?' Wess asked.

Lythande looked at her with pity and contempt. 'You child! What do your people mean, sending innocents and children out of the north!' He touched the star on his forehead. 'What did you think this means?'

'I'll have to guess, but I guess it means you are a mage.'

'Excellent. A few years of lessons like that and you might survive, a while, in Sanctuary - in the Maze - in the Unicorn!'

'We haven't got years,' Aerie whispered. 'We have, perhaps, overspent the time we do have.'

Quartz put her arm around Aerie's shoulders, for comfort, and hugged her gently.

'You interest me,' Lythande said. 'Tell me what information you seek. Perhaps I will know whether you can obtain it less expensively - not cheaply, but less expensively - from Jubal the Slavemonger, or from a seer -' At their expressions, he stopped.

'Slavemonger!'

'He collects information as well. You needn't worry that he'll abduct you from his sitting-room.'

They all started speaking at once, then fell silent, realizing the futility.

'Start at the beginning.'

'We're looking for someone,' Wess said.

'This is a poor place to search. No one will tell you anything about any patron of this establishment.'

'But he's a friend.'

'There's only your word for that.'

'Satan wouldn't be here anyway,' Wess said. 'If he were free to come here he'd be free to go home. We'd have heard something of him, or he would have found us, or -'

'You fear he was taken prisoner. Enslaved perhaps.'

'He must have been. He was hunting, alone. He liked to do that, his people often do.'

'We need solitude sometimes,' Aerie said.