Robert Asprin - Aftermath

The thug lost his footing and fell backward. He should have tangled himself with his leader, but the youth with the gilded chain danced clear.

On his toes, buttocks flattening against the tavern wall as his fellow sprawled beneath him, he whirled a spiked knob at Samlor in a down- ward arc that split the difference between vertical and horizontal.

The stranger's hood had flopped back and his cape was twisted so that its broach closure was at his left shoulder instead of his throat. When the street tough dropped him to deal with Samlor, the man raised a hand and began to stutter words in a language the caravan master did not know. As the spike chain spun at Samlor's skull in a curve as dangerous as a sword stroke, the stranger stopped talking and prodded the youth be- tween the shoulders with his staff-

Samlor dodged back to avoid the spikes, forgetting the bulge in the wall behind that rocked him to a halt. The knob sparked across the stone and tore the Cirdonian's left ear as the youth tried to recover from the push that sent him off balance.

He didn't get the chance,

The youth wore a necklace strung with the protective charms of at least a dozen faiths, and the front of his vest was strengthened with gilt and silvered studs. None of that helped him when Samlor stabbed up- ward from the groin level. While the punk thrashed like a gigged frog on the twelve-inch blade, the caravan master punched him repeatedly with the push dagger, aiming at the base of the jaw just below the bandanna and the steel cap it covered.

The youth collapsed. His eyes were open and his lungs were still work- ing well enough to form bubbles in the blood that drooled from the comer of his mouth. A mixture of body fluids and digestive products followed the blade of the long knife as Samlor withdrew it. Their foetor was briefly noticeable even in this alley.

He was probably fourteen years old or so. He looked younger, but bad diet pinched and stunted the faces of those bom here into permanent childhood,

"Now the others," chirped a little voice. "Do not kill a snake and leave its tail!"

The caravan master was on his knees. He did not recall closing his eyes, but he opened them now. The man with the staff was on his feet again and straightening his disordered cape. The manikin was back on his shoulder, strutting proudly with hands on hips.

"You," said Samlor very distinctly. "Shit it in or you'll join 'em."

The little figure yelped and disappeared again.

Samlor, Star, and the stranger were alone with the dying youth. The other two toughs had disappeared down the alley, and no one else seemed to have entered the passage behind the caravan master. There were voices from within the taproom, deep and hectoring, but Samlor didn't care enough to try to understand the words.

His niece, shivering also, minced over to him without looking down and put her arms around Samlor's shoulder. "I'm sorry you hurt your ear, uncle," she said in a voice that trembled with the child's attempts to control it. "I shouldn't have-"

She hugged him harder. "But I thought I could climb up from the bench when it was dark and I didn 't know where you were-" Her words tumbled out like flotsam in the current of the sobs wracking her little body.

"-and the, those men came and I couldn't do anything!"

"You did fine, darling," the Cirdonian muttered. He encircled the child with his left arm, careful that the point of his push dagger was turned outward. He couldn't put it away until he cleaned it, the way his right hand was wiping the watered steel of the longer knife on the pantaloons of the boy whose breathing had ceased in a pair of great shudders. "But you've gotta listen to me, or really bad things could happen."

The blade of the long dagger showed a nick midway up one edge, but it had come through the struggle at least as well as any other knife was likely to have done. Samlor tried to sheathe it and found the new blade was a trifle too broad near the tip to fit the scabbard meant for the knife it replaced.

He slid it beneath his belt instead; wiped the push dagger; and rose with that miniature weapon in his right hand while his left arm guided Star behind him again.

"Who would you be, my friend?" Samlor asked the man who was fingering his staff now that his cape was rearranged.

"My name is Khamwas," the fellow said in a cultured voice that tried to be calm. The peak of his hood must have added several inches to his height, because he was clearly shorter than the caravan master as well as much more slightly built. "I'm a stranger here in your city."

The manikin silently reappeared on Khamwas's shoulder. The tiny features were unreadable in the dim light, but the figure's pose was appre- hensive.

"Did you have a friend in that tavern?" asked the caravan master softly. When his right thumb turned to indicate the wall of the Vulgar Unicorn, the point of the push dagger winked knowingly toward Khamwas's eyes. There was an ethnic if not familial resemblance be- tween this man and the one who had died in the Vulgar Unicorn.

"I don't know anyone in this city," Khamwas said with cautious dig- nity. "I'm a scholar from a far country, and I've come to ask a favor here from a man named Setios."

"Uncle, that's-" blurted Star, catching herself before Samlor's free hand could waggle a warning.

"A bird who flies to the nest of another," chirped the manikin senten- tiously, "will lose a feather."

"What in hell is that?" asked the caravan master deliberately, pointing at the manikin with his right index finger. The bodkin-bladed push dag- ger paralleled the gesturing finger as if by chance.

The manikin eeped and cowered. Khamwas reached across to his right shoulder with his cupped right hand, as if to shield and stroke the little creature simultaneously.

"He does no harm, sir," the self-styled scholar replied calmly. "I- when I was younger, you understand-prayed to certain powers for wis- dom. They sent me this little fellow instead. His name is Tjainufi."

The manikin stared balefully at Khamwas, but his own arm reached out to pat the hand protecting him. "A fool who wants to go with a wise man," he said, "is a goose who wants to go with the slaughter knife."

Samlor blinked. He was confused, but that probably didn't matter, not compared to a dozen other things. "You know my name, then?" he said, harshly again, sure that Khamwas had to have some connection with the stranger in the tavern. A sorcerer who knew your name had the first knot in a rope of power to bind you ...

"Sir, I know no one in your city," Khamwas repeated, drawing himself up and planting the staff firmly before him with his hands linked on it. "I have a daughter the age of your niece, so I-tried, I should say, to intervene when she seemed to be in difficulties."

He paused. For an instant his staff flowed again. The grain of the wood made ripples in the phosphorescence, and a haze of light wrapped Khamwas's hands like a real fog.

Star reached past her uncle and touched the staff.

The glow flicked out as Khamwas started, but a tinge of blue clung to the child's fingers as she withdrew them. Samlor did not swear, because words had power-especially at times like these. His left hand caressed his niece's hair, offering human contact when he could not be sure what help, if any, the child required.

If Khamwas's toying had done any harm, he would be fed his liver on the point of a knife.

Star giggled while both men watched her with fear born of uncertainty. She opened her fingers slowly and the glow between their tips grew and paled like the sheen of an expanding soap bubble. Then it popped as if it had never been.

Khamwas let out his breath abruptly. "Sir," he said to the caravan master, "I didn't realize. Forgive me for intruding in your affairs."