"Sir!"
"You suggested to your friend Abohorr that he come see me," Strick said grimly, fixing the other man with a stem face and a pointing finger bigger than any of those of the carpenter or ex-carpenter who had just departed. "You know bloody well I can't do anything about a lost thumb, Wints! I wish you'd never learned my curse-that I have to help or try;
can't not help to try, especially when I'm asked."
Wintsenay started to expostulate, to deny. He broke that off and looked down at the nice carpet someone of wealth had recently presented his master. Like the medallion, it was another expression of gratitude for another of the white wizard's services.
"I'm sorry, master. He's a good man, Ab is. Used to be so fat and strong and jolly all the time, you know. Now he looks like somebody's huntin' dog that's been run hard for a solid week of nights. He sure needs and deserves somebody's help."
"You play tricks with me, sirrah Wintsenay, and so will you need somebody's help. Now get your treacherous butt out of here and take the rest of that ugly corpus with it."
Wints understood the first part well enough, and acted on it. He was setting his slow brain to the working out of the rest of his master's meaning as he departed, touting at speed.
Strick sighed, shook his head, and slapped an inordinately big hand down on the fine cloth covering his desk: a large piece of deep blue velvet that trailed gold tassels on the side facing the visitors' chair. After a moment he spoke, loudly but not shouting as before.
"Avneh?"
A girl in her teens bustled in, also in the distinctive blue of Croy:
Strick's color. Former streetgirl, former hangerout at the low dive called Sly's Place, former alcoholic, former aspiring whore. Now she was recep- tionist and devoted servant of the man who had rescued her. Servant, as in acolyte of a god. He called her niece and enforced her calling him "uncle" in self-defense: the grateful teenager had wanted to give herself to him in every way. She had also just outgrown one tunic ofCroyite blue and had to have a new one to accommodate her steadily plumpening body.
"What can I get you. Uncle StrieeEEEE!"
She was staring past him when she broke off to emit that loud, pro- longed e sound- Her seated "uncle" astonished her by the speed with which he rose, pounced three feet sidewise, and whirled. An obscenely long knife had appeared in his hand. He and Avenestra stared at the intruder while the latter stared at the big man and the ready blade nearly as long as a sword.
He was dark, lean and rangy at medium height. Jet black of hair and the eyebrows that almost met above a falcate nose. His eyes were nearly as black as his hair. He wore a plain green tunic, nicely tanned leather leggings, short buskins, and several knives. They included one that was a mate to Strick's outsized blade. Lifting his gaze to Strick's blue eyes, he elevated his arms a bit as well.
"Mother Shipri have mercy. Hansel" Avenestra said. "Only you could have gotten in here 'thout being seen by Frax 'n' Wints 'n' me! But when did you get back in town? I thought maybe you was dead!"
" 'Were' dead, Avenestra, damn it," Strick said without turning or looking at all away from the intruder, "and get out of here. Tell Frax and Wintsenay to be still, and hold visitors for a few minutes."
"That's really Avenestra?" the intruder said a few seconds later. "She sure looks better'n she used to. Even working on getting fat' Yours?"
"My 'niece,' assistant, and sometime cook, and that's all. I told Ahdio what you said: that you hadn't taken the red cat, but that it followed you, even out on the desert."
"You've got a good memory, Strick of Firaqa."
"Umm- Come on around to the proper side of the desk. Yes, I remem- bered to pass on to Ahdio the message you gave me when we met on the road to Firaqa, and I recognized you too-once Avenestra called you by name. I've heard it rather more than once since I came to Sanctuary. You aren't exactly unknown in this town."
Wiry and youthful, walking almost catlike on the balls of his feet rather than the heels, the dark, youthful-looking man rounded the desk and stood beside the chair set there for clients; supplicants.
"Neither are you, Strick. Didn't take you long to gain a reputation in my town. And that day in the forest I thought you were a weapon-man on the run! You came to help my town-so're you going to get rid of those fish-eyed snake-turds from oversea?"
"Afraid not, Hanse. The Beys are here to stay."
"Heard that. Sure going to take some getting used to. Is it true about you?"
"How would I know?"
Hanse came very close to smiling. "That you deal in white magic only-"
"Yes."
"That's a switch, in Sanctuary! And is it true that every blessing from you also comes with some sort of curse?"
"Of sorts. The Price, in addition to the payment in coin or goods. Avenestra, for instance, no longer needs or wants to get drunk every night-but developed a rather grievous craving for sweets."
"Which explains her new, uh, plumpness," Hanse said, nodding.
"And you, Hanse. We met only briefly, long ago. Have you come here on business?"
"No. Just wanted to say hello. I mean, we did meet, however briefly that day months and months ago, and gave each other a little informa- tion about Firaqa and Sanctuary-carefully." Hanse chuckled-
"I remember that each of us was very wary indeed of the other, yes, that day on the road up in Maidenhead Wood. You had a young woman with you, I remember-and of course the singularly large cat. Red."
Hanse nodded. "Aye. Name's Notable. First cat I ever hked. First cat I ever didn't dislike! As soon as I came here-"
"From Firaqa?"
"Uh, well, aye, along with a, uh, stopover along the way. As soon as I got here I went to Sly's. I left Notable with goodole Ahdio, who told me about you. Hearing a lot more about you from other people was easy. You responsible for this ridiculous silver hair so many people have bro- ken out in?"
"I suppose."
"Not the bare-jigglies fashion though, hmm? That came from the snake-eyed fish-faces."
"Urn. You might try to stop calling them names, Hanse. Fact is fact, and the fact of their continuing presence in Sanctuary has to be ac- cepted."
"I'll work on it," Hanse said without enthusiasm. "Lots of other changes since I left. Lots of construction work-reconstruction work. Noticed repairs to this building and the new paint job outside, too; really like blue, don't you! You were wearing mostly dust last time I saw you- first and last time. And liveried guards, too. Even Avenestra in matching blue. Pretty place, your 'shop.' Handsome cover on that table; handsome carpet, too."
Strick continued to gaze at him from those large blue eyes above the droopy, yellowish-russet mustache. He shrugged.
"I'm also hearing about mysterious disappearances in town, and ru- mors of slavers, operating right here in Sanctuary?"
"A lot of people are trying to learn more about that, Hanse. It appears to be fact, aye. Be careful, should you chance to be out after dark."
Hanse laughed aloud. After a few moments Strick's big mustache twitched in his small smile.
"I'm sure I'd be interested in your impressions of Firaqa, Hanse, and how you fared there. But I do have some visitors waiting, downstairs."
"You'll be interested in hearing a few things, all right." Hanse assured him. "Do these names mean much to you; Thuvarandis, and Corstic, and Arcala?"
Strick blinked. Slowly, he sat. He gazed expectantly across his desk at the younger man. The names of those three men meant plenty to him, as Hanse had assumed.
Briefly, he outlined his activities and adventures in Firaqa. He ended the abbreviated narrative with the ghastly happenings in the wizard's manse, and the outcome.
Strick sat staring. "He is dead?"
"Very."
Strick slapped the blue-draped desk he called his worktable. "Dead! About time! You've rendered Firaqa a great service then, Hanse. That was a genuinely wicked man."
"That," Hanse said in a voice dry as the desert, "I know." After a silent moment he said, "And you've rendered good service in Sanctuary, too. Just a pair of do-gooders to each other's towns, aren't we!"