Tales From The Vulgar Unicorn

'You have kept your vow, then?'

'I slay sorcerers. I cannot suffer any man to touch me except a client. I dare no love; I am chaste of heart.'

'All these aching years?'

She smiled. It pulled her mouth in hard at its corners and he saw ageing no potion or cosmetic spell could hide. 'Every one. And you? You did not take the Blue Star, or I would see it on your brow. What discipline serves your will?'

'None. Revenge is fruitless. The past is only alive in us. I am not meant for sorcery. I love logic too well.'

'So, you are yet damned?'

'If that is what you call it, I suppose - yes. I work for the Storm God, sometimes. I do a lot of wars.'

'What brought you here, Cle-'

'Tempus, now. It keeps me in perspective. I am building a temple for Him.' He pointed to Vashanka's Weaponshop, across the street. His finger shook. He hoped she had not seen. 'You must not ply your trade here. I have employment as a Hell Hound. Appearances must be preserved. Do not pit us against one another. It would be too sour a memory.'

'For whomever survived? Can it be you love me still?' Her eyes were full of wonder.

'No,' he said, but cleared his throat. 'Stay out of there. I know His service well. I would not recommend it. I will get you back what you have lost. Meet me at the Lily Garden tonight at midnight, and you will have them. I promise. Just take down no sorcerers between now and then. If you do, I will not return them, and you cannot get others.'

'Bitter, are you not? If I do what you are too weak to do, what harm is there in that?' Her right eyebrow raised. It hurt him to watch her.

'We are the harm. And we are the harmed, as well. I am afraid that you may have to break your fast, so be prepared. I will reason with myself, but I promise nothing.'

She sighed. 'I was wrong. You have not changed one bit.'

'Let go of my horse.'

She did.

He wanted to tell her to let go of his heart, but he was struck mute. He wheeled his mount and clattered down the street. He had no intention of leaving. He just waited in a nearby alley until she was gone.

Then he hailed a passing soldier, and sent a message to the palace.

When the sun danced above the Vulgar Unicorn's improbably engaged weather vane, support troops arrived, and Kadakithis's new warlock. Aspect, was with them.

'Since last night, and this is the first report you have seen -fit to make?' The sorcerer's pale lips flushed. His eyes burned within his shadowed cowl.

'I hope you and Kadakithis had a talk.'

'We did, we did. You are not still angry at the world after all these years?'

'I am yet living. I have your kind to blame or thank, whichever.'

'Do you not think it strange that we have been thrown together as - equals?'

'I think that is not the right word for it. Aspect. What are you about, here?'

'Now, now. Hell Hound-' .''

'Tempus.'

'Yes, Tempus. You have not lost your fabled sense of irony. I hope it is a comfort.'

'Quite, actually. Do not interfere with the gods, guildbrother of my nemesis.'

'Our prince is justifiably worried. Those weapons-'

'-equal out the balance between the oppressors and the oppressed. Most of Sanctuary cannot afford your services, or the prices of even the lowliest members of the Enchanters' Guild. Let it be. We will get the weapons back, as their wielders meet their fates.'

'I have to report to Kitt - to K-adakithis.'

'Then report that I am handling it.' Behind the magician, he could see the ranks whispering. Thirty men, the archmage had brought. Too many.

'You and I have more in common than in dispute, Tempus. Let us join forces.'

'I would sooner bed an Ilsig matron.'

'Well, I am going in there.' The archmage shook his head and the cowl fell back. He was pretty, ageless, a blond. 'With or without you.'

'Be my guest,' Tempus offered.

The archmage looked at him strangely. 'We do the same services in the world, you and I. Killing, whether with natural or supernatural weapons, is still killing. You are no better than I.'

'Assuredly not, except that I will outlive you. And I will make sure you do not get your requisite burial ritual.'

'You would not!'

'Like you said, I yet bear my grudge - against every one of you.'

With a curse that made the ranks clap their hands to their helmeted ears, the archmage swished into the street, across it, and through the door marked 'Men' without another word. It was his motioned command which made the troops follow.

A waitress Tempus knew came out when the gibbous moon was high, to ask him if he was hungry. She brought him fish and he ate it, watching the doors.

When he had just about finished, a terrible rumble crawled up the street, tremors following in its wake. He slid from his horse and held its muzzle, and the reins up under its bit. The doors of Vashanka's Weaponshop grew shimmery, began taking colour. Above, the moon went behind a cloud. The little dome on the" shop rocked, grew cracks, crazed, steamed. The doors were ruby red, and melting. Awful wails and screams and the smell of sulphur and ozone filled the night.

Patrons began streaming out of the Vulgar Unicorn, drinks in hand. They stayed well back from the rocking building, which howled as it stressed larger, growing turgid, effluescing spectrums which sheeted and snapped and snarled. The doors went molten white, then they were gone. A figure was limned in the left-hand doorway, and it was trying to climb empty air. It flamed and screeched, dancing, crumbling, facing the street but unable to pass the invisible barrier against which it pounded. It stank: the smell of roasting flesh was overwhelming. Behind it, helmets crumpled, dripped on to the contorted faces of soldiers whose moustaches had begun to flare.

The mage who tried to break down the invisible door had no fists; he had pounded them away. The ranks were char and ash in infalling effigy of damnation. The doors which had been invisible began to cool to white, then to gold, then to red.

The street was utterly silent. Only the snorts of his horse and the squeals of the domed structure could be heard. The squeals fell off to growls and shudders. The doors cooled, turned dark.

People muttered, drifted back into the Unicorn with mumbled wardings, tracing signs and taking many backward looks.

Tempus, who could have saved thirty innocent soldiers and one guilty magician, got out his silver box and sniffed some krrf.

He had to be at the Lily Garden soon.

When he got there, the mixed elation of drug and death had faded.

What if Shadowspawn did not appear with the rods? What if the girl Cime did not come to get them back? What if he still could hurt, as he had not hurt for more than three hundred years?

He had had a message from the palace, from Prince Kadakithis himself. He was not going up there, just yet. He did not want to answer any questions about the archmage's demise. He did not want to appear involved. His only chance to help the Prince-Governor effectively lay in working his own way. Those were his terms, and under those terms Kitty's supporters in the Rankan capital had employed him to come down here and play Hell Hound and see what he would do. There were no wars, anywhere. He had been bored, his days stretching out never ending, bleak. So he had concerned himself with Kitty, for something to do. The building of Vashanka's temple he oversaw for himself more than Kadakithis, who understood the necessity of elevating the state cult above the Ilsig gods, but believed only in wizardry, and his noble Ranke blood.

He was not happy about the spectacle at Vashanka's Weapon-shop. Sloppy business, this side-show melting and unmelting. The archmage must have been talented, to make his struggles visible to those outside.