Tales From The Vulgar Unicorn

'Oh gods. Do not ask.'

'Many.'

'Many, yes.'

'And no scars on you.'

Tempus looked pained. 'No scars on me,' he said, to his own big hands on the table. Bronzed, they were still more fair than Shadowspawn's. On a sudden thought, he looked up and his expression was of dawning revelation and disbelief. 'Hanse? You saved my life that night. I saved yours - but they were after me to begin with. Hanse? How many men have you killed?'

Hanse looked away. Hair like a raven, nose of a young falcon. Profile carved out by a hand-axe sharper than a barber's razor, all planes and angles. A pair of onyxes for eyes, and just that hard. His look away was uncharacteristic and Tempus knew it. Tempus worked out of the palace and had access to confidential reports, one of which not even the prince-governor had seen. He wouldn't, either, because it no longer existed. Too, Tempus had dealt with this spawn of Downwind and the shadows. He was here in this murkily-lit tavern of humanity's dregs to deal with him again.

Hanse, looking away, said, 'You are not to tell anyone.'

Tempus knew just what to say. 'Do not insult me again.'

Hanse's nod was not as long as the thickness of one of his knives. (Were there five, or did he really wear a sixth on one of his thighs? Tempus doubted that; the strap wouldn't stay up.)

At last Hanse answered the question. 'Two.'

Two men. Tempus nodded, sighing, pushing back to come as close to slumping on his bench as his kind of soldier could. Damp. Who would have thought it? The reputation he had, this dark surly scary (to others, not the man currently calling himself Tempus) youth from the gutters he doubtless thought he had risen so far above. Tempus knew he had wounded a man or two, and he had assumed. Now Shadowspawn said he had never slain! That, from such a one, was an admission. Because of me he has been blooded, Tempus mused, and the weary thought followed: Well, he's not the first. I had my first two, once. I wonder who they were, and where? (But he knew, he knew. A man did not forget such.

Tempus was older than anyone thought; he was not as world-weary old as he thought, or thought he thought.) Just now he wanted to put forth a hand and touch the much younger man. He certainly did not.

He said, 'How do you feel about it?'

Hanse continued to gaze assiduously at something else. How could a child of the desert with such long long lashes and that sensuous, almost pretty mouth look so grim and thin-lipped? 'I threw up.'

'That proves you are human and is what you did. How do you feel about it?'

Hanse looked at him directly. After a time, he shrugged.

'Yes,' Tempus sighed, nodding. He drained his cup. Raised a right arm on high and glanced in the general direction of the tap. The new nightman nodded. Though he had not looked at the fellow, Tempus lowered his arm and looked at Hanse. 'I understand,' he said.

'Do you. A while ago I told the prince that it is a prince's business to kill, not a thief's. Now I have killed.'

'What a wonderful thing to say to a bit of royalty! I wish you weren't so serious right now, so I could laugh aloud. Do not expect any gentle words from me about the kills, my friend. It happens. I didn't ask for your help - or for you to be waiting for me. You won't do that again.'

'Not that way, no.' Hanse leaned back while whatever-his-name-was (they called him 'Two-Thumb') set two newly-filled mugs between them. He did not take the other two, or wait for payment. 'I think things started when Bourne ... died, and you came to Thieves' World.'

'Thieves' World?'

Again that almost-embarrassed shrug. 'It's what we call Sanctuary. Some of us. Now the whole city's in a mess and a turmoil and I think you have to do with that.'

'I believe you said that.'

'You led me astray, "Thales". That temple or store or whatever it was. It ... collapsed? - erupted, like a volcano? Something. Next the prince-'

'You really do respect him, don't you?'

'I don't work for him though,' Hanse pointed out; Tempus did. 'He impounded the ... the god-weapons? - that place sold, or _ tried to. Hell Hounds paying people for things they bought - or else! Things! New wealth in the city, because some of them had been stolen and now are bought from thieves. People are laughing at dealing with the new changer: the palace!'

Changer, Tempus knew, meant fence in this - city? 0 my God Vashanka - this? A city?!

'Two ships sitting out there in the harbour,' Hanse went on, 'guarded up to here. I know those Things, those dark weapons of sorcery, are being loaded aboard. Then what? Out to sea and straight to the bottom?'

'The very best place for them,' Tempus said, turning and slowly turning his glazed earthenware mug. This one was striped garishly in yellow waves.' Believe it. There is too much power in those devices.'

'Meanwhile some "enforcers" from the mageguild have been trying to get hands on them first.'

That Tempus also knew. Three of the toughs had been eliminated in the past twenty hours, unless another or two had been slain tonight, by local Watchmen or those special guardsmen called Hell Hounds. 'Unions will try to protect their members, yes. No matter what. A union is a mindless animal.'

'You paid me well -fair, to fetch you the diamond wand-things that woman wears in her hair. I did, and she has them back. You gave them back.'

Cime. Cime's diamond-rods in her fine fine wealth of hair. 'Yes. Did I?'

'You did. And strange things are happening in Sanctuary. Those . were soreerous weapons those hawk-masks used against you and me. A poor thief tried to snatch a woman's bracelet the other night, down in - never mind the street. She shouldn't have been there. The bracelet turned into a snake and killed him. I don't know what it did to him. He's dead and they say he weighs about twice as much as he did alive.'

'It solidified his bones. It was obtained this morning. And when didn't strange things happen in Sanctuary, my friend?'

'That is twice you have called me that.' Hanse's words had the sound of accusation about them.

'So I have. I must mean it, then.'

Hanse became visibly uncomfortable: 'I am Hanse. I was ... apprentice to Cudget Swearoath. Prince Kitty-Cat had him hanged. I am Shadowspawn. I have breached the palace and because of me a Hell Hound is dead. I have no friends.'

And you slip and call him 'Kitty-Cat' when you think of your executed mentor, do you? Not seeking a father, eh? Do you know that all men do, and that I have mine, in Vashanka? Ah Hanse how you seek to be enigmatic and so cool - and are about as transparent as a pan of water caught from the sky!

Tempus waved a hand. 'Save all that. Just tell me not to be your friend. Not to call you friend.'

A silence fell over them like a struck banner and something naked stared out of Hanse's eyes. By the time he knew he must speak into the silence, it was too late. That same silence was Tempus's answer.

'Yes,' Tempus said, considerately-cleverly changing the subject. 'What old whatsisname Torchholder yammers about is true. Vashanka came, and He claimed Sanctuary. His name is branded into the place, now. The very temple of Ils lies in rubble. Vashanka created the Weaponshop, from nothing, and-'

'A pedlar-god?'

'I didn't think much of the lactic myself,' Tempus said, hoping Vashanka heard him while noting how good the youth was at sneering. 'And the Weaponshop destroyed the mage the governor imported to combat him. Vashanka is not to be combated.'