Shadow Of Sanctuary.

by Robert Lynn Asprin.

INTRODUCTION.

by Robert Asprin.

It was a slow night at the Vulgar Unicorn. Not slow in the sense that there had been no fights (there hadn't) or that there weren't many customers (there weren't) but rather a different kind of slow; the slow measured pace of a man on his way to the gallows, for the Unicorn was dying, as was the entire town of Sanctuary. More people were leaving every day and those left were becoming increasingly desperate and vicious as the economy dipped to new lows.

Desperate people were dangerous; they were quick to turn predator at the smallest imagined opportunity, which in turn made them vulnerable to the real predators drawn to the town like wolves to a sick animal. Anyone with an ounce of sense and a good leg to hobble on would have deserted Sanctuary long ago.

Such were the thoughts of Hakiem, the Storyteller, as he sat brooding over a cup of cheap wine. Tonight he did not even bother adopting his usual guise of dozing drunkenly while eavesdropping on conversations at the neighbouring tables. He knew all the patrons present and not one of them was worth spying on - hence no need to fake disinterest.

He would leave Sanctuary tomorrow. He would go somewhere, anywhere, where people were freer with their money and a master storyteller would be appreciated.

Hakiem smiled bitterly at himself even as he made the resolution - for he knew it to be a lie.

He loved this bedraggled town as he loved the tough breed of people it sp.a.w.ned.

There was a raw, stubborn vitality that surged and ebbed just below the surface.

Sanctuary was a storyteller's paradise. When he left, if he ever did, he would have stories enough for a lifetime ... no, two lifetimes. Big stories and little ones, tailored to the buyer's purse. Stories of violent battle between warriors and between sorcerers. Tiny stories of people so common they would move the hearts of any who listened. From the princely military-governor with his h.e.l.l Hound elite guard to the humblest thief, they were all grist for Hakiem's mill.

If he had personally commanded their performances they could not have performed their roles better.

The storyteller's smile was more sincere as he raised his cup for another sip.

Then his eye was caught by a figure lurching through the door and he froze in mid-movement.

One-Thumb!

The Vulgar Unicorn's owner had been absent for some time, causing no small question among the patrons about his fate. Now, here he was, large as life ...

well, not quite as large as life.

Hakiem watched with narrowed eyes as One-Thumb slumped against the bar, seizing a crock of wine while his normally practised fingers fumbled with the stopper like a youth with his first woman. Unable to contain his curiosity longer, the old storyteller untangled himself from his chair and scuttled forward with a speed that belied his age.

'One-Thumb,' he cackled with calculated joviality, 'welcome back!'

The ma.s.sive figure straightened and turned, focusing vacant eyes on the intruder. 'Hakiem!' The fleshy face suddenly wrinkled with a wide smile. 'By the G.o.ds - the world is normal.'

To the storyteller's amazement, One-Thumb seemed on the verge of tears as he stepped forward, arms extended to embrace the old man like a long-lost son.

Recoiling, Hakiem hastily interposed his wine cup between them.

'You've been gone a long time,' he said, abandoning all semblance of subtlety.

'Where have you been?'

'Gone?' The eyes were vacant again. 'Yes, I've been gone. How long has it been?'

'Over a year.' The storyteller was puzzled, and insatiable.

'A year,' One-Thumb murmured. 'It seems like ... the tunnels! I've been in the tunnels. It was...' He paused to take a long swallow of wine, then absently filled Hakiem's cup as he launched into his story.

Accustomed to piecing together tales from half-heard words and phrases, the storyteller rapidly grasped the essence of One-Thumb's ordeal.

He had been trapped by a magician's spell in the tangle of tunnels below Sanctuary's streets. Confronted by an image of himself, he had killed it and been slain in turn - over and over until this night when he miraculously found himself alone and unscathed.

As One-Thumb redoubled his lurid description, describing the feel of cold metal as it found its home in one's innards - again and again, Hakiem pondered the facts of the story. It fitted.

Lately someone had been stalking wizards, slaying them in their own beds.

Apparently the hunter's knife had struck down the spell-weaver who was holding One-Thumb in painful thrall, freeing him suddenly to his normal life. An interesting story, but totally useless to Hakiem.

First: One-Thumb was obviously willing to spill the tale to anyone who would stand still long enough to listen, ruining the market for second-hand renditions. Second, and more important: it was a bad story. Its motive was unclear; the ending hazy and inactive; there was no real interplay between the characters. The only real meat was the uniqueness of One-Thumb's ability to tell the tale in the first person and even that weakened through repet.i.tion.

In short, it was boring.

It didn't take a master storyteller to reach this conclusion. It was obvious. In fact, Hakiem was already growing weary listening to the whine and prattle.

'You must be tired,' he interrupted. 'It's wrong of me to keep you. Maybe we can talk again after you've rested.' He turned to leave the Unicorn.

'What about the wine?' One-Thumb called angrily. 'You haven't paid yet.'

Hakiem's response was habitual: 'Pay? I didn't order it. It was you who filled the cup. Pay for it yourself.' He regretted the words immediately. One-Thumb's treatment of drinkers who refused to pay was legendary throughout the Maze. To his surprise, then, it was One-Thumb who gave ground.

'Well, all right,' the big man grumbled. 'Just don't make a habit of it.'

The old storyteller felt a rare twinge of remorse as he left the Unicorn. While he had no love for One-Thumb, neither had he any reason to wish him ill.

The big man hadn't just lost a year of his life - he'd lost his fire - that core of ferocity which had earned him the respect of the town's underworld. Though One-Thumb was unmarked physically, he was only the empty sh.e.l.l of his former self. This town was no place for a man without the strength to back his bl.u.s.ter.

The end of One-Thumb's story was in sight - and it wouldn't be pleasant. Maybe with a few revisions the story - if not the man - had a future.

Lost in his thoughts, Hakiem faded once more into the shadows of Sanctuary.

LOOKING FOR SATAN.

by Vonda N. Mclntyre

The four travellers left the mountains at the end of the day, tired, cold, and hungry, and they entered Sanctuary.

The inhabitants of the city observed them and laughed, but they laughed behind their sleeves or after the small group pa.s.sed. All its members walked armed. Yet there was no belligerence in them. They looked around amazed, nudged each other, and pointed at things, for all the world as if none had ever seen a city before.

As, indeed, they had not.

Unaware of the amus.e.m.e.nt of the townspeople, they pa.s.sed through the marketplace towards the city proper. The light was fading; The farmers culled their produce and took down their awnings. Limp cabbage leaves and rotten fruit littered the roughly cobbled street, and bits of unrecognizable stuff floated down the open central sewer.

Beside Wess, Chan shifted his heavy pack.

'Let's stop and buy something to eat,' he said, 'before everybody goes home.'

Wess. .h.i.tched her own pack higher on her shoulders and did not stop. 'Not here,'

she said. 'I'm tired of stale flatbread and raw vegetables. I want a hot meal tonight.'

She tramped on. She knew how Chan felt. She glanced back at Aerie, who walked wrapped in her long dark cloak. Her pack weighed her down. She was taller than Wess, as tall as Chan, but very thin. Worry and their journey had deepened her eyes. Wess was not used to seeing her like this. She was used to seeing her freer.

'Our tireless Wess,' Chan said. 'I'm tired, too!' Wess said. 'Do you want to try camping in the street again?'

'No,' he said. Behind him. Quartz chuckled.

In the first village they had ever seen - it seemed years ago now, but was only two months - they tried to set up camp in what they thought was a vacant field.

It was the village common. Had the village possessed a prison, they would have been thrown into it. As it was they were escorted to the edge of town and invited never to return. Another traveller explained inns to them - and prisons - and now they all could laugh, with some embarra.s.sment at the episode.

But the smaller towns they had pa.s.sed through did not even approach Sanctuary in size and noise and crowds. Wess had never imagined so many people or such high buildings or any odour so awful. She hoped it would be better beyond the marketplace. Pa.s.sing a fish stall, she held her breath and hurried. It was the end of the day, true, but the end of a cool late fall's day. Wess tried not to wonder what it would smell like at the end of a long summer's day.

'We should stop at the first inn we find,' Quartz said.

'All right,' Wess said.

By the time they reached the street's end, darkness was complete and the market was deserted. Wess thought it odd that everyone should disappear so quickly, but no doubt they were tired too and wanted to get home to a hot fire and dinner.

She felt a sudden stab of homesickness and hopelessness: their search had gone on so long, with so little chance of success.

The buildings closed in around them as the street narrowed suddenly. Wess stopped: three paths faced them, and another branched off only twenty paces farther on.

'Where now, my friends?'

'We must ask someone,' Aerie said, her voice soft with fatigue.

'If we can find anyone,' Chan said doubtfully.

Aerie stepped towards a shadow-filled corner.

'Citizen,' she said, 'would you direct us to the nearest inn?'

The others peered more closely at the dim niche. Indeed, a m.u.f.fled figure crouched there. It stood up. Wess could see the manic glitter of its eyes, but nothing more.

'An inn?'

'The closest, if you please. We've travelled a long way.'

The figure chuckled. 'You'll find no inns in this part of town, foreigner. But the tavern around the corner - it has rooms upstairs. Perhaps it will suit you.'

'Thank you.' Aerie turned back,.a faint breeze ruffling her short black hair.

She pulled her cloak closer.

They went the way the figure gestured, and did not see it convulse with silent laughter behind them.

In front of the tavern, Wess puzzled out the unfamiliar script: the Vulgar Unicorn. An odd combination, even in the south where odd combinations were the style of naming taverns. She pushed open the door. It was nearly as dark inside as out, and smoky. The noise died as Wess and Chan entered - then rose again in a surprised buzz when Aerie and Quartz followed.

Wess and Chan were not startlingly different from the general run of southern mountain folk: he fairer, she darker. Wess could pa.s.s unnoticed as an ordinary citizen anywhere; Chan's beauty often attracted attention. But Aerie's tall white-skinned black-haired elegance everywhere aroused comment. Wess smiled, imagining what would happen if Aerie flung away her cloak and showed herself as she really was.

And Quartz: she had to stoop to come inside. She straightened up. She was taller than anyone else in the room. The smoke near the ceiling swirled a wreath around her hair. She had cut it short for the journey, and it curled around her face, red, gold, and sand-pale. Her grey eyes reflected the firelight like mirrors.

Ignoring the stares, she pushed her blue wool cloak from her broad shoulders and shrugged her pack to the floor.

The strong heavy scent of beer and sizzling meat made Wess's mouth water. She sought out the man behind the bar.

'Citizen,' she said, carefully p.r.o.nouncing the Sanctuary language, the trade tongue of all the continent, 'are you the proprietor? My friends and I, we need a room for the night, and dinner.'

Her request seemed ordinary enough to her, but the innkeeper looked sidelong at one of his patrons. Both laughed.

'A room, young gentleman?' He came out from behind the bar. Instead of replying to Wess, he spoke to Chan. Wess smiled to herself. Like all Chan's friends, she was used to seeing people fall in love with him on sight. She would have done so herself, she thought, had she first met him when they were grown. But they had known each other all their lives and their friendship was far closer and deeper than instant l.u.s.t.

'A room?' the innkeeper said again. 'A meal for you and your ladies? Is that all we can do for you here in our humble establishment? Do you require dancing? A juggler? Harpists and hautbois? Ask and it shall be given!' Far from being seductive, or even friendly, the innkeeper's tone was derisive.

Chan glanced at Wess, frowning slightly, as everyone within earshot burst into laughter. Wess was glad her complexion was dark enough to hide her blush of anger. Chan was bright pink from the collar of his homespun shirt to the roots of his blond hair. Wess knew they had been insulted but she did not understand how or why, so she replied with courtesy.

'No, citizen, thank you for your hospitality. We need a room, if you have one, and food.'

'We would not refuse a bath,' Quartz said.

The innkeeper glanced at them, an irritated expression on his face, and spoke once more to Chan.

'The young gentleman lets his ladies speak for him? Is this some foreign custom, that you are too high-bred to speak to a mere tavern-keeper?'

'I don't understand you,' Chan said. 'Wess spoke for us all. Must we speak in chorus?'

Taken aback, the man hid his reaction by showing them, with an exaggerated bow, to a table.

Wess dumped her pack on the floor next to the wall behind her and sat down with a sigh of relief. The others followed. Aerie looked as if she could not have kept on her feet a moment longer.