Wings of Omen

Quite a fellow, this (calculatedly) sinister-looking youth, who had once told a royal prince of Ranke that killing was the business of princes and the like, not of thieves; and yet who had killed two men one night, his first and his last, on behalf of a fellow he respected but found mighty hard to like. Bom in Downwind of casually acquainted parents, he needed pride and any sort of respect badly and was cockily, pridefully sure that he'd risen above Downwind. The Maze might be counted as above Downwind-about a spider's stride above.

Four people in Sly's signed to him or greeted him, two by his name and one by his nickname. None of the four was either of the two awaiting him. He surveyed the place with eyes like chips of anthracite or basalt, and when their gaze touched Zip, Zip pushed a finger into his nose as signal. The newcomer noted, looked on, nodded to someone, made a negligent gesture of greeting to a girl woman named Nimsy (who winked), noted the two Zip's Boys three tables away from the disguised Zip, and did not change expression. He took a single pace across the little landing and descended the step into the crowded dim-lit alcohol-fumed ambience of Sly's Place.

"Think I'll join those two," he said almost regally to one who had called him by name and nickname both. "Watch that cheap beer, Maldu! Ahdio makes it in the outhouse."

And he passed, Maldu saying, "Aww, Hanse!" loudly and, to his two companions, quietly, "See? I told you. Me'n Hanse're old buddies. Ever tell you how he actually got the better of ole Shrive the fence-I-mean-changer ha ha?"

Hanse slid down into a chair at the round, three-chair table where Kama and Zip waited. He glanced barward and raised his right hand, half-cupped into a standing right angle, took it higher than his head, then elevated three of the fingers. The bartender nodded and went about drawing three mugs of the good stuff; the brew off which he blew the • foam so as to serve an honest measure to those as paid for k.

"Want me to admit I didn't even know you in that black wig and droopo mustache?" Hanse said to Zip. "I didn't even know you."

"Hanse," the normally short-haired and clean-shaven Zip said, "this is Jes." In a much lower voice he swiftly added, "Tonight-name's Kama."

Shadowspawn looked at the soft-faced youth with Zip- also mustached-and was impressed; she was tallish and the disguise was good enough that he hadn't considered her female. Nothing changed in his face, including his eyes.

"Any friend of Zip's," he said affably, "is suspect."

She blinked, recovered, said, "Likewise, I'm sure."

Hanse's black, black, close-nestling brows went up and he blinked. His face looked as if it were seriously considering a smile. He left it at that and flicked his gaze back to Zip.

"We've been waiting awhile," the Downwinder street-lord said.

Shadowspawn said nothing.

Ahdiovizun brought three glazed mugs of beer on a tray; Sly's Place didn't use barmaids because that led to unbelievable stress, strain, strife, and worse. Everyone knew that his gimpy assistant left after closing with only a staff and not a copper. Ahdio was known to be from Twand, in truth was not, and was large. He was known to have killed, and had, and known to have felled a Mrsevadan horse with a blow of his fist to the animal's head, and had. The coat of linked chain mail he wore was definitely unusual attire for a tavemer. It was considered to be part of the color and ambience of Sly's Place. It was, of course, although that was not its purpose. Its purpose was the same as when its like was worn by a soldier. Ahdio tended bar in Sly's Place and had killed a man or so and felled a horse (a big gray gelding, in fact, with two white stockings) with a single fist-blow to the head, and at times intervened in fights. He also wore a mailcoat and did not leave at closing, alone, but slept upstairs in company with two truly nasty cats, because Ahdio was not stupid.

"Here you go. Three of the best. These two are ru

"Good for them. This round's on me," Hanse said.

Ahdio's smile was easy, open, and amiable. "You, ah, had a good night, Hanse?"

"No," Hanse said, and paused to drink half the contents of the mug Ahdio had just set before Zip. Hanse replaced it, and ignored the way the rebel patriot stared at the sadly depleted container. "As a matter of fact, I haven't. That was last night."

Ahdio, who had never seen Hanse knock back anything that way, thought it best to say, "Ah."

"Ah," Zip echoed, sensing a story. "But.. .you don't drink, Hanse!"

Shadowspawn looked at him. "I just did," he said, while his lean dark hand moved over to Kama/Jes's mug without the aid of his eyes. He glanced up at Ahdio, whose form occluded an incredible number of the tables behind him. "I came here to meet these people, and I'm late. You'll stop fights so I won't have to take them elsewhere?"

Ahdio nodded without changing so much as a single muscle in his face. Shadowspawn nodded in return.

"Ah, that's good, Ahdio," he said, and paused to put a serious dent in the contents of Kama's mug. "No, Ahdio, I'll tell you, tonight has not been a good night. I have just killed a Stare-Eye."

Zip blinked in surprise, then gri

"A good night for Sanctuary!" Zip said with enthusiasm.

"Stairae," Ahdio said. "Don't believe I know him. Her?"

"Stare... Eye," Hanse enunciated, and stared, unblinking.

"Ah!" Ahdio smiled again. "One of the froggies! A good night for us all! I'd better hurry, then. Three more of the same upcoming, on me."

Shadowspawn nodded and came very close to smiling. Ahdio departed. A customer reached out for him en passant and jerked back his hand to stare at fingertips instantly bereft of prints. Ahdio's coat ofquintuply-linked-and-butted chain was absolutely genuine.

"Shit," the customer said.

"Coming right up," Ahdio threw back.

Amid laughter. Zip leaned forward. "How'd it happen, Hanse?" (He was keeping his hands away from the brew Hanse had ordered and was buying. Shadowspawn was not a killer, had been living high and soft and with a lot of bed-company of late, and obviously had a sincere and monumental thirst this night.)

Hanse seemed to work at relaxing. His shoulders visibly lowered and he sat a bit down in his roundpeg chair.

"The... creature accosted me. Like a Lord of the Earth, you know? Arrogant and cocky and expecting me to play sandworm under its feet. I didn't and it got abusive. I endured that awhile, just wanting to be on my way to see what you wanted. It went on with it. Couldn't accept my lack of real response when it wanted foot-licking. It got more abusive. When it finally paused to see if I'd drop dead or start in weeping from all its words, I asked politely enough which had been the fish, its mama or its papa. It took that as an offense, only Ils knows why, and reached for a weapon."

They sat in silence, his table companions staring at him. Hanse noted that somehow he'd emptied his mug, said, "Not thirsty?" and reached over for Zip's mug. He drained it.

A fine sense of drama, Kama thought, a Rankan and a soldier and a woman in an Ilsig tavern as a man, among Ilsigs only. One of us has to ask; he's forcing us. And she asked: "And then, Hanse?"

He leaned forward loosely, elbows thumping onto the table. "Jes, do not be alarmed when I touch your left shoulder."

Kama/Jes, seated on his left with her right shoulder next to his left, showed surprise and lack of understanding. "All right," she began, and saw a dark blur, felt the touch on her far shoulder, and there was Hanse sitting there with his elbows on the table, looking at her from expressionless eyes the color of the bottom of a well of a moonless midnight.