Wings of Omen

"Speaky, go on and tell Zip. I and your friend will stay right here and make mean-eyes at each other. Go, damn it!"

Speaklittle departed at speed while Jing looked at Hanse, mean-eyed. For some reason he said, "You really kill a fish-eyes today, Hanse?"

"A few hours ago. Since then I've been trying to think and I've been grieving. That makes two of 'em I've killed. I'm ashamed that it hasn't been more, but I'm slow about some things. And the knife I had out to warn you-believe that. It's not the one I stuck into the Stare-Eyes. This is the one that's been into two Stare-Eyes."

"Ahhh. And... you say Zip's expecting you?"

"Can't imagine why you didn't have the word," Hanse lied, catching Jing's respectful look. "What's your name?"

A few minutes later Speaklittle came ru

"Hanse. You're presuming a bit, but I go along. What's so-"

"I'm breaking into the god-damned palace to remove the Beyswine's god-damned scepter and the heart of any goddamned Stare-Eye murderer that gets in my way and I hope some do, Zip. I thought you'd be interested. You want to help? I could use some good line, silk, and a very good archer with guts. Decide fast, man-I'm goin' in tonight."

The first time Shadowspawn had entered the governor's lofting manse he had walked in, with help from Prince-Governor Kadakithis's traitor-concubine, Lirain. He'd had only to break out, with the Savankh. The second time had been on his own and, as he realized only after he was in the Prince's privy apartment 'way, 'way up in the palace, ill-advised. He had stolen nothing, and again he had to break out.

This time he had no inside help, but he had help. PFLS members, working hard to look unobtrusive, haunted every street within blocks. Others were way over on the other side of town, raising a ruckus and attracting lots of armed Beys. From the shadowy granary across from the palace's outer defense wall, Hanse watched while Zip's best archer sent the arrow up. It whizzed past the spire atop the palace and, checked by the long line it trailed, swung back. It went around the spire about six times and the archer and his assistant really leaned on the line.

Shadowspawn raised his eyebrows and nodded. "You do good work," he muttered, and nudged himself out of his natural habitat, the shadows.

The PFLSer didn't even flash his teeth. Once Hanse had hold of the silken line strong enough to support two Hanses, the archer did his best to emulate the thief. Into the shadows, with arrow ready for any interfering Beysib-or even nosey fellow Ilsigi, since this mission was more important than individuals. Right now Hanse, not a member of the Front, was the most important person in the Front. Zip had said so. The best archer in Sanctuary figured that made him fourth, after Zip and Kama. Right now Kama was fourth, since she was an archer's assistant.

He watched while the wraith all in black squirreled up onto the roof of the granary, poised, and swung out across the street. Looked like he hit the palace wall hard. Went right on up, though, after just a moment.

He was without that long swordlike knife, but with a leathern pouch boiled to rocky hardness and strapped to his chest, and with a pair of throwing stars, and that strange four-foot staff, too, and of course the prepared arrows and the short bow. Step after step and hand over hand, he went up that wall in an impressive sort of reverse rappel.[ii] Eventually the archer and Kama and the other secretly watching PFLSers lost sight of him, but they continued to wait and to stare upward just as if they could see.

They could not; they could see only shadows. The thing was, any one of those shadows might be Hanse.

It had been weird, really weird. The elated Zip and Kama arranged this and that help, and offered all sorts of other aid that Hanse neither needed nor wanted. Yet as he was returning from Downwind, he had met a person he had never seen before in his life. A ski

"You are he called Shadowspawn, and you are going climbing. My master bids me give you this wand, and trebly urge you to take it with you. Just push it into your boots or something, and leave it behind when you leave your... destination."

"My name is Mudge Kraket," Hanse impatiently said, "and I am not going aclimbing. Heights scare me. Why not find someone else to hand that fu

"Because you are Hanse and you are on a mission for all Ilsigi and thus Ils Himself, and because you will need this. It is important. Gods are at work this night, Hanse." She continued to proffer the staff.

"Orders?" he came back, and he was truculent.

"Oh stop being silly." And suddenly she was all aglow, and the glow was bright, like Love itself, so that Hanse squinted and shielded his eyes and wished that sorcery would leave him alone. "Take it! Have you really forgot so soon, Godson, lover?"

Since she then vanished utterly, and the stick had got itself somehow into his hand, Hanse decided that it were best to take the damned thing up the wall with him. He respected sorcery; only idiots did not. He just didn't like it, any more than did most non-adepts. Definitely hoping he must have to do with no more this night, he went on.

He was swinging down Ta

"I'm about to have to leave this damned town, Mignue," he told her very quietly, "and I want you to come with me."

"But," she said, pushing herself back to look into his face, "why-why would you want to 1-" And her eyes went blank while a jerk went through her. Then so stiff that she quivered while she spoke in that strange voice: "Hanse- take the red cat."

"What?!"

"When you go up the silken rope for Sanctuary, Hanse, take along the red cat."

Hanse held her automatically while he stared at nothing. God and gods damn it all, sorcery's all over the place and everybody in Sanctuary knows what I'm going to do and has advice! If this goes en I'II be so laden I couldn't climb into bed!

Yet he knew that was not so; only two knew, one by sorcery and Mignue by a sudden seizure of her S'danzo Seeing. And he remembered the brown pot, and as she suddenly said, "Oh. What am I doing-I have to go home and get ready," he knew that he had to go to Sly's Place. She whirled and ran. Hanse heaved a great sigh and rubbed his face. He started walking, feeling dizzy.

A short time later he was staring at Ahdiovizun with eyes like dying coals. "Ahdio, I-"

"Hanser! Lord God Ils and Shalpa, Hanser! I've wanted to see you! You'll never believe what happened the other night after you three left! Ole Notable pounced up on the table in back and lapped up every bit of the beer in your mug that he could reach, then cried and pawed for me to help him get the rest!-and he wouldn't touch the mugs of those other two! What'd you do to that cat, anyhow you a sorcerer, Hanse?"