Wings of Omen

"Ahdio," Hanse said as if he hadn't heard and without changing expression, "I need to borrow Notable. Just for awhile, just tonight. Please, Ahdio, don't give me a hard time. I've got to."

"Hanser, that cat wouldn't ever-"

Ahdio broke off to watch as Notable came in and started in rubbing Hanse's buskined legs.

And so Shadowspawn bore a cat in a claw-proof, fang-proof pouch on his chest when he went up the wall this night, and a flask, and a (presumably sorcerous) wand-thing and bow and two arrows on his back. The cat was a bit weighty and Hanse was used to climbing light. Still, the junk on his back aided the balance and Notable was still and quiet. The cat was no heavier than a glazed brown pot with a cross on it, Hanse told himself, and up he went. Eventually he peered downside up through the diamond-shaped window, into the luxurious apartment that had been Prince-Governor Kadakithis's and now was the dwelling of the Beysa herself. It was unoccupied.

Hanse swung in. Without even looking around he saw to his egress, as pla

I can do it. Have to. Don't want to have to pull the thing back up and shoot again! You can do it, Hanse! Breathe out, in, out; suck in a good deep one. Pull. Sight. Oops. Now-

The string twanged and the arrow zipped out the window, trailing its line.

Peering out, Hanse saw at once that it was a rotten shot, way wide of the mark, arcing leftward. Oh Thousand-Eyed Ils, and there was someone down there, too, watching. Suppose it's a Stare-Eye...

That one of many posted PFLS members let the arrow pass, caught the cord, held it aloft and waved it, and started ru

Oh, really wonderful, Hanse mused, and supposed that he would just have to accept that Mignureal was a young S'danzo and inexperienced, and couldn't be right every time. And he had to get the fool cat back down, too-but thinking of Mignue had reminded him of Moonflower, and that put mist in his eyes. Once he had angrily rubbed them clear, he saw two things.

The first was not the Beysa's wand of office but her crown, a coiled snake done in gold with emeralds set as eyes; with markings of coral and of ruby and twinkling bits of glass banding the body again and again. That was the first thing he saw: a golden snake of far more value to the PFLS than a mere wand. The second thing he saw, however, was the real thing.

A beynit, he knew. A nasty-tempered snake with a bite that killed in a minute or less-and no way of stopping or countering that toxin. This one was probably trained-a watch-snake. It was about four feet away on the carpet, and it was staring at him.

Oh my god, Hanse thought, I'm dead!

At the very edge of the bed, not two feet directly above the beynit. Notable arched its back and hissed. The snake snapped its head over to stare up at the cat. Notable made a mean sound in its throat. The beynit recoiled just a bit, a sinuous rope, and Notable made another nasty remark. Then it hissed with what seemed to Hanse enough volume to rouse every unblinking sword-backed fish-eyed guard in the palace. Sliding his feet, Hanse moved back and to the side. He moved more slowly than ever he had, as he eased one of the throwing stars off his belt. The beynit caught that motion, and twitched its head to stare... and with a low growly sound Notable pounced at its tail. The snake's nerve broke. It rushed into the nearest nice, dark haven-the pouch so recently occupied by Notable.

Hanse whipped the flap over and back up and over again, winding the bag, and fastened it tight. The chances were that not even a worm could have gotten out of that pouch, but Hanse dumped a pillow out of its nice striped satin casing and popped the pouch in. The fit was very snug. With an azure robe-sash he tied that pillowcase as tightly as he had ever bound anything in his life.

"Remind me to take that with me," he muttered, and hurried to the Ti-Beysa's crown. Notable said nothing, but only stared at the pouch while his tail imitated a nervous snake. Hanse shook another pillow out of its casing, choosing a dark one, and with a smile popped in the crown worth the ransom of a prince-or of a scurvy little town called Sanctuary. He tied that silken package, too, and made it very, very fast to his back.

"Notable," he said, gingerly picking up the pillow casing that housed a bag of boiled leather he kept reminding himself was hard and thick enough to turn a good dagger-blow, "we've got to go. I'm afraid you can't ride in the bag. This snake'll be of some value to Z-to Sanctuary. Got any ideas about your travel arrangements?"

Uncharacteristically, Notable gave him a nice little "mrow."

"That," Hanse said, "is a rotten dumb answer. Here." And he took the little flask from the pouch at his waist, and poured beer into a superbly wrought Rankan bowl that was not Beysib property. After that it was maddening, jittering there by the window while the damned cat lapped daintily as if it had all the time in the world not to mention a sore tongue.

After about a month of that. Notable finished and looked up with eyes like black marbles. He licked his mouth exaggeratedly, and started in on his whiskers.

"I'm impressed," Shadowspawn said. "I am also leaving."

Notable said "mew" in a sickeningly sweet voice and sent his tongue all the way around his yawning mouth again. Hanse made a face, started to swing up into the window, remembered, and turned to toss the snake-carven staff onto the floor. It landed about a foot from Notable and rolled a foot. Notable pounced straight past Hanse to the windowsill and turned back to look.

"Look at you. Bravest cat in the world with the real thing, and afraid of a little st-"

The staff shimmered, its wriggly carving seeming to wriggle in reality. Then, while a few hundred ants played footrace up Hanse's back, the staff moved. It glided along the floor, and up onto the bed, and to the far end, and into a nice dark sheltering place: under the Beysa's figured silk bedspread.

"I've got to get out of this damned town," Hanse muttered in a voice wavery as the sand-viper, and went out the window. He had to drag himself back up that fulvistone wall on one silken rope so that he could go down another-all the way across the palace grounds and wall and the Processional to where Kama and company would have made the arrow-end of the line fast.

Notable passed him on the way to the roof. Hanse gave him a glare, wishing he could go up walls that way. Maybe with the talons the Stare-Eyes slid onto their fmgers when they ate...

He was up and on his belly, pulling himself up between two merlons of that toothily crenelated defense-wall around the roof, when he heard the voice. The accent was neither Rankan nor Ilsigi.

"So. A rotten little thief tries to invade us, does he? Well, Ilsiger slime, this is your last climb!"

And Hanse heard the sound of the guard's sword clearing its scabbard on his back, doubtless to come down on Shadowspawn's neck. Or wrists, or forearms; it didn't matter. He was helpless and absolutely vulnerable, on his stomach and clutching with both hands while his legs dangled.