'Thanks for your information,' the Hell Hound grimaced. 'We'll have the garrison look into it.'
'Not a bad day's catch,' the Old Man chortled after the retreating soldiers, 'and Nya besides. I'll send two in luck-money to the blacksmith and the S'danzo and get new traps besides.' He cocked his head at his son. 'Well,' he tossed the gold coin in the air and caught it again, 'I've got this too, to add to your other gift.'
'Other gift?' Hort frowned.
The smile fell from the Old Man's face like a mask. 'Of course,' he snarled. 'Why do you think I went after that thing anyway?'
'For the other fishermen?' Hort offered. 'To save the fishing ground?'
'Aye,' Panit shook his head. 'But in the main it was my gift to you; I wanted to teach you about pride.'
'Pride?' Hort echoed blankly. 'You risked your life to make me proud of you? I've always been proud of you! You're the best fisherman in Sanctuary!'
'Fool!' the Old Man exploded, rising to his feet. 'Not what you think of me; what you think of yourself!'
'I don't understand,' his son blurted. 'You want me to be a fisherman like you?'
'No, no, no!' the Old Man leaped to the sand and started to march away, then returned to loom angrily over the youth. 'Said it before - not everyone can be a fisherman. You're not - but be something, anything, and have pride in it. Don't be a scavenger, drifting from here to yon. Take a path and follow it. You've always had a smooth tongue - be a minstrel, or even a storyteller like Hakiem.'
'Hakiem?' Hort bristled. 'He's a beggar.'
'He lives here. He's a good storyteller; his wealth's his pride. Whatever you do, wherever you go - take your pride. Be good with yourself and you'll be at home with the best of'em. Take my gift, son; it's only advice, but you'll be the poorer without it.' He tossed the gold coin to the sand at Hort's feet and stalked off.
Hort retrieved the coin and stared at the Old Man's back as he marched away.
'Excuse me, young sir?' Old Hakiem was scuttling along the beach, waving his arms frantically. 'Was that the Old Man - the one who caught the monster?'
'That's him,' Hort agreed, 'but I don't think this is a good time to be talking to him.'
'Do you know him?' the storyteller asked, holding fast to Hort's arm. 'Do you know what happened here? I'll pay you five coppers for the story.' He was a beggar, but he didn't seem to starve.
'Keep your money, Hakiem,' the youth murmured, watching the now-empty beach. 'I'll give you the story.'
'Eh?'
'Yes,' Hort smiled, tossing his gold coin in the air, catching it and putting it in his pocket. 'What's more, I'll buy you a cup of wine to go with it - but only if you'll teach me how to tell it.'
THE VIVISECTIONIST Andrew Offutt
1
A minaret topped the Governor's Palace, naturally. The narrow, eventually pointed dome resembled an elongated onion. Its needle-like spire thrust up to pierce the sky. That spire, naturally, flaunted a pennon. It bore the device of Imperial Ranke (Ranket Imperatris). Below, the dome was clamped by a circular wall like upended herbivorous teeth. If ever the palace were attacked, that crenellated wall promised, beware archers in the embrasures between the merlons! Beware dumpers of boiling oil.
Every bit of it was haughty and imperious, insultingly imperial. And high.
Even from the top of the (lower) wall of the granary across the avenue from the wall surrounding the Governor's Palace complex, no grapnel could be hurled, for no human was so strong.
An arrow, however, could be shot.
On a night when the moon over Sanctuary was not a maiden's pale round breast but a niggling little crescent hardly worthy of the business end of a scythe, a bow twanged like a dying lute. An arrow rushed at the pennon spire of the Governor's Palace. After it, like the web-trail of an industrious spider or a wind-blown tent caterpillar, sped a silken cord so slim as to be invisible.
And then it was laboriously and time-consumingly drawn and dragged back, for the archer had missed his shot.
He aimed anew, face set for curses rather than prayers. Elevating his bow a bit, he drew to the cheek and, daringly endangering the springy wood, drew even further. Uttering not a prayer but a curse, he released. Away sped the arrow. It trailed its spidery line Hke a strand of spittle in the pallid moonlight.
It proved a night for the heeding of curses, if not the answering of prayers. That was appropriate and perhaps significant in Sanctuary called Thieves' World.
The shaft streaked past the spire and reached the end of its tether if not its velocity. It snapped back. The line forced it into a curving attempt to return. It snapped around the spire. Twice, thrice, four times. The archer was dragging hard. Keeping taut the silken line bought at the expense of a pair of lovely ear pendants of gold and amethyst and chrysoprase stolen from -never mind. The archer pulled his line, hard. That maintained and increased tension, tightened the arrow's whipping about the spire which was, naturally, gilded.
Then all motion ceased. A mourning dove spoke to the night, but no one believed that dolorous call presaged rain. Not in Sanctuary! Not at this time of year. The archer leaned into his line, and braced his heels to lean his full weight on it. The cord was a taut straight-edge of immobility and invisibility under the un-anposing one-ninth moon.
Teeth flashed in the dimness. The archer's, standing atop the granary behind the Governor's Palace of Sanctuary. His mop of hair was blacker than shadowed night and his eyes nearly so, under brows that just missed meeting above a bridged nose that Just missed being falcate.
He collected his other gear, collected himself, swallowed hard, choked up all he could on his line until he was straining, stretched, on tipetoe.
Then he thought something rather prayer-like, and out he swung.
Out above the street made broad enough to accommodate several big grain wagons abreast he swung, and across it. The looming wall rushed at him.
Even with the bending of his knees until they were nearly at his chest, the jar of his impact with the unyielding wall was enough to rattle teeth and turn prayers to curses. Nothing broke, neither legs nor silken line. Certainly not the wall, which was of stone, quarried and cut to form a barrier four feet thick.
He went up the rope in a reverse rappel, step after step and hand over hand. Dragging himself up the wall, walking up the fine perfectly set stones, climbing above death, for that was the penalty for slipping. The street was far below and farther with each pulling step.
He never considered that, or death, for he never considered the possibility of slipping.
A mighty warrior he was not. As an archer he had many peers and many betters. As a youth he was perfect, lean and wiry and strong. He was a highly competent thief in a citylet named for thieves. Not a cutpurse or a street-snatcher or an accoster; a thief. A burglar. As such, he was a superb climber of walls, without better and possibly without peer. He was good at slipping in by high-set windows, too.
His colouring and clothing were for the night, and shadows. They were old friends, he and shadows.
He did not slip. He ascended. He muscled himself atop the broad wall of the Governor's Palace, of Sanctuary. Unerringly, he stepped through the crenel, the embrasure between two merlons like blunt lower teeth. And he was at home, in shadow.
Now, he gazed upon the palace itself; the palace of the golden prince sent out from Ranke to (pretend to) govern Sanctuary. The thief smiled, but with his mouth closed. Here there were tigers in the form of guards, and young teeth would flash even in this most wan of moonlight. That precaution was merely part of his competence.