"Thieves World v2 4 - 1987 - Shadowspawn - A J Offutt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

SHADOWSPAWN
(A Thieves World novel)
By Andrew J Offutt
1987





STATEMENT OF FURTWAN COINPINCH, MERCHANT

THE FIRST THING I noticed about him, just that first impression you understand, was that he couldn't be a poor man. Or boy, or youth, or whatever he is. Not with all those weapons on him. From the shagreen belt he was wearing over a scarlet sash-a violently scarlet sash!-swung a curved dagger on his left hip and on the right one of those Ilbarsi "knives" long as your arm. Not a proper sword, no. Not a military man, then. That isn't all, though. Some few of us know that his left buskin is equipped with a sheath; the slim thing and knife-hilt appear to be only a decoration. Gift from a woman, I heard him tell old Thumpfoot one afternoon in the bazaar. I doubt it.
(I've been told he has another sticker strapped less than comfortably to his inner thigh, probably the right. Maybe that's part of the reason he walks the way he does. Cat-supple and yet sort of stiff of leg all at once. A tumbler's gait-or a punk's swagger.
(Don't tell him I said!)
Anyhow, about the weapons and my first impression that he couldn't be poor. There's a throwing knife in that leather and copper armlet on his right upper arm, and another in the long bracer of black leather on that same arm. Both are short. The stickers I mean, not the bracers or the arms either.
All that armament would be enough to scare anybody on a dark night, or even a moonbright one. Imagine being in the Maze or someplace like that and out of the shadows comes this young bravo, swaggering, wearing all that sharp metal! Right at you out of the shadows that spawned him. Enough to chill even one of those Hell Hounds.
That was my impression. Shadowspawn. About as pleasant as gout or dropsy.




THE DESERT



AMONG THE PEOPLE of the desert north of Sanctuary, the sun was called Vaspa. It was also their word for demon. Now Hanse knew why.
He had never ridden on the desert before and hoped never to do so again and as a matter of fact wished he were not doing so now. Today the sun was a demon straight from the Hot Hell. Yesterday it had been a demon from the same place, and presumably the same would be true tomorrow. It was enough to make him think almost wistfully of the Cold Hell; almost enough to make him yearn for a taste of the Cold Hell. Almost.
Besides, they had a taste of the Cold Hell every night. How was it possible that such heat could become worse than chilly so soon after these blood-hued desert sunsets?
The horses and the onager plodded, sweating. Their riders rode loosely, sweating.
The very ground would be sweating, Hanse thought, if it contained a tenth of a thirteenth of a tenth of a droplet of moisture to yield up to blazing, baking, sucking Vaspa. He was reasonably sure that even this perdurable yellowish-buff sand was writhing in pain from the relentless heat. Now and again he was sure he witnessed that writhing, in a sort of wriggly wavering movement just above the ground (if anyone could call this yellowish-tan stuff "ground"). Particularly way over there, where that long snaky razor-backed mountain of sand called a dune stretched like an ugly wall across leagues and leagues of horizon.
Maybe it's just my eyes, he thought. We're probably both going blind, anyhow, from the sun bouncing off this garbage-heap "landscape" and attacking our eyes. All five of us-not just Mignue and me, but the horses and that dumb donkey too!
That dumb donkey, which was an onager and which his companion Mignureal persisted in calling "Cutie" and which Hanse called only "Dumb-ass," chose that moment to let go with its absolutely asinine ear-assaulting Noise. A series of squeaky, sucked in ee sounds, each followed by an aspirated aw. The worst and dumbest sounds Hanse had ever heard or thought about hearing. Dumb onager/ass!
"Shut up, Dumb-ass."
"What's the matter, Cutie, you thirsty?"
Hanse shot Mignureal a dark look. Just then she glanced at him, all sweet-faced under the muffling hood, and he tried to make his expression more pleasant; indulgent. He really hardly knew her, although she loved him and he had decided that he loved her. He had never realized just how determinedly pleasant and unremittingly nice Mignue was.
I'm getting tired of it, he thought, and then went all nervous and frowny and thought hurriedly, No I'm not!
One of the horses was of that reddish walnut color called sorrel. The other was black, with the bottommost area of one leg resembling a short white buskin. A silver-gray stripe decorated the front of his long face.
"His name?" The man Hanse had bought him from back in Sanctuary had shrugged. "Blackie," he'd said, and Hanse had thought Oh how appropriate. I should have known, or words to that effect, and called the animal Blackie.
Oh, how dull and unimaginative, Mignureal thought, and occupied her mind with working at more interesting names for the handsome animal. Already she called her mount-a gift from Tempus, along with their hooded white robes-by the ancient S'danzo word inja. The word meant swift-running hare, and never mind the redundance. It was a good name, Mignureal thought, although she had no idea whether Inja could run swiftly or not. She didn't really want to find out, either, but would have bet that she would. All sorts of things
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just seemed to happen when Hanse called Shadowspawn was about. Some of them were violent and exertive. One of those was the necessity of running.
Though plodding on sweaty horses, they were running right now, in fact. They were running away from Sanctuary, which was-which had been home.
That reminded Mignureal of her parents, her wounded father and murdered mother, and her eyes went all misty again. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead so that Hanse might not see. Her tears were the twitching twisting of a needle in his belly, she knew. She strove to keep them back. When she couldn't, she tried to conceal them from him; from Her Man.
She knew her man, too, had leaked tears over her mother, Moonflower-and then had gone wild against the killers. That soon led to his feeling the necessity of departing the forlorn town where they had both been born and had lived all their lives. Moonflower had been the nearest thing to a mother he had ever had, although he was not the sort to admit it and had actually pretended to flirt with that mightily overweight woman and mother of several.
Moonflower was-had been-of the S'danzo and gifted with the Sight, the power of Seeing. Only lately had the trait begun to manifest itself in Mignureal. Even then it came on her only with regard to some danger in the immediate future of Hanse, who was forever doing dangerous things and whom Mignureal had seen as a romantic and glamorous man of the world since she was twelve and had started to bud and he was-what? Sixteen? Mignureal didn't know.
She loved him. Despite her mother's warnings and the care the big woman had taken to prevent them from being alone together, Mignureal loved him. Of course Moonflower had known, and known that her daughter couldn't help it. She had loved him since she was twelve. Thirteen, at least. Now she was sure that he loved her, too. It was strange, having both the agony of grief and the joy of requited love wrestling for space in one's heart. She loved him and he loved her, but they were not lovers.
Not yet, Mignureal thought, feeling joy even while tears of grief slid down her cheeks. The sun stole them in evaporation
8 Andrew J. Offutt
before they reached her chin, leaving little itchy places on her face.
"Mignue?" It was his name for her, and only his: Min-you-ee.