The Dead of Winter- - Thieves World 07 (40 page)

Now he felt Gyskouras's gaze upon him as well, filling him with knowledge of all the powers surging in the storm. Other images came to him too-emotions, desires as yet formless, characteristics that sought to coalesce into a Personality that would encompass the potential, for good or evil, inherent in the two children before him. He recognized the feeling-he had known it himself at the beginning of a project, when colors and shapes and images jostled in his consciousness and he strove for the form and balance that would organize them into a harmonious unity.

But the only loss had been a ruined canvas when he failed. If these children failed, they could destroy Sanctuary.

Thunder clapped great hands above the Palace; the room shuddered and a window blew open on a sudden gust of rain. Gyskouras whimpered, and Lalo reached for his hand. They need a mage to train them, just like me-but there must be something that we can do! Lalo closed his eyes, driven not by fear or the pressure of a stronger mind, but by pity, to seek that part of himself that had been a god.

When he opened them again the window was still banging against the wall. Outside, clouds pulsed with a hundred shades of gray-always gray! Gods, he was so tired of this colorless world! Lalo looked down, and saw that the chalk pressed between his hand and Gyskouras's plump fingers had left a smear of yellow on the slate. For a moment he stared at it, then he reached for an orange chalk and put it into Arton's slimmer hand.

"Here," he whispered, "draw me a line beside the other-yes, just so...." One by one he gave colors to the children and guided their awkward hands. Yellow, orange, red and purple, blue and turquoise and green-the chalk glowed against the dark stone. And when all the colors had been used, Lalo got to his feet, holding the slate carefully.

"Now, let's make something pretty-I can't do it alone. You both come here with me ..." Lalo held out his hand and drew first Arton, then Gyskouras, from his mother's arms. "Come to the window, don't be afraid ..." Lalo was dimly aware that the room had gone very still behind him, but all his attention was on the two children beside him and the storm outside. They reached the window; Lalo knelt, his greying ginger head touching the dark child's head and the fair.

"Now blow," he said softly. "Blow on the picture and we'll make the nasty clouds all go away."

He felt the children's milky breath warm on his fingers. He bowed his head and expelled his own pent breath outward, saw chalk dust haze the damp air. His eyes blurred with the intensity of his staring, or was the blur in his eyes? Surely now there was more color in the air than they had ever blown into it, and the colors were shimmering. His ears rang with silence.

Lalo sank back on his heels and drew the two storm-children close against him, and together they watched as the rainbow arched over Sanctuary....

"Mirror, mirror on the wall,

Which is the skungiest city of them all?"

You know what the mirror replied,

with a sneer at having to state the obvious.

Andrew Qffutt

Hanse and I have been in Sanctuary since the foundation stones were set, in a February 1978 letter from genius-creator Asprin. We earliest settlers (eight of us writers then, I think) received maps and descriptions, Hakiem's original background tale, copies of each other's character sketches and sort-of-maybe outlines, and letters from HQ: the Asprin mind. Everybody was excited and pretty chattery. The little description I began of a fellow to be called Hanse became three pages, physical and psychological, with footnotes and sidebars. By the time I'd written all that three or four times, I knew what the first story was about and what sort of stories he had to be in, if there were to be more. As it developed, letter by letter by letter and packet of Xeroxed materials and All-Points-Bulletins to and from us beginners of that project that seemed such fun, I addressed an envelope to

"Robert L. Asprin

COLOSSUS: The Thieves' World Project."

Only a few weeks later, came the next Asprin APB for us first Thieves' World participants ... and derned if he hadn't made just that his letterhead!

Next, John Brunner, with the character sketches of his Enas Yorl and Jarveena, sent over a treatise on magic. It told us how it had to be in Thieves' World; a sort of logical system of rules of magic that has been ignored ever since. Then Boss Asprin was looking for a name for that first book, and I suggested Tales From the Vulgar Unicorn. Thank all gods he decided to call the first one simply Thieves' World! My title went on the second volume.

(Send your proposed title for the next one; Bob and Lynn just adore mail and if your title is chosen, you will receive a genuine certified Thing. Maybe a no prize for you if you're one of my fellow comics fans.... If you're runner-up, your prize is a date-nocturnal only-with either Tarkle or Roxane, Zip or Ouleh the Man-killer; your choice.

(Send to me that detailed list of all the characters in all the books, with however brief ID for each-and whether still alive, KlA-and-dead, or Undead. I like to remember and include all those little people, such as Thumpfoot and Mungo and Shive the Changer and Frax, former Palace night-sentinel who's been out of work since the arrival of the Beysibs, and Weasel, and ... you know. Spear-bearers, many of whom don't even have speaking roles or are only referred to. Seems to me I haven't referred to York or Jubal and various other big-ikes for several stories.)

Oh, here's an Inside tip for you, Insider: go and look again at the cover of the original TW. Asprin long ago came up with a caption for it, and you'll love it. It's "You're In The Wrong Place, Sucker."

The Solid Gold 50th Anniversary Volume

It honestly seems over a decade ago when we all wrote those first stories. We were a team! We sent them in with gusto and love, having fun-for a nickel a word. That was as advance against royalties if the book sold enough copies to generate any royalties. Hey, did it ever! What now? Another S.F. Book Club volume, I hear, and is it three TW games or four? Translations into German and French and British and Swahili and Newjersese! Interplanetary rights up for bidding! Other publishers hot for novels about TW characters! Ace Books making plans for the solid gold 50th anniversary volume! Asprin and Abbey buying the state of Michigan and bidding for the Detroit Tigers!

You and we have made it quite a phenomenon. And I swear: it's still fun! Thanks, my fellow fan.

Without quite knowing why, I think I'm more comfortable in this town than any of my cohorts-the rest of the TW family. (Baghdad, that's the way I see it: Baghdad or the great old caravan city of Palmyra, about a year after someone put in the Interstate five or so miles away.) To hell with the invasions by Rankans and Stepsons (their big horses making an even worse mess of our streets and consuming so much of our valuable grain); to hell with the invading Beys and the Beysa and the lords 'n' ladies in their palatial manses; with vampires and walking dead and walking gods and Lon Chaney Jr.! Offutt's an Ilsig who writes about Sanctuary and its people. True, most often my people are Not What They Seem....

Who is, in Sanctuary?

Hanse called Shadowspawn, and Ahdio, and the late, beloved Moonflower and Jubal are as real to me as the Maze. (I know it's real because the moment I start to write about it, very late at night usually, with soft pen and cheap lined paper and beer, I swear I can see it and hear its sounds. And smell it.) I abhor any such snotty, uncultured creep as Hanse, as I loved Moonflower, also my creation. (As you probably know already, since the rules are that we can Not do in each other's characters.) Hanse would be rotten company, so full of swagger and needs. I know. I've met his sort, time after time, at science fiction/fantasy conventions. Sometimes even with the knives! Yet I can't help but love my rotten thief, too, poor guy; sort of as an indulgent father. He was born of me, after all, although Shalpa takes the credit. Now, like Tempus, he's left town, with Moonflower's daughter Mignureal (that's Min-you-ree-Al, and Notable must be with them too, surely.)

As a matter of fact Hanse is up northeast a bit, standing by to star in his own novel, Shadowspawn. Yes, I've already signed the contract and this same publisher may already have the manuscript by the time you read this (eleven months after my writing it, a few days before Thanksgiving '84). Others love-hate Hanse, as he and I love-hate Tempus and the revenant (?) One Thumb and even the dread-some Ischade and Roxane. (Lots of great role models in Thieves' World!) Lalo and Gilla his wife are people, lovable or not. No one loves Jubal except his creator-who is now co-editor, because we wore him out with gripes and late stories and plot entanglements so that he married a sweet innocent woman and now forces her to do all the work. No one can hate her character, Illyra, who is as unreconstructably lovable as Lynn. Except when she imported these deleted stare-eye Bey-sibs and their boss stole away from me a character I'd begun to think of as mine: Prince Kadakithis. Wait till Lynn sees my plan for the Final Solution to the Beysib Problem: Throde draws a picture of an M-l tank and Lalo makes it real. Oh-Kadakithis is played by Roddy McDowall at age 24 and in a blond wig, did you know that? That's the way he sounds when I read my TW stories aloud at conventions. I keep seeing Lee J. Cobb as Tempus, but I haven't asked Janet who she sees. All right, "whom," then.

One big (A: Happy B: Unhappy C: Both of the foregoing D: Neither) Family It is enormous fun, living here in Thieves' World. We are a family. Bob and Lynn have to be mommy and daddy, obviously, and I am always Uncle Andy to anyone who knows me; the nickname started when I was seventeen. (You don't expect uncomplicated relationships in TW, do you?) There are the wayward sons, Joe and John (Halde-man and Brunner), who started with us and haven't been back; and the grievously wayward prodigal, Gordy (Dick-son). There's our sweet and gentle sister Carolyn/C.J. in Oklahoma and the evil and shadowy sister. Nightshade Janet, up in New England. Her I "met" by mail years ago, when I wrote her a fan letter about her first published works, the Silistra novels. Cousin Diana, I am proud to say, first saw print in an anthology edited by me. And now we welcome Cousin Robin to the strangest familial group since the Addams Family. Right after reading Wings of Omen (same time you did: last November, just before I wrote the story in this volume), I wrote Paxson and Bailey each a fan letter of congratulations and thanks. Did you? Why don't you write me, you bum!

Could those be letters to me that Bob brags about piling up by the bag in his home?

Like your family, we work together and separately. We get along and we argue or even fall out. When Janet Morris and I include Hanse and Tempus in each other's stories, we exchange manuscripts and say "OK, but (Tempus or Hanse) wouldn't use this word or phrase," or "wouldn't drink this much," or "he is not blond." (I thought Zip was, and Janet fixed that in my story last time. Zip looks like that swine who tried to murder the Pope and Hanse resembles Lee Marvin at about age 23.)

Too, Janet sent me pages and pages of lovingly machine-copied (the Xerox people keep reminding us that "xerox" isn't a verb, and is capitalized) research notes, which I filed with my own Arms and Armor; Medieval Warfare; Smaller Classical Dictionary; Approved Tactics For Attacking and Trashing Publishing Offices; and other valuable research sources.

She and I met once, about five years ago. We must have exchanged at least thirty words on two occasions that day. She was on her way to someplace else, both times. You don't have to know people to be friends ... said the man who has collaborated on well over a dozen novels with people he still hasn't met!

Secret alliances, shaky relationships, and worse

Janet and I formed a secret alliance in 1980 ("Vash-anka's Minion" and "Shadow's Pawn," and no I do Not intend to write a nautical story called "Shad's Prawn" as one darling fan suggested in '81), and sprang it on Bob-I-mean-Dad, thus forcing him to run our stories back to back. He got even; his Jubal "sold" Tempus to that godawful Kurd, slicer of living humans. Then he and Janet colluded (does that word exist?-it does now; Offutt's the resident grammarian-linguician). The book ended with Kurd's industriously paring and sawing this and that part off immortal Tempus. A few months later, darling Dad-Bob called me. (This is always difficult. He speaks a shade faster than a Sten gun, and probably plays whole games of Risk while listening to my Kentuckianly drawled replies.)

"Andy! ThisisBob! Janet - and - Ineedyerhelp(beat)Kurd-has-Tempus-andwe-were wonderingifHanse'dget-himout!"

Beat, beat, beat: "Hi-i (beat) Boob," I said ... So Hanse starred in "The Vivisectionist"-surely the ugliest word in this or any language. Right up there next to "edit"-in which he got the maimed Tempus out of the dripping hands of Kurd the Turd. We all loved each other, even Tempus and Hanse. Then H. saw how T. regenerated those lost parts, and got shaky. So did their relationship. Meanwhile, or rather about a year later, Bob and I had an egregious falling out and I Left Home in worse than a huff. Never To Return. That's why Volume 5, The Face of Chaos, is Hanseless and Andyless. Seemed a dreadfully dull book to me....

(Of course I read it. I had to; another year later I came home to Sanctuary to write a story in which Hanse split town; returning was necessary because fans told me rumors that Lynn and Bob were discussing Secret Plans with Janet at the World Fantasy Con: maybe going to kill Hanse or worse. It was a great homecoming with the typical Sanctuary feast: Bob served up the fatted mongrel.) So ... we get along as all families do: usually. But not always. For instance ... I fully expected UPS to bring me a ticking package from Morris after I killed Tempus's god and power-source, Vashanka. See, science fiction great Edmond Hamilton had a name for destroying planets; "World-Wrecker Ed," they called him.... That wasn't big enough for me; / put the hit on a god. (Besides, I'd birthed him. Now he's in another universe, eking out a precarious living selling hamsters to researchers.) God-Zapper Andy?