them.'
'Or you could scream and run,' another said with a slow, unlovely smile. 'I always like that.'
'W-what?' Narm quavered, trying to sound like a middle-aged, fat, and thoroughly frightened woman-and succeeding far too well. One of the problems with acting scared was that you found, even after a few moments, that you really were.
'W-we have nothing,' he added, letting his hand drift nearer to his belt-dagger-but steel flashed, his fingertips burned and then went cool… and when he moved his hand, it trailed blood from two of his fingers.
'Don't try that again,' the third brigand said bluntly. 'Just stand still, and we'll take what we want.'
They stepped forward in unison, and Narm feigned mewing terror and trembled his way back from them.
'Don't trouble about your virtue,' the second brigand said, the shortest one. 'You're not exactly… handsome, hey? Just stay still-we can rob your corpse with far less trouble than it takes to run after you, or listen to you screaming.'
The tallest brigand was looming over Shandril. Narm cast a quick glance at nim and saw that a sword had long ago left a long, disfiguring white scar across the man's face. From brow to cheek it ran and had turned the eye it crossed much larger and darker than the man's other eye-which was cold, steady, and a deep brown in hue.
Shandril went to her knees-in reverence, it seemed, rather than fear, and stared up into those mismatched eyes with an expression of awe on her fat and weathered face. 'The man with different eyes!' she gasped. 'At last!' The brigands frowned at her in unison. 'What foolery's this?' the second one snapped.
'You are the one foretold,' Shandril said, in a voice that trembled with excitement. 'I must aid you in any way I can!' She fumbled with the thin purse at her belt, got it undone, and thrust it up at him. 'Take all I have, Exalted One!' she pleaded, reaching up for him with trembling fingers-as Narm hastily went to his knees beside her. 'Take me!'
'Exalted One, eh?' the brigand growled slowly, and then his teeth flashed in a wondering grin. 'Well, then.'
He pointed at Shandril's bodice, and the fat priestess hastily started to tear it open, tugging at its laces. The brigand went to his own knees, reaching for her.
Narm hesitantly reached out for the man, too-only to earn the curt command, 'See to my fellows. Surrender yourself to them!'
Grinning, the other two brigands loomed over Narm. 'Turn around, you ugly sow,' the third one said. 'On your knees, mind! I don't want to have t-'
Shandril judged them close enough. At last- She smiled up into the face of the brigand with the mismatched eyes-and blasted him to scorched, tumbling bones.
The other two brigands barely had time to snarl out startled oaths before they lacked heads to say anything with at all. Smoking, the headless corpses reeled back and toppled away from Narm.
'Shan,' the young wizard murmured urgently, as he shrank away from loosely bouncing brigand boot heels. 'Your seeming… 'tis gone. I can see… the real you.'
'I know,' Shandril sighed, 'but it couldn't be helped. These damned robes'll fall right off me now, too.'
Narm frowned. 'The ferry's only a hill or so away, and Tess-Lord Tessaril warned us how lawless Scornubel was.'
'I'm not walking in there barefoot and naked,' Shandril told him, 'and priestesses of Chauntea don't keep slaves.'
Narm frowned again, trying to hunt down memories. Shandril watched them pass like shadows across his face and kept silent.
'But,' her husband said slowly, remembering, 'they do penances. I've seen them and asked why. For acts of waste and carelessness, like campfires that they let get out of control to scorch plants and trees and all.'
'Meaning?'
'Your spare tunic-you can see through it if it's pulled over your head, yes?'
'So I go hooded, forbidden to speak, and you carry a switch to strike me if I do,' Shandril said slowly. 'I saw a priest of the Mother punished like that, once. His hands were tied to his body, the rope crossed around and around him, with flowers and seed-heads stuck through it.' She nodded then grinned suddenly. 'Well, I wanted adventure. Let's get behind yon rocks, out of sight of the road, and do it. Collect their knives and purses-oh, and their belts. These damned boots won't stay up now that my legs are their proper size again. I'll start picking wildflowers.'
Narm rolled his eyes. 'Don't you trust my taste in colors?' he replied mockingly.
'You,' Shandril told him severely, holding together the remnants of her homespun Chauntean robe as it fell off her shoulders once more, 'spent far too much time in the company of one Torm. A clever tongue is not the prize feature you seem to think it is.'
Narm grinned, opened his mouth to replay-then flushed at whatever thought had leaped into his mind.
Closing his mouth again hastily, he turned to the bodies of the brigands, where flies were already buzzing.
'That's better,' Shandril told him, trudging for cover in boots that were already wadding shapelessly down around her ankles. 'That's much better.'
The Sun Over Scornubel
Lawless places all have a particular smell. 'Tis the mingled scents of blood and everything else that can be made to flow, spew, or spill out of a man, plus the stench of rotting corpses and long-moldering bones-and the stink of fear.
Unpleasant, but familiar soon enough, and I've come to appreciate the honesty of this 'lawless smell.' After all, 'tis no more nor less than the aroma of life.
'Pinch my nose,' Shandril hissed. 'Pinch it, or I'll sneeze!'
Thaerla of Chauntea promptly reached stubby fingers to the hooded face thrust toward her, found Shan's nose through the fabric, and covered the sneeze that promptly followed anyway with the severe comment, 'You know the rule, sister.' A solid application of the switch across the shoulders of the Sister of the Soil followed.
Thaerla found the tall, greasy-haired ferryman grinning at them and gave him a cold stare. 'Seek not to misunderstand this sacred matter,' she told him ponderously, and resumed her stare across the dirty waters of the Chionthar at the ramshackle buildings of Scornubel.
'Of course,' the ferryman said in tones of mock humility, and spat into the river.
As if this had been a signal, his rowers leaned into their oars, and amid many creakings and thunkings the boat swiftly closed the distance to the docks.
With a regal nod to the ferryman-who grinned again- Thaerla stepped up the worn stone steps, tugging on the length of cord that kept her hooded companion stumbling along at her heels.
Shandril almost fell twice on the stairs, and Narm hauled her up the last few by the harness of ropes he'd tied around her. Glancing back and seeing the ferryman's eyes still upon them, Narm led his captive a good four paces away from the docks, stopped with hands on hips to glare around at the colorful sights and generally disagreeable sounds of nigh-lawless Scornubel, and sniffed.
'This is a most unholy place,' Thaerla of Chauntea intoned. 'Unwelcoming to Chauntea.'
Shandril rolled her eyes, strode past the fat priestess of Chauntea, and gave 'her' a most unladylike tug at the ample hill of flesh where the homespun robe curled around one hip. 'Come on,' Shan ordered, from beneath her hood. 'We'll have plenty of opportunities to be unwelcome just a few paces from here. In among all the
