Aye, and a fine sheath for it, as well. In silver!”
Hanse knew fear and some anger; he wanted nothing of that incestuous god of
Ranke, for it had to be Vashanka whom Tempus served close. No? I serve-I mean…
I do not… No? Tempus is my… my… I go to aid a fr-a man who might help
me, he tried to tell that god in his mind, for he admitted to no friends
and had sworn to Tempus that he had none and wanted none. He who had friends
was vulnerable, and Hanse much preferred his image of himself as a
separate room, a person apart, an island.
Leave me and go to him, jealous god of Ranke? Leave Sanctuary to my patron
Shalpa the Swift, and Our Lord Ils. Ils, 0 Lord of a Thousand Eyes, why is it
not You who speaks to me?
Yet a miracle surely transpired that night, and it served to save the life of
Hanse and thus of Tempus, whom Hanse freed. Hanse knew no pride in having served
and been saved by the god of the Rankan overlords, and he found his lake of
alcohol. When he emerged and dried out, he was still troubled.
He was not the first in such straits to have turned god-ward.
Not Vashanaka-ward! On four separate occasions he had visited the sanctuaries of
Us and Shipri All-mother, His spouse. Ils, god of the Ilsigi who long ago fled
one land and found this one, and founded Sanctuary. (There was no temple to
their fourthborn, Shalpa, who shared birthdate with his sister Eshi. Shalpa was
He to Whom There is no Temple, and The Shadowed One, in his night-dark cloak. He
was Shalpa the Swift, too. Shalpa of the night, and untempled: patron of