Tales From the Spaceport Bar Read online

  For a long minute, I just stood there and pondered the Guard’s words. An Oracle, coming to search my tavern for a splinter of a god’s bone...

  More than ghostly, disembodied heads that sang drunken songs, my tavern had quite a reputation for strange, magical happenings... it had helped keep away all but the least bloodthirsty clientele. Slab’s was the sort of place anything could happen: rumor said that, late at night, drunks sometimes inexplicably became sober, the furniture rearranged itself (always when nobody was looking), and people sometimes vanished, never to be seen again. Of course, that was only rumor... but I did know that against the far wall stood a table where chilled wine tasted like warm blood, and there was a certain spot (which moved every night) where Slab Vethiq himself, the man who’d founded my noble drinking establishment, was known to appear from time to time—or at least, his spirit was. And even if Slab didn’t come, chances were someone—or something—else would... if you stepped too close.

  The two drunken, singing heads suddenly appeared, hovering over a table. They both wore the colorful silk scarves and earrings of sailors; only the mistiness of their necks and lack of bodies marked them as other than human. One of the barmaids seized a broom and swatted at them until they disappeared.

  If the Oracle saw them—or anything else magical—he’d tear the building down in search of his bone.

  I barred the doors and shuttered the windows. At once the barmaids lit tallow candles and set them in various niches. The place filled with a warm, somewhat hazy light. Everyone stared at me, wondering (I was sure) whether I had gone completely mad. It was then that I told them, in short, blunt, angry words, what Nim had told me, and what I planned to do about it.

  The Oracle moved through the streets of Zelloque like a hot knife cutting through fat. He wore gold and blue silk pantaloons and a gold silk shirt, slippers of soft, white klindu fur, and he carried a golden wheel in his arms. His wheel glittered brightly, red and blue from rubies and sapphires, gold and silver from the dying sun’s light. Behind him, in perfect formation, marched twenty members of the City Guard.

  He held his divine purpose firmly in mind: to gather all the bones of Shon Atasha the Creator together into one place, to use their magic to summon His spirit back to Earth.

  The noise of tramping feet echoed loudly through the deserted streets.

  * * *

  Trying to reason with ghosts seldom succeeds. Like with Slab. I stood before him, as I’d stood before him a thousand times when I worked as his servant, and stared into his pale blue eyes. He wore his finest robes—green, embroidered with gold and silver thread—almost as though he was expecting the Oracle and had dressed for the occasion.

  "Bones!” he mocked. "Bones!” And then he trailed off in laughter.

  I stepped back and he slowly disappeared, disintegrating in wisps of green fog.

  "Well,” I told him, "at least Fm not going to die by trying to swallow fifty blue-backed crabs— alive!” But gloating wouldn’t help; he didn’t have to worry about having his livelihood demolished. He could always go haunt someplace else.

  I should have known better than to try to persuade him and all the other ghosts not to appear during the Oracle’s visit. Now I had a terrible suspicion they’d be certain to show up, if anyone stepped close to their special spot (which, fortunately, was off in one dark corner tonight).

  I stood back and surveyed everyone else’s work, then gave the signal for the doors to be unbolted and the shutters thrown open. Afternoon sunlight flooded in.

  Most of my dozen or so employees now sat at various tables, with bottles and goblets of wine before them, looking like the tavern’s regulars. I’d stationed them in all the places where I knew odd things occurred; they all had orders to prevent anything unusual from happening—at any cost. Only Lur and a couple of the barmaids kept to their regular duties, moving from table to table as usual. For the thousandth time, I thanked my good fortune in having the loyalest servants money could buy. None of them would give my secrets away.

  "Master?” Lur said, looming over me. I took a quick step back and he still loomed over me. "I hear them coming.”

  Straining, I heard them, too—the tramp-tramp of many booted feet somewhere close at hand. Then they marched outride and halted there. One of the Guards, silhouetted in the door, stood for a second and surveyed the place before entering. Then I recognized him: Tayn Lastoq, the Captain of all the City Guard—one of the few city officials I’d never been able to bribe. Behind him came another figure: the Oracle.

  Like all the Rashendi, this one wore gaudy, brilliantly colored silk clothing. He carried his futuretelling wheel in front of him like a holy relic, which of course it was.

  "This is the place?” he asked, with obvious disdain. He sniffed.

  "Yes, Oracle,” Tayn said.

  "So be it. Find what I seek.”

  I stepped forward. "Wait a minute—”

  "Be quiet, Ulander!” Tayn snapped. I could see the Oracle had begun to annoy him—and he was taking it out on me. "I know you better than you think. You know why we’re here! Now let us get on with our business.”

  "I have friends in high places!”

  He whirled around, his sword suddenly in his hand. Its point touched my chest just below my heart. "Narmon Ri himself ordered the search. You have no choice. Do you understand?”

  Lur tensed beside me, growling softly, ready to attack Tayn. I restrained him with a quick look, then turned back to the Captain of the Guard. "I understand,” I told him, smiling faintly. "But if anything’s broken, I’m sending Lord Ri the bill.”

  He laughed, then, and resheathed his sword. "You have a quick wit, Ulander. I’ll tell the men to keep the damage to a minimum.”

  He turned and sauntered out, leaving the Oracle there alone. I heard Tayn instructing his men through the open door.

  "Who are you?” the Rashendi asked me.

  "Ulander Rasym, owner of this establishment.”

  He stared at me a moment, eyes strange and dark.

  "Perhaps if you told me more about this god’s bone, I’d be able to help. What does it look like? Where would it be?”

  "It may take any form,” the Rashendi said softly. "A piece of marble, a building stone. They try to remain hidden. For years have I located bones for the shrine in Ni Treshel. Each splinter has been different—and yet the same. They have an odd feel, an uncertain look, as though their shape is untrue. With my wheel I can perceive a splinter’s true nature, if it is put before me.” He nodded wisely. "So it has always been. I will find one here, I feel.” Then he turned and wandered toward the curtained booths.

  Off to one side, I saw wisps of fog beginning to gather above a table. I gestured wildly to one of the barmaids. With a gasp, she seized her broom and stepped forward, swinging madly at the two disembodied heads that had begun to appear. They’d started to sing—

  Vimister Groll was a merry old soul

  Who loved his wine and women—

  but dissipated just before the Oracle turned to look back. The barmaid pretended to chase cobwebs from the ceiling with her broom while two of the bar-keeps took turns continuing the song, mimicking the ghosts’ high, drunken voices:

  He picked a brew and drank up to

  The point his nose fell brim-in—

  It rapidly became obvious they’d never heard the tune before and were making it up as they went along. Fortunately, they soon became stumped at a rhyme for sausage and grew silent.

  Tayn Lastoq and his men entered and spread through the tavern. For once, everything seemed to be going well—they found nothing but dust beneath the tables and under the booths. I followed Tayn around, looking over his shoulder, trying my best to bother him.

  "You see?” I said again and again. 'There’s nothing here.”

  Then I turned around and noticed Slab Vethiq sitting at one of the tables, as solid-looking as he’d ever been in life. He grinned at me, then turned back to his wine. As I stared, other people began
appearing at the other tables, gradually filling the place. I recognized one—another—then another. They were all patrons who’d died! Fortunately, they’d brought their own wine.

  Nobody else seemed to notice.

  The Oracle now stood in the middle of the room as the men searched, ignoring the people seated at tables. He looked mildly annoyed at not having found his bone (though I had repeatedly said it wasn’t here in front of him). At last he shouted for Tayn. The Captain of the Guard hurried over.

  "Yes, Oracle?”

  'Tear out the counter, then have your men start on the booths in the back. I want it found if it takes all night!”

  With a sigh, Tayn turned to obey. I threw myself in front of him before he could speak. "There must be another way!” I said. "You can’t just tear up my tavern!”

  "I’m sorry, Ulander, but—”

  Just then, one of his men chose to step too close to that certain spot in the comer. With a roaring sound, a giant mouth appeared, filling the whole ten feet between floor and ceiling. Its lips were thick and bloodless white; its teeth were sharp, jagged spikes; its tongue lolled out like some immense gray carpet. Gazing down its gullet, I saw only blackness.

  This seemed to be what Slab was waiting for.

  With an insane cry he rose and seemed to flow rather than walk to the Oracle. Seizing the Rashendi by the hair, he dragged him forward and into the mouth, vanishing down its throat. The other ghosts of patrons long-dead grabbed all the guards, Tayn included, and spirited them into it as well.

  The mouth closed with a snap, the tongue flickered over the lips, and the whole apparition vanished with a slight sucking sound.

  Too stunned to do more than stare at the now-empty corner, I just stood there. Then one of the barmaids began to scream. I heard a slapping sound and she shut up.

  I retreated to my booth and sat down heavily. I was ruined, I knew. The Great Lord would have me executed for killing his favorite Captain and twenty of his guards. His assassins would track me down wherever I went. Well, I figured, at least I could get drunk, ease the pain of my death—that was the only advantage left in owning a haunted tavern.

  Hearing singing, I looked up. The two disembodied heads had appeared over my table. Slowly they drifted away. Sounds from outside told me a number of pirates had entered. Business went on as usual.

  As the day wore on and I got progressively drunker, I began to hear strange rumors... tales of how twenty-one of Lord Ri’s guards had been plucked from the harbor by slavers—and Lord Ri had declined to buy them back... tales of how their leader, Tayn Lastoq, had gone mad and led his men and an Oracle off to fight sea monsters... tales of how the Oracle had disappeared, never to be seen again.

  That night, Slab’s haunted spot moved into my private booth. I first became aware of it when I looked up and found Slab sitting in front of me, casually sipping a bottle of my best Coranian Brandy. He raised it in salute, gave me a knowing wink, then slowly faded away.

  I shuddered. That wink had always disturbed me back in the days when Slab still lived and I’d been his right-hand man, with only as much power as he let me have. That wink had been a private sign, one last reminder that he owned the place and I never would... or so he’d thought.

  But I’d saved my money, made sure I knew all the right people, and finally took over when he died. Yet for all the documents that said I owned the place, something deep inside me called me a fool, and cursed, and somehow I knew the truth.

  I drank more Wine and tried not to think. My pains eased; somehow everything no longer seemed quite so grim. Slab, they’d said when he was alive, always takes care of his own.

  Secure with that thought, I drifted toward sleep.

  Slab’s Tavern first appeared in "The Brothers Lammiat” (which has appeared in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, and is intended as the starting point for a whole cycle of heroic-fantasy adventures). Writes Betancourt: "Slab’s was first intended as a throwaway bar where pirates could go to have a drink in peace, in the city of Zelloque. But—things being what they are—the tavern and its—urn—eccentric owner and clientele took on a life of their own, and promptly demanded their own story.” Betancourt’s first book is an interactive science fiction adventure, Starskimmer. His stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies; his first novel, The Blind Archer, is forthcoming from Avon, and is also set in Zelloque.

  HANDS OF THE MAN

  by R. A. Lafferty

  "...a tavern frequented by skymen and traveling men of all sorts."

  His forearms were like a lion’s, sinewed and corded and mountainous. One could hardly help looking at them, and he was looking at them himself. His hands, no less remarkable than his forearms, lay palm-up on the bar.

  The hands of the man were intricately and powerfully fashioned; on one of the lesser fingers of the left hand there was a heavy gold band three-quarters of an inch thick, and wide. The rest of him was a stocky skyman, fair and freckled. He was blue-eyed and lightly lashed and browed, and he gazed at his hands like a boy.

  It Was a tavern frequented by skymen and traveling men of all sorts. A spotter had seen the man; and now he came and they talked.

  "You are very interested in something,” said the spotter Henry Hazelman.

  "Not at all,” the skyman said. "A man who is deeply interested has the same appearance as one who is completely absentminded, as was my case. 1 was staring at my hands, and both they and my mind were empty. But before I had left off thinking, I was musing on the contrast between the two of them.”

  The skyman was named Hodl Oskanian, and the name was the least odd thing about him.

  "I was looking at my left hand which I was bom with,” continued Hodl, "and at my right hand which I made myself. It is the saying of the palmists that we form the lines of our right hand by the tide of our lives.

  "You will notice, my friend, that all the lines of my left hand are graven so deeply that a coin could be stood up in any of them when the hand is flat. Get a hold on your emotions, man, and then look at that Head Line! Should it not betoken genius! You would say that a man with a Head Line like that would be capable of anything, and you would be right. Hold on to your eyeballs with both hands when you take a look at that Heart Line! Notice the Generosity Passage where it goes between the Mountains of Integrity and Nobility. Doesn’t it shake you a little to stand beside a man with a Heart Line like that?”

  "Yes, something does shake me a little,” Henry Hazelman said.

  "Look at that Humility Bump!” Hodl all but sang, ’Til bet I’ve got more humility than any man in creation! If I ever met a man with a hand like mine I’d follow him to the end of the universes just to shake it. Steady yourself now, friend. Look at that Life Line! It curves clear around the heel of my hand like the Ocean-River circling the ancient world. I couldn’t die at less than a hundred and twenty with a Life Line like that.”

  "Yes, it is quite a hand,” said Henry Hazelman.

  "But not the right hand,” said Hodl. "Notice that, while it also is one of the most fascinating hands in the worlds, it is not up to the left which I was bom with. It is the hand of a compromised genius. Is there any other kind? It is like the hand of a Leonardo or an Aquinas or an Eoin Dinneen or an Aristotle or a Willy McGilly—the hand of a man capable of reaching the ultimates, but perhaps not of surpassing them. This comparative fuzziness of line is to be found in the right hands of all really great men. Even we fall short of our destiny. Have you the price of a Beer?”

  "Yes, here, give my friend a Beer,” Henry cried to the barman. It was the green Beer recently introduced from Barathron, and it had become a favorite of the skymen.

  And when the left hand of Hodl flicked out to take the Beer, Henry Hazelman saw what he had been waiting to see. He went away.

  Henry went to David Daumier the diamond factor.

  "It’s as big as a hen’s egg, David, my word on it,” Henry was insisting.

  "To you all rocks are as big as hens’ eggs,” Da
vid said. "I wonder I never see such small eggs. It would take a hundred of them to make a dozen.”

  "I’ve never given you a wrong turn, David, and I never saw the like of this one.”

  "And probably glass.”

  "Wouldn’t I know the difference?”

  "Yes, you would know the difference.” And already David Daumier was going along with Henry the spotter.

  "There are little islands in that Head Line.” Hodl still talked to himself and to several who listened in both amusement and admiration. "In anyone but myself it would mean that a person with such islands in his Head Line was a little peculiar. Good afternoon, sir, is my conversation worth a Beer to you? I have said it myself a hundred times that I’m the most interesting person I ever listened to.”

  "Yes, your talk is worth that,” said David Daumier. "Barman, fill my friend again. That is a gaudy little ring you have there, skyman. The stone is simulated, of course.”

  It was the finest diamond that David had ever seen, and he had traded as many diamonds as any man in the universes.

  "There’s deception in you,” Hodl rebuked him. "Let us be open. You are a professional. There’s a little blue light that appears behind the eyes of a professional when he sees a stone like this. Did you know that? You sparkle from it. And the stone is not simulated.”

  "A little too yellow.”

  "Golden rather. All great diamonds are golden. The small blue ones are for children.”

  "We will assume it is hot. Fortunately I can handle it, at somewhat of a discount, of course.”

  "If it were hot and of this size, would you not know about it?”

  "It isn’t from Earth,” said David. "I doubt that it’s of any trabant or asteroid. It hasn’t the orange cast of those of Ganymede, and I’d know a diamond from Hokey Planet anywhere. Is it from Astrobe? Pudibundia? Bellota?”