The Wildside Book of Fantasy: 20 Great Tales of Fantasy by Fritz Leiber, Gene Wolfe, Robert E. Howard, Paul di Filippo, Lin Carter, Tanith Lee, Clark Ashton Smith, E. Hoffmann Price, Thomas Burnett Swann, Brian Stableford, John Gregory Betancourt, Brian McNaughton, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Clive Jackson, Darrell Schwetizer, Achmed Abdullah Read Free Book Online

were about to be charged by the Calydonian boars.
    Astyanax looked indignant. “But the wench brought five hundred.”
    “Five hundred, then!” cried the lady. Victory shone in her eyes and flushed her cheeks, as if, I thought, she had tippled unmixed wine. With relentless steps she mounted the stairs onto the block. “Baby,” she simpered and held out her braceleted arms. Astyanax, for the first time, looked frankly terrified.
    But the lady was not, after all, to have him. One of the yellow-haired boys emerged from the crowd, mounted the block in a single muscular leap, and snatched Astyanax from the threatening jeweled embrace. Tossing him into the crowd where his blond brother waited with outstretched hands, he spun from the block and both brothers, Astyanax between them, vanished as if through the conjurations of Circe. The Black Rats forgot to watch me. Like everyone else, they were dazed by the sudden daring of the theft. Easing rather than springing, I too made my escape.
    My first problem was to find a robe, even before I could find Astyanax. The mere fact of my being nude and branded like a slave did not in itself endanger me. On the business of their masters, slaves moved freely throughout the town. But if Vel sent his men to search for me, they would look for a slave and not a man in a cloak. I passed a stall where cloaks were hung on hooks and shoes were laid beneath them—moccasins of kid, sandals with wooden soles, high yellow boots. The shopkeeper was fastening a sword to the side of an elderly aristocrat. The old gentleman threw back his shoulders and attempted to swagger like a conquering general. No one was watching me. Without compunction, almost without fear, in one continuous motion, I lifted a cloak from a hook—red, with a border of yellow griffins poised for flight—and stepped in a pair of moccasins. To tell the truth, I rather enjoyed the theft. I was tired of behaving. I must have caught Astyanax’ sense of adventure.
    The moccasins were nondescript, but the cloak identified me as a gentleman and also concealed my brand. Now I could look for Astyanax. Though the town was both large and strange, I could make inquiries. The passage of two boys and a Triton could not have gone unnoticed. The fact remained, however, that Vel and his men could also inquire; that they, too, were searching and sooner or later were sure to cross my path.
    I found Astyanax sooner than I had dared to hope. The brothers, one of them holding the Triton, stood on a pier and stared at a round-built ship between two galleys of war. A new ship. Blue of hull, sleek as a dolphin, freshly painted, and fragrant with cedar and cypress, she loomed like a cabin boy’s dream. A ship for wandering; for uncharted seas and fabulous monsters; for finding Circe. But now was hardly the time to admire a ship. Bounding onto the pier, I snatched Astyanax from the arms of the taller brother.
    “Bear!” he cried, delighted. “Where have you been?”
    “Ve didn’t vant him to be sold,” said the taller brother with a slight Scandian accent. His name, I learned, was Balder; his brother was Frey. Their father had come from frozen Scandia, the land of Odin and Thor, the Thunderer. “That lady might have stuffed him.”
    “Ve vanted him for ourselves,” confessed the lesser brother.
    I looked nervously down the pier. “Explanations can wait. Now we must take cover.”
    But the brothers had more to say. “Vanted him for our animal,” Frey explained. “The Woodpeckers have a goat and the Griffins a Molossian hound.” He seemed to refer to rival street gangs. “I don’t suppose you vould lend him.”
    Astyanax brightened with pleasure, like a discus thrower coveted by rival teams. It suddenly occurred to me that he might prefer the company of boys to that of a wanderer like myself.
    “Do you want to be their animal?” I asked with a catch in my throat.
    He shook his head and turned to the boys. “I’m traveling with