Tales from the vulgar unicorn- Thieves World 02 by Robert Asprin

buddy, these're for customers,' he said to the classically handsome young man sitting on the other bench. The youth stood but did not leave. The tapster tugged the bench a foot into the doorway, stepped onto it, and hung the lantern from a hook beneath the tavern's sign. The angle of the lantern limned in shadow a rampant unicorn, its penis engorged and as large as the horn on its head. Instead of returning to the bench on which he had been sitting, the young man sat down beside Samlor. 'Not much to look at, is it?' he said to the Cirdonian, nodding towards the temple.
    'Nor popular, it seems,' Samlor agreed. He eyed the local man carefully, wondering how much information he could get from him. 'Nobody's gone in there for an hour.'
    'Not surprising,' the other man said with a nod. 'They come mostly after dark, you know. And you wouldn't be able to see them from here anyway.'
    'No?' said Samlor, sipping a little more of his clabbered milk. 'There's a back entrance?'
    'Not just that,' said the local man. 'There's a network of tunnels beneath the whole area. They - the worshippers - enter from inns or shops or tenements from blocks away. In Sanctuary, those who come to Heqt come secretly.'
    Samlor's left hand toyed with his religious medallion. 'I'd heard that before,'
    he said, 'and I don't figure it. Heqt brings the Spring rains ... she's the genetrix, not only in Cirdon but everywhere she's worshipped at all - except Sanctuary. What happened here?'
    'You're devout, I suppose?' asked the younger man, eyeing the disk with the face of Heqt.
    'Devout, devout,' said Samlor with a grimace. 'I run caravans, I'm not a priest. Sure, maybe I spill a little drink to Heqt at meals ... without her, there'd be no world but desert, and I see enough desert already.'
    The stranger's skin was so pale that it looked yellow now that most of the light was from the lamp above. 'Well, they say there was a shrine to Dyareela here before Alar tore it down to build his temple. There wouldn't be anything left, of course, except perhaps , the tunnels, and they may have been old when the city was built ! on top of them. Have you heard there's supposed to be a demon kept in the lower crypts?'
    Samlor nodded curtly. 'I heard that.'
    'A hairy, long-tailed, fang-snapping demon,' said the younger man with a bright smile. 'Pretty much of a joke nowadays, of course. People don't really believe in that sort of thing. Still, the first priest of Heqt here disappeared. ... And last year Alciros Foin went into the temple with ten hired bravos to find his wife. Nobody saw the bullies again, but Foin was out on the street the next morning. He was alive, even though every inch of skin had been flayed off him.'
    Samlor finished his mug of blue John. 'Men could have done that,' he said.
    'Would you prefer to meet men like that rather than ... a demon?' asked the local, smiling. The two men stared in silence at the temple. 'Do you want a drink?' Samlor asked abruptly.
    'Not I,' said the other. 'You say that fellow was looking for his wife?' the Cirdonian pressed, his eyes on the shadow-hidden temple and not on his companion.
    'That's right. Women often go through the tunnels, they say. Fertility rites. Some say the priests themselves have more to do with any increase in conceptions than the rites do - but what man can say what women are about?'
    'And the demon?'
    'Aiding the conceptions?' said the local. Samlor had kept his face turned from the other so that he would not have to see his smile, but the smile freighted the words themselves stickily. 'Perhaps, but some people will say anything. That would be a night for the ... suppliant, wouldn't it?'
    Samlor turned and smiled back, baring his teeth like a cat eyeing a throat vein.
    'Quite a night indeed,' he said. 'Are there any places known to have entrances to - that?' He gestured across the dark street. 'Or is it just rumour? Perhaps this inn itself?'
    'There's a hostel west of here a furlong,' said the youth. 'Near the