I Read Books: Tales From The Vulgar Unicorn

 

Tales From The Vulgar Unicorn

The Vulgar Unicorn* is a tavern in the city of Sanctuary, the Thieves’ World of the Thieves’ World collaborative anthology series. This has seven stories from seven authors, as well as an introduction and comic essay at the back from editor Robert Asprin. The introduction has Hakiem the storyteller, an observer of the events in Sanctuary, commenting on how the Vulgar Unicorn seems to somehow have an even less salubrious clientele since the disappearance of One-Thumb the landlord**.

Spiders Of The Purple Mage*** has a midwife recruited by a foreigner to infiltrate the complicated defences of the titular Purple Mage, who fled with secrets of his homeland’s religion. Goddess has a nobleman discover a demon that has cursed his family, and has it’s lair under one of the city’s temples. The Fruit Of Enlibar has Ilyra, the half-Szabo seer from The Face Of Chaos in the first volume, this time trying to find the secret of a superlative metal for her half-brother.

The last four all revolve around the Rankan storm god/war god Vashanka. The Rankan Empire has been importing their gods, which has caused conflict with the local Ilsig religion. The Dream Of The Sorceress has Stulwig the apothecary finding himself caught up in a game/conflict between Vashanka and his sister/lover/victim Azyuma; both keep taking the appearance of various characters in a rather confusing story.

In Vashanka’s Minion Tempus, who may be immortal, is both a Hell Hound, one of the incorruptible imperial guard brought by the governor, and the titular minion. He’s sworn to raise a temple to Vashanka, but has been cutout when a storm comes in and a weapons shop rises. The god has decided to give out divine weapons; after some even more confusing events it’s closed down and most of the weapons – used by the desperate for vengeance – captured by the guard and thrown into the sea.

This storyline continues in Shadow’s Pawn****. Tempus joins forces with Hanse aka Shadowspawn to seek out the remaining magic weapons. One that causes uncontrollable fear comes into play, at one point turning Shadowspawn into a weeping wreck.

Tempus has been acting on his own, to the annoyance of Zalbar, the Captain of the Guard. It seems that the governor won’t overrule him. In To Guard The Guardians Zalbar fails to stop him, while stumbling onto an old adversary of his. Taking advantage of legal slavery, he’s performing grotesque and fatal medical experiments. Zalbar pressures Jubal (from Thieves’ World) to stop the slave traders selling to him, before coming up with his own solution; As Tempus cannot die and indeed recovers from any injury, would he not be a good subject for, um, unending torture? In any case I assume that’s the last we see of Tempus*****.

As Asprin notes in the introduction to his comic epilogue, “Sanctuary is incredibly grim.” Stories often take their cues from noir; no one is untouched, you can’t make the real powers hurt, the best you can do is decide who is to take the fall this time. Everyone is either involved in crime, a victim of it, or forced to get down in the mud to fight it. And if they do fight, a new one will pop up (at least until they stop making Thieves’ World anthologies). The gods are appalling, requiring sacrifices, offering ways for people to fulfil their dark dreams. Tempus is cursed with sleeplessness, but also, it’s implied, can only have sex in a way that’s cruel; or perhaps that’s self-imposed as anyone who loves him is cursed in turn. In any way, he’s not a tragic hero, he’s an incredibly powerful warrior, with magic tricks, who finds himself caught up in the whims of gods and factions of the empire. Deeply grim.

Read This: A real mixture of swords and sorcery stories, though all on the dark side
Don’t Read This: Thieves, murderers, rapists and torturers all thrown about by the puppeting games of the gods

* One of the stories notes that the unicorn on the sign has an erection

** See Thieves’ World

*** A reference to Louis Lamour’s 1912 western Riders Of The Purple Sage, and not for the first time in Phillip Jose Farmer’s career. I’ve not read Lamour’s book, but I assume it has less sneaking through dangerous caves

**** A wittily titled sequel to Shadowspawn in Thieves’ World. I asked in my review there, how come Shadowspawn aka Hanse became a fan favourite when he stumbles in and out of trouble, succeeding more by luck than judgment. Well seeing how grim and dark most of these stories are, I’m seeing the attraction, a bit of slapstick and farce, a character who can hold his own but is not quite as competent as his own bragging suggests, a straightforward thief, that’s a bit of lighthearted fun compared to this set of murderers, slavers, rapists, and doomed seekers of revenge.

***** Tempus went on to appear in three official Thieves’ World novels and a series of non-official ones.