10 – Aftermath by Asprin, Robert

The other houses were quiet, though all save the one against which Samlor’s party sheltered guarded their facades with lamplight. At this hour, business was most likely to be carried on through back entrances or trap doors to tunnels that were older than the Ilsigs . . . and possibly older than humanity.

It might be a bad time to meet Setios; but again, it might not. He’d been an associate of Star’s mother, which meant at the least that he was used to strange hours and unusual demands.

He’d see them now, provide the child with her legacy-if it were here. If it were portable. If Setios were willing to meet the terms of an agree- ment made with a woman now long dead.

Samlor swore, damning his sister Samlane to a hell beneath all the hells; and knowing as he recited the words under his breath that any afterlife in which Samlane found herself was certain to be worse than her brother could imagine.

“This is the house,” said Khamwas with a note of wonder in his voice. He and the child turned to look at the facade of the building against which the caravan master leaned while he surveyed the rest of the neigh- borhood.

“Looks pretty quiet,” said Samlor. The words were less an understate- ment than a conversational placeholder while the Cirdonian considered what might be a real problem.

The building didn’t look quiet. It looked abandoned.

It was a blank-faced structure. Its second floor was corbeled out a foot or so but there was no real front overhang to match those of the houses to either side. The stone ashlars had been worn smooth by decades or more of sidewalk traffic brushing against them; the mortar binding them could have used tuck pointing, but that was more a matter of aesthetics than structural necessity.