Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

But defeated, robbed and offended, he was being astonishingly sensible. He was going far to excess in it, and again she felt that precarious balance, polar opposite to the direction black rage insisted he go. He smiled at her and drank her wine, issues all forever unresolved.

One expected a man of vast lifespan to be complex. Or mad, at least to the limited perspective of those who lacked perspective. It was vitality of all sorts which was his curse, healing, sex, immortality.

Annihilation was hers. And the apposition of their curses was impossible.

She laughed, and leaned her elbow on the table and wiped her mouth with the back of a soiled hand.

“What amuses you?” There, the suspicion was quite ready.

“Little. Little. Your horse and my roses. Us.” As distant hooves echoed in the streets, within her awareness. “Shall we dice for the bitch?”

He had heard the horse coming. He recovered himself, as she had guessed, became the stranger again, and headed for her door.

Well enough.

She came out a moment or two later, when the horse had come thundering up, and brought a cloak which had lain underfoot for months. It was velvet, soiled, and a horse which had run the width of Sanctuary was bound to be sweated. “Here,” she said, joining him at the open gate. “For the horse.” Which was rolling its eyes and lolling its tongue and reeking of krrf as he worked at the cinch.

Tempus snatched the skewed saddle off, jerked the cloak from her hands, and used it on the Tros.

“Damn,” Tempus said over and over.