Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

“I know,” said another voice, male.

The house was one of those left over from an earlier time when some misguided demi-noble, annoyed at the higher real-estate prices in the neighborhoods close to the palace, had tried to begin a “gentrification” project on the outskirts of the Maze. Sensibly, no other member of the nobility had bothered to sink any money in such a crazed undertaking. And the people in the mean houses all around had carefully waited until the nobleman in question had moved all his goods into the townhouse. Then the neighbors had begun carefully harvesting the house-never so many burglaries or so large a loss as to drive the nobleman away; just many careful pilfer-ings made easier by the fact that the neighbors had blackmailed the builders into putting some extra entrances into the house, entrances of which the property owner was unaware. The economy of the neighborhood took a distinct upward turn. It took the nobleman nearly three years to become aware of what was happening; and even then the neighbors got wind of his impending move through one of his servants, and relieved the poor gentleman of all his plate and most of his liquid assets. He considered himself lucky to get out with his clothes. After that the property fell into genteel squalor and was occupied by shift after shift of squatters. Finally it became too squalid even for them; which was when Harran bought it, and moved in with two goddesses and a dog.

“Whose turn is it to fix the door?” Harran said. He was a young man, perhaps eighteen years of age, and dark-haired… a situation he found odd, having been born thirty years before, and blond at the time. His companion was a lean little rail of a woman with a tangle of dark curly hair and eyes that had a touch of madness to them, which was not surprising, since she had been born that way, and sanity was nearly as new to her as divinity was. They were standing in what had been the downstairs reception room, and was now a sort of bedroom since the upper floors were too befouled as yet to do anything with at all. Both of them were throwing on clothes, none of the best quality. “Mriga?” Harran said. “Huh?”