Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

An apparently brutish fellow named Tempus and his herd of nomadic womanless warriors-for-hire stayed just long enough to make things worse for the people they despised as “Wrigglies.” Then they decamped, to leave behind a vacuum that led to more struggling and more murder of guilty, guiltless, and innocent alike.

Decent, normal citizens cowered about their daily business. As a matter of fact so did indecent and abnormal citizens. Daily business had come to mean a striving to continue living.

To what purpose, none could be sure.

Speaking of the abnormal and indecent, the next advent was of a vampire witch and a necromant-or maybe it was a necromant and a vampire witch; everyone was confused because it was all too much-along with acres of walking dead. The two witches juggled people and Balls of Power and did everything but dice for poor pitiful Thieves’ World. The rule of females in Sanctuary became absolute. The founder-god seemed to have abdicated. Tale-tellers tried using female names for their characters, even when they were transparently male. That did not work; the storytellers bogged down and received fewer coins because reality was beyond their imaginative abilities.

Dead men wandered about and acted and a dead horse clop-clopped the streets of a city surely forsaken by all gods. Meanwhile intelligent natives, smart people such as Shafra-lain, got the hell out.

Fifteen or so minutes ago Fulcris had learned why the ruler -the youthful Rankan governor-wasn’t ruling; he was busy playing house with the fish-eyed snake-lady with the naked turrets. Even his fellow Rankans sneered at this Kadakithis, calling him by a contemptuous nickname.