Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

“Now. That foul breath that has cost you friends and alienated your wife is not gone, but will go, steadily. I am only a maker of small white spells. Noble, and sometimes I must have help. Keep that cup. Use it. Clean your teeth twice daily, after you eat. Get in there with cloth and soap. Yes, it will taste terrible; you’ve been told there is a Price here, beyond those ten silver coins you claim to find dear. After you have cleaned, add a goodly measure of salt to that cup, fill with water-not-wine, and rinse. You heed not drink. Swirl it about in your mouth and spit, until all is gone. Remember all this! It is important. If in two weeks your breath is not improved fivehold, return to me.”

After Volmas had left, Strick stood shaking his head. Charlatan, he told himself. Yet he had done good for everyone who had to come in contact with that stupid swine, to whom ten pieces of silver were as naught. That cup was one he had never liked, and he had known he’d find a use for some of the seeds from blind Jakob’s melons!

“My dear, you are under a spell. I cannot see whose, and I am sorry. You need the aid of powers beyond mine. Go to Enas Yorl. Here now, take back your gold. I have not earned it. If he does not or will not help, return and we will try.”

Smoke of the Flame, he thought in anger and true pain, watching her unhappy departure. Abhorrent black magic again. After two weeks here I have done so little for these poor pitiful people with their misery and their wicked sorcerers!

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