Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

Thunderstorms in Sanctuary during summer weren’t uncommon. This one, loud as a wounded bear and dark as a witch’s eye, cleared the dockside of folk as he watched from shadows thrown by two overhanging roofs: Thunderstorms, these days in a revolution-wracked thieves’ world suddenly bereft of the magic that had driven it, meant that a new and feral god called Stormbringer was abroad.

The big man, on the horse whose muddy disguise did nothing to hide its extraordinary girth or the intelligence in its eyes, cared nothing for the god behind the storm-if indeed the chaotic principle named Stormbringer could rightfully be called one.

The man cared more than he wished to admit for that god’s daughter-for Jihan, called Froth Daughter, primal expression of Stormbringer’s lust for wind and wave, who was betrothed to Randal, the Tysian wizard, and trapped here until the marriage either was consummated or renounced. He’d cared enough to return to

Sanctuary, though it was doomed by imperial decree and the folly of its own selfish inhabitants- doomed to eradication at New Year’s, when the grace period the new Rankan Emperor, Theron, had given Prince/Governor Kadakithis would have elapsed without order being restored here.

Then the Emperor’s troops would come in a multitude- “Even though it be a soldier for every tramp, an arrow for every rebel, a legion if necessary,” in

Theron’s words-and the thieves’ world would be a fools’ paradise no longer.

Pacifying refractory towns was a passion of Theron’s. Pacifying wizard-ridden