Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

LADY OF FIRE

Diana L. Paxson

A peach tree grew in the courtyard below Lalo’s stairs. It was only a little tree, but Gilla had covered its roots with straw to protect it from cold and dribbled precious water around it when the sun burned in the sky, caring for it as she cared for her children, and through war and wizard weather it had survived. But in the bitter spring of the Emperor’s visit to Sanctuary the tree stood barren, with scarcely a leaflet on its twisted branches, and no blooms.

Lalo paused beside it on his way to the palace, wishing that he could breathe life into the tree as he had once breathed life into the work of his hands. But with the destruction of the Nisibisi Globes of Power everyone’s magic seemed to have become as strengthless as Master Ahdio’s cheap ale; Lalo dared not test his own. And even at his most powerful, he had only transformed symbols, not already living things.

He did not know if he could create anything anymore.

The building behind him was as silent as it had been in the dreadful days when

Gilla was Roxane’s captive. Latilla and Alfi were with Vanda at the palace.

Wedemir was enviously watching the Stepsons maneuver themselves back into shape for campaign, and Gilla herself was at the Aphrodisia House, watching over

Illyra’s slow recovery from the wound she had taken in the riots when her daughter died.

If Illyra’s body had been all that needed healing it would not have been so bad,

Lalo thought. But it seemed to him that both women were nursing grief like a child. A pang twisted in his own belly at the memory-his middle son, Ganner, had been struck down, outside the goldsmith’s shop where he was apprenticed, in that same climax of disorder that had killed Illyra’s girl.