Thieves World 01 – Thieves World by Asprin, Robert

At the far end of the room is a wooden slab at waist-level, with channels cut in

its surface leading to hanging buckets. On the wall above it, a rack with

knives, cleavers, and a saw.

He deposits the mute staring man on the slab and selects a heavy cleaver.

I’m sorry, Amar. I have to start with the feet. Otherwise it’s a terrible mess.

There are philosophers who argue that there is no such thing as evil qua evil:

that, discounting spells (which of course relieve an individual of

responsibility), when a man commits an evil deed he is the victim himself, the

slave of his progeniture and nurturing. Such philosophers might profit by

studying Sanctuary.

Sanctuary is a seaport, and its name goes back to a time when it provided the

only armed haven along an important caravan route. But the long war ended, the

caravans abandoned that route for a shorter one, and Sanctuary declined in

status – but not in population, because for every honest person who left to

pursue a normal life elsewhere, a rogue drifted in to pursue his normal life.

Now, Sanctuary is still appropriately named, but as a haven for the lawless.

Most of them, and the worst of them, are concentrated in that section of town

known as the Maze, a labyrinth of streets and nameless alleys and no churches.

There is communion, though, of a rough kind, and much of it goes on in a tavern

named the Vulgar Unicorn, which features a sign in the shape of that animal

improbably engaging itself, and is owned by the man who usually tends bar on the

late shift, an ugly sort of fellow by the name of One-Thumb.