Thieves World 01 – Thieves World by Asprin, Robert

familiar business of dispensing drink and krrf and haggling over rates of

exchange. He took a judicious amount of krrf himself – the domestic kind – to

keep alert. But nothing supernatural happened, and nothing more exciting than a

routine eye-gouging over a dice dispute. He did have to step over a deceased ex

patron when he went to lock up at dawn. At least he’d had the decency to die

outside, so no report had to be made.

One reason he liked to take the death-shift was the interesting ambience of

Sanctuary in the early morning. The sunlight was hard, revealing rather than

cleansing. Litter and excrement in the gutters. A few exhausted revellers,

staggering in small groups or sitting half-awake, blade out, waiting for a bunk

to clear at first bell. Dogs nosing the evening’s remains. Decadent, stale,

worn, mortal. He took dark pleasure in it. Double pleasure this morning, a

slight krrf overdose singing death-song in his brain.

He almost went east, to check on Mizraith. ‘Be careful the next few hours’

that must have meant his bond to Mizraith made him somehow vulnerable in the

weird struggle with Markmor over Marype. But he had to go back to the estate and

dispose of the bones in the dogs’ troughs, and then be Lastel for a noon

meeting.

*

There was one drab whore in the waiting-room of the Lily Garden, who gave him a

thick smile and then recognized him and slumped back to doze. He went through

the velvet curtain to where the eunuch sat with his back against the wall,

glaive across his lap.

He didn’t stand. ‘Any trouble, One-Thumb?’