Thieves World 01 – Thieves World by Asprin, Robert

tomorrow night to ambush the Hell Hounds. He has been looking for an opportunity

to eliminate them. With them gone, Kittycat won’t be able to make trouble for

us.’

‘So Jubal is supplying the krrf now?’ Myrtis replied without sympathy.

‘They all have to pay to land their shipments in the Night Secrets, or Jubal

will reveal their activities to the Hell Hounds. His plan is fair. I can deal

with him directly. So can anyone else – he trades in anything. But you and

Lythande will have to unseal the tunnels so his men face no undue risk tomorrow

night.’

The remnants of Myrtis’s cordiality disappeared. The Golden Lily had been

isolated from the rat’s nest of passages on the Street when Myrtis realized the

extent of krrf addiction within it. Unkind experience warned her against mixing

drugs and courtesans. There were always men like Jubal waiting for the first

sign of weakness, and soon the houses were nothing more than slaver’s dens; the

madams forgotten. Jubal feared magic, so she had asked Lythande to seal the

tunnels with eerily visible wards. So long as she – Myrtis – lived, the Street

would be hers, and not Jubal’s, nor the city’s.

‘There are other suppliers whose prices are not so high. Or perhaps Jubal has

promised you a place in his mansion? I have heard he learned things besides

fighting in the pits of Ranke. Of course, his home is hardly the place for

sensitive people to live.’

Myrtis wrinkled her nose in the accepted way to indicate someone who lived

Downwind. Amoli replied with an equally understandable gesture of insult and