Thieves World 01 – Thieves World by Asprin, Robert

It was a fair test of strength, ordained by our masters, Rabben should bear me

no ill-will… Rabben’s presence in Sanctuary need not have to do with Lythande.

He might be here upon his lawful occasions – if anything of Rabben’s could be

said to be lawful; for it was only upon the last day of all that the Pilgrim

Adepts were pledged to fight upon the side of Law against Chaos. And Rabben had

not chosen to do so before then.

Caution would be needed, and yet Lythande knew that Rabben was near …

South and east of the governor’s palace, there is a little triangular park,

across from the Street of Temples. By day the gravelled walks and turns of

shrubbery are given over to predicants and priests who find not enough worship

or offerings for their liking; by night the place is the haunt of women who

worship no goddess except She of the filled purse and the empty womb. And for

both reasons the place is called, in irony, the Promise of Heaven; in Sanctuary,

as elsewhere, it is well known that those who promise do not always perform.

Lythande, who frequented neither women nor priests as a usual thing, did not

often walk here. The park seemed deserted; the evil winds had begun to blow,

whipping bushes and shrubbery into the shapes of strange beasts performing

unnatural acts; and moaning weirdly around the walls and eaves of the Temples

across the street, the wind that was said in Sanctuary to be the moaning of

Azyuna in Vashanka’s bed. Lythande moved swiftly, skirting the darkness of the

paths. And then a woman’s scream rent the air. From the shadows Lythande could