Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

business at hand. ‘Peruz,’ she said softly, shook back her hood, and taking from

her robes the necklace, she drew near the huge raptor … or the guise it wore.

With the greatest of care she slipped the necklace into a small case which hung

from the side of the stand and fastened the case in its turn to the scaly leg of

the bird. Peruz stood still too, uncommonly so, his great wings folded. A last

time she teased the breast feathers, the softness about the neck – she had grown

fond of the creature in recent weeks, as anything that shared her life. She

smiled at the regard of a cold topaz eye.

‘Open the window,’ she instructed her intruder/guest, and he moved, slowly, with

the look of a man caught in a bad dream. ‘Open it,’ and he did so. She launched

Peruz and he flew, with a clap of wings, a hurtling out towards the dark, a

lingering coolness of wind.

So he was sped. Her employer had all he had paid to have – and well paid. And

she was alone. She let go her mental grip on the ruffian … and at once his

face showed panic and he whipped up the knife he had in hand. She stopped that.

He looked confused, as if he had quite forgotten what the dagger was doing in

his hand. And that effort would cost her, come the morning: on the morrow would

be a fearful headache and a mortal lassitude, so that she would want to do

nothing for days but drowse. But now the blood was still quick in her veins, the

excitement lingered, and in the threat of ennui and solitude which followed any

completed task … she felt another kind of excitement, and looked on her