Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

with other enemies of Tempus? Zaibar and Razkuli, perhaps? Because Tempus was

now in the mysterious experimenter’s foul and reeking hands, perhaps?

In an ugly dark stenchy room Hanse learned more of Kurd and his business. Kurd

claimed to be dedicated to the god Science. Medicine. That required

experimentation. But Kurd was not content to experiment with the wounded and

victims of accidents. The pallid fellow created his own. And, Hanse thought with

rather more than distaste, Kurd could occupy himself for a life time with one

whose wounds – Hanse suspected and thought he knew – healed with inhuman speed

and completeness. Make that superhuman, or preternatural. Tempus call-me

-Thales was a man of war who had participated in many battles. Yet there were

no scars on the man. Not one.

Tempus/Thales.

‘You, I own, can call me anytime,’ he had told Hanse, and ‘my friend’, he had

called Hanse, and ‘Just tell me not to call you friend’, he had dared Hanse. And

Hanse had not been able to tell him that, thus revealing and silently replying

that he was close on to desperate for friends, a friend; for someone to care

about him. For someone to care about.

Hanse sprawled supine on his bed in an upstairs room in the heart of the Maze,

and he pondered what he had learned. He rose to pace and chew his full lower lip

and ponder, with his soul and heart and longing all naked in his eyes so that it

was good no one was there to see, for Hanse wanted others to see only what he

deliberately projected.

All I need do is report all this to KUt-to Kadakithis, he thought. The Prince