Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

had passed through him like light through a windowpane, leaving him in the

darkness once more.

Jarveena stirred and yawned, then opened one eye. ‘Is he done? I’ve got to go

the Esmeralda sails on the early tide.’

‘Yes,’ answered Enas Yorl, his eyes glowing more brightly than ever as he turned

the easel for her to see. The painting holds my magic now. Take it with you and

look at it as you would look into a mirror, and after a time it will become a

mirror, and all will see your beauty as I see it now …’

Shaking with fatigue and loss, Lalo sat down on the floor. He heard the rustle

of the sorcerer’s robes as he moved to embrace his lady, and after a little

while the sound of the painting being removed and her footsteps going to the

door. Then Lalo and Enas Yorl were alone.

‘Well … it is done .. .’The sorcerer’s voice was fleshless, like wind

whispering through dry leaves. ‘Will you take your payment now?’

Lalo nodded without looking at him, afraid to see the body to which that voice

belonged.

‘What shall it be? Gold? Those baubles on the floor?’ The pearls rattled as if

they had been nudged by the sorcerer’s current equivalent of a toe.

Yes, I will take the gold, and Gilla and I will go and never set eyes on this

place again… The words were on his lips, but every dream he had ever known was

clamouring in his soul.

‘Give me the power you forced on me last night!’ Lalo’s voice strengthened.

‘Give me the power to paint the soul!’

The laughter of Enas Yorl began as the whisper in the sand that precedes the