Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

escape-attempts.

He had been there watching again; she knew that and more. They thought her mind

was as blank as the surface of a pond on a windless day – but they were wrong.

They thought she could remember nothing of her life before they had found her in

a squalid slave-pen; she’d merely been too smart to reveal her memories. Neither

had she ever revealed that she could understand their Rankan language – had

always understood it. True, the women who taught her the dance were all mutes

and could reveal nothing, but there were others who had tongues. That was how

she came to learn of Sanctuary, of Azyuna and the Feast of the Ten-Slaying.

Here in Sanctuary she was the only one who knew the whole dance but had not yet

performed it for the god. Seylalha guessed that this year would be her year

the one fateful night in her constricted life. They thought she didn’t know what

the dance was. They thought she performed it out of fear for the bitter-faced

women with their leather-bound clatter-sticks. But in her tribe nine-year-olds

were considered of marriageable age, and a seduction was a seduction regardless

of the language.

Seylalha had reasoned, as well, that if she did not want to become one of those

mutilated women who had trained and taught her she’d best get a child from her

bedding with the god. Legend said Vashanka’s unfulfilled desire was to have a

child by his sister; Seylalha would oblige the god in exchange for her freedom.

The Ten-Slaying was a new-moon feast; she bled at the full-moon. If the god were