Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

citizenry’s irregular tithes. The Imperial entourage was cramped into inadequate

quarters that shoved his household together. He was actually sharing rooms with

his wife – a situation neither of them had ever desired and could no longer

tolerate. The Prince was an idealist, an unmarried idealist, whose belief in the

bliss of that inconvenient state was exceeded only by his nai’vety with regard

to statecraft. It was difficult not to enjoy the Prince’s company, however,

despite his manifold shortcomings. He had the proper breeding for a useless

younger son, and only the worst of fates had brought him so perilously close to

the throne that he must be sent so depressingly far from it.

In Ranke, Molin had a fine house – as well as rooms within the temple. Rare

flowers bloomed in his heated gardens; a waterfall coursed down one interior

wall of the temple drowning out the street-noises and casting rainbows across

this very table when it had resided in his audience chambers. Where had he gone

wrong? Now he had a tiny room with one window looking out to an air shaft that

must have sunk in the cesspools of hell itself and another one, the larger of

the two, overlooking the gallows. Moreover, the Hounds were elsewhere this

morning and yesterday’s corpses still creaked in the breeze.

Injustice! Indignity! And so, of course, he must clothe himself in the majesty

of his position as Vashanka’s loyal and duly initiated priest. Kadakithis must

find his way to these forsaken quarters and endure them as the priests did if