Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

had given Chan.

‘Just leave her alone for a little while, Chan,’ Quartz said to him. ‘Let her

rest. Everything will be all right.’

Quartz eased Wess down and lay beside her. Cuddled between Quartz and Aerie,

with Aerie’s wing spread over them all, Wess fell asleep.

At midmoming, Wess awoke. Her head ached fiercely and the black bruise across

her side hurt every time she took a breath. She looked around the room. Sitting

beside her, mending a strap on her pack, Quartz smiled down at her. Aerie was

brushing her short smooth fur, and Chan stared out of the window, his arm on the

sill and his chin resting on his arm, his other shirt abandoned unpatched on his

knee.

Wess got up and crossed the room. She sat on her heels near Chan. He glanced at

her, and out of the window, and at her again.

‘Quartz explained, a little …’

‘I was angry,’ Wess said.

‘Just because barbarians act like… like barbarians, isn’t a good reason to be

angry with me.’

He was right. Wess knew it. But the fury and bewilderment mixed up in her were

still too strong to shrug off with easy words.

‘You know -‘ he said, ‘you do know I couldn’t act like that…’

Just for an instant Wess actually tried to imagine Chan acting like the

innkeeper, or Bauchle Meyne, arrogantly, blindly, with his self-interest and his

pleasure considered above everything and everyone else. The idea was so

ludicrous that she burst out in sudden laughter.

‘I know you wouldn’t,’ she said. She had been angry at the person he might have

been, had all the circumstances of his life been different. She had been angry