Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

And more and more as he waited in this unlikely place, he gnawed on the thought

of his hoped-for patron … dead, it might be, victim along with Sjekso, lying

unfound as yet in some other alleyway. He had been mad to have gone off and left

a woman in the backways of the Maze; a cat among hounds, that piece… and gone,

snatched up, swallowed up – with friends, gods, more than likely money like that

had friends and enemies. His mind built more and grimmer fancies … of princes

and politics and clandestine meetings, this Sjekso perhaps more than he had

seemed, this woman casting about money to be rid of a witness too much for the

man she was with, an expedience –

He built such fancies, paced, stalked finally halfway up the creaking length of

the stairs and came back down in indecision – then up again, gathering his

courage and his resolve. He reached the swaying balcony, tried the door.

It swung inward, never locked or barred. That startled him. He slipped the knife

from his belt and pushed the door all the way open – smelled incense and spices,

perfumes. He walked in, pushed the door very gently shut again. A dim light came

from a milky parchmented casement, cast colour slantwise on a couch spread with

russet silk, on dusty draperies and stacks of cloth and oddments.

Wings snapped and rustled. He spun about into a crouch, found only a large black

bird chained to a perch against the wall in which the door was set. His heart

settled again. He straightened. He should have smelled the creature: no large