Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

all day long and certain whispers passed in the Unicorn, with more and more

credibility: of revenge, of Hanse, about the likelihood of survival of one

Mradhon Vis – or Hanse, should the two meet. And about a certain blind man who

had found his way without aid into the Unicorn and out again, with Hanse in

tow… a blind man and no beggar, for all his looks – but a man of darker

rumour.

It was curious business, and more than mildly unpleasant. Cappen was not

sanguine. Hanse stalking Vis – it was quite unlikely. Hanse was all temper and

bluster. If anyone was doing the stalking it was likeliest to be Vis, and Hanse

was ill-advised to have prodded that surly-countenanced bastard … far more

trouble than Hanse really wanted, that was sure. Likely it was Hanse in hiding,

if Vis had not yet got him. Cappen picked up his cup again, and of a sudden his

eyes hooded and while his hand carrying his cup to his lips never faltered, the

sip he took was slow and studied: he watched a second man make attempt on the

lady’s table.

And that was Mradhon Vis himself… who went up quietly, and met no rebuff at

all. The lady lifted her face and her eyes to him – a face certainly worth a

song, although a dark and sombre one. And when her eyes lit on Mradhon Vis, very

quietly the lady got to her feet and in Vis’s still silent company… walked

towards the back door of the tavern. Only a few heads turned, of those at the

other tables, and those only casually. There was at the same time the faintest

ofpricklings at Cappen’s nape, a feeling he knew: he touched the amulet at