Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

lined and arching brows; his skin was pallid; his cheeks hosted deep hollows

like his colossus’s where it guarded an unknown sea, so fierce that folk there

who had never heard of Sanctuary swore that in those stony caverns demons raised

their broods.

It had cost him much to take flesh and make chase. It cost him more to remove

Cime to the Mageguild’s innermost sanctum before the disturbance broke out above

the celebrants on the lawn. But he had done it.

He said to her, “Your intention, free agent, was not clear. Your resolve was not

firm. I am neither dead nor alive, because of you. Release me from this torture.

I saw in your eyes you did not truly wish my demise, nor the madness that must

come upon the world entire from the destruction of the place of salving dreams.

You have lived awhile, now, in a world where dreams cannot solve problems, or be

used to chart the future, or to heal or renew. What say you? You can change it,

bring sanity back among the planes, and love to your aching heart. I will make

you lady of Meridian. Our quays will once again rise crystal, streets will

glitter gold, and my people will finish the welcoming paean they were singing

when you shattered my heart.” As he spoke, he pulled from his vestments a

kerchief and held it out, unfolded, in his right hand. There on snowy linen

glittered the shards of the Heart ofAskelon, the obsidian talisman which her

rods had destroyed when he wore it on his wrist.

She had them out by then, taken down from her hair, and she twirled them, blue