Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

vivisectionist. One who sectioned, who sliced, the vibrantly living. Tempus, for

instance. Among others.

After the horror of the house of Kurd, Hanse was an uncharacteristically pensive

fellow; a different Hanse. The eeriness of a regenerated Tempus was almost more

than he could bear. Immortal! 0 gods of us all-immortal, a human newt who

survived all and healed all and regrew even vivisectioned parts-scarless!

Nor had that enigmatic and ever-scornful immortal said aught concerning Hanse’s

expenses in freeing him, or his promise to retrieve a certain set of laden

moneybags from a certain well up on Ea-a certain place.

Oh, it had cost.

For weeks Hanse had been idle. He did nothing. No; he did do something; he

drank. His income stopped. He even sold some of his belongings to buy the

unwatered wine he had always avoided.

Even so he did not sell the gift of a dead Stepson; an entirely mortal one. It

hung now on the wall of Hanse’s lodgings: a fine, fine sword in a silvered

sheath. He would not wear it. He would not touch it. Only he was sure that it

was not the gift of that dead man but of a god. Tempus’s god, Who had spoken to

Hanse and rewarded him for his rescue of His servant Tempus-as that god,

Vashanka, had promised.[i]

That sword hung, minus its silver sheath, on Hanse’s wall. The scabbard trailed

down his right leg. It was wrapped all in dull black leather, knotted and pegged

and knotted again. Nor was he one with the mercenaries cluttering the city,

bullying the city, and he had no wish to be.