X

Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

night, and that he had a visitor.

She was Mignureal, looking a bit older and truly beautiful, all in white and

palest spring-yellow. And surrounded by a pale glow, a sort of all-body nimbus

of twilight.

“Gird thyself, Hanse. It is time.”

Weeks and weeks ago, when first he returned from that night up at Eaglenest, he

would have shuddered at such words. Not now. Now Hanse was a trained fighter and

he had given it plenty of thought and he was more than ready. He had not known

it would come this way, but as he rose to obey he was glad that it had. This way

he had no time to think about it, to worry about what might happen to him. It

was time. He girded himself.

He donned tights and leathern pants; woolen footsers and a thief’s soft, padded

sole buskins. Next the new cotton tunic, long, and over that the padded one. The

glow remained in his room; Mignureal remained, this Mignureal, from

attractive moth into beauteous butterfly. The mail-coat jingled into place

and he buckled on the sword. Not the practice sword; the sword of the Stepson,

with which he had privately practiced.

The figure in his room stretched forth a hand. “Come, Hanse. We have to go now.

It is time, Son of Shadow.”

He picked up his helm. “Mignureal? Have you … a brother? A twin?”

“You know that I have.”

“And what do you call him?” He took her hand. It was cool, soft. Too soft, for

Mignureal.

“You know what I call him, Hanse. I call him Shadow, for shadows he rules and

births, Shadowspawn. Come Hanse, Godson.”

He went, under the helmet. Surely there were some awake even at this hour, and

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289

Categories: Asprin, Robert
curiosity: