Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

We shall not be available to you. Then we shall, and you will face me again,

beloved Hanse, and tell me what is your desire.”

“But-“

Eshi clung to him, but her grip was broken, her fingers torn free of the mailed

hero of the Ilsigi by the wind of Ils that rushed him back to Sanctuary; back to

his own beloved, squalid little Thieves’ World.

A glance upward showed him more of the impossible that had lately become all too

commonplace for the Son of Shadow. The sky was precisely as it had been when he

departed on his mission. He even recognized the oddly formed little cloud ‘way

out there above Julavain’s Hill. It looked just like a-

But even as he paced along the narrow Maze “street,” the cloud was coming apart,

changing, never to be the same again.

Information was yielded Hanse by that. But it was for realization later, the

fact that while hours or days had been consumed in that mighty combat in a

chamber of the House of Infinity, in Sanctuary exactly no time had passed at

all.

Just now, in the darkness of Slick Walk, an accoster separated itself from the

shadows along one wall and glided into his path. The fellow bulked large, too.

“You’re not in a hurry are you, little fellow?” the voice said, mocking him.

“Carrying a purse?”

“Not tonight,” Hanse said, stepping into the light that fell between them.

He drew a long sword from a silver-flashing sheath buckled over fine dark armor

that rang softly with the movement of mailed sleeve on chest. At the same time

he showed teeth and the blade moved up to catch the light and the footpad