whirled and ran for absolutely all he was worth.
Chuckling softly, Hanse moved on along Slick toward the Serpentine.
Now those gods with whom he was so intimate had a strange way of expressing
themselves sometimes, but he was sure Ils had said that he could have anything
he wished for… what did He mean? Ten circuits of the sun was subject to
interpretation.
Did the god mean only ten days? Surely He had not meant ten years?
Oh well. Ten days or ten months or ten years, Hanse would take them as they
came-each as it came. One at a time, he mused, and he yawned.
To begin with he wished that he were not at all tired, and then he made another
wish as well, grinning, and when he entered his room there she was, waiting all
low-lashed and smoky-eyed, in his bed.
(Sleeping entwined, they were awakened later by a horrific vivid lighting of the
sky that quite occluded the late-rising moon, but that was the sort of paradox
that both Reality and minor gods such as Vashanka and Ils allowed, and
countenanced. It was enough to bring anyone wide awake and it was frightfully
early, but Hanse found something to do.)
FOOTNOTES:
[i] “The Vivisectionist,” in Shadows Of Sanctuary; Ace Books, 1981.
[ii] “Shadowspawn,” in Thieves’ World; Ace Books, 1979.
EPILOG
The fishing fleets of Sanctuary made the first sighting.
Haron saw a strange sail and called Omat to show it to him. By the time he had
shaded his eyes from the sun’s glare and located the strange ship, there were
five sails-then twenty, all with the strange lateen rigging he had seen the day