Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

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