Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

useless, that left him with nothing but his hate and the paralysis in which he

never yet had killed one-whether because there was a remnant of selfwill in him

or that it was terror of her that kept him from killing. He was never sure. He

slept alone now. He stayed to the Downwind, knowing she was fastidious, and

hoping she was too fastidious to come here; but he had seen her first walking

the alleys of the Maze, a bit of night in black robes, a bit of darkness no moon

could cure, a dusky face within black hair, and eyes no sane man should ever

see. She hunted the alleys of Sanctuary. She still was there . . . or on the

river, or closer still. She took her lovers of a night, the unmissable, the

negligible, and left them cold by dawn.

She had sent him from her service unscathed-excepting the dreams, and his

manhood. She called him in his nightmares, promising him an end-as he had seen

her whisper to her victims and hold them with her eyes. And at times he wanted

that end. That was what frightened him most, that the darkness beckoned like the

only harbor in the world, for a man without hire and patronage, for a Nisibisi

wanted by law at home and stranded on the wrong side of a war.

He dared not become too drunk. The night Mama Becho ever thought he had all his

money on him, which he had-Then they would go for him. Now it was a game. They

tested him, learned him and his resources, whether he was a thief or no, what

skills he had. So he still baffled them.

And watched the door. Desperately casual, pretending not to watch.