Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

that suddenly filled it.

“Drink,” Tygoth suggested.

“No.”

He lifted his stick. “You come here to steal-“

“Looking for someone.” Her mind leapt this way and that. “Vis. Boarder of

yours.”

“Asleep.”

She dodged past and ran, down the alley, the only lighted alley in the Downwind,

that got the light of the ever-lit lantern at Mama Becho’s door.

“Vis,” she called softly, rapping at the door. Her hands clenched against the

wood. “Vis, wake up, get out here. Now.” She heard Tygoth coming, shambling

along after her, rapping the wall with his stick. “Vis, for the gods’ sake, wake

up.” There was movement from inside. “It’s Moria,” she said. The rapping was

closer. “Let me in.”

The door opened, a rattling of the latch. She faced a daggerpoint, a half

dressed man wild-eyed and suspecting murder. She showed her empty hands.

“Trouble?” Tygoth said behind her. “No trouble,” Vis said, and reached out and

caught her by the wrist in a crushing grip, pulling her inside, into the dark.

He closed the door.

* * *

They brought Mor-am through the dark muffled in a foul-smelling, greasy cloak;

gagged and with a bandage over his eyes and his hands so long tied behind his

back that they had gone beyond acute pain to a general numb hurt that involved

his chest and arms as well. He would have run but they had had his knees and

ankles tied too, and now he was doing well to walk at all, with his knees and

ankles beyond any sensation of balance, just stabbing pain. They jerked him

along in the open air, and he remembered the hawkmask they had nailed to the