Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

Ilsig King.

* * *

Lalo worked his way around the outside of the Presence Hall to the side door.

The corridor seemed quiet after the clamor of music and the wine-fueled babble

of conversation, and the government offices that occupied the spaces between the

Hall and the outside of the Palace were empty and dark. As he had expected, the

side-door leading to the courtyard was bolted tight. With a sigh he went the

other way, passed through the Hall of Justice that fronted the Palace as quickly

as he could, and out through one of the great double doors that led onto the

porch and broad stair.

Torches had been fixed in the pillars at the top and bottom of the stair, and

their fitful light gleamed on the armour of the guards who stood at attention on

each of the four wide steps, and glowed on the purple pennon tied to each spear,

then rayed out across the inner courtyard in uneven ribbons of brightness and

shadow, as if the soldiers had become part of the Palace architecture.

Lalo paused for a moment, noting the effect. Then he saw that the first guard

was Quag, nodded, and received in answer the flicker of an eyelid in the wooden

patience of the Hell-Hound’s face.

Lalo’s sandals crunched on grit as he crossed the flagstones of the inner

courtyard, punctuating the patter of applause that drifted from the Palace, at

this distance as faint as the sound of wavelets on a shore. He supposed that the

concubines had stripped off their final veils. He must remember not to show

Gilla the sketches he had made of them practicing.