Thieves World 5 – The Face of Chaos by Asprin, Robert

as she beat her sword free and stepped momentarily back out of range.

‘Cowards!’ she added.

‘Had we wished to slay you, child, we could have done so without revealing

ourselves. So, you see, it was simply a test; which you passed,’ her opponent

said in slightly breathless, accented tones. She sheathed her swords and, unseen

still in the darkness, her companions did the same.

‘You’re lying, bitch.’

The Harka Bey ignored Cythen’s remark, but began unwinding the black scarf from

her face, revealing a woman only a little older than Cythen herself. The clear

racial stamp of the Beysib unsettled Cythen as much, or more than, the twirling

swords. It wasn’t just that their eyes were a bit too round and bulging for

mainland taste but -flick – and those eyes went impenetrable and glassy. To

Cythen it was like being watched by the dead, and with the corpse of her sister

still foremost in her mind, the comparison was not at all comforting.

‘Do we truly seem so strange to you?’ the Beysib woman asked, reminding Cythen

that she, too, was staring.

‘I had expected someone… older: a crone, from what the mages said.’

The Harka Bey hunched her shoulders; the glassy membrane over her eyes flicked

open, then closed without interrupting her stare. ‘No old people came on the

ships with us. They would not have survived the journey. I have been Harka Bey

since my eyes first opened on the sun and Her blood mingled with mine. You

needn’t fear that I am not Harka Bey. I am called Prism. Now, what do you wish

from the Harka Bey?’