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

‘You missed curfew,’ he greeted her after she closed the door, not looking up

from his figures. His hands were filthy with cheap ink, the only kind available

in Sanctuary. But the numbers themselves, Cythen saw as she moved closer, were

clear and orderly. He could read and write as well as swing a sword; in fact, he

had education and experience equal to her own, and at times her feelings for him

threatened to take wild leaps beyond friendship or respect. Then she would

remind herself that it was only loneliness that she was feeling and the

remembering of things best left forgotten.

‘I left word for you,’ she stated without apology.

He kicked a stool towards her. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

She shook her head and sat on the stool. ‘No, but I found them all right.

Beysib, and from the palace, by the look of them.’ She shook her head again,

this time recalling the strange faces of the two women she had seen. ‘They

sneaked up on me; I couldn’t see how many there were. One came after me with a

pair of those long-hiked swords of theirs. She spun them so fast I couldn’t see

them any more. Fighting with them’s like walking into the mouth of a dragon.’

‘But you fought and survived?’ A faint trace of a smile creased Walegrin’s face.

He set his quill aside.

‘She said they were testing me – but that’s because she couldn’t kill me like

she’d planned. Her swords couldn’t stop mine, and mine didn’t break hers; that

Beysib steel is good. I guess we were both surprised. And then she figured she

better talk to me, and listen … But she never blinked while I talked to her so