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

his guard just a fraction. She sprang at him.

His eyes went wide with disbelief. He was falling towards her before she touched

him, the disbelief becoming a fixed, deathlike stare. His momentum pushed her

backwards and off balance, knocking her sword aside. But he was no longer

attacking, only falling. They both went crashing to the floor and through it, as

the old wood gave way beneath them. Cythen heard a scream – her own – then

nothing.

3

The sun was bright in the courtyard of the palace. Cythen, the swelling still

apparent in her face, and Walegrin, his arm in a sling, stood with the Hell

Hounds in the places of honour. There were, as yet, no Beysibs in sight. Enas

Yorl let the curtain fall from his hand and sat back in the shadowed privacy of

his study. It seemed the whole population of the town had crammed around the

high platform whereupon the Beysa would pronounce judgement.

‘Would you have stopped him for the courtesan’s sake alone?’ he asked the

darkness beside him.

‘The girl-soldier has conquered her fears and her past. We have made her a part

of our sisterhood. We, too, must adapt. Her vengeance is ours,’ the voice of a

Beysib woman replied.

‘Ah, but that wasn’t the question. If all you knew was that the Blood of Bey, as

you call it, had been used to slay an innocent courtesan, and that it had been

done to make the suspicion fall on you; if there had been no other crimes, would

you have stopped him?’

‘No. We have always been blamed for crimes we do not commit. It is part of the

balance we have with the Empire. One insignificant life would have made no