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

protector was a blacksmith? Oh yes, Illyra was still in Sanctuary… and Dubro

the smith, too, if the foreign master’s business was with him.

Samlor’s intended business was in no way with the blacksmith, but the

information was none the less good to know. Before entering the booth, the

Cirdonian set his thumbs on his waist belt and tugged the broad leather a

fraction, to the side. That was less obtrusive than adjusting the belt-sheathed

fighting knife directly.

‘Welcome, master,’ said the woman who had been reading the cards to herself on a

stool. Samlor looped the sash across the doorway hangings. There were the usual

paraphernalia and a table that could be slid between the S’danzo and the lower,

cushioned seat for clients. The young woman’s eyes were very sharp, however. The

Cirdonian knew that her quick appraisal of him as he slid aside the curtain of

pierced shells gave often as much information as a reading would require, when

retailed back to the sitter over cards or his palms or through ‘images’

quivering in a dish of water.

‘You came about the luck of your return -‘ and Samlor would have said that his

face was impassive, but it was not, not to her. ‘No, not a journey but a woman.

Come, sit. The cards, I think?’ Her left hand fanned the deck, the brilliant,

complex signs that some said reflected the universe in a subtlety equal to that

of the icy stars overhead.

‘Lady,’ said Samlor. He turned up his left palm and the silver in it. It was

uncoined bullion, stamped each time it was assayed in a Beysib market. ‘You gave