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

would not mistake it when it came.

On his way to the Maze he brooded over his curse, which kept him unloved by the

living and spurned by any he favoured if they be mortal. In heaven he had a

brace of lovers, ghosts like the original Stepson, Abarsis. But to heaven he

could not repair: his flesh regenerated itself immemorially; to make sure this

was still the case, last night he had gone to the river and slit both wrists. By

the time he’d counted to fifty the blood had ceased to flow and healing had

begun. That gift of healing – if gift it was – still remained his, and since it

was god-given, some power more than mortal ‘loved’ him still.

It was whim that made him stop by the weapons shop the mercenaries favoured.

Three horses tethered out front were known to him; one was Niko’s stallion, a

big black with points like rust and a jughead on thickening neck perpetually

sweatbanded with sheepskin to keep its jowls modest. The horse, as mean as it

was ugly, snorted a challenge to Tempus’s Tros – the black resented that the

Tros had climbed Niko’s mare.

He tethered it at the far end of the line and went inside, among the crossbows,

the flying wings, the steel and wooden quarrels and the swords.

Only a woman sat behind the counter, pulchritudinous and vain, her neck hung

with a wealth of baubles, her flesh perfumed. She knew him, and in seconds his

nose detected acrid, nervous sweat and the defensive musk a woman can exude.

‘Marc’s out with the boys in back, sighting-in the high-torque bows. Shall I get