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

Hort shrugged, shuddered. ‘I don’t know.’ He drained his mug and slid it to the

bartender for a refill.

‘I’m not afraid to be seen with you,’ Samlor said. ‘But I’m not sure you want to

tell me about the – cult – with so many other people around.’ He smiled about

the cantina. The men there had just furnished him with a tactful way to prod the

frightened youth into his story.

Hort drank and shuddered again. He said, ‘Oh, I was raised with everyone here.

Omat’s my godfather. They won’t tell tales to the Beysib.’

It wasn’t the time for Samlor to comment. He assumed it was obvious anyway.

Anyone will talk if the questions are put with sufficient forcefulness. But Hort

must have known that too. The local man was not a coward, and he was not the

worse for never having asked questions the way Lord Tudhaliya would. The way

Samlor hil Samt had done, when need arose, might Heqt wash him . with mercy when

she gathered him in …

‘There’s a boat went out last month at the new moon,’ Hort said beneath a

moustache of beer foam. ‘A trawler, but not fishing. Do you know what Death’s

Harbour is?’

‘No.’ Samlor had poled a skiff as a boy, when he hunted ducks in the marshes

south ofCirdon. He knew little of the sea, however, and nothing at all of the

seas around Sanctury.

‘Two currents meet,’ Hort explained. ‘Any flotsam in the sea gets swept into the

eye of it. Wrecks, sometimes. And sometimes men on rafts, until the sun dries

their skin to parchment shrouding their bones.’ He laughed. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I

forget what sort of story I meant to tell you.’ The smile faded. ‘Nobody fishes