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

the far wall, for all the world like a piece of furniture. It took another

moment for her to realize that he had not moved when she came in. He had not

even looked at her.

Swiftly she went to him. He stood as if he had backed across the room step by

careful step until he ran into the wall. The paintbrush was still clenched in

one hand; she tugged it free and set it down. And still he did not move. His

eyes were fixed, unseeing, on the easel across the room. She glanced at it – a

man’s face, and at this distance she saw nothing remarkable – then turned to him

again.

‘Lalo, are you all right? Did you hear me? Shipri All-Mother have mercy – Lalo,

what’s wrong?’ She shook his arm and still he did not respond to her, and a sick

fear uncoiled itself beneath her heart and began to grow.

Gilla gathered him into her ample embrace and for a moment held him unresisting.

His body was warm, and she could feel his heart beating very slowly against her

own. but she knew with dreadful certainty that he was no longer there. Biting

her lip, she guided him to the pallet and arranged him on it as one of the

children might arrange a doll.

Fear’s chill tentacles extended all the way to her fingertips now. and she

remained kneeling before Lalo, chafing his hands less for his sake than for her

own. His eyes were unfocused, the pupils darkly dilated. He was not looking at

her. He had not been looking at the painting either, although his face had been

turned towards it when she came in. These eyes were focused on something beyond