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

light. So where in the name of Shalpa Shadow-lord had he gotten to?

He took a step forward, then another, his feet finding their own way over the

uneven ground. The colours that streaked the clouds nauseated him – sulphur

yellow that shaded into a livid pink like an unhealed scar, and then to

something else – an unnameable colour that made his eyes hurt so that he had to

look away.

Perhaps I am dead, he thought then. Poor Cilia will grieve for me, hut she has

her hoard, and the older children are earning money of their own. She will do

better without me than I would if she had left me alone … The thought was

bitter, and he found himself weeping as he stumbled along. But the tears had no

substance and after a little they disappeared. He returned to his probing, as a

man will tongue the sore space where a tooth has gone.

All of the priests were wrong, both the ones who said that the gods take

departed souls to paradise and those who are convinced one is condemned to Hell.

Or perhaps I have such a spineless soul that I have deserved neither, and so

they have sentenced me to wander here!

Lalo had spent half his life dreaming of escape from Sanctuary. But now he had

lost Sanctuary, and he was astonished by the passion of his longing to see it

again.

Something scurried by him and he jumped. Was it a rat? Were there rats here? And

surely now he could see cobblestones beneath his feet. Trembling, Lalo stared

around him as dim forms precipitated from the shadows – walls, perhaps, with

arched doorways and the eaves of roofs peaking like broken teeth against a lurid