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

sky. There – surely that was the broad facade ofJubal’s place, but that was

impossible – the Stepsons had burned it, hadn’t they? And then he was certain of

the wrongness, for next to it he saw the familiar skewed sign of the Vulgar

Unicorn, but the unicorn’s eyes glowed evilly, and blood dripped down its

spiralled horn.

Abruptly he realized that he was beginning to hear sounds, too – the kind of

drunken laughter that comes from men who watch a bully’s fist smash a boy’s face

to raw meat, or who take a woman one after another: the kind of screaming he had

heard once when he hurried past Kurd’s workshop, and the choked gurgle the

hanged men made as they died in the Palace Yard. He had heard all those sounds

in Sanctuary, and closed his ears to them, but he could not ignore the sobbing

that seemed to come from somewhere just before him, the hushed, incredulous

whimpering of an abused child.

I was wrong, he thought, I am in Hell after all!

Lalo began to run forward, and suddenly figures were all around him. Hawkmasks

and Stepsons struggled as lopped limbs flew like scythed wheat and drops of

blood splattered the cobbles like rain. A man staggered by him and Lalo thought

that it was Zanderei; then the figure turned and he reeled back, for the face

was gone.

Another came towards him – Sjekso Kinsan, with whom he had shared a drink

sometimes in the Vulgar Unicorn, and behind him a woman with long amber hair.

Lord Regli’s wife. Samlane. whom Lalo had painted long ago before he met Enas

Yorl. before the woman had died. There were others whom he thought he