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

eyes. Thufir Far-Seer was waiting to guide him to his Father, who masked his

radiance with the face of the great marble statue in the Temple of Ils.

‘You have painted many portraits since the Mage touched you, Limner – what did

you see?’

Lalo fixed his eyes upon the silver necklace that glittered from beneath the

god’s dark beard. ‘Beasts…’ he muttered, ‘and demons, sometimes, and

sometimes… gods.’

‘And when you turned your sorcerer’s gift upon yourself?’ the implacable voice

went on.

Lalo shuddered, but Thufir’s grip held him to this reality. He had seen a

pleasure in pettiness that shamed him and beyond that a longing for annihilation

that terrified him and a capacity for love that terrified him even more. He had

seen the depths of his own unguessed, untapped creative power.

‘As you served Enas Yorl and the priests of Savankala, so now, my son, you shall

serve Me,’ said the Voice of Ils.

Before him Lalo saw a white canvas, and brushes that surpassed his own as a

Downwinder’s donkey is surpassed by a horse of Tros, and a palette with pigments

for whose secret the colour-grinders of Sanctuary would have given their souls.

Lalo’s right hand prickled with power that built, built – it must be grounded

somehow – he groped for a paintbrush and dipped it into a colour that was more

than scarlet, touched it to the canvas and felt power surge through it in an

explosive release like the climax of love.

His hand moved swiftly, splashing the canvas with scarlet, then down to the

palette for a lambent gold, and lastly a shading of opalescent blue. Then he