Thieves World 7 – The Dead of Winter by Asprin, Robert

that Setmur contact; we’ve got-“

A shiver went up his back. He gripped Lysias’s shoulder, hard. “Listen. I’m

going out again. Get the word out, get the Third to positions, full alert.”

“You going-“

“Get out of here. Get it moving.”

“Right,” Lysias said, and dived round the comer: no further questions.

But Strat lingered there in the dim light, with the sinking feeling that panic

had impelled that. He wanted the daylight; wanted-

-easy answers.

Kadakithis will lose the Empire-

Niko in trouble. Plots went through Sanctuary like worms through old meat.

Tempus delaying and Randal discomfited. Straton considered himself no fool, not

ordinarily; upstairs in that nasty little room, men and women had tried to make

him one and he had unerringly stripped souls down to little secrets, most of

which he was not interested in, a few of which he was, and they spilled them all

before they went their way either loose (for effect) or into the Foal (for

neatness). He was not particularly proud of this skill, only of a keen wit that

did not take lies for an answer. That was what made him the Stepsons’

interrogator; a certain dogged patience and a sure instinct for unraveling the

mazy works of human minds.

That skill turned inward, explored blanks, explored tracks he had no wish for it

to follow.

She, she, she, it kept saying, and when it did it traveled round the edges of a

darkness more than dark to the eyes; womb-dark, unknowable-dark, warm dark and

comfortable and full of too many gaps. Far too many gaps. He had found a certain