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

slight-built man whose Nisi heritage showed in his face, a man bearing a small

narrow silk-wrapped package and another bulkier one, and looking as if he would

rather have been elsewhere. Last of all, more or less transparent from moment to

moment, came a ghost dressed in Hell-Hounds’ harness. It was Razkuli, dead a

long time, stealing wistful glances at the old, living Hell-Hound haunts.

The Promise of Heaven was even falser to its name than usual tonight. Word of

the procession had run up the street half an hour before, and the panic-stricken

ladies of the night had abandoned their usual territory in favor of one more

deserving of the title. Ischade strolled in past the stone pillar-gates of the

park, looking with cool amusement at the convenient bowers and bushes scattered

about for those who wished to begin their huggermuggering as soon as their

agreements with the park ladies were struck. The cover, copses of cypress and

downhanging willow, suited Ischade well. So did the little empty altar to Eshi

in the middle of the park. Once there had been a statue of her there, but

naturally the statue and its pediment had been stolen, leaving only a long

boxlike slab of marble much carved with PFLS graffiti and inscriptions such as

Petronius Loves Sulla.

She paused by the stone and ran gentle fingers along it. A dog’s howl went

wavering up into the cloudy night. Ischade looked up and smiled.

“You’re prompt,” she said. “It’s well. Haught, bring me what you carry. Stilcho,

fasten them here.”

Standing by the altar, Mriga and Siveni looked around them-Mriga with interest,