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

under his ear. He fervently hoped it was spilled wine and not vomit.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to carry him up to his room again. Come on. Give

me a hand.”

This would never do. A Hell-Hound? Being carried through a whorehouse like a

common drunk?

Zalbar gathered himself to surge to his feet and voice his protests …

He sat up in bed with a start, experiencing that crystal clarity of awareness

and thought that sometimes occurs when one wakes between a heavy drunk and the

inevitable hangover.

Sleeping! He had been asleep! After three days of forcing himself to stay awake

he had been stupid enough to start drinking!

Every muscle tense, he hurriedly scanned the room, dreading what he knew he

would find.

Nothing. He was alone in the room … his room … what had become his room at

the Aphrodisia House through Myrtis’s tolerance and generosity. It wasn’t here!

Forcing himself to relax, he let memories wash over him like a polluted wave.

He hadn’t just been drinking. He was drunk! Not for the first time, either, he

realized as his mind brought up numerous repetitions of this scene for his

review. The countless excuses he had hidden behind in the past were swept aside

by the merciless hand of self-contempt. This was becoming a habit … much more

the reality of his existence than the golden self-image he tried to cling to.

Hugging himself in his misery, Zalbar tried to use this temporary clarity of

thought to examine his position.

What had he become?

When he first arrived in Sanctuary as one of Prince Kadakithis’s elite