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

ancient facings had fallen in, things stuck, each piece catching and trapping

more until even the force of the water could not move it forward and it recoiled

back into Sanctuary.

Rising waters from the sewer that ran beneath the Maze backed up and overflowed

into one of the tunnels leading from the Palace grounds. At the same time,

rising river water found an outlet in the escape tunnel that ended near the

ford. These waters, meeting, clashed and rose. Some of the overflow splashed

into the catacombs beneath the Street of Red Lanterns, but not all, and so, as

the day wore on, water began to trickle slowly and inexorably up the tunnel

whose entrance was in the basement of the Palace itself.

Water seeped into the dungeons unnoticed except by those few unfortunates who

were still imprisoned there. But when it made its way into the portions of the

lower Palace that had been remodeled into a nursery for the Child of the Temple,

Gyskouras, and Arton and their companions, it was another matter. A storm

impelled by alien magics and a flood in their own chambers was not only a threat

but an insult as well.

Gyskouras screamed. Arton, face darkening as his own daemon sprang to life

within him, screamed louder. The other children who enjoyed the dubious honor of

being their companions wept or cowered. Alfi lost completely the edge of

superiority that two years’ seniority should have given him and clung like a

leech to Vanda, while Latilla covered her face with her hands and closed up her

fingers each time the noise level rose again.