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

bright eyes.

Lightning flared in the window, blinding him. When Lalo could see again Arton’s

chubby hand was rubbing the picture away.

‘Wot flutter’ by! Bad bright things outside-” His dark gaze held the limner’s,

and in his eyes Lalo saw the angular, aetherial forms of the demons that lived

on the energy of the storm. “Make them go ‘way!”

I won’t draw them, Lalo thought fearfully, they’ve too much life already! He

took the child’s hand gently, remembering how he had comforted his own children

when they had spilled their milk or broken some favorite toy, not understanding

their own power.

Now he felt Gyskouras’s gaze upon him as well, filling him with knowledge of all

the powers surging in the storm. Other images came to him too-emotions, desires

as yet formless, characteristics that sought to coalesce into a Personality that

would encompass the potential, for good or evil, inherent in the two children

before him. He recognized the feeling-he had known it himself at the beginning

of a project, when colors and shapes and images jostled in his consciousness and

he strove for the form and balance that would organize them into a harmonious

unity.

But the only loss had been a ruined canvas when he failed. If these children

failed, they could destroy Sanctuary.

Thunder clapped great hands above the Palace; the room shuddered and a window

blew open on a sudden gust of rain. Gyskouras whimpered, and Lalo reached for

his hand. They need a mage to train them, just like me-but there must be

something that we can do! Lalo closed his eyes, driven not by fear or the