Thieves World 8 – Soul of the City by Asprin, Robert

rider too tall and too hard to be other than what he was. So if that man’s eyes

were out of focus and all but senseless, no one noticed. It was only for a

moment. It was always, in the last two days, only for a moment, because when he

held that metal in his hand he had a sense of contact with her and his soul was

in one piece again.

He shivered and looked up where a rare straightness of a Sanctuary street

afforded a sliver of sunlight, the gleam of uptown walls.

* * *

There was a rattle at the window, a spatter of gravel against the second-story

bedroom shutters, and Moria started, her hand to her heart. For a moment she had

thought of some great bird, of claws against her shutters; she expected some

such visitation, even in the daylight. But she came up off her bed where she had

flung herself, dressed as she was in the stifling, tight-laced satins that were

what a lady in Sanctuary had to wear, 0 Shalpa and Shipri, so that her head

reeled and her senses wanted to leave her every time she climbed stairs or

thought too much on her situation.

Now she knew that rattle of gravel for what it was: someone down in the side

lane that led back toward the rear of the house and the stable. Someone who knew

where her bedroom was, maybe that importunate lord who had beseiged her step;

maybe- Shalpa! maybe it was Mor-am come back. Maybe he was in some dire trouble,

maybe he needed her, maybe he would try that window, the only one off the street

except the servants’ and the kitchen at the back.

She went and flung the inside shutters open, looked out and saw a lately