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

Wizardwall. Remember slavery. Remember the feel of the globe in your hands

before she stole it from you. She does not love you, Haught. Does not love your

fine Nisi face while she wears a Rankan one. Does not love your aptness while

she is trapped in a body that has none. Oh, remember, Haught; remember every

time you look on that face.”

The ambitious mind of the ex-slave, ex-dancer, ex-apprentice shivered when

Ischade touched it. Foolish child-he had believed she would not look for him

again and had taken none-of the simple steps to ensure that she could not. She

sealed her hypnotic surgery with a gentle caress on the ring he wore: the ring

he had thought to use against her.

Ischade retreated, then, behind the little statues, the gewgaws and the sharp

knives she had scattered throughout the house. Her thoughts would eat at a mind

already disposed to treason just as the essence of the bay horse ate the ward

fire. It was only a matter of time.

“You have to eat. Magic can’t do everything.”

Randal opened his mouth to agree and received a great wooden spoonful of Jihan’s

latest aromatic posset. His eyes bulged, his ears reddened, and he wanted

nothing more than to spit the godsawful curdled lump to the floor. But the Froth

Daughter was watching him and he dared do nothing but swallow it in one

horrendous gulp. His hands were immobilized in gauze slings, suspended in oval

buckets filled with a salted solution of the Froth Daughter’s devising. His own

magical resources were insufficient to guide the spoon to his mouth- if he had