Read Online Aftermath- - Thieves World 10 by Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey - Free Book Online Page A

good. I was warned you were dangerous. I misjudged you. I didnH think you'd make the connection between—"
    "Between you and Terrel," Cade finished.
    "Precisely." Amuuth shifted his shoulders; feeling was beginning to come back, but it was painful. He would not show that. He had lived with the pain in his hands all these years.
    "So you've come to avenge your brother?"
    "Why did you break his bones?" Cade replied.
    "I thought I would finish the job I started so many years ago." Amuuth kept watching the other's eyes; the boy was no threat. Surely some of his own people must still be about. They would hear. He held onto that hope; he knew it was his only chance.
    •That's why I didn't kill you."
    "What?"
    "I wanted to finish the job I started so long ago." Amuuth gasped. He could not help it. Cade couldn't mean—
    "It was me, Amuuth. Sixteen years ago I hunted you and the other three, with my brick and rope." Cade shrugged. "I don't know which one you were. When I caught you, I guess I should have killed you."
    "You," Amuuth shouted, "you did this!" He held out his hands, trying to stand up, but his legs wouldn't move yet.
    Cade smiled. "The legs take longer."
    Amuuth said nothing. He knew there would be no help, no rescue. He
    ^as dead. He looked up at Cade, his eyes burning with hate. This is the
    ®an. The shadow he still woke up screaming from. The shadow from 46

AFTERMATH
    that night. Unseen, unheard. The whistling noise, the agony in his side, in
    his head, his legs, and finally his fingers. He wondered that he, himself,
    had not made the connection between his pain and Terrel's.
    "I'm glad then," he hissed, "I'm glad I made him pay."
    "No, Amuuth, you did not make him pay. You tortured him out of spite, because even with his ruined hands he made it out. Made a life. That's why you did it, for petty reasons. For envy. I have known evil in many faces, Amuuth, but I have never seen it so pathetic." Amuuth sputtered, his mind refusing to give him words to match his outrage. This one, gods, all along. He could have had him long ago, had his revenge. But now . - .
    Cade moved around the table toward him, like a great black cat, and he was the mouse. There was nothing definable in Cade's eyes or face. Amuuth had no idea how he would finally die.
    "Finish the job," Cade whispered, moving closer, taking his time. Amuuth shuddered. He was frozen, could not move, and it wasn't the drug that was holding him now. His broken left hand reached for the right. For the snake ring. Hitting a latch, long fangs extending. Could he
    get Cade with his own poison? Not likely ... he could kill himself, before the pain started. Or ...
    Amuuth looked over at Raif. The boy stared at Cade, his face bloodless, his eyes wide. Amuuth remembered Raif's brother—he had feared that one. He had tried to entice Raif into the gang, hoping he could mold
    him as the older boy could not be molded. The boy could be dangerous. Amuuth was struck by a memory. Cade had run a gang for a while: the Demons. They had been terrible, violent, dangerous. They only ran a block and a half but they owned it. And Raif looked, looks, so much like the young gang leader Cade had once been.
    Amuuth understood. Cade saw himself in the boy. Wanted to help. Change it. Vengeance can be sweetAmuuth tugged the ring off and looked at Raif.
    "I'm dead, boy," he said. "You might as well have this ring." He threw it to Raif before Cade could react.
    "No!" Cade shouted and lunged, but he was too late. Raif caught the ring, dropping it immediately when he felt a double sting in one of his fingers.
    "What?" he said, but even as he lifted the hand to look, he stumbled, the air thick, too thick to breathe. The floor rose up to meet him. He panicked. He could not breathe. He was surrounded by stone, encased in it.
    Cade reached him in time to stop the fall. But he could feel Raif's flesh

CADE 47
    already puffing up, the limbs getting rigid. He spun to face Amuuth, his eyes pinning the gang