Read Online Blood ties-- Thieves World 09 by Robert Asprin - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Asprin
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Science Fiction - General, Fiction - Science Fiction, Fantastic fiction, Science fiction; American
Ads: Link
Mageguild and the priests from uptown. So when the tall, heroic man with the fearsome countenance, who seemed to be seeping blood-or bloody rain-from every pore, came in and spoke familiarly in a gravelly voice, saying, "Snapper, I need a favor," the day bartender drew himself up to his full height-almost equal to the stranger's-puffed out his spoon-chest, and replied, "Anything, my lord-except credit, of course: house rules."
This, too, was part of being human: caring about little stamped circles of copper, gold, or silver, even though their value was only as great as the demand of the humans who fought and died over them.
But this big human wanted only information: He'd come to Snapper to consult. The stranger said, while around him the bar cleared for a man's length on either side and behind him certain patrons skulked out into the storm and two serving wenches tiptoed into the back room, "I need to know of your former mistress -did Roxane ever find her way out of Tasfalen's house uptown? Has anyone seen her?
You, of all... persons ... would know if she's about."
"No, friend," said Snapper, who used the word friend too much because he'd just recently learned its meaning, "she's not been seen or heard from since the pillar of fire was doused."
The big man nodded and leaned close across the bar.
Snapper leaned in to meet him, feeling somehow special and very favored to be having this conversation with so formidable a human before all the patrons in the Unicorn. Nearly nose to nose, he began to notice, through his right-looking eye, some things about the man which were naggingly familiar: the hooded, narrow eyes that watched him with hot intensity, the thin slash of a mouth whose lips twisted with some private humor.
Then the man said, "And Ischade, the vampire woman-is she well? Down at Shambles Cross? Holding court among her shades?"
"She..." Then memory jogged memory, and Snapper Jo raised a crop of goose bumps to complement his warts: This was the Sleepless One, the legendary fighter his former mistress had fought so long. "She... is, sire. Ischade... is. And will be, always...."
Snapper Jo had friends among the not-really-human, the once-dead, the straddlers of the void. Ischade was not one of them, but neither was this man, whom he now knew.
As he knew why the crowd had drawn back, this rabble who knew the players in a game they joined only as pawns and never of their own accord. Snapper tried not to cringe, but his lips formed words involuntarily, words that whistled out sing-sing, "Mur-der, murder, oh there'll be mur-der everywhere and Snapper's so happy without it...."
"When next a Stepson or Commando comes in, instruct him to seek me at the mercenaries' hostel. And don't fail." The man called Tempus lay coins upon the bar.
Snapper could see them glitter with his left-looking eye, but he didn't pick them up until the big man had gone, leaving behind only creaking floorboards stained ruddy to prove he'd been there at all.
Then the fiend called one of the serving wenches from the kitchen and gave the girl, whom he loved-to the extent that a fiend can love-all the money the Riddler had left him, saying, "See, fear not. Snapper protect you. Snapper take care you. You take care Snapper, too, yes, later?" And the fiend gave a broad and lascivious grin to the woman he favored, who hid her shudder as she pocketed the equivalent of a week's wages and promised the fiend she'd warm his lonely night.
Things were tough enough, these days in Sanctuary, that you took what you could get.
"You want us to what?" Crit's disbelieving snort made Tempus frown. For Tempus, the mercenaries' hostel north of town evoked memories and ghosts as bloody as the rufous walls here, hung with weapons which had won so many days. Here, Tempus and Crit had plotted to flush a witch without thought to the consequences; here, before Crit's recruitment, Tempus had put together the core of the Stepsons and taken command of Abarsis the Slaughter
This, too, was part of being human: caring about little stamped circles of copper, gold, or silver, even though their value was only as great as the demand of the humans who fought and died over them.
But this big human wanted only information: He'd come to Snapper to consult. The stranger said, while around him the bar cleared for a man's length on either side and behind him certain patrons skulked out into the storm and two serving wenches tiptoed into the back room, "I need to know of your former mistress -did Roxane ever find her way out of Tasfalen's house uptown? Has anyone seen her?
You, of all... persons ... would know if she's about."
"No, friend," said Snapper, who used the word friend too much because he'd just recently learned its meaning, "she's not been seen or heard from since the pillar of fire was doused."
The big man nodded and leaned close across the bar.
Snapper leaned in to meet him, feeling somehow special and very favored to be having this conversation with so formidable a human before all the patrons in the Unicorn. Nearly nose to nose, he began to notice, through his right-looking eye, some things about the man which were naggingly familiar: the hooded, narrow eyes that watched him with hot intensity, the thin slash of a mouth whose lips twisted with some private humor.
Then the man said, "And Ischade, the vampire woman-is she well? Down at Shambles Cross? Holding court among her shades?"
"She..." Then memory jogged memory, and Snapper Jo raised a crop of goose bumps to complement his warts: This was the Sleepless One, the legendary fighter his former mistress had fought so long. "She... is, sire. Ischade... is. And will be, always...."
Snapper Jo had friends among the not-really-human, the once-dead, the straddlers of the void. Ischade was not one of them, but neither was this man, whom he now knew.
As he knew why the crowd had drawn back, this rabble who knew the players in a game they joined only as pawns and never of their own accord. Snapper tried not to cringe, but his lips formed words involuntarily, words that whistled out sing-sing, "Mur-der, murder, oh there'll be mur-der everywhere and Snapper's so happy without it...."
"When next a Stepson or Commando comes in, instruct him to seek me at the mercenaries' hostel. And don't fail." The man called Tempus lay coins upon the bar.
Snapper could see them glitter with his left-looking eye, but he didn't pick them up until the big man had gone, leaving behind only creaking floorboards stained ruddy to prove he'd been there at all.
Then the fiend called one of the serving wenches from the kitchen and gave the girl, whom he loved-to the extent that a fiend can love-all the money the Riddler had left him, saying, "See, fear not. Snapper protect you. Snapper take care you. You take care Snapper, too, yes, later?" And the fiend gave a broad and lascivious grin to the woman he favored, who hid her shudder as she pocketed the equivalent of a week's wages and promised the fiend she'd warm his lonely night.
Things were tough enough, these days in Sanctuary, that you took what you could get.
"You want us to what?" Crit's disbelieving snort made Tempus frown. For Tempus, the mercenaries' hostel north of town evoked memories and ghosts as bloody as the rufous walls here, hung with weapons which had won so many days. Here, Tempus and Crit had plotted to flush a witch without thought to the consequences; here, before Crit's recruitment, Tempus had put together the core of the Stepsons and taken command of Abarsis the Slaughter
Similar Books
