Uneasy alliances - Thieves World 11 by Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey Page B

dark and the pain.
    And she wanted him—so damnably much.
    The thing—was there again. Stilcho saw it, the red eyes glowing in the murk, the smile like a smug face lit from inside, leaking red light at nostrils and mouth and blazing behind the eyes like hell itself. It grinned, and the terror of that waked him with a yell that was still dying in his ears as he sat up, sweat-drenched and ashamed and expecting Moria's arms to hold him, Moria's voice to bid him hush, hush, and rest, Moria's lips to kiss him and whisper that he was safe.
    "Shut up!" came the yell from somewhere else in the building. "Shut it up, dammit!"
    He propped himself against the wall, blinked and shivered in the draft against his bare skin, still krrf-fogged and searching dazedly for Moria.
    Not there.
    She must have gone out to market.
    But they were out of money. Flat broke, except— •
    Except—
    "Ogods."
    He scrambled out of bed. He went to the corner and looked amid the junk and the clutter.
    Not there. The gold was gone-So was Moria.
    And he knew where.
    Gorthis's shop was still shuttered at this hour, but he was stirring about inside by now, Moria knew his habits. The shop was on the lower floor of his apartment, in the building that he owned, and Gorthis, being
    more than prudent, never left his jewelry downstairs in the shop at night.
    He packed everything up and brought it upstairs, where a pair of vicious dogs guarded the upstairs halls.
    In spite of the fact that no thief in Sanctuary tended to prey on a fence,
    whose good will was important as sunrise—such precautions were necessary because there was always the disgruntled customer. Or the rival.
    Moria seized the bellpull, of the doorbell in the shape of a smiling Shipri—better, she thought in the hysterical humor that came of having gotten this far unmolested with her cargo, that it should be Shalpa, god of thieves. The bell chimed inside, and she waited, her laundry basket on
    the doorstep, herself within the shelter of the alcove, out of the rain. The little peephole opened. She stood on tiptoe, and back a little. 250 UNEASY ALLIANCES
    And suddenly remembered—0 fool!—that she no longer was darkhaired Moria the thief, Mona the Ilsigi. It was a beautiful stranger stood on Gorthis's step, her blonde curls wrapped in rags, but her brows still pale, her eyes blue, and her complexion whiter and fairer than any Ilsigi's could be.
    "Gorthis," she said, "let me in." The peephole stayed opened a damned long while longer than its onceupon-a-time wont. She sensed the consternation on the other side of the door"Who? What do you want?"
    "Gorthis, it's Moria. Moria. You remember me. I bribed this mage—" It was not the truth, but it was close enough to the truth, and simple enough to explain through a peephole.
    The peephole shut. The door opened, on a fat, huge man who looked more apt to be a blacksmith than a goldsmith. Not a hair on his head except a tuft above either ear that stuck out like some brindled monkey's
    ruff. He utterly filled the door. His eyes, Ilsigi-dark, were wide and worried.
    "Moria?"
    "Makeup," she said, clutching her laundry basket, which had gotten heavier and heavier from block to block. "Corn' on. Gorthis, f'gawds'sake—it's me. Moria. Mor-am's sister." He hesitated a moment longer, then backed out of the doorway and held it open for her and her basket, admitting her to the dim interior of
    counters and barred doors and barred sections: a goldsmith even in this section of town and in these days, had to worry, and Gorthis believed in defense. He always had.
    "Shalpa's ass," Moria breathed, setting down the basket and looking open-mouthed at the maze of bars, "whole Rankan army couldn't make its way through here."
    "Whole Rankan army ner Piffles ner any other damn pack of looters, girl, ain't nobody going to break into my place! I been respectable, I been
    respectable ever since the Troubles started. I ain't doing no more, so you
    can take yourself and whatever you