Wings of Omen - Thieves World 06 by Robert Asprin

Author:Robert Asprin [Asprin, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, General, Science Fiction - General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780441805884
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Published: 1985-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

WITCHING HOUR

C. J. Cherryh

The room was fine wood and river stone with brocade hangings, and opened onto an entry hall with a winding stair. Fire danced in the marble fireplace and at the tips of a score of white wax candles, and off the gold cups and fine pewter platters and plates; while Moria, at dinner in her hall, gave it all mistrusting glances, not unlike the look she paid her brother at his end of their long table-for none of Moria's life stayed stable. The gold was a dream in which she moved and lived, irony for a thief: she felt constantly she should snatch the plates and run, but there was nowhere to run to and the gold was hers, the house was hers, far too great a possession: she could no longer run at all, and this condition filled her heart with panic. Her brother's face was a dream of a different kind across the candle glow-at one moment familiar; at another, when he shifted slightly or the light fell unkindly on the scars-she felt another wrench of panic, perceiving another thing which she had loved and which had tangled her up like nightmare and held her bound.

One part of her would have run screaming and naked from this place.

"Mistress." A servant poured straw-colored wine into her cup and grinned a gap toothed grin that shattered other illusions, for the dress was brocade and finest linen, if rumpled from neglect, the hair bartered and immaculate; but the missing teeth, the broken nose, the voice with its Downwind twang-beggars and thieves waited on them. They were clean and flealess and without lice-she was adamant on that, but on no other thing had she authority with them, except they did their job and did not pilfer.

The Owner saw to that.

There was a shout, a shriek of gutter language from the stairs: Mor-am leaped up and shouted back into the hall in terms the Downwind understood, and her soul shrank at this small sign of fracture. "Out," she said to the servant. And when the servant lingered in his dull-witted way: "Out, fool!" The servant put it together and scuttled out as Mor-am resumed his chair and picked up his wine-cup. His hand shook. The tic was back at the comer of his bum-scarred mouth, and the cup trembled on its way and spilled straw-colored wine. He glowered after he had drunk, and the tic diminished to a small shudder.

"Won't learn," he said, plaintive as a child. A beggar watched the house, outside. Was always there, a huddle of rags; and Mor-am had bad dreams, waked shrieking night after night.

"Won't leam," he muttered, and poured himself more wine with a knife-scarred hand that rattled the wine bottle against the cup rim.

"Don't."

"Don't what?" He set the bottle down and picked up the cup, leaving beads of wine on the table surface, spilling more on the way to his mouth.

"I went out today." She made a desperate attempt to fill the silence, the silence of long hours imprisoned in this house.

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