Shadows of Sanctuary978-0441806010 by Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey Page A

first place - a younger Enas Yorl in those days, but age meant nothing now. The forms his affliction cast on him might be old or young, male or female, human or - not. And the years frightened him. All the time he had had, to become master of his arts, and his arts had no power to undo another's spell. No one could. And some of his forms, still, were young, which suggested that he did not age, that there was no end to this torment - for ever. Yet wizards died, lately, in Sanctuary. Tell the thief that was the name of the game, and even threats might not persuade him. But in these deaths, Enas Yorl was desperately, passionately interested. Ischade ... Ischade: the name tasted of vile rumour; a wizardous thief, a preyer upon wizards, a conniver in shadows and dark secrets, this Ischade, with reason to hate the prey she chose. And all her lovers died, softly, gently for the most part; but Enas Yorl was not particular in that regard.
    He paused a moment, hearing the great outer doors boom shut. The thief was on his way, thief to take a thief. And Enas Yorl felt a sudden cold. Wizards died, in Sanctuary, and this possibility fascinated him, taunted him with hope and fear: with fear -because shapes like this he wore turned him coward, reminding him there were pleasures to be had. He feared death at such times ... while the thief he had sent out went to find it for him.
    Darous came back, softly stopped on the marble paving. 'Well done,' Enas Yorl said.
    'Follow him, master?'
    'No,' Enas Yorl said. 'No need. None at all.' He looked distractedly about again, with the queasiness of impending change upon him. He fled suddenly, his steps quicker and quicker on the pavings. Darous could see nothing - Darous sensed, but that was another matter. There was, however, pride. And within the hour, in a dark recess of the house with the basilisks prowling the halls unchecked, something gibbered within a pile of midnight robes, and with keen sense of beauty imprisoned in that moaning heap, longed towards oblivion.
    Darous, who saw nothing, sensed the essence of this change and kept himself to other halls.
    The basilisks, whose cold eyes saw very well, writhed scaly-lithe away in haste, outstared and overwhelmed.
    5
    Not many women came to the Unicorn, not many at least of the elevated sort, and this one took a table to herself and held it. One of the Unicorn's muddled regulars brushed by, and leaned close, and offered to sit down ... but a long hand from beneath those black robes waved an idle and disinterested dismissal. A ring glinted there, a silver serpent, and the bully's bleared eyes stared at that, at immaculate long nails, into dark almond eyes beneath the shadowy hood. And a fog of alcohol seemed to grow thicker then, so that he forgot all the wittiness he had meant to say, forgot for a moment to close his mouth. A second wave of the thin, olive-skinned hand and he forgot everything and stumbled away in confusion.
    'Acolyte,' Cappen Varra thought in his own counsel, slouched on a bench in the nook nearest the back door. There was somewhat of chaos in the Unicorn of late, a certain lack of the authority which had held the peace, and that sort moved in, cheap muscle. But the woman - that was something extraordinary, like the Unicorn before; a woman, a stranger in the neighbourhood... He was intrigued by the dark robes and the fineness of them, and his fingers moved restlessly on the moisture-ringed tabletop, thinking of a song, fingering imaginary strings of the harp he had pawned (again) and thinking - oddly - on Hanse Shadowspawn, in another and quite irrelevant train of thought, as Hanse had ridden his mind all day. Sjekso gone, Hanse vanished utterly, and night falling outside ... Hanse was up to no good, it was certain. There had been neither sight nor sound of him all day long and certain whispers passed in the Unicorn, with more and more credibility: of revenge, of Hanse, about the likelihood of survival of one Mradhon Vis - or