"You seek to whelm me, and you succeed. In fact, you quite overwhelm me. I have not seen your villa, Izamel, but I accept. Yet we all know that I am nothing if I do not continue to see anyone and everyone who comes to me." He looked at Shafralain. "You know pan of the Price I paid, my friend. The other pan is that I Care. I must. I Care, unto agony. This is not always what I have been. There was a time when I cared about nothing save me. I was a swordman. Then I made a bargain, and I made the demanded trade, paid the Price." He paused, looked away from their eyes. "I may have been happier before.... But there is no going back. This is what I am. I accept your offer, provided you realize that I must maintain my shop in an accessible area, with my same people."

"We had thought that you would move the-the shop to the villa, Spellmaster." That was Renn, moneyhandler.

"No. I am not the toy of Sanctuary's aristocracy. I am all people's advocate." In a low, low voice he added, "I have to be."

Melarshain only glanced at the others. "Then we accept that, Spellmaster. The chances are excellent that we insist on, say, two more bodyguards. You employ them; we shall pay them."

"No. I pay my people well. They are loyal to me. I shall not have them loyal to you."

Shafralain said, "Still the mistrustful swordsman, Strick?"

"Who am I to dispute the judgment of Noble Shafralain?"

Volmas and Izamel laughed aloud, in chorus.

Strick rose. "The loan will be open-ended. I wish to pay interest; one-half the going rate for such men as you. Prepare the documents. Renn: I wish one of my pearls back. The other goes to Volmas as down payment. And gentlemen, gentlemen all: I wish to see the Prince."

Good then, Strick thought as he walked back to his shop. Now it's time to begin work toward my true purpose in Sanctuary.

AFTERWORD by C.J. Cherryh

I have two sayings about Thieves' World: one of which is that we live there. It's amazing how the writers, sitting at one restaurant table, tend to sound like the council-in-the-warehouse.

ASPRIN/JUBALYHAKIEM: Well, I think we have to get a consensus here.

CHERRYH/ISCHADE/STTLCHO: Look, I haven't forgotten the ten bodies that got dumped on my doorstep. I can't stand still for that. It's a question of professional pride.

ABBEY/MOUN/ILLYRA/WALEORBM: We want the streets quiet.

MORRIS/TEMPUS/CRIT: Hell, it's just a couple of buildings we want to take out.

OFFUTT/SHADOWSPAWN: Can I take care of Haught?

ASPRIN/JUBAL/HAKIEM/ (as appalled silence falls at nearby table) Hey, those people are looking at us.

The other maxim (one Asprin is fond of quoting) is that you write your first Thieves' World story for pay. You write your second for revenge.

I got into this project as a result of a panel at a convention, in which the remarks from one end and the other of the table ran:

ASPRIN: I asked C. J. here to write for Thieves' World and she turned me down.

CHERRYH: You did not.

ASPRIN: (feigning puzzlement) I didn't?

CHERRYH: You never did.

ASPRIN: (more and more innocent) I thought I did.

CHERRYH: Never.

ASPRIN: (with predatory smile, playing to two hundred witnesses) Hey, C. J., how would you like to write for Thieves' World?

As neat an ambush as any in Sanctuary. Thieves' World was already a couple of volumes along, and dropping in on a town with this much going on in it is a ticklish business. So I played my opening gambit very carefully, determined to offend no one.

After alienating the gods of Ranke and Sanctuary, Shadow-spawn, and Enas Yorl, as well as the clientele of the Vulgar Unicorn, and discovering there was war brewing in town, all in my opening story, most of my characters decided to withdraw to somewhere less trafficked for the second round. Mradhon Vis went to Downwind, where absolutely nothing could go wrong, right?

Wrong. It turns out Tempus is moving into this side of town and Stepsons are riding back and forth through Downwind like mad, feuding with the hawkmasks, two of which, thanks to a gift from Asprin, are mine.

We don't plan these things. We just write our pieces and we try to mind our own business until someone drops a real mess in our laps, whereupon we sit in our living rooms like Ischade ticking off the town madmen on her fingers and deciding that she has quite well had it-

You get the picture. Live and let live is not quite the motto of the town; and any time you become tempted to let a round pass, you realize that no one else is going to pass, that your people are going to be sitting targets, and you are going to have to make some preemptive strikes or discover yourself in an insoluble mess.

Then there are the phone calls.

MORRIS/TEMPUS/ROXANE: Look, there's this little matter I couldn't get taken care of.... Could you get rid of the demon?

DUANE/HARRAN: Can Ischade go to hell?

CHERRYH/ISCHADE: Maybe we could silt in the harbor?

PAXSON/LALO: I don't know, the painting just sort of grew on me.

Writing is a profession practiced in locked rooms, in manic solitude. At least we try, between ringing telephones and solicitors at the door. Rarely do writers get the chance to practice their art in groups, or to write each others' characters, or interfere in each others' plots and plans; so part of the success of Thieves' World is that it's a challenge and a new kind of art form for the writers. Asprin and Abbey have invented an entirely new literary form, and an environment which has regularly surprised even the seasoned participants, who, you would imagine, ought to know what is going on and what turns the story will take.

Well, the honest truth is that we have very little idea what will happen. Unplanned war breaks out in the streets. It lurches and falters in settlements, just the way it does in real life, my friends, because certain people in it have to get certain things or believe there is a way out, or they go on fighting. Feuds break out between characters and resolve themselves the way they do in life-with some change in both characters. Characters mutate and grow and turn out to have apsects that surprise even their creator. Moria of the streets has become Moria the Rankene lady; Mor-am is in dire straits and may never recover -or may, who knows, end up well off?

What snags us into this madness? It's those phone calls which arrive and inform you that Ischade has gone to hell, but will be back in time to meet schedule in your section, or that tell you there's something nasty lying in your back garden, or that Strat has this terrible compulsion to come back to Ischade's house even knowing what she is.

We have our peculiar rhythms, too. Morris always moves first; she sends me what she's done, and then I know what I'm going to do. I am occasionally tempted to ask her where she gets her ideas, because try as I will to get started, nothing happens for me until I hear from Morris. Duane and I occasionally discuss things. And Abbey and Asprin and I. And Abbey and Asprin and everybody else, some of whom probably consult with each other and don't tell me or Morris or Duane. As in real-world politics, we don't know all the alliances that exist in this town.

Then the organization happens. Abbey and Asprin fling themselves under the wheels of the juggernaut, writing last, bringing the whole scheming mass of us to coherency and making it sound as if we had always known what we were doing and where it was going, all of which is illusion. Usually we know the season of the year, and the situation at the start. Period. The rest works by rumor and inspiration.