Read Blood ties-- Thieves World 09 for Free Online Page A

in the spring of the world, and then both of them were the face of Gilla, always and only Gilla, who was looking at him as she had after the first time they had ever made love.
    But the garden, when he looked again, was by no means so perfect as he had remembered it. Parts of the lawn were withered, while other sections showed the sickly yellow of flooding. The same was true of the oak trees, and some of the leaves were blotched with a blight like leprosy.
    "It's here, too," said Gilla, "the same thing that's been happening to Sanctuary!"
    Lalo nodded, wondering which level had started the trouble. But that didn't matter-what he needed was to leam the cure. He took her hand and they began to pick their way across the mottled grass beneath the trees. After a time Lalo found the pool and the waterfall. But the clearing where he had feasted with the Ilsig gods was empty now. Lalo's heart sank within him. If even the Otherworld was empty, then the magic of Sanctuary had been destroyed indeed! Perhaps the S'danzo were right, and the gods were only delusions of men. But even as that thought passed through his mind, his lips were moving in prayer.
    "Father Us, hear me, Shipri All-Mother have mercy! Not for my sake, but for your people-"
    "And for the sake of my child!" came Gilla's voice in his ear. A little wind gusted around them and plucked a leaf from one of the oak trees. Lalo watched, fascinated, as it spiraled downward and settled at last in the breast of Gilla's gown. Then a new voice spoke from behind them.
    "Why do you call on Us and Shipri? This is the Face the people of Sanctuary pray to now!"
    Lalo jerked around, flinched as he saw what had answered them and then stumbled over his own feet, trying to get between it and Gilla. But she had always been broadly built and big-boned, and she gripped his arm and stayed beside him. The Thing that had spoken looked on his confusion and laughed. Lalo stared, realizing in horror that it was female, wrapped in scorched robes from which pale smoke rose in ghostly trails, with singed hair that lifted as the wind caught it and sent up little spurts of flame. It-Her-face glowed like a lantern, as if the fire that burned Her lay within, and the features of that face were contorted in a demon's mask. "Dyareela," he breathed in appalled recognition. The goddess responded with a terrible smile. "That is one of the names by which men pray to Me, it is true. But it was you who first called Me, daughter." She beckoned to Gilla. "How shall I reward you?"
    "Demon, go away!" hissed Gilla in revulsion. Dyareela laughed. "Still you do not understand! I neither come nor go-I am! Only my Faces change ..."
    "Then change your Face again," groaned Lalo. "Three weddings were promised, and one of them royal, to redeem the land! I would have come to them as Lady of love's fire! But Sanctuary has chosen to see Me otherwise!" Wind whirled around them, and when the falling leaves touched the hair of the goddess they burst into flame.
    "Be beautiful, blessed Lady, please be beautiful for us now!" There were tears in Gilla's voice and in her eyes.
    "Daughter, in this place I am only a reflection, as you are only a dream. Your words have no power over Me here! If I am to bless you I must be invoked in the world of men!"
    The sky seemed to be darkening, and the only thing Lalo could see was the goddess, who glowed like a demon-lantem at the Feast of the Dead.
    "We tried," wailed Gilla, "but the cards had no power!"
    "The cards never had power; they only focused yours. Make the Great Marriage in Sanctuary as has been promised Me! Then I will show you my fair Face again!" Wind and darkness howled around them. Flaming leaves whirled away and seeded the barren night with stars. Suddenly the goddess was gone, and the oak grove, and even the solid ground on which they had been standing. Buffeted and blown, Lalo lost all sense of who he was and whence he had come, and as awareness left him, the last thing he knew was