Abarsis's Tros horse snorted softly, as if in agreement, single-footing throughSanctuary's better streets towards the barracks. But the Tros horse could nothave known that by this simple decision its rider had attained to a greatervictory than in all the wars of all the empires he had ever laboured toincrease. Now the Tros horse whose belly quivered between Tempus's knees as itissued a blaring trumpet to the dusty air did so not because of its rider'striumph over self and god, but out of pure high spirits, as horses always willpraise a fine day dawned.

I had just administered the coup de gr&ce to my latest Thieves' (Vor/rfoffering- my third - when Bob asked if I'd like to have the last word in Shadowsof Sanctuary, It was an offer I couldn't refuse, though I'd no idea how I wouldput into words the experiences of working on all three Thieves' World volumes.After many unsuccessful attempts at getting this essay down on paper, I began tosuspect that maybe Bob hadn't known the right words either. He was smiling whenhe made the offer, and he doesn't usually give up a by-line that easily. Sigh.Another example of Things the Editor Never Told Me.

Actually, a lot of things the editor didn't tell us were things he didn't knowhimself. We were all nai've about the mechanics of a franchised universe back atBoskone of 1978 when the Thieves' World project was created. It soundedwondrously uncomplicated: we would exchange character sketches and refer to acommon street map; Bob would write us a history; Andy Offutt would create ourgods. We only had to go to ground and write our 5,000-10,000 words. Fat chance.Unexpected discovery number one: Sanctuary isn't an imaginary anything; it's astate of mind recognized by the American Psychiatric Association.

We thought we'd gone to ground - it turned out that we'd gone overboard. Bobhadn't told us the things we'd really need to know, and none of us wanted todictate to the guy who'd created this fun-house, so each of us made great use ofthe little vicissitudes of life that would add 'grit' and 'realism' to ourstories. My not-gypsy read not-Tarot cards, dealt with necromancers, stole acorpse and witnessed the usual street violence.

It didn't seem too bad until I found the entire book oozing out of my mailboxand read the volume in its entirety. We had Crom-many drugs, magicians, vices,brothels, dives, haunts, curses and feuds. Sanctuary wasn't a provincialbackwater; it wasn't even the Imperial armpit; it was the Black Hole of notCalcutta. Things could only get worse ...

And they did. Bob told us the second volume would be called Tales from theVulgar Unicorn - the very name incited depravity. And we rose to the occasionor perhaps we fell. I explored the unpleasant pieces of my S'danzo's past. gaveher a berserker for a half-brother and created Buboe, the night bartender downat the Vulgar Unicorn. Well, Bob said we were supposed to have a scene down atthe ol' V.U. - but One-Thumb was hors de combat in the bowels of Sanctuary andno one knew who was running the joint. (I recall one of my confreres createdsomeone called Two-Thumbs - I think that was from spite.) Buboe - a buboe isn'ta person, a buboe is the rather large glandular eruption that accompanies theterminal stages of the Black Plague; opening it ensures death for the opener andthe openee.

Tales didn't ooze out of the mailbox; it ate right through the metal. I haven'tseen all the stories for volume three yet, but I'm confident the downward spiralhas continued. Each set of stories brings new oddments of human behaviour, newquirks of character that the authors wouldn't dare put in a universe for whichhe or she was solely responsible. In Sanctuary, though, where guilt is sharedalong with the glory, one volume's innuendo becomes the next volume's completestory.

And frankly, nastiness is interesting. If I tell you that the smell of rottingblood can linger for years you might not notice what I don't tell you. Considerfor a moment some of the things none of the authors know for sure: the weatherin Sanctuary - daily and seasonal. It must be strange. If the Downwinders aredownwind of the town then the prevailing wind is off the land - try convincingany coast-dweller of that.

As far as the city itself is concerned, I've always imagined it as a sort oflate medieval town, out-growing its walls. The Maze is built like the Shamblesin York, England, where each storey gets built out over the lower one soeverybody can drop their slops directly into the street instead of on theirneighbour. There are those who seem to think Sanctuary's like Rome. (Nonsense,Ranke is Rome - or is it that Rome is rank?) They imagine that the town has therudiments of sewer systems, that the villas are attractive, open buildings andthat at least some of the streets are paved. There also seems to be a Baghdadby-the-Sea approach, with turban'd tribesmen and silk-clad ladies, as well as afew indications that we might be dealing with a Babylonian building style. Sinceso many of our stories are set in the dark, I suppose it doesn't matter that wedon't really agree on what the city looks like.

Of course, nobody, including the Empire, knows how big Sanctuary really is.Anytime one of us needs a secret meeting place we just create one - Sanctuary iseither very large or very cramped. You can live your whole life in the Maze orthe Bazaar, and yet it only takes fifteen minutes to walk from one end of townto the other - or does it? I'm not sure.

Take the Bazaar, for example. I've spent a fair amount of time in that bazaarand I don't know exactly how it's put together. Part of it is a farmers' market(though I haven't the faintest idea where the farmers are when they aren't atthe Bazaar). Other parts are like the cloth-fairs of medieval France, wheremerchants sell their wares wholesale. Still other parts resemble the permanentbazaars of the Middle East. Rather than trouble myself with philosophicalquestions, like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, someday I've gotto figure out how many S'danzo can live full-time in the Bazaar.

Moving from angels to gods for a moment - it seems probable that anyone livingin Sanctuary would have a personal relationship to the gods - nothing likeworship or faith, mind you. The people seem homeric in their religion: the lastthing an ordinary citizen wants is dealing with the gods; worship is designed tokeep the deities at bay. We have at least two major pantheons represented inthe temples and the gods know how many priesthoods trying to control them.They tell me there's a fellow out in California who has made a coherentmythology for the religions of Sanctuary. He's putting his theology intoChaosium's Thieves' World game, but nobody's saying where they're putting theintrepid mythmaster.

Then there's currency - or why we call it Thieves' World. Since no one knows howthe currency works, the townsfolk have no choice but to steal from each other.We sort of agree that there are copper coins, silver coins and gold coins - butwe don't know their names or their conversion rates. We say: a few copper coins;or we get very specific and say: nine Rankan soldats -just in case someone elseis writing about soldats that weren't minted in Ranke. But how many soldats makea shaboozh - or does it work the other way around? It probably does.

Someday I'll create a money-lender for the town; making change in Sanctuary hasgot to be an art form. It won't do any good, though. Citizens and authors alikewill find reasons not to visit my money-lender. They'll set up their own ratesof exchange. The Prince will debase the currency. Vashanka will start spittingIndianhead nickels in his temple. I won't let that stop me. If the editor won'ttell me how these things are to be done, I'll just have to start telling him.