Aside from Dubro and Walegrin, whose relationship to her was defined in ways other than friendship, there was only one to whom Illyra could bare her soul: Molin Torchholder. And it was a sorry state when a god- less S'danzo claimed counsel with a Rankan priest.
At that moment, however, Illyra wore her isolation like armor and strode by the stairway that would have taken her to Molin's cluttered suite. She had her destination clearly in mind; a sheltered cloister that caught the sun without the chill wind. A place certain to have flowers even this late in the year.
The little courtyard was empty-deserted for considerable time and given over to weeds. Two hardy roses held onto brown-edged blooms, their scent all the stronger for the frost that had doomed them. The rest was yellow-top, white lace, and, in the most sheltered comer, a patch of fiery demons-eyes. Illyra was grateful she had no allergies as she gathered an armful of the blooms and settled onto a sunlit stone bench to weave them into a garland. She'd learned the flower braiding in a vision once. Her mother had certainly never taught her, nor Dubro, nor Moonflower, who'd told her what she'd needed to know about womanhood and her gift. She'd learned other things as well: bits of song and poetry, snippets of lovemaking, tricks for killing with a knife or sword. She knew too much to be just one person-and she'd loved Lillis because she yearned to share herself with someone, anyone, who would understand.
Trevya could never understand.
The sun warmed her shoulders, finally loosening the knots that had been there since that late winter day when she'd last held a living daugh- ter of her own blood in her arms. Illyra turned her face upward, eyes closed, imagining an ageless Lillis: child, woman, and friend. She took that predawn vision and changed it until it was her own daughter and she could hear the laughter and the single word: mother, mother, mother ...
But the laughter, Illyra realized after a blissful moment, was real- echoing within the cloister-not in her imagination. She opened her eyes and gazed upon the passel of children who had invaded her retreat with their games. There were none that she recognized from her visits to the nursery-save that two were clearly Beysib. Both were girls and, by their apparent ages, immigrants like their parents.
"It's your turn now!"
"And no peeking!"
The designated child, the younger of the Beysib pair, separated reluc- tantly from the group. Her arms and legs, which extended well beyond her fine but dirty and shapeless tunic, were still pudgy with baby fat; her gait was still flat-footed, after the manner of toddlers, rather than rolling. Her face pulled back into a near-bawling grimace as the distance between herself and the others increased but none of the children had as yet noticed Illyra sitting still and quiet on her bench.
The little girl squared her shoulders and put her hands over her eyes.
"Out loud. Count out loud, Cha-bos!" the other Beysib girl com- manded.
"One ... two ... th'th-three ..."
By the count of four the other children had vanished, squealing and shouting and quickly dispersing through the tangle of rooms and hall- ways of their home. The little girl, Cha-bos, heard the silence and low- ered her hands from her tear-streaked face. She noticed Illyra for the first time.
The nictating membrane that distinguished the exile community from the continental norm flicked over the child's amber eyes and she stared. Illyra, despite her best efforts, started backward just as reflexively. But Cha-bos was apparently immune to that gesture-or at least already able to conceal her own reactions.
"I can't count to one hundred," Cha-bos declared, confident that she had explained everything, and Illyra learned that Beysibs could cry while they were staring.
"Neither can I," Illyra admitted-not that she had ever had need to count so many things.
Cha-bos wilted. What use was an adult who knew no more than she did? "It doesn't matter," she told herself and Illyra. "They don't want me to play anyway."
Caught up in those huge, fixed eyes, Illyra Saw that Cha-bos was right. The older children had not continued with the simple game but were, even now, regrouping for a greater adventure.
"I'm sorry. You'll grow up soon enough."
"They won't ever grow down."
Illyra felt herself squirming to get free of the child's endless eyes. She realized why the other gifted S'danzo women stayed so close to their families-where familiarity, if not love, inhibited the curse of Sight and the scrying table turned vision into a cold business. She especially did not want to know that Cha-bos was no ordinary child-even for a Beysib- but the daughter of the Beysa Shupansea, and already her blood was laced with potent poison.
"You can't have any friends, can you?" she blurted.
Cha-bos went solemn and shook her head in a slow arc, but the mem- brane flicked back and she blinked. "Vanda. She takes care of me."
Vanda was a name Illyra recognized from before. An Ilsigi girl who had somehow gotten herself made nursemaid to the polyglot menagerie of the palace nursery. Illyra had not seen her since Arton had been sent away and had, for no good reason, assumed the young woman had been swallowed back into the city.
"Is Vanda still here?"
"Course she's here. I need her."
Cha-bos's faith in Vanda was as strong as her gut-level certainty that the world-in the proper order of things-revolved around her personal needs. She was willing to lead Illyra through the palatial maze to an interior chamber which by its chaotic condition and the size of its beds had to be the current location of the the nursery.
Vanda sat with her needle and thread amid heaps of children's ravaged clothing. Her face glowed with genuine welcome when Cha-bos an- nounced herself but cooled and became mature when she saw Illyra.
"It's been a long time," she explained, shaking the mending from her lap and bowing slightly-as was proper in the presence of one who was the mother of a potential god. "Fare you well?"
Illyra nodded and was at a loss for words, wondering what she had hoped to accomplish by visiting. "Well enough," she stammered politely.
Living with children had preserved some of Vanda's audacity and forth rightness. "What brings you here?" she asked, taking up the mend- ing again.
Illyra felt her mind carom wildly from one mote of knowledge to the next. Vanda was the daughter of Gilla and Lalo the Limner. Gilla had watched as her children embarked on the journey of adulthood, and had buried one who had not at the same time Illyra's Lillis had been laid in her grave. Gilla had also nursed Illyra through the bleak weeks of their mutual mourning. Vanda would know what her mother knew, and Vanda knew children ...
"I have a child," Illyra began from somewhere deep in her heart.
Surprise and suspicion flickered across Vanda's face. "Oh," she sighed as a calm mask formed over her features. "How fortunate for you." It was a voice to quiet the insane.
The S'danzo couldn't help but feel the emotional distance Vanda hur- riedly created between them. But her despair was a throbbing, emotional aneurysm and, having finally found its voice, it would not be stilled. She described how Trevya had been literally dumped in her arms and how the child gave her no peace. She spoke of Trevya's twisted leg and the psychic intrusions that had led to the construction of the baleen splint which, though it was straightening her bones, chafed her skin and made her cry for hours at a time.
Then Illyra told herself and Vanda about the changes that had come over Dubro since Trevya's arrival. Come over him and between them as if children were interchangeable and a woman's love flowed to any infant that squirmed in her arms. Not, of course, that it was just one child; there was also Suyan who was little more than a child herself. And the new apprentice who, though he still lived with his family in the town, ex- pected that she would care for him ... about him.
And through it all Vanda sat attentive and blank, polite, and growing more reserved with each syllable the S'danzo uttered. Until Cha-bos, who had gotten infinitely bored very early in Illyra's oration, inserted herself into their attention.
The child had unearthed one other ti-cosa,
the miniature version of the Beysib court costume, padded and embroidered so it bulked as much as Cha-bos herself.
"Fix it!" she demanded as she began a run across the room.
Ribbons trailed from the robe's seams and edges, imitating the poison- ous Beynit vipers that dwelt with the older female members of the Beysa's intimate family-
"Cha-to-s-tu!" Vanda shouted the child's full name as the impending catastrophe came closer.
Emerald and ruby silk serpentined around the child's legs. Cha-bos lurched forward, unaware at first that she was no longer in control other unbalanced burden. She shrieked as she tumbled forward, becoming a confused mass of cloth and child. The nursery was frozen and quiet when her motion ceased. For a moment Illyra and Vanda believed no harm had been done, then a wail of heartrending terror erupted from the tangled embroidery.
Vanda reached her first, fairly shouting her reassurances as she sepa- rated Cha-bos from the cosa. A splinter as long as the child's finger protruded from her forearm. (The floors, this high up in the palace, were constructed of wooden planking that had seen better days.) Chabostu, second daughter of Shupansea and witness to all that had driven her mother into exile in Sanctuary, was transfixed by the sight of her own blood. Her whole body stared in the rigid Beysib way; her only move- ment came during her spasmodic gasps between screams.
Vanda could not relax the child's arm and when she yanked the splin- ter free the blood followed in bright red spurts.
"Dear Shipri preserve me," the nursemaid intoned as Cha-bos's wide- open eyes went completely white. "Hold her!"
The child was thrust into Illyra's unwilling arms as Vanda shouted for the palace guards and crawled toward the unmended clothing to tear a compress. Illyra rocked back on her heels and went almost as rigid as Cha-bos herself as the warm blood trickled along her fingers.
This was no ordinary child-no ordinary blood. That was foul and potent venom gathering in the crevice between her thumb and forefinger. Illyra gulped, shuddered, and nearly fainted as the fluid streamed over her wrist and out of sight beneath her cuff. There was nothing she wanted to do more than heave the little girl across the room and get as far from her as mortally possible. But Vanda was back, ripping strips of cloth with her teeth, and the corridor resounded with approaching guards.
Illyra could do nothing but contain her revulsion ^as Vanda tended the wound and Cha-bos twitched and shuddered in her arms. The nursery shimmered with surreal absurdity: what manner of contagion could pos- sibly take root in a child whose very blood was poison? Then the visions came.
She was in the Beysib Empire, Seeing a nightmare world with a child's eyes. Giants stormed from living shadows with red-dripping steel in their hands. Cold, unyielding hands held her from behind and made the world go wild as they moved her from the familiar to the horrible.
A face swam before her: a face half her mother and half hard, grimac- ing giant-and the other part, the part that was not her mother, was in control. But mostly there was blood as the last fortress loyal to Shupan- sea fell to their enemies and the noblest individuals of the empire scram- bled for their lives like lowiy peasants.
Illyra, whose childish memory held scenes no less graphic, shared Chabostu's terror-and an unhealable outrage that not one of those gi- ants who habitually controlled her world took notice of her. Worse, her mother, Shupansea, seemed herself to have been reduced to gibbering.
In the starkly judgmental mind of young Cha-bos, Shupansea had usurped the attention and comforting that belonged to her. Cha-bos was unable to comprehend this inversion of the universe and so had trans- formed it into something she could understand: She had never felt like this before and she'd never seen so much blood before, so blood must cause the feeling. Must lead to the feeling inevitably.
And blood became the ultimate terror in her world.
Vanda worked furiously to cleanse and conceal the child's wound, well aware of the child's progressive fears if not of their cause. Though the guards had been assured that the injury was neither serious nor the result of any malfeasance, they raised a racket in the nearby corridors-primar- ily designed to prove to Shupansea (who had also been summoned) that they were diligent in their duties. Illyra watched the commotion from a greater distance. She had freed herself from the child's visions, thereby insulating herself somewhat from her own fear of the poisonous fluids still staining her arm. She had wisely resisted returning completely to the world of the frantic nursery.
The seeress remained detached from her surroundings until Shupansea crossed the threshold with Prince Kadakithis and a dozen courtiers in her wake. The Beysa dropped gracefully to her knees and attempted to take her daughter into her arms. Chabostu would have none of it and fought like a little demon to avoid her mother's attention.
"Your Serenity ... ?" Vanda interjected cautiously, cocking a finger ever so slightly to the bandage.
Knowing what would happen if the wound bled again, Shupansea withdrew her arms. "It has been very difficult for her," she explained softly and quickly to Illyra, speaking like any mother who had been shamed or rejected by her offspring rather than as the de facto ruler of Sanctuary-
Illyra, though she was the mother of a probable god, had no idea how to speak to one who was personally both goddess and queen. She cast a furtive glance toward Vanda whose nod, she assumed, meant she should treat Shupansea with the same calculated familiarity she accorded her paying visitors. "Children have their own minds," she said with a trace of a smile.
The Beysa had the good manners, not to stare, but her pet viper chose that moment to rustle through her undergarments and poke its jewel- colored head above her collar. It tasted the air, revealing its crimson maw and ivory fangs, then, while the women held motionless, it lowered itself onto Illyra's sleeve.
"Don't move," Shupansea cautioned unnecessarily.
The immense NO remained imprisoned until the beymt investigated the clotted blood on Illyra's sleeve with its darting tongue. Any thoughts of instant death were insignificant compared to the reality of the serpent's touch. With a stifled gasp, Illyra propelled herself out of the circle, fling- ing the serpent and the child in opposite directions.
Cha-bos cried, the snake disappeared, and Illyra was surrounded by a mixed cohort of palace guards. Rankan, Ilsigi, and Beysib by the look of them. they were united by the steadiness with which they kept their well- sharpened spears pointed at her throat.
The guards saw their duty; no one would blame them for not following procedure when the child of an avatar of one goddess was bounced on the floor by the mother of another. For once Sanctuary proved itself a place of law and due process. Not even the protests of the prince and the Beysa combined could free the S'danzo from the ordeal of reporting to the watch commander.
"There's nothing to worry about," the prince assured Illyra as he joined the bristling circle escorting her from the nursery. (Shupansea remained behind, watching her daughter and looking for her snake.) "It's just a formality. Sign your name a few times and it will all be over."
This brought little comfort to the seeress who signed her name with an X like almost everyone else in Sanctuary.
It might have been different if Dubro had accompanied his wife-for he had begun life destined to be a scribe, not a blacksmith, and remem- bered what he now had little use for. Unfortunately Deibro wasn't even at the forge when a liveried palace servitor made his appearance there, and Suyan was awed into incoherence.
Not that Dubro had told her where he was going when he banked the fire and lowered the leather awning that separated the entrance to his workplace from the entrance to Illyra's. He could hardly admit to him- self that he was going to the back wall where the other S'danzo seeresses made camp, to ask their advice.
He thought of Moonflower and was not the only person in Sanctuary that day or any other to gently mourn her untimely death. She'd been barely taller than Illyra but in all other respects she was built on Dubro's scale and he'd felt comfortable around her.
He reconsidered his whole plan as he entered the incense-rich, S'danzo quarter. He had decided to turn around and retreat to his own familiar world, when he was caught in the appraising glare of the woman who had replaced Moonflower as most indomitable among the seeresses.
"Greetings, blacksmith," the tall stick of a woman called. "What brings you up here?"
It was not done to walk away from the Termagant. She was the living embodiment of every tale ever whispered in the dark about the S'danzo. No sane man doubted that she would and could curse anything that crossed her path in the wrong light.
Dubro crumpled the lower edge of his tunic in his fists and took a step in her direction. "I have a question to ask-about the cards."
She looked him up and down, which took a moment or two, then pulled aside the curtain to her scrying room,
"Then come, by all means, and ask it."
The Termagant lived alone. No one dared ask or remember if she'd ever had a family. As far as the other S'danzo and all the rest of Sanctu- ary were concerned she had always been exactly as she was. An aura of timelessness hung over her-by gaudy S'danzo standards-austere cham- bers. Her wooden table was worn black and shiny from years of use.
Her cards were tattered at the edges, their images both faded and stained. She was a seeress who let no one but herself touch the amashkiki: the cards, the Guideposts of Vision. They cascaded from one knobby hand to the other as she settled on her stool.
"Tell me where to stop. Choose your first significance."
Dubro thrust his hands, palms outward, between himself and the flit- tering paper. "No," he stammered. "I do not choose cards. Illyra chose them."
The cascade came to an abrupt halt. "If she chose, what is your ques- tion?" she inquired, though surely she suspected the answer.
"She cannot read for those she loves. She would not lay down the cards-but certain ones fell from her hands. I believe that she cannot read for us-but I do not believe she cannot choose."
"For an overly large man, you are not without perception," the Terma- gant said between self-satisfied cackles. Dubro folded his hands and said nothing. "Very well, describe the cards you saw."
Aftermath tw-10 Page 21
