'I drank from a skin before I'd seen a cup. It's a trick you never forget.' Illyra took the wineskin from him and caught a mouthful of wine without splattering a drop. 'Now, Walegrin,' she began, emboldened by the musty wine, 'Walegrin, I can't get either your pottery nor Haakon's oranges out of my mind. What is the connection?'
'If this Haakon peddles Enlibar oranges, then it's simple. I got the shard in Enlibar, in the ruins of the armoury there. We searched three days and found only this. But, if anyone's got a greater piece he knows not what he has, else there'd be an army massing somewhere that'd have the Empire quaking.'
Illyra's eyes widened. 'All from a piece of cheap red clay?'
'Not the pottery, my dear sister. The armourer put the formula for Enlibar steel on a clay tablet and had a wizard spell the glaze to conceal it. I sensed the spell, but I cannot break it.'
'But this might only be a small piece.' Illyra ran her finger along the fragment's worn edges. 'Maybe not even a vital part.'
'Your S'danzo gifts are heedless of time, are they not?'
'Well, yes - the past and future are clear to us.'
'Then you should be able to scry back to when the glaze was applied and glimpse the entire tablet.'
Illyra shifted uneasily. 'Yes, perhaps, I could glimpse it but, Walegrin, I don't "read",' she shrugged and grinned with the wine.
Walegrin frowned, considering the near-perfect irony of the curse's functioning. No doubt Illyra could, would, see the complete tablet and be unable to tell him what was on it.
'Your cards, they have writing on them.' He pointed at the runic verses hoping that she could read runes but not ordinary script.
She shrugged again. 'I use the pictures and my gifts. My cards are not S'danzo work.' She seemed to apologize for the deck's origin, turning the pile face down to hide the offensive ink trails. 'S'danzo are artists. We paint pictures in fate.' She squirted herself another mouthful of wine.
'Pictures?' Walegrin asked. 'Would you see a clear enough image of the tablet to draw its double here on the table?'
'I could try. I've never done anything like that before.'
'Then try now,' Walegrin suggested, taking the wineskin away from her.
Illyra placed the shard atop the deck, then brought both to her forehead. Exhaling until she felt the world grow dim, the wine-euphoria left her and she became S'danzo exercising that capricious gift the primordial gods had settled upon her kind. She exhaled again and forgot that she was in her mother's death chamber. Eyes closed, she lowered the deck and pottery to the table and drew three cards, face up.
Seven of Ore: again, red clay; the potter with his wheel and kiln.
Quicksilver: a molten waterfall; the alchemic ancestor of all ores: the ace-card of the suit of Ores.
Two of Ore: steel; war-card; death-card with masked men fighting. She spread her fingers to touch each card and lost herself in search of the Enlibrite forge.
The armourer was old, his hand shook as he moved the brush over the unfired tablet. An equally ancient wizard fretted beside him, glancing fearfully over her shoulder beyond the limits of Illyra's S'danzo gifts. Their clothing was like nothing Illyra had seen in Sanctuary. The vision wavered when she thought of the present and she dutifully returned to the armoury. Illyra mimicked the armourer's motions as he covered the tablet with rows of dense, incomprehensible symbols. The wizard took the tablet and sprinkled fine sand over it. He chanted a sing-song language as meaningless as the ink marks. Illyra sensed the beginnings of the spell and withdrew across time to the barracks in Sanctuary.
Walegrin had removed the cloth from the table and placed a charcoal stylus in her hand without her sensing it. For a fleeting .moment she compared her copying to the images still in her mind. . Then the image was gone and she was fully back in the room, quietly watching Walegrin as he stared at the table.
'Is it what you wanted?' she asked softly.
Walegrin did not answer, but threw back his head in cynical laughter. 'Ah, my sister! Your mother's people are clever. Their curse reaches back to the dawn of time. Look at this!'
He pointed at the copied lines and obediently Illyra examined them closely.
'They are not what you wanted?'
Walegrin took the card of Quicksilver and pointed to the lines of script that delineated the waterfall. 'These are the runes that have been used since Ilsig attained her height, but this -' he traced a squiggle on the table, 'this is older than Ilsig. By Calisard, Vortheld, and a thousand gods of long dead soldiers, how foolish I've been! For years I've chased the secret of Enlibar steel and never realized that the formula would be as old as the ruins we found it in.'
Illyra reached across the table and held his clenched fists between her palms. 'Surely there are those who can read this? How different can one sort of writing be from another?' she asked with an illiterate's innocence.
'As different as the speech of the Raggah is from yours.'
Illyra nodded. It was not the time to tell him that when the Raggah came to trade they bargained with hand signals so none could hear their speech. 'You could go to a scriptorium along Governor's Walk. They sell letters like Blind Jakob sells fruit - it won't matter what the letter says as long as you pay the price,' she suggested.
'You don't understand, 'Lyra. If the formula becomes known again, ambition will seek it out. Rulers will arm their men with Enlibar steel and set out to conquer their neighbours. Wars will ruin the land and the men who live on it.' Walegrin had calmed himself and begun to trace the charcoal scratches onto a piece of translucent parchment.
'But, you wish to have it.' Illyra's tone became accusing.
'For ten years I've campaigned for Ranke. I've taken my men far north, beyond the plains. In those lands there're nomads with no cause to fear us. Swift and outnumbering us by thousands they cut through our ranks like a knife through soft cheese. We fell back and the Emperor had our commanders hung as cowards. We went forwards again, with new officers, and were thrown back again with the same results. I was commissioned myself and feared we'd be sent forwards a third time, but Ranke has discovered easier gold to conquer in the east and the army left its dead in the field to chase some other Imperial ambition.
'I remembered the stories of Enlibar. I hid there when I first escaped this town. With Enlibar steel my men's swords would reap nomad blood and I would not be deemed a coward.
'I found men in the capitol who listened to my plans. They knew the army and knew the battlefield. They're no friends of a hidebound Emperor who sees no more of war than a parade ground, but they became my friends. They gave me leave to search the ruins with my men and arranged for the garrison posts here when all omens said the answer lay in Sanctuary. If I can return to tnem with the formula the army won't be the whipping-boy of lazy Emperors. Someday men who understand steel and blood would rule ... but, I've failed them. The damned S'danzo curse has preceded me! The mage was gone when I got here and my dreams have receded further with each step I.decided to take.'
'Walegrin,' Illyra began, 'the S'danzo are not that powerful. Look at the cards. I cannot read your writing, but I can read them and there are no curses in your fate. You've found what you came for. Red clay yields steel through the Ore ruler, Quicksilver. True, Quicksilver is a deceiver, but only because its depths are concealed. Quicksilver will let you change this scribbling into something more to your liking.' She was S'danzo again, dispensing wisdom amid her candles, but without the bright colours and heavy kohl her words had a new urgent sincerity.