Samlor hurled the dagger. It glinted as it rotated. The blade was point-first and a hand's breadth from the smiling face when it exploded in a flash and a thunderclap that shook the city. The concussion hurled Samlor backwards, bleeding from the nose and ears. The air was dense with flecks of paint and plaster from the frescoed ceiling. Dyareela stood with the same smile, arms lifting in triumph, lips opening further in throaty laughter. 'Mine for a sacrifice!'
A webbing of tiny cracks was spreading from the centre of the dome high above. Samlor staggered to his feet, choking on dust and knowing that if he was lucky he was about to die.
Heqt's gilded bronze head, backed by the limestone spire, plunged down from the ceiling. It struck Dyareela's upturned face like a two-hundred-ton crossbow bolt. The floor beneath disintegrated. The limestone column scarcely slowed, hurtling out of sight as the earth itself shuddered to the impact.
Samlor lost his footing in the remains of Regli's coachman. An earth-shock pitched him forwards against the door panel. It was unlocked. The Cirdonian lunged out into the street as the shattered dome followed its pinnacle into a cavern that gaped with a sound like the lowest note of an organ played by gods.
Samlor sprawled in the muddy street. All around him men were shouting and pointing. The Cirdonian rolled onto his back and looked at the collapsing temple.
Above the ruins rose a pall of shining dust. More than imagination shaped the cloud into the head of a toad.
THE FRUIT OF ENLIBAR by Lynn Abbey
The hillside groves of orange trees were all that remained of the legendary glory of Enlibar. Humbled descendants of the rulers of an empire dwarfing Ilsig or Ranke eked out their livings among the gnarled, ancient trees. They wrapped each unripe fruit in leaves for the long caravan journey and wrapped each harvest in a fresh retelling of their legends. By shrewd storytelling these once proud families survived, second only to the S'danzo in their ability to create mystery, but like the S'danzo crones they flavoured their legends with truth and kept the sceptics at bay.
The oranges of Enlibar made their way to Sanctuary once a year. When the fist sized fruits were nearly ripe Haakon, the sweetmeat vendor of the bazaar, would fill his cart and hawk oranges in the town as well as in the stalls of the bazaar. During i those few days he would make enough money to buy expensive | trinkets for his wife and children, another year's lodgings for his mistress, and have enough gold left to take to Gonfred, the only honest goldsmith in town.
The value of each orange was such that Haakon would ignore the unwritten code of the bazaar and reserve the best of his limited supply for his patrons at the Governor's Palace. It had happened, however, that two of the precious fruits had been bruised. Haakon decided not to sell that pair at all but to share them with his friends the bazaar-smith, Dubro, and his youngwife, the half-S'danzo Illyra.
He scored the peel deftly with an inlaid silver tool meant especially for this one purpose. When his fingers moved away the pebbly rind fell back from the deep-coloured pulp and Illyra gasped with delight. She took one of the pulp sections and drizzled the juice onto the back of her hand, then lapped it up with the tip of her tongue: the mannerly way to savour the delicate flavour of the blood-red juice.
'These are the best; better than last year's,' she exclaimed with a smile. 'You say that every year, Illyra. Time dulls your memory; the taste brings it back.' Haakon sucked the juice off his hand with less delicacy: his lips showed the Stain of Enlibar. 'And, speaking of time dulling your memory - Dubro, do you recall, about fifteen years back, a death-pale boy with straw hair and wild eyes running about the town?'
Haakon watched as Dubro closed his eyes and sank back in thought. The smith would have been a raw youth then himself, but he had always been slow, deliberate, and utterly reliable in his judgements. Illyra would have been a skirt-clinging toddler that long ago so Haakon did not think to ask her, nor to glance her way while he awaited Dubro's reply. Had he done so he would have seen her tremble and a blood-red drop of juice disappear into the fine dust beneath her chair.
'Yes,' Dubro said without opening his eyes, 'I remember one as that: quiet, pale ... nasty. Lived a few years with the garrison, then disappeared.'
'Would you know him again after all this time?'
'Nay. He was that sort of lad who looks childish until he becomes a man, then one never sees the child in his face again.'
'Would you reckon "Walegrin" to be his name? Ignored, beside them, Illyra bit down on her tongue and stifled sudden panic before it became apparent.
'It might be ... nay, I could not be sure. I doubt as I ever spoke to the lad by name.' Haakon shrugged as if the questions had been idle conversation. Illyra ate her remaining share of the oranges, then went into the ramshackle stall where she lit three cones of incense before returning to the men with a ewer of water.
'Illyra, I've just asked your husband if he'd come with me to the Palace. I've got two sacks of oranges to deliver for the Prince and another set of arms would make the work easier. But he says he won't leave you here alone.'
Illyra hesitated. The memories Haakon had aroused were still fresh in her mind, but all that had been fifteen years ago, as he had said. She stared at the clouded-over sky.
'No, there'll be no problem. It may rain today arid, anyway, you've taken everyone's money this week with your oranges,' she said with forced brightness.
'Well then, you see, Dubro - there's no problem. Bank the fires and we'll be off. I'll have you back sweating again before the first raindrops fall.'
Illyra watched them leave. Fear filled the forge, fear left over from a dimly remembered childhood. Visions she had shared with no one, not even Dubro. Visions not even the S'danzo gifts could resolve into truth or illusion. She caught up her curly black hair with a set of combs and went back inside.
When the bed was concealed under layers of gaudy, bright cloth and her youth under layers of kohl, Illyra was ready to greet the townsfolk. She had not exaggerated her complaints about the oranges. It was just as well that Haakon's supply was diminishing. For two days now she had had no querents until late in the day. Lonely and bored she watched the incense smoke curl into the darkness of the room, losing herself in its endless variations.
'Illyra?'
A man drew back the heavy cloth curtain. Illyra did not recognize his voice. His silhouette revealed only that he was as tall as Dubro, though not as broad.
'Illyra?-1 was told I'd find Illyra, the crone, here.'
She froze. Any querent might have cause to resent a S'danzo prophecy, regardless of its truth, and plot revenge against the seeress. Only recently she had been threatened by a man in the red-and-gold livery of the Palace. Her hand slid under the folds of the tablecloth and eased a tiny dagger loose from a sheath nailed to the table leg. -
'What do you want?' She held her voice steady; greeting a paying querent rather than a thug.
'To talk with you. May I come in?' He paused, waiting for a reply and when there was none continued, 'You seem unduly suspicious, S'danzo. Do you have many enemies here. Little Sister?'