'You have a question?'
'No, my life could not be better. I have a song for you.'
'Today is not a day for songs. Have you seen Dubro?'
'No. I'm here to get wine for a special dinner tomorrow night. Thanks to you, I know where the best wine in Sanctuary is still to be found.'
'A new love?'
'The same. She grows more radiant with each day. Tomorrow the master of the house will be busy with his priestly functions. The household will be quiet.'
'The household of Molin Torchholder must agree with you then. It is good to be in the grace of the conquerors of Ilsig.'
'I'm discreet. So is Molin. It is a trait which seems to have been lost among the natives of Sanctuary - S'danzo excepted, of course. I'm most comfortable within his house.'
The seller handed him two freshly washed bottles of wine, and with brief farewells, Illyra saw him on his way. The wine-seller had seen Dubro earlier in the day. He offered that the smith was visiting every wine-seller in the bazaar and not a few of the taverns outside it. Similar stories waited for her at the other wine-sellers. She returned to the forge-home in the gathering twilight and fog.
Ten candles and the oil stove could not cut through the dark emptiness in the chamber. Illyra pulled her shawls tightly around her and tried to nap until Dubro returned. She would not let herself think that he would not return.
'You have been waiting for me.'
Illyra jumped at the sound. Only two of the candles remained lit; she had no idea how long she had slept, only that her home quivered with shadows and a man, as tall as Dubro but of cadaverous thinness, stood within the knotted rope.
'Who are you? What do you want?' She flattened against the back of the chair.
'Since you do not recognize me, then say, I have been looking for you.'
The man gestured. The candles and stove rekindled and Illyra found herself staring at the blue-starred face of the magician Lythande.
'I have done nothing to cross you,' she said, rising slowly from her chair.
'And I did not say that you had. I thought you were seeking me. Many of us Have heard you calling today.'
He held up the three cards Marilla had overturned and the Face of Chaos.
'I - I had not known my problems could disturb your studies.'
'I was reflecting on the legend of the Five Ships - it was comparatively easy for you to touch me. I have taken it to myself to learn things for you.
'The girl Marilla appealed first to her own gods. They sent her to you since for them to act on her fate would rouse the ire of Sabellia and Savankala. They have tied your fates together. You will not solve your own troubles unless you can relieve hers.'
'She is a dead woman, Lythande. If the gods of Ilsig wish to help her, they will need all their strength - and if that isn't enough, then there is nothing I can do for her.'
'That is not a wise position to take, Illyra,' the magician said with a smile.
'That is what I saw. S'danzo do not cross fates with the gods.'
'And you, Illyra, are not S'danzo.'
She gripped the back of the chair, angered by the reminder but unable to counter it.
'They have passed the obligation to you,' he said.
'I do not know how to break through Manila's fate,' Illyra said simply. 'I see, they must change.'
Lythande laughed. 'Perhaps there is no way, child. Maybe it will take two sacrifices to consecrate the temple Molin Torch-holder builds. You had best hope there is a way through Manila's fate; A cold breeze accompanied his laughter. The candles flickered a moment, and the magician was gone. Illyra stared at the undisturbed rope.
Let Lythande and the others help her if it's so important. I want only the anvil, and that I can have regardless of her fate.
The cold air clung to the room. Already her imagination was embroidering upon the consequences of enraging any of the powerful deities of Sanctuary. She left to search for Dubro in the fog-shrouded bazaar.
Fog tendrils obscured the familiar stalls and shacks of the daytime bazaar. A few fires could be glimpsed through cracked doorways, but the area itself had gone to sleep early, leaving Illyra to roam through the moist night alone.
Nearing the main entrance she saw the bobbing torch of a running man. The torch and runner fell with an aborted shout. She heard lighter footsteps running off into the unlit fog. Cautiously, fearfully, Illyra crept towards the fallen man.
It was not Dubro, but a shorter man wearing a blue hawk-mask. A dagger protruded from the side of his neck. Illyra felt no sorrow at the death of one of Jubal's bully-boys, only relief that it had not been Dubro. Jubal was worse than the Rankans. Perhaps the crimes of the man behind the mask had finally caught up with him. More likely someone had risked venting a grudge against the seldom seen former gladiator. Anyone who dealt with Jubal had more enemies than friends.
As if in silent response to her thoughts, another group of men appeared out of the fog. Illyra hid among the crates and boxes while five men without masks studied the dead man. Then, without warning, one of them threw aside his torch and fell on the warm corpse, striking it again and again with his knife. When he had had his fill of death, the others took their turns.
The bloody hawk-mask rolled to within a hand-span of Illyra's foot. She held her breath and did not move, her eyes riveted in horror on the unrecognizable body in front of her. She wandered away from the scene blind to everything but her own disbelieving shock. The atrocity seemed to be the final, senseless gesture of the Face of Chaos in a day which had unravelled her existence.
She leaned against a canopy-post fighting waves of nausea, but Haakon's sweetmeats had been the only food she had eaten all day. The dry heaving of her stomach brought no relief.
'Lyra!'
A familiar voice roared behind her and an arm thrown protectively around her shoulder broke the spell. She clung to Dubro with clenched fingers, burying her convulsive sobs in his leather vest. He reeked of wine and the salty fog. She savoured every breath of him.
'Lyra, what are you doing out here?' He paused, but she did not reply. 'Did you begin to think I'd not come back to you?'
He held her tightly, swaying restlessly back and forth. The story of the hawk masked man's death fell from her in racked gasps. It took Dubro only a moment to decide that his beloved Illyra had suffered too much in his absence and to repent that he had gotten drunk or sought work outside the bazaar. He lifted her gently and carried her back to their home, muttering softly to himself as he walked.
Not even Dubro's comforting arms could protect Illyra from the nightmare visions that stalked her sleep once they had returned to their home. He shook off his drunkenness to watch over her as she tossed and fretted on the sleeping linens. Each time he thought she had settled into a calm sleep, the dreams would start again. Illyra would awaken sweating and incoherent from fear. She would not describe her dreams to him when he asked. He began to suspect that something worse than the murder had taken place in his absence, though their home showed no sign of attack or struggle.
Illyra did try to voice her fears to him at each waking interlude, but the mixture of visions and emotions found no expression in her voice. Within her mind, each re-dreaming of the nightmare brought her closer to a single image which both collected her problems and eliminated them. The first rays of a feeble dawn had broken through the fog when she had the final synthetic experience of the dream.
She saw herself at a place the dream-spirit said was the estate called Land's End. The estate had been long abandoned, with only an anvil chained to a pedestal in the centre of a starlit courtyard to show that it had been inhabited. Illyra broke the chain easily and lifted the anvil as if it had been paper. Clouds rushed in as she walked away and a moaning wind began to blow dust-devils around her. She hurried towards the doorway where Dubro waited for his gift.