"They're sayin' it's our fault," the apprentice said when the fire had been banked for the night and the stew was bubbling on the fire-grate. "They say it's him," the youth elaborated, glancing fearfully at Arton's borrowed cradle.
"It's the time for storms, nothing more. They forget every year," Dubro replied, digging his fingers into the boy's shoulders.
The apprentice ate his meal in silence, more frightened of the smith's infrequent anger than of the unnaturalness of the child, but he laid his pallet as far from the cradle as possible and invoked the protection of every god he could remember before turning his face to the wall for the night. Illyra took no notice of him. Her attention fell only on Arton and the honey-gruel she hoped he would swallow. Dubro sat frowning in his chair until the lad had begun to snore gently.
A single gust of wind churned through the Bazaar, then, with no greater warning, the rain thundered against the walls and shutters. Illyra blew out her candle and stared past the cradle.
"Tears again?" Dubro asked. She nodded as her own tears began to fall. '"Lyra, the lad's right: people gather by Blind Jakob's wagon and stare at the forge with fear in their eyes. They do not understand-and I do not understand. I have never questioned your comings and goings; the cards or your Sight, but 'Lyra, we must do something quickly or the town itself will rise against us. What has happened to our son?"
The huge man had not moved, nor had his voice lost its measured softness, but Illyra looked at him in white-eyed fear. She searched her mind for the right words and, finding none, stumbled across the room to collapse into his lap. The Sight had revealed terrible things, but none hurt her as much as the weariness in her husband's face. She told him everything that had happened, as the suvesh told their tales to her.
"I will go into the city tomorrow," Dubro decided when he had heard about Zip's altar, Molin's god-child, and the Stormgod's demise. "There is an armorer who will pay good gold for this forge. We will leave this place tomorrow- forever."
Another gust of wind whipped through the awning and, beyond that, the sound of a wall, somewhere, crashing down. Dubro held her tightly until she cried herself to sleep. The little oil lamp beside him guttered out before the squall had abated and the household tried to sleep.
Illyra did not know if she'd heard the crash under the awning or if she only awoke because Dubro had heard it, had shoved her aside, and was already wading into the storm and mud. By the time she lit a candle from a coal in the cooking fire, Dubro had retrieved the young man whose visit'had precipitated all their misfortune.
'Thinking to steal, lad?" Dubro growled, lifting the sewer-snipe by the neck for emphasis.
Mustering his courage. Zip twisted his leg for a kick where it would hurt the smith most and found himself thrown face-first onto the rough-wood floor for his unsuccessful effort.
"What did you want? Your gold coin?" Illyra interceded, grabbing her shawl and twirling it modestly around her as she rummaged through her boxes. "I've kept it for you." She found the coin and threw it onto the floor by his face. "Be thankful and begone," she warned him.
Zip grabbed the coin and scrabbled to his knees. "You stole Him. You cursed me and kept Him for yourself. His eyes were fire when I called Him back to me. He doesn't need me anymore!" The young man's face was torn and bloody, but the edge of hysteria in his voice came from something deeper than physical pain. "This is not enough! I need Him back." He cast the coin aside and produced a knife from somewhere around his waist.
Maniacal rage was not unknown to Illyra who had, more than once, said the wrong words to a distraught querent, but then she had been behind a solid wood table with a knife of her own. Zip lunged at her before she or Dubro comprehended the danger. The blade bit deep into her shoulder before Dubro could move.
"He'll take me back with this," Zip said in triumph from the doorway, brandishing his bloody knife before disappearing into the storm.
Zip's knife had left a small, deep wound that did not, to Dubro's eye, bleed heavily enough. They would need poultices and herbs to keep the cut from going to poison, and that would have meant Moonflower, if she'd been alive. Without Moonflower they had only their instincts to guide them until morning. Caring for Illyra was more urgent than chasing Zip. The frightened apprentice was sent to the well for clean water while Dubro carried his Illyra to their bed.
The apprentice had just set the water on the fire-grate when the doyen of the S'danzo in Sanctuary darkened the doorway. Tall, raw-boned, and bitter, she was not the e.ldest of the amoushem, the scrying-women, nor certainly the most far Sighted, but she was the most feared. Her word had prohibited Moonflower from bringing the abandoned, orphaned Illyra into her home. S'danzo and suvesh alike knew her as the Termagant and even Dubro shrank back when she made the hand-sign against evil and entered the room.
Illyra pushed herself up from the pillows. "Go away. I don't want your help."
With a loud, disdainful sniff the Termagant turned away from Illyra and plucked at the blankets in Arton's cradle. "You've brought us all to the edge of death, and only you can bring us back-only you. You See the gods, but do you ever close your eyes to look around you? No. Even Rezel-and your mother's Sight was better than your half-blood will ever be-knew better than this. Suvesh pray and meddle with magic, but they are Sightless creatures and no one notices them. When a S'danzo woman opens her eyes... Even the mightiest of gods don't have the Sight, Illyra; remember that."
The crone looked away, unwilling to say more. Illyra slumped back against the pillows, her rage and fear dampened by doubt. Rezel had never troubled to tell her toddling daughter about the S'danzo ways. Moonflower had tried, but with the Termagant herself threatening and cursing from the shadows, Illyra had learned dangerously little about the people whose gifts she used.
"I have not sought gods or gyskourem," she whispered in her own defense. "They found me."
"There're demon ships sailing the harbor; black beasts rampaging through the Maze, and the wretched storms besides. The suvesh are making themselves a war god, Illyra, and the gyskourem they draw to Sanctuary will stop at nothing to become that god. It is not the time for S'danzo to be using cards and Sight for them."
"I have not used the Sight for them. I have not had the Sight since just after my son was touched..." She would have continued, but the herbal infusion had begun to steam and the Termagant moved swiftly to make a poultice with it that took Illyra's breath away when it rested against her shoulder.
"Fool, you cursed the suvesh, not the gyskourem that drove him," the crone whispered now that Illyra alone could hear her. She glanced at Arton's cradle, her disdain replaced by naked concern. "Does he have the Sight?"
Illyra would have laughed, had it been possible. Men did not inherit the Sight, and girl-children did not know if they possessed it until well after Lillis and Arton's age.