Wings of Omen

"To the one who wants our son-yes."

In time the sky grew rosy, then bright blue. Arton grew no worse, though no better. Despite their anxiety, Illyra and Lillis both leaned against the smith and dozed. Those children who normally made a noisy shambles of the nursery before breakfast were bundled off to some distant part of the house, and the family waited in silent isolation.

A black bird, not so great as the one Illyra had made of her Sight but undeniably real, cawed noisily outside the window. Illyra awoke and hoped it might be the Sight returning to her. Before she could know one way or the other, there was a furor in the hallways which ended with the appearance of the Hierarch of Vashanka, Molin Torch-holder, at the nursery entrance.

"Illyra," the priest said, ignoring everyone else in the room. Not knowing any other response, Illyra knelt before him: the priest's power was real even if his god was not. "How is the child?"

She shook her head and took Arton from Dubro's arms. "No better. He breathes, but no more than that. How do you know? Why are you here?"

Molin gave a sardonic laugh. "I had not expected to be the one answering questions. I know because I make it a point to know what is going on in Sanctuary and to find the patterns by which it can be governed. You went to the garrison. You said your son had been 'taken.' You spoke of spirits and of the Stormgod, but you did not mention Vashanka. You wanted your brother to deal with the altar, but you were going to deal with rest.

"They say you have the legendary S'danzo Sight. I'd like to know exactly what you've been Seeing." The priest did not seem surprised when Illyra's only response was to stare forlornly at the floor. "Well, then, let me convince you."

He took her gently by the arm and guided her toward a tiny atrium where the rook was already perched in a tree. Dubro rose to follow them. Two temple mutes, armed with heavy spears, convinced him to remain with the children.

"No one has betrayed you, Illyra, nor will betray you. Walegrin does not see the larger picture when he tells me the details, but you-you might see a picture even larger than my own. You have the Sight, Illyra, and you've looked at the Stormgod, haven't you?"

"The S'danzo have no gods," she replied defensively.

"Yes, but as you yourself have admitted, something has touched your son, and that something is involved with known gods."

"Not gods, godspirits-gyskourem."

"Gyskourem?" Molin rolled the word across his tongue, and the rook tried its beak on the sound as well. "Spirits? Demonfolk? No, I don't think so, Illyra."

She sighed and turned away, but spoke louder so he could still hear what no suvesh had heard before. "We have Seen the past as well as the future. Men begin the creation of gods. There is a hope, or a need; the gyskourem come, and then there is a god-until there is no hope or need anymore. When they begin, the gyskourem are like other men, or sometimes demonfolk are summoned as gyskourem, but when they are filled then they become gods truly and they are more powerful than any man or demon. The S'danzo do not hope or need, lest we call the gyskourem to us."

"So Vashanka is not the son of Savankala and Sabellia. He is the hope and need of the first battles fought by the first Rankan tribes?" The priest laughed from some secret bemusement.

"In a way. It could be so. That is the pattern, although it is very hard to see so far back as for a god such Vashanka," Illyra temporized. The man was Vashanki priest, and she was not about to tell him of the birth or death of his god.

"But not so hard to see forward, I should think. My god has fallen on hard times, hasn't he, S'danzo?" Torchholder's tone was harsh and bitter, causing Illyra to turn to face him, though she feared for her life. "Don't pretend, S'danzo. You may have the Sight, but I was there. Vashanka was ripped from the pantheon. Ils was there, but I do not think that he or his kin can fill Vashanka's void. And there is a void, isn't there? A hope? A need? The Rankan Stormgod: the Might of Armies, the Maker of Victory, isn't here anymore."

She nodded and picked nervously at the fringe of her shawl. "It has never happened before, I think. He was changing, growing, even when he was tricked and banished. There is a great web over Sanctuary, High Priest; it was there before Vashanka was banished, and it's still there now. There is much to be Seen and little to be understood." She spoke to him as she would any other querent and for a moment he looked properly chastened.

"How much hope does it take, S'danzo? How much need? Can the god of one people usurp the devotion of another?" The priest seemed to ignore her then, digging deep into the hem of his sleeve, producing a sweetmeat for the rook, which flew tamely to his wrist for the treat. When Molin began again his voice was calm.

"I came here with the Prince, thinking to build a temple. The talk in Ranke was of war with the Nisibisi, and it was not a good time for an architect-priest. I would rather lay the foundation for a temple than undermine the walls of a city. It should have been quiet. Vashanka's attention should have been drawn to the north with the war and the armies, but He was here, almost from the begi

"Now, the war goes on without victory. The troops are disheartened, rebellious, mutinous. They have slain the Emperor along with all of his family, and mine, which they could find. Now, the war belongs to Theron, and it goes no better for him, perhaps because it was not that the Emperor was a bad war-leader but because in a forgotten backwater of the Empire a Rankan god has been banished.

"I've been left with a cesspool of a city to govern because no one else is interested or able. My temple was never built, and will not be built now. My Prince, the only legitimate heir to the Imperial throne, lives in perpetual i

His voice rose again, and it frightened the rook, which promptly bit the hand that fed it squarely between the thumb and forefinger.

"Lately I've begun to understand that I will not be going back home," he said more softly, binding the wound with fabric from his sleeve. "Or, rather, I've been forced to accept that Sanctuary-of all the forsaken places in creation-is going to be my home until I die. I will not have my dream of dying in peace in the temple where I was born. Do the S'danzo think much of their birth-homes? I was born in the Temple of Vashanka in Ranke. My substance is one with that temple. Some part of me: my eyes, my heart, whatever, is as it was when I was born and belongs more to that temple than to me. But now, look, the bird bites me; blood flows and new skin is formed. Sanctuary skin, Illyra. For me it will always be a very small part, but for you- isn't Sanctuary within you even as the S'danzo Sight is within you?"

He had drawn her in to look at his wound, and played her with his best arguments as he would have done had she been the Emperor himself. His eyes stared into hers.

"Illyra, if you won't help me, then I can't help Sanctuary, and if I can't help Sanctuary, then it doesn't matter if you save your son. Use the Sight to look around you. There is hope, need; there is a great vacuum where Vashanka reigned "

Illyra jerked away from him. "The S'danzo have no gods. It does not matter to us which of the gyskourem becomes the Gyskouras, the new god other men bow down to."