Wings of Omen

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.

The Termagant noticed Illyra's half-smile. "S'danzo men do not have the Sight. Who is to say what he might have. You care little enough for the S'danzo-and, maybe I did wrong to mis-See danger in you, to try to keep you and the S'danzo separate. Know this then: it has been many generations since a new god was made from the gyskourem, and never have they taken the place of so powerful a god as Vashanka. But if gyskourem are to become a god, they must first be drawn by need and sacrifice; then they must become Gyskouras-become one with a chosen mortal. It will be so, even with the new Vashanka.

"They have chosen your son as Gyskouras. Through him they have Blinded you. Gods have never been a threat to us but this one, this Gyskouras-who was your son will have the Sight, and will be invincible."

"But the Gyskouras will be Molin Torchholder's child in the temple...."

"Many men hope and sacrifice, Illyra, but there can only be one Gyskouras. It is not yet decided. One child or the other must die before the Gyskouras can emerge to be among men before becoming a god. You have loved your son. If you can't free him from the gyskourem web, then kill him before it is too late for us all S'danzo and suvesh."

She pressed the clothes against the wound and, knowing that their sting would keep the young woman speechless for some time longer, turned to her husband. "You must avenge her," she said to Dubro as she began the first of four silken stitches which would hold the wound shut. "You may wait until she recovers or dies, or you can kill him outright for the insult to all the S'danzo. She will pay, but so must the suvesh who did this to her. None of us who use the cards are safe if this is unavenged."

Dubro shook his head. "If I had caught him before he left, he would be dead, but I ca

"No." Illyra struggled to sit up. "No, let him go. Let him have my blood on his altar. If it will free Alton, it's small enough price. Let him be the Gyskouras of the new Stormgod."

"He attacked a S'danzo seer; his destiny is not for gods or gyskourem to decide. The S'danzo have no gods to protect them-only vengeance!" The woman raised her hand over Illyra's face and found it caught there in Dubro's bone-crushing fist.

"She is but half-S'danzo, old woman. You and the rest cast her out before. If she does not want vengeance, then you shall not give it to her." Dubro released the old woman and shoved her through the door into the abating storm. He frowned as he wiped the tears from his wife's cheek.

"Shall I go to the barracks?" the apprentice asked into

the silence.

"Not yet. We'll wait and see what happens." Illyra slipped into sleep, but Dubro sat, staring, in his chair. At dawn he awoke his wife and told her his intentions had not changed. He would sell his forge to the armorer and quietly buy a wagon. They would be gone from Sanctuary by sundown. His wife did not argue and pretended to go back to sleep. The Termagant's medicine had done its work well; the wound was cool to the touch. Once Dubro had left, she was able to dress herself, invent chores for the apprentice, and sit on the bench beside the forge to wait anxiously for her husband's return while Lillis played in the dust at her feet.