Robert Asprin - Aftermath

As it was, she balanced on the edge between dreaming and waking, and her thoughts spiraled far beyond her control. Trevya's face drifted toward her, like a leaf on the wind or driftwood with the tide. Illyra called her mind's eye back, but it did not come and the face grew into a full Seeing of a child running through a neat flower garden, arms out- stretched, silently laughing and singing a single word over and over again.

Illyra cried out, breaking the thrall of the Seeing but not disturbing her husband who, in truth, was accustomed to her cries in the night. The seeress, still bound in Dubro's protection, stared into the night deter- mined now to remain fully awake. The vision would not be denied and inserted itself mto her thoughts, demanding interpretation.

That was easy enough. If Trevya ran, then her legs grew straight and strong. If she ran through a garden, then she became a child in a place where beauty was an affordable luxury. If she sang as she ran, then she was happy. If that word was Mother ...

But no, Illyra would not acknowledge that part other Seeing-though it could have told her she would have the material security she craved. She preferred the loneliness other anxiety and clutched its darkness tight around her until slits of dawn light came through the shutters.

Dubro stirred, freeing her as he did. The soul of routine and regularity, the smith rose with the first dawn light year around and had his forge ready when the sun peeked over the horizon. Usually the sight of his broad shoulders as they vanished beneath his worn leather tunic was enough to banish Illyra's night-bom doubts, but not today-nor did she share any aspect of her visions with him. She remained huddled in the bed until Suyan had the baby at her breast and even then Illyra gathered her brightly colored garments as if in a trance.

"Feel you poorly?" Suyan asked with sincere concern.

Illyra shook her head and laced a rose-colored bodice lightly over her own breasts. The girl's voice-her odd, but lilting, syntax-grated with extra harshness this morning, and Illyra was, without forethought, deter- mined to ignore her.

"Herself cried but once in the night, though if that come at a bad time, it's enough to keep you waking until dawn?"

Always a curl to her voice. Everything was a question that needed- no, demanded-an answer. But this time it would not work.

"There's herbs left from Masha zil-Ineel-from Herself's congestion- that could be brewed up?"

"I'm fine, Suyan," Illyra said at last. "I slept fine. The baby didn't bother me. You didn't bother me. And I don't need any herbs- just ..." She inhaled a pause and wondered what she did need. "I'm going uptown today. What I need is a change of scenery."

Suyan nodded. She did not know her mistress well enough to sense how little Illyra needed change of any kind-and would not have done any different if she had.

Shunning her pots of kohl, Illyra brushed her hair into a thick chignon and wrapped a concealing, drab-colored shawl around her shoulders. She would never be mistaken for a woman who followed any of Sanctuary's fast-changing fashions but neither would she be taken for a S'danzo.

"You'll be wanting breakfast?" Suyan asked from the comer, the lilt making her maternal and chastising.

"No, no breakfast," Illyra replied, meeting the other woman's eyes for the first time, and watching them grow fragile with self-doubt. "I've got a craving for the little tarts Haakon sells; I'll get some on my way."

Those huge eyes grew bright and knowledgeable. "Aye, cravings ..."

Illyra found her fist clenching into a warding sign. Suyan had her own need for security, and security for a wet nurse was her mistress's preg- nancy. Not a day went by that somehow, buried in the lilting questions, the subject of Illyra's barrenness was not raised. As Illyra forced herself to relax, the unfaimess of it all swept over her and she knew if she remained one more moment she would dissolve into tears that would only make her world worse.

"I'm going now," she muttered in a voice that sounded almost as bad as she felt.

Dubro was instructing the new apprentice in the finer arts of squeezing the bellows. His voice was deep and even with hard-held patience; there was nothing to be gained by interrupting him so Illyra gripped her shawl against the chill harbor wind and hoped to slip away.

"Madame ... Madame Illyra. Seeress!"

Illyra shrank against the walls, unable to pretend that she had not seen or could not hear the young woman racing through the market-day crowd.

"Oh, wait, Seeress Illyra. Please wait!"

And she did, while the other woman caught her breath and pressed a filthy, battered copper coin into her hand.

"Help me, please. I've got to find him. I've looked everywhere. You're my last hope. You've got to help me."

Numbly Illyra nodded and retreated the few steps to the anteroom where she kept her cards and the other paraphernalia of the S'danzo trade. She could not refuse-though not because of the coin as the suvesh commonly believed. It was not payment that compelled the Sight but, sometimes, the contact of their flesh with her flesh. Already she was growing dizzy with the emergence of another reality. It would be a haz- ard to her if she attempted to deny the vision.

She pushed the deck across the table as she half collapsed onto her stool. "Make three piles of them," she commanded; there was no time to shuffle them.

The visitor's hand shook as she separated the deck- "Find my Jimny before it's too late!"

Illyra swallowed the notion that it was already too late, then surren- dered herself to the emerging images: the Lance of Air, Seven of Ships, Five of Ores, reversed-the Whirlwind, the Warfleet and the Iron Key transformed into a lock. The lock wound through a chain and the chain grew from the belly of a dank, swaying ship-not an anchor chain, but a galley chain from keel to ankle, from ankle to wrist, from wrist to oar. The air reeked of drugged wine and echoed with a whip's crack.

It was too late. Illyra Saw slaves' faces, one clearly, the rest wrapped in fog, and heard-as was the way with her gift-Jimny speak out his own name. She separated herself from the Seeing and sought words to blunt the despair her answer must contain.

"Another card," she heard herself whisper. "Seek beneath the Whirl- wind."

The suvesh, the ordinary non-S'danzo folk of the world, might not know any of the Seeing rituals but they knew the way things were sup- posed to go after they'd put their coin in a seeress's palm-and any deviation was certain to mean bad news. Illyra's visitor was sobbing openly as she reached for the first pile.

Two-not one-cards slipped free: the light-and-dark tunnel of the Three of Flames and the dark-faced portrait of the Lord of the Earth. Illyra absorbed them both and grew no wiser.

"He's been taken onto a boat," she said slowly, gathering the now lifeless chips of vellum into a single stack. "His leaving was not of his choosing," she continued, putting a high gloss over his enslavement be- fore adding, without much conviction, "nor will he choose the time or manner of his return." Illyra could not bring herself to say that the best Jimny would likely get out of his future was a grave under the soil rather than the waves.

"Is there no hope? There must be something I can do. Something, anything. Which temple should I go to? Which gods should I pray to?"

Illyra shook her head, then spoke as a woman rather than a seeress. "There is always hope-but hope doesn't come from a handful of S'danzo cards."

Her visitor shuffled awkwardly to her feet. Illyra confirmed her suspi- cion that she was a few months shy of giving birth and poorer than Suyan had been when they'd found her.

"Take back your coin."

"Will it change things?"

"No, but it will buy you today's food and tomorrow's, too."