Robert Asprin - Aftermath

"Fix it!" she demanded as she began a run across the room.

Ribbons trailed from the robe's seams and edges, imitating the poison- ous Beynit vipers that dwelt with the older female members of the Beysa's intimate family-

"Cha-to-s-tu!" Vanda shouted the child's full name as the impending catastrophe came closer.

Emerald and ruby silk serpentined around the child's legs. Cha-bos lurched forward, unaware at first that she was no longer in control other unbalanced burden. She shrieked as she tumbled forward, becoming a confused mass of cloth and child. The nursery was frozen and quiet when her motion ceased. For a moment Illyra and Vanda believed no harm had been done, then a wail of heartrending terror erupted from the tangled embroidery.

Vanda reached her first, fairly shouting her reassurances as she sepa- rated Cha-bos from the cosa. A splinter as long as the child's finger protruded from her forearm. (The floors, this high up in the palace, were constructed of wooden planking that had seen better days.) Chabostu, second daughter of Shupansea and witness to all that had driven her mother into exile in Sanctuary, was transfixed by the sight of her own blood. Her whole body stared in the rigid Beysib way; her only move- ment came during her spasmodic gasps between screams.

Vanda could not relax the child's arm and when she yanked the splin- ter free the blood followed in bright red spurts.

"Dear Shipri preserve me," the nursemaid intoned as Cha-bos's wide- open eyes went completely white. "Hold her!"

The child was thrust into Illyra's unwilling arms as Vanda shouted for the palace guards and crawled toward the unmended clothing to tear a compress. Illyra rocked back on her heels and went almost as rigid as Cha-bos herself as the warm blood trickled along her fingers.

This was no ordinary child-no ordinary blood. That was foul and potent venom gathering in the crevice between her thumb and forefinger. Illyra gulped, shuddered, and nearly fainted as the fluid streamed over her wrist and out of sight beneath her cuff. There was nothing she wanted to do more than heave the little girl across the room and get as far from her as mortally possible. But Vanda was back, ripping strips of cloth with her teeth, and the corridor resounded with approaching guards.

Illyra could do nothing but contain her revulsion ^as Vanda tended the wound and Cha-bos twitched and shuddered in her arms. The nursery shimmered with surreal absurdity: what manner of contagion could pos- sibly take root in a child whose very blood was poison? Then the visions came.

She was in the Beysib Empire, Seeing a nightmare world with a child's eyes. Giants stormed from living shadows with red-dripping steel in their hands. Cold, unyielding hands held her from behind and made the world go wild as they moved her from the familiar to the horrible.

A face swam before her: a face half her mother and half hard, grimac- ing giant-and the other part, the part that was not her mother, was in control. But mostly there was blood as the last fortress loyal to Shupan- sea fell to their enemies and the noblest individuals of the empire scram- bled for their lives like lowiy peasants.

Illyra, whose childish memory held scenes no less graphic, shared Chabostu's terror-and an unhealable outrage that not one of those gi- ants who habitually controlled her world took notice of her. Worse, her mother, Shupansea, seemed herself to have been reduced to gibbering.

In the starkly judgmental mind of young Cha-bos, Shupansea had usurped the attention and comforting that belonged to her. Cha-bos was unable to comprehend this inversion of the universe and so had trans- formed it into something she could understand: She had never felt like this before and she'd never seen so much blood before, so blood must cause the feeling. Must lead to the feeling inevitably.

And blood became the ultimate terror in her world.

Vanda worked furiously to cleanse and conceal the child's wound, well aware of the child's progressive fears if not of their cause. Though the guards had been assured that the injury was neither serious nor the result of any malfeasance, they raised a racket in the nearby corridors-primar- ily designed to prove to Shupansea (who had also been summoned) that they were diligent in their duties. Illyra watched the commotion from a greater distance. She had freed herself from the child's visions, thereby insulating herself somewhat from her own fear of the poisonous fluids still staining her arm. She had wisely resisted returning completely to the world of the frantic nursery.

The seeress remained detached from her surroundings until Shupansea crossed the threshold with Prince Kadakithis and a dozen courtiers in her wake. The Beysa dropped gracefully to her knees and attempted to take her daughter into her arms. Chabostu would have none of it and fought like a little demon to avoid her mother's attention.

"Your Serenity ... ?" Vanda interjected cautiously, cocking a finger ever so slightly to the bandage.

Knowing what would happen if the wound bled again, Shupansea withdrew her arms. "It has been very difficult for her," she explained softly and quickly to Illyra, speaking like any mother who had been shamed or rejected by her offspring rather than as the de facto ruler of Sanctuary-

Illyra, though she was the mother of a probable god, had no idea how to speak to one who was personally both goddess and queen. She cast a furtive glance toward Vanda whose nod, she assumed, meant she should treat Shupansea with the same calculated familiarity she accorded her paying visitors. "Children have their own minds," she said with a trace of a smile.

The Beysa had the good manners, not to stare, but her pet viper chose that moment to rustle through her undergarments and poke its jewel- colored head above her collar. It tasted the air, revealing its crimson maw and ivory fangs, then, while the women held motionless, it lowered itself onto Illyra's sleeve.

"Don't move," Shupansea cautioned unnecessarily.

The immense NO remained imprisoned until the beymt investigated the clotted blood on Illyra's sleeve with its darting tongue. Any thoughts of instant death were insignificant compared to the reality of the serpent's touch. With a stifled gasp, Illyra propelled herself out of the circle, fling- ing the serpent and the child in opposite directions.

Cha-bos cried, the snake disappeared, and Illyra was surrounded by a mixed cohort of palace guards. Rankan, Ilsigi, and Beysib by the look of them. they were united by the steadiness with which they kept their well- sharpened spears pointed at her throat.

The guards saw their duty; no one would blame them for not following procedure when the child of an avatar of one goddess was bounced on the floor by the mother of another. For once Sanctuary proved itself a place of law and due process. Not even the protests of the prince and the Beysa combined could free the S'danzo from the ordeal of reporting to the watch commander.

"There's nothing to worry about," the prince assured Illyra as he joined the bristling circle escorting her from the nursery. (Shupansea remained behind, watching her daughter and looking for her snake.) "It's just a formality. Sign your name a few times and it will all be over."

This brought little comfort to the seeress who signed her name with an X like almost everyone else in Sanctuary.

It might have been different if Dubro had accompanied his wife-for he had begun life destined to be a scribe, not a blacksmith, and remem- bered what he now had little use for. Unfortunately Deibro wasn't even at the forge when a liveried palace servitor made his appearance there, and Suyan was awed into incoherence.

Not that Dubro had told her where he was going when he banked the fire and lowered the leather awning that separated the entrance to his workplace from the entrance to Illyra's. He could hardly admit to him- self that he was going to the back wall where the other S'danzo seeresses made camp, to ask their advice.