10 – Aftermath by Asprin, Robert

Illyra felt her mind carom wildly from one mote of knowledge to the next. Vanda was the daughter of Gilla and Lalo the Limner. Gilla had watched as her children embarked on the journey of adulthood, and had buried one who had not at the same time Illyra’s Lillis had been laid in her grave. Gilla had also nursed Illyra through the bleak weeks of their mutual mourning. Vanda would know what her mother knew, and Vanda knew children . . .

“I have a child,” Illyra began from somewhere deep in her heart.

Surprise and suspicion flickered across Vanda’s face. “Oh,” she sighed as a calm mask formed over her features. “How fortunate for you.” It was a voice to quiet the insane.

The S’danzo couldn’t help but feel the emotional distance Vanda hur- riedly created between them. But her despair was a throbbing, emotional aneurysm and, having finally found its voice, it would not be stilled. She described how Trevya had been literally dumped in her arms and how the child gave her no peace. She spoke of Trevya’s twisted leg and the psychic intrusions that had led to the construction of the baleen splint which, though it was straightening her bones, chafed her skin and made her cry for hours at a time.

Then Illyra told herself and Vanda about the changes that had come over Dubro since Trevya’s arrival. Come over him and between them as if children were interchangeable and a woman’s love flowed to any infant that squirmed in her arms. Not, of course, that it was just one child; there was also Suyan who was little more than a child herself. And the new apprentice who, though he still lived with his family in the town, ex- pected that she would care for him . . . about him.