‘What sort of dream? Are you afraid that I will leave you or the bazaar now that
I have no work to do?’
‘No,’ she said quickly, masking the fresh anxiety his words produced. ‘Besides,
I have found an anvil for us.’
‘In your dream with the death and sacrifice?’
‘Death and sacrifice are keys the dream-spirit gave me. Now I must take the time
to understand them.’
Dubro stepped back from her. He was not S’danzo, and though bazaar-folk, he was
not comfortable around their traditions or their gifts. When Illyra spoke of
‘seeing’ Or ‘knowing’, he would draw away from her. He sat, quiet and sullen, in
a chair pulled into the corner most distant from her S’danzo paraphernalia.
She stared at the black-velvet covering other table until well past the dawn and
the start of a gentle rain. Dubro placed a shell with a sweetmeat in it before
her. She nodded, smiled, and ate it, but did not say anything. The smith had
already turned away two patrons when Illyra finished her meditation.
‘Are you finished, now, Lyra?’ he asked, his distrust of S’danzo ways not
overshadowing his concern for her.
‘I think so.’
‘No more death and sacrifice?’
She nodded and began to relate the tale of the previous day’s events. Dubro
listened quietly until she reached the part about Lythande.
‘In my home? Within these walls?’ he demanded.
‘I saw him, but I don’t know how he got in here. The rope was untouched.’
‘No!’ Dubro exclaimed, beginning to pace like a caged animal. ‘No, I want none
of this. I will not have magicians and sorcerers in my home!’