solid stone buildings outlined in the moonlight.
It was a manor house of an estate long since abandoned. Illyra recognized it
from her dream, but her panic and terror had been sated in the headlong run from
the faceless corpse. An interior door hung open on rusty hinges that creaked
when she pushed the door. She was unsurprised to see an anvil sitting on a plain
wooden box in the centre of a courtyard that her instincts told her was not
entirely deserted.
‘I’m only prolonging it now. The anvil, and the rest; they are there for me.’
She stepped into the courtyard. Nothing happened. The anvil was solid and far
too heavy for her to lift.
‘You’ve come to collect your reward?’ a voice called.
‘Lythande?’ she whispered, waiting for the cadaverous magician to appear.
‘Lythande is elsewhere.’
A hooded man stepped into the moonlight.
‘What has happened? Where is Marilla? Her family?’
The man gestured to his right. Illyra followed his movement and saw the
tumbledown headstones of an old graveyard.
‘But…?’
‘The priests of Ils seek to provoke the new gods. They created the homunculus,
disguising it to appear as a young woman to an untrained observer. Had it been
interred in the foundation of the new temple, it would have created a disruptive
weakness. The anger of Savankala and Sabellia would reach across the desert.
That is, of course, exactly what the priests of Ils wanted.
‘We magicians – and even you gifted S’danzo – do not welcome the meddling feuds
of gods and their priests. They tamper with the delicate balances of fate. Our