Enlibar, in the ruins of the armoury there. We searched three days and found
only this. But, if anyone’s got a greater piece he knows not what he has, else
there’d be an army massing somewhere that’d have the Empire quaking.’
Illyra’s eyes widened. ‘All from a piece of cheap red clay?’
‘Not the pottery, my dear sister. The armourer put the formula for Enlibar steel
on a clay tablet and had a wizard spell the glaze to conceal it. I sensed the
spell, but I cannot break it.’
‘But this might only be a small piece.’ Illyra ran her finger along the
fragment’s worn edges. ‘Maybe not even a vital part.’
‘Your S’danzo gifts are heedless of time, are they not?’
‘Well, yes – the past and future are clear to us.’
‘Then you should be able to scry back to when the glaze was applied and glimpse
the entire tablet.’
Illyra shifted uneasily. ‘Yes, perhaps, I could glimpse it but, Walegrin, I
don’t “read”,’ she shrugged and grinned with the wine.
Walegrin frowned, considering the near-perfect irony of the curse’s functioning.
No doubt Illyra could, would, see the complete tablet and be unable to tell him
what was on it.
‘Your cards, they have writing on them.’ He pointed at the runic verses hoping
that she could read runes but not ordinary script.
She shrugged again. ‘I use the pictures and my gifts. My cards are not S’danzo
work.’ She seemed to apologize for the deck’s origin, turning the pile face down
to hide the offensive ink trails. ‘S’danzo are artists. We paint pictures in
fate.’ She squirted herself another mouthful of wine.