the mother. She broke the big rules and paid the big price. But wouldn’t we all
like to break the big rules? She paid with her life-but we remember her here,”
Moonflower pressed a beefy hand over her heart. “You go and bring her back, now.
I’ll stay with this one.” She stepped aside and pushed Walegrin back into the
night. She probably wasn’t very strong, but at her weight she didn’t need to be.
Alone in the bazaar, Walegrin remembered what Illyra had said about the S’danzo.
They were two societies, men and women, and their purposes were not the same. It
had been the S’danzo men who had dismembered his father-and S’danzo men who had
cursed him. But it was the S’danzo women who had the power, the sight-
Walegrin made his way slowly up the hills behind Sanctuary to Balustrus’ villa.
His energy went into finding the ground with each foot. He’d need food and sleep
before he could face Illyra’s problems again. It occured to him that he wouldn’t
be able to leave until she was found, one way or the other.
A woman’s weeping caught his attention. His half-asleep thoughts converged
around Illyra as a shape rose out of the darkness and threw itself around him.
By the smell it wasn’t Illyra. He pushed Cythen aside and studied her in
dawnlight.
The jagged cut along the girl’s face had been re-opened sometime in the night.
Fresh clots of blood had twisted her expression into something worthy of
Balustrus. Tears and sweat made vertical lines across her dirty skin. Walegrin’s
first impulse was to toss her headfirst into the brush. Instead he took her hand