Seylalha shouted desperate orders as Vanda and the nursemaids scuttled
frantically to move children and bedding up to the playroom by the roof garden
while above the Palace the sky rumbled echoes of the storm-children’s rage.
Gyskouras picked up the vase that had been the gift of a royal ambassador and
threw it; Arton grabbed a wooden horse and flung it back at him. Lightnings
clashed outside and sizzled down the sides of buildings fortunately too
watersoaked to burn.
Conflicting winds made a chaos of the orderly banks of cloud, shook the Beysib
ships at anchor, plucked off roof tiles and uprooted trees, and folk who had
watched the rise of the waters with a nagging dread now trembled with active
fear.
And Roxane, sensing the chaos in the heavens, laughed, for this was more than
she had hoped for. She changed her strategy, using her control of the elementals
to hold back the waters, forcing them to spread sideways into the town.
Gilla could feel the force of the winds even through the witch’s wards. Roxane
was still secluded, but though her minions knew no particulars, they reflected
her emotions, and the growing atmosphere of malicious glee terrified Gilla. What
was happening in Sanctuary?
She bent over a crate into which she had dumped half a dinner service-worth of
broken crockery which she had found behind the bags of mouldering roots in the
pantry and shoved it across the room. What this house needed was not a broom,
but a shovel! Still bent over, she glanced around her.
The two house snakes were curled contentedly in their baskets before the stove.