destroyed that night- some of its magic was directed against the children, some
went into a woman who came to me with death in her eyes, some of it is still
falling to the ground like rain, but all of it was evil, Torchholder. It had
been damaged when the demons hid it in the fires of creation. Our legends have
played us false. Men can no longer live without gods.
“The other women have felt the falling but I’ve felt something else in the
shadows. Torchholder-there’s another stone in Sanctuary and it is worse than the
first one.”
Molin took the goblet from her trembling fingers and held her hands between his
own. “What you call spirit stones are, in fact, the Nisibisi Globes of Power,
the talismans of their witches and wizards. The one that was destroyed was the
source of most, if not all, of the witch Roxane’s power. She was evil, it is
true, and the demons will have their sport with her, I’m sure. But the globes
themselves are only pottery artifacts. The S’danzo needn’t worry about the
second one, whatever its previous owners might have been.” He stopped short of
telling her that Randal’s globe still rested, enveloped by nothingness, on the
table behind him.
Illyra shook her head until her hood fell back and her dark, curling hair fell
freely around her shoulders. “It is a spirit stone and the demons have tampered
with it,” she insisted. “It is not safe for men to possess it.”
“It could be destroyed, like the other one.”
“No.” She shrank back as if he had struck her. “Not destroyed-Sanctuary, the