Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [161]
Her eyes widened. The S’danzo didn’t approve of his language, or his intentions, or maybe the box had moved.
“I can guess,” she said.
“Guess? Do you people guess?” Cauvin asked, and wished that he’d bitten off his tongue instead.
“Many times,” Elemi admitted. “The Sight is dimmest at arm’s length. It’s easier to see what might happen next year in the Imperial cities than what awaits me this afternoon.”
Cauvin guessed that Elemi had told him something significant, but he couldn’t froggin’ unravel the clue. “I could open the box for you,” he offered. “If you don’t want to touch it. If it’s cursed or something—I don’t care. I wouldn’t notice another froggin’ curse.”
Elemi smiled a sad, weary smile. “Open it, if you wish. You’re here now; the damage is done.”
When Cauvin pressed his thumbs on the carved leaves and pried them apart, the lock opened with a metallic ping. He lifted the lid—a tighter fit than the lid of Sinjon’s box. The Torch had long ago sealed this treasure in wax-soaked silk. Cauvin sought Elemi’s eyes. She nodded, and he unsheathed his boot knife.
Within the waxed silk Cauvin found a layer of rust-colored flakes that powdered and released a scent of summer and roses into the room as he touched them. Elemi’s hands flew to her mouth, not quite stifling a sob, but she nodded again, and Cauvin unwound silk so sheer beneath the outer waxed layer that he could see the S’danzo’s tear-streaked face through several thicknesses of it. She lowered herself into a high-backed wooden chair.
When he’d finished with the silk, Cauvin fanned a deck of painted cards between his hands. “I’ve seen these before.”
“Do you always open another man’s gifts before you give them away?”
“No. I saw these in a dream—something like a dream. They were laid out on a table—”
The S’danzo sighed. “Illyra. She Saw the world, but not her own fate …”
“I didn’t dream of a woman. I dreamt of a man—the artist who painted these. He told me to leave Sanctuary, that no one would blame me.”
Cauvin’s statement didn’t get a reaction from the distracted S’danzo. Idly, he arrayed the cards around the empty box. The pictures were unmistakable, though their colors were not so bright as they’d been in Mother Shipri’s garden.
Elemi stretched a trembling finger toward one of the simpler designs—a bush bearing five flowers, each a different kind and color—but stopped a handspan short of touching it. “Between life and fate, there can be no blame.” She folded her fingers into fists and held them against her breast. froggin’ sure, Cauvin didn’t know if the S’danzo was talking to herself or to him. “We thought these were lost; those who believed they existed at all. Illyra’s cards. So powerful … so useless.”
Elemi’s eyes shone with reflected candlelight. She didn’t blink, and whatever she watched, it wasn’t in the room. Cauvin had heard how the Hand led a mob against the last of Sanctuary’s S’danzo. Compared to what came later, the seeresses had died quickly, painlessly.
“You need to watch out for one another, since you can’t see what lies ahead for yourselves.” Cauvin thought that was a reasonable conclusion, but as with so many things he thought were reasonable, all it earned him was a you’ve-stepped-in-shite stare.
“Illyra didn’t need the Sight to see the fate awaiting her. She knew what she was and what she did. Half-breed that she was, Illyra treated with priests and gods. It takes no Sight to scry what happens to a S’danzo who does that.”
“Half-breed S’danzo,” Cauvin corrected.
Effortlessly and passionately, Elemi nailed Cauvin to the floor with a stare. He’d thought she was frail and timid, and couldn’t have been more wrong.
“When Illyra’s S‘danzo half met its fate, it took her other half with it, and everyone around her for good measure. If she thought it be otherwise, then she was the sheep-shite fool. S’danzo don’t treat with priests or gods.”
“The world needs fools and sheep-shite,” Cauvin replied, wondering how