Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [162]
Elemi looked away. “I don’t. Lord Torchholder was the last man I expected. I should have turned around and walked through the gates when I learned he was still alive. There’s precious little in Sanctuary that old man doesn’t uncover sooner or later, and there’s no use probing his secrets. If he weren’t a man, we’d say he had the Sight. I’ve known he’d send someone after me. I’ve waited for three years—every day dreading a knock on my door. Now you’re here … with Illyra’s cards. My sisters would kill for the chance to spread those cards across their tables.”
“Better not let them know you’ve got them. The Torch said you answer questions. I’ve got one—”
Before Cauvin could say another word, Elemi swept up the painted cards, showing none of her previous reluctance. Without shuffling them, she snapped them down one after another, making a serpentine pattern until there were more cards faceup on the table than remained in her hand. She came to one card—he couldn’t see the image—that gave her pause. Wrinkling her lips, she drummed the stiffened parchment against her teeth.
“I could ask my question, that might help,” Cauvin suggested.
“Suvesh! You think it’s questions and answers!” She grinned and said—“Cauvin. Your name is Cauvin. Cauvin, I was born with the True Sight. I see the truth as stars shining on the sea of time. Tomorrow’s truth, yesterday’s, and today’s, they’re all the same and all revealed to the True Sight. No questions or answers, tricks or slights. You’re here—” The S’danzo snapped her troublesome card down atop another card in the middle of the serpent pattern. “That tells me all I need to know.”
Cauvin shook his head. “You’ll have to do better than that. There’s a madwoman on my street who says the same thing and tells fortunes by blowing ashes onto bowl of rainwater—” He imitated Batty Dol’s singsong: “You’ll meet a stranger. Your life is changing. A challenge awaits—”
“You have,” Elemi said, looking at the cards. “It already has. The challenge lies ahead, very soon. You came here with a woman on your mind. Her name is Leorin. She loves you as she loves no other man—that will not change. The Mother of Chaos has wound a web of darkness around her—”
Cauvin clenched his teeth a moment then confessed, “Around us both. We were orphans together in the palace. People don’t talk about it much, but you’ve probably heard—”
The S’danzo silenced him with a glower. She studied the cards on the table. “I See that you have known each other since early childhood and that you have suffered much together—suffering is the bond of your love, isn’t it? But I See no darkness or shadows where you stand. It is all around the woman, Leorin. You are the only light that falls upon her.”
Cauvin felt a sickening twinge of guilt. He should never have suspected Leorin, he should have helped her. “The Torch—”
“Is a man,” Elemi interrupted. “Worse, he’s a priest, blinded by gods and power. The S’danzo have no gods, no power. No divine intervention stands between us and the truth. We watch. We wait. Do you think we have no better use for our Sight than to answer your suvesh questions?”
Cauvin didn’t know what suvesh meant but, shite for sure, it wasn’t a compliment.
“We had a home, once, a blessed land of tall grass and flowers. Then She came. Our land withered. Worship me, She commanded, and all that was yours will be returned. Some bent their knees and became Her servants but the rest, the S’danzo, vowed that we would live without a land and without a goddess until we could undo what She had done. At the end of time, we will take back what was given to us at the dawn.”
The S‘danzo leaned toward Cauvin, teeth bared, the froggin’ image of ferocity and vengeance.
“You told