Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [62]
“Illyra! Illyra!”
Molin hobbled over with the torch. He thought he recognized the face of one of Dubro’s journeymen through the blood and swelling. The man might have stood beside Dubro, fighting the mob to the end. More likely, Walegrin judged right, and he’d led the mob against his master.
“No use,” Molin whispered, tugging on Walegrin’s arm. “It’s done.”
“Illyra!” Walegrin’s speech had been reduced to a single, anguished word.
The tiny home where Illyra and Dubro had lived all these years stood unburnt, but the shutters had been broken, and the door had been wrenched from its hinges. Lengths of curtain cloth in Illyra’s bright, beloved colors flapped outward, into the smoke. Molin knew what he would see when he thrust the torch through the gaping doorway, but he did it all the same and blocked Walegrin’s view and entrance with his body.
They’d killed her. Slit her throat and plunged a knife at her heart where it remained. By firelight the metal glinted redder than the stains across her breasts.
“She’s been dead since sunset,” Molin assured Illyra’s brother. “At least since sunset.” Although it was hard to mark the time of death in winter. He’d learned that as a young man fighting the northern witches.
“Let me pass.”
Walegrin laid hands on Molin’s shoulders. He tried to shove the older man completely out of the ruined home, but Molin sidestepped. He wedged himself into a corner and wondered—point-lessly—how Dubro had fit into his own home. The flames from his torch licked the flimsy roof. Painfully, Molin got down on his knees. Walegrin knelt, too, misunderstanding Molin’s gesture, waiting for a prayer.
“Into Your mighty hands, O Vashanka, I consign our sister’s soul. Lift her up to paradise.”
The Tenslayer was not by any measure a woman’s god, but He’d take care of Illyra, if He knew what was good for Him.
Walegrin found his sister’s hand buried in the folds of her manylayered skirt. A rectangle of stiff paper slipped from her fingers before he lifted them to his lips. In charity—not wanting to witness a warrior’s tears—Molin looked away … at the painted paper.
It was a sign Molin had seen many times upturned on the cloth-covered table where Illyra scryed the future. A single face formed from the shards of many other faces, all of them anguished and deformed. She called it the Face of Chaos, and he almost fed it to the torch, then thought better of the sacrifice. He collected the rest of Illyra’s scrying cards and, though Molin had been careful as he searched, a flame leapt from the torch to the curtain cloth.
Walegrin snarled like a wolf when Molin shoved him at the door.
“Let it burn,” Molin countered. “She’s past pain or caring. Let it all burn.”
Bec laid down the white quill. He whispered, “Grandfather?” but wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear an answer or not. The old man had been talking all morning, and while keeping up with him, Bec had covered half a sheet of parchment with the tiniest script he could manage. Then Grandfather had started talking about a woman named Illyra (Bec had asked how it was spelled). He’d begun to mumble and wouldn’t speak clearly when Bec asked him to. Furzy feathers! The old man didn’t even seem to hear him ask the question.
And now he was crying! Tears were streaming down his cheeks, same as they streamed down Batty Dol’s cheeks when she got going about the Troubles. Or Momma’s cheeks, when she told him about the fine, fine house with twenty rooms that used to stand in the middle of the stoneyard.
Bec had never seen a man cry before.
“Grandfather?” he asked, his loudest effort yet. “Grandfather, are you dying? Should I get Cauvin?”
Bec stood up, but he’d been sitting crosswise too long, and his legs had gone to sleep. He hopped noisily, foot to foot, waiting for the burning and prickling to end. That finally got Grandfather’s attention.
“Stop dancing, boy!” the old man snapped. “Take up your quill. Where were we? Read back the last words you’ve written.”
The prickling was terrible when Bec folded