It was still early enough in the day that she might venture outside their home.Everyone in the bazaar knew she was scarce more than a girl, and there would beno city-folk wandering about for another hour, at least.

'Haakon! Over here!' She called from under theCanopy where Dubro kept his tools.'Two ... no, three, please.'

He lifted three of the sticky treats on to a shell that she held out for them,accepting her copper coin with a smile. In an hour's time, Haakon would wantfive of the same coin for such a purchase, but the bazaar-folk sold the best toeach other for less.

She ate one, but offered the other two to Dubro. She would have kissed him, butthe smith shrank back from public affection, preferring privacy for all thingswhich pass between a man and woman. He smiled and accepted them wordlessly. Thebig man seldom spoke; words came slowly to him. He mended the metal wares of thebazaar-folk, improving many as he did so. He had protected Illyra since she'dbeen an orphaned child wandering the stalls, turned out by her own people forthe irredeemable crime of being a half-caste. Bright-eyed, quick-tongued Illyraspoke for him now whenever anything needed to be said, and in turn, he stilltook care of her.

The sweetmeats gone, Dubro returned to the fire, lifting up a barrel hoop he hadleft there to heat. Illyra watched with never-sated interest as he laid it onthe anvil to pound it back into a true circle for Jofan, the wine-seller. Themallet fell, but instead of the clear, ringing sound of metal on metal, therewas a hollow clang. The horn of the anvil fell into the dirt.

Even Haakon was wide-eyed with silent surprise. Dubro's anvil had been in thebazaar since ... since Dubro's grandfather for certain, and perhaps longer - noone could remember before that. The smith's face darkened to the colour of thecooling iron. Illyra placed her hands over his.

'We'll get it fixed. We'll take it up to the Court of Anns this afternoon. I'llborrow Moonflower's ass-and-cart ...'

'No!' Dubro exploded with one tortured word, shook loose her hands, and staredat the broken piece of his livelihood.

'Can't fix an anvil that's broken like that one,' Haakon explained softly toher. 'It'll only be as strong as the seam.'

'Then we'll get a new one,' she responded, mindful of Dubro's bleak face and herown certain knowledge that no one else in the bazaar possessed an anvil to sell.

'There hasn't been a new anvil in Sanctuary since before Ranke closed down thesea-trade with Ilsig. You'd need four camels and a year to get a mountain-castanvil like that one into the bazaar - if you had the gold.'

A single tear smeared through the kohl. She and Dubro were well off by thestandards of the bazaar. They had ample copper coins for Haakon's sweetmeats andfresh fish three times a week, but a pitifully small hoard of gold with which toconvince the caravan merchants to bring an anvil from distant Ranke.

'We've got to have an anvil!' She exclaimed to the unlistening gods, since Dubroand Haakon were already aware of the problem.

Dubro kicked dirt over his fire and strode away from the small forge.

'Watch him for me, Haakon. He's never been like this.'

'I'll watch him - but it will be your problem tonight when he comes home.'

A few of the city-folk were already milling in the aisles of the bazaar; it washigh time to hide in her room. Never before in her five years of working theS'danzo trade within the bazaar had she faced a day when Dubro did not lend hiscalm presence to the stream of patrons. He controlled their coming and going.Without him, she did not know who was waiting, or how to discourage a patron whohad questions - but no money. She sat in the incense-heavy darkness waiting andbrooding.

Moonflower. She would go to Moonflower, not for the old woman's broken-downcart, but for advice. The old woman had never shunned her the way the otherS'danzo had. But Moonflower wouldn't know about fixing anvils, and what couldshe add to the message so clearly conveyed by the Face of Chaos? Besides,Moonflower's richest patrons arrived early in the day to catch her best'vibrations'. The old woman would not appreciate a poor relation taking up herpatrons' valuable time.

No patrons of her own yet, either. Perhaps the weather had turned bad. Perhaps,seeing the forge empty, they assumed that the inner chamber was empty also.Illyra dared not step outside to find out.

She shuffled and handled the deck of fortune-telling cards, acquiring a measureof self-control from their worn surfaces. Palming the bottom card, Illyra laidit face-up on the black velvet.

'Five of Ships,' she whispered.

The card was a stylized scene of five small fishing boats, each with its netcast into the water. Tradition said that the answer to her question was in thecard. Her gift would let her find it -if she could sort out the many questionsfloating in her thoughts.

'Illyra, the fortune-teller?'

Illyra's reverie was interrupted by her first patron before she had gained asatisfactory focus in the card. This first woman had problems with her manylovers, but her reading was spoiled by another patron stepping through the doorat the wrong time. This second patron's reading was disrupted by the fish-smokerlooking for Dubro. The day was everything the Face of Chaos had promised.

The few readings which were not disrupted reflected her own despair more thanthe patron's. Dubro had not returned, and she was startled by any sound from theoutside canopy. Her patrons sensed the confusion and were unsatisfied with herperformance, Some refused to pay. An older, more experienced S'danzo would knowhow to handle these things, but Illyra only shrank back in frustration. She tieda frayed rope across the entrance to her fortune-telling room to discourageanyone from seeking her advice.

'Madame Illyra?'

An unfamiliar woman's voice called from outside, undaunted by the rope.

'I'm not seeing anyone this afternoon. Come back tomorrow.'

'I can't wait until tomorrow.'

They all say that, Illyra thought. Everyone else always knows that they are themost important person I see and that their questions are the most complex. Butthey are all very much the same. Let the woman come back.

The stranger could be heard hesitating beyond the rope. Illyra heard the soundof rustling cloth - possibly silk - as the woman finally turned away. The soundjarred the S'danzo to alertness. Silken skirts meant wealth. A flash of visionilluminated Illyra's mind - this was a patron she could not let go elsewhere.

'If you can't wait, I'll see you now,' she yelled.

'You will?'

Illyra untied the rope and lifted the hanging cloth to let the woman enter. Shehad surrounded herself with a shapeless, plain shawl; her face was veiled andshadowed by a corner of the shawl wound around her head. The stranger wascertainly not someone who came to the S'danzo of the bazaar often. Illyra retiedthe rope after seating her patron on one side of the velvet-covered table.

A woman of means who wishes to be mysterious. That shawl might be plain, but itis too good for someone as poor as she pretends to be. She wears silk beneathit, and smells of roses, though she has tried to remove perfumes. No doubt shehas gold, not silver or copper.

'Would you not be more comfortable removing your shawl? It is quite warm inhere,' Illyra said, after studying the woman.

'I'd prefer not to.'

A difficult one, Illyra thought.

The woman's hand emerged from the shawl to drop three old Ilsig gold coins on tothe velvet. The hand was white, smooth, and youthful. The Ilsig coins were rarenow that the Rankan empire controlled Sanctuary. The woman and her questionswere a welcome relief from Illyra's own thoughts.