Not even Dubro's comforting arms could protect Illyra from the nightmare visionsthat stalked her sleep once they had returned to their home. He shook off hisdrunkenness to watch over her as she tossed and fretted on the sleeping linens.Each time he thought she had settled into a calm sleep, the dreams would startagain. Illyra would awaken sweating and incoherent from fear. She would notdescribe her dreams to him when he asked. He began to suspect that somethingworse than the murder had taken place in his absence, though their home showedno sign of attack or struggle.

Illyra did try to voice her fears to him at each waking interlude, but themixture of visions and emotions found no expression in her voice. Within hermind, each re-dreaming of the nightmare brought her closer to a single imagewhich both collected her problems and eliminated them. The first rays of afeeble dawn had broken through the fog when she had the final syntheticexperience of the dream.

She saw herself at a place the dream-spirit said was the estate called Land'sEnd. The estate had been long abandoned, with only an anvil chained to apedestal in the centre of a starlit courtyard to show that it had beeninhabited. Illyra broke the chain easily and lifted the anvil as if it had beenpaper. Clouds rushed in as she walked away and a moaning wind began to blowdust-devils around her. She hurried towards the doorway where Dubro waited forhis gift.

The steel cracked before she had travelled half the distance, and the anvilcrumbled completely as she transferred it to him. Rain began to fall, washingaway Dubro's face to reveal Lythande's cruel, mocking smile. The magician struckher with the card marked with the Face of Chaos. And she died, only to findherself captive within her body which was being carried by unseen hands to avast pit. The dissonant music of priestly chants and cymbals surrounded her.Within the dream, Illyra opened her dead eyes to see a large block of stonedescending into the pit over her.

'I'm already dead!' She screamed, struggling to free her arms and legs frominvisible bindings. 'I can't be sacrificed - I'm already dead!' -

Her arms came free. She nailed wildly. The walls of the pit were glassy andwithout hand-holds. The lowered stone touched her head. She shrieked as the lifeleft her body for a second time. Her body released her spirit, and she rose upthrough the stone, waking as she did.

'It was a dream,' Illyra said before Dubro could ask.

The solution was safe in her mind now. The dream would not return. But it waslike a reading with the cards. In order to understand what the dream-spirit hadgiven her, she would have to meditate upon it.

'You said something of death and sacrifice,' Dubro said, un-mollified by hersuddenly calmed face.

'It was a dream.'

'What sort of dream? Are you afraid that I will leave you or the bazaar now thatI have no work to do?'

'No,' she said quickly, masking the fresh anxiety his words produced. 'Besides,I have found an anvil for us.'

'In your dream with the death and sacrifice?'

'Death and sacrifice are keys the dream-spirit gave me. Now I must take the timeto understand them.'

Dubro stepped back from her. He was not S'danzo, and though bazaar-folk, he wasnot comfortable around their traditions or their gifts. When Illyra spoke of'seeing' Or 'knowing', he would draw away from her. He sat, quiet and sullen, ina chair pulled into the corner most distant from her S'danzo paraphernalia.

She stared at the black-velvet covering other table until well past the dawn andthe start of a gentle rain. Dubro placed a shell with a sweetmeat in it beforeher. She nodded, smiled, and ate it, but did not say anything. The smith hadalready turned away two patrons when Illyra finished her meditation.

'Are you finished, now, Lyra?' he asked, his distrust of S'danzo ways notovershadowing his concern for her.

'I think so.'

'No more death and sacrifice?'

She nodded and began to relate the tale of the previous day's events. Dubrolistened quietly until she reached the part about Lythande.

'In my home? Within these walls?' he demanded.

'I saw him, but I don't know how he got in here. The rope was untouched.'

'No!' Dubro exclaimed, beginning to pace like a caged animal. 'No, I want noneof this. I will not have magicians and sorcerers in my home!'

'You weren't here, and I did not invite him in.' Illyra's dark eyes flashed athim as she spoke. 'And he'll come back again if I don't do these things, so hearme out.'

'No, just tell me what we must do to keep him away.'

Illyra dug her fingernails into the palm of one hand hidden in the folds of herskirts.

'We will have to - to stop the consecration of the cornerstone of the new templefor the Rankan gods.'

'"Gods", Lyra, you would not meddle with the gods? Is this the meaning you foundin "death and sacrifice"?'

'It is also the reason Lythande was here last night.'

'But, Lyra ...'

She shook her head, and he was quiet.

'He won't ask me what I plan to do', she thought as he tied the rope across thedoor and followed her towards the city. 'As long as everything is in my head,I'm certain everything is possible and that I will succeed. But if I spoke of itto anyone - even him - I would hear how little hope I have of stopping MolinTorch-holder or of changing Marilla's fate.'

In the dream, her already dead body had been offered to Sabellia and Savankala.Her morning's introspection had convinced her that she was to introduce a corpseinto Molin Torchholder's ceremonies. They passed the scene of the murder, butJubal's men had reclaimed their comrade. The only other source of dead men sheknew of was the governor's palace where executions were becoming a dailyoccurrence under the tightening grip of the Hell Hounds.

They passed by the huge charnel-house just beyond the bazaar gates. The rainheld the death smells close by the half-timbered building. Could Sabellia andSavankala be appeased with the mangled bones and fat of a butchered cow?Hesitantly she mounted the raised wooden walk over the red-brown effluvia of thebuilding.

'What do the Rankan gods want from this place?' Dubro asked before setting footon the walkway.

'A substitute for the one already chosen.'

A man emerged from a side door pushing a sloshing barrel which he dumped intothe slow-moving stream. Shapeless red lumps flowed under the walkway between thetwo bazaar-folk. Illyra swayed on her feet.

'Even the gods of Ranke would not be fooled by these.' Dubro lowered his- headtowards the now-ebbing stream. 'At least offer them the death of an honest manofllsig.'

He held out a hand to steady her as she stepped back on the street, then led theway past the Serpentine to the governor's palace. Three men hung limply from thegallows in the rain, their crimes and names inscribed on placards tied aroundtheir necks. Neither Illyra nor Dubro had mastered the arcane mysteries ofscript.

'Which one is most like the one you need?' Dubro asked.

'She should be my size, but blonde.' Illyra explained while looking at the twostrapping men and one grandfatherly figure hanging in front of them.

Dubro shrugged and approached the stern-faced Hell Hound standing guard at thefoot of the gallows.

'Father,' he grunted, pointing at the elderly corpse.

'It's the law - to be hung by the neck until sundown. You'll have to come backthen.'

'Long walk home. He's dead now - why wait?'

'There is law in Sanctuary now, peon, Rankan law. It will be respected withoutexception.'