She was dozing, almost oblivious to the ache in her shoulder and the clamor ofthe mid-moming bazaar around her, when a heavy shadow fell over the forge. Thestorms came this way: darkness, then wind and rain. Pushing herself to her feet,she told the apprentice to tie the wooden shutters closed before even looking upat the sky. The Bazaar became deathly quiet as Illyra, and everyone else, lookedat the cloudless sky. Nothing could be heard but the frantic calling of greatflocks of birds seeking shelter. Evening stars appeared on the horizon, then thewhite-gold disk of the sun could be seen in the sky-with a black disk slidingover it. Someone nearby shouted that the sun itself was being devoured. TheBazaar, and the city beyond it, which had endured more of natural and unnaturaldisaster in the past weeks than it cared to remember, succumbed to widespreadpanic.

Illyra clutched the children to her and sat transfixed as the sun shrank to aglistening crescent of light. Then, just as it seemed it would vanish forever, ahalo of white fire appeared around the black sun. It was too much-in a singleunfeeling movement she dragged Lillis and the apprentice inside, where theycowered on the floor beyond Alton's cradle. The darkness became a storm thatswept water and mud through the open doorway. Gusts of wind lifted the awning,beat it against the stones of the forge, then bore it away. Lillis and theapprentice whimpered in tenor while Illyra tried to set an example of courageshe did not feel.

The storm had begun to die down when Illyra realized her son was crying aloud.Letting the apprentice hold onto Lillis, she crawled to the cradle and lookedinto it. Alton had thrown off his blankets and wailed mightily, but his tearswere as dark as the storm itself. She gathered him into her arms and wasassaulted by something which was not Sight and yet which showed her the raveninggyskourem, fueled by the ambitions and sacrifices of men like Zip, pushing asideAlton's mortal spirit, making him and themselves together into the Gyskouras ofthe new Stormgod. There was Sight as well, or at least empathy. She felt herson's terror and knew that in mercy and love she should take his life before thegyskourem did, but there was something beyond that: a glimmer of hope andsacrifice that might yet succeed. Ignoring the pleas and screams of theapprentice, she wound her shawl around herself and Arton and went through thedoorway into the storm.

The wind carried more smoke than rain as Illyra made her way through theoverturned carts and stalls. Damage and injury were everywhere, but in the chaosno one had the time to notice a lone woman picking her way carefully toward thegates with a bundle in her arms. Fewer dwellings had been leveled in the town,but great plumes of smoke were rising in some quarters. Gangs ran through thestreets, some to rescue, while others went to wrest fortune from the misfortunesof their peers. Illyra thought of Dubro, somewhere in the tangle of streetshimself, but she had no time to search for him as she continued on her way tothe palace.

It was not like the last time she had made her way boldly through the streets ofSanctuary. Her path was not etched in the silver clarity of Sight, and she couldnot have confronted the palace guards with the Sight of their destinies. But thepalace, well-lit by lightning from the storm, was the largest building inSanctuary, and the guards, busy consoling aristocrats and arresting looters, hadbetter things to do.

Within the palace walls Illyra moved with the frantic courtiers, searching forsomething she could not name. Her shoulder throbbed from the strain of carryingArton. The sense that was not quite Sight led her to a half-enclosed cloister.There, sheltered from the wind, rain, and casual glances of the palaceresidents, she crumpled into a comer. Tears were flowing down her cheeks whenexhaustion mercifully closed her eyes and sent her to sleep.

"Barbarians!"

Illyra awoke to the echo of a shrill yell. The storm had passed, leaving in itswake brilliant blue skies and only a faint trace of smoke in the air. Hershelter had become the scene of a private quarrel between a pair she could seequite well but who could not, thanks to the patterns of bright sun andcontrasting shadows, see into her comer. It was just as well: the woman wasBeysib by her accent, though she seemed dressed in a modest Rankan gown, and theman was Prince Kadakithis himself. Illyra clutched Arton tightly to her, almostglad that he was once again motionless and silent.

"Barbarians! Did we not open our court while the storm still raged to hear theircomplaints? Did we not personally assure them that the sun has vanished beforeand always returns? And that the storms, whatever exactly is causing them, havenothing to do with the sun? Haven't we let them move their filthy belongingsinto the very courtyard of this palace?

"And did I not drape myself in great wads of cloth and pile my hair on top of myhead so that they might think of me as their proper Empress?"

Illyra gulped as Kittycat shook his head. "Shu-sea, I fear you misunderstood mylord Molin."

The Beysa Shupansea, Avatar of Mother Bey and Absolute, if currently exiled.Empress of the Ancient Beysib Empire, turned her imperial back on the Prince;and Illyra, despite her awe and fear, was inclined to agree with his judgment.True, her hair and dress were Rankan-aristocrat beyond reproach, but she hadpainted her face with Beysib cosmetics, and the translucent, shimmering greenfrom hairline to neckline only emphasized her Beysibness.

"Your high priest makes entirely too many points," Shupansea complained, tossingher head. A curl sprang free from her elaborate coiffure, then another, then,with a flash of rich emerald, a snake eased down her neck and under the shoulderof her dress. Sighing, the Beysa tried to entice the serpent onto her forearm.

"His point, Shu-sea, was simply that as long as the towns-folk of Sanctuarythink of the Beysin and, most especially, of you, as invaders, as people totallyunlike themselves ... well, it makes a sort of unity among them that neverreally was there before. All their violence is being directed at your peoplerather than at each other," the Prince explained. He reached out to touch theBeysa, but the emerald snake hissed at him. He pulled back his hand and suckedbriefly on his fingertips.

Shupansea let the snake slide into a flowering bush. "Molin this... Molin that.You and he talk as if you love these barbarians. Ki-thus, they don't love youand your relatives any more than they love me and mine. Your own Imperial Thronehas been usurped, and the agents of the very man who sits on it in your placeare sulking through the alleys of this horrible little city. No, Ki-thus, thetime has come not to show them how benevolent we are-but how merciless. Theyhave pushed us to the very edge. They won't push us any farther."

"But, Shu-sea," the Prince said, taking her hands in his own now that the snakewas gone. "That is precisely what Molin has been trying to tell you. We havebeen pushed to the very edge; we weren't very far from it to begin with. YourBurek clan is here in exile-hoping Divine Mother Bey will finish off yourusurping cousin. I don't even have that hope. All we have is Sanctuary-but wehave to convince Sanctuary that there's some reason to have us. Talk to yourstoryteller if you won't listen to me or Molin. Every day that passes-everystorm, every murder, every broken flowerpot-just makes it that much harder forus."

The Beysa leaned on the Prince's shoulder, and for a moment both were silent.Their lives, the minutiae of survival for a prince or empress, were beyondIllyra's comprehension, but not the weariness in the Beysa's shoulder; she hadfelt that herself. Or the anxiety in the Prince's face- the look of a man whoknows he is not quite up to the tasks he knows he must perform; that lookcrossed the face of everyone sooner or later.