The sudden empathy freed her Sight from whatever had held it in bondage just asthe Beysa wrested free of the Prince.

"So-I will wear all this cloth, and my women as well- and we will all look likeclan-Setmur fisherwomen. This is not the gentle land of Bey; I have been cold tothe bone since we arrived. But, Ki-thus, I will not take you as my husband. I amthe Beysa. My consort is No-Amit, the Corn-King, and his blood must besacrificed to the land. Even if your violent barbarians would accept your deathat my hands, I will not take a man I love as No-Amit only to cut his heart fromhis breast twelve months later."

"Not No-Amit-Koro-Amit, Storm-King. Like you said: you're not in the gentlelands of Bey anymore. Nothing has to be the way it has always been. Sanctuarymay not be much, but if it's ours no one will question what we do with it.

"Besides, no matter what you think of what Molin says- you've seen that childdown in the temple. You've seen his eyes when he starts the storms, and you'veseen them when the storms that he hasn't started are rattling the rafters. Evenyour great-uncle Terrai Burek says we've got to make that child think he belongsto us and not to whatever else is raising the storms around here."

The Beysa nodded and sank onto a damp stone bench. She reached out, and thebeynit serpent began a spiraling climb up her arm. "I am the Avatar of Bey.Mother Bey is within me, guiding me; She is real for me, yet I am not like thatlittle boy. I hear him in my sleep and Bey, Herself, is disturbed. Always Shehas taken the conquered Corn gods-and, yes Stormgods into her bed, and alwaysShe has absorbed them into Herself.

"But this time we have not conquered the people of the Stormgod; the Stormgodwas conquered without us, and we do not know what will rise in his place. Beydoesn't know. If I must take a Koro-Amit to appease this new god, then it willbe the boy's true father: this Tempus Thales. I must believe that Mother Beywill take him to Her-and when it is over, I will still have you."

Both the Prince and Illyra blanched; the Prince for his own reasons, Illyrabecause the Sight revealed Vashanka, Tempus, and the child together in onetwisting, godlike apparition.

"Molin will kill me if he finds out that not only am I not that little demon'sfather but that Tempus is. And, Shu-sea, if half the stories of Tempus Thalesare true, when you cut out his heart he'll just grow a new one. I'd rather youcut my heart out than think of you bound to Tempus and his son. I never foresawwhat would happen when I sent Tempus to take my place at the Great Feast of TenSlaying-but I won't run away from it now."

Illyra Saw, however, both the truth of the Prince's confession and the holocaustwhich would follow Tempus's ravishment of Shupansea-if that Sight were allowedto happen. Visions of war and carnage gripped her, but the Sight showed asingle, silver path that led out of her comer.

"I can help you," she announced as she stepped into the sunlight.

The Beysa screamed, and the Prince, unmindful of the agitated serpent on herarm, pushed her behind him to confront Illyra alone. Calmly, patiently, and withthe certainty of Sight around her, Illyra told the Prince that they had metbefore-when he had taken Walegrin's oath and almost immediately given Walegrin'sgift, an Enlibar steel sword, to Tempus. Kadakithis, whether he truly rememberedIllyra or not, was sufficiently impressed with her display of S'danzo prowess totake Arton in his own arms and lead the way to Molin Torchholder as sherequested.

They found the priest not far from the nursery, giving orders to the frightenedwomen who were the child's nursemaids. He looked first at the Beysa and thePrince, then at Illyra, and finally at the bundle in Kadakithis's arms. Illyralooked at the huge black bird preening its wings above the doorway andremembered she had Seen something like this before, at the Aphrodisia House-justbefore she had left to find her half-brother, who worked for the priest-and hadforced herself to forget it.

"You have won," Illyra acknowledged. There were other parts of that vision aswell. "I cannot watch Sanctuary be destroyed. I will not see with my eyes what ISee in my heart. I should have given him to you before. He is dying now; it maybe too late...."

"I could have taken him," Molin reminded her gently. "I have neither Sight nor,at the moment, a god. Still, it did not seem right that I could help that childin there become what he must become if Sanctuary is to survive if I stole yourson from you. I had to believe that somehow you would understand and bring himto me. If I could still believe that, then I do not think it could be too late.Take your child in your arms again and come." He turned and ordered the door tothe nursery to be opened.

Chaos reigned in the nursery. Tom pillows lay everywhere. Feathers clung to thenursemaids, and the weary-looking woman who appeared to be the child's motherwas inspecting a deep-purple bruise on her arm. The child himself turned toglare at his visitors and discarded a half-empty pillow in favor of a shortwooden sword. He charged at Illyra.

"Gyskouras! Stop!" Molin thundered. The boy, and everyone else, obeyed. Thelittle sword clattered to the marble floor. "That is better. Gyskouras, this isIllyra, who has heard your crying." Though he held still, the boy met thepriest's eyes with a cold defiance no one else would have dared. "She hasbrought her son to be with you."

Illyra pulled the blankets back from her son's face, unsurprised that his eyeswere open. She kissed him, and thought he smiled at her, then she knelt down anallowed the children to see each other.

The child whom Molin had named Gyskouras had eyes which were truly frighteningwhen confronted face-to-face, but they softened when Arton smiled and reachedout with his hand to touch the other's face. The gyskourem were gone; even theshifting images of Vashanka and Tempus were gone-there were only Gyskouras andArton.

"Will you leave him here with me?" Gyskouras asked. "My mother will take care ofhim until my father gets here."

He took no notice of the Prince and, fortunately, for the moment Molin wastaking no notice of him. Illyra set Alton, already struggling from his blankets,onto the floor and stood up just in time for the room to contain an eruption ofa different sort, as Dubro, Walegrin, and a half a dozen Beysib guards squeezedthrough the doorway. But by then Gys-kouras was showing Arton how to hold thesword. The smith could accept, even if he could not wholly understand, that hisson belonged here now, and however painful and unpleasant the consequences mightbe, things were better than they might have been.