But then he stopped thinking. She was before him, stopping and forcing him to stop. And when she spoke her voice was odd and flat as her eyes, emotionless as her face. She spoke as if she said words she had only learned-the words, not their meaning-like a girl who had leamt her part for some temple rite on a god day.
Dark brown eyes like garnets and just as lacking in softness, she said, "You are invited to dinner tomorrow night. You will be in no danger. Wear this clothing. The place is known to you. It is long unpeopled, but its water is a silver pool. The silver is your own, Son of the Shadow, Chosen ofllsig. Come, tomorrow even as the sun sets, .to the aerie of the great ruler of the air."
Without blinking, she pressed into his hands that which she carried, and turned and ran in a butterfly flurry of yellow skirts and streaming blue-black hair. Hanse stood, stupidly staring after her until she rounded a corner and was gone down another street. Then he looked down at his gift. All in shades of blue and some green, with a flash of yellow-gold embroidery. A fine tunic, and a cloak considerably better than good. Good clothing!
Clothing so fine existed in Sanctuary, of course. No S'danzo girl had any of it though, nor did a youth who gained his living by stealth.
Whence, then, came this soft fabric?
From the same place those words came from, he thought, for they were not Mignureal's words. And again the phrases Son of the Shadow and Chosen of Ilsig! A shiver claimed Hanse then, and possessed him for a long moment.
" 'Day to you, Hanse-ah! I see you had a good night, 's more like it, hum?" And that acquaintance went on smiling, for what else could he think? Where else could Hanse have gained such a bundle of finery, save through a bit of climbing and breaking-and-entering on yesternight?
Hanse stood directing thoughts to his feet, and at last they began to respond. He walked on, trying to make his bundle as small as he could, lest some member of the City Watch espy him, or a Hell-Hound from the palace, or someone nosy enough to consider turning him in or blabbing it about that Hanse had stolen good soft, decorated clothing sufficient to pay his room's rent for the next twelvemonth.
Hanse had received coded messages beforetimes, and had devised the meaning. He did so this time. He knew where he was invited. (Invited? Bidden! Summoned!) Away up on the craggy hill now called Eaglebeak was a long untenanted manse. It lay partially in ruins, that magnificent home its long-ago builder and tenant had called Eaglenest. Nearby, beyond scattered fallen columns and tumbled stones, rotted planking marked a well. Down in that well languished two leathern bags. Saddlebags. Hanse knew they were there, for he had put them there, in a way, though it had not been his intent.
He hoped they were there, for they contained a great deal of silver coins, and a few that were gold.
They were the ransom of the Rankan symbol of power, the staff called Savankh, which a thief called Shadowspawn had stolen from the palace of the Prince Governor. The P-G knew they were there, but had agreed that they would remain Hanse's property. Hanse had, after all, uncovered a spy and a plot and saved Prince Kadakithis's face, if not his life.
But for a horse and a dead man named Bourne, Hanse would have had all that gleaming fortune in his possession, rather than "banked" down in the earth, atop a hill, in a narrow well that was like to have been the death of him!
He was to go to Eaglebeak, then. To dine in dark and deserted aerie: Eaglenest! So he quietly told Moonflower. For aye, once again he betook himself to her in quest of information and advice. (Mignureal was not about when he approached, and neither he nor Moonflower was sorry.)
He sat before her now in his nondescript tunic the color of a field mouse, his feet in dusty buskins, knees up. And only three blades showing on him. He sat on the ground and she on her stool. The fact that she overflowed all around was disguised by her voluminous skirts; Moonflower wore red and green and ochre and blue and another shade of green. Across her lap lay his new clothing.
She fondled and sniffed and tasted it, closed her eyes and drew it through her dimple-backed hands. And all the while she was moving her lavender-tinted lips. The vastness of her bosom was almost still as her breathing slowed, her heartbeat slowed, her muttering slowed and she slid away from herself, a great gross kitten at her divining.
No charlatan, this mother of eleven who had raised nine, but one with the Gift, the power. Moonflower Saw.
Now she Saw for Hanse as she had before, and he was not all that happy with it. Nor was she, even in trance.
"I See you, darling boy, all nobly turned out in this finery, and I See a great light hosting y-oh! Oh, oh Hanse ... it is, it is He! Here is Hanse, aye, and here is He, Himself-Us, god of gods! And I See... ah! Hmp. I like not what else I See, for it is Mignue, my Mignue, with you and the Lord of Lords."
He nodded, frowning. That was her pet name for her daughter. He accepted that somehow Mignureal was a part of this... whatever this was.
"Ah! Here is Hanse with a sword, and wielding it well, well ... for a god, Hanse, soldierly Hanse I See... for a god, against a god!"
Against a god. Father Ils, what means this all? What would you make of me? And he had an idea: "Who... who gave me the sword?"
"A bas-no, no, a foster son. Ah-a stepson. Yes. A s-"
"And who gave me the clothing? Is that Mignureal?"
"Mignue? No, oh no, she is a good g-ah. I see her. Eshi! It is Eshi Herself who has given you this clothing, Han-" And she shuddered of a sudden, and sagged, and her eyes came alive to stare into his. "Hanse? Did I See? Was it of value?"
He nodded. He was unable to look other than grim. "You Saw, 0 Passionflower. This time I must owe you, beyond the binding coin." (Which she had already dropped into that warm crevasse she called her Treasure Chest.)
Eshi, Hanse thought. Eshi!
A jealous and passionate god, Ils created all the world, and from his bodily wastes He peopled it. The gods He created from his two extra toes, and the eons passed and the first-created challenged Ils. This was Gunder, and he lost. He was hurled to the earth. His daughter Shipri, though, was thrice-fair, and her the great Lord Ils spared-and couched. By him Shipri became All-mother; of him she bore Shils, and Anen, and Thufir, and the twins Shalpa and Eshi, their first daughter, and another; the god no one spoke of. Now Anen was called firstborn, for jealous, passionate Ils sinned; in rage he slew his firstborn son, Shils.
Eshi. Much spoken of She was, and prayed to as well, but it was little reverence she gained. Everyone knew that she was a sensuous beauty who sought out and had her way with each of her brothers, and indeed sought to bring to couch even her father. In that She failed; even Ils was not that passionate, and one sin for a god was enough.
Eshi was fond of jewellery, and so gemworkers took a manifestation of her as patron. She was known to love love, and thus lovers, of course. Cows were special to her, and so were cats. Her sign was the liver, which any child learned early was the seat of love and its younger sibling, infatuation. Eshi!
Aye, Hanse thought. She loves jewellery and thus the ring; cats are sacred to her and thus the stone: the eye of a cat. Somehow it was pleasant thus to find some small comfort of logic in all this that clearly had naught to do with logic. Gods! He was involved with the very gods!
Mignureal came along just as he was departing. She asked about the handsome clothing he carried! Obviously she had never seen it before, and Hanse blinked. His eyes swerved in her mother's direction. She was staring at her daughter.
"Into the house, Mignue," she said, with uncommon sharpness. "See to the preparation of the leeks and yeni-sprouts your father fetched home for dinner."