dribbled precious water around it when the sun burned in the sky, caring for itas she cared for her children, and through war and wizard weather it hadsurvived. But in the bitter spring of the Emperor's visit to Sanctuary the treestood barren, with scarcely a leaflet on its twisted branches, and no blooms.

Lalo paused beside it on his way to the palace, wishing that he could breathelife into the tree as he had once breathed life into the work of his hands. Butwith the destruction of the Nisibisi Globes of Power everyone's magic seemed tohave become as strengthless as Master Ahdio's cheap ale; Lalo dared not test hisown. And even at his most powerful, he had only transformed symbols, not alreadyliving things.

He did not know if he could create anything anymore.

The building behind him was as silent as it had been in the dreadful days whenGilla was Roxane's captive. Latilla and Alfi were with Vanda at the palace.Wedemir was enviously watching the Stepsons maneuver themselves back into shapefor campaign, and Gilla herself was at the Aphrodisia House, watching overIllyra's slow recovery from the wound she had taken in the riots when herdaughter died.

If Illyra's body had been all that needed healing it would not have been so bad,Lalo thought. But it seemed to him that both women were nursing grief like achild. A pang twisted in his own belly at the memory-his middle son, Ganner, hadbeen struck down, outside the goldsmith's shop where he was apprenticed, in thatsame climax of disorder that had killed Illyra's girl.

The town was quiet now, but it was the peace of exhaustion-more like a coma thanthe sleep of healing, and who could tell whether Sanctuary, or any of itspeople, would awaken to life again?

Lalo shivered and squinted at the sky. Even if it was useless, he ought to get