Si'Wren heard a gentle swish of the tent veil behind her, and turning,
smiled as she watched Sorpiala enter in all her finery. Sorpiala was
holding something close to her breast, an object as long as her
forearm, folded up in a swatch of natural burlap. The undyed cloth was
the color of cow's milk. It was apparently a rather heavy burden from
the way she moved, as she approached Si'Wren and Nelatha and sought to
unfold the cover to show it to them both. Within was an exquisitely
carved jade goddess with sapphire eyes, still enshrouded in several
layers of semi-translucent, gauzy veils.
She started to hand it to Si'Wren, then hesitated, and seemed to make a
sudden decision as she turned sharply at the last and held it out in a
most abrupt fashion to Nelatha instead, saying, "My arms grow weary;
hold this for a moment will you, Nelatha?"
What happened next was over almost in the blink of an eye, but frozen
forever in the mind of Si'Wren.
The goddess seemed to be almost in Nelatha's outstretched hands, when
somehow Sorpiala's retracted hands seemed to catch at the gauze and
jerk it back, and as it fell, Nelatha was left clutching only the loose
edges of the silken folds.
With a dull clunk the goddess thumped heavily on the hard dirt surface
of the tent floor and broke clean in half.
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