As they talked, Mother tended Sunbright's hurts, sealing the deep cuts, smoothing the lesser. The barbarian gnawed strips of raw fish to fuel the healing.
Sunbright marvelled at the clever uses of magic, but Mother warned, "Yes, but, see, magic is the empire's downfall. They use it for everything, and no one thing can solve all problems. But I'm tired and would rest." She creaked upright, dragged her hood around her head, and patted Knucklebones's blanket into place.
"One more question, please," Sunbright begged. "Whence comes the fresh air?"
"Oh, that. Rolon!" The skinny boy pricked up his ears. "Show our guest where the air comes from. He should find that interesting."
The lad waved a hand toward the end of the tunnel, and Sunbright picked his way over the uneven floor to follow. The boy skipped like a goat from rock to rock, sometimes in pitch blackness. Sunbright plodded after him, slipping and banging his knees often, and his head occasionally.
"What spells do you know?" Sunbright asked the boy.
"Eh? Oh, not many. Healing, mostly. And I'm learning to talk to animals."
"That's not much. I know catfeet, and color, smokepuff, mouse, tangle. Lots of spells. Knucklebones knows 'em all, though."
"I'm glad. You must need them." He swore as he skidded on a slippery rock and barked his shin.
"Are you a good fighter?" the boy asked.
Sunbright smiled at that, said, "I haven't been killed yet."
"Good. We need a good fighter. There's things down here like to kill us."
"Oh? What things?"
Sunbright found that curious. Mother hadn't hinted of any dangers.
"Uh…" the boy hesitated at a taboo topic. "Never mind. You come from down on the ground?"
"Yes."
Sunbright didn't press about the danger, but marked a mental slate to ask more later.
By now, there were no more pipes or tubes or man-made structures, only broken rocks. Oddly, the tunnel grew larger the farther they went.
"How long you been in the city?"
"Just a few days."
"So you don't know anything about how to live here?"
"No. That's why I need a guide. Someone like you."
"Don't worry, then. I can show you everything there is in Karsus."
"Wonderful."
Suddenly the barbarian realized he could see Rolon's silhouette, then his features. The breeze was fresher in his face. Ahead was daylight.
"Here we go," said the boy.
Turning a corner, they saw white light reflected off gray rock. It came from a huge hole in the floor of the tunnel. That confused Sunbright, for he'd been expecting a hole above.
"Better crawl," warned Rolon. "This is scary."
The boy dropped to his knees, then his belly, and wriggled to the lip of the hole. Wondering, Sunbright crept alongside, his guts in a knot. He'd finally figured it out.
Sneaking his nose past the rocky lip, he looked down into open air, to the ground a mile below. From this dizzying height, he could see green and gold rolling hills and distant slate-blue mountains. Edging the hills were crooked stone fences marking fields, and a trout pond. Then, between him and the ground, he saw a gray hawk's back. The high-flying bird was between them and the earth. High winds whirling into the cave gusted in his face and made his eyes water.
Sunbright groaned involuntarily. He'd known in a vague way he was on an inverted floating mountain, but to actually see it was the stuff of nightmares.
Suddenly he had a driving need to get back to the ground. The urge was so strong, for a second he pictured himself leaping up, diving through the hole, falling, falling, falling…
Stomach twisting, Sunbright rolled over to eclipse the sight. He clung to rock with both hands. Something on the ceiling caught his attention.
"Oh!"
"What?" the boy asked, looking up.
Sunbright pointed to long, shallow scratches in the smooth stone above. "This was a bear cave when the mountain was upright. Those are claw marks."
The boy peered, then looked back over the edge. "You live down there?"
Sunbright rolled, looked again. The idea of a bear cave, a familiar, homey image, helped anchor him, cheered him. "I did," he said. "Though not here exactly, and not in this time. But yes."
"You get eaten by bears down there, I heard."
"No," Sunbright chuckled. "At least, not many do. It's a fine place. I'll take you there someday."
"You will?" The boy's voice was a pipe of excitement.
Sunbright was surprised himself, but he meant it. "Yes," he said. "Living in the air, under a poisoned city, is no life for a boy, or anyone. It's too far from the natural order of things, the way the gods laid out our lives. I have no idea what, Rolon, but we must do something. Your lives here are too fragile. A good start would be to get down there.
"But to do that," he muttered, "I'd need Candlemas…"
When the two returned, Knucklebones was waiting. With a nod of her head, she steered Sunbright back down the tunnel and Rolon away.
Out of Rolon's earshot, she told the barbarian, "We need to talk."
"Very well."
Sunbright waited patiently, and for some reason, this irritated her. Her single dark eye flashed as she demanded, "Can you fight that well all the time?"
In answer, he extended both arms, showed her scars beyond counting. "I've gained these and lived to tell it."
"Can you steal? Thieve? Find things without getting caught?"
Honest, he shook his head and told her, "I know naught about thieving. In my homeland, we gather the supplies we need. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes a struggle, but no, we've no need to steal anything. But I can learn."
She puffed. "What are you trained in, besides brawling?"
Sunbright scratched a scar idly. Knucklebones had illuminated stripes along her wrists for light, but their ghostly glow did little to light their faces. "To tell the truth, I was training to be a shaman."
"A what?"
"Oh," Sunbright fumbled for words. "Um. A healer among my people, but more than that. A warrior, but more a prophet, a seer, a reader of portents. Dreams are very important, for they teach us-"
She cut him off with a wave of her hand and said, "Why was your training interrupted? Did you rebel against your teacher?"
"What? Oh, no," he said. Now he fiddled with his hands, jamming his thumbs in his belt. "You learn on your own by embarking on a spirit quest. But I lost the ability to learn along the way."
"How?"
"I was sucked dry by a-" He stopped and looked around uneasily. This tunnel could match the Underdark, and be just as haunted. "-by a thing that sucks spirits. I lived, but there's, uh, a hole in my soul. It's a wound that won't close."
Like the ache in his heart for the lost Greenwillow.
"Just what we need," snipped the woman. "A big booby with holes in his guts and probably his head. Well, well let you stay until Ox feels better. After that, just remember I give the orders, and you better hop to."
"Agreed," said Sunbright solemnly. "May I ask you a question?"
Immediately suspicious, she snapped, "What?"
"How long have you lived in these tunnels?"
"Since before I can remember. I'm a foundling. Do you know what that is?"
The shaman-to-be ignored the sarcasm. "Where did you get that knife? It looks elven."
"It is, I'm told. It came with me, inherited since forever."
And without another word, she stalked off down the tunnel to the homestead.
Sunbright was left talking to himself in the dark. "Another thing I forgot to add. Shamans are teachers. But you need to have the student listen in order to explain something…"