Finally, Sunbright knew what to do.
Reaching slowly, so as not to startle her, he gathered Knucklebones in his arms, pulled her against his sore chest. The top of her head barely came to his breastbone, and he bent his head to kiss it, as one might a child. Her hair was dusty and cobwebby from threading these dim tunnels, but still she smelled sweet, like a whiff of wild-flowers, though she'd probably never seen a wildflower in her life. Greenwillow had smelled the same, Sunbright thought with a pang. Maybe all women did.
"Don't cry, seal pup," he comforted the sobbing thief with his mother's words. Knucklebones felt like a leather sack of bones in his brawny arms, her back hard, her ribs prominent. When he stroked her shoulder, he felt old, raddled scars like an alley cat's. But her skin between the scars was soft. "Don't fret, wildflower. I'll protect you."
For the briefest moment, she clung to him like someone buffeted by a hurricane. Her sobs quieted.
Then abruptly she crooked her elbows, slammed him twice in the gut, hard enough to rock him.
"Don't touch me! And don't protect me! I don't need anyone!"
Snarling, she turned on her heel and stalked off. Sunbright wiped his forehead and sighed. Then hurried after her. If he lost sight of this crazy woman, he might never find his way out. Out of this mad city of mad people.
Chapter 10
Sunbright dreamt.
Everywhere was a blue-white glare like the heart of a star, as if he'd been sucked into the white void where the evil arcanist Sysquemalyn had once hurled him. The glare made his eyes smart like ice glint, but the flare was everywhere. When he closed his eyes, whiteness throbbed through his eyelids.
Then, there was one dark spot. Silhouetted against the glare walked a figure, pacing like a panther stalking across a glacier. The figure was female, rounded top and bottom, nipped at the waist. At first the shape looked tall, and he thought it was Greenwillow finally returning. But as it closed, the figure shortened to no taller than Knucklebones. Then the ghostly being was close enough to touch, and she was of middling size, like neither woman. So who was she?
Her skin was white, shaded blue by the star-glow, but her hair was dark, as was Greenwillow's and Knucklebones's. Did this woman too boast elven blood? She wore a white robe with long blue points stitched on it, as if wrapped in the light of an arctic star. And her eyes…
They burned with a cold fire like northern lights, all blue-white, so bright Sunbright saw every eyelash in stark relief. Who was this star-eyed woman? And why did she seek him?
She didn't speak, but gestured with a white hand outlined with a blue-white glow, as if a cold halo enfolded her, as he had enfolded Knucklebones in his arms. The hand pointed, and Sunbright's eyes followed, no longer smarting from the eldritch glare.
High in the sky floated a city. The island enclave that was Karsus. He knew it by the jumbled dice aspect of the mage's mansions on the highest hill. In this toy city, a star-shaped building glowed too, but Sunbright didn't know it.
The sky picture reeled, and he stared down from above while his stomach lurched. People like ants ran through the streets in mindless frenzy while a huge round fountain boiled red. Another flicker, and he saw a portion of Karsus's hill explode. Dirt cascaded in an avalanche, and rocks big as houses careened down to crush human and building alike. And from the gap, like maggots from rotten meat, tumbled skulls in the hundreds like a child's marbles. Another flicker, and he was blinded by long, narrow, flapping wings. White storks, he realized, fluttering from their nests and niches high above the city, driven out by some magical blast, so the homeless birds squawked and keened and wheeled like seagulls while the people pointed and stared.
Then the people were gone, the streets empty, deserted as they'd been on the butcher shop raid. And again, Sunbright felt a pang of loneliness, an ache that sank to his bones and marrow, as if he struggled, trapped under an icecap, hunting a hole in the ice, until seawater filled his lungs, chilled him through, and sank him into the depths.
Brain awhirl, Sunbright tossed and fought, groaned in his sleep. Who was she? What did she want?
The star woman showed him more, and he understood less and less as the pictures flashed by. He squinted at her white face, under her halo of dark hair, past her brilliant eyes. First her face was elongated and pointed, like Greenwillow's. Then softer, rounded, but crisscrossed with scars like Knucklebones. Then she resembled both, then neither.
Reaching, Sunbright touched her cheek. And the skin split away, seared by a blue-white flare that made him flinch. But not before he saw the skin dissolve to leave only the stark white bone of a staring skull.
"Wake up! Wake up, you great oaf. You're dreaming."
Sunbright sat up so fast he smacked his forehead on an outthrust rock. Gasping with pain, cursing, he flapped his elbows to ward off the probing hands. "I'm awake! Leave me be."
"Vale of Faerun, but you make a lot of noise! How's an old woman to get her beauty rest?"
Holding his aching head in his hands, Sunbright peered about. The rookery homestead was quiet. The fire was out and only a thin trickle of smoke stained the air. A single stripe of light illuminated the craggy room. Sunbright was huddled in a niche, bundled in a rat's nest of fabric, rugs, and rags. He was wringing with sweat, still dizzy and confused by the mysterious woman and the apocalyptic dream. What did it mean? Death and destruction? For whom? Why were three women melded in his mind? Were these prophecies or simple mind mush?
A shaman, he knew, lived and died by dreams. Visions of the future and the past, the nearby, far off, and unknown. Or sometimes simply nothing. But as a shaman-to-be, Sunbright couldn't interpret them, especially when they occurred in a future city he knew nothing about. But then, that was the curse of dreams, wasn't it? A mind could see them, but never understand until too late.
Shuddering, he climbed from his nest and stumbled to the fire, prodded the coals, blew, and fed splinters of wood scavenged from above. Mother sat beside him, huddled in a blanket over her thick dark robe with its many folds.
The two stared at the fire awhile, then she said, "Knucklebones has had a hard life. We all have, but hers was worse than most. Children of mixed blood are shunned in the empire. Elves hated. No one knows how she came here. Born of woman, to be sure, but abandoned right off, must have been. She just grew out of the dust somehow, refusing to die, like a weed between flagstones, pushing and battering a place clear to gain sun."
Sunbright nodded but said nothing. Knucklebones at least had a home. He knew where he was from, but couldn't go back. Not yet. Not until he was a full shaman, and there was little chance of becoming such in a cursed city of flying stone, or of finding Greenwillow, if she lived. Three of them then, lost souls, each alone, yet somehow linked. The dreamy, star-eyed woman would know, but she hadn't talked. And the dream city had crumbled. Knucklebones was the exact opposite of Greenwillow, short and scruffy, not tall and glamorous, but they interchanged in his dreams.
Sighing, the lonely man stared at the flames and tried to quiet his mind.
It was days later that Karsus sailed into his maze of workshops, shouting orders, asking questions, and demanding news, never explaining where he'd been. Nor did anyone ask.
Candlemas heard Karsus was back and sought him out. He'd followed Lady Aquesita's advice, simply taken over an unused workshop, cleared a space on a bench, and settled to work. It wasn't long before he found himself in the same situation he'd had in Castle Delia, only worse.