It was too much for Candlemas. Once, when Karsus was striding down a corridor babbling about the success of the latest experiment, he blurted out, "By Jergal's Quill, Karsus, what is all this destruction for?"
The wild-haired mage stopped capering and stared with golden eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked blankly. "Oh, Candlemas! Yes, you were my special friend. Well, since it's you, I'll tell. But you must promise to keep it a secret."
The pudgy mage wanted to swear, but refrained. Fifteen mages trailed Karsus with an equal number within earshot. Beaming, the archwizard forgot about the oath of secrecy and stage-whispered, "This is something the city council has been toying with. You know them, always busy." Catering to Karsus's whims, Candlemas knew, but he leaned forward as if enthralled. "Anyway, and don't tell a soul, they're thinking of starting a war."
"War?"
"Shhh!" Karsus waggled a finger. "Don't be a blabbermouth! Yes. I asked them if we might use these war machines on the borders, but we're at peace with everyone, drat it, and our neighbors would take offense if we attacked. Soooo, we're going to stage a war between cities!
"Ioulaum has agreed to partake, and one other, as yet to be named. It shall be a battle between the first and greatest. The first city, that's Ioulaum, since he was the first to float one, and Karsus, which is the greatest city because it's named after me!"
Despite Karsus's shushing, the mages in the corridor were buzzing, and others leaned out of doors and windows for the news. Candlemas rubbed his scalp and found it sweaty.
"I don't think-"
"Oh, you don't need to!" Karsus cut him off. "All the city councilors agree with me. It will be great sport! And allow us to playtest our new weapons for when we do seek to invade a neighbor. Also, the councilors reckon it will distract the populace from the famine-keep them from starting food riots and other trouble!"
"Great sport." Candlemas kept his voice cool. "Except that people will die. Children will die."
"No, no, no. Not important people, no archwizards, just commoners! Though some of the noble sons want to test their prowess in battle, it's said. Instead of dueling in the streets, they can do it on the battlefield, once we have one. Anyway, everyone's very excited, and buying new clothes and weapons and medals, and getting ready to host war balls and celebrations! It'll be simply grand!"
"Grand," echoed Candlemas weakly. Karsus's entourage swept away, jabbering and laughing and making bets and plotting mischief.
How, the pudgy mage wondered, in the name of the gods could anyone think a war was fun? Hadn't they read any history, visited any ruins, heard stories of death and devastation? War was not a village football game, where you chose sides and donned costumes and fooled around until you were tired, then drank the night away. It was death and insanity.
But then, no one in the city was sane except him.
And Aquesita. With a pang, he wondered what she thought of this war nonsense. He couldn't know, for she refused to see him. He'd been turned away from her door by bodyguards, had his letters sent back unopened, even had flowers returned. All because he'd kissed a phantom girl. Or perhaps some other reason he didn't know. Old as he was, he was new to this love business.
Love and war, he thought grimly. Neither made sense.
Sunbright was dying.
He knew he was dying because he didn't care. Only people with a spark of life worried. Once past that barrier, the journey turned interesting, he found, for he was sinking into the earth. On the floor of the hut lay the burned, broken hulk of his body, and far below sank his spirit, moving on to a new life, or the next plane, or wherever.
Dimly, he wondered where. His people had many legends about death, all contradictory. That a spirit entered a nearby being just born, a musk ox, or a bluebell flower, or a baby; so the living, especially children, must be polite to any living thing, for it might be an ancestor. Or that one's spirit traveled to a distant mountaintop and joined the wind, blown around the world eternally to observe and occasionally visit, which explained ghosts. Or that one's spirit simply went to a spirit world to stalk spirit elk and spear spirit salmon. Sunbright had always fancied that last idea.
Instead, he sank. Idly, he watched roots pass by, then a mole, a rock, then yellow sand. Odd, but perhaps the spirit world was below, not above. Spirits could go anywhere, after all.
Too bad he had to leave Knucklebones alone, but then she was alive and so no concern to him. Certainly the living cared little for the dead. He wondered who he'd meet in the spirit world. Old friends? Enemies? His father, Sevenhaunt? That star-eyed woman of his dreams, whoever she was? Was she Mystryl?
Greenwillow? Perhaps so, if she were truly dead. Sunbright had never really believed she was, but now he might find out. Unless, of course, she weren't dead and he were, in which case he'd never find her.
That slowed his sinking. Perhaps he didn't want to leave life behind…
But something was happening around his feet.
The underworld or afterlife had begun to shine. A faint glow illuminated his toes (like Knucklebones's glowlight cantra), then his legs, then his whole body. What caused the glow?
It was greenish and deep, like the ocean when his tribe hunted seals in winter. An underground ocean? Was there such a thing? Why green? That was the color of nature magic, wasn't it? But why here? This part of the world had been saturated in heavy magic, a corrupt force rained down by Karsus in his mad experiments. Why the green Then he got it.
Every place had its own magic: forest magic, sea magic, sky magic, mountain magic. Candlemas had argued that all magic was the same, a simple force like fire that could be used for good or evil, or just its pure self, as fire could torture a man, or cook his food, or forge his tools.
This healthy forest had possessed its own magic, long ago, before corrupt heavy magic rained from the sky like black snow. But the forest magic hadn't vanished, or been consumed. It had simply been crushed deep into the soil by the heavier magic.
Hence this faint green ocean, like an underground reservoir. It had collected here and drawn more nature magic to itself, as streams ran to the ocean and became one.
So Candlemas was wrong, he thought. Too bad Sunbright would never be able to tell him.
But why had Sunbright been drawn to this spot? He was dead, or dying, beyond the need for magic. Besides, as a shaman he was a failure. He'd lost a good part of his soul to a wraith in the Underdark, and had never recovered it. So even when alive — Unless he were still alive, and only sending his spirit winging, flying out of his body to search for knowledge and portents, help and hope.
Astral projection, some called it. Dreamwalking. Spirit sending. Ghosting.
What was the knowledge his spirit sought? That the flood of corrupt magic was only temporary? That it would eventually peter out, and the natural magic return, though it might take decades? Scant comfort to the cruel mutants caught in its web, or their undead leader who clung to a mockery of life.
Or was the knowledge for him?
In a way, Sunbright reflected, the hole in his soul left by the wraith was like the corruption in the forest. The gap in his spirit kept him from realizing his true potential, as the corrupted magic blocked the nature magic.
So, could this forest magic help him? Was that why his spirit sank here? Or had it been steered here by a benevolent god or goddess? Wasn't this the sort of miracle visited by Mystryl, Mother of All Magic, who controlled the Weave that formed the base of all magics?
If that were the case, and he belonged here, then he should use the magic as intended. As shamans used it, for healing, for reading the future, for protecting the tribe and the balance of life between people and plants and animals, wind and water and weather, between sky and soil.