Bredon thought he glimpsed something in Geste's expression, something that indicated that the Trickster did not believe his own explanation, that he was worried, as if he thought something else, something more, was involved. Bredon could not imagine what else could be involved, but he could not find the nerve to ask directly, to admit he did not believe Geste. Instead, he poked around the edges of the subject.
“Do you think Lady Sunlight may be hurt?"
“She could be,” Geste admitted.
“Is it my fault? Would she have gotten involved if I hadn't tried to get into the Meadows?"
Geste glanced at him, then looked away again. “Oh, I wouldn't worry about that,” he said. “I doubt she paid any attention to you at all."
Bredon hardly found that flattering, but he let it slide as he pressed his inquiry.
“Could she be killed?” he asked. “Can a Power die?"
Geste laughed bitterly, then said, “Oh, we can die, all right, but it takes a lot to kill one of us. There isn't much on Denner's Wreck that could kill a Power except another Power, and even then it isn't easy."
“Do you think Thaddeus the Black might kill Lady Sunlight?"
Geste glanced at him again, his face unusually serious. “Not intentionally,” he answered. “Are you hungry?"
The abrupt change of subject caught Bredon by surprise. “Yes,” he said, realizing suddenly that he was indeed very hungry.
“Good; so am I,” Geste said. “Worrying always gives me an appetite. We'll be at my hold in a minute, but I'd rather not wait.” He reached out and began pulling foil packets and glittering crystal vials from the air and handing them to Bredon.
When Bredon's arms were full Geste settled down cross-legged on the platform. Bredon followed his example; they sat facing each other as they peeled open packets and popped the lids from vials, and both ate and drank heartily of Geste's strange and wonderful viands.
Chapter Ten
"The Skyler's job, of course, is to maintain the sky, to put fallen stars back in their places, to herd the clouds into rainstorms, to polish the sky dry after every storm. She cleans the clockwork that moves the sun across the heavens, paints the colors of the sunset, collects the stars each sunrise and then hangs them back up at dusk.
"It's a hard, lonely job, and the Skyler is always much too busy to spare any thought for the mortals below. She hasn't even got time to go to and from a home on the ground, so long ago she picked up an island from the sea and set it sailing in the sky, where we call it the Skyland. This makes her work much easier, since she can keep all the stars and clouds neatly stored away in compartments aboard the Skyland, ready when she needs them. Imagine what the bins and cupboards must look like, with the stars twinkling and the sunsets glowing softly, the clouds piled up everywhere, white and fluffy on top, grey and dripping below! What a wonderful sight it must be!
"Of course, it can be a bit startling for people on the ground to see that island hanging overhead, but it's nothing to be afraid of, just the Skyler at her work, keeping the heavens clean and beautiful for us all."
– from the tales of Atheron the Storyteller
The last crumbs fell from his clothes and vanished in mid-air as Geste stood and calmly stepped off the platform.
Bredon started, then reached out tentatively and discovered that the surrounding bubble had vanished. The air was still almost motionless, but he realized it no longer felt quite as dead and trapped. An unfamiliar scent reached him, a curious mixture of flowers and spice. They had landed somewhere, some place so dark that the stars did not show above them.
Then light sprang up on all sides in soft pastel colors, like the light of an early dawn, accompanied by soft, plaintive music.
“Welcome to my home,” Geste said, gesturing at the vast chamber that surrounded them. “Welcome to Arcade."
Bredon stared silently for several seconds.
The platform rested on the floor of a great hall, a dozen times bigger than the village feasting hall, bigger than the lounge he had seen at Autumn House. The ceiling was fifteen or twenty meters high, and the nearest wall more than a dozen meters away.
Both ceiling and wall were, for as far as he could see, of some white, porous substance, almost, but not quite, like bone. The walls curved over to become the ceiling, and were divided by vertical columns that looked not so much like pillars as like ribs, which continued up across onto the ceiling, where they became a web of elaborate tracery.
Green and blue-green vines criss-crossed the walls, and seemed to be quivering. To one side the walls were hidden by a grove of strange trees. Bredon marvelled, wondering how vines and trees could grow inside the chamber, where the sun and rain could not reach them.
These trees seemed to be doing just fine, but they were like none Bredon had ever seen. Their branches grew in symmetrical patterns, and their trunks were all a peculiar ashy grey color. The leaves were green on one side, like any other leaves, but their undersides were colored a thousand subtly different hues.
Some of the trees seemed to bear fruit, but whatever they produced was nearly hidden amid the foliage, so that Bredon could not make out its nature. The scent he had noticed upon arrival seemed to come from the fruit trees.
Small creatures peered down at him from the treetops, but whenever he looked at one directly it would take fright and vanish into the leaves, so that he could make out nothing of them except wide golden eyes and flashes of soft brown fur.
Bredon had seen nothing of any of this as they approached, since he and Geste had been enclosed in the protective bubble. He looked for an opening they could have entered by, but could find none. There were no doors, no windows, no visible openings of any sort in the white walls. Even the gaps between the trees appeared too narrow to allow the platform passage. For all he could see the platform had had to pass directly through the wall.
He saw no furniture, either. Except for the enchanted forest, the room was simply a huge, ornate, empty box. And he could not figure out where the soft, even light was coming from.
Geste was grinning at him, and Bredon remembered just whose home he was in-if it was really anyone's home. He stepped down from the platform, but moved with extreme caution, half-expecting to bang his shins against an invisible chair or table, or his nose against a wall.
Nothing happened. He did not collide with anything invisible, nor did any of the creatures from the grove leap out at him. He took a few steps and stood uncertainly.
“Make yourself at home,” Geste said, waving an arm in invitation.
Bredon eyed him warily. He tried to think of some response that would cleverly express his growing weariness, annoyance, and impatience, but could think of nothing that would not have sounded simply petulant. He looked around at the bare floor, the vine-striped walls, and the alien trees.
Geste said nothing to help him.
“Thank you,” Bredon said at last. “I will.” He lowered himself cautiously and sat cross-legged on the floor.
Although he knew it was still dark outside, the air in the room was warm, its scent pleasant and relaxing, and he had had an impossibly long and eventful wake. He slipped off his vest, folded it into a makeshift pillow, then started to settle down for a nap. This, after all, was a sleeping dark, not a mid-wake dark, and he had been awake far too long.
Geste watched for a minute, then shrugged in acceptance of a minor defeat. Bredon was obviously not going to do anything amusing. “I'm being a poor host,” he said. “Gamesmaster, we need proper accommodations."
“Yes, master,” a disembodied voice, much like that of the housekeeper at Autumn House, replied. “Whatever you say, boss. You want it, you got it. Right away, you bet. Ask and ye shall receive."
The slick grey floor to one side suddenly bulged upward into an immense bubble, four or five meters in diameter, almost touching Bredon; startled, he rolled away without thinking and came to his feet in a fighting crouch, a dagger in his hand.