She was becoming just as addicted to that silver vial as Japheth was to his damned dust tin. "No," she mumbled.
Maybe, she thought. It didn't matter. She could leave Japheth to his fate or try to help him. Simple as that. She pulled the stopper from the silver vial and drank.
Even as she lay back and closed her eyes, her dream pair opened. Anusha stepped from her slumping physical body clad in the plate armor of dream.
She stowed the silver vial carefully back within a pocket in her sleeping body's skirt. She vowed she wouldn't use the vial again. As she had told herself last time.
"Stop it! You've got more pressing issues, now."
She took what seemed like a real breath. "A dream I am, and so I perceive the world about me," she affirmed, trying to convince herself.
Anusha closed the lid on the traveling case, her body still snug within. She reached into the interior, and slid home the latch from the inside.
"Now the hard part. Maybe."
She bent, arms wide, and grasped the brass handles on each side of the carrying case. She heaved. The chest moved' slightly, no more.
Anusha frowned.
"In my dream, I am as strong as I need to be," she asserted.
She heaved again. Another inch of movement.
She relinquished her grip and said the profanity again, but this time it was only half-hearted. She plucked a crumb-laden trencher from the sideboard. This she could lift easily as her waking form could. Why should limitations of the waking world shackle her dream?
Because, deep down, she expected the rules to be the same. Despite the fact they manifestly were not the same-she could walk through walls and move invisibly. Why should her ability to affect the world remain the same when everything else was different?
Anusha grabbed the handles again, new certainty firing her. This time, she did not heave. She concentrated. Then she merely picked up the entire travel chest by the two grips. Part of her knew its full weight, but in her determination she tried to imagine it as heavy as a trencher, at least in this dream.
Her sleeping self snored within. Hearing it, she realized again how much she carried and nearly dropped herself. One edge rapped hard against the floor. She let down the chest, not quite dropping it. Her drugged body didn't respond to the rough handling.
She realized she was probably at her limit. It would be hard to focus enough to lift more than this. Why pick it up, she realized, when she could drag it?
Anusha kicked open the door to the cabin and stepped out, the chest in tow behind her. Lucky snorted his pleasure on seeing her.
"Want to help me out, boy?" she whispered to the mongrel. The dog's ears cupped forward, and its tail wagged. If she managed to convey her body to the island, a sentinel would be required to stand watch over her sleeping self.
Rushing water sucked Japheth into an all-encompassing embrace. He tried for a last breath and instead inhaled a smothering gulp of sea. The rough water twirled him around and knocked his head against stone.
After that, he wasn't quite sure what happened. Perhaps someone grabbed his ankle and towed him. His cloak flared around him in the water. An object slipped from the hem. He saw his tin of traveler's dust spin out into the turbid water. He reached for it, but it tumbled down, down, until darkness claimed it. He cried out as if struck, finally forcing the water from his lungs. Coughs wracked him.
He found himself on a damp expanse of stone, just beyond a torrent surging by on both sides. Seren lay near him, looking as battered and half drowned as he felt. On the other hand, Captain Thoster appeared unharmed, if hatless. His long hair was swept back, and his skin glistened with beaded water. A slight smile dimpled his expression as he turned to regard Japheth.
"You going to live, bucko?"
Japheth nodded, tried to reply, but instead released another body-convulsing cough.
Seren said, "You swim like a seal, Thoster."
The slight smile became a grin. "Something like that, wizard."
"Why so lighthearted?" Seren snapped. "We lost our guide and main protector. Now we're lost below the seamount. How long before the great kraken comes by and collects us?"
"We ain't dead yet," the captain replied.
"I can't swim," Seren replied, her tone robbed of its usual vindictiveness. She glanced at the rapids. The turbulent flow foamed along the narrow track just a few feet beyond their perch, then fell away onto a steep slope, becoming a cataract falling who knew how far.
"You're addled, lass. Look there." Thoster pointed to his left. Across the breadth of water, Japheth could barely make out the edges of what appeared to be a stairwell, leading up. "No need for us to swim just yet."
The torrent was narrow enough even the wizard had no difficulty leaping it. They took to the steps. The stair was a spiraling tube leading upward. Fifty paces saw them into a new cavity.
Seren exclaimed, "How interesting."
Tiny points of gold-green light flitted over domes and obelisks of shaped coral. The drifting points illuminated a subterranean vault whose size seemed, at least by the fey light of the drifting star points, equal to the breadth of the isle above.
They stood in silence, looking for kuo-toa or any other sign of malign attention. Silence lay over the space like a swaddling blanket.
"What's this place for?"
"Nogah would have known," replied Thoster.
The wizard sniffed. "She's dead, Thoster. I'm asking you."
He shrugged. "For us, let us hope it provides an exit."
Seren actually smiled. "Now you're talking. Let's get out of here and leave the Dreamheart to its new owner."
Thoster paused. "Nay, lass. Despite this setback, we need to try for it. I wouldn't leave without it, now that we're so close. Which way do you suppose we should go to find the big squid, Japheth?"
"I don't know." He was so bedraggled he wondered if Seren didn't have the right of it. Events had obviously proved too much for Anusha.
The captain grunted. "Well, we should look for a way out too. It wouldn't do for Captain Thoster to be marooned! I expect the kraken will find us soon enough. That'll be our chance to try for the bauble. You think the poxed thing will prove easier to deal with than the servants it sent to ambush us?"
Japheth said, "Seems unlikely-"
"Because we didn't give a very good account of ourselves."
Protestations rose to the warlock's lips: he had been taken by surprise, he hadn't unleashed his full arsenal of curses, he had been concerned with the welfare of the others. But he remained quiet. Their guide had been slain, and the rest of them had barely escaped with their lives. And perhaps it was his own fault.
How had he allowed it? The bald truth wouldn't creep away and be ignored. He'd been in the dazed grip of traveler's dust. If he'd been in his right mind-
The memory of a metallic container tumbling down through dark water assailed the warlock. His breath caught. He slapped his cloak where the tin was kept safe. He couldn't detect the comforting bulge. His eyes dilated as he frantically searched through the folds of his cape. Empty.
Japheth's supply of dust was lost.
The captain watched Japheth through this anxious display, his expression quizzical.
"I have to go back," Japheth explained. "I lost something in the water."
"Go back, then exclaimed the wizard."We're going forward."
Japheth glanced at her. Seren was wringing out her hair. She looked up, saw the warlock's desperate expression, and said, "You're cute, but I'm not going back down there."