Netheril - Dangerous Games Part 11

He was out to kill me ... I think. I'm not sure what happened!"

"d.a.m.n you! You've ruined everything!" Hauling her elbows close by her ribs, the thief leader slammed him in the chest and breadbasket with tiny fists weighted with bra.s.s. Sunbright grunted, huffed, sucked wind, but took it. The blows hurt, as if someone were pounding him with a rock. On the other hand, his stomach and chest were hard as an oak tree, and she wasn't really pounding him, he knew, she was just beating out her frustration. So he waited patiently, suffered, and wondered about women. He hadn't understood Greenwillow's whims most of the time. Was that because men were thick or because women were enigmatic? Or something else? For a shaman, he thought, he didn't know much about people, especially female ones.

Shooed by Mother, the other thieves melted away. Sunbright was bashed more than forty times before Knucklebones wound down. She was crying, her soiled and dusty cheeks wet with tears of rage and frustration, and whatever other turmoil she suffered. Sunbright reckoned her tenuous life had finally caught up with her. The stress and strain of watching and worrying over her brood, the constant threat of sudden and gory death, the need for a brave, tough face for her followers and other gangs must have been difficult to bear. Though the barbarian had his own problems-loneliness being utmost-but he didn't envy her. At least, he had no one else to fret about.

Finally she stopped pounding him, let her knotty arms hang limp by her side. Her small bosom heaved for breath and control. The magical light of her leather vest made shadows rise and fall on the stone walls around them. Tears dripped from her cheeks, and she snuffled and wiped her nose on her wrist. A sob escaped.

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 st.i.tched 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, pus.h.i.+ng 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

For one thing, endless numbers of artifacts littered Karsus's workshops. Candlemas had had a strange collection of stuff, but his was a child's toy box compared to these items. There were so many, most completely unidentified, and more arrived each day from the far corners of the empire. Where to start?

And how? Candlemas knew magic, like everything else, advanced from simple forms to complex ones over time. But he'd been pulled out of time, and his knowledge was ancient. Here arcanists specialized in Inventives, Mentalisms, or Variations. Candlemas had been an Inventive, and still was, if basic knowledge counted. He understood the cla.s.ses of spells, or arcs, how deep into the weave one must go to access them, whether they drew dweomer from the winds or the spheres or artifacts or each other.

Necromancy drew magic from dead souls. Planar magic tapped weird beings men could barely comprehend, and never control. The G.o.ds made their own magic and sometimes shared it. Mystryl maintained the weave, the balance and interconnection of all things. There was sea magic and mountain magic and forest magic, and so on. Magic everywhere, in fact, if one knew how to see it. But Candlemas knew about as much about modern magic as a woodcutter knew about finished carpentry.

He'd walked into a play during the last act, struggling to know everything and learning nothing.

The worst was heavy magic, Karsus's own invention. No one could explain it with satisfaction, and Candlemas suspected that no one but Karsus understood it, and perhaps even he didn't really. (Scary thought.) To Candlemas magic was a force, a soul, an idea. To shape magic was a blessing and a gift from the G.o.ds, a sacred responsibility. Karsus had made magic a commodity. That the mad mage could manufacture globs of wiggly, clear magic seemed absurd, like a child catching a jar of wind, or a man donning a cloud as a robe. Yet it worked. Karsus could bottle magic and sell it in the marketplace like olive oil if he so chose.

Karsus had lived for three hundred and fifty-seven years, having been born only a year after Candlemas and his barbarian companion had been stretched through time. Since then, many types of magic had come in and out of fas.h.i.+on. Now all of Karsus's recent work hinged on heavy magic. In fact, he talked constantly of how heavy magic would destroy his "enemies." Who these enemies were and what they intended no one knew, and many suspected they dwelt in Karsus's brain alone.

And finally, Candlemas found himself distracted by thoughts of Aquesita. He woke up from dreaming about her, wondered what she ate for breakfast while he ate his, saw the color of her golden- brown eyes in illuminations of books and tapestries, thought of her when he saw flowers nodding in the sun outside a window, considered what she did in the evenings, and, as he dozed off at night, wondered if she thought of him. Surely this preoccupation with one woman was unhealthy.

Since reaching adulthood, Candlemas had been too busy for one woman, and had no desire to be ordered about by one. When a man wanted a woman's charm, he could hire a barmaid or a chambermaid for the evening. Night was the time for love sport anyway, yet here he was, in the middle of the morning, absently pawing a necklace of shark's teeth (or whatever they were), staring into s.p.a.ce, unaware he'd even picked it up. Such muddleheadedness was troubling.

So he was glad that Karsus was back, and went searching for him. He found the archwizard in the high circular room where three score mages puzzled over the fallen star Candlemas and Sunbright (and where was he?) had unearthed.

Karsus stood six deep in lesser mages. His hair was more disheveled than ever, sticking out all over; his golden eyes were glittering, but sunk in black pits, as if he hadn't slept in days. His gestures were more erratic, and he'd almost pulled all the hair out of the left side of his head with nervous tugging. But he seemed pleased as the chief mage demonstrated their progress.

"Great Karsus," the woman rattled, "as you wished, we plied a cold chisel to free some star-metal, used simple heat to puddle it and forge a crucible. Into that crucible we poured heavy magic, and let it steep for two days, while chanting round the clock over it."

Mages gave way to a scarred table. The chief dragged over a silver scale, all ornate fig leaves and vines, made sure it balanced properly, then set down her crucible of lumpy gray star-metal. As Karsus watched, she took up a redware beaker and plied a wooden scoop, brus.h.i.+ng the top level with a finger as if the stuff were flour. Yet the magical ma.s.s held together like calf's foot jelly, clear, jiggly, utterly weird, like a block of hard water. It even refracted light like water, so objects on the other side were distorted and shrunken. Heavy magic, Candlemas knew. The woman placed a dollop on the left scale.

Then, with the appropriate air of drama, scooped an equal dollop of magic from the star-metal crucible onto the right scale.

Instantly the right-hand scale plunged and crashed to the tabletop.

"Heavier magic!" crowed Karsus. He danced in place with clasped hands. "Super heavy magic!

More magical magic! Wonderful!"

Like a boy playing in water, he repeated the experiment time and again, shoving the dollops of heavy magic onto the floor where they landed with squishy plops. "Oh, won't my enemies be discommoded by this. They'll be expunged, vanquished, crushed, hammered, smashed, broken. This will drive them clean through the earth's crust to ... well, to whatever's beneath. Oh, I can't wait!"

People stirred uneasily at the mention of Karsus's imaginary enemies. Sensing unease, he lectured while playing. "They're down there! I know. Draining the life from the soil. Out to kill us all!

Especially me, because I'm the savior of the empire. I'm the greatest arcanist ever born, and they know it. But it's easy to understand. They're jealous, you see. Well, when they're dead, they won't be jealous any longer. And I'll have their magic. At least, I hope so."

Karsus chortled and babbled and toyed. Mages ran helter-skelter around the room and congratulated the chief mage. Candlemas noted that the super heavy magic Karsus had dropped was mashed into the s.p.a.ces between the flagstones. What would the magic do there, he wondered?

Evaporate to make the air tingly with magic? Would mice that burrow through it become imbued with super heavy magic, so they might be undigestible to cats?

Suddenly he wondered how Aquesita might use the stuff. If a transplanted plant were to have its roots first dipped in heavy magic, say, could you render the roots magnetic so they would attract iron and other nutrients to make them grow? Wouldn't Aquesita be pleased if he thought up- "Candlemas!"

Karsus had tossed away the wooden scoop.

"Candlemas," the archwizard trumpeted again, "I said, tell me more about this fallen star. What's it made of?"

The pudgy mage blinked. Daydreaming when the most important mage in the empire wanted him.

Not good.

"Uh, made of? Oh, uh, metal. No, you said that. Uh, iron, I know, for it showed rust. And some very hard metal, probably nickel."

He was glad now he'd spent some time in this room, listening and taking mental notes. He walked toward the star.

"It would have to be hard metals, for soft ones would have burned up. As it was, it was sizzling hot when it landed, for it fused some sand-"

"I know that! I was there when it landed."

Candlemas whirled around so fast he almost fell. Karsus was imagining things again. "Uh, master,"

he mumbled, "you were here, and pulled us across the years-"

"No, I think not." Karsus spoke with one hand on his chin while his other hand tugged and twirled his hair. "No, I was there, in some other form perhaps, since this body wasn't born for a year or so- maybe a squirrel-and I knew to pull this star down from the sky."

"Oh, yes, I see . . ."

Candlemas found himself backing away, checking the exits.

"I'd agree, Great Karsus!" chimed an apprentice, toadying. "Only you would dare harness such power!"

"True. Only I."

Karsus walked around the star, inspecting it. Candlemas wondered what would come next.

"I know!" the archwizard cried. "Only a genius such as I could conceive of this. We'll make the entire star into one giant crucible. T'will save time and get on with dis...o...b..bulating my enemies! A Stoca's feign or Smolyn's seer coupled with a Zahn's location to find the softest parts, and a Proctiv's dig such as the dwarves use to find water. In one fell swoop-"

"No!" bellowed Candlemas.

But Karsus raised both hands and gabbled fractions of spells, until suddenly a green-white bolt was crackling between his fingertips. With a laugh, he flung the bolt at the magic drenched star.

Candlemas dived under the heaviest table. Not that it would do much good. The whole top of the inverted mountain would probably explode, reducing him and Karsus and Aquesita alike to floating dust.

Several things happened at once.

At the last moment, the chief mage had hurled some sort of s.h.i.+eld spell at the star. Karsus's green- white bolt spanked off the star in an eye smarting electric crackle. Karsus had his hair and eyebrows crisped as the bolt sizzled overhead.

But like lightning, the contrary and muddled bolt went to ground, between the flagstones, where lay pounds and pounds of discarded heavy magic. That magic combined with the bolt to turn it bigger, but more confused. Candlemas saw green fingers of energy like giant gra.s.s blades spike up from between the stones. One spike seared a hole big enough for a man's fist through a three-inch oak table. Another sheared a woman's arm off. A third shattered a chandelier overhead so the heavy iron latticework crashed down on another unfortunate apprentice. Yet another bolt squirreled up a table leg and danced from artifact to artifact along the table, so an iron gauntlet clenched shut, a gla.s.s globe gave a glimpse of the future, a magic sword rang like a bell, a ring's sapphire turned from blue to red, and there were many more whimsical magical oddities.

Not so funny was that several flagstones erupted from the floor to batter half a dozen people.

Candlemas had the sole of his sandal slapped by a chunk of stone.

Yet nothing compared to the final effect, as one super energized bolt ricocheted and struck the star from behind.

The ring's stone turned to powder. The gauntlet went dead. The palantir burned out. The magic sword lost its l.u.s.ter. One mage clutched his chest, cried in agony, and collapsed. Another shrieked and covered her face. A third went howling mad and ran out the door. And Karsus's robes suddenly sported great ragged holes that showed dirty white flesh.

Yet the mage was exultant. He danced, shouted, waved his hands, sang, and laughed like a lunatic.

Ignoring the groans of the wounded, the clattering of dropped things, the crackling and smoking of several small fires, he jumped in place and clapped his hands.

"We've got it! We've got it! Imagine the possibilities! My rivals will be powerless! Completely powerless! They'll be babes for the slaughter! We'll be invincible!"

"What?" Candlemas coughed as he crawled from under the table. He was surprised to find he couldn't stand. That slap on the foot had sprained his ankle, come close to shearing it off. He helped up the chief mage, who'd also dived under the table. "I don't understand. What does he mean? What happened?"

"The magic went dead." The woman rubbed her nose, found it was bleeding. She pitched her voice low. "It's happened before. Karsus, Great Karsus, once before, cast a Volhm's drain on a barrel of heavy magic. He sucked all the power from the mythallars and almost dropped the city out of the sky."

"Sunrest," muttered a man. "The city of Sunrest had a mage competing with Karsus. We guess he tried the same thing, because the whole city of Sunrest dropped and shattered."

"The whole mountain?"

The chief nodded, put her head back, held out a bloodstained hand, and waggled her fingers. "Look at my ring. It was a gift from my mother. Rub it and it sings like a nightingale. But it's dead.

Permanently."