and trade remain rare and may degrade further before things turn around. Whole nations are gone, never to return-'
Anusha's sigh was overloud, and the tutor heard it. He placed the chalk on the board ledge, turned, and flashed a tight smile. He said, 'The lady is obviously overtired. The hour is late. I'll return again tomorrow, and we'll pick up where I left off. Please read the manuscript On the Heltharn dynasty.
Tomorrow I shall test your knowledge about Impiltur's royal line.'
Anusha said, 'I can tell you this without reading it-the Heltharn dynasty is broken, and the Grand Council is ascendant. So says Behroun.'
The tutor's tight smile faltered. He looked suddenly tired. He said, 'Perhaps. Perhaps it is so, and the king will not return.' Without another word or his usual remonstration to study, the thin, pock-faced man walked out, letting the door to Anusha's suite hang ajar.
Anusha's brows furrowed. Had she said something in poor taste? Did the man have personal connections to the dead king and his family? Or was he merely a loyalist without a king to obey? Behroun said there were many like that around, interfering with the Grand Council's fledgling plans.
The girl pushed aside troubling thoughts and rose from her desk. Lassitude clutched at her. The tutor had suggested she get some sleep, and she was so very tired. Bad dreams of unending, heatless blue fire assailed her, making her dread the night. Not knowing how else to deal with the troubling images, she had fought sleep.
She entered her bedroom. Her canvases nearly crowded out the bureau, the nightstand, and her large bed. The coverlets, blue and pink, looked so soft, so tempting. She shuffled forward, knowing sleep would finally win out against her fear. She hoped the dreams would leave off tonight. Either way, slumber could no longer be denied.
Anusha opened her eyes. Had she dreamed? She couldn't remember anything since she'd flung herself onto her bed. Her bed right over there. Her bed where a girl still lay adrift in sleep's dark bonds.
The sleeping girl was herself. Her long skirts, ruffled blouse, and long boots lay in a heap on the floor.
A moment's more confusion gave way to understanding. She was dreaming now! She was caught up in a tiny story being spun out by her mind, except she was atypically aware. She dreamed and knew it!
She tensed, but the terror she recalled fuzzily from her previous nights of nightmares was absent. All was quiet and restful. She'd heard that if one could learn to recognize when caught in slumber's nets, one could apply some conscious control over the dream. Instead of being caught up in the moment, as was usually the case, the whole thing could be more like attending theater. Like watching a play, written as it went along.
She liked that idea. I shall go with this as long as it lasts, she told herself. What will my mind conjure up?
She smiled to think of herself as separate from her mind- her tutor would tell her that was an illusion. But the fact that she could look down on her sleeping, slowly breathing body argued otherwise. No, wait-this was a dream, she reminded herself.
Anusha left her room, her suite, and the upper story of the manor. The front hall was empty but for a few servants polishing relics Behroun had staged around the space as if he were a real noble. Over the fireplace hung a slender long sword, which was scribed, right on the blade, with the Marhana crest. Anusha's father had, by all accounts, been an able swordsman in his youth.
The servants in the front hall couldn't see her. They didn't react to her presence. Why should they? It was her dream- her world! On impulse, she glided right through the front door as if it were nothing but smoke. A moment of darkness and disorientation, then she was through.
Laughing, she ran down the wide front steps. Anusha passed through the thick iron gates that separated the manor from the street, feeling only the slightest tug of resistance.
'How wondrous!' she exclaimed. A passerby started, glanced sharply around. Anusha studied the man in garish noble garb, but his gaze slid right past her. She covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. Small noises escaped anyway, emerging like a strangled wheeze. The man's eyes widened and he hurried off, pursued by a laugh she could no longer restrain.
Skipping, she set off down the street. She had to explore all the fun possibilities of this dream before she woke up!
First, she'd visit the docks. She loved the tall ships and handsome dockhands with stories of far places. Imagine seeing those same sail-topped silhouettes by night! She ran unseen through the street, straight on down toward the dock district. Despite Marhana's active role in shipping, they kept their mansion far from the piers. So she had to run quite a ways, over a mile. She didn't mind-it was her dream, and she decided not to feel tired by the exertion.
Just as she neared the first wharf, a strange pinch pulled a gasp from her. The sensation felt almost like the sudden jerk of an invisible cord. She slowed, but continued to move forward. The pinch came again-
Anusha opened her eyes in her bed. The saffron lengths of linen that swirled around her bedposts glowed in the candlelight from the single night-flame on her bureau.
'Oh!' she groaned, realizing she was awake, leaving her brilliant dream behind.
If she didn't think too much, maybe she could recall it. Sometimes good dreams could be picked up again, if she didn't clutter her mind with too many other thoughts. And she was still so tired from so many nights of too little rest.
She turned on her side, closed her eyes again, and tried to recall the dream.
She had wandered, conscious of herself in the dream, walking where she would, going where she wanted without others dictating restrictions, unseen by other dream dwellers…
Again Anusha found herself standing next to her apparently sleeping body. She clapped her hands in triumph. She was back in the dream!
This time, she'd avoid the docks. She'd try someplace else.
How about… the Marivaux revelry! If she couldn't attend the Marivaux party in reality, perhaps she could dream about it.
She exited the Marhana manor, unseen as before, and ran down the street.
What must have been a full hour of wandering forced her to admit she didn’t actually know where to find the Marivaux home. She had expected she would merely come upon the place, as such things happen in dreams.
But that hadn't happened. Just seedier and seedier storefronts, separated by larger and larger tracts of completely empty, broken structures-victims of the interregnum following the retreat of the wharf.
Was she lost? Anusha frowned. Was she not the author of her own slumbering fancy? Perhaps it was time to wake up, after all. She didn't like the direction in which this dream was headed.
Then she saw Japheth.
Anusha gave an involuntary gasp. Japheth walked the dark streets with his black cape drawn around him like a raven's wings, striding purposefully as if he, at least, knew where he was going. *
Japheth was one of Behroun's agents. Anusha had seen the man around the manor and even exchanged a few words with him. His hair was black, as were his eyes-like wells reflecting a starry night sky. The last time he'd greeted her, just a few days prior, her cheeks colored, her arms felt too warm, and sensible words deserted her.
She fell in behind the cloaked shape, wondering where he was going. It was a ramshackle neighborhood. Did he know someone here? She didn't like to think of him being familiar with its stench-worn ways.
Japheth walked another block until he paused under the sign of a unicorn horn.
A single glass window provided a view into a bizarrely decorated interior display. Anusha shuffled closer and identified a shrunken head, heaped candies wrapped in colorful paper, playing cards depicting dragons, smoking accessories, fancifully decorated goblets and tankards, and oddities beyond her knowledge.
Japheth entered. She followed, passing through the closing door as if it were mist. Inside she spied a grandfatherly dwarf puffing away on an elaborately carved pipe.
The dwarf saw Japheth and launched his spiel, 'Got some salvage? I'll give you a fair price. No? A gift, then, you seek? Or something for yourself. A keepsake! Look around; my inventory is second to none. Don't be afraid of the mess! Who knows what treasures you'll find hidden away in dark corners? Those willing to spend a little time come away with real gems.'
Japheth raised a hand to silence the dwarf and asked, 'Have you any traveler's dust?'
