to use as shields and weapons.
But even upside down, nothing he saw made sense.
He rubbed his eyes with his free hand, twisted in the air, searching for sanity. There was none to be found.
If he could trust his eyes, the room had no walls or ceilings, only floors on all its surfaces. Staring down-or, at least, in the direction that his horsetail pointed-he saw, looking up at him, a woman's face framed by a bowl of golden hair. Coolly, she said, 'If you drop the sword, you'll probably descend.'
Sunbright wasn't listening. He looked at his feet. Below his moosehide boots another woman with dark hair sat in an ornate chair at a table and scribed in a book. The barbarian could hear her goose quill scratching on uneven parchment. She never looked up at the man hovering an arm's span over her head.
Trying desperately to orient himself, Sunbright looked east, west, all around. The vast room, bigger than all of Candlemas's tower, was a wizard's workshop, he recognized, with much the same jars and books and odd artifacts, but people worked on every surface at right angles to one another. No, even that assumption was wrong, for none of the walls met at neat angles, but at random, cockeyed ones.
Sunbright struggled to understand. The vast chamber was like a beehive, in a way, with busy bees crawling everywhere upside down or right side up or sideways. He closed his eyes, which bulged, fit to burst like overripe grapes.
He cast about for the blonde woman and finally found her 'overhead.' He croaked, 'What? What did you say?'
'Drop your sword.'
'It's tempered. The tip will shatter.'
Without a word, the woman extended a blunt hand stained and burned by magic-making. Sighing, Sunbright inverted Harvester and pushed the pommel three feet to her hand. She had to use both arms to catch it, it was that heavy. Gradually Sunbright sank until his hands touched the cool tile floor. Eventually he got his knees down, then clambered upright. He still felt airy, like a cloud, as if drunk, and his vision was clouded red from dangling.
The room didn't make any more sense standing upright. Overhead a dozen feet was the scribbler. Candlemas and the young wizard clung to a wall like flies fifty feet over and up.
Otherwise, the place was much like Candlemas's workshop in Castle Delia, only very much bigger. The same tables racked with bottles and jars, the same scales, even the same salty, punky smell of brimstone and saltpeter as Candlemas's tower. Yet where Candlemas's was largely plain, everything here was ornate. The walls and floor were an eye-blurring rainbow of colors and flowers, the ceiling fairly dripped with sculpted and painted plaster. All the tables were fashioned of brightly polished woods, many inlaid with lighter-colored wood or mother-of-pearl. Even the simplest objects were filigreed and tooled. Mouse cages were hand cut in tiny silver vines and leaf patterns. The wizard's purple robe was so heavily embroidered that no original material showed, only gold, silver, and purple threads interweaving in a dizzying array. All these lesser mages, forty or more within sight, were dressed that way.
Far off, the young wizard jabbered at Candlemas like a child. Candlemas nodded sagely. Sunbright picked up his sword, stood fuming, fighting to control his temper. He wanted to sound another war cry, race across the room, and split that interfering moron from crown to crotch. But he'd tried that and failed, been hung upside down like a ham. Another rush might find him anywhere: hanging upside down outside a window, for instance. And he wasn't even sure he could walk cockeyed, like a drunken mountain goat, to the spot where Candlemas stood.
To say something, he engaged the young apprentice. 'Thank you. Who is that sawed-off snot?'
'Karsus.' She turned back to her workbench, which contained a dozen cages where green mice ran inside wheels, then said over her shoulder, 'This city is named after him.'
'Moander's Mouth! After him? Why?'
'He owns it.' A shrug. 'He's the most powerful archwizard in the empire. The most powerful ever.'
Sunbright stared, slack jawed. 'That…pimple?'
'Aye.' The apprentice, or whatever her rank, held a green mouse by the tail and gently lowered it into a cage lined with sandpaper. The mouse paddled its legs until it could run, which it did, frantically.
Nothing made sense, but Sunbright had to start somewhere. 'Why are the mice green?'
'Karsus made them green. He reckoned it would make them run faster.'
That made no sense, but he persisted. 'And do they?'
'Oh, yes.' The woman tapped a cage where panting mice whirled round and round. 'In fact, they can't stop running. They run themselves to death. So I'm trying to find a way to slow them down.'
Sunbright didn't know what to ask now. Absently he tried to map the room, but it only got madder. Off a ways, he realized, a floor had been inserted between two opposing floors. This intermediate floor was no thicker than solid boards, so people stood almost sole-to-sole, like reflections in a mirror pond. Sunbright shook his throbbing head.
The woman went on talking about her work. 'Karsus wants the mice to be fitted with tiny baskets and strings on their tails. That way they can deliver dollops of heavy magic to the spaces between walls in old buildings. The globs could be illuminated so light shone through cracks at top and bottom to cast a softer glow. But unless they stop sometime…' She hoisted an exhausted mouse from a cage and dropped it in a box of rags, where it proceeded to burrow out of sight.
Sunbright felt like doing the same. 'How do you get from here over to there?'
The blonde turned, her hair flicking on her cheeks. For the first time, Sunbright noticed that her eyes were different colors, one green, one brown, like some cats. She said impishly, 'Well, you could jump, but that can be painful.'
Reaching onto the table, she took a small jar and tossed it up. Sunbright watched it sail upward, hesitate, then shatter on the floor above. The scribbling brunette looked up indignantly. 'Watch it, Seda!'
Sunbright was more confused than ever. The blonde pointed a languid finger. 'Actually, you just walk to any intersecting wall and step across. You'll get used to it.'
No, the barbarian thought, he never would. Shuffling his big, rough boots, he scooted toward Candlemas and-Karsus?
He paused a moment. If Karsus was the most powerful wizard ever, why hadn't Sunbright ever heard of him?
Sword in hand, the barbarian threaded tables, chairs, bookshelves, marble slabs, cages, iron sconces on tripod legs, telescopes, and more. Some wizards looked up curiously, but most did not. They'd seen odder things, obviously. Finally he reached another floor that tilted up at an angle. Gingerly he reached up, planted his foot, and stepped onto the next tiled floor. His stomach gibbered like a frightened animal, sent a burst of nausea into the back of his throat. Then he was across the magic barrier, for such it must be, and marching toward Candlemas and Karsus.
Regretfully, but at least proud of his self-control, he sheathed his sword before getting within striking distance.
Karsus was kneeling and babbling like a child. One dirty hand tugged at his hair, so much so it was ragged and short above his ear. His other hand stroked the star-stone repeatedly. 'Exactly, exactly what we need! Exactly! All my experiments have been leading up to-'
The young wizard broke up, bounded and hopped on one foot before Sunbright. 'Did you like my mutant? I bred him from a tiger and a dwarf! A big dwarf. I keep them in the cellars. Actually I just made him up from thin air. Actually a friend captured it in the southlands and gave it to me. People bring me lots of presents. They like me.'
Sunbright couldn't see why. And three contradictory sentences in a row was a bad sign. On the tundra, this man would be the village idiot. Here in the empire, he owned a city. It said a lot about the empire.
'But you fought well. Why does your sword have that hook on the end? Would you like to fight in the arena? I could augment your strength, or give you eyes in the back of your head. You'd be famous! Women would love you. Men too…'
All Sunbright wanted was to squeeze this fool's neck until blood shot out his ears, but he clamped his hands on his belt and asked Candlemas, 'What does this-person-want? Can we leave? Where are we, anyway? They say this is the city of Karsus, but I've never heard of it, and I've walked from one end of the empire to the other.'
