more.
'That dog was poised to tear your throat out, or bite through your face! And those guards wouldn't have spared you! They'd have hacked you to crow fodder-'
'Bah!' She scoffed, waving a gold glittering hand. 'The dog was no threat. I could have slipped out from under it, and the guards… why couldn't you just knock them down? You'll have the whole cadre after us now! They always avenge-'
'No one told me!' Sunbright bellowed. This was the first real noise he'd made in hours. Instinctively the other thieves shushed him. 'No one told me not to kill guards. I thought you hated them. And why was everyone so quiet? Even the dogs didn't bark!'
'Fool! Don't you know anything? That district is famous for quiet. The nobles like it that way. Even the guards are trained to never make noise, and the dogs have their voice cords slit. How have you survived this long? Killing those guards will prove fatal. But that's all you can do, flail away with that sword! It's how you killed Martel, wasn't it?'
'What?' he whispered, the change in topic confusing him. It was the first time she'd mentioned her former lover. Was this city madness, thief strangeness, or woman contrariness? 'That was an accident! He was out to kill me… I think. I'm not sure what happened!'
'Damn 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 brass. 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 stitched 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?
