Only the one room and its adjoining hallway, the little wooden addition he had built atop the original structure so that more room below could be used to store fabrics, had been damaged-but that one room had been not just damaged, but obliterated.
“Gods,” he said. “What happened?”
No one answered.
He swung his feet over the side of the bed, kicking aside a chunk of ceiling, and stood up-and realized he was naked. He looked for the wardrobe, but it had plunged into the alley.
He had clothes on the line, though. He pushed himself upward, thinking he would climb across the wreckage.
Instead he found himself floatingabove the wreckage.
“Gods!” he said again.
This was magic, of course-but what kind of magic? Who was doing it? Had he managed to offend a wizard or sorcerer without knowing it?
He moved himself eastward over the broken roof and fetched girdle, tunic, and breeches from the line. He dressed hastily and looked out over the city to the west.
A building was on fire somewhere-he could see leaping flames and a bright orange glow. The screaming had stopped, but there were voices in the street, shouting at one another. Who was up at this hour? Had the destruction of his home woken the whole neighborhood?
He made his way to the stairwell and hurried downstairs.
He found Annis in the front showroom on the ground floor; she was staring out the front window at the street.
“What’s happened?” he asked her.
She whirled and stared at him. “Don’tyou know?” she asked.
“No,” he said, puzzled. “It’s some sort of magic that smashed our room, obviously, but I don’t know why or who did it.”
“Youdid it, somehow!”
“But...” Varrin stopped, remembering.
Yes, hehad done it. He didn’t know how or exactly why— something to do with a nightmare of being smothered-but yes, he had done it.
And he had held up the roof, which must have weighed hundreds or thousands of pounds, and he had flown across the wreckage like a wizard with a levitation spell.
“How did you do that?” Annis demanded.
“I don’t know,” Varrin said. “You mean you can’t? I assumed that whatever it was happened toboth of us.”
She waved that idea away. “It’s justyou” she said. “At least, in here. There are others out there.” She pointed at the window.
“There are?” Varrin glanced at the window.
“Yes,” Annis said. “I saw them.”
“Maybe I had better go talk to them,” Varrin said. “They might know what’s happening.”
“Yes,” she said, stepping backward, away from him. “You do that.”
“Annis, don’t be frightened,” he said as the firelight from outside spilled across her face and let him see her eyes. “Especially don’t be frightened ofme.”
“But I’m not sure itis you!” she wailed. “What if you’re some demon that took my husband’s form?”
“Annis, I’m me. I’m Varrin.” He stepped toward her. “We’ve been married for thirty-one years-you know me!”
She squealed and backed away again. “Go away!” she said. “If you’re really Varrin, go find out what happened to you!” He stopped, baffled.
“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll go see what I can find out.” He turned away.
A moment later he was out on the street, looking around in confusion.
Something in him wanted to go north, but that was absurd; he lived and worked just three blocks from the beaches along the eastern shoals and four blocks from the city’s eastern wall. Almost the entirety of the city of Ethshar lay south and west of Seacorner.
He could hear voices shouting to the south; he turned and headed toward them, and found his feet leaving the ground. At first he fought it, but then he turned up a palm, lifted his feet, and flew.
At the same time as the others, Kirsha the Younger dreamed of fire and falling and then entombment somewhere deep beneath the earth, dreamed she was fighting her way upward through unyielding soil, and then awoke to find herself floating a foot or so above her bed. She stared up at the too-close canopy of her bed in astonishment, awash in unreasoning panic.
Then the panic popped like a soap bubble, and she smiled as understanding dawned.
“I’m still dreaming,” she said.
She rolled over in mid air and pushed herself toward the bedroom window.
It worked, just like in so many other dreams-she could fly, swim through the air like a fish through water. She didn’t even have to wriggle like a fish; thought alone was enough to propel her.
Kirsha felt the cool night air on her bare skin as her bedsheet slipped free and fell away, could hear voices in the street outside— and some of them were screaming.
She wondered why, but then dismissed the question. This was adream; it didn’t need to make sense.
It was the oddest flying dream she had ever had, though, starting with a vague nightmare like that and then turning so intensely real. Still, she was enjoying it.
She reached the window and fumbled with the latch, then opened the shutters-or rather she made the shutters fling themselves open, she didn’t use her hands. She looked out at the night.
People were flying, dozens of them. Kirsha smiled happily at the thought of sharing her newfound talent. She swung open the casement, planning to fly out into the street.
Then she realized she was still naked.
It probably didn’t matter in a dream, but still, she hated dreams where she went outside naked and could feel people staring at her. She flew quickly across the room to a chest of drawers and found a tunic and skirt. A moment later she was soaring above the streets, watching people running below and flying above. She didn’t see anyone she knew, and did not want to talk to strangers, even in a dream-at least, not yet-so she did not rise up to join the other flyers.
They were all going the same direction, anyway, and she didn’t want to go that way. She wanted to look at the shops on Dyer Street and see what pretty colors the cloth there had in this wonderful dream. They were lovely in real life, as she had seen when she and her mother went over there just two days ago, but her mother had refused to buy her any of the best fabrics for a new tunic.
And there was that jeweler around the corner, where her parents had refused to even set foot inside the door.
Her parents weren’t even in this dream, though, as far as Kirsha could tell, so she could do anything she pleased.
She would smash out the shop windows and take the things she liked best, she decided, and then fly away, like a big brightly colored bird. She would fly to the lesser moon and see why it was pink, and she would find a handsome prince from the Small Kingdoms or a Sardironese baron there, and...
She was getting ahead of herself, she decided. First she should see whether Dyer Street was even there in this dreamworld.
People below her were screaming, but she paid no attention. She swooped around the corner, laughing.
Someone was bellowing, and Kennan of the Crooked Smile woke up, annoyed at the interruption of his sleep.
The noise faded away quickly-whoever was bellowing was moving away very fast. Something about it bothered him though, so Kennan did not immediately go back to sleep.
And then he heard running footsteps in the corridor, and then his son’s wife Sanda shouting, and he climbed out of bed and grabbed a robe.
