"Why, yes, it has. Distilling magic by containing it in a crucible of star-metal increases its power. Mages are working now to learn the limits of this super heavy magic, but there doesn't seem to be any. The larger the container and the longer the magic steeps, the heavier it becomes. Like tea growing darker…"
He talked on and on, babbling as he did in the presence of Aquesita. The girl listened intently, starry eyes boring into his as if she were reading his mind.
Once she asked, "You must be aware that when Karsus first conjured heavy magic, decades ago, he temporarily disrupted the flow to the mythallars, and the city came close to plummeting. They say he's embarked on a new course, something never before attempted. Any idea what that might be?"
Candlemas shook his head. Her question puzzled him. What, in the annals of magic, had never been attempted before? There was nothing new under the sun.
"Why do you ask? Has Karsus told you anything?"
"Oh, no!" she giggled suddenly, like a child. "I could never get close to Karsus. He'd know me in an instant!"
"But…" Candlemas started to say as he backed against the table. It was as if she'd turned cold, but hot inside, like one of Sunbright's polar bears off the icecap. "How? Who are you?"
The frost topped girl stepped closer and said, "My name is Mystra. I was named after the goddess. But better you forget me." Quickly, she leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek. He stood dazed, unmoving.
He was still standing that way minutes later when a sound came from the doorway: a genteel clearing of a throat. He shook his head, dizzy and frightened, though he didn't know why.
Aquesita stood in the doorway. He was surprised, for she'd never visited him in the workshops before. She toted a cloth-covered basket over one arm, and Candlemas saw the top of a wine bottle projecting from it. She'd planned a surprise picnic! Despite his blurry thoughts, he smiled weakly, delighted to see her.
But her short round frame was very erect, her plump mouth creased by a frown. She snapped, "Well?"
"What?" Strangely weak, Candlemas held the table to keep from tottering. "Well, what, dear?"
"Don't you 'dear' me!" Her voice held the whip crack of generations of noble birth. "I saw you kiss that girl! Is that what goes on here when you claim to be working, you consort with hussies? Fondle the apprentices?"
"What?" Candlemas scanned the room. "What girl?"
"In this room, not thirty seconds ago!" Her plump finger stabbed downward, her golden-brown eyes flashed. "She kissed you, and you kissed her back, and she flounced from the room right past me without a word!"
The man wondered which was the worse crime for a woman, being cheated or being ignored. But he hadn't a clue what she meant. There hadn't been any girl. And he always wove personal wards to keep enemies at bay. No one could approach without his knowledge, certainly not close enough to kiss him. But then, his magic was outdated…
"Do you intend to explain," demanded Aquesita, "or just stand there with your mouth open?"
"A spell," Candlemas whined. He felt tipsy, no, drunk. "She… I never saw her-must have enchanted me-"
"Pish! You think I wouldn't sense her enchantments? I am cousin to Karsus, you know! I haven't anywhere near his abilities, his genius, but I can detect magic with both eyes shut. She was nothing but a paltry wench with no more magic than my parrot, and skinny besides!"
This was bad, Candlemas knew. He was in trouble with a woman over something only a woman understood. And plump women hated skinny ones worse than poison. But what girl?
"The least you could do is apologize!"
Aquesita's voice contained a sob, and Candlemas found hope in that. At least she cared enough to cry over him.
"Sita, please. I'm sorry," he said, though sorry for what he didn't know. "I'm sorry if you're upset."
"Likely!" she blurted. "Likely not! You're… you're…"
Then she was gone, whirling down the hall in a flurry of skirts and tears. When he made to follow, the door slammed in his face, almost whacking his nose.
"What?" he asked himself. "What did I do? What did she do? Was there a she at all? And if so, why did she kiss me?"
Jouncing belly down across a saddle woke Sunbright, and there was pain. Agony tore at every nerve and churned his guts so he vomited down the scaly flank of the raptor. He was horribly thirsty, his throat felt like sandpaper, his tongue was foul. Bound with rawhide, his wrists and feet throbbed as if they'd explode. Only an iron will and stubborn pride made him study his surroundings.
The big lizard picked delicately along a trail on two thin, mincing legs. Sunbright was tied across the empty saddle. He had killed the rider back at the pine tree. Ahead tripped two more raptors, with riders. Knucklebones was trussed across the cantle of one of them. Setting sun slanted long through the woods, so Sunbright knew he'd been out most of the day, and they'd traveled far through a forest like nothing he'd ever seen.
Like some nightmare, trees grew every which way. He barely recognized some. As the lizard (bird?) plodded along, he watched a red pine pass. The tree had laid down, its scaly trunk like a serpent, until the end suddenly forked and sprawled in all directions. Some pine needles were excessively long, others stunted. After that came a sassafras tree with leaves like broken hands. Patches of a green ground cover, which Sunbright's people called rabbit-creeper, were tipped with spines like crabgrass.
The prancing lizards flushed a badger hiding in the underbrush. The poor animal was both balding and tufted with coarse gray feathers. Sunbright saw more corruption: mushrooms big as dinner plates and blood red, a frog with four eyes, a purple flower that drooled saliva, and an oak tree whose branches had broken from fifty-pound acorns. He recalled his painful discovery that one of the raptors had two heads.
So these must be the Dire Woods, where Karsus's twisted magic had landed and wrought havoc with trees and flowers and animals. Even the presence of raptors argued skewed magic too, for the old lizard beasts had been dying out for generations, almost prisoners of deep swamps and bogs. Yet here they thrived.
And people? Sunbright hadn't noticed much in the battle by torchlight, but in the dying daylight he noticed the savage rider ahead also sported deformities. The back of his square head had a bald spot like a scar. His elbows bore painful-looking bone spurs that stretched the skin. And his bare feet had only three toes. He must have been born in these cursed woods.
So a whole tribe of savages must inhabit this diseased forest. And Knucklebones and Sunbright were their prisoners, probably not for ransom, perhaps for slavery. But there were plenty worse fates.
Sighing, the barbarian hung his head and rested, harbored his strength for the ordeals that were sure to come.
It was long past dark when firelight announced a camp. One of the savages cupped his hands and bellowed a cry of recognition and boasting. Someone called back, and Sunbright barely understood the words. Then a flock of savages surged around, and it pained Sunbright to look at them.
One man was blind, with no eyes at all, just flesh over empty sockets. A woman had no lower jaw, just a hole in her face ringed by teeth. One child had no arms, while another had three. About half the tribe-forty all told-sported deformities. Most wore skins while some went naked, and still others wore cast-off clothing probably taken from prisoners. Many carried knives of iron or steel.
Jabbering mutants capered around the prisoners until the raptors danced nervously. One rider explained, in garbled words, that Sunbright had killed two fighters. Immediately their families began to wail, and the whole tribe beset the barbarian, slapping, pinching, tearing his hair, gouging at his eyes with filthy thumbnails. Hanging head down, Sunbright dodged as best he could, bit, kicked. But the wailing frenzy increased. Soon he'd be pulled down and torn to shreds. He heard Knucklebones yelp as someone ripped her dark hair. Laughing at his misery, a rider slashed Sunbright's bonds and heaved him off the saddle. Still bound hand and foot, he flopped in cinders and dust, was kicked and stomped with horny, bare feet, prodded with knives, rammed with spear butts. Someone wrenched his hair and jerked his head back while another put a flint knife to his throat. He kicked, flailed with his arms, bit an ankle, got kicked in the teeth. He couldn't see for dust and feet, and soon he'd be blinded. He hoped Knucklebones had the sense to cut her own throat before she was skinned alive.