The braided rug provided little cushioning, and the bedroom floor was stone. “Ow!” she exclaimed.
Faran had no time to worry about the woman’s clumsiness— he barely remembered her name. (Isia, a part of his mind reminded him, and she hadn’t been at all clumsy an hour or two ago.) He stared at the window, where the glow of the city, the stars, and the lesser moon filtered dimly through the lace curtains, and tried to calm himself.
The coughing tapered off.
The dream that had awakened him had beenimportant —he knew that, he hadfelt it, unmistakably. It had been not merely important, buturgent, as no natural dream could be. It must have been magic.
Faran had experienced magical dreams before, when wizards had used one version or another of the Spell of Invaded Dreams to send him messages, and he had always remembered the gist of them after awakening-it was, he had assumed, part of the spell, since they wouldn’t be much use as a means of communication otherwise. This time, though, his memory was vague and confused, as it might be after an ordinary nightmare.
He remembered that he had been falling, and something had been burning him, there had been fire and rushing air, and then all motion had stopped and he had been trapped somehow, and throughout there had been pain and terror... but it was all a jumble. The images he could recall were all distorted. He could not bring back any faces, nor even any totems-all he could remember seeing were flames and clouds and stone.
He knew that whoever had sent the dream wanted him, Lord Faran, todo something, to go somewhere and do something as soon as possible-but he had no idea where, or what he should do, or who had sent it.
If this was the Spell of Invaded Dreams, it had gone wrong somewhere.
He wondered whether perhaps this was some other sort of magic entirely, one of the less reliable sorts-witchcraft or sorcery, perhaps, or even herbalism or one of the really minor schools like science or spiritism or ritual dance. He couldn’t see how it could be theurgy-if a god sent him a dream, he was fairly certain he would know it. The gods might be whimsical and subtle, but this didn’t seem to be their style. Demonology, perhaps-could demons send dreams? If they could, they might well produce a tangled, ambiguous mess like this.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Isia said, climbing back into the bed.
“What wasn’t?” Faran asked, startled from his thoughts.
“Shoving me out of bed like that,” Isia replied. “You could have just waved me away, and I wouldn’t have bothered you.”
“Shoving you?” Faran looked at her, astonished but not allowing it to show on his face. “Did I shove you?”
“Oh, no, why, of course not! I just dove out of bed onto hard stone and bruised my shoulder on a whim.” She glared at him, then whirled and reached for the shift she had left draped on a nearby chair.
“My dear, my dear, Iam sorry,” he said-not that he was actually sorry, but a man in his position should not make enemies, no matter how trivial, unnecessarily. “I was caught up in the dream that awakened me.”
“A dream? What kind of dream?” She paused, the shift in her hand, eyeing him suspiciously, her mouth drawn into a tight line.
He allowed himself a puzzled smile. “Do you know, I can’t remember!” he said. “A nightmare, I think-I believe it was trying to scream that started me coughing. And I really didn’t mean to shove you, Isia-I hadn’t even realized I had done it.” In fact, he was quite sure he had not touched her-yet she was clearly convinced he had pushed her out of the bed. He watched for any sign of a softening in her anger, and when he saw her thinned lips relax slightly he leaned over and kissed her lightly on her bare shoulder-he couldn’t reach her cheek without stretching, and that would not have the properly casual air.
She accepted the kiss with a small sigh, and put down her shift, draping it on the side of the bed. Still sitting up naked in the bed, she turned and smiled at him. “I should go,” she said.
“Well, not to please me, certainly,” he said. “But is there some other reason?”
“My parents,” she said. “I shouldn’t stay the night; they’ll think we’re betrothed.”
“I wish we were,” Faran said, “but as I told you before, there are family considerations.” That was a lie-one he told all his women. His position was mostly his own achievement, and his bloodline, while technically noble, was not particularly notable; his surviving family, comprised of two nieces and a nephew, didn’t care who, if, or when he married.
“I know,” Isia said with another sigh. “You’ve been very sweet, Fari-except for pushing me out of bed just now.”
“And I’m very sorry about that. Blame whatever ghost or demon sent me that nightmare, and forgive me, please.”
She bent over and kissed him on the forehead. “Of course,” she said. Then she reached for her shift, and this time pulled it over her head. Faran took a moment to light a bedside lamp-he kept a sorcerous sparker handy, far easier than an ordinary tinderbox and quicker than calling a servant. The wick caught quickly, and he turned it up, filling the room with the yellow glow of burning oil. Then he turned back to Isia. He watched her dress, pretending his attention was entirely on her beauty and his affection for her.
Now, why did she think he had shoved her? He hadn’t touched her; he was quite sure of it. He had been leaning on one elbow, and his other hand at his throat, trying to control his coughing; he could not possibly have shoved her.
A kick would have been physically possible, but a look at the bedclothes convinced him that he had not unconsciously kicked her; his feet were still tucked neatly under the snug coverlet.
Isia was not clumsy, though-at least, he had never seen her do anything else clumsy in the four days he had known her, nor had she seemed inclined to fancies or delusions. On general principles he avoided bedding women whose grasp on reality seemed less than solid, and Isia had shown none of the warning signs he had learned to recognize.
So perhapssomething had shoved her out of bed. He had already concluded his rapidly fading nightmare had been magical in origin; might there have been other magic at work? A ghost, a demon, a sprite of some kind?
There had been no other manifestation, though.
Once Isia had her shift in place she crossed the room to the bench where she had draped her skirt.
Faran tried to remember exactly what had been happening when Isia found herself propelled from her place. She had been lying on her belly, propped up on her elbows; he had been on his back, on one elbow, his right hand at his throat. He had tried to wave her away with his left hand, as he had not wanted her touching him...
He remembered his desire to keep her away, and the helplessness of the coughing fit, and the strange images of the dream, and then he remembered something else.
He had done something, drawn something from the dream. He could recall the sensation, though he could not find words to describe it.
He looked at Isia as she tugged her skirt into place, and he tried to recapture that sensation while somehow reaching out for the hem of her skirt. He felt the space between them, perceiving it in a way he never had before, saw the nature of the skirt’s shape, and tried to alter it...
The silk suddenly hitched up over her left knee, exposing a shapely calf. She brushed it back down apparently without noticing anything out of the ordinary.
Faran tried again, this time lifting the back of the skirt slowly— from across the room, a good ten feet away. He let it drop before she noticed.
Was it something about Isia, then? He concentrated his attention on one of his own shoes, cast aside in a corner.