Dust of Dreams

a bedpost, exploding in a cloud of rank feathers.
    Smart woman. Now, if only there was room under there for me, too.
     
    In another section of the city, witnesses would swear in the Errant’s name, swear indeed on the Empty Throne and on the graves of loved ones, that two dragons burst from the heart of an inn, wreckage sailing out in a deadly rain of bricks, splinters, dust and fragments of sundered bodies that cascaded down into streets as far as fifty paces away—and even in the aftermath the next morning no other possible explanation sufficed to justify that shattered ruin of an entire building, from which no survivors were pulled.
    ______
    The entire room trembled, and even as Hellian drove her elbow into a bearded face and heard a satisfying crunch, the wall opposite her cracked like fine glass and then toppled into the room, burying the figures thrashing about in pointless clinches on the floor. Women screamed—well, the fat one did, and she was loud enough and repetitive enough in those shrieks to fill in for everyone else—all of whom were too busy scrabbling out from the wreckage.
    Hellian staggered back a step, and then, as the floor suddenly heaved, she found herself running although she could not be sure of her precise direction, but it seemed wise to find the door wherever that might be.
    When she found it, she frowned, since it was lying flat on the floor, and so she paused and stared down for a time.
    Until Urb stumbled into her. ‘Something just went up across the street!’ he gasped, spitting blood. ‘We got to get out of here—’
    ‘Where’s my corporal?’
    ‘Already down the stairs—let’s go!’But, no, it was time for a drink—
    ‘Hellian! Not now!’
    ‘Gare away! If not now, when?’
     
    ‘Spinner of Death, Knight of Shadow, Master of the Deck.’ Fiddler’s voice was a cold, almost inhuman growl. ‘Table holds them, but not the rest.’ And he started flinging cards, and each one he threw shot like a plate of iron to a lodestone, striking one person after another—hard against their chests, staggering them back a step, and with each impact—as Brys stared in horror—the victim was lifted off the floor, chair tumbling away, and slammed against the wall behind them no matter the distance.
    The collisions cracked bones. Backs of heads crunched bloodily on the walls.
    It was all happening too fast, with Fiddler standing as if in the heart of a maelstrom, solid as a deep-rooted tree.
    The first struck was the girl, Sinn. ‘Virgin of Death.’ As the card smacked into her chest it heaved her, limbs flailing, up to a section of wall just beneath the ceiling. The sound she made when she hit was sickening, and she went limp, hanging like a spiked rag doll.
    ‘Sceptre.’
    Grub shrieked, seeking to fling himself to one side, and the card deftly slid beneath him, fixing on to his chest and shoving him bodily across the floor, up against the wall just left of the door.
    Quick Ben’s expression was one of stunned disbelief as Fiddler’s third card slapped against his sternum. ‘Magus of Dark.’ He was thrown into the wall behind him with enough force to send cracks through the plaster and he hung there, motionless as a corpse on a spike.
    ‘Mason of Death.’ Hedge bleated and made the mistake of turning round.The card struck his back and hammered him face first into the wall, whereupon the card began pushing him upward, leaving a red streak below the unconscious man.
    The others followed, quick as a handful of flung stones. In each, the effect was the same. Violent impact, walls that shook. Sandalath Drukorlat,
Queen of Dark
. Lostara Yil,
Champion of Life
.
    ‘Obelisk.’ Bottle.
    Gesler,
Orb.
    Stormy,
Throne.
    And then Fiddler faced Brys. ‘King of Life.’
    The card flashed out from his hand, glittering like a dagger, and Brys snatched a breath the instant before it struck, eyes closing—he felt the blow, but nowhere near as viciously as had the others, and nothing touched his breast. He opened his eyes to see the card hovering, shivering, in the air before him.
    Above it, he met Fiddler’s flat eyes.
    The sapper nodded. ‘You’re needed.’
    What?
    Two remained untouched, and Fiddler turned to the first and nearest of these. ‘Banaschar,’ he said. ‘You keep poor company. Fool in Chains.’ He drew a card and snapped out his hand. The ex-priest grunted and was flung back over his chair, whereupon he shot upward to the domed ceiling. Dust engulfed the man at