Dust of Dreams

man to the other, and said nothing.
     
    Bugg stood at the back window, looking out on Seren Pedac’s modest garden that was now softly brushed with the silvery tones reflected down from the dusty, smoky clouds hanging over the city. There had been damage done this night, far beyond one or two knocked-down buildings. The room had been silent behind him for some time now, from the moment that the reading had ended a short while ago. He still felt . . . fragile, almost fractured.
    He heard her stir into motion behind him, the soft grunt as she climbed upright, and then she was beside him. ‘Are they dead, Bugg?’
    He turned and glanced at the now conjoined, colourless puddles on the floor beneath the two chairs. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted, and then added, ‘I think so.’
    ‘Th-that was not . . . expected—please tell me, Ceda, that such a fate was not in the plans tonight.’
    ‘No, Acquitor.’
    ‘Then . . .
what happened
?’
    He rubbed at the bristles on his chin, and then sighed and shook his head. ‘She chooses a narrow path—gods, the audacity of it! I must speak with the King. And with Brys—we need to decide—’
    ‘Ceda! Who killed Pinosel and Ursto?’
    He faced her, blinked. ‘Death but passed through. Even the Errant was . . . dismissed.’ He snorted. ‘Yes.
Dismissed.
There is so much power in this Deck of Dragons. In the right hands, it could drain us all dry. Every god, new and elder. Every ascendant cast into a role. Every mortal doomed to become a face on a card.’ He resumed his gaze out the window. ‘He dropped one on to the table. Your son’s. The table would hold it, he said. Thus, he made no effort to claim your son. He let it be. He let
him
be.’ And then he shivered. ‘Pinosel and Ursto—they just sat too close to the fire.’
    ‘They . . . what?’
    ‘
The caster held back, Acquitor.
No one attacked Ursto and Pinosel. Even your unborn son’s card did not try for
him
. The caster locked it down. As would a carpenter driving a nail through a plank of wood. Abyss take me, the sheer
brazen
power to do that leaves me breathless. Acquitor, Ursto and Pinosel were here to defend you from the Errant. And yes, we felt him. We felt his murderous desire. But then he was thrown back, his power scattered. What arrived in its place was like the face of the sun, ever growing, becoming so vast as to fill the world—they werepinned there, trapped in those chairs, unable to move . . .’ He shook himself. ‘We all were.’ He looked down at the puddles. ‘Acquitor, I truly do not know if they are dead. The Lord of Death fed on no one this night, beyond a few hapless souls in a destroyed inn. They may be simply . . . reduced . . . and after a time they will reconstitute themselves, find their shapes—their flesh and bone—once more. I do not know, yet I will hope.’
    He saw her studying his face, and wondered if he’d managed to hide any of his anxiety, his grief. The look in her eyes spoke of his failure.
    ‘Speak with this caster,’ she said. ‘And . . . ask him . . . to refrain. Never again in this city. Please.’
    ‘He was unwilling, Acquitor. He did what he could. To protect . . . everyone.’
Except, I think, himself.
‘I do not think there will be another reading.’
    She stared out the window. ‘What awaits him? My . . . son,’ she asked in a whisper.
    He understood her question. ‘He will have you, Seren Pedac. Mothers possess a strength, vast and strange—’
    ‘Strange?’
    Bugg smiled. ‘Strange to us. Unfathomable. Also, your son’s father was much loved. There will be those among his friends who would not hesitate—’
    ‘Onrack T’emlava,’ she said.
    Bugg nodded. ‘An Imass.’
    ‘Whatever that is.’
    ‘Acquitor, the Imass are many things, and among those things, one virtue stands above all the others. Their loyalty cannot be sundered. They feel such forces with a depth vast and—’
    ‘Strange?’
    Bugg said nothing for a moment, knowing that he could, if he so chose, be offended by the implication in that lone word she had added to his sentence. Instead, he smiled. ‘Even so.’
    ‘I am sorry, Ceda. You are right. Onrack was . . . remarkable, and a great comfort to me. Still, I do not expect him to visit again.’
    ‘He will, when your son is born.’
    ‘How will he know when that happens?’
    ‘Because his bonecaster wife, Kilava, set a blessing upon you and your child. By this means she