Free Among the Powers by Lawrence Watt-Evans Page A

or alarms or anything. I haven’t done anything very
fancy, so I suppose the guards will spot us, but they know me, and
we shouldn’t have any trouble in just walking in.”
    Bredon nodded. It was all the same to him,
however they approached. He had no idea what the proper protocol
might be, or what might best win Lady Sunlight’s favor; he was
simply following Geste’s lead. He was trusting the Trickster with
his life—but then, could the Lady of the Season’s guards be more
dangerous than flying through the air on an open platform? He had
already trusted himself to that.
    Well, yes, he supposed they could be
more dangerous, but he was resolved to trust Geste.
    The platform passed smoothly over the roof
of Autumn House and settled gently onto a broad stone-paved
terrace, a few meters away from a wide-open doorway. Bredon saw no
guards, nor any sign of life whatsoever. On two sides, the north
and south, he saw forested mountains in the distance and nothing
else. To the west he had a magnificent view of foothills tumbling
downward, row after row, and sinking at last into a vast, desolate
plain—not a grass-covered prairie like his home to the east, but a
golden expanse of wasteland. He was too far up to make out any
details.
    On the fourth side, the east, stood the
stone and timber walls of Autumn House, broken by several large
openings into the dim interior.
    The air around them, which had been utterly
still, was suddenly moving across them in a cool breeze.
    “Come on,” Geste said, stepping off the
platform and beckoning.
    Bredon, breathing deeply of the fresh
mountain air, followed the Trickster across the terrace and through
an open doorway into the largest, most luxurious room he had ever
seen.
    The houses in his native village were walled
with various kinds of brick or woven grasses and roofed with thatch
over timber. Timber was scarce and expensive in the grasslands. A
room more than four meters across was a rare extravagance; his
parents’ home had none over three.
    This room was easily ten meters across and
twenty meters long. Wide windows took up most of three walls, using
as much glass as half his village—the openings he had seen from the
terrace, save for the single doorway they had entered through, were
all such windows, and Bredon marvelled that they could be made so
large and yet not have the glass collapse of its own weight.
    The floor was stone, matching the terrace,
but much of it was hidden beneath fur rugs. Looking at the rugs
Bredon could not identify what creature had provided the fur for
any of them. A faint scent of cinnamon and woodsmoke reached
him.
    The sweeping emptiness of the room was
broken up by half a dozen scattered couches and an assortment of
small tables. The wall that held no windows consisted in large part
of an immense alcove that Bredon realized was a fireplace only
after he had spotted both the ash in the bottom and the flue at the
back.
    Tiny spots of color flitted about the room,
and Bredon recognized them as the same creatures that had
surrounded Lady Sunlight. She had come here. He felt the
muscles of his throat and chest tightening in anticipation.
    “Hello!” Geste called as they stepped
inside.
    “Hello, Mr. Geste,” a smooth, masculine
voice replied from the empty air. Bredon looked for its source, but
saw nothing. “I regret to say that Lady Sheila is not at home just
now, but we expect her back shortly. Is there anything I can do for
you? Would you like to wait?”
    “Is Lady Sunlight here? I see some of her
flutterbugs.”
    “I’m sorry, sir, but she went with Lady
Sheila. The flutterbugs were a housewarming gift.”
    Bredon felt harsh disappointment welling
within him.
    “Damn,” Geste muttered under his breath.
“Missed her!” Aloud, he asked, “But she was here?”
    “Yes, sir, Lady Sunlight arrived a few hours
ago. I understand she will be staying for several sleeps.”
    “You expect her back?”
    “Oh, yes, sir.”
    “When?”
    “I don’t