Dearest Zann,

I wasn’t exactly scared about being thrown off the bridge. The only bridge in that neighbourhood was the one over the Lafeas, a couple of blocks away. The Lafeas is a middle-sized river that joins the Crideon here in town, and it’s deep enough that you’re not going to dash your brains out. Even at that height, which is about forty feet. I imagine some people have died from being thrown in, but it wasn’t winter, and, unlike most of these city sorts, I can swim.

Still, it’s a pretty dirty river, and being thrown in wasn’t going to do my wounds any good, so I struggled as much as I could, until one of Nangolt’s men gave me a slap across the mouth that quieted me down. As we neared the bridge, I let them know what their wives and girlfriends were doing while they were at work, and they didn’t seem to appreciate it. When they threw me over the side, I was actually still rising as I cleared the railing.

In the middle of the day! Dozens of people were watching. None of the pissards did a thing to help me as I swam to the bank. Nobody called for the Qualison Guard. Nangolt’s brutes trotted back to his workshop satisfied with their morning’s work. I would too, I suppose; I never got to do anything as fun as that when I worked for Nangolt. Gods knew there were times I wanted to throw Srix off a bridge, if I had a bridge.

My problem now was that I was about thirty feet below the rest of the city, and needed to find a way up the stone embankments. Oh, I guess I could have just let the current carry me downstream until I was in the Crideon River, and then I’d be able to find some kind of wharf or something. But that would take forever, and nobody swims in the filthy Lafeas for fun. I spied a staircase set into one section of embankment, and swam toward it.

The passersby, seeing that I wasn’t going to die anytime soon, had continued with their errands, so nobody was there to watch me haul myself out of the murky water onto these stairs. I knew I looked like a muskrat’s orphan, but I was too far from home to change my clothes. My wounds didn’t seem any worse, and I hadn’t lost any of my belongings.

At the top of the stairs was a door, into a building that looked like any other Crideon building. I didn’t really want to go into it. But the only other thing to do was to try to climb across the embankment to an alley or something, and if I tried it I’d probably avalanche back down into the river and rough myself up pretty good while I was at it. So I tried the door.

It was locked, of course, and I was wondering what to do next when it opened from the inside. There was a lauran woman there. “Oh,” she said. “You’re all wet.”

“Yes, some men just–“

“It doesn’t matter. Come this way.”

And she led me inside, to a room where four other men were lying in bed asleep, with racks of mushrooms hung over their heads. “I just want to–“

“You can come to the front door next time. It’s easier. Are you sleepy?” she asked me.

“Am I what? No, I–“

“Then here,” she said, and breathed in my face. Smelled like honey.

“Uhh.” Suddenly I was very sleepy, and just wanted to lie down and close my eyes. “What… what…”

“That’s right,” she said, and helped me to an empty bed. I was asleep before my head touched the strawbag.

A lot of what happened after that I don’t remember well. I had to put it together myself from images and feelings. But here’s my best try at it.

While I was sleeping I dreamed about beauty. I didn’t see or hear anything beautiful in my dreams; I was looking for it. But wherever I went, it was always gone by the time I got there. I kept finding empty rooms and dug-up gardens. I think I felt sad about it, like I should have been able to find them, but they had been taken from me. I don’t know how long this lasted.

When the lauran woman woke me up, she moved a rack of mushrooms from above my head. I caught a glimpse of them. They weren’t grey or brown or white; they were swirled with all kinds of delicate rainbow colours that seemed deeply familiar to me. “Up you get,” she said, and helped me to my feet. The other beds were all empty, except for one, where another lauran was helping an old man in shabby clothes wake up. The mushrooms in his rack were all dynamic mixtures of black and gold, with red stars. She pressed a silver cup into my hand. “There you are. Now, don’t come back here until next swing; it isn’t good for you to give too often.” The old man was crying and I think I was too.

I must have stumbled out the front door of the place, wherever she led me, and into the streets. I know I gave the silver cup to the first beggar I saw. I remember wishing I had smashed all the mushrooms, but there’s no way I could have formed that intention at the time.

It took me forever to get back to the roost. I should have caught a longcoach, but I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to actually do it. So I walked the whole way, which put a big strain on my healing wounds. Also, it was late afternoon, so the mists were thickening, and I couldn’t stay out of them. They were yellow today, which meant that by the time I was home I had a thick coating of golden moss on most parts of my skin.

I did wake up suddenly from my doziness when I realized I hadn’t dreamed about trying to taste anything beautiful, and drenched myself in cold sweat when I realized what a narrow escape it had been. My heart has never pounded so hard.

But it was a strange experience walking through Crideon after whatever had happened to me. Everything felt unfamiliar. Things I had seen before, I still remembered, but I didn’t remember them seeming like that. Only the new black spires were as stark and inevitable as they had been. The towers of Blackfloors, had they always been proportioned like that? The carvings around the windows, always just so? The statue of Queen Modra, her arm curving so compassionately?

And then when I got home, and staggered into our roost, it was a great shock seeing Wande and Jhus. Had I ever really known them before? Had they always been this beautiful and I never knew it? Where had I been all this time?

I burst into tears and fell down and I guess Wande must have scraped my moss off and dragged me to bed.

Love,

Ybel