A narrow plate on the front of the ivory box slid sideways to expose a spring catch. When the child pressed that-the scale of the mechanism was so small that Samlor would have had to work it with a knifepoint- the lid popped up.
To display the inner surfaces of the ivory as highly polished as the exterior; and nothing whatever within.
Star was looking up at him with a pout of disappointment. She held the box in both hands and the ball of light, detached from her palm, was shrinking in on itself and dimming as its color slipped down through the spectrum.
For an instant-for a timeless period, because the vision was unreal and therefore nothing his eyes could have taken in-Samlor saw blue- white light through a gap in the cosmos where the whorl of white hair on Star’s head should have been. It was like looking into the heart of the thunderbolt . . .
And it wasn’t there, in the room or his daughter’s face-for Star was that, damn Samlane as she surely was damned-or even as an afterimage on Samlor’s retinas when he blinked. So it hadn’t really been there, and the caravan master was back in the world where he had promised to help Khamwas find a stele in exchange for help locating Star’s legacy.
Which it appeared they had yet to do, but he’d fulfill his obligations to the Napatan. He shouldn’t have needed a reminder from Tjainufi of that.
“Friend Khamwas,” Samlor said, “we’ll go downstairs if you want that. But”-his left index finger made an arc from the parchment toward the fallen silver pen-“something took Setios away real sudden, and I wouldn’t bet it’s not still here.”