"Because your motives are pure," Daughtry said. "You want the power only to save the man you love, and to fight our common enemy. You yourself fear that these forcibles will fall into the wrong hands. Having lived a lifetime of pain and torment, you have become acquainted with unwarranted suffering. You know how much evil this power brings, and you will guard your heart against it."
Rhianna suspected that Daughtry was right, but Rhianna also doubted her own heart.
"You fear to take them?" Sister Daughtry asked.
"With power comes pride, and with pride comes a sense of entitlement," Rhianna said, recalling something that her mother said. "And from a sense of entitlement, many evils are born."
Sister Daughtry smiled, peered both at Rhianna and through her. "Yes, I think I have chosen well."
She changed the subject. "And now, about this mountain of wyrmling treasure…"
To the best of her ability, Rhianna sketched a rough map on the ground. She knew that the fortress of Rugassa was three hundred miles north of Caer Luciare, and suspected that the fortress was close to a hundred miles from where they now stood.
"It will be a long ride to that mountain of yours," Sister Daughtry said. "If the wyrmlings are mining the metal, they will have begun taking endowments."
"Perhaps not," Rhianna said. "The wyrmling lords are still in Rugassa. I suspect that they will want it first. Being voracious creatures, they will not want to share with their underlings. That means that the wyrmling soldiers will have to send the blood metal north. They will pull it in large handcarts. They are powerful men, and tend to march a hundred miles per night."
"It has been only a night since your battle at Caer Luciare," Sister Daughtry said. "That means…"
"The wyrmlings should be delivering their first shipment in two days at dawn."
"The wyrmlings must never see a single forcible," Sister Daughtry said, her face hardening. "We should head south, try to cut them off near Caer Luciare, where they will be far from help. But two hundred miles is a far ride. The horse-sisters will never be able to reach the wyrmlings in two nights."
Now Rhianna brought out the rest of her treasure, opening her pouch and spilling two hundred blank forcibles onto it. "You can make it if you have force horses to ride."
8
EARTH S SPIRIT RISING
Time is a thief that steals our memories. With each passing day they recede from us, and more has been forgotten than shall ever be known. There is no lock that can hold against Time. It is only when a great wyrm seizes us that we find ourselves with a worthy guardian, one that can withstand the onslaught of Time.
— From the Wyrmling Catechism
The Sanctum had long been used for worship among the wyrmling hordes. A small oval dais of gray agate lay on the floor, with golden filigree forming the three-pointed star upon the ground, where orators could address the lords of the wyrmling horde. Seats made of polished cedar climbed in rows above the dais.
Behind the dais, against the back wall stood an onyx statue of a woman-not a wyrmling woman with a bony ridge on her brow and oversized canines-but a Bright One, a woman flawless and perfect, who stood with her back straight and her angry face glaring down at the ground, as if wrenching away from the audience in disgust.
Her hands stretched down, her fingers pointed to the earth, every finger rigid.
Many a lord had wondered at the statue. It was supposed to represent the Great Wyrm, and so they imagined that it should be a world wyrm that stood carved there. But Despair had inspired the artist. It was a statue of Yaleen-at the moment that she turned away from the world in horror and bitterness.
Now, in the theater, Lord Despair awaited the chance to take endowments. Humans had been brought into the amphitheater-small folk captured from a nearby castle. Dozens of them huddled in groups, fathers giving comfort to their wives. Young girls weeping. Children with eyes round from fright.
Some had been wounded in the battle. One boy had blood running down his neck where an ear had been ripped off.
But most were whole and healthy, ready to be harvested.
Despair gauged the worth of each.
His eyes fastened upon a boy of five, one with piercing blue eyes. He had a wholesome look to him, and soulful.
He pointed to a guard. "Bring me that child."
The guard waded in among the small folk and plucked the boy from the crowd. His mother shrieked and tried to hang on to the boy, but the guard shoved her back. The men called out for mercy, and some looked as if they would fight. Their shouts became a riot of noise in the background.
The guard brought the child to Lord Despair and sat him on Despair s lap. The boy trembled and struggled to leave.
"Sit," Despair said in a voice that brooked no argument.
The boy sat, shaking in terror.
"Look at me," Despair said. "Do not look away." The boy complied, and Despair reached up with one finger and ran it along the ridge of the boy s cheek. He had a strong cheek, a strong nose, and curly blond hair that fell to his shoulders.
"You are a handsome lad," Despair said. "Did you know that?"
The boy bit his lower lip, nodded.
"I m sure that you do," Despair said. "Your mother tells you this all of the time, doesn t she? She tells you every day?"
The boy nodded again.
"You love your mother, don t you?"
Fear shone in the boy s face.
Despair nodded toward the nearest wyrmling soldiers, who made up a wall of flesh that stood between him and the crowd. "You see those wyrmlings, those monsters? They want to hurt your mother. They want to take her away from you."
"No!" the boy pleaded.
"No, I don t want them to do that either," Despair said. "It would be frightening for you I think, and it would break your mother s heart."
Despair peered into the child, using his newfound gift of Earth Sight. He could see the child s hopes and fears, his deepest longings.
He was a good child, smart and honest. He would grow to be the kind of man that others trusted someday, a leader. He would be the kind of man who could win people s hearts.
A mayor, perhaps, Lord Despair thought, or maybe he d become the master of some guild.
As he peered into the child s heart, Despair felt a soft mental nudge.
"Choose the seeds of mankind," the Earth Spirit whispered. "You must save some through the dark times to come."
The nudge was soft, insistent.
But Despair had a better use for the child. "You love your mother," he whispered, "I can see that. I can speak to the wyrmling guards for her. I can make it so that you can stay with your mother. I can make sure that no one hurts her. But if I am to help you, you must give me something in return."
Despair did not need Earth Powers to see how much the child wanted that. The boy grasped Despair s sleeve in the attitude of a beggar. "What do you want? I ll give you anything." The boy fished in the pocket of his tunic, and brought out a boar s tusk-obviously a prized possession.
"No," Despair said, pushing it away. "I need something else. I want your beauty. I want to be every bit as handsome as you."
The boy thought for a moment, unsure what was being asked of him. Then he nodded.
The boy didn t need to know how his glamour was to be taken. He didn t need to know how much it would hurt, or how he might regret it in coming years. All that the boy needed to do was give it with a willing heart.
"All right, then," he said, gathering his courage.
"Fine," Lord Despair said. "Let s go in the other room for a moment, so that you can give it to me, and then I ll take you back to your mother."
That night Lord Despair, Master of all Rugassa, slept on the stone floor in his chamber, eschewing the tiny cot that made up his bed. Perhaps it was only habit that made him long for the floor. Lord Despair had not yet completely subdued Areth s soul, and found himself reacting at times as Areth might. After long years in the dungeon, Areth felt more at ease upon the stone
floor than on a bed. Somehow, the closeness of the stone also succored him. Its earthy scent filled his nostrils as he lay so close.
And so the two, enjoined at the spirit, slept on the floor.
It had been a good night s work. Despair had managed to take several endowments-nine of glamour, four of voice, two of brawn, three of grace, two of wit, one of sight, one of stamina, two of hearing, and two of metabolism.
In doing so, he had become more than human, and when further forcibles arrived, he would become the greatest of all. So he slept peacefully.
In his sleep, Lord Despair dreamed…
A storm was coming. The skies had grown dark on the horizon as clouds rushed in, the sickly greenish blue that portended a hurricane. Lightning flickered at the crown of the storm, sending booms that faintly rattled the bones, and the wind suddenly gusted and screamed in far places. The acrid tang of dust, blown in the wind, permeated everything, and beneath that lay the heavy scent of water.
He was standing on the parapet outside his bedroom, open to the sky, gripping the rails to the parapet. Enormous stone gargoyles flanked each side of him, long-toothed hunting cats of the plains, sculpted from yellow jasper. The wind blustered through his hair, and his cape billowed behind him.
He peered down into the walls of his keep and saw tens of thousands of people of all kinds, wyrmling and small folk, and even humans from Caer Luciare-he espied children with sticks doing mock combat in the streets under the stars, women hanging wash out to dry, men singing as they split logs for beams to fortify the tunnels-all of them innocently going about their affairs.
A boom sounded, startling him, and shook the stone floor of the parapet. The whole tower rocked from it, and he saw bits of stone dust flake away from the gargoyles and go drifting down, down, hundreds of feet.
The people below did not react to the thunder. They continued to go about their affairs, unaware that a storm was brewing-nay, not a storm, Despair decided, a hurricane, the kind of monster that comes only once in ten thousand years.
Lord Despair could feel the threat of it. The wind would lift children from their feet and hurl them about like leaves. The rain would fall in a deluge, and those caught within it would be swept away in floods.
In his dream, the voice of the Earth whispered, the voice of a young woman, as his eyes were held riveted upon the wyrmling horde. "The End of Time is coming. Behold your brothers and sisters, eating and breeding and toiling. You have been granted the power to save them, as was done with your fore-bearers. There are so many to choose from. Look upon them, and choose."
Lord Despair could not turn away. He peered down at a small boy sweeping a wagon that the teamsters had unloaded, and he felt such compassion for the child that his heart nearly broke. He wanted to shout a warning, but he was too far away to do so.
"Choose," the Earth whispered, and Despair recognized the woman s voice. Lord Despair whirled, and saw a young woman, graceful and beautiful to look upon. Her name was Yaleen. She was made of pebbles and stones and soil and crushed leaves, as if the humus from a garden had taken human form. Yet she was as beautiful as if she had been freshly sculpted from flesh.
In all of the millennia of existence, Despair had never felt such awesome power as this woman exuded. There was such profound love in her voice, such compassion. She was trying to bend Despair to her will.
"Who are you," Despair demanded. "What are you?"
Upon many worlds, of course, Despair had seen the tribes of men worship the Earth. Some thought it was only nature, some called it a god or an impersonal force. And upon all of the millions of millions of shadow worlds, no one really knew what it was that they worshipped.
Personally, Despair suspected that it was the spirit of some great wizard-a wizard whose powers had split when the One True World shattered. But it might also have been some innate force within that One True World itself, a force that was constantly seeking to heal the broken worlds, to bind them back into one.
Few were the mortals who had ever seen the Earth Spirit.
But now, the creature showed itself to Despair.
"How can you have lived so long," the Earth whispered, "and still not know me? I have not hidden myself from you. I make myself manifest in every breath of wind, and in every cool sip of water. I am the dark between the stars, and rocks beneath your feet. I am love and war and all righteous longing. I am the grass on the hillside and the lion in its den."
"You seek to bend me to your will," Lord Despair accused.
"As you seek to bend me to yours," Earth replied, "even though you swore to be my ally."
Lord Despair was about to object, but he could feel a small presence in his skull, tiptoeing around. It was the consciousness of Areth Sul Urstone, the remnants of what he had been, still struggling desperately to regain dominance. Lord Despair had been aware of him. It was not uncommon. Despair was a parasite, vast and bloated. He had seized the young man s body, and in time the soul would weaken and die, and that feeling of being watched would leave.
It was Areth, of course, who had sworn vows to protect the Earth. And now, the Earth peered at Lord Despair, and she did not focus her eyes upon him, but past him, as if speaking directly to Areth.
"You swore to save the seeds of mankind through the dark time to come. Remember your vows, little one."
Yaleen stepped forward, reached down to the ground, and picked up a pinch of soil, then stood and threw it. Lord Despair tried to duck away, but some soil struck him between the eyes. "The Earth hide you," she whispered, "the Earth heal you. The Earth make you its own."
Suddenly, in his mind, Areth reared up and tried to seize control.
Areth tried to raise his left hand to the square.
"Choose some of those people," the Earth urged. "Certainly some are worthy of life? Look into their hearts. Search their dreams, and sift through hidden ambitions that even they do not know of. Peer into their pasts, and learn their loves and fears. Choose who shall survive the coming storm. Choose who will build the new world."
Areth wrenched his neck and peered down over the parapet. There were so many people. They were so far away. They were like ants. He couldn t see their faces.
With a scream of anguish, Lord Despair roared and brought his hands down, clutching the edge of the parapet.
He woke and lay for a moment, beads of sweat upon his brow. Lord Despair gasped, the earthy dust of the floor filling his lungs.
Sweat stood out on his brow and on his upper lip, and his heart beat irregularly. In his dream, he had loved his people so much.
But Lord Despair loved no one. He fought back, tried to push the memory of it from his mind.
"My spirit shall not always strive with you," Yaleen s voice seemed to whisper deep inside. "You have not chosen wisely. Use the power I have given you, or it shall be bestowed upon another."
For eons Despair had wished to possess the body of an Earth King, and at last had found the opportunity.
But now he saw that with the power came a deep compulsion. It was time to begin saving the seeds of mankind.
Despair considered.
Dare I risk losing this power? No. The Earth demands a partnership, and its demands are light. It does not tell me who to choose, or why. Only that I must use my gift to ensure that some survive.
But whom shall I choose?
He had selected a few already in the moment when he d taken this body. He d done it not for love, nor because he desired their better welfare. He d merely selected wyrmling lords, men that he could use as… alarms. When danger threatened them, he would know that an enemy was about to attack.
That is all that they were. He did not care for these creatures any more than if they were roaches.
But now Despair was being warned to begin the process in earnest.
I will not let Earth bend me to its will, he told himself.
9
THE STRANGE RIDERS
Covet all good things. It is only by letting our lusts shape our act
ions that we can lay hold of every good thing.
— From the Wyrmling Catechism
Cullossax and Kirissa spent the morning hours in the depths of the forest shadows, walking in a large circle, crossing the same ground over and over to hide their trail. Their scent would be strong here. Twice they set up false trails, leading from their little circle, only to return, walking backward, step by step, into their own tracks. Then they carefully broke from the circle one last time and treaded along firm ground, beneath the alders.
It is not an easy thing for a five-hundred-pound wyrmling to hide his tracks. Cullossax and Kirissa did the best that they could, raking leaves over their trail, taking an hour to cross less than a mile. They found a small lake and waded across its length to a rocky beach, then climbed into some dense woods.
Even with the tree cover, the sun was blinding to a wyrmling, and often Cullossax had to hold Kirissa s hand as she blinked back tears of pain, unable to see.
Cullossax did his best to ignore his own discomfort. But as morning wore on, the sunlight striking down through the trees burned his pale skin until it turned red and began to welt; he winced at the slightest touch. His salty sweat only heightened the pain.
The two refugees were forced to strike north and west, their backs to the blinding sun, heading almost the exact opposite direction from where they wanted to go. At length they discovered a road. It was not a wyrmling road, broad enough for the massive handcarts that were used to haul meat and supplies. It was a dainty road, almost a trail, the kind used by small humans.
In the great binding, the road had been superimposed upon a trackless waste. Thus the human highway had a few thistles growing up through it, and places where it was broken by outcroppings of rock. But it was serviceable enough.
It wound down out of the hills.
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