The Seccath winged its way straight toward Daylan Hammer, and Alun had the forethought to realize that the immortal had no weapon to protect him.
Just as Alun was about to shout a warning, the Seccath folded its wings and dropped to the tower wall, opposite from Daylan Hammer.
“Well met,” Daylan Hammer said.
The wyrmling settled onto the wall. She was a pale-eyed woman with blond hair shaved short and with huge bones. Her neck and forehead were tattooed with cruel glyphs, prayers to Lady Despair. There was no beauty in her that Daylan could see, unless one thought that brutality could be considered comely.
Not for the first time, Daylan considered how decency and innocence were inextricably mingled with a human’s concept of beauty. On almost every world he had visited, in any nation, a person whose face was smooth, childlike—innocent, and compassionate—was considered more beautiful than one who was not. Not so among the wyrmlings.
Indeed, it was believed that the wyrmlings’ ancestors had been human, but they had been bred for war over so many generations that they had evolved into something else. So there was an inbred cruelty and wariness to the woman—a rough and hawkish face, a scowl to the mouth, blazing eyes, and a wary stance, as if she only hoped for a chance to gut him.
Her artificial wings folded around her now, making her look as if she were draped in translucent yellow robes. Behind her, the dying sun hung just above the horizon like a bloody eye.
The wyrmling peered at Daylan, cold and mocking in her rage. The wyrmlings could not abide light. It pained their eyes and burned their skin.
Humans feared the darkness, and so they had agreed to meet here now, in the half-light.
The sight of her sent a shudder through Daylan. Thoughts of compassion, honor, decency—all were alien to her, incomprehensible. The maggot that infected her soul saw to that.
“Well met?” she asked, as if trying to make sense of the greeting. “Why would it be well to meet me? Your body trembles. It knows the gaze of a predator when it sees it. Yet you think it well to meet me?”
Daylan chuckled. “It is only a common greeting among my people.”
“Is it?” the wyrmling demanded, as if he lied.
“So,” Daylan said, “you asked for proof that your princess is still alive.”
“Can you name the day she drew her first blood?”
It was a difficult question, Daylan knew. The wyrmlings kept great beasts to use in times of war—the world wyrms. Among wyrmlings, time was measured in “rounds” which lasted for three years—the length of time that it took between breeding cycles for a female wyrm. Each day in a round had its own name. Thus, there were over a thousand days in a round, and if Daylan had to lie, he would have had a slim chance of guessing the right day.
“Princess Kan-hazur says that she drew first blood upon the day of Bitter Moon.” That was all that he needed to say, but he wanted to offer ample proof. “It was in the two hundred and third year of the reign of the Dread Emperor Zul-torac. She fought in the Vale of Pearls against the he-beast Nezyallah, and broke his neck with her club.”
Daylan knew a bit about politics among wyrmlings. As he understood it, the “he-beast” was in fact the Princess’s own older brother. He would have been larger and stronger than her, but the princess claimed that her brother was also less violent, and therefore less “able to lead,” by wyrmling standards.
“Aaaaah,” the wyrmling sighed. “A fine battle it was. Kan-hazur won scars both of flesh and of the heart that day.”
“Yes,” Daylan said. “And now, do we have a bargain?”
5
A LIGHT IN THE HEAVENS
Death never comes at a timely hour.
—a saying of the netherworld
Alun waited for the two to leave—the wyrmling flying back north, while Daylan Hammer climbed gingerly from the wall.
He let Daylan Hammer have a five minute lead, and then hurried for the castle.
I’m in a real fix now, Alun decided. It was eleven miles back to the castle, and he’d never be able to make it before dark. The wyrmling harvesters would come out by then. Indeed, the last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon as he began his race, and he knew that he had perhaps a half an hour of light, and there would be only the faintest waning moon tonight.
Maybe I’ll get lucky, he thought. The lords have been hunting the harvesters hard. There can’t be many around the castle.
But he had little hope. Wyrmling harvesters butchered humans, taking certain glands that the wyrmlings used for elixirs. Thus, the castle attracted the wyrmlings like wolves to a carcass.
So Alun ran, heart pounding, sweat streaming down his forehead, his back, his neck and face. He came up out of the bogs into the wastes and kept to a rocky ravine, the dry bed of creek.
The shadows grew long and deep, and he struggled to keep up with Wanderlust.
The dog will warn me of danger, he thought—until he rounded a boulder; something large lurched in front of him.
He heard the sound of steel clearing a scabbard, and Daylan Hammer’s boot knife pressed up against Alun’s nose.
“What are you doing?” Daylan demanded. “Why are you following me?” Daylan studied him with a cold eye.
“I, I, I uh, was looking for a lost dog,” Alun explained, coming up with the lie. “Wanderlust here is my favorite.”
The dog growled at Daylan Hammer but didn’t dare attack. Oh, she’d try to take him if Alun so commanded, but Alun knew that if he ordered her to kill, Daylan’s knife could plunge through his eye before the hound ever got a bite of the immortal.
Daylan smiled, sheathed his knife. Apparently he decided the Alun didn’t represent much of a threat. “You’ve followed me for hours.”
“I didn’t see nothin’!”
“You didn’t see me meet with a wyrmling Seccath?” Daylan smiled at the lie, as if it were nothing.
“No!” Alun insisted.
“Then you’re a terrible spy, and not worth the half of what they’re paying you.”
Daylan sat down on a large rock and patted a spot next to him, inviting Alun to rest. Alun was gasping from fear and exhaustion. Daylan suggested, “Lean your head between your knees. Catch your breath.”
Alun did as he was told, unnerved at the realization that there was nothing he could do to protect himself from a man like Daylan Hammer. “What are you going to do with me?”
“You mean do to you?” Daylan laughed. “Nothing. If I wanted to kill you, I’d leave you here in the waste for the wyrmlings. They’d take a meager harvest from you. But I won’t leave you alone, and I won’t harm you. I just want to know one thing: who sent you?” His tone was mild, affable, as if he were asking what Alun thought of the weather.
Alun sat gasping for a moment. It was no use lying. If he lied, Daylan might leave him for the wyrmlings, and that would be that.
But there was something more to it.
He liked the way that Daylan had asked. When Madoc had come, he’d stood over Alun with his brutish sons at his back, and had taken an intimidating stance. There were subtle threats implied, Alun suddenly realized.
But even when he made the mildest of threats, Daylan didn’t sound serious. Indeed, he was smiling, as if sharing a joke.
“Warlord Madoc,” Alun said at last. “Warlord Madoc sent me.”
“What did he say about me? What does he suspect?”
“He thinks that you’re a traitor, that you killed Sir Croft.”
“Sir Croft got himself killed,” Daylan said. “He followed me, as you did, but he didn’t keep to his cover as well. I didn’t see him, but the wyrmling did. She caught him. By the time I heard Croft’s cries, the harvest had been taken.”
Alun said nothing.
“Did you hear our conversation?” Daylan asked, “Mine and the Seccath’s?”
Alun shook his head. “I was too far away to hear anything. I didn’t dare try to get close.”
“Ah,” Daylan said. “I am tryin
g to make a bargain with the wyrmlings. They have High King Urstone’s son. They’ve held him hostage now for more than a decade. And as you know, we have Zul-torac’s daughter. Zul-torac has forsaken his flesh, and lives only as a shadow now. He cannot spawn any more offspring, and so his daughter is precious to him. I hope to make an exchange of hostages.”
“Prince Urstone is still alive, after all these years?”
“Barely, from what I understand.”
“And is he even human?” Alun asked. “Surely by now they’ve put him in a crystal cage and fit him with a wyrm.”
“He’s resisted the cage, and the wyrm,” Daylan said. “He is still human.” Alun doubted that anyone could resist the cage for so long. It was said that the pains one endured there made a person long for death, long for release. Better to let a wyrm infest your soul, lose your humanity, than to resist. “Through a messenger, I have put questions to him,” Daylan explained, “moral questions that no person infected by a wyrm could have answered correctly. The crystal cage destroys most men, but others it only purifies, filling them with compassion and the wisdom that can only come from having endured great pain and perfect despair.”
Alun peered up, hope in his eyes. If Daylan was right, then the prince was the kind of hero that men only hear of in legends.
Daylan Hammer grasped Alun by the wrist. “Old King Urstone is failing. He won’t last much longer than that dog of yours.
“In three days, a thousand of the strongest warriors in Caer Luciare will ride north to attack the wyrmlings, to take back the fortress at Cantular. In seventeen years, no attack so bold has been attempted, for word of such an attack might well drive Emperor Zul-torac mad with bloodlust, and the life of Prince Urstone would be forfeit.
“And so I am trying to negotiate an exchange of hostages—before the attack takes place.”
“But, once we give up their princess,” Alun asked, “won’t the wyrmlings attack Caer Luciare in force?”
“Of course they will,” Daylan said.
Alun didn’t understand. The immortal was giving up their hostage, the only thing that had protected the Caer for more than a decade. If Alun understood him aright, with the hostage lost, the wyrmlings would attack, and by the end of this week, everyone that he knew could be dead.
“This is madness!” Alun shouted. “You’ve gone daft! King Urstone would never agree to such a plan. What do we gain? You are just hurrying our end!”
“The end is coming, whether we like it or not,” the immortal said. “Warlord Madoc has convinced the others to make this assault in an effort to secure the borders. Madoc is a fool who dreams of rebuilding the kingdom. Others are tired of hiding, of watching our numbers dwindle away day by day, and so they hope to die fighting, as warriors will.
“But once Madoc takes Cantular, the prince’s life is forfeit, and Emperor Zul-torac will retaliate. The wyrmling code demands vengeance. They have a saying, ‘Every insult must be paid for in blood.’ Zul-torac’s honor will demand that he hit us hard, even if he must cut his way through his own daughter to do so.”
Alun still didn’t understand. There was no justification for giving up their hostage. Daylan Hammer was making a token gesture, trying to save two lives for what… a week?
“I don’t see any value in trying to save the prince,” Alun said. “If we are all to die, why not just hit them, and let the prince be damned?”
“That’s how Madoc would have it, isn’t it?” Daylan said. Alun realized that he was right. “It sounds courageous, daring. Many lords applaud his courage. But think: what if mankind is not wiped out? What if a few hundred or even thousands of you were able to run off into the wilderness, or hide in the caves beneath Caer Luciare? What then? If the prince dies and Madoc manages to win the battle, who will the kingdom fall to when the High King dies?”
“Warlord Madoc,” Alun said, for the High King had no other heir.
“Madoc himself might not be a bad High King,” Daylan Hammer said. “But what of his sons? To put them on a throne would be a disaster. If Madoc or his sons were to learn of my plan, you know that they would oppose it. They could easily sabotage it. No one would blame them if they put the wyrmling princess to the sword.
“I’m not hoping just to save just our prince, Alun, I’m hoping to save our kingdom, our people.”
A chill wind suddenly swept over the rocks, down from the mountain.
There were too many ifs in Daylan’s argument.
“Let’s say you’re right,” Alun said. “Let’s say that the lords take Cantular, and the wyrmlings in a fit of rage come and wipe us all out, as seems most likely. Then … what will all of this have accomplished? The sum of all your acts is what, to save one wyrmling princess?” The thought was absurd. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Daylan smiled, and suddenly he looked old and weary and bent. “There is indeed,” he admitted. “I believe that it is time to free the princess. I believe that we should stop using her as a shield, even if there is no hope for our people.”
“How so?” Alun asked, a sudden fear rising in him. Would Daylan Hammer throw away their hostage for nothing?
“No one should be put to such indignity. No life should be so abused. You’ve stolen her freedom, terrorized her, and victimized her. She was but a child when she was captured. Does your weakness as a nation, your cowardice, justify such behavior?”
“They did it to us first,” Alun pointed out.
“They took a warrior captive. Your people took a child. It’s not the same. But even if the acts were equal, does that mean that because the wyrmlings are cruel and craven, you would fall to their estate? Don’t you realize that that is precisely what they want? The maggots that infect their souls cannot possess your body so long as you remain pure enough, innocent enough. As a people, you cannot let yourselves sink to their level. There is great power in doing what is right, and letting the consequences be damned. It is the safest course, even when the peril appears great, for it is better to lose your life than to throw away your soul.
“Alun, I’m not trying to just free a pair of hostages. I’m hoping to lift this pall of shame that covers Caer Luciare. I’m hoping, in some small way, to redeem this people.”
The drawbridge fell open, and all that Fallion saw within the courtyard was the tree, seemingly tall now, nearly thirty feet. Every branch, every twig, seemed to be a wonder, the product of some superhuman artistry.
The villagers, bloody and bedraggled, were crowded around it, shouting in joy, cheering for Fallion, for freedom, their voices seeming to come from a great distance, like a wind rushing above a vast forest.
“Milord,” one old woman shouted, “remember me?” Fallion smiled. He did indeed. She had been a scullery maid in the castle; she had taught him how to cook a pudding.
“And me, milord?” a man cried. It was the cobbler who had given Fallion his pet ferrin as a child.
And as the bridge lowered, all of the weight of his journey washed out of Fallion, and he felt renewed—not just rested in mind, but refreshed in spirit.
It was more than the homecoming. It was the tree that influenced him.
Now was the time to do things. Now was the time to become a better person, to seek perfection.
The urge came to him so clearly it was almost a command.
But as the bridge dropped farther, Fallion began to realize that something was horribly wrong. There was darkness among the branches, a lingering shadow, and the tree had almost no leaves, and those were only on the top-most branches, though it was high summer.
And as he saw the bole of the tree, scarred and blackened by flames, he began to understand why.
The bridge dropped, and he saw it now. The tree was surrounded by a circular wall of stone. And within that wall of stones, worms of green flame sputtered and burned, while white-hot sparks shot out from time to time amid a rune of fire. It was the Seal of the Inferno.
The image smote him, went whirling before his eyes,
filling his vision. He blinked and turned away, sought to clear his sight, but the image could not be pushed aside. He stood before the Seal of the Inferno, and it forced itself upon him.
Serve me, a voice demanded in the whispering tongue of flames. Give your all to me.
Fallion dropped to one knee and held his forearm against his eyes.
It wasn’t supposed to be here. The Seal was supposed to be in the Underworld, linking the Seal of Heaven to the Seal of Earth. By smoothing out its flaws, Fallion hoped to bind the shattered remains of the One True World back into a single whole.
But this thing before him, it was lying naked in the open, like a festering wound.
Even with his eyes clenched, the rune thrust itself on his consciousness.
You cannot escape, it whispered.
“Fallion?” he heard Rhianna calling desperately. “Fallion, what’s wrong?”
“The Seal,” Fallion shouted. “It’s breached! It—has been sullied, warped.” He could think of no other way to describe the damage. The rune had been twisted, subverted by some malicious power. It was raging, wanton. It should have been controlled, a shining thing of golden light. All that he saw now was dangerous wreckage.
The same power that had broken the Seals in the beginning did this, he realized—the Queen of the Loci.
“Can you fix it?” Rhianna asked, her voice seeming to come from far away.
A tremendous fear welled up in Fallion. The Seal shouldn’t have been here. He knew of no human-born flameweaver who was powerful enough to have recreated the Seal. Only the Queen of all Loci could do that. He worried that she might be near.
In his dreams, fixing it had been so easy. But now, confronted by the abomination itself, he wasn’t sure.
Seeking fuel, Fallion reached up into heaven and grasped the light, pulling it down in fiery cords, letting it build.
He opened his eyes, staring into the wheel of fire, searching for its flaws.
Shapes began to emerge. To a commoner, it would have only looked like a bowl of flames, endlessly burning without a source, but to Fallion, there was meaning within those shapes.
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