Sons of the Oak

In his cell, Fallion passed in and out of consciousness, learning to ignore the snarls of strengi-saats, learning to be a prisoner.

Each time that the torturer stomped past, Fallion would be alerted by the sound of jangling keys, followed by the thump, thump, thump of booted feet. Then the light would come, blessed light, and for long minutes after the brute was gone, Fallion would savor the afterimage of the torch, its flames twisting gently, sputtering, the delicious aroma of oily smoke lingering in its wake.

Sometimes, Fallion would look to see if his brother was still alive. Jaz rarely roused himself anymore. His chains did not rattle; his breathing came slow. Only every few hours did he struggle for a breath, suddenly gasping.

They’re going to kill him, Fallion realized.

Jaz was second in line for the throne. Those who wanted Mystarria badly enough to kill children would place a great value on him.

But Fallion was the prize. He held the birthright. He was the one that the killers would want most.

And maybe even the people of Mystarria, he hoped. They might want me, too, enough to pay my ransom.

He couldn’t imagine that. He was a child, more trouble than he was worth. He was not some great king, skilled in diplomacy and wise beyond the understanding of the common folk.

I’m nothing, Fallion knew. They would not want me.

But they would pay nonetheless, he suspected, if only to soothe the national conscience.

“See,” Chancellor Westhaven would tell himself, “I did not let my princes die. I am a good man.”

Mystarria was wealthy, one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Surely Westhaven would pay.

If he could.

Fallion recalled the smoke rising from the palace at the Courts of Tide. There had been a fierce battle, the kind where nations fall.

Lowicker the Brat might have prevailed, or the Warlords of Internook might have invaded by now. Mystarria might be nothing more than a fading dream of glory.

No one can rescue me, Fallion realized. And so I must rescue myself. But how?

The manacles were too tight for him to wriggle loose. In the days since his imprisonment, they had only grown tighter. His flesh had swollen, and now his wrists were as large as a man’s. No matter how he moved, he could not get comfortable. Sometimes wounds opened if he squirmed too much, and blood flowed down his arms into his armpits, smelling of iron.

He had only one asset. Fire.

But there was nothing to burn in his cell. No cots or mattresses, no wooden chairs or beams. Perhaps his captors knew of his powers, so they gave him no fuel.

Even if I had fire, what would I do with it? Could I make it hot enough to melt my chains?

Perhaps.

But in order to survive such heat, Fallion would have to accept Fire as his master, become like the flameweavers of legend who were so powerful that they clothed themselves in nothing but living flame.

And thus wrapped in flames, they gave in to their passions, their hunger, and went from place to place, seeking to make the world an inferno.

Fallion’s father had battled such creatures. They were no longer human.

Why would I want to? Fallion wondered. Why would I want to serve something that doesn’t serve me?

“To live,” Fire whispered. “To grow. It is only Fire that can set you free.”

Fallion was hovering near death when Shadoath finally entered his cell. He did not hear the keys rattle or the grating of the door as it swung on hinges that were almost never used. He became aware of her only gradually, first when he heard the sound of Jaz gulping, greedily drinking, the water splashing on the floor, as the child whimpered in relief.

He thought it was only a dream at first, some nightmare that featured sustenance that would never come. It was not until he heard Shadoath’s voice, gentle and seductive, that he realized that she had come, “There, Child. Drink. Drink your fill. I’ll save you. I’ll be your mother now.”

Fallion’s eyes flew open. The room was lit by a narrow candle, tall and thin, lying upon a silver plate, beside a silver bowl. Jaz was down from his manacles, and now he lay in the arms of the most beautiful woman that Fallion had ever seen. Jaz’s dull eyes stared up at Shadoath, and Fallion had never seen such adoration in the eyes of any being. Shadoath had saved him. She was beautiful beyond dreams. She had no ewer from which to drink. Instead, Jaz drank from her cupped palm.

His eyes said it all: his soul was hers, now, if she wanted it.

Shadoath took a crust of bread from the pocket of her black robe, fed it to Jaz. He wept at the taste of it, and she stroked the tears from his cheek, then bent her head and kissed his forehead.

“So hot,” she whispered. “Your head is so warm.” She lifted him, peered up at Fallion, and smiled. Then strode away, leaving the light.

Fallion’s own tongue was leathery, and felt as if it had swollen in his throat. His stomach cramped so hard that it felt as if it were wrapped around a stone.

Yet his body seemed almost weightless now, and he could no longer feel the pain of the manacles slicing into his wrists, or the muscles stretching in his arms.

He was hot, too. Feverish. And as his brother was carried away, Fallion burned for release, yearned to be carried with him, and wept for want of water.

But there was only fire in the room.

Fire!

Fallion closed his eyes, felt the heat of the candle. He was more sensitive to the flame now than he had ever been. It was a bright and steady presence in the room, like the impotent rage that was building in him.

There is fire all around, Fallion realized. There are flames inside me, burning for release. There are fires inside the other prisoners.

I don’t need torches to build an inferno. I could draw the fire from them.

It had been done. Fallion had heard of flameweavers so sensitive that they could draw light from the sky, or suck the heat from a human body.

It could be done again.

Fallion reached out with his consciousness, let it surround the candle, bask in its warmth. The candle sputtered, seemed to come alive.

A rage built inside Fallion. His brother had been carried away, refreshed, weeping in gratitude.

Had Jaz died, Fallion would have mourned. But Jaz had been claimed by Shadoath, and there was no word for the grief that Fallion felt now.

Jaz will be kept as a slave, Fallion realized. Perhaps he’ll be pampered and treated well, like the bright Ones who brought us here. But he’ll be hers, and he’ll learn to serve her without thought, without compassion.

From the shadows of the room, Valya strode, and knelt to pick up the light. He had not seen her there.

She had heard him crying.

“You can have food,” Valya said. “You can have water, too. All you have to do is beg.”

Fallion shook his head. He didn’t want to live as a servant of Shadoath.

“Mother can give good things, too,” Valya said. “It’s not all punishment.”

The words were just one more blow. “Mother?” Fallion asked. “She’s your mother?”

“Yes,” Valya said too loudly, as if it were nothing to be ashamed of, as if she’d fight him if he uttered a single syllable of condemnation.

There is light in her still, Fallion thought. She sees the truth about her mother, and hates her.

“I can set you free,” Fallion promised.

Valya stormed from the room.

Shortly afterward, perhaps only hours though it might have been days, Fallion woke again.

He’d been dreaming a dream unlike any that he’d ever had before. All of his dreams now were of the prison, of the torturer stumping past his cell, keys rattling. Sometimes in the dream, the torturer turned and leered at Fallion. Sometimes he opened the door, hot tongs in hand, and smiled grimly. Sometimes he brought water, and just as Fallion was taking a drink, he would plunge a blade into Fallion’s chest and begin to twist it, twisting, twisting, so that Fallion’s innards wound around the blade and eventually began to pull free.

But this dream was different. In this dream, Fallion was filled with a dull rage, and he had sent his consciousness throughout the prison, drawing heat from torches and the tormented bodies of the prisoners.

Not all of the heat, just enough to sustain him.

And then the torturer came stumping through the darkness. The jangle of keys, the thud of boots.

Even though Fallion’s head hung and his eyelids were so heavy that he knew that they would never open again, he saw the guard, saw him as he’d never seen anyone before.

The guard stumped past, his torch sputtering grandly. Fallion reached out to draw heat from it, but the guard did not look human in form. His body was there, but Fallion saw it now as if it were the body of a jellyfish floating among the waves. The flesh was clear and insubstantial, barely a hint of form. And there at the heart of the being, hidden beneath the flesh, was a dull gray-blue light, with tendrils shooting in every direction.

Like the jellyfish that I saw at sea, Fallion thought, radiating light.

The torturer stumped past, boots thudding, keys clanking on his chain, and was lost as he passed the stone walls of Fallion’s cell.

Fallion was left alone in the darkness.

Except now, there was no darkness.

There was a light inside of him. A light that hardly brightened the room, but which burned fiercely nonetheless. It was not a dim gray light, a shadow yearning to be seen. It was an inferno, a sliver of the sun.

I am a Bright One, Fallion realized. I am a Bright One.

His father had said that Fallion was an old soul. In the legends of Mystarria, there were stories of mystics and wizards who were said to be “old souls.” It was said that some folks chose to be born time and time again, accruing wisdom over lifetimes, wisdom that somehow came with them to each new life. Some of these old souls even claimed to recall bits of their past lives. “The body is a shadow,” they taught, “and the soul is a light that can pierce it.”

Fallion did not necessarily believe the legends. It seemed as good an explanation as any as to why some children were born with wisdom beyond their years.

But Hearthmaster Waggit had warned him against such notions.

“Those who claim to have old souls are mostly fakirs,” Waggit had said, “poor folk who pretend to be great, starving for applause.

“Some invent the tales because they can’t stand to be seen as the wretches they are. They tell themselves that only wise men suffer, and since they are in pain, they imagine that it must be because they are wise.

“Others use their supposed wisdom to gain money. Out in Indhopal, they prophesy to the poor about impending doom, and offer to use their ‘vast spiritual powers’ to deflect imaginary ills.”

“So all of them are frauds?” Fallion had asked.

Waggit had given him a deep, penetrating stare, one filled with respect.

“Some are genuine,” Waggit said softly.

At the time, Fallion had imagined that Waggit was thinking of some wistful encounter. Fallion had not been aware that his father had declared that Fallion was an “old soul.” Now he realized that Waggit had been referring to him.

Fallion observed the light within himself, radiating from a central point just beneath his heart.

This is a flameweaver skill, he realized. I’m drawing on powers that I didn’t know I had. But what good does it do me to see this?

Not much.

There was some comfort in it. Fallion expected his life to end soon, and he knew that if it did, he would come back again.

He peered inside himself, examining the light. He could see tendrils, thin filaments that stuck out from a burning center, like the spines on a sea urchin.

The spines did not flicker and sputter the way that the flame in a candle does, nor did they seem as if they could die. They were just there, like antlers on a stag.

Fallion twisted this way and that in his chains, and the spikes of light moved with him.

How brightly can they shine? Fallion wondered. I’m a flameweaver. I can nurse a twig into flame from nothing. What can I do with the fire within me?

He willed the light to come forth, and suddenly it blazed, astonishingly bright, so that it seemed to him that the whole room was alight.

He hung there, knowing that he was enveloped in total darkness, yet seeing the room in stark detail-the manacles that had held his brother hanging empty, the locks open, while a stain of sweat and urine darkened the stone wall.

Bits of dust and rubble threw shadows on the floor.

A rat gamely rounded a corner from another cell, the shadowy light within it bouncing as it moved, completely unaware of Fallion’s penetrating gaze.

Fallion was marveling at the sight when Shadoath came. He did not hear her, did not see a candle or torch. She came in utter darkness, as if she preferred it that way. Only her voice announced her presence as she rounded the edge of the cell.

“So,” she said cheerfully, “the sleeper awakes.”

Fallion peered through the darkness at the edge of his cell, and saw her behind the iron bars. Her flesh was as clear as jelly, a mere hint of form. There was a light in her still, a struggling little gray spirit no brighter than the rat’s. But there was something more, a blackness that seemed to be attached to the back of it, some creature of indistinct form, like a worm, and it clung to her spirit via a small mouthlike orifice, the way that a lamprey uses its mouth to hold on to a shark.

Fallion opened his eyes. There was no light to reveal her form, and so he let the light within him shine, and studied her by the light of his spirit.

She watched him with keen interest.

“I’m awake,” he said. “What do you want from me?”

Shadoath did not answer, not because she did not have one. Fallion could see that much in her eyes.

She opened the lock to his cell, stepped inside, then kept a steady pace as she came close. She did not stop until she touched him, stood leaning against him, her chest to his, peering up into his eyes.

She was beautiful, and Fallion stirred uncomfortably. He was a child still, and his fantasies about women consisted solely of holding hands or tasting a kiss, but he felt in small part what it must be to be a man, to want her more than life or breath.

“You should see yourself,” she said. “There is light bleeding from every pore of you, just as in days of old.”

Fallion had no idea what she was talking about. “The days of old?” Was she talking about the bright Ones of old, or did she mean him, in some previous life?

“Why are you here?” she whispered.

“You brought me,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not here in this cage. Why are you here on this world, now?”

Fallion shook his head, bewildered. He only wanted a drink. For a drink, he would tell her everything he knew and make up lies the whole day long.

“You do know the answer,” Shadoath said. “It’s there in the flames, inside of you. Peer hard enough and you will remember…”

But Fallion felt too tired, too weak, to peer inside of himself for the answer. He surrendered to his weakness, just let himself hang loosely. It did not matter if the chains cut his wrists. The fresh flow of blood that came streaming down his elbows didn’t matter.

He hung his head and fainted.

Hours later, he came awake again and tried to recall the conversation.

He was fully aware of the light inside him, and just as aware of the dark creature that dwelt in Shadoath.

Did it really feed on her spirit? Fallion wasn’t sure, but he recalled now that his mother called the locus a “parasite.” If that is what it was, then it clung to Shadoath like a bloated tick.

Yet if the locus had been feeding, Fallion had not seen it. He’d not seen a gut or some muscle that sucked sustenance from the spirit.

Perhaps, he thought, the locus only clings to a spirit the way that an anemone clings to the hull of a ship, mindlessly catching a free ride across the sea.

No, Fallion decided, the locus is not a mere rider. It is something more than that. It’s manipulative. It controls things. It has a purpose.

But what?

Fallion sifted through Shadoath’s words for clues. She had not asked about a ransom, as a pirate should. Nor had she sought the location and disposition of his kingdom’s Dedicates, the way that a sworn enemy to the realm would.

She had really asked only one question. “Why are you here on this world?”

The answer seemed paramount to her.

She knows me better than I know myself, Fallion thought. She’s known me for millennia. But she doesn’t know why I’m here.

“The sleeper awakens.” She could have just been referring to the fact that he was awake. But Fallion had been gazing at the tendrils of light within himself when she came. He’d let it flood the room.

Had she sensed that? Had it drawn her?

I am the torch-bearer, he thought, recalling Smoker’s name for him. I am the light-bringer.

And then it hit him: She wanted to waken him to his powers.

But why? he wondered.

She was his enemy. He could feel that in the marrow of his bones. They had been enemies for endless eons.

What could she hope to gain from him?

Fallion had no answer.