Sons of the Oak

Night descended upon Castle Coorm. The clouds above were worn rags, sealing out the light. The air in the surrounding meadows grew heavy and wet, and in the hills, bell-like barks rang out, eerie and unsettling.

The peasants who had come to mourn the passing of the Earth King issued through the gates like nervous sheep, and the atmosphere soon changed from one of mourning to uncertainty and anticipation. The inhabitants of Castle Coorm bore themselves as if in a siege.

It was more than an hour after Fallion had made his way home, and now his mother waited, pacing in her quarters, often going out onto the veranda to gaze at the hills, where every cottage was as empty and lifeless as a pile of stones. She ignored the local dignitaries that arrived, hoping for news of Gaborn’s death. How had he died? Where? She had no answers for them yet, none for herself.

Iome hoped that messengers would come. But she could not know for certain that anyone would bring news. She might never learn the truth.

In the past few years, Gaborn had taken to wandering afar. With his dozens of endowments of metabolism, he had become something of a loner.

How many folk in far lands had met her husband, a stranger in green robes whose quick movements baffled the eye and left the visitant wondering if he’d really seen the Earth King or was only having a waking dream? Often Gaborn merely appeared to a peasant who was walking the highway or working in the fields, looked into his eyes for a moment, pierced his soul, and whispered the words, “I Choose you. I Choose you for the Earth. May the Earth hide you. May the Earth heal you. May the Earth make you its own.” Then Gaborn would depart in a blur as soundlessly as a leaf falling in the forest.

He lived at dozens of times the speed of a normal man, and had aged accordingly. For him, a winter’s night would feel like more than two months of solid darkness. For him, there was no such thing as a casual conversation. He had lost the patience for such things years ago. Even a few words spoken from his mouth were a thing to be treasured.

Iome had not seen him in three years. Ten months ago, Daymorra had met him on an island far to the south and east of Inkarra. Iome felt sure that he was working his way across the world.

But why? She suspected that it had to do with Fallion.

It was while Iome fretted that Sir Borenson stalked into her private quarters bearing a bowl, with Fallion in tow. The servants closed the door, and even her Days would not enter the sanctum of her private quarters, leaving them to talk in secret.

In the bowl were half a dozen eggs, black and leathery, floating in a thin soup of blood. Iome could see through the membranes of the eggs-eyes and teeth and claws. One egg had hatched, and a tiny creature thrashed about in the blood, clawing and kicking. It was as black as sin, with vicious teeth. Even as Iome watched, a second creature breached its egg, a gush of black fluid issuing forth.

“It looks almost like a squirrel,” Iome mused, “a flying squirrel.”

“It doesn’t have any ears,” Fallion said.

It was not like a squirrel at all, Iome knew. It was more like the egg of a fly, planted into the womb of its victim, then left to eat its way out and dine on the girl’s dead remains. Apparently the egg didn’t need the blood supply of a mature woman to hatch-perhaps only warmth and wet and darkness.

Sir Borenson cleared his throat. “We got all of the creatures out. Only one had hatched, and it only moments before.”

Iome had already heard some of the news of their adventure. Fallion and Jaz had given a wild account, nearly witless with terror. Daymorra and Hearthmaster Waggit had been more cogent.

And in the midst of the questioning, Fallion had gone to give the girl comfort as others cut her open. He’d seen the eggs torn from her stomach, and now he looked very wise and sad for a nine-year-old. Iome felt proud of him.

“Do you even have any idea what these creatures are?” Iome asked.

Borenson shook his head. “Rhianna told me that they were summoned from the netherworld. The summoner called them strengi-saats. But I’ve never heard of them.”

He went over to the hearth, hurled the bowl and its contents into the flames. The young monsters made mewling noises as they died, like kittens.

Rhianna, Iome thought. So the girl has a name. And so do the monsters that she held within her.

“I wish that Binnesman were here,” Fallion said. The Earth Warden Binnesman had made detailed studies of flora and fauna in the hills and mountains of Rofehavan, in the caverns of the Underworld, and had even collected lore from the netherworld. He would know what these creatures were, if anyone would. But he had gone back to Heredon, home to his gardens at the edge of the Dunnwood.

“Will the girl survive?” Iome asked.

“I think so,” Borenson said. “We found her womb easily enough, and I got all of the… eggs out.” Iome didn’t imagine that anyone had ever said the word eggs with more loathing. “The healers sewed her back up…but there was a lot of blood. And I worry about rot.”

“I’ll see that she’s well tended,” Iome said.

Borenson said. “I was hoping that you could spare a forcible…”

“An endowment of stamina?” Iome asked. “What do we know of her? Is she of royal blood?”

There was a time in her life when Iome would have allowed such a boon out of pity alone. But the blood-metal mines were barren. Without blood metal, her people could not make forcibles, and without forcibles they could not transfer attributes. So the forcibles had to be saved for warriors who could put them to good use.

“She has no parents,” Borenson said. “I’d like to take her as my daughter.”

Iome smiled sadly. “You were ever the one for picking up strays.”

“There’s something about her,” Borenson said. “She knows some rune casting. At least, she put a blessing on the knife before she would let it touch her. Not many children her age would know how to do that. And she didn’t do it out of hope. She did it with confidence.”

“Indeed,” Iome said. “Too few even of our surgeons know such lore. Did she say where she learned it?”

Borenson shook his head. “Fell asleep too soon.”

“We’ll have the healers watch her,” Iome said in a tone of finality.

Borenson bit his lip as if he wanted to argue, but seemed to think better of it.

Fallion cut in. “Mother? Won’t you give her one forcible?”

Iome softened. “If her situation begins to worsen, I will permit her a forcible.” She turned to Borenson. “Until then, perhaps you should ask your wife to wash the child. Myrrima has a healing touch.”

Borenson nodded in acquiescence.

Iome changed the subject. “Daymorra told me of bodies in the hills,” Iome said. “I’ve sent her to lead twenty men to burn the corpses. We can’t let these monsters continue to breed.”

“I agree,” Borenson said. “But there is something else. Rhianna did not see the face of the man who summoned the creatures. She only saw his ring: black iron, with a crow.”

Iome stared hard at Sir Borenson, unsure whether she should believe it. She looked at Fallion, hesitant to continue speaking in front of her son.

Fallion must have sensed something amiss, for he said, “An iron ring, with a crow. For Crowthen?”

“King Anders, you think?” Iome asked. “Back from the dead?” That drew Fallion’s attention. Fallion peered up at her with eyes gone wide, riveted.

“It couldn’t be. I saw his body myself,” Borenson said. “He was cold when they took him from the battlefield at Carris. No matter how much of a wizard he was, I doubt that he could have come back.”

Yet Iome gave him a hard look.

Fallion asked, “How can a man come back from the dead?”

“Anders was mad,” Iome answered, “wind-driven. He gave himself to the Powers of the Air. As such, he could let his breath leave him, feign death.”

Fallion looked to Borenson. “Can he really do that?”

“I’ve seen it,” Borenson said. “Such men are hard to kill.”

Iome dared not reveal more of what she suspected about Anders. Borenson put in, “Whoever he is, he isn’t working alone. He mentioned a superior: someone named Shadoath. Have you heard the name?”

Iome shook her head no. “It sounds… Inkarran?” she mused. It didn’t sound like any name that she had ever heard. “If Anders is back, that could explain much,” Iome said. She turned to Fallion. “You were attacked only moments after your father… passed. I doubt that anyone could have known that he was going to die-unless they had a hand in it.”

Fallion shook his head and objected, “No one could have killed him! His Earth Powers would have warned him.”

That was the kind of thing that the cooks and guards would have told Fallion. Gaborn was invincible. Iome half believed it herself. But she also knew that Anders was both more powerful and more evil than her son could know.

“I’m with the boy,” Borenson said. “It seems more likely that his enemies just waited for him to die. His endowments were aging him prematurely. He was old, even for a wizard.”

Fallion had to wonder. His father should have known that he was going to die. His Earth Powers would have warned him weeks, perhaps months, in advance. And thus if he had foreseen his own death, why had he not avoided it?

Perhaps he could not avoid it, Fallion thought. But at least, he could have come home to say good-bye.

He said good-bye in his own way, Fallion realized. But it seemed a small thing.

And for that matter, why had Gaborn sent Fallion into the mountains toward danger as his last act? Had his father meant for him to find Rhianna, to help save her?

That didn’t make any sense. Rhianna wasn’t one of the Chosen. His father couldn’t have known of her distress. The Earth King’s powers were limited. He didn’t know everything.

Fallion was in a muddle.

“Why would anyone want to kill me?” Fallion wondered aloud. He saw his mother stiffen, exchange a look with Borenson.

She knelt, bit her lower lip, and seemed to search for the right words. “There are many men who might want you dead. I haven’t wanted to alarm you, but you need to know: your father traveled through many realms, seeking out the good people of the world. He Chose those that he liked best, and with his blessing, he helped them to prosper, and protected them from harm.”

She held her breath a moment, letting this sink in. “Now those people venerate him. They love your father like no king before him. And you are his heir. There will be many who will want to serve you more than their own kings. Who would want to serve an old warlord in Internook, for example, when he could have the son of the Earth King as his lord?”

“No one,” Fallion said.

“Exactly,” Iome said. “Which is why, when the last Earth King died over two thousand years ago, other lords banded together and slew his offspring, in order to protect their thrones.”

“But I don’t want anyone’s throne,” Fallion objected.

“You don’t now,” Borenson said with a note of hope in his voice, “but if you were to stake such a claim…”

“Wars would rage across the land,” Iome said, and Fallion imagined millions of people, rising up at once, to subjugate their lords.

“But I wouldn’t do that,” Fallion said.

Iome looked to Borenson, unsure what to say next, and Borenson whispered, “Not now,” he said. “Maybe you’ll never want that. But the time may come…”

Fallion looked at his mother, saw her blanch. Borenson had just suggested the unthinkable.

Iome had to deter the child from that line of thinking. “What is the duty of a Runelord?” Iome asked Fallion. She had made him memorize the words as an infant.

“The Runelord is the servant of all,” Fallion said. “It is his duty to render justice to the aggrieved, to foster prosperity among the needy, and to establish peace whenever peril looms.”

“That was your father’s creed,” Iome said, “and the ancient creed of House Orden. But it is not the creed of every king.”

“Certainly it is not the creed of Anders,” Borenson said. “Or of those who followed him. He fears you, fears the kind of king that you could become.”

“But I’ve done nothing to him,” Fallion said.

Iome knelt, looking into his eyes. “It’s not what you have done, it is what you could do. When you were born, your father looked into your heart, and saw that you had an ancient spirit, that you had been born many times. He said that you came to the Earth with a purpose. Do you know that purpose?”

Fallion felt inside himself. He didn’t feel special at all. He was just frightened. And he wasn’t aware of any powerful desires, except that his bladder was full and would soon need to be emptied. “No,” Fallion said.

Iome peered into his face, and her features softened as she smiled. Fallion could see wetness in her dark eyes. “Your father said, ‘He comes to finish what I could not.’ ”

Fallion wondered at that. His father had been the most revered king in two thousand years. He had led an army against the reaver hordes and won. People said that there was nothing that he couldn’t accomplish. “What does that mean?” Fallion asked. “What am I supposed to do?”

Iome shook her head. “I don’t know. But in time it will become clear to you. And when it does, Anders will indeed find that he has a worthy foe.”

Fallion wondered what to do. He couldn’t fight. But suddenly he knew the answer. Fallion turned a step, peered out through the open doors, to the veranda, where a sudden breeze gusted, blowing the curtains inward toward him. “When he was dying, Da told me to run. He said that they would come for me, and I was to keep running. He said that the ends of the Earth are not far enough.”

Iome made a choking noise, and when Fallion turned, he saw her dark eyes glistening with tears. She looked to Sir Borenson, as if to confirm what Fallion had said. Borenson peered at the floor as if he were a wizard staring into some dark orb, and he nodded. “Those are the words he gave me,” Borenson said. “He told me to take the boys and run, and said, ‘The ends of the Earth are not far enough.’ ”

From the window, there came a sound, a distant rumble, the growl of one of the strengi-saats from the woods. Iome strode to the veranda, and considered closing the doors.

She stood listening for a moment. Across the fields, the cottages were all dark. Not a single lamp shone in a window. And now a ghost mist was rising from the warm River Gyell, spreading through the downs. A bell-like call sounded to the north of the castle, and Iome thought it odd. The creatures had come from the south.

She waited a moment, heard an answering call from the south, and two from the west.

They’re circling the castle, she realized. Perhaps they’re after more women. Or after my son.

She dared not ignore Gaborn’s warning or even to hesitate to act. “I think that you’re right,” Iome said. “It would be best to leave quietly, and soon. Fallion, go and find Jaz. Tell him that you are to go to your rooms and pack three changes of clothing, your long knives, and perhaps a few trinkets, but no more than each of you can easily carry. Then go straight to bed and get some rest.”

“Yes, Mother,” Fallion said.

Iome watched as he hurried from the room, his feet rustling across the stone floor. She stood for a moment, thinking, then sighed deeply. She turned to Borenson. “You think well of Fallion. You could not hide the hope in your voice when you spoke of him challenging Anders.”

“I watched his father grow,” Borenson said. “He was a good lad, and I knew that he’d make a great king. But Fallion will be better.”

Iome smiled. No one could do more for his people than what Gaborn Val Orden had done. “All parents hope that their children will be better than they are.” She thought a moment. “But don’t speak of those hopes to Fallion. He’s just a child.”

“With enemies that are more than man-sized.”

“We’ll leave before dawn,” Iome said.

“Do you plan to come?” Borenson asked. “It’s a far journey.”

“I’ll come,” Iome said. “You know where to go?”

“I have an idea, milady,” Borenson said. “When I received the command, I had an… impression.”

“Speak of our destination to no one,” Iome said. “Not me, not the children. The fewer people who know the way, the fewer who can reveal it.”

“I understand,” Borenson said.

“We must consider which guards to take with us. I’ll want Daymorra and Hadissa, I think.”

“The fewer the better,” Borenson argued. “If we’re to travel discreetly, exotic guards will attract attention.”

“Of course.” There was so much to plan, Iome’s mind was spinning. If the boys did not have guards, then perhaps they’d need to protect themselves. “Do you think the boys are ready for their first endowments?”

Borenson gave her a hard look. Iome and Gaborn had both been loath to let their sons taste the first kiss of the forcible, to let them feel the ecstasy of having another’s attributes flow into them, lest they yearn to repeat the experience over and over, and thus become corrupted.

Worse, Iome knew firsthand the toll paid by those who gave endowments. She’d seen her own father become a drooling idiot after he gave his Wit to the wolf lord Raj Ahten. Iome had given her glamour to Raj, and had watched her own beauty turn to corruption.

“It’s a heady thing for a child,” Borenson said. “Jaz isn’t ready yet. He acts like any other child his age, but Fallion’s a good boy, very mature for his age. He could bear it…if you are ready to lay that burden on him.”

Iome bit her lip. She knew what he meant by “burden.” Iome had laid endowments upon her own husband, had given him endless strength and stamina with which to fight the reavers. And as a result, she had lost him.

In the very same way, she would be sacrificing her sons if she gave them endowments now. Their childhood would end the instant the forcibles touched their flesh. She might give them greater strength, speed, wit, and stamina with which to fight their battles, but in doing so she would lay upon them an onus, a burden of responsibility that no child should have to bear. The very attributes that saved them would warp them, suck the joy from their lives.

It was a quandary. Do I ruin a boy’s life in order to save it?

“A thought, if I may?” Borenson said. “Your sons are going into hiding. But how long can they remain hidden if they bear the scars of the forcible?”

He had a point. If her boys had the strength of three men, the grace of two, the wit of four, the speed of three-how long could they hide such powers? Even if they managed to hide them, the runes that the forcibles branded into their skin would mark them for what they were.

And it would leave them only half alive, as she’d left Gaborn only half alive when she sacrificed him for the good of her people.

“Very well,” Iome said, letting out a sigh. “If my children cannot protect themselves, then we will have to protect them.” She gave Borenson a long, appraising look. “Sir Borenson, you were once the greatest warrior of our generation. With a few endowments, you could be again.”

Borenson went to the window and looked away, uncertain what to say, considering the offer. He had thought about this many times, and had turned it down just as many.

He had taken endowments when he was young, and in doing so, had turned strong men into weaklings, wise men into fools, hale men into sicklings-all so that their attributes would be bound into him.

But for what?

When a lord took endowments, those who gave them, his Dedicates, lost their attributes and stood in need of protection, protection that never seemed quite ample.

For once Borenson took endowments, every lord and brigand would know that the easiest way to take him down would be to kill his Dedicates, stripping Borenson of the attributes that they magically channeled to him.

Thus, in the past, those who had served Borenson the best had all paid with their lives.

Worse than that, Borenson himself had been forced to play the assassin, slaughtering the Dedicates of Raj Ahten, killing more than two thousand in a single night. Many of those had been men and women that were numbered among his friends. Others were just children.

Nine years past, Borenson had put away his weapons and sworn to become a man of peace.

But now, he wondered, dare I take this charge without also taking endowments?

I made that choice long ago, he decided. When I became a father.

“My daughter Erin is still in diapers,” Borenson said. “If I were to take three or four endowments of metabolism, she’d be ten when I died of old age.”

“So you dare not make my mistake?” Iome said.

Borenson had not meant to offer this painful reminder, but Iome had to understand what he was faced with.

“I want to grow old with my children. I want to watch them marry and have my grandbabies, and be there to give them advice when they need. I don’t want to take endowments of metabolism. And without those, the rest would be almost meaningless.”

It was true. A man might take great endowments of grace and brawn and stamina, but that would not make him a great warrior-not if an opponent charged into battle with three or four endowments of metabolism. Borenson would die in a blur to a weaker man before he could ever land a blow.

“Very well,” Iome said. “I not only respect your position, I wish that I had been as wise in my youth. But if you will not take the endowments necessary to ensure my son’s safety, then I will be forced to ensure his safety. At least, I’ll come with you as far as I can.”

Borenson felt astonished. He had not expected her to abandon her kingdom. At the most, he’d thought that she might only accompany him to the border. He gave her an appraising look. “As far as you can, milady?” Then he asked tenderly, “How far will that be?”

Iome knew what he meant. She hid the signs of aging from others, but she could not hide them from herself. Though she had been on the earth for less than twenty-five years, her endowments of metabolism had aged her more than a hundred. She moved like a panther, but she could feel the end coming. Her feet had begun to swell; she had lost sensation in her legs. Iome felt fragile, ready to break.

“You and my son had the same warning,” she said. “ ‘Hide.’ But my husband’s last words to me were, ‘I go to ride the Great Hunt. I await you.’ ”

Iome continued. “I suspect that I have only a few weeks left, at best. And it is my greatest wish to spend that time in the company of my sons.”

As she spoke, Iome felt a thrill. She had never considered abdicating her throne. It was a burden that she had carried all of her life. Now that the choice was made, she found herself eager to be rid of it, to relinquish it to Duke Paldane. No more meetings with the chancellors. No more court intrigues. No more bearing the weight of the world upon her back.

“I see,” Borenson said softly. “I will miss you, milady.”

Iome gave him a hard little smile. “I’m not dead yet.”

Borenson did something that she would never have expected: he wrapped his huge arms around her and hugged her tightly. “No,” he said. “Far from it.”

She escorted him to the door, let Sir Borenson out. Outside, her Days stood beside the door, waiting as patiently as a chair.

Iome smiled at the woman, feeling a strange sense of loss to be losing this piece of furniture. “Your services will no longer be required,” Iome said. “I hereby abdicate my throne in favor of Duke Paldane.”

The rules were clear on this. Once Iome abdicated and named her successor, the Days was to leave.

The young woman nodded, seemed to think for a moment as she listened to the counsel of distant voices. “Will Fallion be needing my services?”

Iome smiled patiently. The Days performed no “services.” They merely watched their lords, studied them. Perhaps at times there were lords whose endowments of glamour and Voice could sway a Days, but Iome had not known of one. Iome had had a Days haunting her for as long as she could remember. She would be glad to be rid of the woman, finally. “No, he won’t be needing you.”

The Days took this in. She had to know that Iome was taking her sons into hiding. An ancient law forbade a Days from following a lord into exile, for to do so would be to alert the very people that the lord was forced to hide from.

“Then I shall hurry on my way,” the Days said. Iome wondered at the use of the word hurry. Was it a subtle warning? The Days turned toward the tower door, looked over her shoulder, and said, “It has been a pleasure knowing you, milady. Your life has been richly lived, and the chronicles will bear witness to your kindness and courage. I wish you well on the roads ahead. May the Glories guard your way and the bright Ones watch your back.”