Worldbinder

FROM DUNGEONS TO DAYLIGHT

“Daylan, what are you doing?” Siyaddah called out in the marketplace. She was at a spice merchant’s stall, where she had been studying strands of ginseng root that were splayed out in all of their glory upon a bed of white silk.

Daylan swiveled his head, afraid that the city guards would descend upon him. Most of the inhabitants of the castle were busy working at repairs, using weights and pulleys to haul massive blocks of stone up the mountain. The work was proceeding with marvelous rapidity, for most of the damage, it seemed, was cosmetic. But even with the whole city conscripted into labor, there were people to feed and sick folks that needed tending, so some of the market stalls were open.

But vendors at their stalls were calling out to every straggling customer, while women strode around in groups, inspecting vegetables and fruits, as if it were any other day. Nature seemed not to notice his distress. Golden butterflies and white moths fluttered among the hanging gardens that were a part of every house and shop. The sweet smell of mallow and mock orange flowers wafted through the byways, perfuming the cobblestone lanes sweeter than a baby’s breath. Swallows that nested in the cliffs darted among the blue shadows of trees and shops, snapping up bees and moths, their green feathers glistening like emeralds when struck by the sun. The streets of Luciare were a riot of life.

In the meantime, Daylan grunted and struggled to shove a large wheelbarrow through the half-empty street. The wyrmling princess lay hidden inside, with cotton bags thrown over her while a few dozen chips of stone lay artfully displayed in the corners.

“What’s going on?” Siyaddah demanded. She climbed to her feet, a broad smile of greeting on her face, all filled with the irrepressible energy of a bounding puppy.

“If you must know,” Daylan hissed as she drew near, “I’m trying to escape from the dungeons.”

“Oh,” Siyaddah said, drawing back a pace, suddenly embarrassed and afraid. She studied the nearby vendors and shoppers with a fearful eye. But no one seemed to have noticed her outburst. No one had been within forty feet of them, no one except the ginseng vendor, a woman so old that she could no longer hear. Siyaddah’s had just been another voice in the throng. Suddenly the irrepressible energy was back. “So, can I help?”

Daylan could not help but smile, “Dear girl, where were you when I was chest deep in-well, unpleasantness?”

Siyaddah drew close, as if to hug him, but then caught a whiff of him and decided better.

“I’m here now,” she said. She looked down into the handcart. “Is there someone under those wraps? It looks like someone is in there!”

“Shhhh…” Daylan hissed in exasperation. “How did you recognize me? I spent hours on this disguise!”

He had indeed spent the better part of the morning sneaking around the city searching for clothes. The robe that he wore, with a peasant’s hood, hid his form and most of his face. And he’d cut his beard and grayed it with ash. He’d then hunched over, like a bent old man, as he bore his load of refuse out of the city.

“I knew you in an instant,” Siyaddah said. “You’re the shortest man around.”

“I was afraid of that,” Daylan intoned. “That’s the problem with living among giants.” He shook his head in resignation, looked down the street. The guards at the city gate were talking among themselves amiably. Some peered out beyond the gate. There was no chance of a wyrmling attack on such a bright day, and the biggest problem was likely to be some street urchin who stole a cabbage. But if that happened, the vendor would raise the hue and cry. Daylan had been relying upon the relaxed atmosphere to make his escape. After all, who would look twice at a grubby old man?

Daylan eyed Siyaddah thoughtfully. She was a pretty young woman, exotic in her way. Her skin was as dark as chocolate, and she wore white silks in a flowing style that had once been common in Dalharristan among women who were eligible for marriage. And she was petite, compared to those of the warrior clan, for the folk of Dalharristan had never been large. She stood perhaps only a hair above six feet.

She will do nicely, Daylan thought.

“If you would like to be of help,” Daylan said, “go down to the city guards, and flirt. Do you think you could manage that?” Flirting was not an activity that proper young women had engaged in back in Dalharristan. But then, neither were young women in the habit of aiding convicts in their escapes.

“Well, I’ve never done anything like that myself, but I think I can manage,” Siyaddah said. She turned and strode gracefully down the street, aimed like an arrow at the guards. Daylan watched her for a moment, mesmerized by her walk. She had an engaging way of rolling her hips.

She moves like a swan, he thought, each pace bounding forward just a bit, just enough to make you want to catch your breath.

He smiled. Ever so subtly, she was already flirting. And the eyes of the guards already had riveted upon her.

Daylan hefted the handles to his wheelbarrow with a grunt, bent his head and back like an old man, tried to stand tall so that he looked more like one of the big folk, and followed her down to the gate.

Siyaddah had the guards huddled around her as he passed.

“I heard that there are strawberries down by the brook,” she was saying, “and the thought of them made me so hungry, and everyone is working so hard on repairs, I thought that some others might like them, too. Do you think that wyrmlings haunt the place? They eat strawberries too, don’t they?”

“No, no,” the guards all agreed. “Wyrmlings only eat pretty young girls. But you shouldn’t find them by the brook. It’s too open. Just stay clear of the trees, and you should be safe.”

A look of panic crossed Siyaddah’s face, and she asked, “Are you sure? I would feel so much safer if one of you came with me.”

But of course the city guards all had their posts to man. A couple of the young ones stood with chests puffed out ever so subtly, and one suggested, “I would be glad to take you down to pick strawberries this afternoon.”

Siyaddah smiled fetchingly, the damsel saved, as Daylan breezed past the guards and on out the gate.

The road down the mountain was steep enough so that the wheelbarrow moved easily, but not so steep that he had to worry about it running away with him. Still, for the next two miles he plodded along quickly, eager to be away.

The changes to the landscape in the past two days were amazing. He marveled at the trees along the way, wild hazelnuts and chestnuts filled with squirrels. Mourning doves cooed among the trees, and he heard the grunt of wild pigs. A stag actually crossed his path down by the creek.

Such things had not been seen here in ages. Only two days ago this had been a wasteland.

The city of Luciare had looked especially lush, too. By law, there were planter boxes in every window and beside every door. Herbs and wildflowers grew in a riot from them, filling the streets with perfume, filling the city with life. The flowers looked healthier than ever, rejuvenated, as if by weeks and weeks of summer rain.

That was one of the secrets of the city’s protection: life. Luciare was a city of life pitted against a wilderness of death. The power of the Death Lords was weakened here.

Daylan only hoped that the Wizard Sisel was strong enough to keep the land whole this time. He had been fighting a losing battle for decades.

Daylan was just rounding the bottom of the mountain, near the dump where rock was to be cast off, when Siyaddah came loping down the hill.

“Daylan,” she called excitedly. “Did I do well?”

Like so many of the young, she had not yet learned that doing well was its own reward. She craved praise, which Daylan saw as a sign of her immaturity. Her brain still functioned primarily on an emotional level.

“Yes,” he said softly, lest anyone come around the bend. “You did ever so well.”

“Who have you got hidden under those sacks?” she asked, reaching down to snatch them off.

Her face turned to a mask of shock at the sight of the wyrmling. Her lower jaw began to tremble, and she shot Daylan a look that said, “You have five seconds to explain yourself, and then I will begin to scream.”

As for her part, Kan-hazur curled up, hiding her face from the sunlight. “My eyes are bleeding,” she moaned.

“Nope,” Daylan corrected. “They’re just streaming with tears. You’ll be fine soon.”

He turned his attention back to Siyaddah. He didn’t relish the idea of having to fight Siyaddah, of gagging her and tying her up in the brush until this whole affair was settled. He didn’t even have the ropes to do a proper job, though he imagined that if he tore his cotton bags into strips, he might manage to fashion some cords that would hold her.

But the code he lived by demanded better.

“Princess Siyaddah, I would like you to meet Kan-hazur. I am taking her out of the city, at the king’s command, in the hopes of arranging an exchange of hostages-the princess for our own Prince Urstone.”

Siyaddah studied his face for a moment. Comprehension didn’t come dawning slowly, as it would on some dullard. It slid across her face in the blink of an eye, and then she was considering the deeper implications of all of this.

If Prince Urstone was still alive, he might soon be free. Twenty years ago, he had been wed to Siyaddah’s aunt. Her father had been the prince’s closest friend and ally, going out on war campaigns with him many times. Siyaddah knew that her father loved the prince like a brother, and for years had hoped that Areth Urstone would regain his freedom. Even as a child, her father had said, “I hope that someday you can wed a man of his caliber.”

Men had tried to court Siyaddah, men from good families, but her father hadn’t approved of them. Siyaddah knew that her father was grooming her, hoping that she would meet Prince Urstone, and that perhaps they would fall in love.

What does she think of all this? Daylan wondered. Certainly she must look forward to this day with both some hope and apprehension.

But whatever she felt, she kept masked.

“I…am pleased to meet you,” Siyaddah said to Kan-hazur with just the slightest bow. Her manner was courtly.

“You are not pleased to meet me,” Kan-hazur growled with the bag hiding her face. “I am not pleasant, and therefore you cannot be pleased. Why must you humans lie?”

“It is called a pleasantry,” Siyaddah said. “Among humans, we offer pleasantries when we meet a stranger. A pleasantry is not something that you, the stranger, have earned, it is a gift that I, the host, bestow.”

“I want none of your pleasantries,” Kan-hazur said.

“Too late,” Siyaddah said. “I’ve already given it to you. Besides, it is indeed a pleasure to meet you. I’ve often wondered about your kind, and it is a rare treat to meet you under such hospitable circumstances, on such a beautiful day.”

Kan-hazur pulled the bag away slightly and squinted at the burning sunlight, her eyes going red and puffy.

Daylan fought back a chuckle. Siyaddah had only just met the woman, but already sounded as if she had mastered the art of driving a wyrmling crazy.

Kan-hazur inhaled deeply, as if trying to think of an appropriate curse to hurl, but just growled.

“Don’t snarl at me,” Siyaddah warned in a more abrasive tone. “I won’t tolerate it. I know how angry you must be. I too, am a princess, and have lost my home.”

“Not lost,” Kan-hazur said. “It was ripped from your warriors’ dead hands. It was stolen because your people are weak and stupid.”

Siyaddah gritted her teeth. It looked as if she were considering a dozen insults, trying to decide which first to hurl first.

“Speak up,” Kan-hazur challenged, “or are you so slow-witted that you can think of nothing to say?”

“I’ll keep my thoughts to myself,” Siyaddah said.

Kan-hazur’s face contorted with rage, and she clenched her fists tightly, as if she so wanted to hear Siyaddah’s taunts that she planned to beat them out of her.

Siyaddah smiled at the small victory. When it came to self-control, she was obviously the stronger of the two.

“There now,” Daylan said, hoping to defuse the situation. “Look at you-the two of you have only just met, and already you’re sparring like sisters.”

Kan-hazur fought back her anger, apparently deciding that she wanted to beat Siyaddah at her own game. “Why…why do you treat me like this?”

“Daylan here teaches that we should show kindness to all living creatures,” Siyaddah said gently, “including toads and wyrmlings.”

“Then he is a fool,” Kan-hazur growled dangerously.

“And yet, it may be that only his foolishness has kept you alive,” Siyaddah countered. “When you were first captured, there were many who wanted your blood. But Daylan here argued against it. He argued that you should be set free.”

“I owe him nothing,” Kan-hazur objected. “If he argued for my freedom, he argued in vain-and he did it for his own…obscure purposes.”

“He did it out of compassion,” Siyaddah said. “He spoke of you as if you were a bear cub that had been lost in the woods. He said that you should have been returned to your own kind.”

Where she would have been trained for war and given command of troops, Daylan thought. And having seen our defenses, she might well have led some devastating raids against us.

That is what King Urstone had argued, and though Daylan’s stand was morally sound, there was much to be said for Urstone’s more pragmatic approach: keep the princess as a prisoner, safe and unharmed-but more importantly, keep here where she could do no harm.

There came the sound of singing down the road, some bumpkin torturing an old folk tune.

Daylan threw the sacks back over Kan-hazur, looked to Siyaddah. “Will you come with me? We do not have to go far.” He didn’t want her to return to the castle, not now. He was afraid that she would have an attack of conscience, tell the guards what she knew. It would be better if she stayed close.

“You’re going to make the exchange now?” Fear and excitement mingled in her voice. If the exchange took place as planned, it would be talked about for years. And Siyaddah would be the one that ears would lean toward as the story was told.

Daylan did not tell her precisely when or where, lest she warn others. But he nodded just a bit.

“Will there be wyrmlings?”

Daylan nodded again. She glanced down at his side, saw his long knife strapped to his boot. He was acquitted for battle, if need be, and Daylan’s skill with weapons was legendary. And he had weapons at his disposal that she could not see, could not even begin to understand.

“All right,” she said. “I will come.”