Worldbinder

AN EXCHANGE OF HOSTAGES

In a more perfect world, Fallion thought, my father and mother are still alive.

He sat in the sun beneath the alder trees and dared to dream of this as he peered up. The sun beating down through layered sheets of leaves created a complex tapestry of shadow and light, all in shades of green. The day was only now beginning to really warm, and the air smelled sweet and fresh after a night locked in the stone box.

Fallion drew heat from around him and warmed himself and his friends, so that they quickly dispelled the bone-numbing chill.

They’d been so close to death, and now he felt that it was a miracle to be alive.

“Can you believe it, Jaz?” Fallion asked. “We’ve met the shadow of our grandfather, and we are going to see father again.”

Beyond all hope, Fallion thought, beyond my wildest dreams.

Talon frowned. “We might see him,” she warned. “The wyrmlings have been holding him captive.” But Fallion could not think in those terms right now. Mights and maybes weren’t enough.

No, I will see my father, he promised himself. I have come so far, been through so much, it is only fair that I should see him.

He held the hope in his heart, pure and clean and undefiled.

The soldiers were busy around the old fortress, taking the heads off of the enemy, preparing the dead. Some were taking lunch before heading back toward the garrison at Cantular.

But the king was preparing for a longer journey, hand-selecting the troops who would come.

Fallion peered up into the trees, noticed that the edges of the alder leaves were turning gold. Though it felt like high summer, as it had been at home, he realized that perhaps winter was coming on here, in this new world. Or maybe they were high enough into the mountains so that winter came early.

But no, at the edge of hearing, in a tree high above him, he could hear the peeping of birds in a nest. He watched a fluttering shadow until it disappeared in the crook of the tree, and the peeping became loud and insistent for a moment, and then fell silent. The birds were nesting.

No, it was early summer, Fallion decided. But the leaves were going already. There was a blight upon the land.

Fallion peered at Jaz, who merely sat with a bemused expression. He was off to dreaming, imagining what it would be like to see his father.

One of the big folk approached, a young man whose narrow face made him look almost childlike. He wore a blood-soaked rag around his head, and his brown hair was a riot, with a cow-lick in the back.

He muttered something, handed out their packs full of clothes, somehow managing to hand each of them the wrong pack. By the weight alone, Fallion knew that his forcibles were all gone, probably fallen into the hands of the enemy.

Fallion searched his pack, found that it was stuffed with some of Jaz’s clothes and Talon’s tunic. A bracelet fell out, one made of pale green stones and a single pearl upon a string. Fallion had never seen it before.

“That’s mine,” Rhianna said, snatching it before he could get a good look at it.

“Where did it come from?” Fallion asked.

“A suitor,” she said.

“Who?” Fallion asked, amused to discover that he was jealous. Many young men had smiled at her back home, especially at the fairs and dances. But he hadn’t realized that she had a suitor bringing her gifts, gifts that she kept hidden and treasured.

“No one,” she said. Rhianna only hid the bracelet away in her pack.

“You should wear it,” Talon told Rhianna. “It would look lovely with your hair.”

“Do you think?” Rhianna asked, giggling like a younger girl. It sounded strange, Fallion thought, that she should sound so carefree after the events of the night. But somehow the woods were healing that way, like a balm to the heart. Or perhaps it was the news that his father lived again.

Or perhaps…he looked to the Wizard Sisel. Fallion had heard that Earth Wardens could affect people that way-calming their fears, making them feel whole and in touch with nature.

The Wizard Sisel was watching them with worry lining his brow.

Of course, Fallion realized. The wizard is having an effect upon us, healing our mood, filling us with renewed vigor.

Fallion felt grateful for this small favor.

They all exchanged packs, began dumping things out, each taking his or her clothing, folding it neatly. Fallion was relieved to find that he still had the silver locket with his mother’s picture painted inside upon a piece of ivory, a picture from when she was young and lovely, with the endowments of glamour given to her at birth. In the picture she was forever young, forever beautiful. It was the only thing that he had of hers, and he had always treasured it.

But as he looked at it now, he wondered, Is there really some shadow world where she still lives? Is there perhaps some place even where she is young and beautiful?

If I could combine that world with ours, could I bring her back to life?

The thought made him tremble with excitement.

“Uh, Fallion,” Rhianna said. She nodded toward the young man who had brought their packs. He was, with an air of tremendous dignity, holding out Fallion’s long sword, presenting it to him, the blade un-sheathed. But the blade was covered with a thick patina of rust, and the ebon handle was cracked.

“No,” Fallion said, suddenly afraid to take it. “It was touched by him-by the Knight Eternal. I can feel the curse upon it.”

“Take it,” the Wizard Sisel said, strolling close, “The curse is upon the steel. I doubt that it will make you rust. Besides, you may have need of it all too soon.”

Fallion could see that he would hurt the young man’s feelings if he did not take it. Obviously, the blade had been won in battle, and had been borne here at great price.

“Thank you,” Fallion said, taking his sword.

“Alun,” the wizard Sisel said. “His name is Alun.”

“Thank you, Alun.”

The boy smiled shyly.

Sisel bent near Fallion. “We found some forcibles in one of the packs,” he said. “I had the king send them to Luciare already.”

“You found them in only one bag?” Talon said.

“There were more?” Sisel asked.

“We each were carrying some,” Fallion explained. “There were three hundred in all.”

“I fear that most of them have fallen into the hands of the enemy,” Sisel said. “Let us hope that they don’t know how to use them.”

Fallion sat for a moment, feeling disconcerted.

One by one, other warriors stepped forward and presented each of Fallion’s companions with their weapons-Talon with her sword, Rhianna with her staff, Jaz with his bow. Each of the weapons looked to have been cursed, all except for Rhianna’s staff, which Fallion had found three years past.

It had once been his father’s, the staff of an Earth King, and so was adorned in kingly fashion. It looked to be a branch hewn from some kind of oak, honey gold in color, and richly lacquered. It had a handle wrapped in leather, and beneath the leather were potent herbs that refreshed and invigorated any room where the staff was housed. Powerful gems encircled the staff both above and below that grip-jade to lend strength to the staff, opals to give light by night (should the bearer be a wizard with the power to release their inner fire), pearls to lighten the heart, cloudy quartz to hide the bearer from unwanted eyes. There were hundreds of runes etched into the staff, too, running up and down the length of it, runes of protection from various sorceries. Fallion suspected that even if the staff had been cursed, the Knights Eternal could not have succeeded. He knew for a fact that its wood could not be harmed by fire, and as a flameweaver, he could not handle the thing without feeling a strong sense of discomfort. Thus, he had given it to Rhianna, not because she had great talent with such a weapon, but because he suspected that there was great healing power in the staff, and given the torments that she had been put through in her short life, she needed healing more than anyone that he knew.

Not long after their belongings had been restored to them, a strapping warrior picked up the handles to the handcart and urged Fallion and the others to get on.

They sat back, using their packs as pillows, as the warrior began racing through the woods, pulling the cart faster than a horse would have. Fallion marveled at the warrior’s size and strength, for he was every bit as tall as one of the wyrmlings, and his shoulders looked to be four feet across.

They rode then, with human warriors running behind the wagon and along its sides like an honor guard.

We’re heading back to Cantular, Fallion realized, and then south to the human lands.

Fallion longed to see what the human lands would look like, with their enormous stone buildings, until Jaz laughed and broke out in a riding song. Jaz had a strong, clear voice, and often lately was asked to sing at the fairs among the minstrels. In a fairer world, Fallion imagined, that is what Jaz would have done to earn a coin.

Rhianna began to sing with him, and elbowed Fallion in the ribs until he and Talon joined in, and they sang:

Ever the road does wind along,

’Tis fare to travel well,

Riding in a fine carriage,

While singing a song,

Whether in sun or shadowed vale.

Upon a road so far from home,

’Tis fare to travel well.

Riding in a fine carriage,

With a girl that I love,

Whether in sun or shadowed vale.

The young man Alun was running beside them, doing his best to keep up with the larger warriors. Fallion saw him eying Talon, straining as he ran.

Fallion saw her catch his eye, glance away. “You have an admirer,” Fallion teased. He did not need to say that the gawky young man looked to be the runt of the litter.

Alun said something to Talon in the guttural tongue of this land.

“He says we sing well,” Talon said. “He thinks we sing like wenglas birds.”

“Ah, is that some kind of vulture?” Fallion asked in a self-deprecating tone.

“No,” Talon said. “They are birds of legend. They were women whose voices were so beautiful that they gave them flight, so that they rose up on pale white wings and flew through the heavens. From them all of the birds learned to sing.”

“Oh,” Fallion said. “So he’s saying that I sing like a girl?”

“No,” Talon chided. “He was just offering a compliment. He would like to hear more songs of our world.”

But Fallion couldn’t help but think that he must sound like a girl to these big folk. The men of the warrior clan were taller than the bears of the Dunnwood, and their voices were deeper than the bellow of a bull. Fallion could not help feel that he must look small and effeminate to them.

But Jaz burst out with a rowdy tavern song, all about “the glories of ale, whether drunken from an innkeeper’s mug, or guzzled from your father’s jug, or gulped from a fishmonger’s pail.”

So they sang as they rode, racing throughout the long afternoon. Fallion managed to fall into a deep sleep, and every hour or two he would wake up and look out over the land. The trees were taller than he remembered, and the land looked strange with its occasional pillar of wind-sculpted rock.

We are far from home, Fallion realized. Farther than I ever thought I would be.

He had not imagined how it would be. Nothing in his life could ever be the same as it had been. He could not unbind the worlds, re-make the old. He doubted that such a power even existed. He only hoped that the world that he made would be better than the one he had left behind.

The soldiers took turns pulling the cart and kept running through the heat of the day. Even Fallion’s grandfather, a giant of a man, took his own turn at the handcart.

Every so often, Alun was given a chance to sit on the cart and gain a much-needed rest.

So it was that in the middle of the afternoon, they stopped in a huge meadow where they could see for half a mile around. The sun-bleached grass shone like ice in the blazing light of day.

Fallion’s friends had all gone fast to sleep. But Fallion stretched his legs by walking for a bit.

He felt refreshed for the first time in days, as if he had finally gotten his energy back, and he wondered if it was because of some spell that Sisel had cast upon him.

The Wizard Sisel came and stood beside him silently for a moment, a huge and comforting presence, and together they just stared out over the silver fields, admiring a valley down below and the broad river twisting through it.

“It’s beautiful here,” Fallion said after a few moments of silence. “I did not know that it would be so beautiful.”

“Yes,” the wizard said. “This field is strong in life. The grass is good, the trees hardy. Let us hope that it stays that way.”

“Can you keep them alive?” Fallion asked.

Sisel frowned. “Not for long, I fear. Can’t you hear it-the voices of the stones, the cries in the brooks, the lament of the leaves? ‘We are fading,’ they say.

“All of the trees that you see now, these pleasant grasses, came from your world, not ours. They are like a dream to us, a welcome dream from our past, a dream that will soon fade to despair.

“The very stones beneath our feet ache. The earth is in pain.”

The Wizard Binnesman had spoken those words to Fallion’s father, and now they seemed an echo of the past. “What can you do?” Fallion asked.

“There are pockets of resistance, places where the earth’s blood pools just beneath the surface. In these places, life is still abundant. The wyrmlings have little sway there. A week ago, I had little hope at all. But now…there is a wizard at the heart of the world.”

“Averan.”

Sisel frowned, bent his head like fox that was listening for the rustling sounds of mice in the grass.

Averan should be alive, Fallion thought. With the worlds combined, it would have changed the great Seal of the Earth there. She had healed the earth once, mended the seal. She could do it again. Fallion imagined Averan, the wizardess with her staff of black poisonwood, frantically at work.

But Sisel’s worried expression spoke otherwise. “Yes,” Sisel whispered, “my old apprentice Averan. Is she well? I wonder. Is she even alive? Or has our hope been spent in vain?”

Fallion bit his lip. He wanted to go find her, do his part to mend the world. But he wondered if it was even possible now.

Moments later, after a quick meal, they set out on the road.

In the late afternoon Fallion’s wagon halted one last time, beneath the shadow of Mount Luciare. Its peaks were capped with snow even so late in the summer, and Fallion could see the city up on its slopes, enormous slabs of whitened stone along the castle wall providing overwhelming fortifications. There were tunnels carved into the mountain, their openings yawning with wide arches, so that they let in the light. Scrollwork had been cut around the arches and overlaid with gold so that they gleamed in the sunlight. Huge braziers lined the arches, too, and Fallion realized that these were not just for adornment. In case of a night attack, the braziers would cast a bright light, which would reflect from the white walls and gold foil, blinding any wyrmlings.

Even from a great distance, the castle was beautiful and inviting.

King Urstone left the handcart, and for several miles the small group made their way through a wooded fen. The king brought only Fallion, his friends, the young man Alun, and eight strong warriors to act as a guard. Dank trees huddled over brackish water where mosquitoes and midges swarmed.

For Fallion, negotiating the swamp was no great matter. The muddy trail was just dry enough to hold his weight. But those of the warrior clan found themselves slogging through mud that often reached their knees.

So it was late in the afternoon by the time that they reached a small tower in the marsh, a simple thing of sandstone, long ago fallen into ruin. The tower crowned a small hill, and to the east of it was a large dry meadow.

The Wizard Sisel walked around the tower, using his staff to scratch a circle in the turf. Then he scratched runes upon it in six intervals. Fallion had never seen the like of it, and so he asked, “What is this that you are making?”

“A circle of life,” Sisel said, after a little thought. “Here in this world, life is the power that I have studied-life magic, the power that can be found within all living things, within animals, and plants, water and stones.”

“And what power do the Knights Eternal serve?” Fallion asked.

“They serve nothing,” Sisel said. “They seek only to subjugate other powers, to twist them to their own use, and ultimately to destroy the very thing that they twist.” Sisel fell silent for a moment. He pulled the stalk from a shaft of wheat, then began to chew the succulent end of it as he stared down over the valley. A pair of geese rose up from the river, honking, and flew along its shore.

“Life magic is different from the magic of your world. It is more…whole. On your world I served the Earth, and learned the arts of healing and protection. Healing is one of the arts I practice here, too. But there is so much more that one can do…”

Fallion already knew that in his own world, the wizard had gone by the name of Binnesman, and was greatly renowned. “And so now that the worlds have combined, you are a master of both?”

Sisel shook his head. “Not a master. A servant. Those who serve greater powers should never lay claim to the title of master.

“Still, the circle will afford great protection in case the wyrmlings try to break the accord.” Sisel glanced down the small hill. Though Fallion had heard nothing, Sisel said, “Ah, look, they’re here.”

Fallion glanced down the trail, saw the wyrmling princess first. Her pale skin looked like something dead in the bright sunlight, and she kept her arm raised to cover her eyes. She wore a sack draped over her head like a cowl, to give her a little more protection.

Behind her came a small man in a peasant’s brown robe. His beard was graying, and Fallion saw nothing extraordinary about him.

But last of all came a young woman, her dark skin and hair contrasting sharply with a dress of white silk, adorned with a border of gray at the hems. She wore bangles of gold and a single black pearl in her nose ring, and she moved with extraordinary delicacy and grace.

Fallion found his attention riveted on her. His heart pounded and his breathing came ragged, and when the wyrmling blocked his view of her for an instant, he found himself stepping to the side, just to catch a glimpse of her again.

What is it about her? he wondered. She was not the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but he found his body responding to her as if she was. Am I falling in love?

But such questions weren’t warranted, he knew. He hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t even been introduced. Yet he found himself drawn to her like no other.

This is the way it will feel, he thought, when you first meet the woman you will love. Whether this meeting turns out well or ill, this is how it will feel.

There was a shriek from Rhianna, who had been sitting on a rock at the door to the tower, and suddenly she leapt up. “Uncle Ael!” she cried, and went bounding downhill, where she met the wyrmling’s escort, and threw her arms around him.

Fallion had to search his memory. He had heard the name of course. Ael was the mysterious uncle who had taught Rhianna swordsmanship as a child-in the netherworld. Of him, Rhianna had steadfastly refused to speak.

The Wizard Sisel smiled in greeting and called out in a relieved tone, “Daylan Hammer, well met!”

Fallion just stood for a moment, rooted to the ground. Uncle Ael was Daylan Hammer, the hero of legend?

Fallion nudged Talon. “The woman who is with them, the one with the dark hair, who is she?”

“You met her father,” Talon said. “The Emir. He is a good friend and counselor to the king.”

“Why is she so small? She looks like one of us.”

“Her family is from Dalharristan. People are shorter there. And most of those that you’ve seen are of the warrior caste. They are larger and stronger than those of other castes. Her mother was not a warrior born, but was of a ruling clan, bred for intelligence, beauty, and strong character.”

“Is she…spoken for?”

Talon gave him a knowing smile. “You’re not interested in her. Trust me.”

“Really?” Fallion asked. It was a challenge. Suddenly Fallion found his feet, and in Rhianna’s wake he went trundling to meet Daylan Hammer.

After hugging Rhianna for a long minute, Daylan threw his hood back, and stood grinning in the sun. Fallion saw that his beard was not gray, merely begrimed with ash. “Little Rhianna!” he said. “Why, you grew up faster than a mushroom, but turned out as beautiful as a robin’s egg!”

Daylan seemed genuinely pleased, and Fallion found that he envied their relationship.

“And your mother,” Daylan asked. “Is she well? Is she here?”

“Dead,” Rhianna said. “She’s dead, these eight years back.”

Daylan seemed crestfallen. “I am so sorry. She was a good woman, a great woman.”

Fallion found himself wondering how many lives Daylan must have mourned. After so many, could he feel any real loss or pain anymore?

Yet Fallion could see it in the immortal’s eyes. Yes, there was real loss there.

Fallion stood behind Rhianna, and she turned to introduce him, but Daylan stopped her with a wave of the hand.

“Hail, Torch-bearer,” Daylan said with profound respect. He grabbed Fallion by the forearm, as was common among soldiers, shaking hands as if they were old friends or allies who had braved battles together. “I know you,” Daylan said. “We have met many times.”

Fallion knew that they had never met, not in this life-time at least. And so Daylan could only be talking of past lives.

“This is your handiwork?” Daylan asked, cocking his head to one side, inclining it toward the valley that spread out below them, the trees and the grass, and the snow-covered mountain in the background.

“It is,” Fallion said feeling a bit embarrassed. He had hoped to bind the worlds into a perfect whole, but this flawed thing was all he had been able to manage.

Tears flooded Daylan’s eyes, and he grabbed Fallion and hugged him close, weeping freely. “You’ve done it, brother. You’ve finally done it.”

Fallion could think of nothing to say. This stranger, this legend, had called him brother.

Then King Urstone clapped Daylan on the back, and the two began talking in Urstone’s guttural tongue, and Fallion was excluded from the conversation.

Rhianna came and gave Fallion a sisterly hug while Daylan Hammer, the Wizard Sisel, the Emir’s daughter, and the king’s men huddled together making plans. The wyrmling princess retreated to the dark confines of the tower.

Sundown was less than an hour away, and the wyrmlings would be here soon for the exchange.

Rhianna nodded toward Daylan. “So, what do you think of Uncle Ael?”

“I don’t know,” Fallion said. He was still bewildered.

“He seems to like you,” Rhianna said. “That’s a good thing. He does not make friends easily.”

“He seems to know me,” Fallion corrected.

Sunset drew near all too soon for Fallion’s liking. The sun descended in a crimson haze that smeared the heavens, for there was still much dust high in the atmosphere, and in the long shadows thrown by the mountain it seemed that night wrapped around the small band like a cloak.

Daylan Hammer assured the king that the proceedings had all been secured under oaths so profound that even a wyrmling dared not break them. He did not expect the wyrmlings to attack.

But time had taught King Urstone this one lesson: never trust the wyrmlings.

So his guards secreted themselves in the woods around the tower in case the wyrmlings tried an ambush.

Fallion waited with his hand upon his sheathed sword, now caked in rust, while the king, the Wizard Sisel, Alun, Siyaddah, and Fallion’s friends all stood together in the tower’s shadow. Daylan Hammer and the wyrmling princess climbed the tower and stood atop its ruined walls.

The first star appeared in the sky, and bats began their nightly acrobatics around the tower.

Fallion had begun to believe that the wyrmlings would not show when he suddenly heard a flapping.

A wyrmling rose up out of the shadowed woods, came circling the tower. Fallion was fascinated by her artificial wings, and peered hard to see them. Her wings were translucent and golden, like a linnet’s wings, but there were darker bands through them, almost like bones, with webbing between the supports. They reminded him of the leathery wings of a graak.

There was no harness, no sign that the wings were any type of device. For all that Fallion could see the wings just sprouted from the woman’s back.

She circled the tower, looking down upon the men, as if she were just another bat.

Then she let out a cry, strange and filled with pain, the howling of some evil beast.

In the far distance, several answering cries rose from the trees among the swamp.

King Urstone clutched his battle-ax and shouted a warning. Talon translated, “It’s a trap!”

“No,” Daylan Hammer warned, “Wait!”

At that moment, wyrmlings rose up out of the swamp. They came winging toward the hill rapidly, vastly faster than the first, and the Wizard Sisel whispered, “Ah, damn.”

It wasn’t until they drew nearer that Fallion recognized the source of his dismay: these wyrmlings wore red-crimson cowls over blood-red robes, with wings that looked to be made of darkest ruby.

There were three of them.

Each held a black sword in clasped hands, the handle clutched against his breast while the blade pointed back toward his feet.

“Knights Eternal,” Talon intoned. “But I count three of them. We slew one yesterday, and another the night before. There should be only one left.”

“Yes,” Sisel said, “These Knights Eternal should not exist. Lady Despair has been hiding their numbers, and each of them is a hundred years in the making. It is only by luck that Lady Despair has revealed her secret. This is an evil omen. I wonder how many more there might be?”

Fallion let the energy in him build, drawing heat from the ground, preparing to unleash a fireball. The king’s men drew weapons, and Jaz bent his bow.

“Hold,” Daylan called down from the tower, lest one of the humans be first to break the truce.

The Knights Eternal flew toward them, crisscrossing and veering, as if to dodge archery fire.

And then a creature rose.

Something vast lifted out of the swamps, three miles in the distance, lumbering above the trees upon leather wings.

It was like nothing that Fallion had ever seen. He had ridden upon sea graaks in Landesfallen. But the thing that came up out of the swamp could have swallowed one of those whole. It was black and sinister in color, and its wingspan had to stretch a hundred, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet. The length of its body was more than eighty feet long, and Fallion imagined that a small village full of people could have ridden on its back.

The shape of the body was serpentine, and the creature kept its head bent, as a heron will when it flies. But it had no heron’s head. Instead, it was ugly and blunt, like the head of a blind snake, with a mouth filled with ungainly teeth. Its long body seemed to undulate through the air. A leathery tail fanned out in the back, almost like a rudder.

Upon its back, a small figure clutched at a chain, looking frightened and beleaguered.

Father! Fallion thought, his heart feeling as if it would break.

“What is that creature?” Jaz shouted.

Fallion looked to King Urstone, whose face was pale with fear, and then to the Wizard Sisel, who merely shook his head in bafflement.

“It is a graak,” Daylan Hammer shouted from atop the battlements. “But only of a kind that has been spoken of in legend.”

Fallion stood, heart hammering, in mounting fear.

Did I create that terror when I merged the worlds? he wondered. He had no answer.

There were too many of the Knights Eternal. The darkness was falling.

Suddenly, the wyrmling princess gave a great cry and leapt from the tower wall. She landed only feet from Fallion, and the ground trembled beneath her weight.

The huge beast, this graak of legend, landed in the field, two hundred yards away, and the lonely figure just clung to its neck. The graak reared up, its ugly neck stretching thirty feet in the air, and for a moment Fallion feared that it would lunge, take them in its teeth and kill them all.

Then it lay down as the wyrmling princess sprinted through the dry grass toward it.

“Areth?” the king cried out. “Areth?”

The lone figure raised up, peered in their direction, and let out a mournful cry, almost a sob.

He was a wreck of a man. His black hair had not been cut in years, and it fanned out from his head in disarray. His long beard reached nearly to his belly.

But even from a distance, Fallion recognized his father’s blazing blue eyes.

Prince Urstone let go of the beast’s neck, went sliding down its leathery hide, dropping twenty feet to the ground.

He got up on unsteady legs, as if he were not used to walking. He began staggering over the grass, calling out, sobbing.

He’s a broken thing, Fallion thought, a wretch.

Fallion heard Talon sniff, looked over, saw tears of pity in her eyes.

Fallion, so focused on his father, almost did not see the wyrmling princess run and leap onto the monster’s neck, quickly scrambling for purchase. The behemoth let out a strangled cry, then thundered up into the air.

For an instant, Fallion’s father was there under blackest shadows, the wind beating down upon him, and then the star reappeared.

At the edge of the glade, three Knights Eternal flew, wings flapping softly.

Fallion saw his father stumble, and King Urstone let out a shout, went rushing across the field, calling “Areth! Areth. Ya gish, ha!”

Fallion found himself running, too, legs pumping in an effort to keep up.

“Father!” he shouted. “Father, I’m here!” Fallion so wanted to see his father again, that for a moment he imagined that this “shadow father” might recognize him.

Then his father rose from the ground, and came stumbling toward them on unsteady legs.

King Urstone drew to a halt, took a step backward and shouted in his own tongue.

That’s when Fallion saw it. There was something wrong with his father’s eyes. Fallion had fancied that he’d seen blazing blue eyes a moment ago.

But now all that he saw were pits, empty pits.

They’ve blinded him, Fallion realized. They couldn’t just set my father free. They had to blind him first.

And as the derelict came staggering forward, Fallion’s dismay only grew. In the failing light, he realized that his father’s skin looked papery and ragged. His hair was falling out in bunches. His face was shrunken and skeletal.

“Father?” Fallion cried out in horror.

“Fallion, get back!” the Wizard Sisel shouted a heartfelt warning. “There is no life in that accursed thing!”

King Urstone had fallen back, and now he drew his ax in his right hand and grabbed Fallion with his left, holding Fallion back.

The wretch drew closer, and with each step, the rotting horror of his features became clearer. Soon he was forty feet away, then twenty.

The shape of his face is wrong, Fallion decided. That’s not my father at all.

Fallion felt bewildered, uncertain.

No, his features aren’t becoming clearer. He is rotting before our eyes.

The thing came toward Fallion, staggering and bumbling, and fell. Almost, Fallion reached out to grab him, but he heeded Sisel’s warning.

The derelict suddenly flicked his wrist, and a knife dropped from his sleeve, into his hand. Viciously, he took a swipe at Fallion.

Fallion raised his sword and slashed the creature’s wrist, disarming it as the derelict fell to the ground and collapsed, its flesh turning to dust, leaving only a half-clothed skeleton with ragged patches of hair to lie at Fallion’s feet.

Fallion stood there, his sword in hand, and peered down in dismay. He looked up at the Knights Eternal, but they were already winging away, over the dark swamps.

One of them threw back his head, and dimly Fallion realized, He’s laughing. They’re laughing at us!

There was no one to strike, no one to take vengeance upon.

The meadow was left empty and unbloodied. The wyrmlings had not violated the truce. Nor had they kept their word. They had their princess, and Fallion had…a corpse.

Sisel came up at their back, stood peering down in dismay. The others followed, the entire small group converging as one. King Urstone swore and raged at the sky.

“Was that my father?” Fallion asked, still uncertain.

“No,” the Wizard Sisel said, “just some unfortunate soul who died long ago in prison. The Knights Eternal must have put some kind of glamour upon the corpse.”

“But,” Rhianna asked, “the dead walked?”

“Oh yes,” Sisel intoned, “in the courts of Rugassa, the dead do more than walk.”

“I…was a fool to hope,” Fallion said, blinking back tears of rage and embarrassment.

“A fool, to hope?” Sisel said, “never! They want you to believe that, because the moment you do, they have won. But remember-it is never foolish to hope, even when your hope has been misplaced.”

High King Urstone knelt, his hands resting on the pommel of his ax, and just wept softly for a long moment. There was no one to comfort the king, no one who dared, until at last Alun came and put his hand upon the king’s shoulder.

The king looked up at him, gratitude in his eyes.

“The wyrmlings lied,” Jaz said bitterly.

“It is in their nature to lie,” Sisel said. “The wyrms in their souls find it hard to abide the truth. Daylan knew that they might try to deceive us. It was always a risk.”

“A risk?” Daylan Hammer called out. “Yes, there was a chance that the wyrmlings would seek to cheat us. But if we had let things go as they were, the destruction of our souls was not a risk-it was a certainty. You know of what I am speaking, Sisel. You smelled the moral rot as well as I did.”

Daylan Hammer came down from the tower now, and went striding up behind the group, peering down at the corpse.

“I smelled the moral rot,” Sisel said. “It was like an infected tooth, that threatens the life of the whole body. Still, I suspect that we could have waited a little longer before pulling it.”

“And I think that we have waited far too long,” Daylan said. “The moral rot runs all through Luciare now.” He sighed, studied the body. “I’m sorry Fallion, Jaz. I had hoped for a happier end than this.”

“What will you do now?” Jaz asked. “Will you go to Rugassa and free my father?”

“We don’t have the troops,” the Wizard Sisel said. “We could throw ten thousand men against the castle walls there and still not be sure to breach their defenses.”

“There must be something you can do-” Jaz said, “perhaps a better trade?”

But we’ve already offered a fair trade, Fallion thought. I know, he considered sarcastically, we could offer them me. It seems only right. Father saved my life once. Now I can save his.

Talon got a thoughtful look. “The wyrmlings have shown that they cannot be trusted. It was foolish to think otherwise. They will not barter for what they can easily steal.”

Daylan Hammer argued. “Not all wyrmlings are so hopelessly evil. Some can hold to a bargain-even some that harbor loci.”

“Ah,” the wizard Sisel objected, “but to do so, they must fight the very wyrm that consumes their souls, and no wyrmling can resist for long-”

Daylan began to object, but Sisel cut him off, raising a hand, begging for silence.

He peered up into the air. In the deepening night, a great-horned owl flew up out of the field, swooping low over the ground, as if hunting for mice. Then it suddenly glided once around the old tower.

“Fallion, we can’t go after your father,” Sisel said. “We have more important concerns right now.”

“What?” Fallion asked.

Sisel nodded toward the owl, and then cocked his head as if listening for some far-off cry. A pair of fireflies rose up from the grass and lit on the end of his staff, then sat there glowing, so that the wizard’s worried frown could be seen in a pale green light. Fallion could hear nothing from the woods, could see nothing to justify the dismay in Sisel’s voice. “Wyrmlings are coming. This is an ambush!”