Worldbinder

THE KING’S COUNCIL

King Urstone sat in his dinner chair, shoulders slumped as if in defeat, elbows resting on the table. A feast was spread before him-a shank of roast boar, calf ’s tongue, boiled baby carrots with onions, and bowls and baskets filled with breads and other things-some of which Fallion could not name. But King Urstone had not touched them.

The king’s long white hair hung down over his shoulders, and his face was lined with creases of worry. Yet there was still strength there, and Fallion could see the handsome man that he had once been.

As Fallion entered the room, Urstone’s blue eyes shone with an inner fire.

No, he is not defeated yet, Fallion realized. Jaz had come to the dinner, along with Rhianna and Talon. Daylan Hammer and the Wizard Sisel had also come.

There were various warlords at the king’s table. Like the king, they wore armor carved from bone, capes of forest green or burgundy, and cape pins with intricate designs. Fallion suspected that the pins denoted rank, but he could only guess which of the warriors were most senior.

At the table sat another man, smaller than the warriors, with a narrow face, finely groomed beard, and chains of gold. He looked like a wealthy merchant. He smiled like a fox as Fallion entered, his dark eyes tracking him across the room. Fallion studied his face, long and oval, the smile predatory. He felt sure that he knew the man from somewhere, but could not place him.

Fallion felt most surprised to see Siyaddah sitting at the king’s table, a pace to the king’s right. She had changed into a fresh dress of white silk, but painted with bright flowers this time, with a dark purple border.

She looked at him, and Fallion glanced away, not wanting to catch her eye.

The king’s voice was weary as he began to speak, as if he could not muster the energy for passion. He spoke in a deep monotone. Sisel translated, “Master Thull-turock, do you recognize these young men?”

The merchant pointed a finger adorned with three rings at Fallion, and began to speak. “This one is the son of the Earth King Gaborn Val Orden, Fallion Sylvarresta Orden by name. I knew him when he was but a child, living at Castle Coorm. He had all the makings of a great warrior, even in his youth. He was strong and tenacious in battle, fair to those who served him, honest and humble. The young man next to him is his younger brother, Jaz. He too was a child of sound character, but he was always more interested in bugs and mice than in preparing to become a prince.”

King Urstone smiled at that, and nodded. “As a child, I was much fascinated by fish. I used to go out to the brook and stand in the shadows of the willows for hours, spearing trout. All of that practice greatly improved my aim with the spear. Do you also like to fish, Jaz?”

Fallion grinned. For Jaz, it bordered on an obsession.

“I do indeed, Your Highness,” Jaz said, “but I prefer to use a hook and line.”

King Urstone looked around his table, baffled. Sisel explained something to him. “Then,” King Urstone said with a smile, “perhaps when this is over, you could teach me how to fish with a hook and line.”

“Gladly, Your Highness,” Jaz said.

King Urstone sighed, and said wearily, “In the blink of an eye, the world changes. My scouts have been pouring in for two days, bringing reports. To the west, upon the plains of the hoary elephants, mountains have burst up out of the ground. Rivers had to turn their course and flow east. To the north, a great rift has appeared, a canyon so deep that the eye cannot see to the bottom. To the east, castles seemed to rise from the dust, and perhaps a million people now live among the ruins where none could have lived before.

“They are small folk, humble folk, living in houses made of mud and sticks, covered with roofs of grass. Having seen them, I fear for them. We cannot protect them from what will surely come.

“There are urgent reports from Cantular. A large host is rushing down from the north. Warlord Madoc will try to hold the bridge, but there are things he must battle, creatures that no one has seen before. Some are like the great graak that we saw, others he says look like hills that move upon many legs…

“Another such horde is marching upon this city from the northeast.”

King Urstone peered down at his hands. His brow furrowed in consternation.

“We tried to exchange hostages with the wyrmlings, and in doing so, I may have called doom down upon my people. Already there are those who whisper that I sold my kingdom for a foolish dream, and if we live out this night, they will revolt-as they should.

“Some say we need a miracle to save us.

“Fallion Sylvarresta Orden,” the king said. “Is this the miracle that we need?”

He nodded toward some guards in a corner, and they lugged an enormous wooden box out into the center of the dining hall, then spilled its contents out upon the floor.

Thousands of metal rods rolled onto the tile. Fallion knew what they were by sound alone. There was a soft clanking, almost as if the rods were made of bamboo instead of some metal.

Fallion rose to his feet, electrified. They were not forcibles, not yet anyway, for there were no runes cast upon their heads. But they could be turned into forcibles in short order.

“Your Highness,” Fallion said warily, “those could be the miracle that you are seeking. Where did you find so much blood metal?”

The king smiled. “We call it corpuscite. There is a hill of it, not two miles from here.”

Fallion left his seat, went to inspect the metal. He tasted it, found that it tasted salty sweet and of copper, much like blood. Pure blood metal.

“A hill?” Fallion asked.

“A large hill,” the king corrected. “Large enough to make…millions of these.”

Fallion saw what he was proposing immediately. There were only thirty-eight thousand of Urstone’s people left in the world, but there were millions of Fallion’s. They needed to become allies.

“If you called upon your people,” King Urstone asked, “would they unite with us?”

“I…don’t know,” Fallion admitted. He hesitated to even think about it. His enemies had hunted him to the ends of the earth, yet his foster father, Sir Borenson, had longed for the day when Fallion seized control of the world, allowing poor nations to throw off the tyrants’ yokes.

“Some would,” Fallion admitted. “But there are many lords who fear that they will lose their place if we were to unite under one banner. These lords have long sought to take my life.”

“And failed,” the king pointed out.

The merchant Thull-turock spoke up. “Fallion, my lad, you can buy a lot of friends with this much blood metal.”

It was then that Fallion recognized him. He had changed. He had merged with his shadow self, but Fallion recognized him by mannerisms. No one had ever called Fallion “my lad” but one man-his mother’s facilitator, Sir Greaves. He was the one making the forcibles, and there would be no one better.

But Fallion worried. An army was coming, a vast army. How would King Urstone’s people mine the blood metal if they were put under siege? Even worse, what if the enemy simply overwhelmed them, slaughtered them all?

“Sir Greaves,” Fallion begged, “how soon will we have working forcibles?”

“I have a dozen smiths pouring them into molds now. We’ll have brawn, metabolism, stamina, and grace blanked out within the hour. After that, it will be down to file work. I won’t have many, perhaps two dozen forcibles before dawn. But we should be able to make fifty a day this week, once we get into full production. And once I train my jewelers properly, in a month or two, we can get a thousand a day.”

“I have seventy-five good forcibles in my pack,” Fallion said. “They should be of some help in protecting the city. Do you have champions that we can give them to?”

The king nodded toward the two guards who stood at his back. “The Cormar twins. There are none better in battle, and they are used to fighting as a pair, anticipating each other’s moves.”

Fallion bit his lip, considered.

I came to save my people, he thought, not put them to the forcible.

And what will happen if I do? What kind of masters would King Urstone’s people be?

Certainly, they would make better masters than the wyrmlings.

He wondered. Would the warrior clans even try to subjugate his people? He doubted it. There were too many of the small folk. Besides, Fallion’s people could create champions as well as the big folk. No, it wouldn’t be a master-servant relationship. At least, it could not stay that way for long.

“You need allies,” Fallion said. “You need my people to give their lives as dedicates. For generations my people have given themselves in service this way. But will you protect them in return?”

“My warriors will crush the wyrmlings, once and for all,” King Urstone said. “We will bleed and die for you.”

Fallion wondered. “Will it even work? You have an army at your gates. They’ll attack by dawn.”

“We will hold them off,” the king said. “And the morning sun will drive them back.”

He sounded so sure.

“And what if they aren’t coming to attack the fortress at all?” Fallion wondered aloud. “What if they’re coming to take the blood-metal mine?”

A black look crossed the king’s face, and Fallion’s friends gasped.

“Of course!” Daylan said loudly, rising from his chair. All eyes turned to him, and he hastened to explain. “It is not by chance that these two worlds were brought together. It is not by chance that our greatest hope, Areth Sul Urstone, languishes in prison. Think back, the wyrmlings won him only at great cost. Lady Despair could not let a potential Earth King roam free. Fallion melded the worlds together, but it was not his plan. It was laid by Lady Despair. He was only an unwitting tool in her hands. I believe that she has planned this for years.”

King Urstone peered up, thoughtfully, “Yes,” he said. “I remember. The wyrmlings did seize my son at great cost.”

“So that his two halves could not meld together,” Daylan said. “I didn’t see. For years now, I was blind to it. The wyrmlings have been summoning aid, bringing dark creatures to their lairs, things like the giant graak, and worse. I thought they were preparing for one final assault.”

Fallion thought back. On his own world, Shadoath and Asgaroth had also hunted him nearly to extinction.

Fallion had always felt sure that he’d won his own life. But in bringing these two worlds together, hadn’t he been playing into the hands of his enemies? Perhaps he hadn’t won his life after all. Perhaps they’d only loaned it to him.

Daylan spoke, his eyes resting on Fallion, “Lady Despair would not have brought these two worlds together unless it gave her great advantage. What has she won? The strength of her armies vastly outnumbers yours. Those who might have granted you aid have all been destroyed. But more importantly, the lore of your world, Fallion, combines with the resources of another. Blood metal is what she is after.”

“If it was just blood metal that she wanted, didn’t she already have it?” Fallion asked.

Daylan shook his head. “The lore that you used on your world would not have worked on this. Both worlds are but shadows of the One True World, broken pieces of a greater whole. Now, you have combined two pieces of the puzzle, and the magic that worked in your world can be used with the blood metal that can be found here.”

The Wizard Sisel peered up at the king, bright eyes flashing. “How fast can we move a hill? How much ore can we move before the wyrmlings come?”

“A great deal of it is already inside the fortress,” Greaves said. “I’ve had workmen at it since yesterday. We have tons now, much of the richest vein.”

But everyone knew that there was far more to get.

“And what makes you think that the wyrmlings will leave us alive to use it?” Jaz asked. “What do we matter to them?”

Daylan Hammer’s eyes riveted on Fallion. “There is only one person here that Lady Despair really needs alive. The rest of us are just…inconveniences.”

Sisel grunted, a noise that made it sound as if he’d just woken from an inadvertent nap. “You’re right, old friend. Daylan, you know her mind-perhaps too well.” His tone suddenly became soft, dangerous. “And I wonder how? You are a puzzle, Daylan Hammer. I have known you long on this world, and yet my shadow self recognizes you from that shadow world. For years on end, it seems, you have traveled between our worlds. Yet Rhianna here calls you Ael, and met you elsewhere on a third world.”

Daylan sat back down in his chair, gave Sisel an appraising look, and seemed to consider each word before it was spoken.

“I am but one man,” he said, “and it is true that I sometimes travel between worlds. I am here as…an observer, mostly. For ages now, I have traveled between four worlds. I come to see the workings of the evil ones in your lands, and to report to…higher powers.”

“You were born a Bright One of the netherworld,” Fallion said. “Weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Daylan said. “My name, you could not pronounce.” He began to sing, his voice low and musical, “Delaun ater lovaur e seetaunra…”

Fallion had no idea how old Daylan might be. “So the stories, the tales that said that you had taken so many endowments that you had become immortal…”

“Are fables,” Daylan said. “There have been men of your world who discovered the truth, but I outlived them, and my stories replaced theirs.”

“Can you help us?” King Urstone asked.

“In war? No,” Daylan said. “I am…a lawman, of sorts, and our laws forbid it. I am Ael.”

He looked to Fallion, as if Fallion should know what that meant. Fallion reached up to his cape pin, stroked the silver owl there. He knew the name. If he clutched that owl, he would be carried away in vision, and he’d see an enormous gray owl flying over a great forest of hoary oaks. In the vision, the owl called the name Ael.

“This pin is yours, then,” Fallion said. “I took it off a fallen enemy.”

“No,” Daylan said. “It was once yours, in another time, another life. You were Ael, too.”

“How can aiding us in battle be against your laws?” King Urstone demanded. “There is no law in any land that prevents one from preserving his own life.”

“In my land, my life is my own,” Daylan said. “It cannot be taken from me. To try to preserve it is needless. But there are other ways to die. The death of a spirit is to be mourned more than the death of the flesh. And so, that my spirit may be renewed, there are higher laws that I must obey.”

Fallion remembered something from his childhood, a half-memory that haunted him still. His father’s mysterious dying words. “Learn to love the greedy as well as the generous, the poor as much as the rich, the evil as well as the good. Return a blessing for every blow…”

Daylan nodded his head, just a bit.

“What good is that?” King Urstone demanded. “You would have us empower our enemies, submit to them?”

But Fallion suspected that Daylan sought to do something more than empower his enemies. He was resisting them, subverting their influence. He was fighting evil without seeking to destroy those who were under its sway.

Daylan looked to Fallion and asked gently, “Do you remember?”

“Being one of the Ael?” Fallion asked. “No.”

“Perhaps then,” Daylan said, “you should waken from this dream-before it is too late.”

“How?”

Daylan fell silent a moment, thinking. “The past is not held there in your mind. Only your spirit recalls. You must waken your spirit, and that is not easily done.”

“And if he wakens,” King Urstone asked, “will he be able to destroy the armies that march upon us?”

Daylan shook his head no.

“Then what good are his powers?” King Urstone demanded.

The young woman, Siyaddah, dared speak. “My lords,” she said. “Lady Despair has had time to plot our demise, but surely she cannot see all ends?”

“You’re right,” Daylan said. “She may have considered ways to defeat us, but there are things that she doesn’t know, things that she could not know. She is blind to goodness, to love, to hope…”

“Fine,” King Urstone grumbled. “We can smite her over the head with goodness, and stab her through the heart with hope.”

But the Wizard Sisel merely sat, scratching his beard, pondering. “When Fallion combined the worlds, he fused two lives into one. I feel stronger than ever before, more…hearty and wholesome. I do not think that the evil one could have foreseen that.”

“Nor, do I think,” Talon offered, “that she knew the day and hour of our coming. If she had known when Fallion would combine the worlds, she would have had her troops there to greet us.”

“Which means that the army she sent isn’t coming for the blood metal,” the Wizard Sisel decided. “It would have taken a good week for the troops to make their way from Rugassa. And so they came…”

“Because they knew that their princess would no longer be our hostage,” King Urstone finished. “I wish that Warlord Madoc were here. He claimed that the emperor was incapable of loving his own child.”

“One does not have to love a thing to value it,” Daylan cautioned. “The emperor may have hated her, yet needed her alive. She was the last of his flesh.”

“She is a thoroughbred,” King Urstone admitted. “A ghastly thoroughbred, but a thoroughbred still.”

“I have heard it whispered,” the Wizard Sisel said, “that there are spells, abominable spells, that can only be cast using the blood of one’s offspring. The emperor has cast off his flesh and chosen to become a wight. He may need his daughter more than we knew.”

“Perhaps I can thwart Lady Despair’s plans,” Fallion suggested. “I could resume my trip to the underworld, find the Seal of the Inferno, and bind the worlds into one.”

“Can you even find it?” Daylan asked.

“I have my father’s map,” Fallion said, reaching into his vest and pulling out the old leather tome that his father had written.

“Much has changed,” Sisel warned. “Mountains have risen, seas are running dry. Is there even a path for you to follow anymore? I think it is gone, the tunnels broken up. Your map will be useless.”

“Still,” Fallion said, “I mean to try.”

“Please, don’t try it yet,” Daylan said. “For millennia we upon the netherworld have wondered what would happen if someone could manage to bind the worlds. Would the good that was done be greater than the harm? We couldn’t know for sure. The Wizard Sisel here had his shadow selves bound into a more perfect whole, but I have heard of many of the elderly and sick who merely expired. If we look across the lands, I suspect that tens of thousands have died. So, now we know. We cannot create one world without…destroying others. There is a moral question we must answer: do we, does anyone, have that right?”

“If I had to choose,” Jaz suggested, “having seen the alternative, I would choose to die so that others might live in a more perfect world.”

“As would I,” Rhianna put in.

“And I,” Fallion said knowing full well that in binding the worlds he might well be dooming himself.

“Eck!” a voice cried off to Fallion’s left, No! It was the young Master of the Hounds, Alun.

A warrior grumbled, and Daylan offered the translation, “And any man who would choose not to die for the good of others is no warrior at all, but a coward!”

The king smiled gently at Alun, spoke in his own tongue. Talon translated, “Let no man call him a coward. Alun has proven himself otherwise, slaying wyrmlings in combat. And there is many a tenderhearted mother who would choose that her child should live, even in a broken and imperfect world like ours, than to die. To love life and embrace it is not cowardice.”

“Is life,” Siyaddah asked, “lived as wyrmlings, life at all? What if the wyrmlings conquered us, as seems so likely to happen? What if they sought to make wyrmlings of our children? I would rather die and kill my child too, than see my child raised as such.”

King Urstone looked pointedly at Fallion, “As some of our mothers have chosen to do. Destroying another, taking a life, may also be an act of love.”

Siyaddah peered hard at Fallion, as if to bore some message into his soul. He didn’t need Talon’s translation to know that she was saying, Kill us both if you must.

Fallion felt grateful for Siyaddah’s support, and found himself longing to thank her.

“Eck,” Alun said forcefully, rising to his feet. Talon translated, “I would rather watch my sons and daughter live in a broken world than to die. I would raise them to be strong, so that in their own time and in their own way, they could rise against the wyrmlings.”

“Have any of you considered,” the Wizard Sisel said softly in Fallion’s tongue, “that evil, too, might have been perfected in this change? There were evil men on your world, Fallion, who were infected by loci. Have they combined with wyrmling counterparts here? If so, we well may be facing an enemy stronger than any of us knows.”

A hush fell over the room, and Fallion considered. He had met creatures like Asgaroth and Shadoath in his own world, sorcerers who held vast powers. Had he inadvertently empowered their kind?

He could not help but believe that he had.

“In my own world,” he said slowly for the benefit of those who had not known his world, letting Talon be his voice, “there was a race of men called Inkarrans, a race of people bred to the darkness. I think that your wyrmlings are their counterparts on this world. If that is so, some of the Inkarrans will have merged with their shadow selves, and they may have endowments. What wickedness this portends, I cannot say.

“On my world, the loci attacked my father in the form of reavers, and then sent strengi-saats among us, led by corrupted Bright Ones.

“I do not doubt that a great evil is brewing, greater than any that we can foretell. Vile bonds are being forged. Will your wyrmlings command reavers in battle? I do not doubt that they can. Will they send strengi-saats by night to steal your women? I do not doubt that they will. And it may be that Lady Despair has even more quivers in her quarrel. Any horror that we have faced before will pale in comparison to what Lady Despair prepares for us now.”

There was a profound silence after Fallion spoke these words. Fallion had hated to speak thus. Sir Borenson had once told him, “A great leader will engender hope in his men, even in the face of oblivion. Never speak or act in a way that diminishes hope.”

But Fallion needed these people to understand that they were facing an enemy that had never attacked in the same way twice. These people needed to expect, and if possible prepare for, the unexpected.

High King Urstone smiled gently. “Fallion, our enemy has all the tools that she needs to crush us. She will not have to search for greater weapons.”

“Yet she will worry that we might find aid unlooked for,” Fallion said. “For I do not believe that even she can foresee all ends, when shadows combine.”

“Aid unlooked for,” Sisel said. “Yes, I wonder…” he said, peering off at nothing. “There is still a great blight upon the land. Our forests are dying. You may not see it yet, but the rot is spreading, growing stronger. The wizardess Averan should be able to stop it, but why hasn’t she?”

No one could hazard an answer.

“What of your people?” Fallion asked, turning to Daylan. “Is there no way that they can help? The enemy has brought creatures from the netherworld. Surely you could do the same.”

“The great graak that you saw is not from my world,” Daylan said. “It came from a shadow world. Which one of the millions it was, I do not know. I have traveled to only a few. Many such places are desolate, empty of life, or nearly so. There are whole worlds where nothing lives but an occasional colony of mold, and blue slime molds make endless war with the yellow, struggling for no greater prize than a cozy shadow beneath a wet rock.

“Other worlds are more like this, filled with higher life-forms. On some of those worlds dark creatures dwell, vile and ravenous, incapable of human comprehension. Our enemy is plundering such worlds, I fear, enslaving such creatures. By bringing them here, they endanger this world, planting these horrors upon fertile ground. Such enemies are not easily rooted out. My people will not risk doing the same, for to do so could ensure your eventual destruction.”

“Surely though,” King Urstone insisted, “some of your people will fight in our behalf.”

This was the great hope, of course. Daylan was a Bright One from the One True World. The magical powers of his people were legend.

Fallion peered hard at Daylan, hazarded a guess. “Are there even any left to fight?”

“A few,” Daylan demurred. “As you have deduced, your problems are but a shadow of our own. The worlds have a way of mirroring one another. My people are hunted, bereft. They live in hiding in the vast forests, a family here, and another there. We have no great war-bands that can come to your rescue.”

By now, the conversation had taken on its own rhythm. Whenever one person spoke, Talon or Sisel would offer up a translation.

“Then we are left to our own resources,” King Urstone said. “We are left to the blood metal, and to our own counsel, and to the small folk of the world.”

“And to my father,” Fallion said. “Do not forget him. There is hope there.”

“Yes,” Sisel agreed. “There is your father indeed-if we can get him out of the prison in Rugassa!”

“I don’t have the troops,” King Urstone said. “Besides, he would be slain if we try.”

“Then let us not send an army to batter down the door,” Sisel suggested, his eyes seeking out Fallion. “One warrior, or a handful of them, could be enough-if they were endowed with both the attributes and the hopes of our people…”

Fallion peered up at Siyaddah. Worry was plain on her face, worry for him. She held his gaze.

He could not speak her language, but he vowed to himself to learn.

“I will agree to such a plan,” King Urstone said. “Indeed, I would hope to be one among that handful-if we live out this night. But I fear that all hope for us is vain. Perhaps the best that we can seek is to die valiantly in the defense of our people.”

Jaz peered up at King Urstone, and a sad smile crossed his face. “You died for your people once before, grandfather,” Jaz said. “I don’t wish to see you make a habit of it.”