like a flower in bloom; and then he showed her Fallion drawing back storm clouds, so that Asgaroth was limned in light, revealed to his mother’s sight.
Shadoath smiled. Fear and rage. Fear and rage were the key to unleashing the child’s powers, drawing him into her web.
“Does his every defeat taste like victory?” Shadoath asked.
“Of course,” Asgaroth assured her. “And now he is fleeing-right into your hands.”
Fear and rage. Fear and rage.
“Excellent,” Shadoath said. “I will greet him with open arms.”
16
It is said that the old stonewood trees of Landesfallen reach out with their vast roots, entwining one another, until the whole forest is held fast in one solid mass. Those who watch them say that the old stonewoods actually seem to feel other trees, to seek out younger saplings and hold them safe, so that they are not washed away in the storm. I am convinced that those who are born with old souls are like that, too. They sense the connections between us, and struggle to keep us safe.
In his sleep, Fallion had a dream that came startlingly clear, more visceral than any dream he’d dreamed before. It was much like the vision he’d had when he picked up the owl pin, as if all of his life were a dream, and for the first time he tasted reality.
In his dream, he was walking along the side of a hill, in a little port-side market. The houses were strange, little rounded huts made of bamboo with bundles of dried grass forming the roofs. In the distance he heard the bawl of cattle. The road wound along a U-shaped bay, and on the far beach he could see a young girl with a switch, driving a pair of black water buffalo up a hill for the night.
He’d never seen a place like this before, and he marveled at every detail-at the odor of urine by the roadside, the muddy reek of rice paddies, the song that the girl sang in the distance in some tongue that he’d never heard before nor imagined.
As he ambled along the road, he passed between two huts, and in their shadow saw metal cages with black iron bars, thick and unyielding. Two of the cages were empty, their doors thrown open. But in the third squatted a girl a bit older than Fallion, with hair as dark and sleek as the night. She was pretty, all skin and bones, blossoming into someone beautiful. She kept her arms wrapped around her knees.
She peered into Fallion’s eyes, and begged. “Help! They’ve got me in a cage. Please, set me free.”
The vision faded, and Fallion woke, his heart pounding. He wasn’t sure if it pounded because he was afraid, or because he was angry to see such a thing.
He had heard of Sendings before, and wondered if this was one. Usually Sendings only came between those who shared some deep connection-a family member or a close friend. When one received a Sending from a stranger, it was said that would come from the person who was to be of great import in your life.
But was it real, or just a dream? Fallion wondered. Is there really a girl held captive? Does she need me to free her?
He wasn’t sure. Hearthmaster Waggit had told him that most dreams were just odd thoughts bound together by the imagination into what sometimes seemed a coherent story.
The girl could have been Rhianna. She had a similarly pretty face, but the hair and eyes were wrong. Rhianna had dark red hair and deep blue eyes, not black hair.
No, Fallion realized, the girl looks more like the picture of my mother, the one on her promise locket from when she was young and beautiful.
And the cage?
Rhianna is caged, too, he realized, seemingly caught in a maze of fear and pain.
Was I dreaming about her?
And if so, why did it feel like a Sending?
At almost that instant, he heard Rhianna whimper, wrapped there in her blanket by the fire.
Nightmares. She was having a bad dream.
That’s all that it was, Fallion told himself. I must have heard her cry out in her sleep, and that’s what made me dream like this…
Outside the hostel, a driving wind blew over the sea, thundering over rough waves, lashing them to whitecaps.
The wind rode into the bay, veering this way and that, like a starling that has lost direction in a storm.
It hit the coastline, whistled among the pilings of the pier, and then rose up into the streets, floating over cobblestones, exploring dark shanties.
At one loud inn, where raucous laughter competed with pipes and the joyous shrieks of whores, a pair of sailors opened a swinging door. The wind rode in on their heels.
In a dark corner, at a round table littered with empty ale mugs, sat a man wide of girth, a man with a black beard streaked with gray, and curly hair that fell to his shoulders. His bleary eyes stared at nothing, but suddenly came awake when he felt the questing wind on the nape of his neck.
Captain Stalker came awake. He recognized the two men who had just entered the inn, and as he did so, he kicked back a stool, inviting them to his table.
His table. Stalker didn’t own it, except when he was in port twice a year. On those days the inn, with its raucous noise and the reek of fishermen, became his court, while this stool became his throne.
Even lords flocked to his table at those times, dainty men who held perfumed kerchiefs to their noses in disgust. Wheedling little barons would beg to invest in his shipping enterprise, while bright merchants with an eye on profit margins would seek to sell him goods on consignment.
He kept his books on the table, right there by the mugs. He had plenty of ale stains on the parchment.
Though he was none too tidy, Captain Stalker was a careful man. He was used to testing the wind for signs of a storm, watching breakers for hidden reefs. He ran a tight ship, a profitable ship.
He was, in fact, moderately wealthy, though his rumpled clothes and windblown hair suggested otherwise.
Right now, he smelled a storm coming.
It had not been more than a couple of hours since Sir Borenson had booked passage, an aging force soldier straight from the king’s court. With the death of the Earth King it was only to be expected that some might flee Mystarria-lords who knew that they would be out of favor under the new administration.
But much that Borenson had said raised warning flags. The man was notorious. Everyone in Mystarria knew him by name, and four men at the inn knew his face. He’d been the Earth King’s personal guard, and had taken the task of guarding his sons.
And now he was fleeing the country with his wife and children, only hours after some dark character had come offering a reward for information on folks just like him.
“There may be two boys,” the fellow had said. “Both of them with black hair and dark complexions-like half- breeds from Indhopal.”
It didn’t take the brains of a barnacle to know who he was after. The princes of Mystarria were born to a half-breed from Indhopal-Queen Iome Sylvarresta Orden.
The reward for “information” was substantial.
The two sailors threw themselves down on stools. One whistled for a couple of fresh mugs, and a fat mistress brought a pair.
