The great beast lifted off, lugged them both the three miles to the island of Wolfram. But the weary graak could not carry the weight of two for any great distance, and at Wolfram the children landed near the deserted docks, where they found a leaky sailboat.
They scrounged up some food-strange bread from the netherworld that tasted sweet and filling, along with some old dried figs.
A strong wind and a single sail was enough to let them reach Garion’s Port by late morning.
Fallion had no endowments with which to do battle. Instead, as the boat sailed toward port, he raised his left hand to the sky and drew down sunlight, ropes of light that came twisting out of the heavens in cords of white fire, running down his arm, filling him with light.
The sky darkened as he did this, and the ropes of fire blazed in the false night like lightning.
By the time he reached port and sailed between the Ends of the Earth, he was prepared for battle.
He saw the remains of ships in the harbor, but Shadoath’s armies had gone.
One great worldship lay beached a mile north of the city. Even from a distance, Fallion could see that it was empty.
Fallion and Rhianna climbed up a rope ladder into the stonewood trees at the port, and everywhere they found refugees returning to their homes.
“The armies ran off,” the innkeeper at the Sea Perch said. “They all took off last night, heading inland. They were blowin’ retreat on their warhorns, runnin’ like mad. And all of us folks that they’d captured, they just left us to ourselves.”
Fallion nodded thoughtfully, and told the innkeeper, “There’s an island to the south of Wolfram, a small island with a volcano. At its top you’ll find a couple hundred children, Shadoath’s Dedicates.”
The innkeeper looked outraged. “We’ll ’ave to kill ’em,” he said. “There’s no other choice!”
Fallion shook his head and promised, “Shadoath will be dead by the time you reach the children.”
Fallion looked inland, wondering how far away the armies would be, and because he was filled with fire and light, he suspected that he knew the answer: he might never reach them.
Shadoath and her followers were fleeing far beyond the bounds of this world.
Shadoath had known that he was coming, and had grown afraid.
Fallion went to the Gwardeen Wood, and there found some male graaks. He and Rhianna rode them inland for several miles, following the river, until at the edge of the woods they spotted a large rune upon the ground, a green tracing of fire in a circle of ash. Within the circle, the flames formed something that looked vaguely like a serpent.
Golaths were charging from the woods by the hundreds, racing into the circle and then leaping but never landing, simply disappearing.
It was a gateway to the One True World.
Fallion saw no sign of Shadoath or even a single Bright One that served as her guard. The leaders had been the first to flee.
It would have taken little for Fallion to close the gate, to suck the last of the flames away and make the exit disappear. But then the folks of Landes-fallen would only have had to face a cruel enemy, the stranded golaths.
Besides, he had one more task.
Nodding to Rhianna, he jutted his chin, pointing upstream. “Up in the hills about thirty miles from here, the river will fork. Take the right fork up. There, about fifteen more miles up, you’ll find a Gwardeen fortress.”
“What about you?” Rhianna asked.
But Fallion was already diving. His graak swooped out of the sky, and Fallion reached up one last time, drawing cords of light from heavens that suddenly went black, and then his graak was almost on the ground, skirting the flames.
Its wings thundered, and the world blurred and changed, and suddenly the graak was rising up from the ashes, into a sky where a million stars blazed profoundly.
He was in a stony valley, and all around were dark pines, towering, mountainous, almost blocking out the light.
Below, a vast army had congregated-tens of thousands of golaths and Bright Ones, all camped beneath the shadows of the giant trees.
Fallion soared above them, and he heard frightened shouts, saw golaths pointing upward.
There in the midst of her army, Shadoath sat beside a campfire. Fallion’s sharp eyes were quick to spot her, sitting so regally, a diaphanous jewel in the night.
Fallion let the graak dive, winging only three dozen feet above the heads of the golaths, and he saw Shadoath rise from her chair as she spotted him, her mouth falling open in rage.
Make an offering of her, Fire whispered. Burn her.
Fallion did not give her time to cry out.
He released the heat stored in him, blazing brighter than the sun. It felt as if his skin caught fire, and everywhere cries of pain and dismay rose up from those that were infested by loci.
Bright Ones cringed and cowered, unable to mount a defense. The golaths saw their masters’ fear and then turned to run.
Fallion peered down at their souls, saw wounded loci by the hundreds breaking free from their hosts, then streaking away to safety.
He bent his will most of all upon Shadoath.
She cried out in horror, the locus ripping free from her, a shadow hurtling away like a comet.
When it was gone, Shadoath stood, raging at him in defiance. She grabbed a great bow from a cringing golath, drew it to the full, and fired an arrow.
It blurred in its speed.
Fallion unleashed a fireball, sent hurtling toward it. The fireball raced down far faster than a horse could run, caught the arrow in midair, and turned it into cinders. The fireball roared along its course.
Shadoath took another arrow, fired again. But it met the same fate.
Shadoath barely had time to curse before the fireball took her full in the face.
An inferno washed over her, and she raised a fist and shook it, screaming in pain. The fireball turned those around her into flaming torches, yet with her endowments, Shadoath refused to die.
Shadoath cursed and raised her hands, shaking her fists, even as flames lashed out all around her, charring her flesh, bubbling her skin, melting her fat.
Her cries, by reason of many endowments, were amplified a hundredfold, so that her voice seemed to shake the heavens.
She roared and reached down to pick up a huge stone, and suddenly the cooked meat of her joints gave way, so that the bones of her hands ripped free, borne away by the weight of the stone.
The fire roared all around her, and she stood in the midst of the inferno, as if she would keep screaming endlessly.
Slowly, she began to collapse. First one cooked knee gave way, and she stumbled to the ground, as if compelled to kneel to her young master.
Still she shouted obscenities, even as her tongue boiled. By now her hair was gone, and her face a bubbling ruin.
Then she lowered her head as if in pain, and at last collapsed among the flames, falling forever silent.
Now the children are free, Fallion thought.
He fought back tears and pulled his mount up, soared back toward the world gate, and in moments he was gone.
And in Shadoath’s Dedicates’ Keep, babes that had not seen in years sud denly opened their eyes to the light.
The deaf heard other children shrieking in delight and laughing.
Those who had been too weak to walk suddenly leapt in the air and cavorted like frogs.
The sick became hale, and fools suddenly recalled their names, while many a child who had given away beauty discovered a new luster to their skin.
There was not enough room in the Dedicates’ Keep to contain all of the joy that was unleashed, and so the
