What an abomination! he thought.
Fallion hurled a ball of flame, used its energy to sever the tail that bound the world worm to the One True Tree. There was a crackling sound, a roar of fire, and the shadows fled from around the tree.
The flames cursed Fallion, and struck back, like some living thing. A blast of heat surged into him, filling him.
Almost, Fallion burst into flames. The inferno begged Fallion to let go, to leave his flesh behind and become one with Fire, as his master had years ago at the battle for Shadoath’s Castle.
“No!” Fallion shouted, knowing that he had no choice but to fight. The Seal of the Inferno was a deadly puzzle. Either he had to heal it, or it would destroy him.
In his dreams, he had always repaired the rune. The dream came every night, and it had always been the same. The flames spoke with a million tongues. In his dream he tamed them, taught them to speak with only one.
He looked to the field where a bowl of flames should be, and saw the flames. But almost instantly they snuffed out, leaving only two.
For a moment, he knelt with mouth agape, unsure how to proceed. This is where he was to bind the worlds, bring all of them into one. But only two flames remained in this bowl. Each flame flickered and swayed in its own dance.
For long seconds Fallion held still, waiting for the other flames to reappear.
The heat continued to build in him, threatening to overwhelm him. He could feel it in the back of his throat. Steam began to rise from his cloak.
Desperate, Fallion lashed out, hurling back the heat that threatened to overwhelm him, and bound the two flames into one.
The fires of the Seal lashed out, roaring toward Fallion, and then died in an instant.
Suddenly all that remained was a ring of smoke rising around the golden tree.
In the ensuing silence, Fallion found his heart pounding and sweat rolling down his face. There was no voice coming from the remains of the fire. There was no voice in the tree.
“Is it over?” Jaz asked.
All around them, the world seemed to return to normal. Fallion could hear the morning bird song as robins and larks worked the nearby meadows. The rising sun stood golden in the sky. A faint breeze stealing down from the mountains cooled his skin.
And overhead, a great light began to fill the sky.
Daylan Hammer fell silent for a long moment, leaving Alun time to ponder his words.
“Can’t, can’t you help us in some other way?” Alun asked. “You visit the netherworld it is said. Surely…there is some weapon that you could lend us?”
“You think that better weapons can save you?” Daylan mused. “You ask for a dangerous thing. I’ve heard tales of entire worlds that have been leveled-all because one like me handed out such weapons to those in need.
“It is forbidden.
“Even if I gave them to you, they could not save you. In time, your enemies would capture them and turn them against you.
“Besides, you have all of the weapons that you need to destroy this world.”
Alun tried to imagine what he could be talking about. Swords? War clubs? “What weapons?”
“Hate,” Daylan answered. “Your people don’t just live under the shadow of the wyrmlings. You have fallen far beneath it. In a generation, there will no longer be any difference between them and you.”
Daylan fell silent, then at last asked, “So, what will you tell Warlord Madoc?”
Alun thought hard. If he told the truth, he might gain his freedom, untold riches. He could marry well and live happily.
And if he lied…
Then Daylan would free Princess Kan-hazur, leaving his people to withstand the full onslaught of the wyrmlings. Prince Urstone would come to rule, hopefully to help any who escaped.
Even if my people survive, Alun wondered, will House Urstone ever reward me?
He had never caught the eye of the High King. It seemed too fanciful a notion to entertain.
Suddenly there was a bright light in the sky, as if a star had been born.
Alun did not become aware of it all at once. Instead, it seemed that for several seconds it became brighter and brighter.
He looked up, and saw a pale disk, as big as a moon. A star is falling, Alun thought. It’s coming right at us.
The light grew brilliant, and suddenly Alun recalled hearing a tale of a meteorite that had crashed into the mountains years ago, filled with iron from the stars. But he realized that anything as big as this would surely smash him when it hit.
Fallion peered up at the growing orb. He could see blue-vast seas, and the actinic white of clouds whirling above them. He saw the blush of the morning sun striking clouds at the terminus. He spotted a continent, with a great red desert and snow-topped mountains. He could make out silver veins of rivers, the emerald green of forests, a lake shaped like a kidney.
People around Fallion began to cry out in astonishment and fear, and some threw up their hands to brace for the impact.
“What’s that!” Alun shouted, still peering at the coming world. He could not believe that his life was over. He wanted Daylan Hammer to explain the sight away, offer some comfort.
He looked at Daylan Hammer, whose eyes were wide with wonder. “It’s the end of the world,” he said as the huge disk suddenly filled the whole sky.
“This is the end!” Talon cried.
Fallion stared at the coming world, fear coursing through him like a bolt of lightning, and whispered, “No, my friends, it is only beginning.”
The ground trembled and groaned, and a mighty blast raked Alun’s face. There was a fire in the heavens.
Wind roared all around him, and tornados of light touched down.
Alun threw up his hands to protect his eyes, and gritted his teeth.
Two worlds collided, folding into one. There were no crushing rocks falling from the sky, no vast craters formed, no plasma spewing from the far side of a ruined world.
Instead a rain of atoms fell, sizzling past one another through the vast empty spaces that exist between the nucleus of one atom and another.
To Fallion, the impact felt as if a great wind roared through him. He could feel it pelting him on the head and shoulders, driving through him, and leaving through the soles of his feet. Bolts of static electricity raced everywhere, across the surface of the castle, and there was a rushing sound so loud, accompanied by screams, that it felt like the end of the world.
And suddenly the ground whirled and began to lurch beneath his feet. He could feel a hill rising beneath him, the ground shooting up so fast that his knees buckled.
The walls of Castle Coorm trembled and rolled as if during an earthquake. The east wall bucked, spilling into the moat, and the queen’s tower canted to one side and collapsed. Huge stones surged up through the ground, their faces seeming weathered by centuries of erosion.
Suddenly the atoms sliding through empty space halted, joining together as tightly as a key in the lock of a manacle, according to some pattern laid out in the master rune an eternity in the past.
The ground lurched to a halt, and Fallion felt an impact. No blow by a human hand could have been so
