A loaf of bread came bouncing down the slimy slope, to land with a wet plop. Daylan picked it up. It had been old and crusty.
For a long moment he stood, assessing the situation.
The smell was atrocious, but he knew that you could get used to any smell. He had been in some dire places in his life, but nowhere as foul as this.
There was nowhere to sit, nowhere to rest. The cesspool left him only a small space to stand in, perhaps only ten feet across. And he imagined that when he got tired enough, he could try to float.
But the excrement in the cesspool had the consistency of quicksand. A layer of water and urine covered the top, perhaps to a depth of four inches, and all beneath that was a sordid stew.
To try to rest would be to drown.
Of course, that was what he was here for. That was his torment. He could stand in the muck while soldiers rained their urine down on him, or dropped a foul hail upon him, waiting for days without food or drink, until the High King decided that it was time to fish him out, bring him to his trial, and, hopefully, condemn him to a speedy death.
Or he could choose to rest, and thus to drown.
He tried wading a bit, found that objects that were sharp and hard rolled and shifted beneath his feet-the bones of those who had chosen to drown.
After a few minutes, the sound of the captor’s harsh laughter died away, and he was left to himself.
I am supposed to deliver the princess to the rendezvous point tomorrow, he realized.
That will take some doing, he thought, emitting a bark of painful laughter.
So much had changed in just a few hours. He wondered if the wyrmlings could keep to the bargain now, even if he did manage to deliver her.
He thrashed about, trying to find a comfortable place to stand.
Perhaps if I can climb up to the grate, he thought, I could squeeze through the bars.
But the climb looked impossible. Without a rope it was hopeless.
Even endowments of brawn and grace would not let him negotiate that slick slope.
I’ll have to dig my fingernails into the rock, he thought, to get any purchase. Maybe then, I could climb out.
But even to try would attract attention. Once news of a captive broke out in the barracks, many a curious eye would be aimed down the privy holes.
That is, until tomorrow, Daylan realized.
The troops were to leave at dawn.
As if to confirm his worries, someone called out from above, “Look, there’s a rat in the pisser.”
“Well then, you know what to do,” a gruff voice laughed.
A steady yellow rain began to fall.
“You men sat at my table,” Daylan shouted up. “Which of my songs or jokes offended you so?”
There was no answer from above.
With no other recourse, Daylan Hammer merely folded his arms, closed his eyes, and tried to remember fairer days.
UPON A BED OF STARS
Not even a village idiot will honor a lord of poor character, and any man who builds a noble character- whether he be low-born or high-will find himself honored by all.
It was with a heavy heart that Fallion left Castle Coorm. There were over a hundred and eighty people left in the castle, mostly impoverished families with grubby children, too little food, and no way to protect themselves.
If Talon was right, they would be in grave danger so long as they stayed in Coorm.
“Leave here,” Fallion warned them. “Stay in the caves beneath the castle tonight. There are boats that can take you out through the underground river in the morning, so that the little ones will not have to walk so far. They’ll carry your food, too. Whatever you do, don’t show your faces above ground tonight. Stay hidden till morning, then make your way north to Ravenspell, or east to the Courts of Tide. There should be people there, greater safety. Travel only by day, and hide yourselves at night.”
He looked at a young boy, no more than three, terrified and vulnerable. His right cheek was bruised, and his eye swollen shut.
Fallion patted his head, whispered some words of encouragement.
In a more perfect world, he thought, children would never know such fear.
He wished that he could do more for them. He was tempted to stay behind, lead them to safety himself, but Talon had objected. “If we’re right, you’re the one that the enemy is searching for. Staying with the refugees would only slow you down-and place them in greater danger.”
So Fallion left amid sad farewells, hugging Hearthmaster Waggit and Farion, departing the castle an hour before sunset, taking only his three friends and some food. At the castle gate, Fallion and the others raised their swords in salute, crying out, “Sworn to defend.”
The people cheered, not realizing that the salute carried sad memories for the four. For it was on just such a journey from this castle that they had first sworn their oaths to one another.
Fallion took one last longing look at the golden tree, tried to let its form become etched in his memory. For a long moment, he listened, hoping to hear its voice in his mind once again. But there was nothing.
Regretfully, he struck out through the meadows, heading toward the mountains to the west. The air was full of the smell of pines, clean and refreshing, and the warm sun beat down on the fields.
With every step, Fallion found himself threshing wheat and oats, knocking the full kernels from the stalks. Grasshoppers and honeybees rose up in small clouds as they passed.
Soon his party reached the coolness beneath the woods. Sunshine slanted through the trees, casting shadows, while light played upon motes of dust and pollen in the air.
The woods filled with the chatter of jays, the thumping of woodpeckers, the peeps of nuthatches and occasional coo of a mourning dove.
It would have been a perfect walk, if Fallion hadn’t felt so drained. The weariness lingered with him, left him so sapped that he could hardly walk, much less keep up with Talon’s grueling pace. Still, she urged him on.
Jaz often complained, for he was as weary as any, but Rhianna merely kept silent, following at Fallion’s back like a shadow, sometimes whispering encouragement.
The old road to Hay was a road no longer. In this new world, it was filled with rocks and scree, gouged by canyons and blocked by hills. Sometimes along the path, Fallion saw further evidence of the damage done by his spell-trees growing up insanely through boulders, a nuthatch impaled by a tuft of grass, speared through by a dozen small blades, struggling vainly to break free.
And he wondered at the damage done to himself. Why am I so weary? He found sweat rolling off of him, a steady sheen, even though the day was cool.
But not all of the “accidents” were bad. As they walked along near sundown, they came upon a vine growing in the shadows of some rocks. It looked like some kind of pea, with a few brilliant white blossoms and it had berries on it-perfectly white berries, like wild pearls, that glowed brightly among the shadows.
Rhianna stopped and peered at them in wonder. “What are these called?” she asked Talon.
Talon merely shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen them before, never heard of them-not in either world.”
Fallion could only imagine that two plants had combined, creating something that was better than on either world. Whether the light-berries, as he decided to call them, had ever existed on the One True World, he did not know, but he liked to think that they had.
