firstborn in her arms.”
King Urstone bowed his head in thought. Areth’s wife had died while he was away, killed in a wyrmling assault. The wyrmlings had tried to take her prisoner, but she had slipped from their grasp and thrown herself from the tower wall, with her babe in arms. She gave her life rather than let her child be raised among the wyrmlings-for had she been taken, her royal child would have been raised as one of their slaves.
King Urstone had always felt guilty for this. I should have been there to protect her, he thought, instead of staying out for the night on patrol.
“It doesn’t matter who they are,” Drewish shouted. “They cannot be heirs to the throne. Look at them: they’re not even warriors.”
King Urstone looked down at the little humans. They squatted on rocks in the last of the sunlight, shivering, away from the infernal slaughterhouse, and rubbed their wrists and knees, trying to get back some circulation.
One of the girls was large, though, like one of the warrior clan. Her face was familiar, but he could not put a name to her.
“It’s not size that is the measure of a warrior,” she said in their own tongue. “There are few among you who could best King Orden here in a fight.”
Urstone laughed at her feisty tone. “And how, sweet lady, would you know?”
“Can’t you tell?” she asked. “I am Tholna, daughter of Aaath Ulber. But I also lived upon a shadow world, where Aaath Ulber’s shadow self spent half a lifetime training young King Orden here in battle.”
The king knew Tholna. Her father was one of his two most trusted guards. But he had disappeared after the change, like so many others. King Urstone had wondered if he were even alive.
Now Tholna turned up here in the wilds, with these otherworldly humans.
He could detect no change in her. She claimed to be two people at once, but if that was so, it seemed to King Urstone that the smaller creature had been subsumed, swallowed whole.
“This is all very befuddling,” King Urstone said. “I don’t know what to say. You tell me that these are my grandsons, but common sense says that they are no get of my son’s, and therefore cannot be heirs. And yet…”
“Yet what, milord?” Madoc asked, his tone a tad too demanding.
“I must think this matter through.” To suddenly have two new heirs, that would certainly spoil Madoc’s plans for his own sons, King Urstone knew. He liked the idea of thwarting Madoc’s plans. But claiming these… otherworlders as heirs might put them in danger from Madoc and his men, and that would be unfair to the small humans.
So King Urstone was hesitant to even consider them as heirs. Besides, these children did not really come from his own blood. But he felt a connection between them that could not be denied.
There are small people in the land now, King Urstone thought. They will need a great leader. Perhaps this young wizard-king will be that leader.
Sisel took King Urstone by the bicep and said, “Your Highness, walk with me for a moment.”
In all of his life, the wizard had never touched King Urstone that way, had never dared command him. By that alone, King Urstone recognized that the wizard felt an overpowering need.
They walked up the road a few hundred feet, well out of earshot of the troops.
“Milord, you must get Prince Fallion to safety. Zul-torac has already sent the Knights Eternal to apprehend him. By sunset, Vulgnash will be making his report to the emperor, and a sea of troops will be dispatched. He will spare no resource. He will attack us in force. We have two or three days to prepare at most.”
“Are you sure?” the king asked.
“Yes. Fallion Orden is the wizard who bound our two worlds together; he represents a far greater danger than the emperor has ever faced before.”
King Urstone peered at Fallion. He was small by warrior clan standards. He could not have stood more than six feet, a full two feet shorter than King Urstone himself. He had a slender build, though he was well proportioned. But there was something unsettling about him, a threatening gleam to his eye, a confidence that the king associated only with the most dangerous of warlords.
“I’m beginning to like this little fellow more and more,” King Urstone said.
“Don’t make the mistake of naming him as an heir yet,” the wizard said. “It will only infuriate warlord Madoc.”
“Oh, I won’t do that,” the king said. “Not until I know him better. But I do value the lad. He cost me many good men today.”
King Urstone looked to the south. “I want to see my son, my own flesh and blood. I want to be there tonight when Daylan Hammer makes the exchange. Will you come with me and the little ones?”
It was a long hard run, even for one of the warrior clan-a hundred and fifty miles in less than ten hours. King Urstone would need the handcart to carry the small folk on, and he would need guards. But he believed that he could make it. He was warrior-born, after all. He just wasn’t sure if the wizard could make it. Still, Sisel seemed to have physical resources far beyond most men of his stature.
“I wouldn’t want to miss it,” the Wizard Sisel said.
FROM DUNGEONS TO DAYLIGHT
Ultimately in life, the heights that we attain depend upon two things: our ability to dream, and the self- control we exert to make those dreams come true.
“Daylan, what are you doing?” Siyaddah called out in the marketplace. She was at a spice merchant’s stall, where she had been studying strands of ginseng root that were splayed out in all of their glory upon a bed of white silk.
Daylan swiveled his head, afraid that the city guards would descend upon him. Most of the inhabitants of the castle were busy working at repairs, using weights and pulleys to haul massive blocks of stone up the mountain. The work was proceeding with marvelous rapidity, for most of the damage, it seemed, was cosmetic. But even with the whole city conscripted into labor, there were people to feed and sick folks that needed tending, so some of the market stalls were open.
But vendors at their stalls were calling out to every straggling customer, while women strode around in groups, inspecting vegetables and fruits, as if it were any other day. Nature seemed not to notice his distress. Golden butterflies and white moths fluttered among the hanging gardens that were a part of every house and shop. The sweet smell of mallow and mock orange flowers wafted through the byways, perfuming the cobblestone lanes sweeter than a baby’s breath. Swallows that nested in the cliffs darted among the blue shadows of trees and shops, snapping up bees and moths, their green feathers glistening like emeralds when struck by the sun. The streets of Luciare were a riot of life.
In the meantime, Daylan grunted and struggled to shove a large wheelbarrow through the half-empty street. The wyrmling princess lay hidden inside, with cotton bags thrown over her while a few dozen chips of stone lay artfully displayed in the corners.
“What’s going on?” Siyaddah demanded. She climbed to her feet, a broad smile of greeting on her face, all filled with the irrepressible energy of a bounding puppy.
“If you must know,” Daylan hissed as she drew near, “I’m trying to escape from the dungeons.”
“Oh,” Siyaddah said, drawing back a pace, suddenly embarrassed and afraid. She studied the nearby vendors and shoppers with a fearful eye. But no one seemed to have noticed her outburst. No one had been within forty feet of them, no one except the ginseng vendor, a woman so old that she could no longer hear. Siyaddah’s had just been another voice in the throng. Suddenly the irrepressible energy was back. “So, can I help?”
Daylan could not help but smile, “Dear girl, where were you when I was chest deep in-well, unpleasantness?”
Siyaddah drew close, as if to hug him, but then caught a whiff of him and decided better.
