she kept hidden and treasured.
“No one,” she said. Rhianna only hid the bracelet away in her pack.
“You should wear it,” Talon told Rhianna. “It would look lovely with your hair.”
“Do you think?” Rhianna asked, giggling like a younger girl. It sounded strange, Fallion thought, that she should sound so carefree after the events of the night. But somehow the woods were healing that way, like a balm to the heart. Or perhaps it was the news that his father lived again.
Or perhaps…he looked to the Wizard Sisel. Fallion had heard that Earth Wardens could affect people that way-calming their fears, making them feel whole and in touch with nature.
The Wizard Sisel was watching them with worry lining his brow.
Of course, Fallion realized. The wizard is having an effect upon us, healing our mood, filling us with renewed vigor.
Fallion felt grateful for this small favor.
They all exchanged packs, began dumping things out, each taking his or her clothing, folding it neatly. Fallion was relieved to find that he still had the silver locket with his mother’s picture painted inside upon a piece of ivory, a picture from when she was young and lovely, with the endowments of glamour given to her at birth. In the picture she was forever young, forever beautiful. It was the only thing that he had of hers, and he had always treasured it.
But as he looked at it now, he wondered, Is there really some shadow world where she still lives? Is there perhaps some place even where she is young and beautiful?
If I could combine that world with ours, could I bring her back to life?
The thought made him tremble with excitement.
“Uh, Fallion,” Rhianna said. She nodded toward the young man who had brought their packs. He was, with an air of tremendous dignity, holding out Fallion’s long sword, presenting it to him, the blade un-sheathed. But the blade was covered with a thick patina of rust, and the ebon handle was cracked.
“No,” Fallion said, suddenly afraid to take it. “It was touched by him-by the Knight Eternal. I can feel the curse upon it.”
“Take it,” the Wizard Sisel said, strolling close, “The curse is upon the steel. I doubt that it will make you rust. Besides, you may have need of it all too soon.”
Fallion could see that he would hurt the young man’s feelings if he did not take it. Obviously, the blade had been won in battle, and had been borne here at great price.
“Thank you,” Fallion said, taking his sword.
“Alun,” the wizard Sisel said. “His name is Alun.”
“Thank you, Alun.”
The boy smiled shyly.
Sisel bent near Fallion. “We found some forcibles in one of the packs,” he said. “I had the king send them to Luciare already.”
“You found them in only one bag?” Talon said.
“There were more?” Sisel asked.
“We each were carrying some,” Fallion explained. “There were three hundred in all.”
“I fear that most of them have fallen into the hands of the enemy,” Sisel said. “Let us hope that they don’t know how to use them.”
Fallion sat for a moment, feeling disconcerted.
One by one, other warriors stepped forward and presented each of Fallion’s companions with their weapons-Talon with her sword, Rhianna with her staff, Jaz with his bow. Each of the weapons looked to have been cursed, all except for Rhianna’s staff, which Fallion had found three years past.
It had once been his father’s, the staff of an Earth King, and so was adorned in kingly fashion. It looked to be a branch hewn from some kind of oak, honey gold in color, and richly lacquered. It had a handle wrapped in leather, and beneath the leather were potent herbs that refreshed and invigorated any room where the staff was housed. Powerful gems encircled the staff both above and below that grip-jade to lend strength to the staff, opals to give light by night (should the bearer be a wizard with the power to release their inner fire), pearls to lighten the heart, cloudy quartz to hide the bearer from unwanted eyes. There were hundreds of runes etched into the staff, too, running up and down the length of it, runes of protection from various sorceries. Fallion suspected that even if the staff had been cursed, the Knights Eternal could not have succeeded. He knew for a fact that its wood could not be harmed by fire, and as a flameweaver, he could not handle the thing without feeling a strong sense of discomfort. Thus, he had given it to Rhianna, not because she had great talent with such a weapon, but because he suspected that there was great healing power in the staff, and given the torments that she had been put through in her short life, she needed healing more than anyone that he knew.
Not long after their belongings had been restored to them, a strapping warrior picked up the handles to the handcart and urged Fallion and the others to get on.
They sat back, using their packs as pillows, as the warrior began racing through the woods, pulling the cart faster than a horse would have. Fallion marveled at the warrior’s size and strength, for he was every bit as tall as one of the wyrmlings, and his shoulders looked to be four feet across.
They rode then, with human warriors running behind the wagon and along its sides like an honor guard.
We’re heading back to Cantular, Fallion realized, and then south to the human lands.
Fallion longed to see what the human lands would look like, with their enormous stone buildings, until Jaz laughed and broke out in a riding song. Jaz had a strong, clear voice, and often lately was asked to sing at the fairs among the minstrels. In a fairer world, Fallion imagined, that is what Jaz would have done to earn a coin.
Rhianna began to sing with him, and elbowed Fallion in the ribs until he and Talon joined in, and they sang:
Ever the road does wind along,
’Tis fare to travel well,
Riding in a fine carriage,
While singing a song,
Whether in sun or shadowed vale.
Upon a road so far from home,
’Tis fare to travel well.
Riding in a fine carriage,
With a girl that I love,
Whether in sun or shadowed vale.
The young man Alun was running beside them, doing his best to keep up with the larger warriors. Fallion saw him eying Talon, straining as he ran.
Fallion saw her catch his eye, glance away. “You have an admirer,” Fallion teased. He did not need to say that the gawky young man looked to be the runt of the litter.
Alun said something to Talon in the guttural tongue of this land.
“He says we sing well,” Talon said. “He thinks we sing like wenglas birds.”
“Ah, is that some kind of vulture?” Fallion asked in a self-deprecating tone.
“No,” Talon said. “They are birds of legend. They were women whose voices were so beautiful that they gave them flight, so that they rose up on pale white wings and flew through the heavens. From them all of the birds learned to sing.”
“Oh,” Fallion said. “So he’s saying that I sing like a girl?”
“No,” Talon chided. “He was just offering a compliment. He would like to hear more songs of our world.”
But Fallion couldn’t help but think that he must sound like a girl to these big folk. The men of the warrior clan were taller than the bears of the Dunnwood, and their voices were deeper than the bellow of a bull. Fallion could not help feel that he must look small and effeminate to them.
But Jaz burst out with a rowdy tavern song, all about “the glories of ale, whether drunken from an innkeeper’s mug, or guzzled from your father’s jug, or gulped from a fishmonger’s pail.”
So they sang as they rode, racing throughout the long afternoon. Fallion managed to fall into a deep sleep, and every hour or two he would wake up and look out over the land. The trees were taller than he remembered, and the land looked strange with its occasional pillar of wind-sculpted rock.
