of the small folk. Besides, Fallion’s people could create champions as well as the big folk. No, it wouldn’t be a master-servant relationship. At least, it could not stay that way for long.
“You need allies,” Fallion said. “You need my people to give their lives as dedicates. For generations my people have given themselves in service this way. But will you protect them in return?”
“My warriors will crush the wyrmlings, once and for all,” King Urstone said. “We will bleed and die for you.”
Fallion wondered. “Will it even work? You have an army at your gates. They’ll attack by dawn.”
“We will hold them off,” the king said. “And the morning sun will drive them back.”
He sounded so sure.
“And what if they aren’t coming to attack the fortress at all?” Fallion wondered aloud. “What if they’re coming to take the blood-metal mine?”
A black look crossed the king’s face, and Fallion’s friends gasped.
“Of course!” Daylan said loudly, rising from his chair. All eyes turned to him, and he hastened to explain. “It is not by chance that these two worlds were brought together. It is not by chance that our greatest hope, Areth Sul Urstone, languishes in prison. Think back, the wyrmlings won him only at great cost. Lady Despair could not let a potential Earth King roam free. Fallion melded the worlds together, but it was not his plan. It was laid by Lady Despair. He was only an unwitting tool in her hands. I believe that she has planned this for years.”
King Urstone peered up, thoughtfully, “Yes,” he said. “I remember. The wyrmlings did seize my son at great cost.”
“So that his two halves could not meld together,” Daylan said. “I didn’t see. For years now, I was blind to it. The wyrmlings have been summoning aid, bringing dark creatures to their lairs, things like the giant graak, and worse. I thought they were preparing for one final assault.”
Fallion thought back. On his own world, Shadoath and Asgaroth had also hunted him nearly to extinction.
Fallion had always felt sure that he’d won his own life. But in bringing these two worlds together, hadn’t he been playing into the hands of his enemies? Perhaps he hadn’t won his life after all. Perhaps they’d only loaned it to him.
Daylan spoke, his eyes resting on Fallion, “Lady Despair would not have brought these two worlds together unless it gave her great advantage. What has she won? The strength of her armies vastly outnumbers yours. Those who might have granted you aid have all been destroyed. But more importantly, the lore of your world, Fallion, combines with the resources of another. Blood metal is what she is after.”
“If it was just blood metal that she wanted, didn’t she already have it?” Fallion asked.
Daylan shook his head. “The lore that you used on your world would not have worked on this. Both worlds are but shadows of the One True World, broken pieces of a greater whole. Now, you have combined two pieces of the puzzle, and the magic that worked in your world can be used with the blood metal that can be found here.”
The Wizard Sisel peered up at the king, bright eyes flashing. “How fast can we move a hill? How much ore can we move before the wyrmlings come?”
“A great deal of it is already inside the fortress,” Greaves said. “I’ve had workmen at it since yesterday. We have tons now, much of the richest vein.”
But everyone knew that there was far more to get.
“And what makes you think that the wyrmlings will leave us alive to use it?” Jaz asked. “What do we matter to them?”
Daylan Hammer’s eyes riveted on Fallion. “There is only one person here that Lady Despair really needs alive. The rest of us are just…inconveniences.”
Sisel grunted, a noise that made it sound as if he’d just woken from an inadvertent nap. “You’re right, old friend. Daylan, you know her mind-perhaps too well.” His tone suddenly became soft, dangerous. “And I wonder how? You are a puzzle, Daylan Hammer. I have known you long on this world, and yet my shadow self recognizes you from that shadow world. For years on end, it seems, you have traveled between our worlds. Yet Rhianna here calls you Ael, and met you elsewhere on a third world.”
Daylan sat back down in his chair, gave Sisel an appraising look, and seemed to consider each word before it was spoken.
“I am but one man,” he said, “and it is true that I sometimes travel between worlds. I am here as…an observer, mostly. For ages now, I have traveled between four worlds. I come to see the workings of the evil ones in your lands, and to report to…higher powers.”
“You were born a Bright One of the netherworld,” Fallion said. “Weren’t you?”
“Yes,” Daylan said. “My name, you could not pronounce.” He began to sing, his voice low and musical, “Delaun ater lovaur e seetaunra…”
Fallion had no idea how old Daylan might be. “So the stories, the tales that said that you had taken so many endowments that you had become immortal…”
“Are fables,” Daylan said. “There have been men of your world who discovered the truth, but I outlived them, and my stories replaced theirs.”
“Can you help us?” King Urstone asked.
“In war? No,” Daylan said. “I am…a lawman, of sorts, and our laws forbid it. I am Ael.”
He looked to Fallion, as if Fallion should know what that meant. Fallion reached up to his cape pin, stroked the silver owl there. He knew the name. If he clutched that owl, he would be carried away in vision, and he’d see an enormous gray owl flying over a great forest of hoary oaks. In the vision, the owl called the name Ael.
“This pin is yours, then,” Fallion said. “I took it off a fallen enemy.”
“No,” Daylan said. “It was once yours, in another time, another life. You were Ael, too.”
“How can aiding us in battle be against your laws?” King Urstone demanded. “There is no law in any land that prevents one from preserving his own life.”
“In my land, my life is my own,” Daylan said. “It cannot be taken from me. To try to preserve it is needless. But there are other ways to die. The death of a spirit is to be mourned more than the death of the flesh. And so, that my spirit may be renewed, there are higher laws that I must obey.”
Fallion remembered something from his childhood, a half-memory that haunted him still. His father’s mysterious dying words. “Learn to love the greedy as well as the generous, the poor as much as the rich, the evil as well as the good. Return a blessing for every blow…”
Daylan nodded his head, just a bit.
“What good is that?” King Urstone demanded. “You would have us empower our enemies, submit to them?”
But Fallion suspected that Daylan sought to do something more than empower his enemies. He was resisting them, subverting their influence. He was fighting evil without seeking to destroy those who were under its sway.
Daylan looked to Fallion and asked gently, “Do you remember?”
“Being one of the Ael?” Fallion asked. “No.”
“Perhaps then,” Daylan said, “you should waken from this dream-before it is too late.”
“How?”
Daylan fell silent a moment, thinking. “The past is not held there in your mind. Only your spirit recalls. You must waken your spirit, and that is not easily done.”
“And if he wakens,” King Urstone asked, “will he be able to destroy the armies that march upon us?”
Daylan shook his head no.
“Then what good are his powers?” King Urstone demanded.
The young woman, Siyaddah, dared speak. “My lords,” she said. “Lady Despair has had time to plot our demise, but surely she cannot see all ends?”
“You’re right,” Daylan said. “She may have considered ways to defeat us, but there are things that she doesn’t know, things that she could not know. She is blind to goodness, to love, to hope…”
“Fine,” King Urstone grumbled. “We can smite her over the head with goodness, and stab her through the heart with hope.”
But the Wizard Sisel merely sat, scratching his beard, pondering. “When Fallion combined the worlds, he
