fused two lives into one. I feel stronger than ever before, more…hearty and wholesome. I do not think that the evil one could have foreseen that.”
“Nor, do I think,” Talon offered, “that she knew the day and hour of our coming. If she had known when Fallion would combine the worlds, she would have had her troops there to greet us.”
“Which means that the army she sent isn’t coming for the blood metal,” the Wizard Sisel decided. “It would have taken a good week for the troops to make their way from Rugassa. And so they came…”
“Because they knew that their princess would no longer be our hostage,” King Urstone finished. “I wish that Warlord Madoc were here. He claimed that the emperor was incapable of loving his own child.”
“One does not have to love a thing to value it,” Daylan cautioned. “The emperor may have hated her, yet needed her alive. She was the last of his flesh.”
“She is a thoroughbred,” King Urstone admitted. “A ghastly thoroughbred, but a thoroughbred still.”
“I have heard it whispered,” the Wizard Sisel said, “that there are spells, abominable spells, that can only be cast using the blood of one’s offspring. The emperor has cast off his flesh and chosen to become a wight. He may need his daughter more than we knew.”
“Perhaps I can thwart Lady Despair’s plans,” Fallion suggested. “I could resume my trip to the underworld, find the Seal of the Inferno, and bind the worlds into one.”
“Can you even find it?” Daylan asked.
“I have my father’s map,” Fallion said, reaching into his vest and pulling out the old leather tome that his father had written.
“Much has changed,” Sisel warned. “Mountains have risen, seas are running dry. Is there even a path for you to follow anymore? I think it is gone, the tunnels broken up. Your map will be useless.”
“Still,” Fallion said, “I mean to try.”
“Please, don’t try it yet,” Daylan said. “For millennia we upon the netherworld have wondered what would happen if someone could manage to bind the worlds. Would the good that was done be greater than the harm? We couldn’t know for sure. The Wizard Sisel here had his shadow selves bound into a more perfect whole, but I have heard of many of the elderly and sick who merely expired. If we look across the lands, I suspect that tens of thousands have died. So, now we know. We cannot create one world without…destroying others. There is a moral question we must answer: do we, does anyone, have that right?”
“If I had to choose,” Jaz suggested, “having seen the alternative, I would choose to die so that others might live in a more perfect world.”
“As would I,” Rhianna put in.
“And I,” Fallion said knowing full well that in binding the worlds he might well be dooming himself.
“Eck!” a voice cried off to Fallion’s left, No! It was the young Master of the Hounds, Alun.
A warrior grumbled, and Daylan offered the translation, “And any man who would choose not to die for the good of others is no warrior at all, but a coward!”
The king smiled gently at Alun, spoke in his own tongue. Talon translated, “Let no man call him a coward. Alun has proven himself otherwise, slaying wyrmlings in combat. And there is many a tenderhearted mother who would choose that her child should live, even in a broken and imperfect world like ours, than to die. To love life and embrace it is not cowardice.”
“Is life,” Siyaddah asked, “lived as wyrmlings, life at all? What if the wyrmlings conquered us, as seems so likely to happen? What if they sought to make wyrmlings of our children? I would rather die and kill my child too, than see my child raised as such.”
King Urstone looked pointedly at Fallion, “As some of our mothers have chosen to do. Destroying another, taking a life, may also be an act of love.”
Siyaddah peered hard at Fallion, as if to bore some message into his soul. He didn’t need Talon’s translation to know that she was saying, Kill us both if you must.
Fallion felt grateful for Siyaddah’s support, and found himself longing to thank her.
“Eck,” Alun said forcefully, rising to his feet. Talon translated, “I would rather watch my sons and daughter live in a broken world than to die. I would raise them to be strong, so that in their own time and in their own way, they could rise against the wyrmlings.”
“Have any of you considered,” the Wizard Sisel said softly in Fallion’s tongue, “that evil, too, might have been perfected in this change? There were evil men on your world, Fallion, who were infected by loci. Have they combined with wyrmling counterparts here? If so, we well may be facing an enemy stronger than any of us knows.”
A hush fell over the room, and Fallion considered. He had met creatures like Asgaroth and Shadoath in his own world, sorcerers who held vast powers. Had he inadvertently empowered their kind?
He could not help but believe that he had.
“In my own world,” he said slowly for the benefit of those who had not known his world, letting Talon be his voice, “there was a race of men called Inkarrans, a race of people bred to the darkness. I think that your wyrmlings are their counterparts on this world. If that is so, some of the Inkarrans will have merged with their shadow selves, and they may have endowments. What wickedness this portends, I cannot say.
“On my world, the loci attacked my father in the form of reavers, and then sent strengi-saats among us, led by corrupted Bright Ones.
“I do not doubt that a great evil is brewing, greater than any that we can foretell. Vile bonds are being forged. Will your wyrmlings command reavers in battle? I do not doubt that they can. Will they send strengi-saats by night to steal your women? I do not doubt that they will. And it may be that Lady Despair has even more quivers in her quarrel. Any horror that we have faced before will pale in comparison to what Lady Despair prepares for us now.”
There was a profound silence after Fallion spoke these words. Fallion had hated to speak thus. Sir Borenson had once told him, “A great leader will engender hope in his men, even in the face of oblivion. Never speak or act in a way that diminishes hope.”
But Fallion needed these people to understand that they were facing an enemy that had never attacked in the same way twice. These people needed to expect, and if possible prepare for, the unexpected.
High King Urstone smiled gently. “Fallion, our enemy has all the tools that she needs to crush us. She will not have to search for greater weapons.”
“Yet she will worry that we might find aid unlooked for,” Fallion said. “For I do not believe that even she can foresee all ends, when shadows combine.”
“Aid unlooked for,” Sisel said. “Yes, I wonder…” he said, peering off at nothing. “There is still a great blight upon the land. Our forests are dying. You may not see it yet, but the rot is spreading, growing stronger. The wizardess Averan should be able to stop it, but why hasn’t she?”
No one could hazard an answer.
“What of your people?” Fallion asked, turning to Daylan. “Is there no way that they can help? The enemy has brought creatures from the netherworld. Surely you could do the same.”
“The great graak that you saw is not from my world,” Daylan said. “It came from a shadow world. Which one of the millions it was, I do not know. I have traveled to only a few. Many such places are desolate, empty of life, or nearly so. There are whole worlds where nothing lives but an occasional colony of mold, and blue slime molds make endless war with the yellow, struggling for no greater prize than a cozy shadow beneath a wet rock.
“Other worlds are more like this, filled with higher life-forms. On some of those worlds dark creatures dwell, vile and ravenous, incapable of human comprehension. Our enemy is plundering such worlds, I fear, enslaving such creatures. By bringing them here, they endanger this world, planting these horrors upon fertile ground. Such enemies are not easily rooted out. My people will not risk doing the same, for to do so could ensure your eventual destruction.”
“Surely though,” King Urstone insisted, “some of your people will fight in our behalf.”
This was the great hope, of course. Daylan was a Bright One from the One True World. The magical powers of his people were legend.
Fallion peered hard at Daylan, hazarded a guess. “Are there even any left to fight?”
“A few,” Daylan demurred. “As you have deduced, your problems are but a shadow of our own. The worlds have a way of mirroring one another. My people are hunted, bereft. They live in hiding in the vast forests, a family here, and another there. We have no great war-bands that can come to your rescue.”
