They were only lowly guards, after all, and so knew little of import. But they talked of things that they did know. They spoke at length of how small folk had been discovered in every direction. They d heard reports from the scouts themselves, and had seen small folk brought through their gate in chains.
Huge cities had been found only a hundred miles to the east, and over the past two nights, troops had been sent out to wreak havoc upon the small folk, with the aim of enslaving their men, while eating the women and children.
The small folks rune lore was not helping them, the guards assured Cullossax. Already the emperor had mastered their lore and exceeded it, and was sending out his own wyrmling Runelords to do battle.
The fortress was emptying, so many warriors had left.
And in their wake, in the high keeps, strange new creatures were taking the wyrmling s place.
For a brief moment, Cullossax worried about this. The fortress was emptying?
He dared wonder how many people he might meet out in the wilds. There would be roving patrols of wyrmlings-and perhaps just as dangerously, there might be bands of angry humans, out for vengeance.
'It is a great time to be alive,' the guards all said. 'Surely this is history in the making.'
'Yes,' Cullossax exulted, voicing full agreement. Yet he wondered, why then does it feel like the end of the world?
Because I know that soon my masters will miss me, and learn what I ve done. Probably, they already have. They will be searching the labyrinth, suspecting foul play. They will find the girl s knife with blood on it, and might even think me dead.
Up here is the last place they will look, he thought.
But they will look here all the same.
2
Put no trust in your fellow men no matter how fair their looks, for every man s face is a mask that hides terrible malice.
As Cullossax awaited his fate, far away upon the plains, the humans of the warrior clans fled their fortress at Caer Luciare, nearly forty thousand people racing through the morning light, heading east through fields of oats that had been burned white by the summer sun, past black-eyed Susans that towered above the straw, their golden petals circling their dark eyes, through thickets of thistles with wilted liver-colored leaves and heads of purple.
The people kept away from the alders and pines along the mountain s skirts, where wyrmlings might lurk in the shadows. Instead, they blazed a path through fields so dazzlingly bright that the wyrmlings could not follow.
The folk of Caer Luciare could not move swiftly, burdened as they were. Some women carried babes at their breasts or hoisted toddlers on their shoulders. Older children walked, struggling through the tall grass, while the oldest of the folks hobbled about with staffs to keep them upright.
Many warriors were wounded, and these had to be borne by their comrades, while everyone who could do so had brought something-food, water, a little clothing. The inhabitants of the castle had long known that they might have to flee, and so were prepared.
But where are we going? Talon wondered, as she stopped to shift a keg of ale that she carried upon her back. She walked beside her aged mother, at least the woman who had raised Talon among the warrior clans, a woman named Gatunyea. Talon s father had been much the same man in both worlds, a mighty protector of his people. Talon had known him as Sir Borenson among the small folk on one world and as Aaath Ulber among these warriors. And on each world, Borenson had taken a different woman to wife. Gatunyea of the warrior clan was nothing like Myrrima, the gentle wizardess. Gatunyea was a stern woman, heavy-boned and arthritic, with a blunt face and no tolerance for weakness. She had borne her husband two strong sons with features much like his own. They walked beside Talon now, her brothers, age nine and eleven.
But unlike Talon and Borenson, the rest of the family had not merged with their shadow selves when the worlds were bound.
That can mean only one thing, Talon reasoned: they had no shadow selves to merge with. Their counterparts somehow died or were killed before the worlds combined.
But how could that be? she wondered. How can I, the daughter of Borenson and Myrrima on one world, have different parents on another?
Only one answer sufficed. Gatunyea is not my birth mother, Talon realized.
She looked over at the woman. Gatunyea had wide cheekbones and a wrinkled brow. So did her sons. Talon had always felt grateful not to have inherited those features, for they would have made her appear more brutish.
'Gatunyea,' Talon asked, 'when were you going to tell me that you were not my birth mother?'
The aging woman faltered in her step and cast a sideways glance at Talon. She seemed to age three years in the space of a heartbeat.
'Never,' Gatunyea said. She fell silent a moment, and then explained. 'You are my daughter. I took you to my breast when your mother died. I nursed you as my own. That is all that matters.'
'What happened to my birth mother?'
Gatunyea shook her head sadly. 'She went to hunt for hazelnuts one morning when the clouds were lowering. A wyrmling harvester caught her in the forest. You were a month old. My own husband had been killed in a raid on the wyrmling supply lines months before, a raid that was led by Aaath Ulber. So your father felt… responsible for me. I was expecting a child, a son came two days after your mother disappeared, but his cord was wrapped three times around his neck. We managed to free him, but he did not last a day. So your father took me to wife. I am from good stock. He knew that I could bear him the strong sons that our people would need to fight, and I was happy for the chance. It seemed a prudent union.'
Talon s half-brothers peered up at their mother, their faces a study in surprise.
'Do you love my father?'
'More than life or breath,' Gatunyea said. 'That is the way of it. You cannot sleep with a good man for all those years and not grow into one. But I wonder,' she said, glancing off to the horizon, 'if he will still love me?'
Talon knew that her father faced a dilemma. His two shadow selves had merged, and on each world he d had a different wife, a different family. Others in the city were facing similar problems. Which wife would he choose now?
Myrrima, Talon decided. Sir Borenson had more children with Myrrima than Aaath Ulber had with Gatunyea, and their bond was closer. They had fought side by side at war, and thus their relationship was probably deeper than the one that Aaath Ulber had with Gatunyea.
But now that his two selves had bound into one, what would Myrrima and their children think of him? He would be a giant in size, with a bony ridge upon his brow, and overlarge incisors. He would seem a monster.
'He will come to you,' Talon decided. 'Father will look more like one of the warrior clan than the small folk. He ll come to you.'
Talon s mother let out a small sob, a strange sound. Talon had never heard the stern woman cry. Talon hadn t known that Gatunyea was even capable of it.
Yet Talon feared that she had guessed wrong and thus given Gatunyea false hope.
Talon wondered if her two mothers might share her husband, as women in Indhopal did. But Talon doubted that they could manage it.
The company forged ahead. With each step full heads of grain scattered at Talon s feet, and the occasional
