that was less cruel?
He had not been able to imagine such a world. But Kirissa claimed to come from one. And so he was curious.
But that was not it, either. He d never been a man of great curiosity.
No, Cullossax felt inside himself, and knew only that something was broken, something more vital than bone-his very soul. He had grown sick of his life in the labyrinth. Life there seemed like no life at all, as if it was a walking death, and he had only been waiting for the day when he no longer breathed.
At last he answered, 'I came with you because I am weary of living. I thought maybe that in another world, my life would have been better.'
'You can t be weary of life,' Kirissa said. She reached up and stroked Cullossax s face, a gesture that he found to be odd and discomfiting; it felt as if a bug were crawling on him. 'Among the wyrmlings,' she said, 'no one is really alive.'
6
Despair created the earth, the moon, and the stars. Despair owns them all-every world that spins about even the dimmest sun. That is why, when you look into the heavens at night, you feel so small and desolate. It is your heart bearing witness to your own insignificance, and to the overwhelming power of Despair.
The first full taste of a meadow in the netherworld was something that Talon would never forget.
The aroma staggered her senses: sweet grass, rich loam, and the perfume of tens of thousands of flowers- from deep beds of clover to vines of honeysuckle and stalks of wild mint. There were wood roses in the meadow, and flowers for which Talon had no name.
And all around, birdsong rose from the thickets, curiously complex in its music, as if by nature birds were meant to compose arias and had only somehow forgotten this upon Talon s world.
When the company was all gathered upon the netherworld, Daylan Hammer returned to the Door of Air, and with the Wizard Sisel s staff, drew another rune. In an instant there was a thundering boom, like lightning striking, and the door collapsed.
Daylan turned to the company.
'Remember my warnings. Touch nothing. Drink from no stream. We will head east, but must find shelter before nightfall.'
'Why is that?' someone called.
'Because things come out at night,' Daylan answered.
And he was off, striding across the glade. A trail ran through it, a winding trail like a rabbit run.
Daylan walked along it carefully, as if treading across a fallen log.
'Stay on the trail,' he called. 'We walk single-file.'
The folks began forming a line, and soon they were winding down the hill, looking like a great serpent slowly slithering through the grass.
Talon strode along behind the emir. They gave up on their language lessons, and walked silently. No one talked. As well as they could, the forty thousand complied with Daylan s wishes. Babes cried, and occasionally someone yelped as they tripped, but overall, the journey was a remarkably sober one.
They had not gone for half an hour before a child screamed, not a dozen paces ahead of Talon. She peered around the emir and saw a girl, perhaps six or seven, drop a huge posy, its pink flower falling to the ground.
She screamed and held up her hand. 'Help!' she cried. 'A bee stung me!'
'Help yourself,' her mother whispered impatiently. 'You ve been stung by bees before. Pull the stinger out-or let me do it.'
But the child held her hand up and studied it in shock, then let out a bloodcurdling cry. 'I m on fire! Help. I m burning!'
To Talon it did indeed seem that the child was burning. Her hand was turning a vivid red, a color that Talon had never seen in a human limb, and near the sting it had begun to swell terribly. The girl screamed and fell to the ground, writhing in pain.
Suddenly Talon could hear the angry sound of bees swarming, and she looked up to see a cloud of them, rising from the glen in every direction, hurtling toward the girl.
Folks shouted in warning, and some stepped away from the child, frightened by the massive swarm that had begun to form.
'Stay on the trail!' Daylan Hammer cried out up ahead, but folks shouted for help. In moments Daylan was racing back down the line, until he reached the fallen child.
The bees had formed an angry golden-gray mass, and merely hovered in the air above the wounded girl, like sentries waiting to do battle.
Daylan cried out in warning, speaking in a tongue that Talon had never heard before. Yet Daylan s words smote her like a mallet. They seemed to pierce Talon, to speak to her very bones.
'Hold!' Daylan called to the bees. 'The child meant no harm. Spare her. She is still ignorant of the law.'
The bees buzzed angrily, their pitch rising and falling, and Talon suspected that they were speaking to Daylan in return, answering in their own tongue.
Daylan reached the fallen child and stood between her and the bees, using his body as a shield.
The girl wept furiously, and soon began to wheeze.
'It s nothing,' the girl s mother said as if to reassure Daylan. 'It s only a bee sting. She s had plenty before.'
'On this world,' Daylan said, 'a single honeybee has more than enough venom to kill a man. Let us hope that she was not stung too deeply.'
He stood between the girl and the swarm, and called out again. 'Please, she did not know that these were your fields,' Daylan apologized. 'She meant only to enjoy a flower. She did not mean to steal pollen from your hive.'
He spoke slowly, as if hoping somehow to break through to the dumb insects.
For a long tense moment the swarm buzzed angrily, and the bees began to circle Daylan, creating a vortex, so that he seemed to be at the center of an angry tornado. He turned to follow their leaders with his eyes, keeping himself between them and the girl.
For her part, the wounded child stopped whimpering, and lay now only wheezing. Talon caught a good glimpse of her-pale blue eyes staring emptily into the air as she struggled. Her face was blanched, and her whole body trembled.
The swarm stayed at bay, and their buzzing eased.
At last Daylan reached out his palm toward the swarm. 'Show me the way to your hive,' he begged. 'Let me speak to your queen. I have not violated the law. You cannot deny me.'
After a thoughtful moment, a single bee flew out of the mass and landed upon Daylan. It walked around in circles on his palm, stopping to waggle from time to time.
'That way!' Daylan said, pointing to the southwest. 'About a league.'
He called out to the Wizard Sisel. 'Come here.' To the crowd he warned, 'The rest of you, stay where you are.'
He glanced down at the failing child. Her breathing was slowing from moment to moment. Daylan told the wizard, 'Cut open the sting. Suck the poison out. Keep her alive, if you can.' He gave the company a warning look. 'And don t move. Don t take so much as a step from the trail or touch a flower, lest the bees attack. There are enough of them to wipe out our whole company!'
