David Farland - Wizardborn

How long, Iome wondered, before this girl grows bored with me and regrets her choice of occupations?

Iome scanned the far horizon where water sparkled in the night. She couldn’t discern any ships, or even a pod of whales. “No giants,” Iome said. “No ships either.”

At that, the girl stiffened involuntarily just a bit, and her fingers tightened on the stone rail around the parapet. She laughed again, but her laugh sounded forced.

Ships are coming, Iome realized. The Days knows it. Ships are coming to attack the Courts of Tide.

But whose ships?

Iome began to think furiously. To the south were the Inkarrans, who had never made war upon the north, though they were doing so now. Still, sending fleets was not how they practiced war. To the north were half a dozen countries that could muster a fleet—Lonnock, Toom, Eyremoth, Alnick, Ashoven, and Internook.

I’m jumping to conclusions, Iome thought. Yet she had to wonder. This Days was young, perhaps the youngest she’d ever seen. The rest had always been far more mature. Perhaps she wasn’t fully trained.

For long centuries there had been rumors that Days sometimes acted as spies. Could this be the source of such rumors—a Days who involuntarily twitched an eye or looked away nervously when the conversation strayed to dangerous topics?

“So,” Iome said. “You said you grew up here, in Berriston?”

“Yes, it’s nearby,” the girl answered.

“Can we see it from here?”

The Days took her to the north side of the tower, pointed up along the coast four miles. “You see the village there, the one with just a few lights.”

“Ah, so close,” Iome said. “You could see the towers here from your home every day.”

“Not in the winter,” the Days said. “Not when the fog rolls in.”

Iome had never known a Days who spoke so much. “Does your family still live there, your mother, father, brothers, sisters?”

“My mother died years back,” the Days said. “But my father is here, and my older brothers. They’re twins. I never liked my stepmother.”

“Have you visited them recently?” Iome asked.

Now the girl clutched at the railing again, nervous. “No.” Was she worried for her family, or did the idea of visiting them make her nervous?

“Would you like to?” Iome said. “Perhaps I could take you.”

“No!” the Days answered. “Time does not roll backward. We should not try to make it do so.” She did not speak this last with full conviction.

“I suppose not,” Iome said. “I shall certainly never see my parents again, and nothing I can do will ever bring them back. It seems a shame, though, that your family would be so close, and you not able to see them.”

The Days clutched at the railing again, then looked away to the northwest, avoiding the subject.

Iome strolled around the promenade, until she faced west. Overhead, a star streaked across the sky, followed almost instantly by another.

“My husband is out there,” Iome said, “fighting the reavers. He fears that the end may be coming, three or four days from now. But I suppose you know all that.”

The girl fell silent and leaned forward, gazing west.

Iome continued. “He’s facing so many enemies. It’s not just the reavers. It’s the Inkarrans to the south, now, and Raj Ahten. And mad King Anders. I worry for him.”

The Days did not clench the rail. She merely stood gazing out. Iome read her reaction: Gaborn is safe. Don’t worry.

Iome’s head felt near to bursting. She suspected that she was on to something. This girl was not fully trained. So long as she did not suspect that Iome could read her, she would continue to reveal what she knew in her reactions.

Iome circled the promenade. “It’s getting late. You’ll probably want some sleep. I hope that your quarters are adequate?”

“They’re wonderful.” To a girl of peasant stock, any quarters here would seem luxurious.

“And you’ve had dinner?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Iome said. “I’ve never given it much thought before, but I suspect it must be hard for a Days at first, to be stuck here without any friends.”

“Oh, I have friends,” the Days answered.

Iome knew of them. She knew that the girl had given an endowment of wit to another, a friend who granted the endowment back, so that now they were of one mind. Gaborn had spoken of how he himself envied those who had such deep relationships.

Beneath Iome, the tower began to sway slightly, and stones bucked under her feet.

At first she thought that she imagined it, and she reached for the railing more worried that she would look silly than from any concern about the safety of the tower.

Then the tower really did sway, and the ground trembled and shook, Iome’s heart pounded.

“Earthquake!” the Days cried.

Her mouth opened in surprise, just as a rumbling sound rolled through the city.

The great tower began to thump up and down as the soil rolled beneath it in waves. Of all the places in the world that Iome would want to be during an earthquake, this tower was the last.

She heard glass shatter down in the palace as the huge windows in the Great Hall burst.

Throughout the Courts of Tide, people began to scream in alarm. Dogs barked and horses whinnied. In a castle on an island nearby, a whole tower collapsed, went sliding into the sea.

The Days grabbed the railing around the parapet, as if afraid that she might fall.

“Let’s get out of here!” Iome shouted. She grabbed the girl’s hands and pulled her through the door, into the tower proper. The king’s books tumbled from a shelf, along with a helm that clattered loudly. The canopy above the bed swayed.

Iome pulled the Days into the room just as a sound of cracking rock split the night air. The parapet outside splintered and fell.

The Days shouted and grabbed Iome, clutching her for support.

Still the tower swayed as if it might topple any second.

“Come on,” Iome said. She began dragging the girl from the room. Overhead, Iome could hear shouting as the far-seers raced for safety.

She leapt into the stairwell. Lamps were hung along the wall, and they swayed, spilling flaming oil. As the tower leaned, plaster on the walls buckled and fell in heavy chunks. The air inside the castle filled with dust and smoke.

Iome ran downstairs with her hand shielding her head from the debris. With her endowments of metabolism, the plaster seemed to slough off slowly. With her endowments of brawn, she was able to knock chunks of it aside, protecting herself and the girl.

She leapt past a wall of fire.

Enormous slabs of plaster skittered down the steps, and Iome had to fight for decent footing. The farther down she ran, the more it felt as if she were negotiating a landslide.

She felt inside her. Gaborn did not warn her of any danger as he had at Castle Sylvarresta. She felt only panic. At any moment the whole tower might collapse.

She had not reached the bottom of the stairs when the first tremor stopped.

The Days halted for a second. “Wait. Wait. It’s over.” She wiped tears of terror from her eyes and began to sob.

But Iome had seen more than one quake in Heredon, and she knew better. “You can’t know that!”

She grabbed the Days and urged her down the stairwell, out of the castle. It was good that she did.

Iome had just fled the building when a stronger tremor began to humble the Courts of Tide.

At the base of Mangan’s Rock the ground lay scorched for a mile around. Here and there, small shrubs still burned, so that the land grew blacker than a night sky, even though a thousand small fires lit it.