David Farland - Worldbinder

Last of all, we awaken to death, And the light beyond.

In the tallest tower of Castle Coorm, Fallion kicked open the door to a small room and stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust as motes of dust floated in his view.

The room had served as his bedroom as a child, a room for both him and Jaz. But as Jaz said, it had grown smaller over the years.

The room was filled with trash-broken chairs from the king’s hall, a broken wheel from a wagon, various tools with broken shafts-all things that had some worth but needed the tender care of a good wood-wright.

Beneath the litter, Jaz’s bed still remained, but Fallion’s was gone. Gone also were their treasures-the princely daggers that had hung on the wall, the fine curtains that had once hung over the window, the carved and painted animals that Jaz had played with as a child.

Fallion had hoped to find something to remind him of his childhood, but there was nothing. Nor had he found much of worth in Warlord Hale’s chamber. It seemed that everything of worth had long ago been destroyed, sold off, or stolen.

He closed the door, then climbed the stairs to the uppermost tower, where his mother’s far-seers had once kept vigil.

There, upon a mossy roof that was growing weak from rot, he peered out across the altered landscape. Rocks rose up in a tumult, twisted and eerie. It was not as if they had just thrust up from the ground, broken and new. Instead, they looked to have been sculpted by wind and rain over millennia. Their forms were graceful, strange, and utterly out of place.

In the past hours, the dust had begun to settle, and though a yellow haze obscured the heavens, in the distance the ruins of ancient cities could be seen in half-a-dozen directions, their stonework marvelous and otherworldly, and their broken towers soaring high.

Yellow moths of a type that Fallion had never seen fluttered everywhere, clouds of them rising above the forest, apparently unnerved at the vast change.

Fallion felt unnerved, too. The sun was too bright, and rested in the wrong place in the sky. The plants seemed to have a strange metallic tang. A great weariness was on him, sapping his strength. He felt on the verge of collapse, and feared that if he slowed down, if he stopped for even a minute, he would just lie down and never regain the strength to rise again.

Rhianna climbed the stairs behind him, came up to him wordlessly, then just stood stroking his back.

“Has Talon stirred?” Fallion asked.

“Not yet,” Rhianna answered. Talon was still unconscious, resting in the hovel where Hearthmaster Waggit lived. Fallion had come here to search for richer quarters, but Warlord Hale’s room had been a pigsty, full of rotting food and foul odors.

“This is a trap,” Fallion said as he peered out above the woods. “This whole place is a trap. We should leave.”

“Not without Talon,” Rhianna said. “I couldn’t leave her, and neither could you. We’ll have to wait until she’s ready to travel.”

She had been unconscious for hours. Fallion worried that she would die. Certainly, there had been others in the village that had died. One had been crushed under rocks when a wall buckled; others had perished from wounds received in taking the keep. Two elderly men apparently died for no reason at all, except, perhaps, from the shock of the change.

And there were other oddities. Another young man had grown large and distorted, like Talon. He too was unconscious.

Four people had apparently vanished altogether; Fallion suspected that they lay crushed somewhere beneath the rubble. Fallion could hear their sons and daughters even now, down among the castle grounds, calling out their parents’ names in vain.

Another young girl had a large gorse bush grow through a lung during the change and would not make it through the night.

Talon might not make it, either, Fallion knew. Whatever she had become, it might not survive.

“You should go down among the people,” Rhianna said. “There is talk of throwing a celebration tonight.”

“I’m not in the mood to dance or sing,” Fallion said. “They shouldn’t be, either.”

“You saved them,” Rhianna said. “They want to honor you.”

“I didn’t save all of them.”

“Perhaps not,” Rhianna said, “but I heard a woman talking down there. She said that ‘Under Warlord Hale’s rule, we were all dead. But good Fallion has brought us back to life.’ That seemed reason enough to honor you.”

Rhianna took his hand, squeezed it. She wanted to infuse him with the love that she felt, but she knew that it was incomprehensible to him, for the love that she felt was not something that she had learned in her mother’s arms. Her love was deeper, and more profound. She had once given an endowment of wit to a sea ape, and had learned to see the world through its eyes. It had been as devoted to its master as a dog would be. It had adored its master. There were no words to describe the depth of its affection. And now, Rhianna felt that way about Fallion. Only long years of practice allowed her to keep from constantly following him with her eyes, or from stroking his cheek, or kissing his lips. She dared not let him know, for she knew that it was a burden for one to have to bear unrequited love.

“If the villagers want to honor me,” Fallion said after a moment, “tell them to post a heavy guard. And tell them not to wait until tonight. There may be worse things in those woods than strengi-saats now.” He sighed, stood resting with his palms upon the head of a gargoyle for a moment, as if bestowing a blessing, and then when he had regained his strength, said, “I’ll go check on Talon.”

He stalked down the stairway in a foul mood. As he descended, he found himself in darkness, until he came out upon the green. Three women were tending the tree, tenderly wrapping the scars on its bark in tan linen.

A few hours ago, Fallion remembered hearing them cheer as he freed them from Warlord Hale.

Unbidden, words came to mind, a cruel voice speaking in a hiss. “Though the world may applaud your slaughter, you will come to know that each of your victories is mine.” In his mind’s eye, he saw his old enemy Asgaroth upon his fine blood mare, a tall man in black, wrapped in shadows. And once again Fallion felt his shirt tear open, felt the words scrawled upon his chest formed from runes of air, like insects marching over his skin.

Fallion bit his lip. A cold certainty was upon him. The crowds had applauded his slaughter not hours ago, when he’d killed Warlord Hale, but the taste of victory was sour.

Fallion gazed at the tree for a long moment. He felt strange in its presence. It made him want to be a better man, and he recalled hearing its voice earlier, its cry for help. But now there was only a deep silence in his thoughts. It was as if the tree were fast asleep.

He hurried down a back street where cobbles had come out of the road, leaving it pitted and muddy. He ducked into Waggit’s hovel, saw Waggit puttering about the hearth, looking here and there, as if trying to decide whether it was time to build a dinner fire. Waggit’s endowments had aged him. His hair had gone silver, and it was long and unkempt. He still had the height of a warrior, but the muscles in his chest and shoulders had grown thin and wasted.

He looked up from the hearth, “Fallion!” he said in glee. “You’ve come home!”

So much had changed over the years, Fallion felt surprised that Waggit even recognized him.

Waggit shouted in glee and danced a step. “It’s good to see you, boy!” He leapt across the room, gave Fallion a hug, and burst into tears.

“Good to see you, too, old friend,” Fallion said, taking the proffered hug. And it was.