David Farland - Sons of the Oak

She was beautiful, and Fallion stirred uncomfortably. He was a child still, and his fantasies about women consisted solely of holding hands or tasting a kiss, but he felt in small part what it must be to be a man, to want her more than life or breath.

“You should see yourself,” she said. “There is light bleeding from every pore of you, just as in days of old.”

Fallion had no idea what she was talking about. “The days of old?” Was she talking about the bright Ones of old, or did she mean him, in some previous life?

“Why are you here?” she whispered.

“You brought me,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not here in this cage. Why are you here on this world, now?”

Fallion shook his head, bewildered. He only wanted a drink. For a drink, he would tell her everything he knew and make up lies the whole day long.

“You do know the answer,” Shadoath said. “It’s there in the flames, inside of you. Peer hard enough and you will remember…”

But Fallion felt too tired, too weak, to peer inside of himself for the answer. He surrendered to his weakness, just let himself hang loosely. It did not matter if the chains cut his wrists. The fresh flow of blood that came streaming down his elbows didn’t matter.

He hung his head and fainted.

Hours later, he came awake again and tried to recall the conversation.

He was fully aware of the light inside him, and just as aware of the dark creature that dwelt in Shadoath.

Did it really feed on her spirit? Fallion wasn’t sure, but he recalled now that his mother called the locus a “parasite.” If that is what it was, then it clung to Shadoath like a bloated tick.

Yet if the locus had been feeding, Fallion had not seen it. He’d not seen a gut or some muscle that sucked sustenance from the spirit.

Perhaps, he thought, the locus only clings to a spirit the way that an anemone clings to the hull of a ship, mindlessly catching a free ride across the sea.

No, Fallion decided, the locus is not a mere rider. It is something more than that. It’s manipulative. It controls things. It has a purpose.

But what?

Fallion sifted through Shadoath’s words for clues. She had not asked about a ransom, as a pirate should. Nor had she sought the location and disposition of his kingdom’s Dedicates, the way that a sworn enemy to the realm would.

She had really asked only one question. “Why are you here on this world?”

The answer seemed paramount to her.

She knows me better than I know myself, Fallion thought. She’s known me for millennia. But she doesn’t know why I’m here.

“The sleeper awakens.” She could have just been referring to the fact that he was awake. But Fallion had been gazing at the tendrils of light within himself when she came. He’d let it flood the room.

Had she sensed that? Had it drawn her?

I am the torch-bearer, he thought, recalling Smoker’s name for him. I am the light-bringer.

And then it hit him: She wanted to waken him to his powers.

But why? he wondered.

She was his enemy. He could feel that in the marrow of his bones. They had been enemies for endless eons.

What could she hope to gain from him?

Fallion had no answer.

Where the sea ape ended and Rhianna began, Rhianna wasn’t sure.

She had no volition. She was not Rhianna anymore. Now she was a sea ape, a girl named Oohtooroo.

Oohtooroo walked where she wanted, ate what she wanted. She squatted and peed on the grass while others watched and thought nothing of it.

Rhianna could observe the world at times, her consciousness weak, as if she were half asleep. But even in her most lucid moments she could not do one thing on her own. She could not move one of Oohtooroo’s thick fingers or blink an eye.

She was merely an observer, peering out through the eyes of an ape, an ape who loved Abravael more faithfully than any human ever could.

She craved his presence. He was the one who fed her sweet plantains and succulent pork. He was the one who groomed her skin, as her mother once had.

If Abravael had wanted it, she’d have given herself as his mate.

He could not move without Oohtooroo watching. Her eyes followed him everywhere. Her nose tasted the air for his scent as she slept. Her hands longed to touch him.

Oohtooroo wanted to keep him safe, fed, protected.

Until she got her endowment, she had not realized how that might be done. He had made noises and she had done her best to understand.

But with a single endowment of wit, Oohtooroo’s eyes seemed to open and her mind to quicken.

“Oohtooroo, come here,” her love said softly, and she understood. “Come” was one of only seven words that she had understood, but until now, she had always been unsure of its meaning. Abravael might say, “Come here one moment,” and she would go to him. But when he said, “How come you’re so stupid?” a moment later, she would go to him, and he would slap her as if she had offended him.

Now, there were so many layers of meaning exposed. “Come quickly” meant to hurry. “Come outside” meant that she should follow him out onto the palace green.

Many times, Oohtooroo wept tears of wonder as she suddenly discerned the meanings of the tiniest of phrases.

Rhianna in her lucid moments had to remain content to watch.

She watched Abravael at his studies, watched him practice with the blade and ax, and even when he slept at night, Rhianna, in Oohtooroo’s body, would lie down beside him, tenderly watching him, her heart so full of love and devotion that she thought it might break.

No beagle ever loved its master as perfectly as Oohtooroo did.

And one day, Abravael sat stroking Oohtooroo’s neck, whispering sweet words. “Good ape,” he said. “You’re a sweet thing.”

Oohtooroo sniffed in gratitude, her eyes welling with tears, and Rhianna realized that after only three days with endowments, the ape understood everything that was being said. She’d learned quickly, perhaps because Rhianna had already known how to speak, and Oohtooroo was now just learning to use the pathways of Rhianna’s mind. It was a marvel in itself.

“Love,” the ape said, her lips stretching out into nearly impossible shapes as she sought to duplicate the human words. “Love you.”

Abravael smiled and quipped, “You’re becoming quite the orator, aren’t you?”

“Love you,” Oohtooroo repeated, then reached out and took his hand, hugging it.

“How sweet,” Abravael said. “Do you love me enough to kill for me, when the time comes?”

“Yes,” Oohtooroo said.

“Sweet girl.” Abravael hugged her, reaching up to put an arm around her, his face pressed against Oohtooroo’s small breasts.

Waves of gratitude and adoration swept through Oohtooroo, and in some measure, the ape’s feelings for him mingled with Rhianna’s, becoming one.

Aboard the Leviathan the mainmast and mizzenmast were now firmly ensconced, and all of the rigging had been repaired. New sails replaced those that had been lost.

The Leviathan was ready to sail. Only one thing remained…

A man named Felandar stood guard at the gates to the outer wall of Castle Shadoath. Thick fog had gathered for the night, and even the brightest torches did not let him see a dozen feet.