“It will add a month or so to the voyage,” Borenson said. “But we can’t go by the northern route this time of year-ice storms.”
Add a month or two to the voyage? Fallion wondered. They were sailing far away, leaving behind everything that he had ever known.
Iome nodded reluctantly. “You didn’t pay too much, did you? We can’t arouse suspicion.”
“Just about the only people who take this voyage are outlaws,” Borenson said. “The price is always high. But I managed to keep it down. I told him that I’d made too many enemies here in Mystarria, aroused too much jealousy. I have too many kids and too much to lose. And I told him that I’d grown tired of the constant fighting. He seemed fine with the story.”
“And it’s not far from the truth,” Iome said. “I’ve seen it in you. You don’t love battle the way that you used to. So, we take the southern route, trading ice storms for pirates. Well, I’ll bet he’s glad of the bargain. He’ll want another sword if we’re attacked.”
Fallion lay quietly as Borenson grunted agreement, whispered good night, and slipped back out the door.
Rolling over as if in sleep, Fallion peered up at his mother. She sat in a rocking chair, slowly rocking, her silver hair falling loosely over her shoulders, a naked sword across her lap, its blade a brighter silver than her hair.
She’s keeping watch, Fallion realized. His mother had so many endowments of stamina that she almost never slept. Instead, she sometimes just paced late at night, letting herself relive a memory or fall into a waking dream, in the way of powerful Runelords.
Iome saw him looking up; she laid the sword aside and smiled, motioning him to her with the wave of a hand.
Fallion picked up his blanket, then climbed into her lap and curled up as she pulled the blanket over him.
“Mother, you said that a locus could be anywhere, in anyone. Right?” Iome hesitated, and then nodded. “That means that it could be in the innkeeper downstairs, the one that doesn’t like ferrins. Or it could be in one of the minstrels. Even in you, or me, and no one would know?”
Iome thought a moment before answering. “It isn’t good for a child to ask such questions so late at night. Asgaroth’s power is too frightening. But it is important that you know the truth…”
She hesitated, and Fallion felt as if he were trying to pry some secret from her. She didn’t want to tell him what he needed to know. He decided that he would find out, even if he had to discover the truth himself.
“And you said that it feeds on evil?”
“It seems that they make their homes in evil people,” Iome said. “I’m not sure what it feeds on.”
“And there is more than just one locus,” Fallion asked. “Lots of them?”
Iome began to recognize a pattern. Fallion was asking questions as if he were a captain debriefing a scout. Where is the enemy? That was always the first question to ask. How great are their numbers? What arms do they bear?
“Yes, there is more than one. Some are big and powerful,” Iome said, “like Asgaroth. Others are small and weak, little shadows of evil.”
“How many are there?” Fallion asked. “If father could see them, he would have told you how many there are.”
Iome peered at him, her dark eyes sparkling. “You’re so much smarter than the rest of us. It’s a good question, and I don’t think your father even knew. But I don’t think that there are many. Your father told me that not everyone who is cruel or greedy has one.”
“So, in a way,” Fallion said, “the loci are hunting us. Right?”
“I suppose,” Iome said, wondering what he was getting at. It was the next question: what is the enemy target?
“So do they hunt like wolves? Or like hill lions?”
“I’m not even sure what you mean?”
“Wolves hunt in packs,” Fallion explained. “They follow herds of elk or deer or sheep.”
Fallion had seen some wolves once, from a distance. On an early morning ride with Waggit, he’d topped a ridge one morning to see a pack of hollow wolves chasing a stag. The stag was racing across a field, its head held high so that its magnificent antlers could be seen glinting in the sunlight, all golden and amber, for it was late spring and the stag’s antlers were still in velvet.
A trio of wolves ran hot on the stag’s trail, and Fallion’s heart had hammered, hoping for the stag’s escape.
But the stag had bounded down into a draw, through the green grass, past an old fallen log. And suddenly there was a flash of gray as a hollow wolf lurched to its feet, scattering dust as it lunged from the shadows to grab the stag by its haunches.
The huge wolf didn’t just nip. It gripped the stag in its teeth and held on, throwing its weight against the noble stag so that its legs twisted out from under, and it fell in the grass, rolling, rolling, while wolves yipped and growled and clung on, one of them holding the stag’s throat in its teeth, and then they began to feed even as the stag struggled, peering in a daze for some means of escape.
Fallion suppressed the image and tried to explain his question to his mother. He searched for an unfamiliar word but couldn’t find it. “Wolves work together in the hunt, choose an animal and go after it. But a hill lion hunts alone.”
Iome licked her lips; in her mind she had a vision of three knights charging toward her on the road south of Carris. She didn’t want to frighten her son, but she didn’t want to lie to him, either. “They hunt like wolves,” she admitted.
So they’ve chosen me, Fallion realized. They’re trying to cut me out from the herd. But why?
“What can I do about it?”
“Prepare,” Iome said. “Be courageous, seek to do good. That’s how you can fight back, I think,” Iome continued. “We can even beat them, your father believed, if we are firm of purpose.” This last was only her husband’s hope. She had no idea how to beat them.
“You can’t kill evil, can you?” Fallion asked.
“I don’t think so,” Iome said. “You can kill evil men, but I don’t think that that kills evil. But you can fight evil. You can fight evil in yourself. You can drive all evil from you.”
Fallion squeezed her hand, as if she had told him all that he wanted to know, but then he asked another question.
“Father fought a locus, didn’t he? When he went to the Underworld?”
“Who told you that?” Iome asked. Few people had ever heard the full story, and Iome was the only person who had witnessed the battle.
“I thought of it on my own,” Fallion said. “People say that reavers are evil. But Hearthmaster Waggit says that they’re just animals. So there had to be something more, a crazy reaver or something. That’s what I used to think. But then it just came to me: maybe the reaver had a locus.”
“You’re right. Reavers aren’t evil,” Iome said with a shudder. She had seen the monsters in their lairs, five times the weight of an elephant, enormous and cruel. She’d seen how they cut men in half for sport. But she’d also seen how they protected and cared for their own young. “But they aren’t just animals, either. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that they’re as dumb as a dog or a bear. They’re as intelligent as you or I. Some of them are brilliant. But they’re also bloodthirsty, just like some wolves. It’s in their nature.”
“Was Asgaroth the one that Father fought?” Fallion scratched his chin and looked intently at his mother. Perhaps he thought that this was a vendetta.
“No,” Iome said. “It was Asgaroth’s master. She was called the One True Master of Evil.”
Fallion nodded. “Hearthmaster Waggit says that she tried to take over the netherworld a long time ago. She tried to master the Runes of Creation, and the world shattered into a thousand thousand worlds.”
Iome talked to him then for long minutes, telling him of his father’s battles against the reavers-how their mages created giant runes that poisoned and polluted the land, and how his father had gone to the Underworld and battled the One True Master, and then afterward defeated Raj Ahte
n, who also was afflicted by a locus.
Fallion thought for a long moment, then asked, “If loci have to live inside people or animals, why do they want to destroy the world? Wouldn’t they die, too?”
“I’m not sure they want to destroy the world,” Iome said. “Some think that they just want to change it, make it warmer so that reavers can take our place. Perhaps the reavers make better hosts for the loci.”
“Hearthmaster Waggit said that their spells would have destroyed the world, killed all of the plants, and then the animals would have died.”
Iome had to admit that that seemed likely.
“And if he’s right,” Fallion said, “then the loci don’t care if they live in us or not. What they really want is to destroy this world. But why?” Fallion asked.
What is the enemy’s objective? Iome thought. It was a vital question that any commander would want answered.
Fallion went on, “If there are a thousand thousand shadow worlds in the heavens, why would they want to destroy this one?”
“I don’t know,” Iome said. “Maybe they want to destroy all of them.”
“But the One True Master didn’t try to destroy the world in the beginning. She just wanted to take over. And Myrrima said that if she could, she would bind the worlds back together under her control…”
Iome had never considered this.
“Why destroy this world?” Fallion said.
“I don’t know,” Iome admitted.
Fallion wondered, “Maybe destroying this world is a key to getting the rest,” he suggested. He peered deep into her eyes. “If we found one, found a locus, do you think we could ask it? Could we torture it and make it talk?”
The notion was so bizarre, Iome was tempted to laugh. But Fallion was in earnest. “Those who are afflicted by a locus,” she explained, “aren’t likely to tell you anything of worth. Most of the time, the host has no idea what he bears inside himself. Even if you could talk to the locus, would it tell you anything? Gaborn told me that one way to discern a locus is this: a person who hosts a locus can tell you a thousand lies much easier than he can utter a single truth.”
Fallion peered up at his mother. “Yet there must be a way to fight them. They’re afraid of me. I think they know that I can beat them. All that I have to do is find the right weapons.”
Iome fell silent. She didn’t want to speak about this anymore. Indeed, she had already said too much. She didn’t want to burden her son with more knowledge, not now, not when he had just faced Asgaroth. He needed his rest, and she needed to give him hope.
“There’s something that my own father told me when I was a child,” Iome said. “It’s important for you to understand. It’s a secret. I never forgot it. In fact, more than anything else, it has helped shape who I’ve become.”
“What?” Fallion asked.
Iome waited for the expectancy inside him to grow, then repeated from memory, “ ‘The great heroes of the next age are already alive-the Fallions, the Erden Geborens. The child that you see suckling in its mother’s arm may someday command an army. The toddler that sits in the street eating dirt may become a counselor to the king. The little girl drawing water from the well may be a powerful sorceress. The only thing that separates what they are from what they shall become is time, time and preparation. You must prepare to meet your destiny, whatever that may be. Study the right books. Practice the right weapons. Make the right friends. Become the right person.’ ”
“So,” Fallion said, “I should begin now to build my army?” He looked across the room to where Jaz lay curled by the fire, and Talon cuddled with her baby sister Erin, and then his eyes settled on Rhianna, wrapped in a black blanket by the fire, her dirk in her hand.
“Yes,” Iome said. “Now is the time to start. And I think that you’ll have need of an army.”
Iome was deeply aware that she would not live long enough to see him raise an army, to see Fallion become the hero that Gaborn had said he could be. She felt old and stretched, ready to break.
Her tone softened, and she tousled his hair. “I’ve done the best that I could for you. You’ve had the best teachers, the best guards to train you. We’ll keep giving you all that we can, but others can’t live your life for you. You must choose to blossom on your own.”
Fallion thought about that. He’d lived in the shadow of the Earth King all of his life, and for as long as he could remember, he’d had dozens of trainers. Borenson had been there to train him in the battle-ax, while Hadissa taught him the arts of stealth and of poison. Waggit had filled his mind with knowledge of strategy and tactics and a dozen other topics. There had been Sir Coomb to teach him horsemanship and the ways of animals, and there were other teachers, a dozen others at least. So many times he had resented these people, but yes, he realized, his mother had given him all that she could, more than any child had a right to ask.
Even his father, who had seemingly gone to far places in the world without reason, had apparently been watching over him from afar.
But is it enough? he wondered.
“You’re growing so fast,” Iome said. “I think you must be a head taller than all of the other children your age. Sometimes I have to remind myself that you’re still just a little boy.”
“I’m not little,” Fallion whispered. “I’ll be ten in a month.”
“You are to me,” Iome said. “You’re still my baby.”
“If you want,” Fallion said. “Just for a little while more.”
Fallion lay against her, his head pillowed by her breast and cradled in her left arm, while his feet dangled over the edge of the rocking chair, too near the fire. He saw Humfrey slinking about the hearth, laying a bright button in the pile of treasures he’d brought up from below.
Fallion smiled.
It was rare that he had his mother all to himself. For as long as he could remember, his father had been out saving the world while Mother seemed busy ruling it. He looked forward to having her nearby, just being with her.
His hand was throbbing in pain, but he put it out of mind and fell asleep, imagining how someday he would drive a spear through Asgaroth’s heart-a creature who was somehow a tall thin man with impossibly long white hair, leading an army of minions in black. In his dream Fallion was now the Earth King, and he imagined that he would slay evil once and for all, while the world applauded.
So he lay, his mother stroking his hair as if he were a puppy, content for the moment to be nothing more than a child.
David Farland
Sons of the Oak
15
A PRIVATE RECEPTION
Military commanders all know the value of training soldiers while they are still young. After all, twist a child enough, and he shall remain twisted as an adult.
— Shadoath
Out on the open ocean, the Pirate Lord Shadoath rode on rough seas, her ship rising and falling beneath mountains of waves. Her crew was panicking, but she feared nothing, for she had laid heavy spells upon the ship. The masts would hold and the hull remain intact. They would find their way through the storm.
So she stood, lashed to the mast, grinning like a skull, enjoying the ride. Her crew was as frightened by her apparent madness as they were of the storm.
It was then that Asgaroth appeared to her in a dream.
“The torch-bearer has faced me,” Asgaroth said, “and slain me.” He was dispassionate about his death. He had taken countless bodies over the millennia and would take an endless array in the future. “In doing so, he drew upon his powers.”
He showed her a brief vision of Fallion thrusting a torch into the face of a strengi-saat, the flames bursting like a flower in bloom; and then he showed her Fallion drawing back storm clouds, so that Asgaroth was limned in light, revealed to his mother’s sight.
Shadoath smiled. Fear and rage. Fear and rage were the key to unleashing the child’s powers, drawing him into her web.
“Does his every defeat taste like victory?” Shadoath asked.
/> “Of course,” Asgaroth assured her. “And now he is fleeing-right into your hands.”
Fear and rage. Fear and rage.
“Excellent,” Shadoath said. “I will greet him with open arms.”
16
SENDINGS
It is said that the old stonewood trees of Landesfallen reach out with their vast roots, entwining one another, until the whole forest is held fast in one solid mass. Those who watch them say that the old stonewoods actually seem to feel other trees, to seek out younger saplings and hold them safe, so that they are not washed away in the storm. I am convinced that those who are born with old souls are like that, too. They sense the connections between us, and struggle to keep us safe.
— The Wizardess Averan
In his sleep, Fallion had a dream that came startlingly clear, more visceral than any dream he’d dreamed before. It was much like the vision he’d had when he picked up the owl pin, as if all of his life were a dream, and for the first time he tasted reality.
In his dream, he was walking along the side of a hill, in a little port-side market. The houses were strange, little rounded huts made of bamboo with bundles of dried grass forming the roofs. In the distance he heard the bawl of cattle. The road wound along a U-shaped bay, and on the far beach he could see a young girl with a switch, driving a pair of black water buffalo up a hill for the night.
He’d never seen a place like this before, and he marveled at every detail-at the odor of urine by the roadside, the muddy reek of rice paddies, the song that the girl sang in the distance in some tongue that he’d never heard before nor imagined.
As he ambled along the road, he passed between two huts, and in their shadow saw metal cages with black iron bars, thick and unyielding. Two of the cages were empty, their doors thrown open. But in the third squatted a girl a bit older than Fallion, with hair as dark and sleek as the night. She was pretty, all skin and bones, blossoming into someone beautiful. She kept her arms wrapped around her knees.
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