Once he heard the floorboards creak outside his door as someone came stealthily to it. The person stood outside for a long time, as if listening, and Borenson thought for sure, We have been found.
But the fellow sniffed loudly, then ambled down the hall to another room, his feet unsteady from too much drink.
And in the pale glow of the coals from the fireplace, Borenson saw Iome’s frail body suddenly tremble.
He heard the death rattle out from her throat, and the room suddenly went cold, a feeling that he had long associated with the presence of spirits.
He did not see her shade depart, did not see who had come to escort her into the beyond, but he knew.
“Farewell, my king, my queen,” he whispered, “till we are joined in the Hunt.”
He waited for several long minutes, just listening to the sounds from the common room. The minstrels had gone silent an hour ago, and he could only hear one pair of boots creaking across the wooden floor down there.
I would like to join whoever is down there, Borenson thought, and raise a mug of ale.
He went to Iome’s body. She was smiling, a smile of perfect contentment, but she had no pulse, and she had quit breathing. In a while, she would begin to grow cold.
Borenson unwrapped Iome’s arms from around her sons. He tried not to wake them as he lifted her small frame.
Such a small body, he thought, to have held such an enormous life.
He laid it by the fire, and draped it with his own blanket.
There would be time enough in the morning to let the boys know that their mother had died. They would have their whole lives to mourn.
18
THE LEVIATHAN
Most men live their lives as if they were adrift at sea.
— Captain Stalker
When he woke that morning and found the shrouded body of his mother lying before the fire, Fallion felt numb. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, peered at the blanket so innocently draped over her, and waited an eternity for her chest to rise and fall again.
But after a dozen heartbeats, he knew that it was useless. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Myrrima sat in the rocking chair above him, the sword across her lap, keeping guard, and merely watched Fallion for a moment.
Borenson was gone: the other children still slept.
Myrrima leaned forward, forcing a smile, and whispered, “Sorry for what?”
“It’s my fault that she’s dead,” Fallion whispered.
“How can you think that?”
Fallion wasn’t sure. He felt very sad, very lonely and hurt, and somehow he felt that it was his fault. “We wore her out. The flight through the forest, the battle on the river, they were too much for her.”
“Life wears us all out,” Myrrima said. “Your mother sat on a boat for a day, which is as easy as breathing for a Runelord with her powers. And the battle? She hurled a sword. That’s not hard work, not hard at all. No, it’s not your fault. We all pass on when our time comes. And it was her time.
“Come here,” Myrrima said, and she leaned down over the side of the chair and with one hand raised the blanket so that Fallion could see his mother’s face. It was pale, lifeless, with a tint of blue to her upturned lips. “See that smile? She died at peace, beside the two boys that she loved most in this world. She’d want you to be happy, too, be happy for her. She’s with your father now.”
And the tears came. Fallion tried to hold them back, but the tears came, along with huge wracking sobs.
“Shhhh…” Myrrima whispered. “We’ve got to get ready to go. Would you like something to eat? I can go down and bring you something.”
Fallion swiped his eyes. He had thought that Borenson was getting breakfast from the common room. “Won’t Borenson bring it?”
Myrrima shook her head. “He’s taking a note to the palace, telling them where to find your mother.”
“Oh, okay,” Fallion said.
Myrrima gave him a hug, and crept out through the door. As she closed it, she bowed her head in wonder.
It had been seven years ago that the Earth King had approached Myrrima and her husband, asking them to take care of his children. He’d known that both he and his wife were destined to die young.
Myrrima had always known that it would come to this. She recalled Gaborn’s exact words. He had been standing in the kitchen, holding young Fallion in the crook of his arm. “My son will be greater than me,” Gaborn had warned in an ominous tone. “He will have a greater capacity to do good, and a greater capacity to do evil. You must nurture the good in him, lest the whole world suffer.”
Greater than the Earth King. Myrrima could not imagine such a thing. Yet she was a servant of Water, and she had to admit, she felt something in Fallion’s presence, a force that other children did not have.
Straightening her back, Myrrima hurried downstairs.
Fallion remained alone in the room with the sleeping children, and with his dead mother. He stared at her, feeling numb inside.
Everything seemed so important suddenly, every moment so deliberate, every breath so imbued with life.
To Fallion it seemed that death was a miracle. Last night his mother had been warm and alive, telling stories and dreaming of the future. Now the spirit had fled and her body was as empty and as lifeless as a loaf of bread.
Not death, he told himself. Life is the miracle. The very act of living couldn’t be more wondrous if I stretched out my arms and found that I could fly.
He went and lay by his mother, put a hand over her cold flesh, hugging her one last time.
Rhianna woke a moment later. She sat up and rubbed her eyes as she studied the shrouded body.
Fallion was lying there, weeping softly, trying not to be seen or heard. She crawled over to him. She straddled him, placing one hand on the floor on each side of his shoulders, then took his face in her hands, leaned down, and gave him a fierce kiss on the lips. She held it for a long moment, then looked at him appraisingly, to see if he liked it.
Fallion stared up at her, unsure what to do or say.
It didn’t matter. At that moment, she imagined that she was in love with him. She’d never kissed a boy before. She wasn’t sure whether she had done it right. But it felt good. Her heart had hammered when her lips touched his, and she imagined that someday she would marry him.
She whispered, “Now we’re both orphans.”
Fallion felt embarrassed by the show of affection. But he heard real pain in her voice, so he hugged her back timidly. Somehow he knew that she needed him to hug her, perhaps even forcefully, as if he could squeeze the pain from her.
Myrrima brought back some breakfast a few moments later, and once Borenson returned, they prepared to leave.
Fallion felt as if this day would be forever emblazoned in his memory. But in truth, as they crept out of the inn that morning, he ambled through a haze. The city was wrapped in a gray mist so thick that he could barely see his own feet stepping one past the other over the grimy cobblestones, and the same mist seemed to cloud his thoughts. In later weeks he would remember almost nothing of that walk.
They reached the docks, where the water was as flat as a vast satin cloth spread upon the ground. A shroud for the sea, Fallion thought.
He heard noises behind them, shouts from far away, the brief sounding of a warhorn. He thought that the soldiers at the palace must be performing some sort of training maneuvers.
He stepped down from the docks into a small coracle, and once all of the little ones were in, he helped row. He looked at Jaz’s face, saw that his brother too was lost, weeping, locked within himself. Myrrima put a comforting arm around Jaz as the small boat made its way into the depths of the bay, out where the Leviathan was said to be anchored. The mist was so thick that droplets of water beaded upon Fallion’s brow and went rolling down his face.
The salt spray in his mouth tasted like blood, and the sea this morning smelled of decay.
Soon they neared a ship, looming abov
e them in the heavy fog, black against the gray.
It was not a huge ship, at only a hundred feet in length, with five masts. A sea serpent’s head rose up at the bow, with long jaws full of grim teeth, its eyes as silver as a fish’s.
Sailors were rushing to and fro, hoisting up barrels of water, kegs of ale, baskets of turnips and onions, crates filled with live animals-chickens that clucked and pigs that squealed in terror-fresh meat for the larder.
The children reached a rope ladder, and all of them climbed up the sides. At the top they were met by a sailor-a strange little man with a crooked back whose face was as white as death. His hair was mouse-colored, and his eyes a hazel so light, it almost looked as if he had nothing but whites and pupils. His long coat and trousers were both made of black leather, and he wore no shoes. He jabbered at them for a moment and it took several seconds for Fallion to realize that he spoke a mixture of Rhofehavanish and some other language. Borenson was quick to answer in the same tongue.
“He says that they’re loaded and set to sail, but won’t be putting to sea until the fog lifts and we get enough wind to fill the sails.”
“How long will that be?” Myrrima asked.
“Could be here all day,” Borenson said. Myrrima looked worried, and Borenson whispered, “Don’t do it. Don’t lift the fog. We don’t want them knowing too much about us.”
Myrrima nodded almost imperceptibly.
For a long while, the children stood on deck while Myrrima and Borenson brought the family’s meager possessions up from the boat.
Fallion peered around. He saw other refugees, several families huddled, looking as if they’d lost everything in the world. Most of them disappeared below deck within a few minutes.
The crewmen finished loading the last of the stores, waiting for wind. They were a mixed lot. Most were white of skin, like Inkarrans, as white as albinos with silver or cinnabar-colored hair. But there were tan-colored men from Rofehavan, and even a couple of Blacks from Deyazz.
Their clothes were as varied as the men. The Inkarrans, as Fallion decided to call light-skinned ones, wore what looked to be silk tunics in shades of canary, wine, or crimson, with pants of some fine leather that looked like snakeskin, though Fallion had a hard time imagining where such huge snakes would be found. They wore colorful head rags, too, and most did not wear shoes, only sandals, which they abandoned as they climbed the rigging.
The darker men wore more mundane fare, pants of buckskin or cotton, often without a shirt. More than a dozen could be seen in nothing but loincloths.
Fallion watched a couple of white skins climb up the rigging. They checked the sails on one mast, then grabbed ropes and swung to the next. Both men released a dozen yards from their target, somersaulted in the air, and grabbed the yardarms on the way down-showing a grace that Fallion had rarely seen before, and then only in Runelords with endowments of grace. They looked more like acrobats than sailors.
I could build a strong army with men like these, Fallion thought.
While he was peering up into the sails, a deep voice sounded behind him, and a stout man with long black hair and a black beard said in a strange accent, “Sir Borenson, glad to see you’ve made it. This your crew?”
Borenson was climbing up the rope ladder with a bag over his shoulder, and the visitor peered down at him.
Borenson grunted and gently heaved his bundle over the railing. Fallion heard the soft clank of blood metal as the bag touched the hull and knew that his forcibles were inside. Nothing else clanked like blood metal. It didn’t have the ring of silver or the heavy thunk of iron. It was softer, more of a clacking, like sticks of bamboo whacking against each other.
Fallion looked up to see if the captain had noticed.
Captain Stalker peered down at Fallion and smiled. The clank had been soft but perceptible. I’m going to be rich, he thought. And when we sell the boys, I won’t even mention the forcibles to the crew.
He saw the briefest hint of worry on the boy’s face, and then it was gone.
The princeling wonders if I heard, Stalker thought. There’s enough blood metal in that bag to buy a whole ship like this.
Yet the worry disappeared quickly, and Fallion covered it with a question just as Borenson heaved himself over the railing. Fallion asked, “Where are your sailors from?”
Fallion stood straight, showing a poise that Stalker had seldom seen in a child.
This one is trained in arms, Stalker realized. Probably was taught to grip a dagger while other babes were still waving rattles. And he marshals his wits as well as his body.
“Landesfallen,” Borenson answered when Stalker didn’t. “They’re from Landesfallen.” Borenson bent over, trying to catch his breath, sweating from the climb. Whatever endowments he’d once had, they were gone now, Stalker realized. A soldier with endowments of brawn and stamina might feign weariness, but they couldn’t fake sweat.
That was one less worry on Stalker’s mind.
“Landesfallen it is,” Stalker agreed. The two men shook hands.
Talon peered up at Borenson in shock. “Is that where we’re going?”
Borenson got a veiled look in his eyes, but nodded yes. He gazed down at the children to see their reaction. They’d all heard tales of Landesfallen. It was a place of legendary terrors.
Sage began to cry; Draken hid his face in his hands. Talon just bit her lip and turned away, her face pale with fright. Jaz shrugged and peered around, as if he didn’t care. Rhianna glowered, put a hand on her dirk, and seemed prepared to do battle.
Landesfallen was the last place that Fallion wanted to go. It was on the far side of the world, a continent that, according to rumor, had never been fully explored.
In ages past, eight hundred years ago, a race of creatures called the toth had sailed to Mystarria upon strange black ships carved from some sort of stone. They waged a genocidal war that sent the armies of Mystarria reeling in defeat.
A great hero named Fallion the Bold arose and turned the tides of that war, decimating the armies of the toth. But his people feared that more of the creatures would come, so they built huge “worldships” that could hold vast armies, and they sailed across the sea until they found the home of the toth in Landesfallen.
There Fallion’s people did their best to hunt the toth to extinction, searching through vast underground warrens for the beasts.
Most folks believed that not all of the toth were dead, that their mates and offspring had retreated farther underground, and would someday issue forth again.
Even Borenson held that opinion.
Landesfallen was so inhospitable that Fallion and his people left within a decade of discovering the continent. The lands in the interior were mostly rock and desert. That’s where the toth had lived in their burrows. But only the coasts were hospitable enough for humans, and even those were covered with strange and alien jungles.
Fallion the Bold had left guards of course, men to watch Landesfallen and bring warning should the toth ever rise again. The Gwardeen, they were called, men of mixed Inkarran and Rhofehavanish blood.
It was said that they were valiant men who lived high in the branches of the stonewood jungles, forever vigilant against the return of the toth.
Lesser men had also migrated to Landesfallen over the centuries, too. Some were crazed men who believed that great treasures might be found in the ancient lairs of the toth. Most were outlaws, fleeing from justice. And from such outlaws and madmen sprang the ancient pirate lords, whose folk had been a scourge for generations.
Pirates, Fallion thought, peering up at Captain Stalker. Some of these men could be pirates.
Worse than that, he realized, any one of them could harbor a locus. The captain himself might harbor one.
Stalker laughed at the terror in the children’s eyes. “Aye, bound for Landesfallen we are. And a prettier sight you’ll never see. When the stonewoods are in blossom, the pollen fills the forest, and the sunlight slantin’ through the trees all goes as
red as rubies, and the day-bats go flittin’ about, ’untin’ for nectar. It’s a pretty sight, girls, almost as pretty as you.”
Stalker grinned and chucked Sage on the chin.
Just then, Myrrima appeared, lugging her own bundle up from the boat.
Stalker said to Borenson, “Stow your gear quickly, man. We’re pulling anchor, and we could use your back on the oars.”
“In this fog?” Borenson asked.
Stalker looked darkly toward the shore, still shrouded in thick fog. “ ’Aven’t you ’eard? There’s trouble at the palace.” He hesitated, looked to see the reaction of Borenson and the children. It wasn’t that he liked to watch folks squirm, it was that he wanted to see how well they handled pressure. There was a saying where he came from: “You never really know a man until you’ve spent a week with him in a leaky ship.” He continued. “It’s a fierce assault, powerful Runelords. Lowicker the brat is ’untin’ for the queen, no doubt. We ’eave off in five minutes, fog or no.”
Borenson took the news like a warrior. It seemed hardly to faze him, but Stalker knew that he had to be worried. Even the boys surprised the captain by adapting unreadable expressions.
Myrrima dropped her bundle to the deck, sighed heavily. “I’ll be back in a bit.” She quickly climbed down the ladder.
Stalker needed to hurry. The boys were worth a fortune, and he needed to make a clean getaway. He had a pair of deckhands that still hadn’t reported for duty-probably off drunk or whoring or both. Most likely, they’d come running when the fog lifted. But by then he planned to be far out into the open sea.
Stalker grunted a “Good morning to you,” turned, and went trundling off.
Fallion peered out into the fog and petted Humfrey, who was sleeping soundly in his tunic pocket. Fallion had heard a warhorn and shouts, but had only thought that soldiers were parading at the palace, not hunting for him.
Men are dying now, he realized, dying to keep me safe.
The battle would be fierce. Queen Lowicker, whom many called “The brat,” might not need many men to take the palace. A couple of dozen champions rife with endowments formed the heart of any army.
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