She spotted rivers running like veins of silver through greenest jade, and saw vast forests of emerald and jasper.
Then the world struck, and tumult filled the skies.
The crow cawed and flapped wildly, its heart pounding, but there was no physical blow, no massive assault of rock hurtling down from the heavens.
Instead, Crull-maldor felt energy sizzling through her as bolts of static lightning suddenly roared through the heavens. Atoms fell in a cold drizzle, pounding through her head and back, as if to force the crow down into a watery grave. Eerie lights blazed in the heavens, pinwheels of white fire, and a mist exploded up from the sea.
Then the new world stopped falling, and every atom locked into place.
Something slammed into the crow, a shock more mental than physical, and it began dropping toward the water. The pain of the blow fogged Crullmaldor’s eyes, and for a moment she fought to see. Crull-maldor seized control of the small animal, steadied its wings, and went into a blind glide.
Then it seemed as if a film fell away from her vision, and a new world was revealed: ships plied the waters below her, fishing vessels bobbing on the sea as fishermen threw their nets, schooners racing south with sails full of wind. Even from a distance, Crull-maldor recognized the forms of humans.
Dozens of vessels spread out along the coast in every direction, and off to her left a city sprawled along the arms of a bay. Where once there had been nothing but rocks and scree scattered over the barrens, now there were vast fields and forests in the distance.
Crull-maldor fought down mounting excitement.
Somehow two worlds had collided. She’d seen a world falling from the heavens. In an instant everything had changed in ways she’d never imagined.
The barrens were now filled with people, with life—life that would sustain her, make her strong. To her right, she spotted more cities all along the coast. The humans were vast in number. She guessed that hundreds of thousands now lived in the Northern Wastes. Maybe millions, she realized.
Yet as wondrous as this all seemed, as she flew along Crull-maldor had a second insight: all morning long she had been struggling to retain control of her crow. Now, she flew steadily, strongly, and hardly even noticed the crow’s struggle to escape her grasp.
I have greater power in this new world, Crull-maldor realized.
Crull-maldor could not yet guess what had wrought such a mighty change, but she planned to find out.
She turned the crow, went riding on the morning thermals toward her fortress to the north. She would need to consult the elders in the City of the Dead.
3
RAIN IN THE DARKNESS
It takes a strong man to do what must be done, regardless of how unpleasant the deed might be. As a Walkin, I expect you to be forever strong.
—Baron Owen Walkin
Rain turned into iron that day. While some in her family seemed content to just sit and wallow in despair, Rain vowed to survive this disaster. So she went to work.
She helped carry her aunt Della up the ridge before the flood took the Hacker River Valley; then she spent the rest of the morning doing what she could to make the children comfortable.
First she found some shelter beneath an exposed cliff near a streamlet where the grass was thick enough for a bed. She helped lay the family’s blankets on the wet ground, and then tried to start a fire.
This turned out to be no easy task, for kelp and coral mingled among plants on the ground and seawater had soaked everything. So Rain took some of the children to find dead branches in a ravine up among the red-rock, but found more sea urchins and brightly colored anemones than good dry wood.
Still, she pulled off the bark from some sticks, exposing the dry pith. Soon a wan blaze sputtered in the open air.
In no time at all the children ran about and began to gather food. They found lobsters and eels lying on the ground, with octopuses and halibut—rare treasures from the sea.
These they cooked above the fire, making the biggest feast that Rain could recall having eaten in many years.
With his belly filled, her father Owen went out to explore. Like everyone else, he felt strangely exhausted, and walked with less energy than a man twice his age.
Something has happened to us, Rain thought. Some sort of wizardry has sapped our vitality.
Rain felt so weary that she feared that if she stopped moving, she might just lie down and die. They all felt so.
Rain’s aunt Della said it best when she woke from her faint. Rain asked, “How do you feel?”
Rain’s mother Greta had offered, “It’s okay to say it. You feel like cow shit. We all feel that way.”
But Della, never one to be outdone, countered, “No, I feel like cow shit that’s been trampled on by the rest of the herd.”
Then she just lay in the shadows, the sweet grass for her bed, and asked, “What happened?”
Rain delighted in saying, “Nothing much. Half of Landesfallen has sunk into the sea, flooding everything, and we managed to drag your lazy carcass up the cliff. I was sure that you were faking, just trying to get out of work. Oh, and for some reason, there are starfish and crabs and kelp growing everywhere, and Sir Borenson turned into a giant eight feet tall—with horns.”
Della propped herself up on an elbow and peered around, looking at the growths of coral clinging to the rocks above her. The Borenson family sat in a little knot, about a hundred yards away, hovering around Erin.
“Is that girl dead?” Della asked.
Rain nodded, and a look of dread crossed Della’s face. She hadn’t asked about her own children. “Did any of ours . . . ?”
“No,” Greta answered, “thank the Powers.”
Della began asking questions, the same questions that everyone else had. What happened? How could this happen? What shall we do?
Rain had no answers. The flood could be explained easily enough by an earthquake. But the change to Sir Borenson? The strange tornadoes of light?
Her mind revolted from wondering or worrying about it.
Instead she watched the Borensons, her heart aching for them. She longed to go to Draken, put her arms around him and comfort him. But she dared not do it in front of his father and mother, particularly that father, now that he had changed into something . . . monstrous.
Her face reddened, and she looked away.
She couldn’t look at Borenson without feeling guilty. He’d said that they’d stolen cherries, and it was true. The children in her family had gone out in the early mornings, rampaging through the trees, filling their bellies.
The Walkins had done their best to hide it even from Draken. Rain had begged her parents to make her brothers and sisters stop, but Rain’s father had downplayed the deed, saying that the children’s need for food outweighed Borenson’s rights as a landowner.
At least Rain had been able to keep the children out of the Borenson’s garden, though the neighbors’ gardens hadn’t fared as well.
We are thieves, she thought. Borenson was right. But me and my family will be thieves no more.
Today, making such a vow was easy, she knew. There was no one to steal from, nothing to take.
But winter was coming, and her family would be forced to find shelter somewhere upriver, in a town. Hard times would surely follow. What would they do then?
When Owen Walkin came back from his little scouting trip, the only report that he could muster was “There’s a whole lot of fish and whatnot on the other side of the hill.”
He knelt on the ground. His face looked gray and weathered in the morning sun, and his eyes were dazed. “What do you figure happened?” he asked no one in particular, as if perhaps the Walkin clan had somehow managed to answer the riddle in his absence. “I mean, I mean nothing adds right. The great wave could be explained, but . . . the fish on dry ground . . . and what happened to Draken’s dad?”
He was still in shock.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll figure everything out.”
>
Owen put his head in his hands, shook it. He peered up at his brothers and his sons. “I’ve been thinking. Everyone down in Sweetgrass got washed away. Everyone in the whole valley got washed away. . . .”
“Yes?” his brother said.
“They should be floating to the surface soon,” Owen said meaningfully. Then he added, “We should be the first to the harvest. . . .”
The idea sickened Rain. She wasn’t a grave robber. She’d been raised as a proper lady of the court. Ever since Warlord Grunswallen had Rain as his bed servant, her family’s estate had been falling endlessly.
Her father and his brothers had waylaid Grunswallen in the streets, leaving him in a bloody heap.
The whole family had fled their homes that day, taking what riches they could. Three months of travel got them out of the country. The family hadn’t had enough gold to buy passage to Landesfallen, but her father had come up with it somehow.
Rain dared not ask where he’d stolen the money. Hopefully, no one had died for it.
Petty theft had become a way of life; all of the younger children in the clan were doing it. But robbing from the dead?
What I was, she thought, I am no more. And I do not like what I am becoming.
Rain felt unclean, and remaining in her father’s presence made her feel even filthier. She got up and walked over to the Borenson family.
She felt like a traitor by doing so, as if she was switching camps.
When she reached the Borensons, she stopped for an instant and hugged Draken, wrapping one arm around his back and giving him a squeeze. She dared not show more affection openly.
The giant, Sir Borenson, stood talking softly, his voice a deep rumble, like distant thunder. She peered up at him, at the nubs of horns above his temples. He hardly looked human.
If anyone can understand how people can change, Rain thought, he should be able to.
Draken’s mother Myrrima smiled at her. “So,” she said, as if some mystery had been solved at long last, “you’re the reason that Draken has taken up ‘hunting’ so suddenly. I thought that there might be more to it than a taste for burrow bear.”
“Yes, milady,” Rain said, giving a small curtsy. She was a proper lady of the court after all.
“No need to curtsy here,” Myrrima said. “My husband is a baron over nothing in Landesfallen.”
The family was standing in a cluster, though they had moved a few paces away from Erin’s body. No one spoke for a long moment. Instead, they stood with heads hanging, deep in thought, and Rain realized that she had broken in on a family council.
She waited for someone to ask her the inevitable question “What do you think happened?,” but no one did.
“Okay then,” Sir Borenson said. “Now that we’re settled, I’ll head inland to search for survivors, and Draken can go seaward.” He did not say it, but Myrrima would obviously stay here with their daughters.
“How long will you be gone?” Myrrima asked.
“As long as it takes,” Borenson said. “If we find anyone who is hurt or in need, we’ll take care of them as best that we can. But it might be a while before we can make it back to camp.”
Myrrima listened to his words, worry evident in the creases on her face. “I’ll keep a fire going.”
Rain felt glad to hear of their quest. She cringed at the thought that some poor child, cold and broken, might be washed up along the shore. With the fury of the flood, it seemed a vain hope that anyone might have escaped, but it was a hope that she had to cling to.
The group broke as Sir Borenson and his wife went off to speak in private. Rain took that moment to stop and hold Draken’s hand. She stood gazing into his dark eyes.
“My father will be heading toward the coast, too,” she said, realizing that she would have to warn her father, let him know that he should couch his pilfering from the dead as a rescue mission.
“I’ll be glad for the company,” Draken said.
For nearly two hours now her clan had left Draken’s family alone, giving them time and space to grieve for little Erin. Rain had been reticent to get close.
She almost asked Draken, “What do you think happened?” But the words died on her tongue. Her head was hurting from wondering so much, and she knew that he couldn’t possibly have an answer. Indeed, at any moment, she expected him to ask the question.
But he never did. He merely stood, gazing into her eyes.
Suddenly she understood. “You know what happened! You know why there are fish on dry ground!”
He squeezed her hands, looked toward her family. “I have a guess. . . .”
“What is it?” she demanded.
“I can’t say. I am honor-bound not to speak of it. Someday, when we’re married, perhaps. . . .”
Rain understood secrets. Draken had his secrets, she had hers.
“When we’re man and wife,” she said, “I want no secrets between us.”
She clung to his hand as if she were drowning. She knew that she’d have to reveal her own secrets to him someday. How could she tell him what Warlord Grunswallen had forced her to do?
Draken nodded. Rain glanced back toward her father’s camp; her father, Owen, rose from a crouch, along with his brother Colm.
She excused herself from Draken’s presence and warned her father of the Borensons’ intentions.
Moments later, Sir Borenson and most of the other men set out from camp, splitting off in two directions. For long minutes Rain stood watching Draken as he trundled away.
I’ll wait for him, she thought. I’ll make my bed near the Borensons, so that I’ll awaken when he returns.
Late that night Sir Borenson came stumbling in to camp, closer to dawn than to midnight. Myrrima had been awake all night, thinking about the implications of the great change that had occurred.
Her husband had told her little before he hurried off on his rescue mission. He’d told her how he had merged with another man in the binding of the worlds, but he had cut the conversation short when Rain entered their camp.
So when he returned that night she asked, “Why don’t you tell me what you are afraid to say in front of the others?” Myrrima studied his face by starlight, waiting for an answer, but the giant only hesitated, searching for the right words.
The night was comfortless. Stars glimmered cold and dim through a strange misty haze. All afternoon, Myrrima had preened Erin’s body for burial—washing her face, primping her clothes, braiding her hair in corn rows. It was the custom back in her homeland in Heredon to stay up at night with the newly dead, for their spirits often hovered nearby on that first few nights, and one could hope for one last glimpse during the long vigils, one last chance to say good-bye.
Borenson had been gone for hours, scrabbling along the shore, calling for survivors. When he’d walked into camp, he reported, “Mill Creek is gone, washed away.” His voice was hoarse from overuse, from calling out.
He sat beside her little fire, his head hanging, gazing into the ash-covered embers, their dull red light too dim to reach his face.
Myrrima had anticipated that the town would be gone, but she suspected that her husband was weighed down by some greater worry. He had secrets, and she knew from the way that he got up and began to pace that he was fighting to find the right words to tell her.
Myrrima had knelt all evening with Sage, and together they wept. They’d mourned Erin and all of the friends and neighbors that they had known. They’d considered their lot and mourned for themselves.
She worried for her oldest daughter, Talon, who was off in Mystarria, and for Fallion, Jaz, and Rhianna—whom she loved as much as if they were her own offspring. The suspicion that she had lost Talon and the others was growing minute by minute.
I lost more than a child today, Myrrima knew. She dared not say it yet, but she feared that she had lost a husband.
Oh, when she looked at the giant, she imagined that she could see the old Borenson. His features were there, somehow hidden in all of that
mass of flesh, the way that one can sometimes look at a knot of wood on a tree and imagine seeing a half-hidden face in it.
But she estimated him to be over seven and a half feet tall now, and he could not weigh less than four hundred and fifty pounds.
She could never be intimate with such a monster, not like a husband and wife should be. They could never be tender or close.
She suspected that Borenson had something to tell her, something that would cause her more grief, so Myrrima asked the question that was most upon her mind. “Why don’t you tell me what you were afraid to say in front of the others?”
“Where do you want me to start?” Borenson begged, shrugging. It was a peculiar gesture, one that he used to signify that he would hold nothing back.
“Start with your life on that shadow world,” Myrrima said. “You had a family, a wife, I suppose?”
“Her name is Gatunyea,” Borenson said in that deep voice. It was as if a bull were trying to approximate human speech. “We lived in what you would call Rofehavan, in the north of Mystarria, in a city called Luciare. She bore me two fine sons, Arad and Destonarry, and I have a daughter close to Talon’s age named Tholna.”
Myrrima sighed. There was so much that she didn’t understand. If two men had merged into one, why did he appear here and not in Mystarria, or somewhere between the two lands? “I see. . . . Do you think that they are still alive?”
“I’m alive,” he said. It was all the argument he could give. “You’re alive. Our children survived. Things have changed in the binding, but I suspect that my . . . other family is still out there.”
Now Myrrima spoke the hardest words that had ever come from her mouth. “You need to go to them. You’ll need to find out if this wife of yours survived. If she is alive, she and the children will be beside themselves. You must reassure them.”
They both knew what Myrrima was really saying. He was a giant now, and he was no longer suited to be her husband. There was a chance that he still had a wife out there. It only made sense that he go to her.
“Myrrima,” Borenson said with infinite sadness.
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