The Seedbearing Prince: Part I Read online

  “Dayn, what is that?” Joam's voice came too calmly, as though he struggled not to squeak. A pinpoint of light flickered to life deep within the Dreadfall, shining mournfully like the last star in a graven sky. Fear shone in Joam’s eyes as he stared into the depths of the Dreadfall, watching the light grow steadily brighter.

  “That’s the only thing right about the stories,” Dayn said. He took a deep breath. “There is no bottom. That light is the midnight sun.”

  “Peace,” Joam said faintly. He recognized the familiar light, seeing the sun below with new eyes, guttering like a candle at the bottom of a mine shaft. He stared at Dayn with a stranger's gaze, then backed away from the cliff edge on leaden feet, mumbling to himself. “I never thought...there’s a hole in our world. There’s a hole in Shard, and you want to play courser in it!”

  Joam grabbed the nearest lantern and his staff, then turned wordlessly back to the trail leading west.

  “Wait...don't leave!” Dayn called out in alarm, hurrying after him. Joam rounded suddenly and shook his staff so forcefully that Dayn stopped in his tracks.

  “This is mad!” Joam cried. The lantern cast jagged shadows on his face. His eyes burned with fear. “We could...we could really fall.”

  “We won’t,” Dayn insisted. “There's a ledge just beneath the cliff where we’ll hang the poles. You'll be able to see it when the sun is...brighter. I brought enough rope, I promise you that―”

  “No.” Joam looked at the ground, then back west.

  Dayn felt paralyzed. “Do you want me to beg on my knees? I’ll do all your chores for the summer―for two summers!”

  “No, Dayn. I'll see if my father can get you in sparring camp, somehow. I promise. I know you ache for this, brother.” The pity in Joam’s voice stung. “But coursing will never get you to Montollos.”

  “I just need a few hours―don't leave, Joam!” Dayn pleaded. He hated how desperate the words sounded. Joam started walking again. “Peace, we’re so close. There's nothing to fear so long as we're careful. Besides, you barely know the way back!”

  “I'm doing you a favor,” Joam said roughly. He easily found their trailhead, to Dayn's dismay. “I'll wait for you back at your farm. Forget coursing, Dayn. We are Shardian. Peace, you’re an Applicant, now! You're better off throwing all of that junk right into the Dreadfall.”

  Joam set off down the slope, and the light from his lantern soon succumbed to the shadows. “That's why there won't be any Ro'Gems in the stories!” Dayn shouted. Empty silence answered. He moped back to his gear, slicing his staff through the air in frustration. “Should have readied him, instead of talking about that Misthaven girl the whole way,” he muttered.

  Dayn returned to the Dreadfall edge, leaning on his staff while he contemplated what to do next. His gear and the cumbersome poles were here, at least. He could still build his training perches, it would just take more than a night without Joam’s help.

  “I will be a courser. I will go to the Cycle,” Dayn said to himself. The words did little to strengthen him, but he repeated them anyway. “I will be a courser. I―”

  The Dreadfall shimmered, interrupting Dayn's litany. He looked expectantly to the cliffs. A burst of light blazed from the depths, unmasking the distant walls of the far rim and bathing the rock in yellow, orange and gold. The column of light marched skyward, escorted by a rising wind that tugged at Dayn's clothes. Flashes far overhead, like a flock of ravens caught on fire, marked where the sun illuminated the ever-moving torrent. Dayn marveled at the beauty of the sight.

  He shook himself from his reverie and set to his task, newly encouraged. He needed every precious second granted by the false daylight.

  Dayn donned his leather harness, inhaling deeply to make sure the straps around his waist and shoulders did not hinder his breathing. He knotted his plain rope through a stake already hammered into the ground on his last trip, then secured the opposite end to the ring on his harness. Next he carefully spread a coating of the pungent seal on his forearms, and after a moment's thought, on his shins, boots and chest. He stopped after spreading some on his forehead, though, before he gagged over the smell. The stuff stifled the wind’s coolness as it seeped into his clothes and tingled against his skin. Small bursts of light shone briefly as the seal settled in, which he took for a good sign.

  He decided to doff his lucky red cloak, and tied it to the stake, it would only get in his way if the wind picked up. The cloak whipped about in the upward breeze as if to agree. Lastly, he lashed two of the redbranch poles to his back, along with his staff and the mattock Joam had filched for him.

  “Montollos, here I come,” he whispered. Holding the rope at his chest and waist in either hand, Dayn slowly rappelled over the edge and into the waiting maw of the Dreadfall.

  The added weight strapped to his back made it hard to let out his rope. The upward light showed footfalls and handholds just as if the sun stood overhead, which felt quite strange. Redbeak swallows chirped and swooped around him, plucking insects from the night air for their young. Dayn picked his way gingerly through their nests. The birdsong is what led him to explore this area of the cliffs in the first place. It would be poor thanks to crush them.

  A quarter-mile section of cliff had split away here, leaving behind a uniform gap twenty spans wide, and perhaps thirty spans straight down. Deep cracks riddled the stone, making it perfect for the swallow nests―and an ideal purchase for wedging his poles. This natural alcove ensured a single mistake would not result in a death drop, and there were plenty of handholds for climbing should anything happen to his rope.

  Dayn halted his descent next to the spot he had marked in white chalk several weeks ago. He cinched off his rope with a quick knot. After a few moments of awkward grasping, he jammed his first redbranch pole into a split in the rock. He braced his feet against the cliffside for leverage, and then began to wedge the pole in place with his mattock. Swallows fluttered away from hidden perches as his strikes echoed.

  Dayn tested his handiwork, hanging from the pole with his full weight. It held him without so much as a creak. He let go and swung away gently, allowing the rope to assume his weight once more. He could not help but grin over his progress.

  It took even less time than he expected. I should have brought more down. He dealt the completed pole one last victorious whack. The second pole, along with Dayn's sparring staff, tumbled free of their binding on his back.

  “Oh, blind me.”

  He groaned in dismay as they clattered to the ledge ten spans below. Sunlight still shone from the other side of the Dreadfall, perhaps an hour left. There was time to hammer another pole into the cliff side, but not if he wanted to get that staff back.

  Strapping the mattock to his back―securely, this time―Dayn descended, losing himself in the rhythm of push and catch as he rappelled down the cliff.

  Despite his blunder, he felt exhilarated. These new perches would allow him to practice leaping and roping at the same time, something he could never do on the ground above. Honing this skill brought him a big step closer to coursing. Soon enough, his feet touched mossy rock. This marked the deepest he had explored yet.

  “Hello!” he called. The space swallowed his echo. He shouted louder, insistent that the cliffs acknowledge his presence. “Dayn Ro'Halan, the greatest courser in the World Belt!”

  As Dayn retrieved his staff, a sudden flash caught his eye, near the ground beyond his fallen pole. He picked his way over to investigate. This looked a poor place to find gems, but anything Dayn found would be a welcome prize after Joam’s flight.

  The ground began to squelch sickeningly under his feet. Dayn gagged at the sudden, pungent odor in his nostrils. He looked up. The swallow nests were directly above him, bird droppings and dead, fallen nestlings covered the ground. The flash pulled Dayn's eye again, it was coming from a triangle-shaped recess deeper in the cliff. Dampness slicked everything near the opening. He heard a steady dripping beyond the rock.

  Something
odd tugged at Dayn's gut, a sense of wrongness about this place. Sunlight did not penetrate the recess at all, which made the light emanating from it even more curious. The opening reeked of offal, and Dayn refused to crawl inside, so he held his breath and reached. Slick beetles and the creeping things feeding upon them scurried from his hand. His stomach heaved in protest. Dozens of bulbous mushrooms brushed his grasp, forming an odd cradle around the object he could barely make out. Dayn's hand closed around a smooth, cool surface and he pulled it from the grime in triumph.

  He held a strange little orb that fit easily in his palm. Dayn had never seen anything quite like it before. It appeared to be a perfect sphere, despite the feathers and insect shells caked upon it. In the few spots where Dayn could actually see the surface the orb shone with a mysterious red glow. He turned away from the cave to better examine his find in the upward sunlight. Joam's abandonment did not sting so badly now.

  “This is better than all of my gems put together. Wait until I show Joam!” Dayn laughed, turning the orb about in his grime-covered fist. It glowed stronger for a moment, close to the dangerous crimson of dewshade berries. He did not hear the stirring behind him in the shadowed recess.

  Pain tore into his shoulder, sudden and sharp. Dayn screamed, flailing wildly with his staff. He staggered for balance, but agony forced him to his knees. A sinuous shape unraveled lazily from the opening. Dayn's eyes followed the variegated black scales and bone ridges stretching over powerful coils of muscle. A blunt, wedge-shaped head fastened to his shoulder, full of the teeth that were buried in his flesh. A wreathweaver.

  He thrust his staff at the closest eye and missed. His shoulder caught fire with the movement. The wreathweaver's jaws did not budge as it rippled from the recess. It moved laboriously, and looked as long as his house.

  Warm blood mixed with the cool dampness on his shirt. Dayn fought panic. He whipped his staff around for another awkward thrust and missed again. A threatening hiss sounded, and the monstrous snake flared its claw-like hood.

  Dayn screamed in pain as the bony protrusions dug into his skin, gripping him in place. The wreathweaver shook him like a child’s caperdoll. Dayn kept hold of his staff, but the curious orb dropped into the swallow boneyard.

  The wreathweaver coiled around Dayn's torso, securing the meal that had skipped into its den. If he did not escape now, his bones would join the doomed fliers at his feet.

  Positioning its jaws to swallow him head first, the wreathweaver loosened its hold for the briefest instant. Dayn twisted his body away, ignoring the teeth rending his shoulder. For one sickening moment, the Dreadfall depths filled his entire field of vision.

  He tumbled off the ledge. The creature uncoiled fluidly, refusing to completely release Dayn's shoulder, but too weak to pull him up. The leather harness sawed roughly into his chest as his rope snapped taut. He slammed back into the cliff face, crying out as his body sank into the wreathweaver’s upper jaw. The creature released him and, retreated back to the ledge above. Dayn’s gambit worked, he was free.

  The wreathweaver slithered back and forth, its bony hood flared open like the leaves of a flysnare vine. The snake’s movement pelted him with a rain of crusted beetles and muck from the ledge floor.

  The red orb suddenly dropped down from the ledge. Dayn lunged and caught it.

  “Thanks for that!” he crowed. Reclaiming the artifact nearly made him forget the pain of his mangled shoulder. The wreathweaver's cold gaze studied Dayn, and its forked tongue lifted his scent from the air. “Now, how to get past you?”

  He stowed the orb in his pocket, then sidestepped horizontally, rappelling back to where he first descended. The wreathweaver trailed him, barring the way up.

  “Not as slow as you look,” Dayn said, frowning. He swung like a pendulum from his rope, for a moment, but he could not wait the wreathweaver out. The midnight sun would soon pass from the Dreadfall. With no lantern and no moonlight, the darkness would be absolute.

  The wreathweaver's tongue flicked out again, deliberate and searching. It followed his rope, matching the rhythm of his sway. Dayn’s puzzlement quickly faded to alarm.

  “No, no, no...”

  It lashed out with primal speed. The rope snapped in its jaws.

  Dayn screamed in terror. The Dreadfall blurred around him, the air whipping his clothes. The tattered rope flapped uselessly from his harness like a kite's severed string. A sick numbness spread through his body as he plummeted toward the heart of Shard.

  Dayn fell faster than he ever thought possible The cliffs poured past him like water, no matter how he flailed. He lost consciousness, regained it again. Still he fell. Despair settled into his bones, cold and deep.

  A sudden thrumming impression saturated Dayn's being, yet seemed to escape his ears. The pit of his stomach quivered, and his teeth began to ache. The very air seemed to vibrate. He twisted his head against the howling wind, looking for the source of sound that was not sound.

  Great ripples and folds scored the Dreadfall’s unending vertical stone, as though the cliffs here were once molten waves, now frozen in place.

  That’s heartrock! He had fallen countless miles from the surface. The air began to warm considerably. Dayn found himself clutching for the filthy orb, surprised he still held it in his pocket.

  His freefall began to slow. At first Dayn thought he imagined it, but the wind no longer tore at his clothes, and he could make out features in the near cliffs. If I want to be a courser, I better start thinking like one! He stopped flailing and arched his back, allowing the remaining wind to flip him so he no longer fell head first. He held his back rigid as he continued to slow, angling himself at the cliffs.

  The Dreadfall shook, a terrifying sound like a thousand cities grinding to dust. A great cloud of steam and dust issued from the nearest cliffs, and massive fissures raced up the sides of the Dreadfall, with molten red light at their depths. Dayn felt a twinge in the pit of his stomach, and his ears popped painfully. He still floated toward the cliffs, but with even less speed than when he first fell, as though Shard’s grasp on him were fading away. He glanced into the cliff face, skidding and tumbling until he came to a jarring stop in a flash of white light.

  “Peace protect me,” Dayn whispered. He ran his hands over his body, incredulous to find no broken bones. The substance from the barrels had done its work. He lay balanced precariously on a jagged pile of scree on a jutting section of cliff, five spans beneath where the Dreadfall was breaking apart. “What’s happening?”

  He began to pick his way through the mishmash of rubble, but every step felt wrong, as if the ground were only half as strong. He stopped and gaped. Shattered boulders floated through the expanse of the Dreadfall like leaves on a bitter wind, slowly expanding into the larger expanse. More than just rock floated in the air—there were men, still and lifeless. Same as from the well, at least six of them. What are they doing down here?

  Dayn crept higher, toward the smoke above him. He clung to the cliff face like a beetle, afraid he would float away if he lost his grip. He pulled himself over another ledge, and gasped.

  Seven gray men lay still before the mouth of a tunnel made of a metal that Dayn had never seen before. It glowed like an immense furnace. Several hulking silhouettes stood in that light, fists raised. Voices stabbed through Dayn’s shock.

  “Their own worldheart will shake them to dust!”

  “Victory!”

  Cheers sounded until a new voice cut in, harsher than the rest. “I am not here to frighten them with trembling ground. I want this world torn from their accursed Belt! Finish your task!”

  Dayn needed to hear no more. He immediately turned to flee, but his first bound took him floating into the air as though he were stuck in honey. Soon he would be swept into the floating rubble of the Dreadfall, and silently prayed they did not see hm.

  Warmth touched his outer thigh as he floated even higher. He reached instinctively for the strange orb and drew it from his pocket. The red pul
sing shone through the muck that covered it. What in peace’s reach?

  “Raaluwos, look there.” Dayn hastily stuffed the orb back in his pocket, too late.

  “What?” The cruel voice again. One of the silhouettes shifted, pointing at Dayn.

  “A boy in the air, watching us.”

  The voices all went abruptly silent. No doubt staring at Dayn as he floated in place.

  “Raaluwos!” The biggest of the shadows turned at a shout from deeper within the blinding tunnel. “Something is wrong. The worldheart is resisting us. We must—”

  The Dreadfall groaned ominously. More smoke filled the expanse, darkening the midnight sun. The cliffs where the gray men stood exploded, and a swath of burning heartrock three miles wide rushed toward Dayn.

  ***

  Joam stopped to wait for Dayn at the bottom of the trail in the redbranch thickets, and then again at Laman's farm. Once it became clear he would not follow, Joam bounded crossly back to his own home, despite the lateness of the hour and how far he must go.

  “I've stuck my neck out for him plenty enough,” Joam muttered to himself. He cut quietly through the Wustl Square while the village slumbered, padding along empty streets with his lantern shuttered. With Elders doing backflips to please the visiting Misthaveners, it seemed wise to stay out of sight.

  Dayn and his stubborn foolishness. Joam could not possibly fathom the appeal of coursing, not from how Dayn described it. Especially after looking into that monstrous hole, eyes searching vainly for the bottom, for any bottom...

  Joam shivered. I will never go to the Dreadfall again, he promised himself. Not for a city full of Falena’s sisters. Not for a Victor’s Sash from the Cycle!

  He emerged on the other side of Wia Wells without incident, absorbed in his musings as he bounded home on weary feet. Although the truth would crush him, Dayn’s chances of getting to the Course of Blades were about as good as old Nerlin’s.