The Seedbearing Prince: Part I (15 page)

“I...I'm not sure,” Dayn said. “Elder I need
to show you what he wanted. He left it here on accident.” Dayn
reached in his pocket, but Elder Buril shook his head sternly as
more men approached them.
Not now,
his eyes said. The Elder
rounded on the newcomers and Dayn groaned, wanting to slink away.
More Misthaveners.

“What do you want, Payter? Our village
burning down around our ears just once isn't enough for you? You
would have the Ring to rain down fire from the sky and salt our
land while they're at it?”

The Misthaven man cringed as Elder Buril's
voice brought sharp eyes from every corner of the Square.

“I wish no harm on any good folk of Shard,”
Payter protested. His eyes glittered like tiny black stones. “What
I want, Buril, is to know the reason this boy raised a staff
against one from his own world.” He gave Dayn a cruel smile. “We
all saw him. What business have you with these offworlders? I’ve
seen nothing of you since the ground faltered.”

“That is a Wia Wells matter, you meddling
fool! Keep your nose out of it!” More people took notice, except
for the knot clustered around Hanalene and Kajalynn. Despite his
indignation, Elder Buril began to prod Dayn from the Square.

“A fine choice you’ve made for Attendant,
Elder!” Payter's voice taunted them the whole way. “Don't think I
didn't see you, boy―using your new title to blind my niece during
the dances! Where were you when this village shook to pieces around
us? Skulking with Ringmen? Something is amiss with you, boy―and I
intend to find out what!”

“That Preceptor. Of all the people on Shard
for you to arrive with.” The Elder's face turned sour as he led
Dayn away from the crowd. “Payter is a plumb fool. I saw what you
did with Joam, stopping him from caving in that Defender's skull.
They came to help us, that’s what Defenders do—but they might have
made the whole village regret this day, even so.”

“I don't think they would,” Dayn said. The
Defender Nassir repeatedly forbade confrontation, even as his
Ringmen took blows themselves.

“Well, no one ever accused you of having an
overabundance of wits. Though I'm still convinced that may pass one
day.” The Elder snorted as he turned into a pocket of the village
spared from the fire. They moved swiftly toward Sister Cari’s
shop.

“Your father told me about your...adventures.
Even that I could forgive, but the whole village will know by
nightfall.” The Elder sighed heavily. “Dreadfall or no, the worst
part is you were not here when the ground failed us, my boy. Who
knows what people will think by week’s end?”

Elder Buril looked back the way they came.
“See to your sister, while I fetch your parents.”

Dayn’s initial worries came rushing back.
“She's here? Is she hurt?” He resisted an impulse to trample the
Elder to get inside the shop.

“She...will live.” Elder Buril's face sagged
in sudden, deep despair. “She was near the tangletoy when that fire
struck the Square. Many of the children were. She fares better than
most, but she’s badly burned, lad. It was a fire that water
wouldn't touch.” Dayn rushed inside. Elder Buril closed the door
behind him.

Sister Cari's modest shop consisted mainly of
rows and rows of dried herbs along the walls. Pallets were squeezed
onto every possibly inch of the wooden floor. Tela rested upon one,
taking shallow breaths. Bandages covered her entire right arm, and
her neck all the way up to her jaw. Dayn's stomach roiled to see
the pain on her face, and the fragile heaving of her chest.

“Forgive me, Tela,” he whispered. “I should
have been here, not you. This is all my fault!” He took the stool
at his sister's side, and carefully checked her bandages. The ones
near her ribs were not bloody at all, but milky with pus.

He wondered nervously where his parents were.
The shop soon began to feel like a trap. He half expected that
Misthavener Payter to fling open the door at any moment, rumpled
hat and all, to drag him away. Dayn wanted nothing more than to go
back to the farm and forget this entire day.
Peace, the whole
week!

Dayn hated not being able to explain
everything to the village, but consigned himself to waiting. He
took out the Seed and examined it to pass the time. A rippling
stirred within it that reminded Dayn of when mist curled and eddied
above the Silk River’s spring floods. Kohr Springs villagers who
lived close would warn their children that the mist billowed
because of deadwisps hiding in the river, hoping to drag them in
the flood waters.

The orb looked filled to bursting, but the
weight felt wrong to be hollow or full of liquid. Yet the innards
were not fully solid, for they quavered and began to glow as though
responding to his touch. He wondered if anything lay hidden within
the Seed, waiting to pull him in, too.

Tela groaned as the Seed’s light washed over
her. Dayn quickly hid it back in his pocket. He tried his hand at a
lullaby to soothe her, but it rang false in his ears, so he let the
melody fade. Long moments passed. Dayn found his own eyelids
growing heavy.

“Wake up, son.” His parents were returned,
along with Elder Buril and the healer. Dusk shone through the
windows, now. Hanalene motioned for Dayn to rise, and Sister Cari
took his place, peering over Tela's bandages like a graying
bird.

“She's doing better than most, your Tela is.
My salves are about as much good for her skin as the water was for
the Dawnbreak. I had hoped for healers from the Ring to arrive by
now, but I suppose Misthaven has a say on where they will lend
aid.” Her face twisted, wrinkled hands tightening in frustration
around the soiled bandages. “We'll just have to look after
ourselves as best we can. Same as we've always done.” Her brown
eyes flickered to Dayn. “Most of us, that is.” Her words stung like
a hot whip.

“All of us,” Laman said firmly. “Thank you
for your help, sister. We’re indebted to you. I’ll see to my family
now.”

“She’s not to be moved, mind you,” the healer
said crisply.

“My daughter will rest better in her own
bed.”

Sister Cari drew in a breath that meant a
long lecture, but she relented at Hanalene’s gentle touch upon her
arm. “I won't wake her over this. Remember how many weren’t so
fortunate before you do something foolish.”

“You needn't antagonize her,” Elder Buril
muttered after she left. He looked cautiously out the windows with
the look of a man with an unpleasant task to carry out. “I'm the
one who shall hear about it later.”

“I’m grateful to be so near our healer,
that’s peace's own truth,” Laman said tersely. “But for the Council
to use my daughter to keep us close, the notion is―!”

Laman stopped short at Hanalene's reproving
look. “She needs her rest if we’re to leave soon, husband,” she
said.

“You won't be seeing your farm tonight, I'm
afraid. Half the Council wants you to stay in the village, until
they decide what to do about…” Elder Buril's worry melted into
disgust as he lit the healer's lamps. Full dark would be upon the
village soon. “To think I voted for some of the fools myself!”

Hanalene's brow furrowed in anger. “We’ve
been stricken as surely as anyone else.” Her hand swept to Tela for
emphasis.

“It's because of me,” Dayn said quietly. They
all regarded him, faces still in the lamps' yellow glow. “Just
because I was in the Dreadfall when this happened! I know I
shouldn't have gone, but...it's not fair.”

“You’re right on both counts.” Elder Buril
eased himself onto an empty pallet. “People rarely act like
themselves when fear clouds their minds.”

“What did that Preceptor want with you?”
Laman asked.

“What I found in the Dreadfall,” Dayn said,
reaching into his pocket. “He called it a Seed.” He extended the
little red orb. Laman palmed it curiously, getting a feel for the
weight. Elder Buril declined to touch it at all.

“Certainly not a seed for planting,” Laman
observed. “All that trouble for some Regent’s lost earring?”

“He said it could be a tool for the Belt, or
a weapon.”

“A...Seed.” Elder Buril assumed the weight
Dayn bestowed upon the word, though he appeared just as mystified
as Laman. His face took on a speculative look. “I can't say I've
ever heard of such a thing. Did he say anything else?”

Dayn hesitated, but his mother nodded
encouragingly. “I was there, too. Tell them.”

“He thinks that voidwalkers are to blame for
how Shard shook.”

Laman’s face went very still. Elder Buril's
brow wrinkled in doubt. “How could anything do that to an entire
world? To Shard?”

“I saw them when I fell. Heard them. They
said they meant to tear Shard from the Belt. That was before
everything exploded. There was rock everywhere, and…I think they
all died. It was like Shard was defending her own heart from
them.”

“I suppose you’ll tell me next that you
visited the other side of the Dreadfall! No one can survive so
close to a worldheart, you’d be crushed! And the heat—”

“Elder, forgive me, but he could. I told you
what he was covered in when we pulled him out.” Dayn flinched at
his father’s droll glance. “He planned well enough, I’ll give him
that.”

“The Ringman listened to every word of his
story without so much as a twitch,” Hanalene put in. “Peace keep us
all. Who would believe such a tale?”

“Yonas,” Dayn offered. “Joam said he saw a
man made of smoke, but I never got to speak with him at
Evensong.”

“The Ro'Lett lad, you say?” Elder Buril
rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I'll send for him at once.”

“He was on the tangletoy with Tela,” Laman
said quietly. Hanalene bit her lip, tears welling in her eyes. Then
Dayn understood, and looked down at the floor. The burned buildings
were one thing, but losing children might prove more than Wia Wells
could bear.

“Peace keep him forever.” The Elder sighed
heavily. He gave Dayn a considering look. “So your word will stand
alone. That Preceptor doesn’t seem to be too popular among his
fellows, either. That seals the decision, I think.”

“Yes. We will still return to our farm.”
Laman fell silent for a moment, watching his daughter sleep. Relief
flooded Dayn to hear the decision. He always found the best
response to a situation. That is why his father’s next words came
as a complete shock.

“You’re not coming with us.” Laman let loose
a defeated sigh, looking at Hanalene. Dayn's mother nodded her
confirmation, though anguish shone in her eyes. “You need to be
away from Wia Wells, until things settle down.”

“And our kinfolk's senses return,” Elder
Buril added.

Dayn's head swiveled back and forth between
the three of them. “But I don't want to go!” he blurted out.

“It’s already decided, and you seem well
enough to journey,” Laman said, a note of puzzlement entering his
voice. “We made preparations while you slept. You’ll stay with your
mother's sisters, in Greenshadow. We'll send for you at Sealing
time. Surely this will die down by then.”

“Yes. That will work splendidly,” Elder Buril
said. Haggard as he looked, the man seemed to brighten somewhat―at
the prospect of Dayn leaving the village. “But Laman, we still must
consider what to do with this...Seed.”

“I've done nothing wrong!” Dayn protested, a
lump rising in his throat. “He came to our farm, I didn’t seek him
out. I wanted to come and get father, but the Preceptor was so
worried about the Seed, and now...I...”

“Lad, if you have any other suggestions, my
ears are ready!” Elder Buril said, looking sternly at Dayn.
Hanalene began to weep silently, and Laman moved to hold her, his
face wooden.

Elder Buril sighed as he continued. “No? I
thought not. What's more, you haven’t heard the people talking
outside. The Misthaven folk and your friends, agreeing with each
other. 'That Ro'Halan boy, he’s at the heart of it.' What do you
suppose they'll make of this Seed? If it’s half what the Preceptor
says? Those Ringmen will return for it if he’s as persistent as I
suspect. They may not be so kind to us next time.”

“We don't know that,” Laman muttered, “not
for certain.”

“Such things will stick to a man for all of
his days.” Elder Buril fixed Dayn with a cool stare. “Stick to his
name. You need to be rid of this Seed at once. Wia Wells needs to
be rid of it!”

Dayn's heart sank as the two men nodded.

“I’d hurl it back into the Fall myself, if it
would do any good,” Laman said darkly. “I know what’s proper for us
to do, yet I fear to involve Misthaven. Something warns against it.
Forgive me if I speak out of place, Elder.”

“No, we’re in agreement,” Buril replied. “But
you know how the Council would decide.”

Laman nodded.” The Ringmen are our best
course. That Preceptor seemed reasonable enough, though that may
have changed after Charl's fist. I doubt those Defenders will let
anyone within a staff's swing of him again.”

“He shouldn’t be anywhere near Misthaven,”
Hanalene protested. “All this sneaking to get him to my sister's,
only to take such a risk? We might as well invite that fool Payter
along!”

“The Ringmen will be there through the
morning. We all heard them say so,” Laman replied gently. “It's his
best chance to be free of it. He’ll be halfway to Greenshadow
before they even know he’s left the village.”

“I’ll agree to it then, as well.” Hanalene
nodded uncertainly. Elder Buril exhaled noisily, and Laman squeezed
her hand in silent thanks. “I hope you’re right.”

“It's settled then.” Elder Buril rose to his
feet. “You should all prepare to depart at once. You’ll have a long
night ahead of you to make it to Misthaven by morning, my boy.
Peace keep your path.”

“Peace keep you, Elder,” Hanalene murmured.
He opened the door, peering cautiously into the burned ruins of Wia
Wells before striding away.