The Seedbearing Prince: Part I (32 page)

“They’re all moving together, like a flock of
sheep.” Dayn's reply came timidly through the speechcaster.

“Those are called chasers, you see how they
don’t spin? Their paths are influenced by something larger. That
makes them perfect for a talon. We’re moving close enough to their
speed. Watch and learn. I’ll cast out a talon to bring us fully
into the flow.”

Lurec did not strain to see for himself, lest
he throw off Nassir's ropework by jostling him. Besides, plenty of
rock occupied his own vision as the Defender delved deeper into the
torrent.

A pockmarked granite drunkard arced a
haphazard path below their course. Fifty spans wide, it just missed
striking a cloud of thousands of glinting obsidian hornet stones
that swept a half mile beneath them, close enough to make Lurec
moan. Rock swept past them in every direction now, as though they
were caught in the middle of a living, breathing landslide.

Six jagged darts―he could not decide whether
ice or gemstones made their surface sparkle―streaked straight down
beyond Dayn, like some sleeker transport design. They were a
hundred spans away, but again, much too close for comfort.

The debris grew impossibly thick, and much
larger in size. More dust and random matter that could be a hundred
different things began to appear. Soon they would hardly be able to
see the stars.

“What in peace's reach is
that?”
The
boy gestured with his ridiculous staff. Lurec looked off to his own
right. A globule of liquid three hundred spans across shone
brightly perhaps two miles away, surrounded by swirling mossy rock.
Lurec could just see shadowed shapes within the water, if it were
indeed water.

“Preceptor, my angle is poor,” Nassir said.
He felt the Defender move at his back. “Are we in danger?”

“No. An anchor. It doesn’t look to pull us
closer,” Lurec said. “Dayn, the strength of ground fluctuates
within the torrent, because of the largest stones, or the hearts of
old worlds. There are also ancient...devices, called anchors. They
act like worldhearts, and help lock the torrent within the Belt.
Without them there would be chaos, storms on every world like we
witnessed on Suralose. Most are built into wayfinders, but the one
you see is an orphan.”

“They can provide drinkable water if your
need is great,” Nassir added, “but you can drown if the anchor is
in flux. Or the water may flash to steam.”

“I think I can see
fish
swimming
inside of it,” Dayn marveled.

The anchor swept out of sight
. Ironic to
encounter something so rare on the way to Ara,
Lurec mused. His
stomach tugged, and the view of the horizon jerked around him.

The Defender must have latched his wingline
to one of his targeted stones. They would soon be pulled into the
core of the torrent where the fastest moving objects lay, like
rapids in a river. The tapestries on the Ring that showed coursers
gliding languidly through the torrent seemed the worst kind of lie
right now.

“To your left,” Nassir said. Another tug.
Lurec strained to see. He felt the impression of moving faster.
They now kept pace with the surrounding torrent, which grew even
more intimidating.

The surroundings now looked like dismembered
mountain ranges. The awesome slabs of jagged stone were pocked with
fearsome craters, like ancient warriors flaunting their battle
wounds, or perhaps begging for someone to heal them. Sometimes
angular masses several miles wide billowed yellow and blue jets of
gas from the massive cracks in their surface.

The torrent made Lurec painfully aware of his
own fragility, sheath or not. The Defender's breathing remained
easy and measured despite the fact that rock abounded in every
direction.

Still trailing them on the wingline, the
Shardian craned his neck. He arced away from their backtrail
whenever the Defender changed course, but seemed to take it in
stride. “Farmer, what do you see?” Nassir asked.

Dayn answered after a moment of gazing.
“There’s a clear space in the flow. It’s swirling away from the
rest, like something is draining it away.”

Relief flooded Lurec. “A loop eddy?” If that
were true, an erratic must be close.

“Yes. At this distance, maybe six miles wide.
We will easily catch it from here.” Nassir paused. “Mind your
breath, Shardian. You don’t want your draught to air out now.”

The Defender heaved his wingline. After a
slow lurch, Lurec could see the bottom edge of the eddy taking
shape around him, as though they were passing beneath a flowing
sheet of boulders. Several of them were crusted with turquoise
lichen, but he did not spy any torrent snails feeding on it, peace
be praised. The creatures were harmless, but often attracted
dangerous predators.

Dayn gripped his staff nervously as Nassir's
wingline pulled him along. He began to twirl in place. The Shardian
flailed his arms for balance, but that motion accomplished nothing
in the weightlessness of the void, and his spinning slowly grew
worse.

“I don’t know which way is up,” Dayn rasped.
He jerked his head around rapidly, and appeared to be on the edge
of panic.

”Calm yourself,” Lurec urged. “Look past your
feet, back toward Suralose to get your bearings.”

He felt a tug in the pit of his stomach as
the Defender cast out again, latching onto another guide rock.
Lurec could not deny his skill, nor even begin to calculate how
many leagues they covered each minute. They were gaining speed, and
closing the gap between them and the erratic’s safety.

“Do you see more lichen above us,
Preceptor?”

Lurec peered up toward the rocks, stretching
above them like a landslide of giant sapphires, frozen and still.
Green lichen coated the sunward side of the field liberally,
several feet thick.

Cold sweat broke out on Lurec's back. “Not
one snail grazing on it.”

“Completely picked over,” Nassir agreed. Dayn
looked up at the sluggards, but wisely just listened to the
Defender. “We must be cautious. This erratic may be
hawk-infested.”

Lurec licked his lips.
Ragehawks in the
torrent! Why did the Force Lord dream up my involvement in this
dreadful undertaking?

Humor carried in Dayn's voice through the
speechcaster. He still twirled at the edge of the rope, but the
motion no longer bothered him. “Hawks that eat snails? I could lend
you my staff.”

“Don't dismiss them so easily, lad. If you
ever saw―” A shadow passed over them suddenly, and Lurec's heart
jumped.

To his back, he felt Nassir freeze.
“Shardian, for the love of peace, you must stop spinning.”

“Clusterthorn,” Dayn whispered, barely
audible through Lurec’s speechcaster. He grabbed onto the Vatdra
collar and soon recovered his balance. Just watching him spin made
Lurec’s stomach lurch, but the farmer kept his calm. They all
watched as two monstrous birds tailed perhaps half a mile above
them. Their feathers glinted with a greenish hue, and metallic
talons flashed in the sunlight. Dayn’s efforts meant nothing, for
the ragehawks passed them by.

“I suppose we weren’t worth the effort,”
Lurec ventured.

“Or they’re fleeing something,” Dayn put in.
“There are no birds that big on Shard. I can’t imagine them
skipping any meals.”

“Likely, they’ve already fed. Ragehawks have
been known to pry open transports if they wanted the navigators
badly enough, or felt their territory threatened.”

“Peace, protect us,” Lurec said faintly. He
wished Nassir would keep those tidbits of information to
himself.

“I see the erratic ahead!” Dayn exclaimed.
“It’s huge!”

“This course will align us with it
perfectly,” Nassir said in his self-satisfied way. Lurec strained
for a glimpse―he positively
abhorred
this arrangement!
“Stillness, Preceptor. You’ll throw off our course. The fissures
look to be old and deep. Stable. We’ll pass through the torrent
swiftly within it.”

“Something is wrong,” Dayn said suddenly.

“What? What do you see?” Lurec asked in
alarm.

“Calm yourself, Shardian. That’s only―”

“Look at the edges!” Dayn shouted. The
speechcaster rang painfully in Lurec's ear. “Peace! It's breaking
apart!”

Lurec's body wrenched savagely to one side as
the Defender cut a new course. Dayn groaned as the Vatdra collar
sawed forcefully against his torso. Lurec could finally see the
erratic now on his right, and felt fear gnaw at his stomach.

The mass swallowed his entire field of
vision, a dreadfully ugly mixture of worn gray and black mineral.
Deep cracks along the surface looked almost organic. Gas streamed
from the sunward side, forming a strange blue nimbus along the
edges.

The edges...
Dayn is right.
The entire
erratic appeared to shimmer as though near boiling.

Realization dawned on Lurec. “The resonance
wake is upon us! It’s pelting the erratic from the other side.”

“We must find a new guide rock,” Nassir said,
still calm. “Help me look, Preceptor.”

Lurec wanted to scream at him. The erratic
began to splinter into thousands of great fragments. Dust and
shattered bits washed over them, lighting their sheath brilliantly.
His entire body grew noticeably warmer, a warning sign. The sheath
could withstand the smaller bits, but any of those larger fragments
would end them as surely as a boot would squash a beetle. “Look?
You fool, I can't see anything!”

Jagged pieces of the erratic drifted toward
them, each several miles wide. Lurec could hear the wake faintly
now, a terrifying, angry sound. The torrent beyond the shattered
erratic churned violently, driving air currents toward them.

“Nassir!” Dayn cried out. He whipped around
roughly in the debris, trailing behind them like a torn kite. A
cloud of obsidian darts swallowed him from view. He reemerged, and
immediately pulled his legs high, just avoiding a sand-colored dart
five spans long that almost cut him in half. A fist-sized chunk of
rock took him directly in the chest. Light exploded around the
sheath, illuminating the terror on Dayn’s face. A spray of dust
flashed around them all and Lurec squeezed his eyes shut.

“Brace yourselves, I've lassoed another―”
Nassir's words were cut off as they changed direction so sharply
Lurec feared for the Defender's arm sockets.

“Nassir, my sheath. It’s hot!” Another cloud
of dust and rock swallowed Dayn. His sheath glowed yellow.

“You must help him!” Lurec cried. “He’s being
pummeled to death!” Nassir did not respond, for at that moment a
spinner seven spans wide slammed into them both. Lurec cried out in
terror as they were enveloped in rock and light. The sheath
sizzled, and he felt his body being squeezed within it.

Then just as suddenly they pulled free. The
sheath broke through the spinner.
How much more of this can we
survive?
Lurec wondered.

Their new guide rock moved on a path angling
away from the storm. Then Lurec saw the wingline flailing behind
them.

“No! Defender he’s lost to us! Dayn, can you
hear me?”

“He’s in the slipstream ahead of us―look to
your right. I see a wayfinder ahead, too.” Tension filled Nassir's
voice. “Shardian, I’m coming. Curl yourself so the sheath can
protect you!”

“I think I can reach you,” Dayn said.

“Just stay there,” Nassir commanded. He
heaved his wingline. Lurec watched in dismay as the talon clinked
off his intended guide rock. It held fast to a column-shaped
drunkard, about fifty spans across and covered with purple roots.
The Defender pulled mightily to free it, but to no avail. The
wingline went taut in his grip and they lurched into the
slipstream.

“I see him now!” Lurec said, craning his
neck. Nassir moved frighteningly fast, closing the space between
them and Dayn in seconds. The tumbling drunkard pulled their
wingline at an angle, so they curved out behind it.

Dayn seemed uninjured. He had snagged a small
guide rock with his own wingline, but they were approaching much
too―

“Look out!” Dayn shouted.

An axe-shaped chunk of granite covered with
fiery cracks dropped toward Nassir. It obliterated the drunkard
pulling his wingline in a shower of sparks. Nassir released his
hold too late. The collision jerked them into a new course. They
now careened straight toward Dayn.

Lurec held his arms up protectively. The
impact of two sheath-covered surfaces at this speed could have
unpredictable, fatal results.

He barely fathomed what happened next. He
caught a glimpse of Dayn, jabbing his staff at a fragment of
purple-veined rock blurring past him. The silver grain flared
brilliantly on impact, pushing Dayn upward.

The Shardian arched his back. Lurec saw the
briefest blur of Aran leather and red cloak as Dayn flashed past
them. Lurec heard the boy strain with exertion through the
speechcaster. Nassir passed within inches of the small of his
back.

“Peace be praised,” Dayn's relieved voice
croaked. “Are you two alright?”

“You...you covered your staff in sheath,”
Lurec managed feebly. A collision at that speed―sparks might have
flown from the three of them as well!

The Defender said nothing. Lurec was sure
that Dayn’s maneuver had rendered him speechless. They had been
travelling towards one another at hundreds of feet per second. The
reflexes the boy would require to deliberately avoid a collision
were simply impossible.

“Favor certainly sees you, farmer,” Nassir
finally said. “Quickly, hold out your staff!”

Lurec heard a faint burst of compressed air.
The Defender's talon cast out from his clutch, an arcing coil of
wingline snaking behind it. “Got it!” Dayn called out. He nimbly
snagged the line as it floated through his path and retied it to
his original Vatdra Collar.

Nassir exhaled imperceptibly, no doubt
relieved his foray into the torrent did not cost them everything.
They moved further from the resonance wake, and the torrent
appeared to settle around them.