The Seedbearing Prince: Part I (33 page)

“Do you see that light, flashing through the
sunward side of the torrent? Look toward your feet, Shardian.”

“I see it. What is it?”

“A wayfinder. We should do better there, it
appears to have strong ground.”

Lurec strained to see. “The torrent is much
calmer around it,” he observed.

Little distinguished the wayfinder from any
other erratic. With rounded edges, it was smaller than the one they
had just escaped, although still massive at a quarter of a mile
wide. A large fissure nearly ran across the entire mass so it
looked in danger of breaking in half. The battered tower built into
the top held a powerful, strobing light.

“Hold onto your staff. Preceptor, take this
wingline.” The Defender made quick work of the intervening space,
hooking the boulders orbiting the wayfinder to course his way to
it. “Watch the sentinels, Shardian. Preceptor, don’t lose him.”

“Of course I won't,” Lurec snapped irritably.
He wrapped the wingline around his wrist, silently vowing never to
let the Defender separate him from the Seed again. He could feel
the wayfinder's anchor pulling at him, the ground might be strong
enough to bound.

Their momentum shifted and suddenly the
Defender ran instead of floating. They lurched to a stop. Lurec saw
porous brown rock all around him, they were inside the wayfinder.
The crevasse Nassir landed them in went deeper inside, forming a
passage. Nassir untied him, and he dropped to the rough ground,
happy to stand on his own two feet. The Defender took the wingline
back, and turned immediately to Dayn.

“You’re nearly here!” Nassir called. “Just
relax and let me reel you in.”

“I should have thought of that,” Dayn
muttered. He swept rapidly toward them now. Lurec held a hand out
and he caught it gratefully, looking just as relieved to feel
ground under his feet again. He moved his left arm experimentally
and drew a deep breath.

“Are you alright?” Lurec asked anxiously. He
did not want to sound calloused and ask after the Seed, not right
away. He hardly believed it, but the boy appeared little worse for
the wear.

“That was fantastic!” Dayn hooted, his eyes
shone with excitement. He was panting hard―they all were. “Lurec
you should have seen your sheath. It was brighter than the
sun!”

“So was yours.” Lurec shook his head in
disbelief.
Pure madmen surround me, would-be coursers and
Defenders.
Peace! “I’m glad you’re safe.”

Nassir removed his mask, but his jaw clenched
at sight of the wingline hanging at Dayn’s waist. “You cut the
collar, farmer. Why?”

“You needed to be free of me, with Lurec
already to account for,” Dayn stammered defensively. “And I
couldn’t do anything to protect myself without throwing you
off.”

Not even Guardian Benlor could course the
way he did just now
, Lurec thought. He lamented to be so far
from Master Irwin Dosay’s counsel, or at the very least, a
repository full of books that touched on Seedlore. He took little
stock in myths about the wonders before the Breach, but now he was
seeing them come to life before his very eyes.
The Seed’s
influence is upon him, without question. Is it enhancing his
abilities, or is it bending the torrent around itself?

A contemplative light shone in Nassir’s brown
eyes. “You’ll represent Shard well in the Course of Blades.” He
spit out the speechcaster before half floating, and half stepping
deeper into the erratic.

“This is a wayfinder?” Dayn asked doubtfully
as they picked their way after him. He removed his face guard. A
distant light provided scant illumination for the dusty, rough-hewn
granite beneath their feet. “I expected there to be more to
it.”

“A wayfinder is not your village inn,
Shardian,” Nassir replied, his voice echoing. “The Guardians use
them for only the briefest stay overs.”

The boy’s face crumpled, but he smoothed it
when he saw Lurec watching.
Must you be so heartless about his
burned village, Defender?
Lurec lamented silently.

Nassir stopped before a crude vapor array,
flat stone a span across carved into a nook of a wider chamber.
“Favor smiles on us,” Nassir said. This section of the wayfinder
appeared to be maintained, at least. A water source was in place,
the vapor lit up at Nassir’s touch.

“A Guardian must patrol from here regularly,”
Lurec said as he examined the display. The array showed the
positions of every major world on this side of the Belt as blue
points spaced out in a swirling field of green. “The blue
represents anchors and worldhearts in the torrent,” he explained.
He pointed to a disturbance in the green. “This vortex is the
resonance wake we just passed. Peace be praised, we only brushed
the edge of it.”

“There’s so many,” Dayn said, peering at the
display. “There are hundreds of them!”

Lurec nodded absently as he studied the
sector of torrent displayed before him. The ripples and eddies
among the rock currents were much too pronounced for their
location.

“From this position we should come near
enough to Ara for a flyalong,” Nassir said. At Dayn's blank look he
added, “A craft the Guardians use to reach a world's surface at
need. It will be a tight fit for the three of us.”

“Better than coursing the rest of the way,”
Lurec muttered. At Dayn's disappointed look he added, “You cannot
course all the way to a world's surface, lad. Sheath has limits.
Defender, what’s your plan if there is no flyalong here?”

The Defender gave the briefest hesitation,
and Lurec's eyes narrowed.
Just as I thought. Why did Adazia tie
us to such a reckless man?

Before Nassir could proffer an explanation,
the most overwhelming sensation of vertigo overcame Lurec. He
clutched his knees, willing the feeling to pass.

The Defender frowned―which was as good as any
other man crying out in fear―and Dayn gasped, holding the wall for
support. He looked ready to retch. “The ground is changing...I feel
like I'm standing on Shard again. What's happening?”

Lurec staggered to the array, plunging his
hands into the vapor. He touched his thumbs and middle fingers to
each other, then expanded them wide. The display zoomed in to show
the wayfinder itself in fine detail, from the huge crack that ran
over its center, to the light tower embedded in one side. The
center of the mass glowed a warning red. “Odd. The anchor at the
rock’s core is...unstable.”

“Can you repair it?” Nassir asked.

“Already done.” Lurec touched the center that
represented the anchor. Information poured through the vapor.
Trajectory. Proximity. Targeted mass. The corrections were simple
enough to make, and the ground immediately shifted beneath them.
“We'll be within reach of Ara in...twenty minutes. We really should
find the flyalong now, if there is one.”

“The anchor, it almost looked to be tampered
with,” Nassir observed. He led them further into the crevasse down
a narrow passageway. Somewhere above them, the light of the strobe
trickled through, providing scant illumination. “Could it be
responsible for the strength of the resonance wake?”

Lurec shook his head dismissively. “A wild
torrent endangers us all, Defender. Not even Eadrinn Gohr raiders
would sabotage a working wayfinder.”

They rounded a corner and Nassir stopped.
Dayn let out a startled cry. Lurec peered into the gloom
apprehensively, unable to see past the taller men. The sharp odor
of dried blood filled his nose. “What is all of the...peace protect
us!”

The flyalong lay ahead, a bowl-shaped craft
of dull metal with a single opening on the top, small enough to fit
into his quarters on the Ring. Above it hung a dead Guardian.
Wingline held him in place, stretching all of his limbs taut. The
Guardian’s head rested limply on a shredded black chest plate, his
mask battered beyond recognition.

“Peace keep his soul,” Dayn said numbly.

“Tortured.” Nassir produced a belt knife and
grimly began to cut the Ringman down. The Guardian's arm came free,
but remained extended, grown stiff with death. “Dragged through the
torrent until his sheath gave out.”

Dayn set down his staff and quietly began to
help the Defender. “The voidwalkers did this, didn't they?” He
pulled out his own knife and began to cut one of the Guardian's
legs free. “I know they did...I can almost smell them.”

“Perhaps. Best to be sure.” The Defender
twisted, and the Guardian's body came free and floated eerily down
to his feet. He carefully pulled the mask free. Dayn sucked in his
breath sharply at sight of the ruined face. “I knew this man.
Corian Nightsong was one of the Ring’s best Guardians.”

Nassir felt around the man’s cheek, his face
grim. Lurec’s lip curled, but his revulsion turned to shock as the
dead Guardian began to speak. “Nightsong…Thar’Kuri
warriors…voidwalkers…gathering in…unlike anything known from the
Ring…far distances. They must have been made in the age before the
Breach.

…deliver it with all haste to Force Lord
Adazia on the Ring. The worlds all depend on you, for I have failed
them. My sons and daughters live in Denkstone, on Jendini. Tell
them…their father served well.”

Dayn’s eyes were wide. “How did—”

“The speechcaster can store a message
briefly, if your last words are upon you.” Nassir covered the
ruined face with the ruined mask and looked up at Lurec. “They are
growing bolder, Preceptor. An attack against Shard, and now they
turn the anchors―perhaps the very torrent itself―against us. They
would make the Belt into a grave, and lay all the worlds within it.
The Force Lord was right to send us on this mission.”

The Defender stared at Lurec with eyes like
brown fire. Lurec bit his lip and looked away from the Guardian’s
mangled remains, waiting for his stomach to settle. “That may be,”
he said evenly. “But fighting them until the void takes us all
isn’t the answer. What Dayn carries, the fact that it was even
discovered in our lifetime, must be proof of that.”

The Defender just stood there, regarding him
with that unreadable face.
You need me more than you can admit,
don't you?
Lurec thought.
You would save us all from
Thar’Kur even if it meant burning the Belt to do it.

Dayn looked between both of them uncertainly,
and Lurec sighed. “Best I make sure this vessel is not damaged as
well, or we'll never reach Ara.”

Nassir nodded and secreted his knife within
his armor. “Good. Be prepared, Shardian. There may be resistance on
the surface.”

Ara

We are the High only because the low see us as such
when they look up.

-The Highest Shir-Hun

T
he flyalong ride to
Ara's surface proved rather dull after the pure exhilaration of
coursing. Dayn feared the craft sabotaged by voidwalkers after
seeing the Guardian’s fate. Lurec had insisted on its soundness,
although he tensed up terribly whenever stray torrent pinged
against the sheath-cured hull. Before long a growing roar of air
signaled they were passing through Ara's clouds. The entire flight
took perhaps an hour.

Dayn hated traveling blind. He wondered what
sights they were missing, stuffed knees to chin in the near
darkness, facing one another in the circular, windowless interior.
The flyalong merely contained a palm-sized vapor array, which the
Preceptor had monitored feverishly.

“We should be five miles outside of Olende,”
Nassir said, once the craft touched down with a rough thump. He
tapped the metal hatch then pushed it open and clambered out into
the blinding light. Dayn followed, eager to stretch his legs. “If
that heap's vapor array didn’t deceive us.”

The stunning Aran landscape stood in complete
contrast to Suralose. Flat, rolling sand stretched in every
direction, and the horizon shimmered with heat. The dry air burned
his nostrils.

Lurec exited the flyalong and immediately
leaned over to lose his breakfast. Dayn’s stomach heaved at sight
of the Preceptor turning himself inside out. He instantly bent in
two and proceeded to noisily sick up.

“Nothing to worry over,” Nassir said gruffly.
“It’s no easy thing to adjust to the turn of a new world,
especially coming straight from the torrent.”

“I'm just relieved to know we’ve landed on
the right world,” Lurec said dryly. He closed the flyalong hatch,
and the craft slowly floated into the sky after he hopped off. The
Preceptor looked happy to be out of the torrent and facing the same
direction as everyone else again. “It’s quite impossible to mistake
Ara for anywhere else.”

“The day is still early here. We must move
quickly to Olende before the heat overcomes us. No, Shardian. Leave
your cloak on, and your leather. It will protect you from the sun.
Preceptor...discard that armor. It’s too heavy, and the metal will
cook you in your clothes.” The two complied quickly, as they were
already beginning to sweat. To Dayn's surprise, Nassir kept his own
armor on.

Mesas and strange rock formations took shape
around them as they walked. Dayn amended his original impression of
a featureless sandy wasteland. Great rifts cut sharply through
windswept areas, exposing orange and red layers of rock.

Just looking at the landscape made him
thirsty.
A well dug a mile deep might not find a drop of water.
What would they do without water from Suralose?

Nassir noticed his face. “So you see the Belt
is not so simple a place.”

“No, it’s not,” Dayn said. The road to Olende
was barely distinguishable to his eyes, with so much sand and no
points on the horizon to guide them. Once again, they had to remain
content in following Nassir's lead.

Dayn rummaged through his pack for his water
from Mount Patel, but the Defender admonished him. “No. For now we
ration our stores.”