The Seedbearing Prince: Part I (20 page)

“Protocol must be followed to the letter, and
he will give account to the Throne. Pray the Lord Ascendant doesn’t
heed my counsel, for I would see you stripped of your position and
sent back to your homeworld in shame.”

“But I―”

“Take your place!”

The other Preceptors’ speculative whispers
died out as Lurec sat beside Dayn, his face stricken. None of his
fellows met his eyes.

Dayn felt guilty, for he was glad Lurec lost
the argument. Nothing but shame awaited him at Wia Wells. This Lord
Ascendant might easily be the most powerful man in the World Belt.
Not a world leader, but still in command of the Ring. Surely Dayn’s
delivery of the Seed would earn some favor, and a measure of
forgiveness once he returned to Shard.

Nassir obscured the transport's clear crystal
pane, but Dayn could still see the sky outside as it shifted from
Shard's steady, familiar blue to an indistinct gray, which soon
gave way to night. Dayn gazed at the stars, entranced.

“I'm sorry if I've brought you trouble,” he
finally ventured.

“Lad, I would face a force of such men for
the gift you’ve brought us,” Lurec said. His face tightened as
Nassir returned from the navigators, but quiet resolve filled his
voice. “Your service will bring great reward.”

“I’ve known nothing but trouble since the
night I found it,” Dayn replied, just as quietly. “I don't care who
I have to talk to, so long as I'm rid of it. That will be best for
me and my village.” Lurec offered a thoughtful nod, but lapsed back
into silence. Sitting across the hold, the Defender regarded Dayn
with unreadable eyes.

Dayn sat straighter, remembering Nerlin's
words.
I won't be taken for some backcountry lout,
he
silently promised. Nerlin might very well be dead by Moridos’s
hand, alone in the ruins of Terabin Round with no wreath for his
grave.

No. That is what the voidwalkers want me
to believe,
Dayn upbraided himself.
They turn your thoughts
against you. I won't help them by doing it to myself.
He
pictured Nerlin whole, making his way back to Wia Wells under cover
of mist.

“Watch yourselves,” the navigator called out,
running a damp hand through his thinning salt-and-pepper hair. His
green eyes were set in a kindly, fair-skinned face that looked
wrinkled before its time. “The Ring is about to pull free of
Shard's shadow. The glare can hurt your eyes.” Dayn leaned forward
with rapt anticipation despite the warning.

Through the forward window, stars fled from
the transport's path, winking out along the edges of an ominous
black mass. Shard’s shadow abruptly withdrew, unveiling the World
Belt’s greatest fortress.

The Ring floated silently before them,
gleaming metal reaching out of sight to either side and looming ten
miles high. The fortress looked like a bristling mountain range
torn from the spine of some world, beaten and shaped by the hands
of men. Granite towers of impossible size dominated the top at
irregular intervals.

Dayn stepped forward in awe, craning his neck
to see the edges of the shaped stone and metal.

“Your gaping craw is going to throw off my
readings, farmboy.” The other navigator growled. He had helped pull
Dayn into the transport, but looked at Dayn now like he would a
beetle under his shoe. Lean and whip-like, he had the reddest hair
Dayn had ever seen. Both navigators wore plain blue overcoats. “No
Beltbound in the hangdeck.”

“He's fine, Samli,” the older navigator
barked, flashing a wink at Dayn. “It wasn't so long ago you were
fogging up my vapor array, your own self. Mind your pitch.”

“A thousand Sheercrest miners could work
their whole lives and not build such a place,” Dayn said. The
Ring's surface came into further detail as the transport drew
closer. Soon Dayn could see nothing else. Embedded bands of metal
glinted against the rock in brilliant hues of white and silver.

“The sight can be overwhelming, the first
time. Is it not, Jetar?” Lurec joined Dayn behind the navigators.
Samli scowled at him, but minded his controls. Glowing droplets
spread on the metal surface surrounding the navigators' chairs,
forming complex patterns of symbols that rippled at their touch.
Samli manipulated the suspended web of droplets under Jetar's
watchful gaze.

“Sectional levels a mile thick, and a hundred
miles across,” Jetar said proudly. “It’s not completely hollowed
out of course, many sections are solid rock.”

“I’d thought it to be an actual ring, but it
looks more like a giant slab of wall,” Dayn observed. Samli and
Jetar shared a long look, but said nothing. “It’s as big as a
world, isn't it?”

“Not nearly, mudfoot,” Samli muttered.

The transport slowly drew within a few
hundred feet of the Ring. Crystal channels crisscrossed the
surface. Dayn marveled to see Ringmen behind them, moving about
their tasks in the hallways like termites in a fallen silverpine
log. Jetar cleared his throat, and Lurec nudged Dayn back into the
hold.

A metal gateway nearly two hundred feet wide
slid upward to reveal a shadowed chamber within. They passed
through, and the metal rumbled to a close behind them. Another
identical portal opened before them, revealing a brightly lit
cavern and hundreds of transports.

They touched down with a thump. Samli
muttered something that made Jetar laugh. A hiss of air, and the
Preceptors pressed eagerly toward the hold door. They avoided
making eye contact with the Defender, and looked tremendously
relieved to escape his presence. Dayn wondered if he should share
their feelings.

“Peace upon your path,” Jetar called to them.
A flash of pity touched his face when he saw Dayn peering nervously
out of the hold door. “Stand tall, young Shardian!”

Dayn waved goodbye to them both, and filed
out between Lurec and Nassir, clutching his packs and staff. The
Defender suddenly grabbed Lurec's arm, and leaned over to whisper
briefly in his ear. Judging from how the Preceptor's eyebrows rose,
pleasant words were not chosen. Dayn stood by uncertainly until
Nassir strode off, reminding Dayn of a hunting ridgecat. He would
not miss the Ringman one bit.

“I will see you before a Query if I must,
Defender,” Lurec said to the man's back. “If you believe―” he cut
off sharply after a glimpse of Dayn's round eyes.

“You needn't hear all of that, I suppose,”
Lurec sighed. He touched the bruise on his forehead with a wince.
“I'm sorry you were brought here in this manner, young Shardian.
Certainly not a hero's welcome, but that’s what you are, whether
he
realizes it or not. We can at least examine the Seed
while the Ring slumbers. It is night here, and most everyone should
be resting, except for the Defenders. I've never seen a Defender
sleep.” He frowned in the direction Nassir had disappeared. “Do not
worry about the Lord Ascendant. Tell your story truly, and you will
return to Shard within the day.”

“What about the voidwalkers?” Dayn asked.
“Will the Defenders help my village if they come back?”

“They would not be Defenders if they did not.
Now come. Let others worry about such things.”

Lurec walked quickly through the transports,
spaced in neat rows. Huge stalactites spilled from the ceiling two
hundred feet above, piercing the dull metal floor in random places.
The combination of unadorned rock and gleaming metal felt
unfinished, somehow.

Powerful lights shone out from the
stalactites so hardly a shadow touched the bay. Several navigators
milled along Lurec’s chosen route. They eyed Dayn
curiously―especially his staff―but said nothing as they passed.

“Is that cross coupling tight?” A woman's
voice sounded from deep within a transport's hold as Dayn walked
by. He heard splashing sounds inside.

“It is,” another navigator shouted back,
scrambling beneath the transport. “Peace, I've checked it three
times!”

“Then why are we still losing water?”

The reply was lost as Dayn turned a corner,
following closely in Lurec's wake. Driven by his own thoughts, the
Preceptor nearly walked head on into a dozen circled navigators.
They all looked as different from each other as they did from Dayn.
They could be from different worlds or the same world, for all I
know.
Lurec murmured apologies before passing through.

“Beg pardon, Preceptor.” A burly man with a
thick black beard nodded politely. The other navigators crowded
close again once Dayn passed. “So he asks me, 'How was I to know we
were in their migration path?' I says back, 'Boy, ever since you
grazed that erratic, our hold has looked like the finest nest in
the torrent this side of Tu'um!'”

The navigators all roared as the burly man
pointed to the transport above them. Dayn gaped at the hull.
Fist-sized holes pockmarked the metal and looked...gnawed on.
What in peace's reach could chew through metal?

“I thought they were going to eat us,”
another navigator said peevishly. Embarrassment lit his face so
badly, Dayn could scarcely see his freckles. “But they went
straight for the ore.” More laughter sounded as the group fell away
behind them. Dayn wanted to hear more, but Lurec did not even slow.
New oddities soon demanded his interest.

They passed another transport where a
bleary-eyed navigator carefully peeled away what looked like
enormous palm fronds from the front of his craft. He yelped when
one of them twitched, then continued at his task, more warily than
before. The veins of the fibrous leaves pulsed regularly, and the
bony protrusions along each edge looked like sharp, green
teeth.

Down another row, Dayn spied two navigators
scrubbing the hold of another transport vigorously with
long-handled brushes. Their hair looked like curly rays of
sunshine, and their honey-colored skin shone with sweat. They
worked together in the familiar manner of husband and wife. The
repulsive orange lichen they were scraping at began to eat through
the transport's belly, and they both started to swear profusely.
The sound of boots echoed through the bay as more navigators rushed
over to help.

Dayn could only imagine what other
curiosities the navigators dealt with, but the Preceptor did not
stop once. They passed out of the chamber through a large metal
door that made Dayn jump when it slid open with a hiss.

Lurec turned left down a dimly lit hall of
formed stone, and to Dayn’s surprise, began to bound. Nondescript
hallways constantly split away from his route, as though they were
moving through an anthill. They saw no other Ringmen.

“I think every house ever built on the whole
of Shard could fit in here,” Dayn called out.

“I'm sure that's not true.” Lurec slowed his
pace to talk. His mood seemed much improved, closer to the man Dayn
first met back in the Mistlands. He gestured to the surrounding
halls. “We’re now in the Outer Walk, the largest section of the
Ring. Our Consorts hear petitions over trade disputes, merchant's
rights, transport requests and the like. You’ve seen the Consorts
on Shard, assuredly, when it’s time to take in the Pledge?”

“Once. We store the harvest in your barrels,
at the Festival of Sealing in Misthaven, but the Consorts always
come down after everyone leaves Misthaven.”

“I see,” Lurec said, nodding
thoughtfully.

Defenders and Preceptors might have all
the brawn and brains, but the Consorts keep the bread.
Dayn had
heard a Misthaven Elder tell his father that once, and wondered
what the Preceptor would think of it. “Everyone bounds here?” he
asked instead.

“After a fashion, yes. But the ground is
strong enough to walk normally, as most still prefer. We also use
these.”

The hall ramped upward, with metal rails
attached to either wall about waist high. The Preceptor bounded up
the ramp, using the rail to pull himself along. His feet never
touched the ground until he finally came to rest at the top. Dayn
followed him easily, and launched himself with a single leap to
where Lurec waited.

“Enjoy showing off, don't you? The ground on
the Ring is not kept so strong as Shard, except for the halls where
the Defenders train.” The Preceptor cast furtive glances down the
intersecting hallway at the top of the ramp. “We need to be quiet
now, and walk quickly. Everyone will know of your discovery, soon
enough. There’s no telling what will happen to the Seed then,
thanks to that insufferable Defender. The Lord Ascendant will
summon you once he gives his account. Until then, any Preceptor who
stands higher than I can requisition the Seed, and I would be
powerless to stop them. So for now, I would prefer not to be seen
by any of my fellows. Do you understand?”

Dayn nodded. “I know when to keep my mouth
shut.”

“Good lad. My study is in the Middle Halls,
the Preceptor's domain. Let's hope the same luck that saw you to
the transport holds.”

They ghosted quietly down the halls. No one
chanced upon them as they crept along.

“Ah, here.” The Preceptor stopped in front of
a door of a dull blue set into the simply cut umber rock. Nothing
distinguished it from any other door in the hallway that Dayn could
tell. It whisked aside at Lurec's touch. Dayn entered the dark
interior at the Preceptor's beckoning.

“Welcome to my study.”

A warm glow illuminated the spacious room as
the door closed itself, although Dayn could see no lamps. He peered
around curiously as the Preceptor took off his gray overcoat and
tossed it on a stool. Lurec's study would have made Dayn's mother
cringe. Open, leatherbound books with cramped notes scrawled neatly
in the margins formed precarious heaps on every available surface.
Pinned insects and leaves encased in glass littered a huge stone
table in the center of the room.

“It’s...nice,” Dayn managed. An enclosure
surrounded by clear crystal panes took up one wall of the room,
complete with dreary plants, and a hopelessly scum-filled pond. It
reminded Dayn of the swamps around Southforte. A pallet with
crisply folded blankets stood nestled away in a corner, between
bookcases filled to bursting.