The Seedbearing Prince: Part I (48 page)

Lurec scratched his chin thoughtfully. “A bit
of both, in my estimates. Who can say? Affinity is a strange thing,
a confluence of mind and spirit among close companions.”

“What does that mean?” Dayn asked. He allowed
himself a moment of pride over the accomplishment, and took relief
in the knowledge that the Defender did not seem to care what his
Sending consisted of in the least.

“Our presence may aid your study, in a way.
Because we are both trained in these disciplines,” Nassir
explained.

“Maybe,” Dayn said, reaching into his pack.
The Ringmen quieted themselves suddenly as the Seed began to glow
in Dayn's hand, bright and regular, attuning to his heartbeat as
before. For the first time, that did not fill him with fear. “Or
maybe my presence is helping you.”

Nassir snorted and abruptly put away his
sword. “Time will tell, Shardian.” Dayn may have rankled the
Defender, but noted that Nassir did not disagree. The Defender gave
them both a suspicious look before vanishing into the night to make
his circuit of their camp.

“The Force General who yearned to be a
farmer. Maybe he could scare the thorns off of the roses for you.”
Lurec turned back to the fire with a wry smile. “You have a
courser’s sense of humor, I’ll give you that, lad. It seemed just
weeks ago there was nothing to you but crops and kin.”

Dayn shook his head in wonder as he watched
the Seed glow. The surrounding desert remained clear and quiet,
only the mass of the Montollos world-shadow above them marred a
pristine night. “It's only been that long, hasn't it?”

“Soon enough this will be over, and you’ll
return home.”

“If everything works out on Montollos, what
will happen?” Dayn asked. “You won’t need me anymore. What will you
do with the Seed once I go back to Shard?”

“The Seed must be taken to the world of
Panen.”

“Panen.” Dayn repeated hesitantly. He knew
nothing of the world. “I remember now, the Lord Ascendant spoke of
it. The Highest knew you were going there, too. What's so important
there?”

“I suppose it will do little harm to tell you
this,” Lurec looked around furtively before continuing. “The Halls
of Understanding have hidden a greatship there, nearly as large as
the Ring itself. A Master Preceptor, Irwin Dosay, will take charge
of the Seed. Once its power is fully realized, the World Belt's
squabbling over resources will cease forever. I daresay you’ll be a
hero then.”

Dayn could not help but smile. “I like the
sound of that.”

“You’ve represented your world proudly,
Shardian.” The Preceptor stretched by the fire. “All of the rest
will soon come.”

“The Ring couldn’t have known the Seed would
be found, even if Preceptors were looking for one this whole time.
So what else is the greatship meant to do?”

Dayn looked up when the Preceptor did not
answer. Lurec was already fast asleep. Dayn laid out his red cloak,
but rest did not come so soon for him. Instead he held the Seed,
which ate the fire’s light, yet seemed to grow cool in his hand. He
wondered how many other Seedbearers in the past had held this same
orb and helped the people of the World Belt.
Peace, but I’m just
supposed to give it to the Preceptors, and that’s it? Once someone
else is the Seedbearer, will I go back to the way I was?

The Seed flashed in his hand. A series of
images came to him suddenly, as strong and sure as a Sending. Dayn
saw his mother, golden eyes smiling and warm as always, but
different somehow. Younger. Hanalene walked arm in arm with a frail
woman next to stark white cliffs covered in moss and green
creepers. Dayn knew without grasping how that he looked upon his
mother and grandmother, Wynese. Their eyes burned into Dayn’s, full
of sadness and strength and hope.

The Seed flashed again. His mother was gone.
Wynese remained, only the gray in her tight curls was vanished. She
stood next to a matronly woman Dayn did not recognize, her face all
stern angles chiseled into brown freckled skin. Their eyes met his
and—

Dayn let the Seed fall from his fingers. The
flashing stopped and the strange visions ceased immediately. He
could not be sure if his Sending had triggered some new aspect of
the Seed’s powers, or…
Peace, could it be that it was Sending to
me? What was I supposed to see?

“Shardian?” Dayn nearly leaped out of his
skin at Nassir’s silent approach. The Defender looked at him in
worry, then glanced pointedly down to where the Seed fell. “Are you
alright?”

Dayn gasped in dismay. “Oh, clusterthorn!”
The Seed had fallen in the dying embers. Before he even considered
what he was doing, Dayn reached in and yanked it out.

Now it was Nassir’s turn to gasp. “Shardian,
your hand…”

His skin should be blistered, but no harm had
come to him. The Seed was still cool to the touch. It offered more
questions than answers, but it did protect Dayn, of that he felt
sure. He took a deep breath and met Nassir’s eyes. “I’m fine.”

The Defender’s eyes narrowed, but he merely
nodded. “Fair enough. Tomorrow we enter Peyha and board the
transport. Rest now. In a day you will behold the greatest city
ever imagined by men.”

Montollos

‘
What makes you so much better than me? Your
purple cape and finery?

Your purple tongue and weak heart ground? I’ll work
for you no more!’

‘
Not my gown of state, nor my velvet tongue, but
the towers you've built instead of your sons.

Aren’t you proud of the work you’ve done? Now build
for me one more!’

-Quello miner’s song

Shardian, you've been twisting in place for
the last hour,” Nassir grated. “Stop. You're making the navigators
nervous.”

“We're nearly there,” Lurec said. He chuckled
as Dayn folded his arms. “You act as though it will fall from the
Belt.”

“Peace, but I wish we could see it,” Dayn
said. After the weeks of bounding, he could scarcely contain
himself. He would pace if not for the boxes full of Aran glasswork
that filled most of the hold. “Why do the transports have no
windows in the hold?” The two Ringmen just looked at him, Lurec
with amusement and Nassir with barely contained irritation. Even
the Defender's annoyance could not dampen Dayn's spirits.

“Nearly ready to place down,” one of the Aran
navigators called out. A surprisingly tall man with red hair, his
gray eyes fixed Dayn in place for a moment before he turned back
around. The two barely glanced at their vapor array. The transport
had guided itself for nearly the entire journey. They were absorbed
in some Aran dice game and spared little attention for their
passengers. Dayn was surprised to feel at ease in the craft, after
the fate of the transport at Suralose.

The other navigator was a gnarled looking man
with shifty hands. The dice rattled, and he scooped up a handful of
silver bits. “I win again, Lews,” he laughed.

The red-haired Aran muttered darkly and
turned back to the vapor array. He looked out of place for some
reason, as though he should be doing something besides navigating a
transport.
I’ve little room to talk. I should be laying down
summer seed back home.
Dayn reminded himself of the good he
would bring about for the World Belt, and how proud his parents
would be upon his return. That helped his own guilt fade
somewhat.

“Wait until my family knows I came to
Montollos,” Dayn said, rubbing his hands together. “I must bring
back something for my sister.”

“You'll certainly have the chance with that
ridiculous bag of gems in your pack,” Lurec observed. The dicing
navigator perked up at the mention of that. “I imagine you'll be
very popular.”

The transport's motion shifted, and Dayn felt
the familiar lurch as the craft came to rest. He shifted on his
feet eagerly, impatient for the rear hold door to open.

A group of surly laborers lounged next to
unmarked crates and barrels just off the landing platform. The
Defender swept by them and onto a stone thoroughfare full of
transports, some five times larger than the ones he knew from the
Ring. More laborers crowded everywhere, with merchants from a dozen
worlds shouting at the top of their lungs.

“Have a care with that! It will fetch a fine
price in the tallest towers!”

“Is something wrong with your back? The
loaders at Porinis are twice the men!”

“Stay close,” Nassir said. He plunged into a
teeming crowd, easily the most people Dayn had ever seen in one
place.

Dayn found that to be easier said than done.
People crossed his path so frequently that he was forced to dodge
this way and that just to stay within arm's reach of the Defender.
Despite the jostling, Dayn still found time to gawk as Montollos
opened up majestically before him.

Regal towers of all sizes dominated the
entire horizon, gleaming white. The largest of them looked nearly a
mile wide. All were ringed in narrow bands of pale crystal
windows.

Intricate walkways of metal and gleaming
stone spread out before them, interlinking the towers at countless
junctures. They spanned fantastic distances, yet were delicately
wrought. Dayn knew little of metalworking, but instinctively felt
the walkways were much too thin to hold the vast crowds of
Montollene going about their business.

The crowd to Dayn's right parted and he
jumped back so quickly he bumped into some Montollene folk, who
commented loudly about uncultured offworlders. He could see for
miles
below―he was actually standing on a platform!
Peace, where is the ground?
The towers before him all
stretched downward, disappearing into a distant haze.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Lurec beamed. Dayn
could have mistaken the Preceptor for a Montollos man himself, with
how the Ringman prated over such bewildering pathways. “Simple,
clean lines on every structure with minimal decoration. The
builders knew the precision of the towers to be beautiful enough,
on its own.”

“The entire city is moving,” Dayn said in
wonder. “It makes Olende look like a termite mound, and Misthaven
an ant heap. I never imagined there would be so many people.”

“Indeed. You will never see such structures
anywhere else,” Lurec said. The massive tower directly in front of
them rose slowly upward, like the handle of a butter churn.
Walkways seemed to float everywhere the eye could see, above and
below, and they were not always attached to the towers. “Montollos
may be impressive for its size, but it is by far the most finely
crafted of all the worlds in the Belt. They call these paths
ribbons.”

Dayn could not think of a more perfect
description. The stone paths looked exactly like some ordinary
roads that had freed themselves from the ground to become ribbons
in the sky.
What’s holding the whole thing up?
he wondered.
It must be like the anchors in the torrent, or it would all fall
apart.

The Montollene covering every ribbon seemed
little afraid of that, although several of the platforms had no
rails.
They don't worry about falling off?
The people
themselves were a wonder, of every shade of skin, manner of dress
and style of hair. A slightness of stature was the only thing to
connect them all, at a glance, anyway.

Maybe that’s because of the weak
ground,
he mused.
It’s worse than Ara. I’d test my strength,
but not with no certain place to land!

As the crowd carried them along, Dayn stared
intently at the surrounding towers, some rising lazily into the sky
or sinking below the horizon. He thumped into Nassir’s outstretched
forearm.

“Pay attention, farmer,” the Defender said
roughly. “This is an easy place to become lost if you don't learn
to find your way.”

“Be easy, Defender,” Lurec chided. “It’s much
to take in the first time.”

Dayn frowned. If the crowd continued to fill
this plaza, the people near the edges would be pushed off. But the
Montollene just chatted away. Lurec caught Dayn's attention, and
pointed surreptitiously into the sky. One of the lace metal bridges
floated lazily in the distance, edging closer to them.

No,
Dayn realized.
It’s we who are
moving closer to the bridge.

“You start to see now, don’t you? Good.” The
Defender gave a satisfied nod. Dayn just stopped himself from
smiling at the praise.

“Everything is moving,” he said. The
bridge―no, the plaza―ghosted to a stop, and the mass of Montollene
pressed forward. Looking downward made Dayn dizzy. More bridges and
plazas floated in the gray haze between towers, creating an
intricate lace that suggested depths beyond the reaches of
sunlight. A look upward showed the same view, only the floating
ribbons lost themselves in blue sky. “The towers...they turn,
too!”

“To shorten the ribbon walkers’ journey,”
Nassir explained. “The movement of tower and ribbons allows any
destination to become close, if you choose the right path.”

“I would think everyone courses in a place
like this,” Dayn observed. In all his dreams, he could never have
imagined such wonders. He pitied any Montollene with a poor head
for heights―they were truly born on the wrong world. “There’s
barely a patch of ground to call flat.”

“The outer steppes are still...intact. You
feel the weakness of the ground?” Nassir asked. Dayn nodded, and
the Defender lowered his voice. “Remember the people of a world are
usually a measure of the ground they walk upon. Montollene are a
fragile lot.”

“Except for the Prevailers,” Lurec corrected.
A muscle in Nassir's jaw twitched. Lurec smiled pleasantly. The two
had gelled somewhat on Ara, but Dayn doubted the men would ever
fully stop provoking one another. They crossed the bridge and
paused on another plaza which angled west, toward a distant
tower.