The Seedbearing Prince: Part I (9 page)

For the Festival of Sealing, special barrels
were used to store the World Belt’s portion of the harvest.
Preceptors, men of great wisdom from the Ring, used a coating to
seal the barrels and preserve crops for transport between worlds.
Rumor said a sealed harvest would keep for decades.

“You think this goop will save you in case
you swing face first into the cliff?”

“I do. Put it on like this.”

“Nasty.” Joam wrinkled his nose, backing away
before Dayn could explain. “You aren't going to smear that on―hey!”
Dayn spread a handful of the sealer on Joam's arm just below the
shoulder. He barely held back a laugh as Joam's eyebrows climbed
his forehead in disbelief. The mixture
did
smell rather
foul.

Before Joam could wipe the sealer away, Dayn
swung his staff in a ferocious, bone-snapping strike that cracked
against Joam's arm. Blinding light flashed from the blow, and Joam
went sprawling.

He scrambled to his feet with a roar. “You
have some nerve! I'm going to...” He stopped short, clutching his
arm in wonder. “Hey it...it doesn't even hurt.”

“It’ll keep us from breaking anything. I'll
bet this stuff could stop a much stronger strike. Maybe even turn
steel.”

“Maybe. You know, I've heard old Nerlin say
if you ever fell down the cliffs, you’ll starve to death before you
hit bottom.” Joam glanced toward the Dreadfall's edge with a look
like he had just swallowed a handful of rotten fervorberries. “Why
won't we need the lanterns? You never said before.”

“Come and see.” Dayn meant to ease Joam's
nerves by showing him the tools, but he could do nothing more.
Together they approached the edge.

“Where's the other side? And the bottom...”
Joam’s eyes slid downward, and widened further than Dayn thought
possible. A whimper escaped his throat.

Jagged, crumbling cliffs curled out of sight
to the north and south, joining together over ten leagues away to
the east. The Dreadfall stretched countless leagues deeper into
Shard's heartrock, a refuge of purest shadow.

Dayn shuddered in spite of himself even
though he had stood in this very spot dozens of times. Sometimes he
imagined he felt the ground here cracking underfoot. The Dreadfall
seemed to fester, a wound that expanded slowly as seasons and
shadows and burrowing things vainly tried to lick it clean.

“Dayn, what is that?” Joam's voice came too
calmly, as though he struggled not to squeak. A pinpoint of light
flickered to life deep within the Dreadfall, shining mournfully
like the last star in a graven sky. Fear shone in Joam’s eyes as he
stared into the depths of the Dreadfall, watching the light grow
steadily brighter.

“That’s the only thing right about the
stories,” Dayn said. He took a deep breath. “There is no bottom.
That light is the midnight sun.”

“Peace,” Joam said faintly. He recognized the
familiar light, seeing the sun below with new eyes, guttering like
a candle at the bottom of a mine shaft. He stared at Dayn with a
stranger's gaze, then backed away from the cliff edge on leaden
feet, mumbling to himself. “I never thought...there’s a hole in our
world. There’s a hole in Shard, and you want to play courser in
it!”

Joam grabbed the nearest lantern and his
staff, then turned wordlessly back to the trail leading west.

“Wait...don't leave!” Dayn called out in
alarm, hurrying after him. Joam rounded suddenly and shook his
staff so forcefully that Dayn stopped in his tracks.

“This is mad!” Joam cried. The lantern cast
jagged shadows on his face. His eyes burned with fear. “We
could...we could really fall.”

“We won’t,” Dayn insisted. “There's a ledge
just beneath the cliff where we’ll hang the poles. You'll be able
to see it when the sun is...brighter. I brought enough rope, I
promise you that―”

“No.” Joam looked at the ground, then back
west.

Dayn felt paralyzed. “Do you want me to beg
on my knees? I’ll do all your chores for the summer―for two
summers!”

“No, Dayn. I'll see if my father can get you
in sparring camp, somehow. I promise. I know you ache for this,
brother.” The pity in Joam’s voice stung. “But coursing will never
get you to Montollos.”

“I just need a few hours―don't
leave,
Joam!” Dayn pleaded. He hated how desperate the words sounded. Joam
started walking again. “Peace, we’re so close. There's nothing to
fear so long as we're careful. Besides, you barely know the way
back!”

“I'm doing you a favor,” Joam said roughly.
He easily found their trailhead, to Dayn's dismay. “I'll wait for
you back at your farm. Forget coursing, Dayn. We are Shardian.
Peace, you’re an
Applicant,
now! You're better off throwing
all of that junk right into the Dreadfall.”

Joam set off down the slope, and the light
from his lantern soon succumbed to the shadows. “That's why there
won't be any Ro'Gems in the stories!” Dayn shouted. Empty silence
answered. He moped back to his gear, slicing his staff through the
air in frustration. “Should have readied him, instead of talking
about that Misthaven girl the whole way,” he muttered.

Dayn returned to the Dreadfall edge, leaning
on his staff while he contemplated what to do next. His gear and
the cumbersome poles were here, at least. He could still build his
training perches, it would just take more than a night without
Joam’s help.

“I will be a courser. I will go to the
Cycle,” Dayn said to himself. The words did little to strengthen
him, but he repeated them anyway. “I will be a courser. I―”

The Dreadfall shimmered, interrupting Dayn's
litany. He looked expectantly to the cliffs. A burst of light
blazed from the depths, unmasking the distant walls of the far rim
and bathing the rock in yellow, orange and gold. The column of
light marched skyward, escorted by a rising wind that tugged at
Dayn's clothes. Flashes far overhead, like a flock of ravens caught
on fire, marked where the sun illuminated the ever-moving torrent.
Dayn marveled at the beauty of the sight.

He shook himself from his reverie and set to
his task, newly encouraged. He needed every precious second granted
by the false daylight.

Dayn donned his leather harness, inhaling
deeply to make sure the straps around his waist and shoulders did
not hinder his breathing. He knotted his plain rope through a stake
already hammered into the ground on his last trip, then secured the
opposite end to the ring on his harness. Next he carefully spread a
coating of the pungent seal on his forearms, and after a moment's
thought, on his shins, boots and chest. He stopped after spreading
some on his forehead, though, before he gagged over the smell. The
stuff stifled the wind’s coolness as it seeped into his clothes and
tingled against his skin. Small bursts of light shone briefly as
the seal settled in, which he took for a good sign.

He decided to doff his lucky red cloak, and
tied it to the stake, it would only get in his way if the wind
picked up. The cloak whipped about in the upward breeze as if to
agree. Lastly, he lashed two of the redbranch poles to his back,
along with his staff and the mattock Joam had filched for him.

“Montollos, here I come,” he whispered.
Holding the rope at his chest and waist in either hand, Dayn slowly
rappelled over the edge and into the waiting maw of the
Dreadfall.

The added weight strapped to his back made it
hard to let out his rope. The upward light showed footfalls and
handholds just as if the sun stood overhead, which felt quite
strange. Redbeak swallows chirped and swooped around him, plucking
insects from the night air for their young. Dayn picked his way
gingerly through their nests. The birdsong is what led him to
explore this area of the cliffs in the first place. It would be
poor thanks to crush them.

A quarter-mile section of cliff had split
away here, leaving behind a uniform gap twenty spans wide, and
perhaps thirty spans straight down. Deep cracks riddled the stone,
making it perfect for the swallow nests―and an ideal purchase for
wedging his poles. This natural alcove ensured a single mistake
would not result in a death drop, and there were plenty of
handholds for climbing should anything happen to his rope.

Dayn halted his descent next to the spot he
had marked in white chalk several weeks ago. He cinched off his
rope with a quick knot. After a few moments of awkward grasping, he
jammed his first redbranch pole into a split in the rock. He braced
his feet against the cliffside for leverage, and then began to
wedge the pole in place with his mattock. Swallows fluttered away
from hidden perches as his strikes echoed.

Dayn tested his handiwork, hanging from the
pole with his full weight. It held him without so much as a creak.
He let go and swung away gently, allowing the rope to assume his
weight once more. He could not help but grin over his progress.

It took even less time than he expected.
I
should have brought more down.
He dealt the completed pole one
last victorious whack. The second pole, along with Dayn's sparring
staff, tumbled free of their binding on his back.

“Oh,
blind me.”

He groaned in dismay as they clattered to the
ledge ten spans below. Sunlight still shone from the other side of
the Dreadfall, perhaps an hour left. There was time to hammer
another pole into the cliff side, but not if he wanted to get that
staff back.

Strapping the mattock to his back―securely,
this time―Dayn descended, losing himself in the rhythm of push and
catch as he rappelled down the cliff.

Despite his blunder, he felt exhilarated.
These new perches would allow him to practice leaping and roping at
the same time, something he could never do on the ground above.
Honing this skill brought him a big step closer to coursing. Soon
enough, his feet touched mossy rock. This marked the deepest he had
explored yet.

“Hello!” he called. The space swallowed his
echo. He shouted louder, insistent that the cliffs acknowledge his
presence. “Dayn Ro'Halan, the greatest courser in the World
Belt!”

As Dayn retrieved his staff, a sudden flash
caught his eye, near the ground beyond his fallen pole. He picked
his way over to investigate. This looked a poor place to find gems,
but anything Dayn found would be a welcome prize after Joam’s
flight.

The ground began to squelch sickeningly under
his feet. Dayn gagged at the sudden, pungent odor in his nostrils.
He looked up. The swallow nests were directly above him, bird
droppings and dead, fallen nestlings covered the ground. The flash
pulled Dayn's eye again, it was coming from a triangle-shaped
recess deeper in the cliff. Dampness slicked everything near the
opening. He heard a steady dripping beyond the rock.

Something odd tugged at Dayn's gut, a sense
of wrongness about this place. Sunlight did not penetrate the
recess at all, which made the light emanating from it even more
curious. The opening reeked of offal, and Dayn refused to crawl
inside, so he held his breath and reached. Slick beetles and the
creeping things feeding upon them scurried from his hand. His
stomach heaved in protest. Dozens of bulbous mushrooms brushed his
grasp, forming an odd cradle around the object he could barely make
out. Dayn's hand closed around a smooth, cool surface and he pulled
it from the grime in triumph.

He held a strange little orb that fit easily
in his palm. Dayn had never seen anything quite like it before. It
appeared to be a perfect sphere, despite the feathers and insect
shells caked upon it. In the few spots where Dayn could actually
see the surface the orb shone with a mysterious red glow. He turned
away from the cave to better examine his find in the upward
sunlight. Joam's abandonment did not sting so badly now.

“This is better than all of my gems put
together. Wait until I show Joam!” Dayn laughed, turning the orb
about in his grime-covered fist. It glowed stronger for a moment,
close to the dangerous crimson of dewshade berries. He did not hear
the stirring behind him in the shadowed recess.

Pain tore into his shoulder, sudden and
sharp. Dayn screamed, flailing wildly with his staff. He staggered
for balance, but agony forced him to his knees. A sinuous shape
unraveled lazily from the opening. Dayn's eyes followed the
variegated black scales and bone ridges stretching over powerful
coils of muscle. A blunt, wedge-shaped head fastened to his
shoulder, full of the teeth that were buried in his flesh. A
wreathweaver.

He thrust his staff at the closest eye and
missed. His shoulder caught fire with the movement. The
wreathweaver's jaws did not budge as it rippled from the recess. It
moved laboriously, and looked as long as his house.

Warm blood mixed with the cool dampness on
his shirt. Dayn fought panic. He whipped his staff around for
another awkward thrust and missed again. A threatening hiss
sounded, and the monstrous snake flared its claw-like hood.

Dayn screamed in pain as the bony protrusions
dug into his skin, gripping him in place. The wreathweaver shook
him like a child’s caperdoll. Dayn kept hold of his staff, but the
curious orb dropped into the swallow boneyard.

The wreathweaver coiled around Dayn's torso,
securing the meal that had skipped into its den. If he did not
escape now, his bones would join the doomed fliers at his feet.

Positioning its jaws to swallow him head
first, the wreathweaver loosened its hold for the briefest instant.
Dayn twisted his body away, ignoring the teeth rending his
shoulder. For one sickening moment, the Dreadfall depths filled his
entire field of vision.

He tumbled off the ledge. The creature
uncoiled fluidly, refusing to completely release Dayn's shoulder,
but too weak to pull him up. The leather harness sawed roughly into
his chest as his rope snapped taut. He slammed back into the cliff
face, crying out as his body sank into the wreathweaver’s upper
jaw. The creature released him and, retreated back to the ledge
above. Dayn’s gambit worked, he was free.