All of his old mannerisms are there, Myrrima realized. It is as if my husband is wearing different flesh.
“Say what is on your mind,” Myrrima begged.
“I want you and the children to come back to Rofehavan with me,” Borenson said. “I dare not leave you here without food or a home—” Myrrima began to object, for even if she wanted to go back to Rofehavan, finding a ship might be impossible.
“Hear me out!” Borenson begged. Myrrima fell silent as he struggled for words.
“I have been thinking,” he said, “for long hours. Not everything is clear to me yet, but much is clear.
“I believe that Fallion bound two worlds together as an experiment, to see what would happen in such an event, and I believe that his experiment failed.
“We could be in grave danger, more danger than you—or Fallion—yet know.
“You wonder why I have joined with my shadow self and you have not? I have an answer: On our former world there were millions and millions of people, strewn all across Rofehavan and Indhopal, Inkarra and Landesfallen. But on the shadow world where I came from, humankind was all but wiped out. There were only forty thousand of us, living in one vast enclave upon a mountain deep within the borders of what you call Mystarria. Our enemies had all but destroyed us.
“I think that you did not join with your shadow self,” Borenson said softly, “because you had no shadow upon that world to join with.”
Dead, Myrrima realized. On that world my shadow self was dead.
It made sense. She felt more dead than alive right now. The strange exhaustion that had come upon her . . .
“On the shadow world,” Borenson continued, “there are creatures called wyrmlings. They are giants, larger than I am. They’re fierce, and they eat human flesh. They’ve hunted mankind nearly to extinction.”
“Are there other creatures from that world that we do not have on ours?” Myrrima asked.
“A few,” Borenson said. “The birds and squirrels are different, as you will see.”
“Are there other monsters besides wyrmlings—things that we should be warned about?”
The giant shook his head no. “The wyrmlings,” Borenson continued, “number in the millions. They hide in great tunnels and warrens beneath the ground by day, and only come out to hunt by night. A large wyrmling stands up to nine feet tall and can weigh seven hundred pounds.”
“So they are like the arr, or like sea apes?” Myrrima asked. The arr was a race of giants that had once lived in the mountains throughout Rofehavan. They were like apes in form, but much larger.
“They look more like men,” Borenson said. “Legend says that they once were men, but they began to breed themselves for size and strength, just as my people do. In time they changed.”
Myrrima shook her head. “How can that be?”
“Are not the beagle and the mastiff both brothers to the wolf?” Borenson asked. “Do not the pony and the war horse both come from the same stock? It is the same with people. Some say that humans and wyrmlings share common ancestors, but I do not believe it. When you see one, you will know. They have no love or compassion. All that is in them is fierceness and hunger.
“They live for one reason, hoping for only one reward,” Borenson said, and he paused for a moment, as if unsure is he should speak more, “they hope that their evil deeds will be great enough so that a locus may feed upon their souls.”
Myrrima gasped. A locus was a parasite, a being that fed upon men’s spirits. Once it attached to a human host, it controlled him. It rode him the way that a man rides a horse, turning him this way and that. A man who had lost his soul to a locus became a crazed thing, ruthless and vile.
“They want this?” Myrrima asked. It was a horror beyond imagination.
Borenson frowned, as if searching for the right words. “They have been trained to want it, for generation after generation. They are taught to believe that the soul of a man dies shortly after the death of the body, and that his spirit is like a mist that fades and dissipates. They have been taught to believe that only a locus is immortal, and if it feeds upon them, consumes their spirit, it will live on.”
Borenson paused. A star shot overhead, and in the distance out among the rocks a herd of rangits suddenly began to bound away, startled by some noise, thumping as their huge bodies landed upon the compact ground. Cicadas were buzzing up among the trees. Myrrima wondered where Draken was, when he would return. The night was half gone, and dawn was mere hours away. She hunched up a little, hugging herself for warmth. It was a summer night, but dampness made it feel cool.
She sniffed. The Walkins’ fire just up the trail had gone out, leaving only the scent of ash. The night flowers of a nearby bush had opened so that the shadows under a ledge were filled with a wonder: white petals like wild peas that glowed with their own inner light; the shadows were filled with numinous stars.
A great uneasiness began to assail Myrrima. If what Borenson said was true, then a new horror had arisen in Rofehavan, something so monstrous that it boggled the mind.
She could not quite fathom it. She could not imagine people engaging in a breeding program that spanned generations. The mind revolted at the thought. One could not help whom one fell in love with. Her son was proof of that. Draken was hardly more than a boy, but he had found this girl Rain, and he wanted to marry her. He seemed totally devoted to her.
She tried to adjust her thinking, and the dangers presented by the wyrmlings seemed clear.
Yet Borenson spoke of returning to Rofehavan, and of taking her family back there.
“You want to go and fight!” she said.
The giant set his jaw, the way her husband used to do when he was determined upon some course. “I have to go back and fight—and you must come with me!”
Myrrima wanted to argue against his plan. She’d fought in wars before. She’d fought Raj Ahten’s armies, and had slain reavers in battle. She was the one who had slain a Darkling Glory at Castle Sylvarresta.
Sir Borenson had been a mighty warrior, as had she. But they’d both lost their endowments long ago.
“No,” she said. “We’re too old for another war. You once told me yourself that you would never fight again.”
“We don’t always join the battle,” Borenson said. “Sometimes the battle joins us.”
“We don’t even know that the wyrmlings are alive,” Myrrima objected.
“You have sea anemones on the rocks above your head and crabs walking on dry ground,” Borenson said. “How can you doubt that other creatures from my world—the wyrmlings—survived?”
A new realization struck Myrrima. “You think that the wyrmlings will come here?”
“Eventually,” Borenson said. “They will come. Right now, it’s nighttime. The wyrmlings’ home is spread across the hills near Mystarria’s old border with Longmot, while fortresses dot the land. The wyrmlings have come out of their lairs for the night—and discovered a new wonder: humans, small folk the size of you and Sage. What do you think those monsters will do with them?”
The very notion struck Myrrima with horror. Yes, she sympathized with the plight of her people. But she also recognized that there was no saving those folks to night. What ever happened to them would happen. It would take months for them to travel Rofehavan, even if she decided to go.
Every instinct warned against it. She was a mother now, with children to protect.
“I can only hope that the folk of Mystarria will band together, form some sort of resistance.”
“They might,” Borenson said. “But I don’t know if they stand a chance against the wyrmlings. You see: The magics of the shadow world worked differently from ours. The wyrmling lords are not . . . entirely alive. The wyrmling lords are wights. Their lord, the Dread Emperor Zul-torac, is no more substantial than a mist.”
Myrrima wondered at this. If wyrmlings were ruled by wraiths . . .