The Seedbearing Prince: Part I

  The Seedbearing Prince: Part I

  By DaVaun Sanders

  Copyright 2012 DaVaun Sanders

  Smashwords Edition

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  Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy. Your support is appreciated.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter 1: Laman’s Well

  Chapter 2: A Day for Hunters

  Chapter 3: Evensong

  Chapter 4: The Midnight Sun

  Chapter 5: Strangers

  Chapter 6: Voidwalkers

  Chapter 7: First Mist

  Chapter 8: The Leap Point

  Chapter 9: A Hero’s Welcome

  Chapter 10: The Detritus Chamber

  Chapter 11: The Crystal Walk

  Chapter 12: First World

  Chapter 13: An Old Saying

  Chapter 14: Speed Kills

  Chapter 15: The Torrent

  Chapter 16: Ara

  Chapter 17: Chimes Upon the Wind

  Chapter 18: The Burshee Split

  Chapter 19: The Dance of Shells

  Chapter 20: Shir-Hun’s Study

  Chapter 21: Thirty-Eight Worlds

  Chapter 22: The Weep

  Chapter 23: Montollos

  Chapter 24: Probabilities

  Chapter 25: Flutterbird Takes the Nectar

  Chapter 26: A Shardian’s Heart

  Chapter 27: The Rain Shoppe

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  PROLOGUE

  The torrent shifted again, and a thousand shards of onyx flashed to fire as Corian swept through a roiling field of ice and stone. The sheath on his worn black armor held, but would not last much longer. The stream of rock in the space between the worlds drifted slower here, and boasted several floating mountains large enough to hold a layer of air. Green ferns covered the surface of the nearest, providing plenty of cover. Corian was tempted to stop and rest, but crater wolves likely roamed in such thick foliage. The entire World Belt hung on the message he bore to the Ring, and he could rest after his task was done.

  A field of red granite stretched in the space above him like the bizarre clouds of some nightmare, the individual boulders careening off each other by the hundreds. Only the hardest minerals and metals endured the endless pounding of the rock flow, and only the most foolish men would brave such a swath of torrent. They were moving the direction he needed to go, into the flow where the rock moved fastest. In the torrent, speed kills, he reminded himself. He was the best courser among the Ring’s Guardians, but the rock never cared.

  Corian deftly attached a new talon to what remained of his silver wingline, then heaved it. The metal hook took hold, his wingline snapped taut, and the boulder yanked Corian into the flow. He repeated the process, each time roping a boulder moving faster, until his last guide rock pulled him along at hundreds of spans a second. A layer of white frost appeared on his armor and mask in a blink. He reeled himself in and clung to the red surface, like a flea riding a river bison in the middle of a stampeding herd. He watched every direction at once from his perch, digging his gauntlets into the crumbling surface. The boulder was actually some ancient rusted metal, not granite as he first thought. The torrent here was so thick he could barely see the stars, and it filled his ears with a distant roar.

  He sped along this way for some time, until he spied a pockmarked mass of stone and iron, large as a dwarf moon. A cleft right down the middle threatened to split the entire thing in half. A tower in the northern axis had seen more than its fair share of rust, but the light strobing from it pulsed regularly, illuminating the smaller rocks orbiting around it. As a whole, the wayfinder was ugly and old, but the mass of rock was the most blessed sight Corian could imagine after a week of surviving the torrent’s attempts to grind him to powder.

  His next wingline took him closer. If the wayfinder was powered as well as he suspected, he could use the array inside it to find out where he was in the torrent, and see how close the Ring lay. He might even find food and water, if peace favored him. A fellow Guardian must stop here often for such an old wayfinder to be this well preserved, he thought.

  Smaller debris pelted the wayfinder’s old crust, disintegrating in flashes of light. The surface shone with hundreds of impacts, large and small. Corian chose a crater near the old tower, perhaps seventy spans deep with high walls that would offer good angles to slow himself as he approached.

  As he prepared to throw out another talon, dark shapes poured from the wayfinder’s cleft. He stared for a moment, incredulous. There could be no crater wolves on a wayfinder, with no game to hunt, unless they were marooned after striking some other erratic in the torrent. No, those shapes moved with a military precision, more lethal than the deadliest pack. He could see them clearly now, massive men covered in black. “No. Not here!” Corian barely recognized his own weary voice.

  The voidwalkers had seen him. A pinprick of light shone on the wayfinder’s surface, brighter than the tower’s regular strobe. He eyed it mistrustfully as he searched for a place to throw his next wingline and change his momentum. He spotted a tumbling boulder half covered with ice, moving away from the wayfinder too fast.

  The light near the voidwalkers flashed. A beam of energy rushed into Corian’s path, hot as molten steel. A lifetime of coursing experience kicked in, and he curled his legs up until his knees touched his ears, rolling forward. The strange fire passed underneath him by less than a span. He could feel the heat of it through his protective layer of sheath. The beam burned past, and slammed into a rock fifty spans away. The tumbling boulder barely even slowed in its course, but the spot where the weapon struck—for there was no question that is what it was—glowed red hot at the edges. The glistening center had cooled quick as glass.

  Another pinprick of light. He twisted around in the weightlessness of the void to point his feet back toward the wayfinder and make himself a smaller target. It did no good. The beam rushed straight at him, and his world turned red with pain.

  An impact jarred him awake. Another. Corian opened his eyes. I’m much too cold. The voidwalker weapon had burned away his sheath. Layers of his black armor were peeling away from the metal plates like paper curled in a fire. He had been caught in a tangle of purple-rooted vines intertwined in a mile long cluster of the floating rock, what Jendini coursers called a knotted forest. The roots were nearly hard as stone in places. Dusty old bones from animals Corian did not even recognize littered the tangles. Debris from the torrent stretched around the forest in every direction, and errant stones pelted the mass of vines, which he immediately recognized. Courser’s nap, the whole forest is covered with it.

  Corian reached into a compartment on his armored belt and removed his last flask of sheath. He applied the clear liquid to his ruined armor in quick, smooth motions, not leaving one inch exposed. The sheath locked together in small patches of light, and his body’s heat immediately began to warm the interior of the invisible, protective barrier. Once the sheath was gone, his armor would not prevent the smallest pebble from killing him, if one struck him moving fast enough. For the first time, Corian considered that he may not survive.

  This wa
s to be his last circuit as a Guardian for the Ring, and he held the hope that he would look into his grandchildren’s eyes back on Jendini now that his service was finished. Yet his duty hung over him, heavier than ever. In the distance he could see the world of Shard, verdant and green just beyond the torrent’s chaos. His resolve hardened.

  He slipped a speechcaster into his mouth and began to speak as he worked himself free of the tangled vines. The small wafer could hold his words in secret for a few days, should things go badly here.

  “I am Corian Nightsong, a Guardian of the Ring. There are Thar’Kuri warriors on the world of Nemoc. The voidwalkers have built a device that allows them to…teleport themselves at will through the Belt. They are gathering in numbers, preparing for an attack. There are captives from all over the worlds imprisoned on Nemoc. The voidwalkers have weapons unlike anything known from the Ring. They use energy and can attack over great distances. They must have been made in the age before the Breach.

  If you knew where to look for this message, you must deliver it with all haste to Force Lord Adazia on the Ring. The worlds all depend on you, for I have failed them.” The admission filled Corian with bitterness, but he forced a strength he no longer felt into his words. “My sons and daughters live in Denkstone, on Jendini. Tell them…their father served well.”

  One of the vines tangled around his torso began to quiver. Corian looked down, fearing a leaf, but instead he saw a voidwalker, climbing toward him. Corian was tall, but the hulking brute easily overtopped him by a head. His glistening black armor looked as if it were melted to his frame, and covered him from head to toe save two dark slits for his eyes. The vines broke like dried mud in the voidwalker’s grasp.

  Corian began to climb, scrambling further into the vines. He did not bother to draw his sword, the voidwalker would overpower him in moments if they were to fight.

  “So afraid of an old courser?” Corian shouted. He pulled at every vine in his path as he fled, but most of them were stiff and gray. Living vines of the courser’s nap were purple and sticky, but the true danger lay with the leaves.

  The voidwalker’s gravelly voice called to Corian, cold as an orphan’s gravestone. “Come to me, degenerate.”

  Corian drew his sword, and began slashing his way through the vines. They sparked as his blade struck, but gave way. He leapt through an open space nearly ten spans across. The voidwalker followed without hesitation. So strong. Corian knew the brute meant to take him alive. He could not allow that.

  He landed on a solid gray swath, fleshy beneath his feet. He rolled and lunged just as the leaf stirred. A row of spikes slipped out of the edges, thick as Corian’s leg and sharp enough to cleave a horse in two. Corian barely cleared them. The voidwalker was not so lucky. His momentum carried him right into the center of the carnivorous plant, which enveloped him with a twist of blue-veined leaf. Steam issued from the folds near the plant’s edges as it fed.

  More pods of the courser’s nap were coming to life, enlivened by the voidwalker’s screams. Corian avoided the leaves wherever they stirred. He climbed and lunged and dived through the vines, soon pulling himself to the edge of the knotted forest. Pure torrent lay before him, an endless landscape of chaotic rock. There was no clear flow in any direction, the individual boulders in the skyscape crashed into each other in a hundred shattering impacts. I’ll leap blind and pray that my sheath holds.

  Another voidwalker tore himself out of the vines a few spans away. Peace, but look at the size of him! The voidwalker’s armor looked as chewed up as the oldest rocks of the torrent, endless dents and scratches plastered the black surface.

  “I’ve enjoyed hunting you, degenerate.”

  Another courser’s leaf reared up behind the voidwalker as he lumbered toward Corian. The leaf lunged and took the voidwalker up, curling round and round as the folds of leaf tightened. Corian allowed himself a moment of elation, but it was short lived. A pale hand appeared on the side of the courser’s nap, and bright green fluid poured out. The leaf whipped back and forth, emitting a piercing shriek as the voidwalker pulled it apart piece by piece from the inside. Corian needed to see no more. He leaped, and prayed the torrent would show him mercy.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Laman's Well

  The roiling rock and the quickening sun

  despise the old and outmatch the young,

  In the sky you'll grow into a man, my son!

  When you’re a’ coursing in the torrent.

  -Jendini coursing song

  On the world of Shard, dawn teased the sleepy Lowlands and whispered promises of a rich harvest. Dayn Ro'Halan walked the family land, wondering if this was finally the time to level with his father, Laman. A welcome breeze carried the first songs of gold-breasted chimebirds to their ears, notes of approval to find such early risers. The spring air tasted of sweet barbwood blossoms and creeping winkleaf, but even more of expectation.

  Laman's mood remained hidden in the early light. No farmer's son would dare ask what Dayn sought, permission to leave Shard to seek offworld adventure. Not just permission, Dayn reminded himself, a blessing.

  His pace slowed as his brown eyes drifted upward. The sky teetered between deepest black and blue gray, but the entire eastern horizon shimmered as if sparks from a massive bonfire swirled in a great ribbon, flowing from northern to southern sky. The torrent. One day he would race in it, too—just like the coursers in the stories.

  Dayn rose early every morning to gaze at the mass of rock that floated between the worlds of the Belt. Thoughts of leaping and lassoing his way through boulders bigger than the village inn, flowing faster than a river, or outwitting the dangerous creatures that lived among the streams of rock gave him a thrill that crops and harvest never could. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to flying without wings. Another summer of practice, and I’ll be ready to enter the Course of Blades with the bravest coursers. Even if I don’t win the race my first time, the whole World Belt will see—

  Laman cleared his throat loudly and Dayn jumped. His father stood several paces ahead, waiting for Dayn to rejoin him. “I suppose every lad in Wia Wells is witless the morning of Evensong,” Laman said. His eyes held an amused twinkle.

  “Sorry, I was watching the torrent.” Dayn grinned apologetically as he hurried to catch up. He did not feel ready, but this was as good a time as any to feel his father out. “It's always such a sight.”

  “We’ve no time for getting lost in the sky this season, now that the Council's seen fit to free up our land again.”

  Dayn cringed at his father's words. How do I tell him that getting lost in the sky is exactly what I mean to do?

  “It is a sight, though. The crumbling bones of old worlds, if the stories are true.” Laman softened as he followed Dayn’s gaze skyward, but his face left no doubt as to what he thought of the old stories. “I never cared either way, so long as it stays in the sky where it belongs. Our fields have enough rocks as it is.”

  “I don’t think the torrent would ever strike Shard,” Dayn said. He watched Laman carefully for any reaction to his next words. “Wouldn’t it be something, to see it up close?”

  “More interesting than a field survey, I suppose,” Laman said, leaning on his silverpine staff. The grain of the staff was old and strong, passed down through six generations of Ro'Halans. Carefully carved names from Laman's line banded around the wood, so the memory of their ancestors always felt near. Dayn hoped they would approve of him after today.

  “Does the farm weigh on you, son?” The question made Dayn’s heart skip. “A Shardian's calling is not so easy to bear. Does a life in the capital interest you?” Laman chuckled at the grimace on Dayn's face. “Something else, then?”

  “I wouldn't forsake Shard's covenant,” Dayn said quickly. The moment felt perfect to speak of coursing, especially with the torrent itself urging him on in the distance. “One day I’ll have a farm of my own, but...I tire of it, sometimes. Father, don’t you ever want more than this?”


  “So that's what is eating at you.” His father sounded pleased, and Dayn brightened hopefully. “Your mother thought it was some girl from Southforte. She'll learn not to wager against me one day.” Laman nodded to himself before continuing. “Do you want to leave the village?”

  “How did you know?” Dayn breathed. The fear that his parents would take his dreams to race in the torrent for young foolishness began to waver. “I've been meaning to tell you.”

  “I guess right about things half as much as I guess wrong,” Laman said with a wink. “Keep that to yourself, though. It would be a shame for the Elders to find that out after my first year on the Village Council.”

  They shared a grin. Sunrise began to paint the edges of the horizon with gray light, but the torrent still shone. Laman watched it as he continued.

  “Times are changing in Wia Wells―changing for the better. Our lads keep putting the rest of Shard to shame almost every harvest. And if I do say so, you are among the best. The Elders say you finish your lessons before anyone else your age is halfway through.”

  “I never really noticed.” Dayn's face flushed furiously. Fortunately, his father's eyes remained on the torrent. Laman’s pride would dry up like water in a cracked gourd if he knew Dayn flew through his lessons only to free more time to practice coursing. Yet Dayn gladly accepted the unexpected praise. Half a season remained before his seventeenth naming day, but he still felt surprised to stand of a height with his father, or be trusted to help with so much around the farm.

  Laman gave a firm nod. “You just keep at it. One day these fields won't seem so small.”

  “Yes, father.” Dayn wore the same worn field linens as Laman, simple and faded from the Shardian sun, and his skin already held the rich brown tones of a seasoned farmer. Freshly braided cornrows held down his unruly black hair, which reached his shoulders once fully combed out. His strong jaw and restless brown eyes were unmistakable hallmarks of Laman's bloodline, too—although his high cheekbones favored his mother, Hanalene.