Worldbinder Read online

  Praise for The Runelords Saga

  “[Farland] explores the very nature of virtue and finds disturbing contradictions at the heart of every moral question…. When I reached the end of The Runelords, and saw grace arise from a devastating battlefield where too many great hearts lay dead, Farland had earned the tears that came to my eyes. It was not sentiment but epiphany.”

  —Orson Scott Card, author of Empire,

  on The Runelords

  “The suspense is real, the action is nonstop, and the characterizations continue to convince…. [This is] a series that has put Farland on high-fantasy readers’ maps.”

  —Booklist on The Lair of Bones

  “Sometimes truly terrifying, sometimes impossibly sweet, The Lair of Bones is a tale sure to entrance any reader. This is a superb story with deeply empathetic characters.”

  —Sara Douglass, author of The Serpent Bride

  “Sure, Brotherhood has incredible edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting battle scenes—the finale being an exceptional example—but Gaborn’s struggle to make a decision, and then his facing the consequences, is equally thrilling. Brotherhood of the Wolf is a welcome sequel.”

  —Starlog

  “The author’s imaginative approach to magic, coupled with a richly detailed fantasy world and a cast of memorable heroes and villains, adds depth and variety to this epic tale of war and valor.”

  —Library Journal on Wizardborn

  “Worldbinder is more character driven and less action intense than the previous books in the Runelords saga…. [It] can stand alone appealing to apocalyptic fantasy fans, but series fans will definitely enjoy Farland’s newest tale.”

  —Alternative Worlds

  TOR BOOKS BY DAVID FARLAND

  The Runelords

  Brotherhood of the Wolf

  Wizardborn

  The Lair of Bones

  Sons of the Oak

  Worldbinder

  The Wyrmling Horde*

  *forthcoming

  WORLDBINDER

  DAVID FARLAND

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  NEW YORK

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  WORLDBINDER

  Copyright © 2007 by David Farland

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-5584-3

  ISBN-10: 0-7653-5584-1

  First Edition: September 2007

  First Mass Market Edition: August 2008

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Mary, as always.

  With special appreciation to Matt Harrill

  for his copious help.

  PROLOGUE

  Though your heart may burn with righteous desires, your noblest hopes will become fuel to fire despair among mankind.

  That which you seek to build will crumble to ash.

  War shall follow you all of your days, and though the world may applaud your slaughter, you will come to know that each of your victories is mine.

  And thus I seal you, till the end of time….

  —Asgaroth’s curse upon Fallion

  The tree riveted Shadoath as she stalked into Castle Coorm. It was no more than a sapling, perhaps eight feet tall, with a dozen branches spreading wide in a perfect umbrella. But the sight of it smote her at even a hundred yards, urging her heart to melt. Every winding branch was perfect. Every crook of every twig seemed to have been preconceived by an artistic genius before being executed. The leaves were darkest green above, a mellow honey beneath, and looked something like an oak. The bark was the rich golden color of ripe wheat, warm and soothing, inviting to the eye.

  Shadoath had seen such a tree once before, countless ages ago, on another world.

  No, she thought. It can’t be.

  But she knew that it was. It wasn’t just how the tree looked. It was how it made her feel. Her eyes wanted to drink it in from the distance. Her arms wanted to embrace it. Her head and shoulders yearned to shelter beneath it. Her lungs ached to breathe the perfumed air that exuded from its leaves. Her eyes longed to lie beneath it and stare up, and dimly she recalled the ancient days, when those leaves emitted a soft golden light during the nights, and those who took pleasure beneath it would peer up through layers of foliage and try to make out the light of distant stars. The sight of its limbs made her yearn for perfection, to be better than she had ever been, to do more than she had ever done, to change for the better.

  The tree was dangerous, she knew. Left alive, it would grow and develop, rising up like a mountain, insinuating its branches for miles in every direction. It would silently tug at the minds of men, urge them to become its servants. Left alone, it would do even more. It would silently nurture the souls of men, urging them to become virtuous and perfect.

  Every instinct in her shouted, Kill it now! Burn it down!

  Only the shock of seeing it stayed her hand.

  There were mighty changes going on in Rofehavan. The children born in the past generation were more like Bright Ones from the netherworld than children of the past.

  And now the One True Tree had risen again.

  She wanted to be sure. She studied the knotty roots coming up from the grass. The tree had been planted in the green at Castle Coorm, in the center of a roundabout. A small rock wall, perhaps four feet tall, surrounded the tree. A fountain rose at the back, water splashing down gray stones from the mouth of a gargoyle. At one time there had been a pleasant rock garden here, rife with flowering vines. A few of them still remained, trumpet flowers of red.

  But Shadoath could not look for long. The tree drew her eye, the golden bark rising from the grass, where the small roots were already beginning to splay wide, questing for purchase; the bole of the tree twisting as if in torment; the branches rising up to embrace heaven.

  Shadoath stood peering at it, and all weariness seemed to leave her, all of her aches and worries. It was as if she laid aside every care, and an upwelling of hope rose inside her, strange longings.

  The tree is my master, and I am its servant, her body told her.

  But a voice whispered inside her, the voice of the tree. “You are my master; how may I serve you?”

  An image of their true relationship formed in her mind. Neither was whole without the other, the tree told her. Neither of us should live alone.

  Damn, she realized, the young tree has already gained consciousness. Left alone, it would become wise and venerable and forbidding.

  There was a rustling sound behind her, one of the guards on the castle wall. Across the courtyard, Warlord Hale was stumping down from the tower, lugging his great weight along as fast as he could. She had almost forgotten that he existed, even though he was the one who had sent the urgent message asking what to do about the damned tree.

  “So,” a girl asked, “do you like my tree?”

  Shadoath shook her head, let her vision clear, and suddenly spotted the young woman there beneath the tree, squatting cross-legged upon a rock. Shadoath had been so captivated that she hadn’t seen the girl, even though she sat in plain sight, as quiet and motionless as a mushroom.

  She was some
indeterminate age between twelve and sixteen, Shadoath imagined, with hair so pale yellow it was almost white, and eyes as pale as sea foam. Her skin had the greenish cast of one who was Wizardborn, and she wore a robe that looked not to have been woven, but to simply have grown around her as roots that interlocked. It was the pale green of new leaves. She bore a staff of golden wood, hewn from the tree itself.

  “I love your tree,” Shadoath said.

  The girl smiled broadly, stood, and raised a hand, beckoning Shadoath to come forward, to rest beneath its limbs.

  Shadoath could hear Warlord Hale pounding down the wooden stairs, his huge bulk an assault upon them. He was nearly to the door of his keep.

  Now that her mind had cleared, Shadoath realized why the young wizardess had chosen to plant the tree here in the courtyard of Castle Coorm. It was to honor the last Earth King, Gaborn Val Orden, of course. This had been his residence before he wandered off into the wilderness to die.

  So the wizardess had brought the tree here in his honor. She wanted to restore him to the people’s memory even as she and her damned tree created a new world order.

  Shadoath reached the rock wall, and the young woman stretched down to give her a hand.

  That’s when Shadoath struck, as quick as the thought touched her.

  Shadoath had taken the body of a warrior this time, a pale assassin from Inkarra, with skin whiter than bone, hair the color of spun silver, and pale blue tattoos that covered her arms and legs. Shadoath’s speed was blinding, and her curved dagger bit into the wizardess’s armpit with great force.

  Shadoath grabbed the proffered hand, for Earth Wardens, as this young wizardess surely was, had great skill at both hiding and healing. Shadoath held on while the young wizardess tried to leap back and buck, like a young deer. She saw the girl’s pleading eyes as warm blood pumped over Shadoath’s hand.

  Shadoath twisted the blade, and she saw strange visions. Suddenly she seemed to be standing in deep rushes at the edge of a pond while a huge grouse thundered up from the ground. Obviously the vision was meant to startle her, get her to loosen her grip, but Shadoath held on.

  Suddenly she seemed to be holding a great bear whose vicious fangs were mere inches from her throat. Shadoath drew out her blade, plunged it beneath the young wizardess’s sternum, and let it quest for her heart.

  The bear disappeared, and for a moment she saw the wizardess’s true face, her pupils constricted to pinpricks, and she saw an image of the One True Tree as it might be someday, with tens of thousands of people living beneath it, giving it water and food, giving it life, even as it sheltered them from the elements and from the eyes of all enemies.

  And then the young wizardess was dead, nothing but a piece of bloody meat gurgling and jerking at Shadoath’s feet.

  Shadoath pulled her away from the tree, for she knew that the tree itself had healing powers, and might even be able to raise the newly dead if her body remained beneath its boughs for long.

  “Why?” the tree begged.

  Shadoath merely smiled secretively as she dragged the bloody girl far across the green.

  The bloated form of Warlord Hale appeared at the door of the keep, his head towering above those of his guards: he trundled across the cobbled pavement to meet Shadoath.

  “Killed ’er, I see?” he said. “Glad you were up to it. I tried it myself a dozen times, but couldn’t seem to get near her, even though she never went more than a dozen yards from that tree. What do ya want me to do with the damned tree now, chop ’er down, burn it?”

  Shadoath considered as Warlord Hale babbled on inanely.

  “It’s one of those trees, ain’t it? I told the boys it was, a World Tree, just like the old tales. Didn’t know what to do with it. Didn’t want to just let it stand—bad for morale. That’s why I sent for you.”

  Hale obviously yearned for approval, so Shadoath said, “You did well, sending for me.”

  “So, do I chop it down?”

  The human spirit would revolt at such a task. It might even break. She doubted that many of Hale’s men could do it. But Hale was far enough gone in the ways of evil that he could hardly be called human anymore.

  Shadoath considered. She wanted the tree dead. But there was one thing that she wanted more—Fallion Orden. For nearly a year now, since she had lost the battle at the Ends of the Earth, she had been considering ways to subvert him—or barring that, to destroy him. She had been taking deep counsel with others of her kind, and they had begun to devise a trap. All that they lacked was the right bait.

  Could this be it? Fallion Orden craved to restore the Earth, make it whole, as it had been before the cataclysm. And the very fact that the One True Tree had been reborn was a sign that the restoration—somehow, beyond Shadoath’s understanding—was moving forward rapidly.

  Fallion did not know it yet, but he would need the wisdom of a World Tree in order to advance his plans.

  Given that, would not the spirit of this tree call to his? And would not his spirit call to the tree?

  And when the two met, would it not be a good time to thwart both of their plans?

  “There is good news in the Netherworld,” Shadoath told Warlord Hale as she considered what to do. “The Queen of the Loci has escaped. The Glories sought to bind her in a Cage of Brilliance, but their powers failed them. They are not as strong as they were in ages past, and we have managed to free her. She is gathering armies more powerful than ever before. Remain true, and your reward shall be great and endless.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Warlord Hale said. “I—I am true to you, you know.”

  There was malice in his eyes, she saw, and desire. He wanted to give his soul to her, let his spirit become the home of a locus. Because her kind had trained him from youth, he believed that in doing so he would gain a type of immortality, that his soul would be bound into the black soul of the locus, and carried down through time.

  He was fit for it, she knew. His soul was a black pit. There was true and monstrous evil in him, and he would be a comfortable abode for a locus. But he yearned to be possessed so badly that she could not resist the urge to deny him this reward.

  “Soon,” she promised. “Your time is coming.”

  She turned to the tree, regarded it coolly. “Leave it alive for now. I want Fallion Orden to see it.”

  1

  THE HOMECOMING

  I do not know when I first began to dream of healing the Earth. There was so much pain in the world, so much suffering and heartache. It could have been when I was among the Gwardeen. One of our fliers, a small boy of six named Zel, was feeding a hatchling graak, and the great reptile took the boy’s arm. It was an accident, I am sure. But try as I might, we could not staunch the flow of blood, and Zel died in my arms. I remembered thinking, In a better world, I could have saved him. In a better world, children would not have to die this way.

  It was only three years later that I began to be haunted by a dream of a wheel of fire, a vast rune, and I began to suspect that there was a way to heal our broken world.

  —from the journal of Fallion Orden

  They came creeping through the woods just before dawn, four of them, weary but resolute, like hunters on the trail of a wounded stag. They halted at the edge of the trees, silently regarding summer fields thick with oats and the brooding castle beyond.

  “Castle Coorm,” the leader, Fallion, whispered. “As promised.” The sight of it filled him with nostalgia and soothed his frayed nerves like mulled wine.

  The pre-dawn sky still had one bright star in it, and the castle mostly lay in shadows, the limned walls looking soft blue instead of white. There were pinpricks of yellow in the tower windows, and watch-fires burned outside the city gates like blistering gems. The dancing fires, the smell of the smoke, beckoned him. But Fallion merely stood silently regarding the scene. The castle was falling into ruins, but was obviously still inhabited.

  He had seen too much devastation, too many ruined cities since his return to Mysta
rria. The Courts of Tide had been laid waste. Its once-fair streets were now dark lanes, blockaded by gangs that fought like wild dogs to protect their few scraps of food and clothing. The women and children there had a haunted look. They had suffered too much rape, too much plunder.

  The sight of it had left Fallion reeling. In a more perfect world, he told himself, the women would wear flowers in their hair, and children would not learn to fear strangers.

  Upon the death of Fallion’s father, Gaborn Val Orden, assassins from a dozen lands had descended upon Mystarria, hoping to strike down Fallion and his brother. These weren’t ordinary assassins. These were powerful runelords that had taken brawn, stamina, speed, and grace from their subjects, making them warriors that no commoner could hope to withstand. And though Mystarria had been a wealthy country then, with many strong runelords of its own, it could not withstand the sustained onslaughts of such men.

  Only by strengthening its forces could it hope to survive, but that required forcibles—magical branding irons that could draw out an attribute from a vassal and then imbue it upon the lord.

  But there was a dearth of forcibles. The rare blood metal from which they were made was running out. Rumors said that the lords of Kartish, far to the west, were hoarding what little they found, intent on protecting their own realms in the dark times to come.

  Chancellor Westhaven, who had been left in charge of Mystarria, had even taken a journey to Kartish, hoping to sway those who had once been allies.

  He had never returned. Some said that his mournful spirit could be seen at night in the towers at the Courts of Tide, wandering the hallways, rummaging through the empty lock-boxes in the treasure room.

  And so Mystarria had been attacked on a dozen fronts, like a great bull taken down by jackals that ripped it apart and gorged themselves while leaving their prey still only half alive. Its treasuries had been looted, its towers knocked down, its farms and cities burned, its lands divided. The Warlords of Internook held the coast, while Beldinook took the east, and Crowthen to the north split the rest.