They called him the Storm King, and he had all the power he had ever dreamed of—but it brought him no pleasure or ease, no escape from the knowledge that he was hated or from the chronic pain of his maimed back. He was both more and less than a man, but he was no longer a man. He was only the king. His comfort and happiness mattered to no one, except that his comfort reflected their own. No thought, no word, no act affected him that was not performed out of selfishness; and more and more he withdrew from any contact with that imitation of intimacy.
He lay alone again in his chambers on a night that was black and formless, like all his nights. Lying between silken sheets he dreamed that he was starving and slept on stones.
Pain woke him. He drank port wine (as lately he drank it too often) until he slept again, and entered the dream he had had long ago in a witch’s hut, a dream that might have been something more. . . . But he woke from that dream too; and waking, he remembered the witch-girl’s last words to him, echoed by the storm’s roaring—“May you get what you deserve.”
That same day he left his fortress castle, where the new stone of its mending showed whitely against the old; left his rule in the hands of advisors cowed by threats of the dragon’s return; left his homeland again on a journey to the dreary, gray-clad land of his exile.
He did not come to the village of Wydden as a hunted exile this time, but as a conqueror gathering tribute from his subject lands. No one there recognized the one in the other, or knew why he ordered the village priest thrown bodily out of his wretched temple into the muddy street. But on the dreary day when Lassan-din made his way at last into the dripping woods beneath the ancient volcanic peak, he made the final secret journey not as a conqueror. He came alone to the ragged hut pressed up against the brooding mountain wall, suffering the wet and cold like a friendless stranger.
He came upon the clearing between the trees with an unnatural suddenness, to find a figure in mud-stained, earth-brown robes standing by the well, waiting, without surprise. He knew instantly that it was not the old hag; but it took him a longer moment to realize who it was: The girl called Nothing stood before him, dressed as a woman now, her brown hair neatly plaited on top of her head and bearing herself with a woman’s dignity. He stopped, throwing back the hood of his cloak to let her see his own glittering face— though he was certain she already knew him, had expected him.
She bowed to him with seeming formality. “The Storm King honors my humble shrine.” Her voice was not humble in the least.
“Your shrine?” He moved forward. “Where’s the old bitch?”
She folded her arms as though to ward him off. “Gone forever. As I thought you were. But I’m still here, and I serve in her place; I am Fallatha, the Earth’s Own, now. And your namesake still dwells in the mountain, bringing grief to all who live in its cloud-shadow. ... I thought you’d taken all you could from us, and gained everything you wanted. Why have you come back, and come like a beggar?”
His mouth thinned. But this once he stopped the arrogant response that came too easily to his lips—remembering that he had come here the way he had to remind himself that he must ask, and not demand. “I came because I need your help again.”
“What could I possibly have to offer our great ruler? My spells are nothing compared to the storm’s wrath. And you have no use for my poor body—”
He jerked at the mocking echo of his own thoughts. “Once I had, on that night we both remember—that night you gave me back the use of mine.” He gambled with the words His eyes sought the curve of her breasts, not quite hidden beneath her loose outer robe.
“It was a dream, a wish; no more. It never happened.” She shook her head, her face still expressionless. But in the silence that fell between them he heard a small, uncanny sound that chilled him. Somewhere in the woods a baby was crying.
Fallatha glanced unthinkingly over her shoulder, toward the hut, and he knew then that it was her child. She made a move to stop him as he started past her; let him go, and followed resignedly. He found the child inside, an infant squalling in a blanket on a bed of fragrant pine boughs. Its hair was midnight black, its eyes were dark, its skin dusky; his own child, he knew with a certainty that went beyond simply what his eyes showed him. He knelt, unwrapping the blanket—let it drop back as he saw the baby’s form. “A girl-child.” His voice was dull with disappointment.
Fallatha’s eyes said that she understood the implications. “Of course. I have no more use for a boy-child than you have for that one. Had it been a male child, I would have left it in the woods.”
His head came up angrily, and her gaze slapped him with his own scorn. He looked down again at his infant daughter, feeling ashamed. “Then it did happen. . . .” His hands tightened by his knees. “Why?” Looking up at her again.
“Many reasons, and many you couldn’t understand. . . . But one was to win my freedom from the Old One. She stole my soul, and hid it in a tree to keep me her slave. She might have died without telling me where it was. Without a soul I had no center, no strength, no reality. So I brought a new soul into myself—this one’s,” smiling suddenly at the wailing baby, “and used its focus to make her give me back my own. And then with two souls,” the smile hardened, “I took hers away. She wanders the forest now searching for it. But she won’t find it.” Fallatha touched the pendant of rock crystal that hung against her breast; what had been ice-clear before was now a deep, smoky gray color.
Lassan-din suppressed a shudder. “But why my child?” My child. His own gaze would not stay away from the baby for long. “Surely any village lout would have been glad to do you the service.”
“Because you have royal blood, you were a king’s son— you are a king.”
“That’s not necessarily proof of good breeding.” He surprised himself with his own honesty.
“But you called on the Earth, and She answered you. I have never seen Her answer a man before . . . and because you were in need.” Her voice softened unexpectedly. “An act of kindness begets a kind soul, they say.”
“And now you hope to beget some reward for it, no doubt.” He spoke the words with automatic harshness. “Greed and pity—a fitting set of godparents, to match her real ones.”
She shrugged. “You will see what you want to see, I suppose. But even a blind man could see more clearly.” A frown pinched her forehead. “You’ve come here to me for help, Lassan-din; I didn’t come to you.”
He rubbed his scale-bright hands together, a motion that had become a habit long since; they clicked faintly. “Does— does the baby have a name?”
“Not yet. It is not our custom to name a child before its first year. Too often they die. Especially in these times.”
He looked away from her eyes. “What will you do with— our child?” Realizing suddenly that it mattered a great deal to him.
“Keep her with me, and raise her to serve the Earth, as I do.”
“If you help me again, I’ll take you both back to my own lands, and give you anything you desire.” He searched her face for a response.