It took Grunthor a moment to find his voice. “Gods, Yer Ladyship, you’re beau’iful.”
Rhapsody’s newly gorgeous face softened, and the expression that crossed it caused both men to flush warm and experience a sudden swelling below the belt. “You’re more than welcome, Grunthor. I was happy to help,” she said gently. “It was the least I could do to pay you both back for the times you’ve helped me.”
“That’s not what Oi meant,” Grunthor said. “You’re different.”
Rhapsody’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“He means,” came Achmed’s thin voice, “that if you were back in your old line of work you could ask any price and get it, just for the opportunity for a man to look at you.”
Rhapsody shook her head in annoyance. “I wish you’d stop going on about my old profession,” she said. “I don’t torment you about your past sins. And believe me, no one pays just to look.”
Achmed sighed. They would now. “Rhapsody, you look better than you did. You’re stunning.”
Rhapsody looked over at his face in the light of the distant fire of the Earth’s core. Achmed had always made a point of remaining cloaked and hooded whenever possible, behaving in many subtle ways like a man who felt his appearance to be unpleasant to behold, even freakish. Now, seeing his countenance unguarded in the light, she couldn’t understand why he had. He wasn’t ugly, at least in her estimation. There was a strange beauty to his face, in fact; instead of a face that reflected atrocity, she saw a distracted god’s unfinished work.
It was easy to imagine the rendering that had created him, the unfinished head of a sculpture placed on its body, all full of kneadings and excess clay, unrefined, with just a small crimp to approximate a nose, some uneven thumb marks where the eyes might one day be, another swipe of the thumb to make a half-smiling, half-grimacing, lipless mouth.
The mismatched eyes, the fine scoring of vessels beneath the surface of the skin, had come together to form a work of art, not attractive in the classical sense, but fascinating and rare. Perhaps he was seeing something much the same in her.
“You know, you’re not so bad yourself,” she said, smiling slightly.
Achmed looked at Grunthor, and they both shook their heads and looked away. She didn’t understand. It was becoming obvious that was she wasn’t going to.
15
The exhilaration of passing through the fire diminished quickly as the three travelers repeated the steps they had made, trudging and crawling over the Root that seemed to stretch into Time itself, endless and unyielding. The journey was only slightly less arduous because of the knowledge that they had passed through the center, and now were at least more than halfway to the potential end.
Perhaps the despair, bordering on insanity, from the first part of the journey had been a factor of the pulling away from the old life. Now, though the trek was every bit as endless, though time passed with same agonizing lethargy, there was hope at the end of the tunnel, at least most of the time. As the wall of fire receded into distant memory the light had gone with it, and now they walked in darkness again, talking occasionally if only to stave off madness.
Their clothes and leather goods were ragged and worn, their boots gone, the knees of their trousers nothing but holes in tattered fabric. Grunthor had sacrificed the caplet of his cloak and Rhapsody the spare strings for her harp to make new footwear for them. They tied the cloth around their feet and legs to protect them from the jagged stone of the basalt tunnel, buttressing the soles with strips of leather cut from what had once been their boots. Even with the improvised footgear, by the end of a traveling session their feet were often bloody and bruised.
Rhapsody had taken to singing her devotions to the stars again, though day and night had lost their meaning, and she was as far away from the sunrise and the night sky as it was possible to be.
She began to interpret dawn as the time of their rising from sleep, and sang the aubade, the morning love song, as she dressed and attempted to comb the snarls out of her gleaming tresses. When they stopped, worn out, and made camp, she would sing her nightly vespers, sometimes falling asleep from exhaustion in the middle of the song.
Grunthor and Achmed had taken to listening to her, silent in the dark, never speaking until she had finished. Often they would pass a few more moments in dismal conversation, making plans they knew might upset her were she awake.
Strangely enough, time had exhibited no physical manifestation on any of them. The fire had taken away their scars, and some of the wrinkles and lines the men had achieved as hallmarks of battle and a difficult life. If anything, the three of them looked younger than they had when entering Sagia an eternity before.
Rhapsody seemed to glow more as each day passed. An aura of attraction, almost like a magnetic field, was evident around her even in the darkness, though generally her face was not visible. The perpetuity of their mutual youth seemed to belie the endlessness of their journey. The thick coating of mud that covered them made their actual appearances hard to discern, anyway.
Eventually it became clear that they were traveling closer to the surface of the Earth. They had climbed and crawled through consistently uphill passageways, scaling another towering taproot like the one they had first ascended.
The tunnel had become horrendously wet and slippery again. The chill had returned to Rhapsody’s bones, along with the aches in her joints. It became a matter of routine for them to struggle through waist-deep patches of water or mud. On more than one occasion they had been besieged by a flash flood that almost drowned them all.
Finally they entered a horizontal cavern, drier than the previous tunnels had been. The ceiling was higher here, and they could walk erect amid the dripping stalactites that hung ominously from the ceiling above them. Stalagmites had formed as well, jutting up from the tunnel floor like the lower jaw of a great beast within whose grisly mouth they were traveling.
They walked with great care beneath the rocky outcroppings. Grunthor had sustained several wounds from bumping into them, rubbing against them, or having the vibration of their footsteps occasionally jar one loose.
They entered one section of cavern where a long, thin stalactite hung at an odd angle, jutting down from the side of the passageway wall near the ceiling. Owing to its precarious position, Achmed had walked by it cautiously, taking pains not to disturb it.
As Rhapsody passed beneath it a sudden brightness filled the tunnel. The glow was muted by the earth that surrounded the stalactite; nonetheless, the three travelers squinted in unison. Their eyes, used to an eternity of darkness, were unaccustomed to the brightness that even the dim glow produced. Grunthor muttered curses in the language of the Bolg—his head had been closest to the rock outcropping when it began to shine.
Rhapsody reached up and touched the glowing formation. It was just barely within her reach, hanging at a slanted angle from the wall, unlike the millions of other stalactites they had passed. As she did, some of the rock crumbled from the point and fell to the bottom of the tunnel. A blazing beam of light and flame broke forth from the rock, causing all three travelers to cry out in pain and shield their eyes.
“What is that?” snarled the harsh voice in the lead.
Rhapsody peered through her fingers. The tip of the stalactite was burning, tiny flames licking up the shaft of the formation. She stared at it in wonder, then put her hand out to it again. As her fingers neared the flames they intensified and the light grew radiant. When she pulled back, the fire returned to its former state, burning quietly inside the rock.
With the same certainty that led her through the fiery core, she carefully began brushing away the crumbling outside of the stalactite. The rocky matter fell away easily in one piece that tumbled to the ground, leaving a gleaming shaft of burning light, flames traveling up it while the base glowed ethereally. Rhapsody caught her breath.
“It’s a sword,” she said softly.
The Firbolg looked at each other. She was ri
ght; emerging from the slime-covered wall was a flaming sword blade, its shaft beneath the flickering fire glowing intensely blue-white and engraved in intricate patterns.
“Can you pull it out, miss?” Grunthor urged.
“Do you think she should?” asked Achmed.
“I don’t think I can reach it,” Rhapsody replied, looking at the ground for some sort of natural elevation. Grunthor bent down on one knee and patted his thigh.
“Up ya go,” he said, grinning at her.
Rhapsody returned his grin. She rested one hand on the enormous shoulder and climbed up onto the ledge he had made with his leg.
The top part of the stalactite was now in reach. She grabbed it where it met the rockwall and gave it a wrenching pull. The sword came loose with no more resistance than if it had been hanging by a thread. Rhapsody would have lost her balance and fallen on her back had Grunthor’s massive hand not shot out and steadied her.
She climbed off his knee and sat down on it instead, holding the sword by the blade despite the flames that ran up and down it, so her companions could see it. It was made of something that resembled silver, though its sheen was different. Beneath the glowing light and the flickering flames the blade was slender and lightweight, with intricate runes adorning it.
The hilt was made of the same white-silver metal, beautifully fashioned, with a crosspiece that, along with the pommel at the base, was made to look like a star. Within the hilt was a setting from which a gem, or something like it, had been pried; it was empty now, the prongs bent outward uniformly. It rested in her hands, burning brightly, without harming her at all. Achmed removed a glove and held his own finger near it, withdrawing it quickly.
“Oi think it likes ’er, sir,” Grunthor said.
“No accounting for taste,” muttered Achmed. Rhapsody laughed. There was a look on his face that almost resembled a smile.
“Kinda makes you wish we’d slapped a few o’ these pointy things down, don’t it, just to see what’s inside. Oh well, looks like you got yourself a fine sword, Yer Ladyship. Oi hope you can use it with some credit to your instructor.”
“I’ll practice next time the tunnel widens,” Rhapsody promised, handing Grunthor back the sword he had loaned her. “Thanks for letting me borrow Lucy.”
“It may be unwise to say so, but I believe we’re coming to the end of the Root,” Achmed said quietly. “What do you think, Grunthor?”
“Well, we’re nearer the surface than we ’ave been since we started down this stinkin’ ’ole,” the giant replied, looking around. “’Oo knows, we might be only a few miles away from the air.”
“That’s comforting,” said Rhapsody. She was still staring at the sword. Fragments of distant images tugged at the outskirts of her consciousness, but nothing she understood. She blinked, and the fragments vanished.
Achmed bent down and picked up the black piece of the rock cylinder in which the sword had been encased.
“This might do for a scabbard until you find something else. I don’t think leather or anything like it would work.” He took a small broken piece of the rock and dropped it in the top of the makeshift scabbard, plugging the hole that she had made in the bottom.
Rhapsody resheathed the sword, plunging the tunnel into darklight again. “Did you want me to keep it out for light?”
“Not until we have a need of something brighter than we have,” said Achmed. “Let’s press on. I want to see where this trunk root goes.”
Rhapsody and Grunthor brushed off the sediment from the stalactite. Once their eyes had adjusted, they followed him into the never-ending passageway yet again.
We’re very near the surface; I know it.”
They had been crawling for an agonizingly long time, the fissures in the rock growing smaller and smaller, leaving them nothing more than a burrow tunnel sized for a large animal to squeeze through. Grunthor had gotten stuck several times, requiring him to be dug out.
Rhapsody felt her heart leap at Achmed’s words. She had been fighting the feeling of suffocation for so long that she feared she might lose what slight grip she still had on reality.
She came to a halt behind Achmed, who had stopped in his tracks, rolled over onto his back, and pulled off one of his thin gloves. He ran his hand over the rockwall above and around him in the silence of an ancient memory.
The fabric of the Earth is worn thin there.
He craned his neck and turned back to Rhapsody. “Draw that thing; I need some light.”
She complied, lying on her back as well and pulling the sword out of its makeshift scabbard. Carefully she handed it to him by the hilt.
Achmed held the sword above his head and up to the wall like a blazing torch, feeling his way, using his heels to move himself along. Suddenly he pulled the weapon back in front of his face. In the flickering firelight he examined the handle, his eyes glittering as he turned the weapon over in his hands.
“Gods,” he whispered.
“What’s the matter?” Rhapsody asked in alarm. She felt Grunthor squeeze forward and press his head up to above her knee, balancing on his palms, which he had positioned on the ground to either side of her thigh.
“Daystar Clarion,” Achmed said, his voice a little louder. Grunthor made a sound of disbelief.
“What?” Rhapsody asked, panic beginning to set in. “What does that mean?”
“Are you sure, sir?” asked Grunthor.
“No question.”
“What are you talking about?” Rhapsody shrieked. The sound of her own voice frightened her; it was past the edge of rationality.
Achmed tossed the sword onto the tunnel floor past him and clutched his head with his hands, muttering obscenities in Bolgish. Grunthor exhaled in resignation and moved away a little. He patted her leg awkwardly.
“It’s a famous sword from the Island, Duchess,” the Sergeant said despondently.
“From the Island? From Serendair? Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Achmed snarled. “It’s unmistakable, though I don’t know why it’s on fire. The gleam of the starlight is still there, as are the runes on the hilt. It’s definitely Daystar Clarion.”
“So that means—”
“We’re back where we started. We may as well have never left.”
Rhapsody tried to absorb the sense of despair that filled the tunnel. Unlike her Bolg companions, her heart leapt in joy. They were home. It hardly seemed to make sense, but, nonetheless, they had managed to take a wrong turn somewhere and end up where they had begun. The excitement that was welling up within her beat down the fury she felt at having spent so much time in agony, separated from her loved ones, only to wind up here again. She was home.
“We have to get out of here,” she said. “Keep going.”
Achmed sighed. “This is the end of the tunnel. The trunk root’s tunnel is too small to go any further.”
Rhapsody’s heart froze. “How are we going to get out?”
“With the key, I guess.”
Cold waves of panic washed over her. “We don’t have the key, remember? It vanished when the door in Sagia closed.”
“You know, you really are gullible.” Achmed pulled his hand out from behind his back and gesticulated; in it appeared a black bone key, no longer glowing as it had.
Rhapsody’s face went blank with shock.
“You bastard.”
Grunthor’s hands shot out and grabbed her by the shoulders, correctly anticipating her furious lunge at Achmed. She struggled violently, futilely, to break free of the giant’s grip, clawing at the air between them.
“You bastard. You lying, scum-sucking, manipulative bastard!”
“Technically true, but there’s no real need to insult my mother.” Achmed ran his hand over the ceiling again, ignoring the heat that was beginning to radiate from the white-hot rage building in the tunnel behind him. His fingers sensed the rip in the fabric of the universe, a thin metaphysical opening, directly above him.
He inserted the key, or tr
ied to. Nothing happened. A resounding clink echoed through the tunnel as he met with solid rock. He tried once more and still met with no success. In disgust he threw it to the ground, lay back, and cursed again.
Rhapsody’s anger vanished. “What’s wrong?”
“It doesn’t work.”
“Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t work,” he repeated softly. “I guess we weren’t the only things remade by the fire.”
His hand returned to the ceiling, and as he did a vision formed in his mind. It was related to the sense of direction he had had all along, a rapid soaring through the rock, through layers of earth and clay and dry grass and snow until his mind’s sight burst into the sunlight. He gasped aloud and closed his eyes in pain.
Rhapsody reached for him. “Are you all right?”
Achmed shrugged her away. “Leave me alone. I’m fine, except that I’m back where I started and trapped at the only place we can get out. The gods must be laughing themselves sick right now.”
“’Ow far to the surface, sir?”
“I don’t know. Several hundred feet.”
Grunthor stretched his massive frame along the floor of the tunnel, sighing as his cramped muscles uncoiled. “Is that all, then? ’Ave out o’ there, if you please, sir, and Oi’ll start diggin’.”
Rhapsody tucked her knees under her and twisted to look at him. “Grunthor, didn’t you hear him? He said we’re still several hundred feet underground.”
“Then we better get to it, eh? You got somethin’ better to do, Yer Ladyship? ’Ere, move out o’ there.” Rhapsody stared at him as he pulled out a small retrenching tool, known unimpressively as Digga. She picked up her sword and did as he asked, followed a moment later by Achmed.
“Do you know what you’re doing, Grunthor?” she asked nervously as she crouched in an indentation in the tunnel.
“Nope.”
She blinked, then looked to Achmed, who shrugged. “All right,” she said finally, “I suppose there’s something to be said for winging it.”
Grunthor lay down at the head of the tunnel. Taking the small shovel in both hands, he coiled and then thrust it into the wall with all his weight and might. There were sparks, but no visible impact on the stone. He repeated the motion, and a few chips of stone flew. Then again. And again.