Eventually he drifted off into dreams of his own, dreams in which he was walking through water, traveling through the ocean, formless and without bodily limitations, communing with the element to which he was bonded, as Rhapsody was bonded to fire. It was something he had done many times in the past, wading into the sea, turning his body porous while he was within the waves, letting it cleanse his soul and his mind from care.
What neither of them knew, as they slept in the darkness of their bedchamber, their hearts beating in time, if not in unison, their breathing measured breath for breath, was that while Ashe dreamt of the past, Rhapsody was dreaming of what was to come.
Her hunger sated, the wyrm ascended the cold peaks again.
The night sky stretched out, endless with promise; stars winked at the dark horizon, but above, all across the firmament of the heavens, the aurora blazed, pulsating bands of multicolored light, dancing to the silent music of the universe.
The dragon inhaled the frosty wind. I remember this, she thought, watching the twisting light strands gleam in the darkness above her. The northern lights; how intensely they shine; how cold. She could recall standing beneath them in a woman’s body, beneath the black sky and the glistening stars, watching her breath form icy clouds in the darkness as she pondered the power of the aurora, its beauty, its distant majesty. It was a sign of the power of ether, the element that was born before the world was born, that lighted the stars, that burned beyond the Earth, out in the vast void of space. As a being with dragon’s blood in her veins, she had been able to feel a whisper of the element within herself then; now, in dragon form, it pulsed within her, in tune with the vibration of the aurora.
Ether. Its cold beauty was hypnotic to her. But it was also the power of ether, mixed with that of pure fire, that had trapped her forever in this form, this wretched, serpentine body.
At the remotest edge of her awareness, a fragment of a memory jangled.
A young memory, recent; not from the old time, when she was a still a woman, but in her dragon form.
She was flying, hovering on the hot wind, something grasped in her taloned claw. It struggled, like the man whose head she had bitten off had struggled in her grasp.
A pretty sight, isn’t it, m’lady? How do you like the view from up here?
An image flashed through her mind, duplicated in her skin a moment later; it was the flash of a burning weapon, the sting of a wound in her wing, as the searing heat ripped through her, tearing her flesh. The agony of it echoed in the webbing between the hollow bones in the crippled appendage; involuntarily she winced at the recollection of the pain.
Damn your soul, Anwyn!
Too late, the wyrm whispered, her voice echoing her own in her memory.
She followed the path of the memory back, looking down in her mind’s eye into her blood-drenched claw. It seemed to her that the creature struggling within her grasp was a woman, a small woman with golden hair, brandishing a weapon of flame. She tried to form the woman’s name in her mouth, but the word escaped her still.
Hatred, black as the night sky above her, burned like the cold fire of the aurora within her three-chambered heart.
Anwyn, she thought; the name resonated, ringing a chime in her memory. Anwyn.
Her name.
Her own name.
She remembered.
12
HAGUEFORT, NAVARNE
Morning crept through the eastern windows, unbidden and unwelcome.
In the gray light of foredawn Rhapsody sat up, hazily aware and partially refreshed. She pressed a warm kiss on her sleeping husband’s cheek, then leaned back and watched him for a while, lovingly admiring his face, its chin and jaw shadowed with a night’s growth of beard. With his eyes closed, his human and Lirin heritage was more evident than when he was awake; the vertical slits in his eyes were the only real sign of the draconic blood that ran in his veins. Asleep, he was human, undeniably human. Rhapsody’s heart swelled at the sight.
Finally, when Ashe sighed in his sleep and rolled over she rose, running a hand gently across his shoulder, then made her way into the privy closet to dress for her morning devotions.
The air in the garden was chilly; autumn was coming, and the earth was beginning to cool in preparation for its long sleep that would soon begin. If this year was to be as most were, the snow would fall a sennight or so before the winter solstice, blanketing the middle continent with an unbroken layer of frost that sank deeply below the ground until Thaw, that time in midwinter, after the yule, when the harsh weather abated for one turn of the moon before going back to its frozen dominion until spring came. That warmth in the depth of winter held a special place in Rhapsody’s heart; it had been Thaw when she, Achmed, and Grunthor had first come to this place, stepping out of the dark belly of the world into the relative warmth of winter’s abatement.
But before winter came again, there would be autumn, harvest time, which was her favorite season. She had seen the first signs of it upon returning to Navarne from the seacoast, where her abduction had left the shoreline burning from Gwynwood to Avonderre. After Ashe and Achmed brought her back she had been confined to her bed for almost a sennight before she rebelled, and had hurried to the window in time to see the beginnings of the autumnal change, the tips of the leaves turning bright hues of red and orange, yellow and brown, in the trees beyond the balcony of her tower chamber.
Now, as she wandered the neatly manicured pathways of Haguefort’s gardens, waiting for the first ray of sun to crest the horizon, Rhapsody took the time to inhale the morning wind, scented with hickory and pine, and the sharp odor of leaves burning. It was a smell that put her in mind of her childhood home on Serendair, the farm country where she was born, where harvest had been a time alive with excitement, with urgency, with the year growing shorter, the days growing darker as each one passed.
She watched the sky now; Liringlas, the skysingers of the Lirin race, were accustomed to greeting the dawn with songs called aubades, and therefore could sense when the cobalt hue of the horizon lightened to the richest of cerulean blues, signaling the sun’s approach.
The first ray of morning cracked the horizon, sending a thin shaft of radiance into the clouds, bathing them with golden light. Rhapsody cleared her throat, and slowly began the ancient devotion, the song of welcome that her Liringlas mother had taught her while her human father stood and listened, entranced.
She sang the first aubade welcoming the sun, then turned westward and moved into the second one, the song which sang the daystar farewell. Rhapsody watched as the bright celestial light dimmed in the brightening sky, then began to sing her last customary aubade, the song to Seren, the star she was born beneath, on the other side of the world.
Aria, she chanted softly; my guiding star. Tradition held that each Liringlas soul was tied to the star which ruled the day of his or her birth; Rhapsody’s birth star had been Seren, the bright celestial body for which the island of Serendair had been named. The aubade to Seren had always been particularly poignant when sung in this new land, as she could never see it; it sparkled in darkness half a world away when the sun was high above her, and slept in the light of day when she was out beneath the stars of this new land. Rhapsody had taken to chanting the traditional evening blessing in the morning out of a sense of futility, choosing to honor her birth star at the time it was shining, even if she could not see it.
As she sang the namesong of the star, she heard a rich, crackling voice join with her, chanting in the same tongue she sang in.
Seren, si vol nira caeleus, toterdaa guiline meda vor til.
Blood flushed her face; she broke the song off in midnote and whirled around to see Jal’asee behind her, smiling pleasantly. His expression faded at her reaction.
“Pray forgive me, m’lady,” he said, bowing respectfully, “I did not mean to intrude.”
Rhapsody crossed the garden, her hand going instinctively to her belly in an unconscious gesture of protection.
“H
ow—how do you know the Lirin aubades?” she asked nervously, struggling to keep her own voice in an appropriate tone.
Jal’asee smiled. “You forget, m’lady, that when the Liringlas of your homeland—our homeland—refugeed from Serendair, most of them sailed with the Second Fleet. And most of those that did chose to land in Gaematria after the fleet was blown off course by a storm, rather than continue on to this continent, or to follow the rest of the fleet to Manosse. So I live among a good number of your people. No doubt more than you have ever seen, if you were raised among humans.” He tucked his long-fingered hands into the sleeves of his robe and stepped cautiously toward her as the sun crested the horizon and the sky lightened to robin’s-egg blue.
“I have only met a few of my mother’s race in my life,” Rhapsody admitted. A wave of nausea rose and she struggled internally to force it down. She mimicked Jal’asee’s gesture, her hands suddenly cold, either from the morning chill or from the shock of surprise at his joining in her aubade.
The elderly, golden-skinned man stepped closer, then stopped when he was within gentle earshot. “In addition, it might be noted that I am of a race even older than your own, ancient as the Lirin may be,” he said congenially. “The Seren are said to be descended of the stars, a race born at the place where the element had its birthplace on Earth, where starlight first touched this world. We are, of course, named after that star, as was the Island. Your aubade is the musical vibration that rings the star’s true name. So I suppose it is not beyond reasonability that I might know the song as well.” He winked at her. “Failing that, I have a good ear for catchy tunes, I’m told.”
Rhapsody chuckled, half embarrassed. “How arrogant of me. I beg your pardon, Your Excellency.”
“Please, m’lady, address me by my given name. Among my people that is a sign of friendship as well as respect.” Rhapsody nodded. “Your husband asked me to meet you here; I apologize if I am early.”
“Not at all.”
“Excellent. Now, what I can do for you? I am at your service.”
Rhapsody struggled to keep her voice calm, while her stomach churned in distress. “You can elucidate your comments of last night, as I am confused by them.”
“About seeing you leave the Island?”
“Yes.”
Jal’asee studied her face; Rhapsody noted that he seemed aware of the rise and fall of her nausea, the movement of the child within her. When the sickness abated for a moment, the Sea Mage ambassador extended his arm and led her to a marble bench at the foot of a splashing fountain.
“Do you know why people become seasick?” he asked in his gravelly voice as they sat down on the bench. “Humans especially—for all that they are descended of a race born of water, and are themselves composed largely of it, one might think they would be naturally attuned to the rhythm of the ocean. But it is in their unconscious resistance to it, the desire to be a separate entity, that the vibration is unbalanced, thereby making them ill. If only they could learn to embrace the element within them.” He reached out one hand to the water cascading in pulsing rivulets in the fountain, the other to Rhapsody’s forehead. Unconsciously she closed her eyes.
She heard the sound of the fountain grow louder, and realized after a moment that it was Jal’asee’s voice, perfectly matching the vibrational tone of the splashing water. Within her she felt the nausea abate; her stomach settled, and her balance returned, along with the clarity of her sight that had been blurry since the child’s conception. She felt a sudden sense of wellness, as if she were floating in a bubble, protecting her from the jounces and jolts of the air that had been assaulting her for the last few months of her pregnancy. She opened her eyes to see the tall, golden-skinned man with the bright eyes smiling down at her.
“Better?”
“Yes, thank you,” Rhapsody said. “Now, please tell me what you meant last night.”
Jal’asee looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. Rhapsody was certain that she heard the splashing of the water in the fountain growing louder.
“When you lived on the Island of Serendair, had you ever seen one of my race?” he asked finally. His voice was soft, less scratchy than before, blending into the sound of the falling water.
Rhapsody considered his question. “No,” she said, “though I had studied a bit about the Ancient Seren. My mentor, Heiles, the man who instructed me in the science of Singing, had introduced me to the ancient lores, and told me of each of the Firstborn races, but before we could go into more depth he disappeared. I never saw him again, so I had to finish my studies alone.”
Jal’asee nodded. “Had you lived always in the fields, or did you ever go to a major city?”
“I—ran away from home as a young girl, and lived for several years in Easton.” Rhapsody’s face flushed with the memory of her life there and what she had done to survive.
“Easton was the largest city on the Island, a port city, with commerce from all parts of Serendair, as well as from other lands. And yet you never saw an Ancient Seren in all the years you lived there?”
“No. In fact, I thought they—you—were extinct; that except for Graal, the king’s vizier, who was known in the tales of the traveling storytellers, your race had died out in an earlier age.”
The Sea Mage settled himself more comfortably. “M’lady, long ago, before the grandfather of the king that ruled the Island you knew as a child was crowned, I was an instructor, a lecturer, at Quieth Keep, the royal college of Serendair. I also am a professor in the study of natural magic and tidal vibration in the academy of Gaematria. I tell you this for two reasons—the first is that I wish to present my information to you and have you see it, as a Namer, as close to lore in its accuracy.” Rhapsody nodded. Jal’asee chuckled. “Additionally, while telling you my tale, should I adopt an imperious, condescending, or arrogant tone, it is because once an academician, always an academician. I mean in no way to condescend to you, but some things are bred into professors, and sanctimony is one of them. I apologize heartily in advance.” Rhapsody laughed.
Jal’asee cleared his throat. “Forgive me for reiterating anything you already know,” he said. “In the history of this world, the earliest age, before recorded history, was known as the Before-Time. It was in this age that the Firstborn races, those sprung directly from the five elements themselves, came into being. The Seren were the first to evolve, as the element of ether was the first element. Ether came into the world from another place; it is the fire of the stars, and has a natural music to it, the music of light—I assume you know this, yes?” Rhapsody nodded. “Good. And had you ever seen a member of another firstborn race? Had you ever met someone who was Kith, or Mythlin, or a F’dor? Nor wyrm—you had never met a dragon in the old world, had you?”
“No,” Rhapsody said. “Mostly humans. A few of later races descended of the Firstborn—I saw a few Gwadd, and my mother was Lirin. I think I may even have seen a few Nain, though I did not know what they were at the time. But I never saw someone of a Firstborn race. I thought they had all died out, as we had been taught they had.”
“Well, as you can see, we did not.” Jal’asee covered his eyes as the sun rose higher in the sky, brightening the garden with intense light.
“So where were you, then?” the Lady Cymrian asked.
“In hiding,” the Sea Mage ambassador said seriously. “For many ages.”
“Why?”
“Self-preservation,” Jal’asee said. “The Seren were the first race to appear on the Island, but we were not alone for long. In the early days, after the F’dor were imprisoned deep within the world, peace reigned for a time; a long time by your measure. But eventually came the younger races, the Lirin, and the Nain, who did not care for each other’s ways. In their day, the Island still saw peace for the most part, because the place each race chose to live was distant from and unlike that of the other race, so there was little conflict.
“But then, after millennia had passed, came man—humans, or half-men, in ou
r language. They were long generations removed from the primordial magic which had brought the Firstborn races into being, and mortal, bent on living short, violent lives. At first it seemed they would come and go more quickly than the wind, snuffing themselves out in their impatience, but we underestimated their strength, their endurance—and their pure bloodthirstiness. They were avaricious, jealous of land and power, and they set about taking it in any and every way they could, through war and murder and genocide.
“And there were many of them. They filled our once-open and spacious land with their settlements and cities, their fortifications and their prisons, continuing to multiply, until they had all but choked out what had gone before. We had welcomed them as refugees—and now they were poised to eradicate all the civilizations that had come before. Much the way Gwylliam did, ironically, to this land.”
Jal’asee paused for a moment, as if the tale had winded him. Rhapsody looked into his eyes; within the golden irises a dark swirl was dancing, as if he were looking directly back into a painful history. She waited quietly for him to continue, watching the bronze color return to his lanky, hairless forearms after a moment. Finally he shook his head and looked down at her, an awkward smile crooking his wide, thin mouth.
“I beg your forgiveness, m’lady,” he said hastily, mopping beads of sweat from his forehead with a quick motion. “When one is designed to live forever, history sometimes takes on an immediacy that Time strips from it in the eyes of those over whom Time has sway. It is as if a thousand years ago was yesterday.”
Rhapsody nodded, continuing to wait. Finally the Sea Mage shook himself, as if shaking off sleep.