The western seacoast he had left behind him was burning still, though the fires had begun to be extinguished by the time he left. The ash from the blackened forests had traveled east on the wind as well, and so for the first few days of his journey his nostrils and sensitive sinuses were sore from their exposure to the soot. But by the time he reached the province of Bethany, the midpoint of the realm of Roland, the wind had turned clearer, and so had his head.
His mind, distracted by the disappearance of one of his two friends in the world, was able to refocus on what had been his priority for the last few months. Now that she was safe, his thoughts were locked obsessively on the completion of his tower.
Many of the reasons for his obsession with rebuilding the instrumentality that had once been housed in the mountain peak of Gurgus were lodged in the past. But the most important one was the future.
The pounding of the horse’s hooves was a tattoo that drove extraneous thoughts away. The Panjeri glass artisan I hired in Sorbold has had a good deal of time to make progress on the Lightcatcher; the ceiling of the tower must be complete by now, the king thought, ruminating on what Gurgus would look like when restored. A full circle of colored glass panes, seven in all, each precisely fired to the purest hues of the spectrum, the mountain peak would soon hold a power that would aid him in his life’s mission.
Keeping the Sleeping Child safe from the F’dor, fire demons that endlessly sought to find her.
From the time he had begun the undertaking of building the tower, the Firbolg king’s mind had known even less peace than usual. His obsession was coupled with uncertainty; he was by training and former trade an assassin, a murderer, an efficient killer who had for centuries plied his trade alone, choosing only the contracts that interested him, or that he felt warranted his attention. Life and circumstance had taken him from an old land, his birthplace, now dead and gone beneath the waves of the sea, and deposited him here, in this new and uncertain place, where he had put his skills to good use, seizing control of the loose, warlike tribes of mountain-dwelling mongrels, forging a ragged kingdom of demi-humans. Under his hand, with the help of his two friends, he had built them into a functioning nation, a realm of silent strength and resolute independence. Now he was a king. And he was still a skilled killer.
What he was not was an engineer.
When he had discovered the plans for the Lightcatcher buried deep in the vault of the kingdom he now ruled, once a great civilization fallen into ruin by its own folly, he had broken into a gray sweat. He could not read the writing on the ancient parchment; it was drafted in a tongue that had been old when his long-dead homeland was still young. As a result, he could not be certain of the specifications of the drawings, of the directions to build the instrumentality, and, more important, of what its powers were. He only knew he recognized in the detailed renderings something he had known in the old world as an apparatus of unsurpassed power, a device that had held an entire mountain range invulnerable from the same evanescent demons that were now seeking the Earthchild he guarded.
That device had apparently been duplicated here long ago.
From that moment on it had become a challenge to rebuild it. For the first time in his life he’d had to rely on outside help, on expertise other than his own, to fashion something that was part weapon, part scrying device, part healing instrumentality. And it was being done in secret, in the hope that he was not being betrayed or misled. Achmed did not really believe in hope, and therefore had suffered mightily, plagued with doubt and worry mixed with the burning belief that this apparatus, and this apparatus alone, would be able both to make his kingdom invulnerable to the invaders he knew would someday come, bent on its destruction, and, far more important, to help him protect the Sleeping Child from those invisible monsters that endlessly sought to find her.
One of his two friends in the world was a Lirin Namer, schooled in the music of words, ancient lore, and the dead language of the drawings. She had been disquieted by the depth of the magic she saw in the renderings, had implored him not to meddle in matters he didn’t fully understand, but in the end her loyalty to and love for him had won out over her reservations, and she had given him a brief translation of one of the documents, at his insistence. It had contained a poem, a riddle really, and the schematic of the color spectrum, along with the power each color held.
He chanted them to himself now as he rode, trying to commit them more naturally to his memory, and finding that the words refused to remain there. He had never been able to recall the words in the ancient tongue; he could retain only the color translations, only for a short while, and only by concentrating resolutely. Even then, he was still uncertain of them, as if some innate magic within them was refusing him right of entry.
Red—Blood Saver, Blood Letter, he thought, trying to employ the techniques of visualizing the words that Rhapsody, the Namer, had taught him. That one, at least, was easy for him to recall. Orange—Fire Starter, Fire Quencher. He was fairly certain of that one as well. Yellow—Light Bringer, Light . . . Queller? His mind faltered. Damnation. I can’t remember.
But soon it would not matter. He had finally found a glass artisan in the neighboring kingdom of Sorbold, a Panjeri master from a tribe known the world over for their expertise in molding the sand of the desert and the ashes of wood into the most exquisite of glass, capturing rainbows in a solid yet translucent form to adorn the windows of temples and of crypts. He had given her free rein, under the eye of Omet, his head craftsman, to move ahead with the firing and inlay of the glass ceiling of Gurgus, which, once finished and outfitted with the other pieces of the apparatus, would become the Lightcatcher. He had even dared to look forward to that being completed by the time of his return.
So it was with more than a little shock moving to unbridled fury that he dragged his hapless mount to a halt upon discovering the rainbow grit that was scattered across the Krevensfield Plain at the foothills of his kingdom.
Achmed dismounted slowly, his considered movements mirroring the motion of the reptile he had received a nickname from. He walked in measured steps to a place where the layer of colorful glass powder was somewhat thicker, crouched down, and scooped some of the tiny shards up in his perennially gloved fingers. The glass was little more than dust, but it still contained the unmistakable colors that he had seen being fired when he left home some weeks back.
Achmed sighed deeply.
“Hrekin,” he swore aloud.
He glanced up from his crouch to the multicolored peaks of the Teeth, where he reigned over the Firbolg hordes in what was known in their tongue as the kingdom of Ylorc. Gurgus, the peak in which the colored windows had been inlaid, was deeper in, past the guardian ring of mountains at the edge, so it was impossible to see what had befallen his tower from this distance. He could, however, see that the guard tower of Grivven, one of the westernmost and highest peaks, was still standing.
At least the entire bloody kingdom didn’t blow to bits while I was gone, he thought ruefully. I suppose I should be grateful.
He tossed the glass powder angrily behind him, mounted, and urged his horse into a steady canter, growing more irate with each breath of the wind that poured over his face as he rode.
Sergeant-Major Grunthor, commander of the united Firbolg forces and Achmed’s only other friend in the world, was directing a massive reconstruction that had clearly been under way for quite some time when the king returned to the mountain. As Achmed strode down the interior mountain corridor leading to the former entrance to Gurgus, he could hear the Sergeant bellowing commands to the workers, his voice occasionally straining with exertion as he moved massive broken pieces of earth himself.
The Firbolg king rounded the corner and stopped for a moment, beholding him. Grunthor was paused as well, though he hadn’t caught sight of Achmed yet; with a dray sled at his feet piled high with broken basalt, a hand cart gripped in his massive hands, the giant commander was catching his breath, his skin, the color of old bruises,
glistening with sweat from the exertion. Even at rest he was a terrifying sight, seven and a half feet of musculature at rest for the moment, preparing to resume the strenuous task, directing a squad of Firbolg soldiers in their tasks while he rested.
The sheer scope of the destruction took its toll on Achmed’s limited patience. The king stormed to the end of the hallway, stopping just short of the Sergeant’s presence.
“What in the name of every ridiculous evil god that never existed happened here?”
An ugly light came into the giant Sergeant’s amber eyes.
“Birthday party got a little out o’ hand, sir,” he said, his voice sharp with sarcasm. “So sorry. Won’t ’appen again.” As the cords in the king’s neck tightened, Grunthor tossed the cart aside. “You might want ta pose that question to that ’arpy glassmaker you brought in ’ere to build the tower windows. Oh, no, wait! Can’t do that.”
The king’s eyes narrowed in rage that was tempered with panic. “Why not?”
The Sergeant crouched down and grasped another massive rock, lifted, and heaved it angrily into the dray sled.
“Because Oi cut the bitch’s head off ’er shoulders,” he snarled as the small boulder bounced against the earthen floor with a resounding thud. “Then Oi tossed it in a crate and shipped it back to the assassin’s guild in Yarim, from whence she had come in the first place.” He watched without sympathy as the fury in his sovereign’s eyes muted into realization. “ ’At’s right, sir, the artisan you ’ired in Sorbold to build yer bloody glass tower turned out to be the mother of all assassins, the mistress of the Raven’s Guild.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist and indicated the destruction around him. “This was the lit’le present she left just for you. We’re findin’ all sorts of other traps, lots o’ nice surprises—”
“The Child?” Achmed demanded, sounding as if he were strangling.
Grunthor exhaled deeply. “Safe, for now,” he said more calmly, the latent anger in his voice gone. “Oi combed every inch of the tunnel down to ’er chamber; appears that it was broached, but only a few feet of it. The assassin didn’t ’ave time to get down there, by sheer bleedin’ luck. But if Oi was you, sir, Oi’d be careful not to insult any ridic’lous gods that never existed, as they apparently been watchin’ yer back in a major way.”
“Now there’s a terrifying thought.” Achmed crossed the broken hallway and stopped before the thinning pile of rubble. “How?”
“Picric acid. Apparently she ’ad it shipped in from the guild while you were gone. In a liquid state it’s stable, but explodes when it dries. She ’ad it annealed into the glass of the dome; kept a wooden cover over it ta keep the sun off. But Shaene and Rhur—both dead, by the by—pulled the cover; the sun ’it it square on, the ’eat dried the enamel, and—well, you can see the rest.” The Sergeant ran the toe of his enormous boot through the grit of the floor. “Except the Sickness—lots o’ dysentery and a lot of Bolg bleedin’ out their eyes. That seemed to come with it.”
Without a word the Firbolg king turned and left the scene of the destruction.
“Oh, by the way sir,” called Grunthor as Achmed disappeared around the corner, “welcome ’ome.”
The tunnel down to the chamber of the Sleeping Child began in Achmed’s bedchamber, its entrance secreted in a trapped chest at the foot of his bed. It took him only a moment to ascertain that each of the guardian traps, deadly locks he had set himself, had been serially disarmed, their triggers sprung with an expertise he had not witnessed since his own assassin training at the hands of an undisputed master a lifetime before.
“Hrekin,” he swore again.
Grunthor exhaled. “Aye, well, at least she was a master. Oi remember back in the old land when the thieves’ guild kept sending their trainees after ya for a while. Remember that, sir? That was just plain senseless carnage, it was. Not even really useful as target practice for you.”
Achmed said nothing, but rose from the chest and traced the path around his chambers, looking for all-but-invisible signs of disturbance.
They were everywhere.
Dust disturbed in only the slightest patterns, the occasional repositioning of an object in such close proximity to where it had originally been left that only one trained at the level he was trained would have seen it. Subtle traps as well; a thin rim of poison on his mealtime cutlery, his comb, on the brace of the doorframe, so discreetly laid out that he might not have noticed, which meant that only a master assassin could have laid them. Achmed’s already sensitive skin prickled with gray sweat at the thought, because it was clear that the woman had only had a few moments in the room before being discovered.
“If you ever find that I have misplaced my head this badly again, Grunthor, please be sure to have me bend over and check my arse for it,” he said gloomily, removing a tiny spring-loaded pin from the toe of one of his spare boots. “It must be wedged up there tightly enough to qualify me as a Cymrian.”
“Very well, sir,” Grunthor said with exaggerated respect. “Oi ’ave a button ’ook ya might be able to use ta get it out o’ there, but it may not be long enough.”
Achmed opened the door to his chambers carefully, avoiding the mercury-coated wire that had been filed hair-thin and positioned invisibly along the doorjamb.
“Get me a set of glass calipers,” he ordered one of the guards standing watch in the hallway. “Drop them outside the door loud enough for me to hear, then withdraw. Do not touch the handle.” The Bolg soldier nodded and jogged up the corridor.
“Is Omet still alive?” Achmed asked Grunthor, closing the door again.
The Bolg Sergeant nodded. “She poisoned ’im and left him for dead, but Rhur and Shaene found ’im and took ’im to the tower.”
The Bolg king’s eyes, mismatched in color and position in his pocked face, darkened at the significance of the Sergeant’s words.
“Is that why they pulled the tower dome cover off? They were trying to use the Lightcatcher? To heal Omet?”
Grunthor nodded, his expression guarded.
Achmed’s movements slowed and he ran a gloved hand over his mouth, pondering.
“And you say Omet is alive?”
“Yeah.”
The Bolg king’s head snapped up sharply. “How alive? Is he debilitated, or hovering near death?”
Grunthor exhaled, his jaw set so rigidly in disapproval that the tusks showed over his bulbous lips.
“Good as new,” he said finally. “As if it ’ad never happened.”
Achmed stood motionless, pondering, even the tides of his breath invisible in the intensity of his concentration. Grunthor could see the realization spreading, first over his face, then through his body, like a stain. “It worked,” the king said finally. “The Lightcatcher worked—or at least the healing aspect of it, the red section.”
“One might believe that the orange section worked as well,” muttered the giant Bolg. “Started the fire that blew the damned thing up.”
A clank of metal sounded in the hallway, followed by the noise of footsteps hurrying away.
“It worked,” Achmed repeated. “You fail to see the significance now, Grunthor, but I can assure you, if we can rebuild it, make it function completely, we are setting in place a defense for both Ylorc and the Child that is unparalleled.” He strode to the door, disregarding the Sergeant’s rolling eyes, and carefully opened it. He retrieved the metal calipers lying on the stone floor, then closed the door again.
“Before anything else, I want to see the Earthchild,” he said.
As they traveled the rough-hewn tunnel that led from the chest at the foot of Achmed’s bed to the chamber in which the Earthchild slept, Achmed could still smell a hint of the smoke of the battle fought to save her four years ago. To any other nose it would have been indiscernible, but along with his skin-web of nerve endings and surface veins, Achmed’s sinus cavities and throat were exceptionally sensitive. This strange anatomical system, bequeathed to him by his Dhracian mother and
his unknown Bolg father, was both blessing and bane; it gave him early warning of hazards others might miss, and a memory of things others had long forgotten.
Even Grunthor. He cast a glance at the Sergeant-Major as they descended, noting the blank expression on his friend’s face in the cold light of their lantern formed from glowing crystals that had been found in the depths of the mountains. Grunthor was in a state of watchful autonomy, listening to the song of the Earth that only he could hear. Whatever the Earth was singing had him guarded, concentrating, but he was not feeling the same dread that Achmed felt every time he came down to this place.
Each time he descended into the fractured remains of the Loritorium, the sepulcher deep within the mountains where the Earthchild slept, the Bolg king was assailed with frightening memories of the battle they had fought near there. The F’dor had corrupted a root of one of the World Trees, using it to slither through the Earth’s crust, past the guard towers and bulwarks he and Grunthor had painstakingly assembled, into the very heart of the mountain range to the hidden chamber in which she had slumbered for centuries.
They had had no warning at all, except for the nightmares of the Child.
And the Child could not speak, could not tell them what was coming.
Achmed quickened his pace as they neared the opening to the chamber. He ran to the rough-hewn entranceway and climbed quickly over the barricade of rock and loose stone that was the last bulwark before the broken Loritorium. He held his breath as he crested the gravelly hill.
In the distance he could see her there, still slumbering. Achmed exhaled slowly, then nodded to Grunthor, who followed him down the slippery rockpile and over to the altar of Living Stone on which she slept. They peered down at the Earthchild, their eyes searching for any change, any discrepancy since the last time they had seen her.
An icy chill descended on them both at the same time.
“She’s withering,” Grunthor whispered.
Achmed nodded. He pulled out the glass calipers and carefully measured the body that at one time had been taller than his own. She had lost some of her smoothly polished flesh, once alive with the colors of the earth, green and brown, vermilion and purple, twisting bands of color that now seemed to have faded somewhat beneath her silver-gray translucent skin. How much was lost he was uncertain, but at least now he had a point of reference.