Rhapsody turned around slowly, staring at the ground. She could feel the glimmering scales reflecting the light from her torch; it undulated in wavelike patterns over her linen shirt, turning the white fabric into a translucent rainbow. The warmth of the voice had captured her heart, even though her brain continued to function for the moment, telling her to be wary of the gigantic serpent. The trickery of dragons was well known, and Ashe’s warning was still ringing in her ears.
Rhapsody, don’t look into her eyes.
“Her hoard was the Cymrian people,” said Elynsynos. “They were magic; they had crossed the Earth and made time to stop for themselves by doing so. In them all the elements found a manifestation, even if they did not know how to use it. There were some of races that had never been seen in these parts, Gwadd and Liringlas and Gwenen and Nain, Ancient Seren and Dhracians and Mythlin, a human garden full of many different and beautiful kinds of flowers. They were special, Pretty, a unique people that deserved to be cherished and kept safe. And she turned against them and destroyed many of them, so that Gwylliam could not have them. Ashamed I am.”
Rhapsody felt mist on her face; she looked down and found she was standing in glimmering liquid. She raised her eyes without thinking and found herself staring, entranced, at the great beast. Elynsynos was weeping.
Rhapsody felt her heart break; at that moment she would have gladly given everything she had to comfort the dragon, to ease her pain and wash away her sadness. In the back of her mind she wondered if her deep feelings for the wyrm were a result of enchantment or if, as her heart told her, she just loved her because she was so rare and beautiful. She stepped toward Elynsynos and touched her massive claw tenderly.
“Don’t cry, Elynsynos.”
The dragon angled her massive head downward and regarded her intensely, a blinding glint shining in her eyes. “Then you will stay for a little while?”
“Yes. I will stay.”
6
Grunthor lumbered to a halt for the fourth time that afternoon, too ungainly to stop quickly as Achmed did, and sighed aloud.
“Is she still there, sir?”
“Yes.” The tone of irritation in Achmed’s voice had grown darker with each pause. The Firbolg king turned around in the tunnel and shouted back behind them.
“Damn you, Jo, go home or I’ll tie you to a stalagmite and leave you until we return.”
The air next to his head whistled, and a small, bronze-backed dirk imbedded itself into the cave wall next to his ear.
“You’re a fornicating pig,” Jo’s voice answered with an echoing snarl. “You can’t leave me alone with those little brats. I’m coming with you, you bastard, whether you like it or not.”
Achmed hid a smile and strode back up the tunnel, then reached behind an outcropping of rocks and dragged the teenager out of her hiding place.
“A word of advice about fornicating pigs,” he said almost pleasantly. “They bite. Don’t get in their way, or they’ll take a piece out of you.”
“Yeah, well, you’d know all about fornicating pigs, Achmed. I’m sure you do it all the time. Gods know nobody else would ever knob you, unless they were blind.”
“Go ’ome, lit’le miss,” said Grunthor severely. “You don’t want to see me lose my temper.”
“Come on, Grunthor,” Jo whined, making an attempt at wide-eyed, innocent pleading and failing utterly. “I hate those little bastards. I want to go with you. Please.”
“Now, is that any way to talk about your grand-nieces and nephews?” asked Achmed disingenuously. “Your sister would be very distressed to hear you referring to her grandbrats that way.”
“They’re little beasts. They try to trip me when we’re out on the crags,” Jo said. “Next time I might just accidentally boot one or two of them into the canyon by mistake. Please don’t leave me alone with them. I want to go wherever you’re going.”
“No. Now are you going to go back on your own, or will you need to be escorted?”
Jo crossed her arms, her face fixed in a furious expression. Achmed sighed.
“Look, Jo, here’s my final offer. If it turns out that we find what we’re looking for, and the danger is manageable, we’ll bring you back with us the next time. But if you follow us again, I’m going to bind you hand and foot and throw you into the nursery, and Rhapsody’s grandbrats can use you as a ball, or play Badger-in-the-Bag with you. Do you understand?” Jo nodded sullenly. “Good. Now get back to the Cauldron and stop following us.” Grunthor pulled the knife he had given her from the wall and held it out. Jo snatched it from his hand and stuck it back in her boot.
The two Bolg watched as the teenager whirled angrily and stalked back up the ascending tunnel. After a few moments of hearing nothing they returned to their descent, only to stop once more.
Achmed spun about in annoyance. The light from the world above was no longer within sight; they were deep within the tunnel now, too deep to go back without wasting the entire day. It had taken a number of weeks to put aside time when both he and Grunthor could go exploring, searching out the Loritorium, the hidden vault he had shown the maps of to Rhapsody. Unfortunately, the teenaged brat she had adopted as her sister had gotten wind of the expedition, and refused to heed his commands that she stay behind, both before they left the Cauldron, and all along the way. It was evident she still was not complying with his directive.
He could sense her, though her heartbeat was not audible to him as Grunthor’s and Rhapsody’s were, along with the few thousand others he sometimes heard drumming in the distance. The ability to discern those rhythms was the fragmented remains of his blood-gift from the old world; the only hearts he could hear were ones that had been born there.
Sensing Jo was different. This was his mountain, he was the king, and as a result he knew she was here again, defying his instructions, following behind them just out of sight. He turned to the giant Sergeant-Major.
“Grunthor, do you remember how you once told me you thought you could feel the movement of the earth?”
Grunthor scratched his head and grinned. “Goodness, sir, Oi don’t ever recall getting that personal with you. In fact, the only sweet talkin’ Oi ever remember doing was with ol’ Brenda at Madame Parri’s Pleasure Palace all those years ago.”
Achmed chuckled and pointed at the ground beneath their feet. “Fire responds to Rhapsody, and the more she experiments with it, the more she is able to control it at will. Perhaps since you have a similar bond with earth, the same might be true for you.” He looked up the tunnel again. “And perhaps your first experiment in manipulating the earth might take a form that would grant us a respite from the recurring nightmare that won’t stop following us.”
Grunthor considered for a moment, then closed his eyes. All around him he could feel the heartbeat of the Earth, a subtle thrum whispering in the air he breathed, pulsing in the ground below his feet, bristling across his hidelike skin. It was a vibration that had hummed in his bones and blood since they had traveled through the Earth along the Root that connected the two great trees. It spoke to him now, giving him an insight into the layers of rock around him.
In his mind’s eye he could see the paths of the different strata as the Earth sang to him of the birth of this place, a lament recalling the horrific pressure that forced the great sheets of rock upwards, screaming in the pain of its delivery, erupting into the craggy peaks that now formed the Teeth. Through his bond to the Earth his soul whispered wordless consolation in return, gentling down the age-old memory.
He could see each pocket of frailty within the ground, each place where an obsidian river scored the basalt and shale, each crack where the Nain, other earthlovers tied to the lore as he was, had carefully sculpted out the endless passageways of Canrif, the tunnels like the one in which they now stood. He could sense Jo’s feet resting on the crust a stone’s throw away, and willed the earth to soften there for a moment, to swallow her ankles and solidify again.
Her scream of shock broke his reverie, and Gr
unthor opened his eyes to a stabbing pain pulsing behind them. A string of vile curses punctuated with screeches of fury reverberated around them, unsettling some of the loose rock and raising a minor storm of dust. Achmed chuckled.
“That ought to hold her, at least until we can make it to the entrance tunnel to the annex. Then you can release her. I doubt even Jo would want to risk having the ground grab her feet again.” His eyes narrowed as he noticed the paling of Grunthor’s skin in the half-light of the torch he was carrying, the beads of sweat on his friend’s massive brow. “Are you all right?”
Grunthor wiped his forehead with a neat linen handkerchief. “Not sure Oi like the way that felt,” he said. “Never ’urt before when I was just generally aware o’ things in the ground, or makin’ myself look like the rock.”
“It’s bound to be somewhat painful the first time,” said Achmed. “As you become more experienced, more proficient at using your gift, I think you will find the pain subsides.”
“Oi bet ya say that to all the girls,” Grunthor retorted, folding his handkerchief and storing it away again. “Come to think of it, Oi think them’s the exact words I used on ol’ Brenda. Well, shall we be off, then?”
Achmed nodded and the two men walked off into the depths of the Earth, leaving Jo up to her ankles in solid rock, howling with rage behind them.
The deeper Achmed traveled into the lands he now ruled, the more the silence enveloped him. The ancient corridors, half-formed and crumbling, required frequent stopping and intervention from Grunthor, who cleared away the rubble and tore through the stone as if it were aqueous, almost liquid, much as he had once dug them out of the skin of the Earth at the end of their journey along the Root. The clamor of the falling debris was momentary, and each new threshold they crossed revealed an even deeper stillness, heavy air that had been undisturbed for centuries.
It had taken Achmed less than a day to determine where the Loritorium had been built, informed by his ferocious study of the manuscripts in Gwylliam’s vault, his own innate sense of the mountain and his path lore. Finding it had merely been a matter of a quiet moment’s meditation on his throne in the Great Hall, contemplating where he would have built the secret annex if he had been Gwylliam. And then, behind his closed eyes, his mind raced off, speeding along the twists and turns of the meticulously mined tunnels of the inner mountain. It followed the corridors out of the interior city of Canrif and roamed over the wide Heath, past Kraldurge, the Realm of Ghosts, the guardian rocks that formed the hidden barrier above Elysian, Rhapsody’s hidden lands.
He had found the entrance to the ancient ruin deep be low the villages that had once been settled by the Cymrians, past a second canyon, and guarded by an ominous drop of several thousand feet onto jagged and rocky steppes below. Its entry passage was cleverly disguised as part of the mountain face, a man-made fissure that resembled little more than a mountain-goat trail, and now was traveled only by animals, if at all.
Once he and Grunthor were inside the tunnel he knew they were headed in the right direction, and it had infuriated him that Jo had breached the security of the Loritorium by following them in. Most likely the teenager was only being an annoyance, but Achmed trusted no one, and it was just one more thing that convinced him of Rhapsody’s folly in adopting the street wench in the first place. Mark my words, he had told her through gritted teeth, we will regret this. As with all things she didn’t want to believe, Rhapsody had ignored those words.
Now, as Grunthor ripped through the detritus clogging the tunnel before them, Achmed could feel the silence grow even deeper. The sensation was akin to the one he had experienced upon finding a Cymrian wine cellar filled with barrels and glass bottles of ancient cider deep within the desolate ruin that had once been the capital city of Canrif. Much of the liquid had dissipated centuries before, leaving a thick, oozing gel that had at one time been potable but now was almost solid, with a concentrated sweetness. The silence within the newly revealed section of tunnel was almost as palpable.
Grunthor, meanwhile, was not hearing a deafening silence, but a deepening song. With each new revelation, each new break in the strata, the earth music was growing purer, more vibrant, hanging heavy with old magic that carried with it a sense of dread. His fingers tingled, even through his goat-hide gloves, as he moved rocks and boulders to the sides of the tunnels. Finally, he stopped and leaned against the rockwall before him, resting his head on his forearm. He breathed deeply, absorbing the music that now surrounded him, filling his ears, drowning out all other sound.
“You all right, Sergeant?”
Grunthor nodded, unable to speak. He ran his hand over the wall again, finally looking up.
“They blew the tunnel when they left, before they were overrun,” he said. “Didn’t crumble on its own. Brought down the ’hole mountain. Why ’ere, sir? Why not the ramparts, or the feeder tunnels to the Great Hall? They could’ve held the Bolg off a lot longer, probably cut ’em off in the Heath canyon and crushed the external attack, at least. Seems odd.”
Achmed handed him a waterskin, and the giant drank deeply. “There must have been something in there that Gwylliam was willing to sacrifice the mountain in order to keep from falling into the hands of the Bolg, or perhaps someone he feared would wrest it from the Bolg. You still game? We can go back, rest up a bit.”
Grunthor wiped the sweat from his brow and shook his head. “Naw. Dug this far; don’t make no sense givin’ up ’ere. There’s quite a bit more rock, though; Oi guess as much as we already dug through.” He rose and brushed off his greatcloak, then ran his hands over the rock again.
As he concentrated the makeup of the stone again became clear to him. In his mind’s eye he could see each fissure, each pocket of ancient air trapped within the solidified rubble. He closed his eyes, keeping the image in his mind, then passed his hand through the stone as if it were the air, and felt it give way to him. He held both arms out to his sides, pushed a little farther and felt the solid wall of rock liquefy, then slide away from him like cool molten glass, smooth and slippery.
Achmed watched in amazement as his giant friend’s skin grew pale, then ashen, then stone-gray in the waning light of the torch as he blended into the earth around him. A moment later he could no longer see Grunthor, only a moving shadow as the massive mound of granite and shalestone plowed before his eyes into the mountain wall, opening an eight-foot-high tunnel ahead of him. He held the torch inside the hole. The rock at the edges of the new opening glowed red-gold, almost the color of lava for a moment, then cooled immediately into a smooth-hewn tunnel wall. Achmed smiled and stepped into the opening, following the Sergeant’s shadow.
“Always knew you were a quick study, Grunthor,” he said. “Perhaps it’s a good thing Rhapsody’s not here; this is a lot like being on the Root again. You know how much she enjoyed being underground.”
“Lirin,” Grunthor muttered, the word echoing up the length of the tunnel like the growl of a subterranean wolf. “Throw a couple ’undred feet of solid rock on top of ’em, and they get all nervy on ya. Pantywaists.”
The farther he burrowed within the Earth, the faster Grunthor moved. Achmed could no longer keep up with him, could no longer even make out his shadow in the inconstant light. It was as if the rocky flesh of the mountain was nothing more than air around the giant, where before it had been as if he was walking waist-deep in the sea.
Suddenly Achmed felt the force of a great rush of air from the belly of the mountain billow over him, a rolling gust both stale and sweet, heavy with magic. His sensitive skin stung with the power of it, thick and undisturbed by time and the wind of the world above. Grunthor must have broken through to the Loritorium.
He lit a new torch from the remnant of the one he had been carrying and tossed the dead one aside. The fire at the torch’s head roared with life, leaping to the top of the tunnel as if shouting aloud in celebration.
“Grunthor?” he called. No sound answered him.
Achmed broke int
o a run. He hurried down the remaining length of the tunnel and through the dark maw at its end, an opening into a place even darker than the tunnel had been, then stopped where he stood.
Above him, higher than even the roaring flames of the torch could fully illuminate, stretched a carved vaulted ceiling, smoothly polished and engraved with intricate designs, fashioned from the most exquisite marble Achmed had ever seen. Each massive slab of the pale stone had been shaped to a precise dimension and fitted perfectly into the vast cavern in which he now stood. The walls of the cavern were of marble as well, though some of them were still unfinished, with large scaffolds, stone blocks, and tools lying abandoned at the edges of the enormous underground cave.
Achmed turned to the tall bank of rock that had plowed out into the cavern in front of Grunthor as he had tunneled into this place. He swung the torch around, looking for the Firbolg sergeant, but saw nothing save for great mounds of stone and earth heaped on the smooth cave floor, with marble fragments scattered around the base of them. “Grunthor!” he shouted again, shadows flashing over the newly made moraine and the ancient walls in the dark. His voice echoed for a moment, then was swallowed by silence.
A low pile of rubble at his feet stretched and shrugged. Moments later it took on a more distinct outline and shape. What appeared to be a large stone sculpture of a giant man flexed and began to breathe, each moment becoming a little more distinguishable from the rock.
As Achmed watched, color began to return to Grunthor’s face. The Sergeant-Major was sitting on the ground, propped against the great pile of stone rubbish left from his burrowing, breathing shallowly as he returned to himself, separating himself from the earth as once he had at the end of their journey along the Root.
“Blimey,” he whispered as Achmed knelt beside him. He shook his head at the waterskin the king offered him, crossing his arms over his knees and lowering his head onto them.
Achmed stood and looked around again. The Loritorium was approximately the size of the town square in what had once been the capital city of Canrif, a city built within the crags and base of the guardian mountains at the western rim of the Teeth. When they had first come to Ylorc he had found the dead city in a desolate state of ruin. Now the Bolg were working feverishly to restore it to the magnificence it once had in the Cymrian heyday. Even in its decay, the genius of its design and the craftsmanship of its construction had been readily apparent.