“According to Jo, it might be an improvement if I did,” Achmed said wryly.
“Oi wouldn’t worry about that, sir. Those pigs you’ve been fornicatin’ don’t seem to mind.”
Achmed chuckled. “By the way, you did release her, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
“Good. Well, I think I’ve seen enough until Rhapsody gets here. Do you still want to search out whatever it was that gave you the vision?”
Grunthor regarded him seriously. “That’s really more your call than mine, sir. I told you what I ’eard.”
Achmed nodded. “Well, if I died and don’t know it yet, I’d like to find out what happened. Where do we begin?”
Grunthor pointed toward the south. “That way.”
The two Bolg gathered their gear and went to the south-eastern wall of the Loritorium. Grunthor took a last look at the beautiful altar of Living Stone; walking away from it would be immensely painful. He swallowed, took a deep breath, then leaned into the stone wall as he had before, opening a tunnel before him as he faded away into the earth. Achmed waited until the initial rubble had fallen, then followed him.
They were too far away to notice the glimmering silver shapes, manlike bodies that rose from the pools in the Loritorium’s silent streets like mist, hanging in the air for a moment, then disappearing again.
9
The air in the underground caverns was warmer than the air of the world above. The change in heat was the first thing Achmed noticed when Grunthor broke through to the hidden complex of tunnels that lay deeper in the earth to the south of the Loritorium. It was a warmer, staler air with an age-old hint of lingering smoke, heavy and dry with no scent of must or mold, absent of any humidity, humming with static.
The second thing he noticed was the ancient woman standing in the tunnel before them.
Grunthor stopped in his tracks, jerking backwards in surprise. Until this moment the Earth had been singing to him, had drawn his attention to each crack, each unstable area, cautioning him of danger, alerting him to formations that were rare or unique. There had been no warning that another living creature was waiting for them on the other side of the rock wall.
And yet, there she stood, taller than Achmed, slighter than Grunthor, wrapped in a robe of brown cloth, her head covered, nothing showing but her face and thin, long-fingered hands. That glimpse was enough to tell Achmed what he needed to know.
The skin of her face and hands was translucent, wrinkled with age and scored with a network of fine blue veins, like iridescent marble. Though impossible to discern completely due to the hood of the robe, the woman’s head appeared to taper from a great width at the top of the skull down to a slender jawline, with large, black eyes making up most of her face. Those eyes were heavily lidded and without apparent scleras; no white at all could be seen, rather they resembled two wide ovals of darkness, broken only by a large, silvery pupil. They glittered with unspoken interest and a keen intelligence.
Despite her obvious age, the woman’s body was unbowed, tall and straight as the trunk of a heveralt tree. The wide shoulders, long thighs and shins, and gangly arms ending in strong, sinewy hands were unmistakable hallmarks, despite this being only the second time Achmed had ever seen one of her race. The woman’s eyes twinkled in the light of their torch, though her thin mouth remained set in the same nonchalant expression as had been there the moment the ground crumbled before her and the two of them stepped into her realm.
She was Dhracian. Full-blooded.
Achmed’s sensitive skin tingled again in the dry static of the air. Instantly he realized that he was wrapped in the woman’s Seeking vibration, the electric hum that Dhracians emitted through the cavities in their throats and sinuses. It was a tool their race used to discern the heartbeats and other life rhythms of whomever they sought to find or assess. He had used it himself, mostly when hunting his prey in the old world.
The woman seemed amused, though her expression remained unaltered. She also seemed satisfied; she folded her hands patiently before her and waited. When neither Grunthor nor Achmed moved, she spoke.
“I am the Grandmother. You are late in coming. Where is the other one?”
Both Firbolg involuntarily shook their heads as the vibration of her voice scratched their eardrums. The woman was speaking in two different voices, each coming from one of her four throats, neither of which contained actual words in any language either of them knew. Despite that, both of them understood exactly what she was saying.
The address that Achmed heard was a fricative buzz that formed a bell-clear image in his mind of the meaning of her words. In the manner she addressed him, “Grandmother” meant matriarch. He was not certain how he knew it, but there was no doubt of it.
Grunthor, on the other hand, had been greeted in a voice that was deeper, a more ringing tone that mimicked the speech pattern of the Bolg. The explicit image the Grandmother conjured in his mind was that of a maternal caregiver a generation removed from a child. The men looked at each other, then back at the Dhracian woman. There was no mistaking that the other person she referred to was Rhapsody.
“She’s not here,” Achmed answered, his own words feeling odd in his mouth. The elderly woman’s eyes twinkled again, and his face flushed with embarrassment. He swallowed his anger at the stupidity of his answer. “Obviously she’s not here. She’s traveling overland. She will be home soon, with any luck.”
“All three of you must come one day soon,” the Grandmother responded, again in her separate, clicking tones. “It is necessary. It was foretold. Come.”
The elderly Dhracian woman turned smoothly in the rocky tunnel, and walked quickly away. Grunthor and Achmed looked at each other, then hastened to follow her.
Jo muttered to herself all the way from the cavern entrance to the Blasted Heath above the gates to the Cauldron.
Her life as an orphan on the streets of Navarne’s capital had given Jo a number of skills, including the abilities to remain motionless for a long time while hiding in an alley shadow, to react with speed and agility in dangerous situations, and to belch and break wind silently.
It had also given her a vast and colorful vocabulary of curse words, improved upon immensely by her exposure to Grunthor and Rhapsody who, despite her mother-hen attitude, could make the Bolg blush with the vulgarity of the oaths she uttered when inspired—Rhapsody had spent her own time on the streets. Jo repeated many of those oaths now in the course of her grumbling.
It was fortunate that she had saved some of the choicest ones for last. As she rounded a corner of the mountain pass that led down to the Heath something grazed her head, catching her off-balance.
Jo ducked, miscalculated the muddy terrain, stumbled, and slid forward on her stomach, planting her face squarely into the excrement that had been hurled at her head. She lay, prone, trying to recapture the wind that had been knocked out of her. When she did, that wind had a repulsive stench that reached down into her blood and brought it to a boil.
As the initial shock began to abate, she could hear the tittering laughter of the Bolg children hiding behind the rocks. The Bolg as a race were not given to easy laughter, and the sound of it, harsh and shrill, was irritating to Jo’s ears under normal circumstances. Since something even more foul was now irritating her eyes and nose, she was even less inclined to appreciate it.
Jo raised herself out of the mud and swiveled to one side. A plethora of small dark faces, hairy and grinning repulsively, had sprouted from behind the rock slabs ringing the Heath. She recognized a number of Rhapsody’s adopted grandbrats among them.
A flood of red darkened Jo’s vision as fury roared through her. She let loose a howl of rage that reverberated up the rockwalls. The grins disappeared, followed a moment later by the heads.
“You misbegotten little bastards! Get back here! I’ll use your heads for target practice! I’ll strain your clotted blood through my teeth! I’ll flay you alive and salt you like hams!” She scrambled to a stand, sli
ding in the mud that caked her clothes and hair, then took off at breakneck speed after the scurrying children.
As she crested the rise of the rocks where they had been hiding she could see them disappearing in all directions, the older ones swifter and all but out of sight.
“I’ll suck your lungs out through your nostrils!” Jo panted, struggling to keep the slower ones in view. “Peel—your eyes—like plums and swallow them!” She drew her bronze-backed dirk, the thin, deadly dagger Grunthor had given her on the day he and the others had freed her from the House of Remembrance; it caught the sun, and the attention of the Firbolg children. The expressions on their faces dissolved from impish glee to panic.
Jo let loose a war cry and doubled her speed. She was bearing down on two of the slower ones now. One stopped and spun about, looking frightened, then leapt over a rockledge to escape. His scream trailed away as he fell, then was cut abruptly short.
Jo froze in horror.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “No.” She took a few slow, numb steps, then ran to the rockledge and peered over.
The Firbolg child was lying in a crumpled heap on a ledge that jutted from the cliff side quite a distance below. Even from above Jo recognized him as Vling, Rhapsody’s third youngest Firbolg grandchild. Her face tingled, then grew hot as nausea and remorse swept through her.
“Gods,” she choked. “Vling? Can you hear me?”
From down the cliff a muffled whimper rose.
Jo sheathed her dagger. She glanced around for a handhold, and found a long, dead root sprouting from the rocks of the cliff face. She tugged on it to test its strength, then quickly lowered herself down the embankment to where the broken child lay.
“Vling?”
There was no answer.
Jo was growing sick. “Vling!” she shouted, rocks crumbling beneath her as she slid down the cliff face to the ledge.
The child looked up as she bent beside him, an expression of undisguised terror on his dirty face, and tried to crawl away.
“Hold still,” Jo said as gently as she could. “I’m sorry I frightened you.” The child, who didn’t speak Orlandan as she did, shook his head violently and tried to inch away again, then collapsed against the ground with a moan.
Struggling to force back her dislike, Jo reached out and cautiously patted the child’s head. His eyes widened in shock, then narrowed suspiciously.
“All right, all right, you have every reason to doubt my intentions,” Jo muttered darkly. “I’ll admit I’ve considered tossing you into the cavern on several occasions, but I didn’t, now, did I? It’s my fault you fell, and I’m sorry, and I’m here to help you.” The glint in his eye did not recede. “Look, Vling, Rhapsody is going to kill me if I break one of her grandbrats.”
The child’s face melted. “Rhapz-dee?”
Jo exhaled loudly. “She’s not here.”
“Rhapz-dee?”
“I said Grandma’s not here, but she wouldn’t want you to stay out here, injured, and become food for the hawks.”
Vling sat up slightly. “Rhapz-dee?” he repeated hopefully.
“Yeah, that’s right, Rhapsody,” Jo said. “Come with me, and I’ll take you to her.” She put out her hand to the child, who recoiled slightly, then allowed her to help him stand. His arm was hanging at an odd angle, she noted. The sight of it made her feel dizzy, and her stomach surged into her mouth.
A look of pain shot across Vling’s face as he stood, replaced a moment later by the stoic, slightly sullen countenance of the Bolg race. Jo knew immediately what was crossing his mind. A show of weakness was a disgrace among the Bolg, who were still trying to absorb the concept that the injured could be healed. For millennia uncounted it had been common practice to leave the injured to die, no matter how valuable they might be, as a matter of honor. Lesser forms of the attitude still persisted in the Teeth, despite the changes instituted by Achmed at Rhapsody’s insistence. The Bolg child was going to lose face with his peers if she carried him in, or even if he was perceived to have been helped.
Jo grasped the vine again and hauled herself and the child back over the ledge, then sat down behind a large rock to think. Vling seemed to be holding on to consciousness, but she could tell he was in tremendous pain.
A thought finally occurred. Jo reached into her pack and pulled out a length of rope. She gave one end to the puzzled child, then tied the other end loosely around her own wrists.
“All right,” she said in her best approximation of Bolgish, through clenched teeth. “Let’s go. Take me to Grunthor’s barracks.”
The child blinked, then understanding spread across his face. He looked up at her and smiled wanly, then gave the rope a playful tug. He led her back to the Cauldron, swaggering importantly, clutching his arm and grinning as she howled mock threats the entire way, knowing what prestige he would be accorded when the other Bolg children saw what he had captured.
10
Her dreamless sleep in the arms of the dragon was the best in Rhapsody’s memory. She slumbered for hours, uninterrupted by nightmares or the need to sit watch, and awoke refreshed and happy.
The face of the dragon sleeping next to her made her heart skip a few beats upon wakening, but her gaze was immediately drawn to her own chest. A small blanket of shining copper scales was draped across her midsection, glimmering in the half-light of the cave. She picked it up carefully. It was a mail shirt, light as air and made of thousands of intricately connected dragon scales. It gleamed in her hands.
“It is yours, Pretty,” said Elynsynos, her eyes still closed. “I made it for you last night, while you slept. Try it on.”
Rhapsody stood and untied her cloak, laying it on the ground. She slid the shimmering armor over her head and pulled it down like a vest. It fit perfectly. She had heard legends of the detail of dragon sense; now she could see the reputation was warranted. Her hair caught the light reflected by the scales and sparkled with a red-gold sheen.
“Thank you,” she said, touched by the thoughtfulness, and something more. If she had feared that the dragon would not let her go when she first agreed to stay, she no longer did. The gift of armor proved that Elynsynos expected her to go back into the world again. She leaned over and kissed the enormous cheek. “It’s beautiful. I will think of you whenever I’m wearing it.”
“Wear it often, then,” said Elynsynos, opening her eyes. “It will help keep you safe, Pretty.”
“I will. You asked me a question I was too tired to answer last night; what was it?”
“Why you went to the House of Remembrance.”
“Oh, yes.” Rhapsody stretched her arms above her head, enjoying the whisper of the dragonscale armor, then sat back down on the overturned rowboat. “We went to the House of Remembrance at Lord Stephen’s suggestion, because it was the oldest standing structure that the Cymrians built. We found a number of children being held hostage, and equipment to drain them of their blood. Tangled a bit with the forces of a man who wielded dark fire as a weapon against us.” Her face went sallow in the demi-light of the dragon’s cave. “It was the first time I ever killed anyone.”
Elynsynos snorted and cuffed Rhapsody playfully with her tail, knocking her off the rowboat and onto her rump on the golden sand.
“And you call yourself a Singer?” she said humorously. “That was the worst telling of a tale I have heard in seven centuries. Try again, and take your time. Details, Pretty, details. Without them a story is not worth hearing.”
Rhapsody brushed the sand from her clothes and climbed shakily back onto the rowboat. When she had caught her breath she told Elynsynos the story, in excruciating detail, from Llauron’s suggestion that they go to learn more about the Cymrians at Haguefort, to the aftermath of returning the stolen children of Navarne and adopting Jo. It took a long time to relate, because even with the level of detail she provided in the retelling, Elynsynos still interrupted her for clarification of the smallest of points. After it was finally over, the dragon seemed satisfie
d. At last she stretched herself and raised up to her full height.
“What did the man who attacked you at the House look like?”
“Truthfully, I don’t know,” Rhapsody said. She was staring at the plate of hard rolls and raspberries that had appeared when the dragon sat up. “I didn’t really see anything but a flash of him running by, nor did Grunthor. The only one who engaged him was Achmed, and even he didn’t get a good look at his face. He wore a shielded helmet.”
“Eat.”
“Thank you.” Rhapsody picked up a roll and broke it in two. “Are you having some?”
“No. I ate three weeks ago.”
“And you’re not hungry yet?”
“Six stags take a long time to digest.”
“Oh.” Rhapsody began to eat.
“It must have been the Rakshas that you met.”
She looked up at the dragon’s face; Elynsynos was watching her inquisitively. “Can you tell me about the Rakshas?” The dragon nodded slightly. “Who is he?”
“The Rakshas is an it, really. It is the plaything of the F’dor.”
A chill went up Rhapsody’s back. “The demon you told me of last night? The one Anwyn gave power to?”
“Yes. The F’dor created the Rakshas in the House of Remembrance twenty years ago. A shame, really; it was such a beautiful memorial to the brave Cymrians, in those days before Anwyn’s war. And then he poisoned it, took it over. The sapling of Sagia was the first thing to suffer desecration. It was a branch-child of the great Oak of Deep Roots, the holy tree of the Lirin of Serendair that the Cymrians brought with them from the old land and planted in the House’s courtyard. I could feel the tree screaming, even this far away.”
“I tended to it while I was there,” Rhapsody said, wiping the crumbs from her lips with her pocket handkerchief. “I left my harp playing in it, renewing the song of its healing. It should have bloomed this spring, but I wasn’t there to see it.”
“It did.” The dragon chuckled. “Along with the leaves, there were white blossoms, like starflowers. A nice touch, Pretty.”