“I know.”
“But if the Lord Roland invites me to his wedding, you can escort me there,” she said, still laughing. “Our garments already match.” She held up the edge of her cloak.
A sudden cold breeze cut through the glade where they were standing, blowing the loose strands of Rhapsody’s hair across her face and accentuating the thudding silence. She patted Ashe on the arm. “Well, goodbye,” she said. “I’d give you a kiss on the cheek, but of course, I don’t know where it is.”
Ashe rested a gloved finger on her lips, as if to silence her. “If you’ll allow me to guide you one last time, I’ll lead your lips to where they should be.”
Rhapsody grinned, closed her eyes and tilted her chin. His hand gently realigned the angle of her face, and then, when his finger returned to her lips, she followed it upward and inside the wide hood. His hand moved away, and instead of the hardscrabble wire of his beard, her lips met the warmth of his, and clung to them for a moment. She was not really surprised.
She gave him one more swift kiss, and then bent to retrieve her gear. “Well, goodbye,” she repeated as she stood to leave. “Travel safely, and please be careful.”
“You as well.”
Rhapsody’s face grew serious. “And Ashe?”
“Yes?”
“Please think about what I said. About the beard.”
From beneath the hood she thought she heard a chuckle.
Rhapsody pulled up her own hood, turned and walked away. When she had gone ten or so paces she turned around. “I hope I see you again one day.”
She could almost hear a smile in the voice that came from inside the misty cloak. “If I were a gambling man I would wager on it.”
Rhapsody gave him a studied look. “Yes, but we both know that you’re not a gambling man.”
She smiled at him once more, then turned and was gone.
Ashe watched her go for as long as he could. He could hear her voice for some time after that, singing the whispered song of the forest trees, whistling the wordless tune of the wind across the highgrass, humming with the vibration of the earth in this place where she hoped to find answers, and that he hoped she would one day rule. Becoming one with Tyrian; learning its song, its secrets.
She was half a league gone before he had breathed out the scent of her completely and could no longer physically recall the way the fragrance of her hair reminded him of morning. It was two leagues more before he ceased to feel the warmth of the fire radiating from her. The spicy-sweet taste of her mouth and the detached softness of her kiss would remain on his lips for many weeks afterward. He knew that the image of her as she said goodbye, and the way she had looked in the shadows of the firelight, would be with him all his life.
He had not touched her, except with gloved hand and the brush of a friendly kiss. His fingers still stung, and the painful sensation spread through the rest of his body, awakening him with a sickening severity to the reality of his solitude. The agony, almost dormant, resurged violently. The dragon resented the loss of her intrinsic magic; the man missed much more.
And with the return of his loneliness and pain came the memory of what was coming, and the part he would play in it. The realization that she, too, would know pain this horrific was more than his disfigured heart could stand.
Ashe dropped to his knees and curled up until his forehead struck the ground. Holding his head in his hands he wept, breathing in the acrid dust of the forest path, soaking the ground with dragon tears, leaving thereafter a patch of obsidian flecked with stains that sparkled gold in the flickering sunlight.
18
For a long time the only sound in the great heart of what had once been the Colony was the soft whir of the ancient clock’s pendulum as it swung slowly through the darkness. The elderly Dhracian drew her robe closer about herself and turned, silently surveying the empty ruin. When finally she spoke, her wordless voice echoed up the hollow cavern, then was swallowed by the thick, dank wind.
“On the day of the Colony’s destruction, this place was as alive as it is dead now.” Her eyes scanned the dark passageways, as if reliving the memory of them in use. “Death came in the night.” She closed her eyes. Achmed saw the translucent skin of her face stretch as the muscles contracted beneath it, armoring her face against the memory. The fragile veins that scored her skin grew darker with the increased flow of blood from her heart, and quickened pulse that Achmed could feel in his own skin.
“F’dor,” the Grandmother whispered, her eyes still closed. Achmed felt his blood begin to pound against his eardrums, thudding thickly in his head. Beside him he could hear Grunthor’s stout heartbeat quicken as well, the pressure of the blood passing within the sergeant’s veins increase. The ancient woman opened her eyes and stared directly into Achmed’s own.
“Even the word angers you,” she said. The Firbolg king nodded slightly. “Your blood sings with hatred, as does mine, because of an ancient promise made by our ancestors, the Kith. They were the sons of the wind, one of the first five races of this world.” As she spoke Achmed could feel ambient vibrations in the air of the ancient ruin begin to hum softly. The dank wind from the depths of the cave freshened a bit, as if participating in the story she was telling.
“In the days of the Before-Time four of those ancient races undertook to imprison the F’dor within the depths of the world,” the Grandmother continued. “Each race chose a task in the undertaking. The youngest of the races, those known as Wyrmril, dragons, built the vault in which the F’dor would be imprisoned for all time. Out of Living Stone they built it.” The black eyes glittered ominously. “Just as they had built the Children of the Earth.” Achmed glanced at Grunthor, but the giant Bolg said nothing. He was listening intently to the second of the Matriarch’s voices, speaking to him in a deeper vibration.
“The other two races, the Mythlin and Seren, set the trap and imprisoned the F’dor spirits within the cage of Living Stone, deep within the Earth. It was an organic vault, a living prison, because the stone from which it was fashioned was alive as well. Its dual nature gave it the power to contain spirits which could pass, as F’dor can, between this world and the spirit-realm of Underworld.
“The Kith chose the task of guarding the imprisoned F’dor, acting as jailers to them. They took on this task because they had the gift of kirai, the ability to read, or taste, or feel, or change the currents of the air to derive knowledge from it. Their sensitivity to vibration made them able to see the F’dor, to contain them, when they had no corporeal form. They could, with the vibrations they emit, spin a web of carefully constructed noise to hold the demon-spirits in a thrall should they ever escape the cage.
“Taking on the task was a great sacrifice, because it required the sons of the wind to live forever within the domain of the Earth, away from the sky and the spirits of the air. Those guardians, that sect of the race of Kith that would act as sentinels, the keepers of the F’dor, were what evolved into the elder race known as Dhracians.”
The Grandmother’s eyes narrowed; Achmed knew immediately by the change in the hum on the surface of his skin that she was assessing him with her Seeking vibration, trying to ascertain how much of the information was new to him. He dropped his own defensive kirai and allowed her to be aware that much of it was. He had known that the F’dor had been imprisoned by the other four races, but the means that had been used had been unknown to him until the Grandmother’s tale.
She stared at him a moment longer, then her face relaxed into the same nonchalant visage she generally maintained.
“All remained as it was planned until a star fell from the sky and hit the Earth. It ruptured the vault of Living Stone, the prison of the F’dor. Before the surviving guardian Dhracians could mend the vault, some of the demon-spirits escaped. That was the beginning of the Primal Hunt, the blood-quest that all Dhracians are part of, their fealty sworn before birth, lingering even after death. It is our reason for existence, to hunt down those F’dor that escaped an
d destroy them. You have known this, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Achmed answered steadily. There was a change in the Grandmother’s tone that made his skin itch.
“Those Dhracians that joined the Hunt, that left their watch at the vault within the Earth and came back up into the air again to search for the F’dor, banded together in colonies, living underground but venturing up into the wind to search. Great crusades were undertaken to find and extinguish the F’dor, to locate their human hosts, hold them in thrall, and destroy both the man and the spirit. You have known this as well?”
“Yes.”
“But you are not one of the Brethren. You are Dhisrik, one of the Uncounted, those Dhracians not tied to a Colony. You are also Untaught; you have never mastered the Thrall ritual.”
“I’ve seen it performed.” The bile was back in Achmed’s throat. He struggled to keep the memories that her words were calling forth in abeyance.
“You cannot remain Untaught,” the Grandmother said, her eyes still scanning the silent cavern above her. “I will train you in the Thrall. Without it you will be unable to fulfill what was foretold.”
Achmed cleared his throat, swallowing the acid that had collected there. “Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me as to what that was.”
The Grandmother looked down to the circle of words that enclosed the pendulum clock’s symbols. “You must be both hunter and guardian. It is foretold.”
“Bugger foretold,” Achmed growled. “What does it mean? How can I do both at once? I know what I am to hunt, more or less. What am I supposed to guard? The vault?”
The Grandmother shook her head, still examining the runes on the floor. “No, but it, like the vault, is of Living Stone.”
“The child.” The words came from Grunthor.
The Grandmother inclined her head. “Yes. All that you see here, and everything else that once was the Colony, was built in this place to protect her. F’dor seek her, and her kind, crave to find them above anything else on the Earth.”
“Why?” Achmed asked.
“Because the Children of the Earth were made of animated Living Stone, like the prison vault of the F’dor. Their bones, specifically those from the rib cage, could serve as a key to unlock the vault.”
The wind from the depths of the cavern gusted through; until it did, Achmed had not noticed how deep the silence had become. The taste of ashes was in his mouth. In distant memory he remembered being given such a key.
It was wrapped in the tendril of a vine that seemed made of glass itself, spiked with obsidian thorns. The vine had grown from the floor of the Spire, the unholy temple of the demon that had been his master in the old land.
Take it.
Achmed closed his eyes, trying to barricade his mind against the memory, but it was too strong, the horror too profound. He had plucked the key from the vine. The obsidian tendril shattered like the stem of a fragile wineglass in his hand.
He had held the key up before his half-Bolg eyes, the night eyes of a people who had risen up from the caves, and examined it closely. It appeared to be made from a dark bone, its shaft curving like a rib might. It had glimmered in the darkness.
You will take this key to the base of the failed land bridge to the northern islands, his master had said. The foundation of this bridge contains a gateway unlike any even you have ever passed through. The fabric of the Earth is worn thin there; you may experience some discomfort. If you have passed through correctly, you will find yourself in a vast desert. You will know the direction to go, and an old friend of mine will come to meet you. Once there, you will agree to the time and date when you shall serve as his guide through the gateway to this side. My only concern is that it be as soon as possible. Return to me, and I shall prepare you as his guide.
Achmed had done as the demon demanded. That experience was the singular reason he and Grunthor had sought to escape the Island. Neither of them had any compunction about death, they did not shrink in the presence of evil, but what he had encountered in the wasteland beyond the horizon defied any horrific description of which his mind might be capable. In the face of the destruction that would ensue, the devastation they knew would come over the world, they decided instead, for the first time in either of their lives to run, to abandon all they had, to risk an eternity of something worse than death. Anything else would have been unthinkable.
The demon’s last words to him rang in his ears now. Achmed could, all these centuries later, still recall the stench of human flesh in fire that clung to the demon’s breath.
I want this done quickly. It will make whatever trivial catalogue of death you think yourself responsible for a mere jot, an afterthought of inconsequence. I am the true master, and you will be my thrall until you follow me willingly, or are swept away in my victory.
He had used the key instead to open the trunk of Sagia, the Oak of Deep Roots, remembering the description of a different, beloved master. Father Halphasion had used the same words when telling him about the Tree that had been their means of escape.
Sagia is rooted in the Lirin woods at the far crescent of the Pool of the Heart’s Desire. The Lirin believe her roots stretch throughout the Earth, tying her to the trees that grow in each of the places where Time began. If ever you should walk there, my son, be reverent; it is a place of great holiness. You will sense the fragility of the universe in the vibrations that issue forth from that place, for the fabric of the Earth itself is worn thin there.
Once they had entered the Tree, and crawled along its root, and passed through the fire at the core of the Earth, the key had lost its glimmering power; it had been unable to open the other side. Now it rested, wrapped in a velvet pouch, inside a locked reliquary in the floor of his chamber in Ylorc, all but forgotten.
He shook his head to fend off the fuzz of the vibration on his skin; the Grandmother was observing him closely. A moment later she seemed satisfied; she sat smoothly down beside them, with a grace that belied her great age, and folded her hands to her lips.
“What’s wrong with ’er?” Grunthor demanded. “Why is she always asleep?”
For the first time, the old woman looked sad. “At the dawn of the Age of Man she was grievously injured in a bloody battle between the Zhereditck of a Colony in Marincaer, a province on the continent west of the wide central sea, and those polluted demon-hosts who sought to harvest her bones to free their imprisoned fellows from the vault. She is one of the last of her kind still living, perhaps even the last. There was no recourse; the stakes of the battle for her life could not have been higher, so it raged with the furor of the boiling seas. In the end the Brethren prevailed, and brought her here, irretrievably broken, to hide her for all time, deep within the impenetrable mountains.
“For centuries these mountains were impenetrable. The child remained here, healed from the greatest of her pain but unable to be revived, safe within the Colony that was built around her. While the Brethren lived mainly within the earth, in those days patrols still went Above, still gathered food and maintained a watch for enemies. No one came to disturb the vibrations of the wind within the peaks. Those were safe days, good days, it was said.
“Then one day the men came. The winds brought the news of them long before they were in sight. The Brethren knew they were not an invasion force by their number and the condition they were in; ragged, tattered men and women, old and young, with children in tow, many races melded in one long caravan fleeing north across the desert lands. They were struggling to survive and remain together, and it was clear that they sought refuge within the arms of the mountains as well.”
“The Cymrians,” Achmed said. “Gwylliam and the Third Fleet.” Grunthor cleared his throat in agreement.
“We never knew what they called themselves,” said the Grandmother. “Once their intentions were determined, the Brethren went into hiding, went in, retreated within the earth and concealed all trace of the Colony’s whereabouts. We are a people of silent passage, and the Colony was able to r
emain undetected even as the enormous population of men settled here and began burrowing within the earth themselves. They were builders of a great order; the mountains rang with the sound of their forges and the earth trembled as they formed it to fit their will.
“Through it all, the Colony seemed to remain undiscovered. There was never any contact between the Builders, as they were known to us, and the Brethren. Even when they opened a new passage just on the other side of the mountain wall, the place from which you entered the Colony, there was no sign that they knew we were here. The Zhereditck had built listening places within the perimeter of the Colony to maintain a surveillance, but there was never any indication that the men were aware that they shared the mountains with us.
“Before the Last Night, there seemed to be rumblings within their realm, but no one believed it, in any way, was directed at the Colony. The Listeners caught vibrations of strife which had become more heated over the passing of years, but it seemed part of that realm’s culture. The Brethren are a simple race of simple needs, and a singular life goal. It seemed the Builders had grander aspirations, grander needs—and greater hostility. It had been that way for centuries.
“In those days I was an amelystik, a tender of the Sleeping Child. Tending to her was a responsibility afforded to a future matriarch of the Colony. There were several of us, each one a candidate that would be chosen eventually by destiny to be the new Grandmother upon the Old One’s passing. On the Last Night, by Fate I was the one to whom the task of tending had fallen.
“I had noticed before I lay down to sleep beside her that she was restless. It was the first time I had ever seen her so, though now it is an almost constant state. My own dreams were troubling; I awoke from one of them to the taste of ash and terror in my mouth and throat. Hot smoke and caustic fumes were filling the tunnels. There was panic throughout the Colony, the Zhereditck choking and gasping in the poisonous air.
“Because Fate is kind even in her cruelty, I did not have to witness much of it. The last act of one of the Brethren was slamming shut the great iron doors of the Earthchild’s chamber; I can still recall his face as he closed me in with her. I could see the great mass of flailing, struggling Dhracians behind him as the portal closed, separating the Earthchild and me from the burning smoke and the rest of the Colony. Even as our eyes met, my savior and I both knew what he had done was the only thing that could have been done. It was the first priority, the reason for our Colony’s existence: the protection of the Sleeping Child.” The hum of the Grandmother’s two voices diminished a little.