In her sleep she sighed, a soft, musical sound that stirred him even more. He waited for her to wake, but her eyes remained closed and her arms drowsily entwined around his neck again as her fingers absently caressed the hair at the back of his head. She was well and truly asleep.
Ashe was lost in the dilemma of what to do next. His desire for her grew more intense by the moment, but the dragon could tell she was tired, weary from being emotionally overwrought and worn out from the cataclysmic lovemaking that had begun on the floor in front of the fire as the sun was setting and had gone on long past midnight. She had satisfied him in ways he had not even dreamed of, and she was irresistible; the more of her he got, the more he wanted. Whatever stores of energy she had were spent, and now she was sleeping deeply, her body trying to gain it back.
He imagined making love to her again now, taking her in ways that would return to her some of the joy she had given him, but he looked into her face and decided not to. Exhaustion was taking her, too, like an overly insistent lover, and her sleep was undisturbed by the dreams that frightened her and made her wake, trembling, in the night. It was the first time he had seen her slumber in complete peace. So he swallowed hard and let his need pass, difficult though it was, and cradled her in his arms, guarding her dreams and her rest. He could wait.
In the gray haze that preceded dawn in the underground grotto Ashe rose slowly from the bed, careful not to waken Rhapsody. His feet recoiled at the chill of the floor as he moved to the fireplace where the dragon had sensed the sign. He knew what it was, and exactly how much of it there was, yet he went all the same, just to see it with his own almost-human eyes. On the floor were three drops of blood, Rhapsody’s blood, blood he had let in passion.
He had known she was untouched, of course; the dragon had sensed that from the start, but three drops—as with Emily, it was three. An omen, no doubt, but of what he did not know. That this was his grandmother’s house did not escape him, nor was her office as Seer of the Past insignificant. Three drops of blood, just like Emily. A sign of things to come, or a completion of things past?
Ashe turned back toward the bed and looked at Rhapsody, still softly sleeping. Her face was free of regret or fear; her dreams were happy, or at least seemed to be. His smile was melancholy as he left the room and went down the stairs to the front hall where his cloak hung on a peg. He reached inside it, feeling the cool moisture of the mist, and from it drew out a small silver button he had kept there for years. Then, leaving the cloak where it hung, he walked out of the house, down to the waters’ edge.
He stood there, letting the waters of Anwyn’s cottage speak to the waters of his soul, as he held the silver button and contemplated the omen in blood. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and, tightening his hold for a moment, leaned back and threw the silver button out into the waters of the grotto.
“Good bye, Emily,” he whispered, then stood silently for a moment, tears touching the corners of his eyes.
Rhapsody woke to the knowledge that Ashe was no longer in bed, but to the equal certainty that he was still nearby. She could feel his presence as surely as she had heard his breath as he lay beneath her while they slept. And though she was confused by everything that had transpired, she was assuredly happy he was there.
She drew a blanket about her as she stood and moved to the window where she knew she would see him. In the distance she could make out his form, naked and wrapped in the mist of the lake, staring out into the distance, watching what she did not know. She felt her skin tingle and knew the dragon sensed her movement as surely as she had felt his presence a moment before. The thought comforted her.
At the sight of him she felt a tug at her heart, a melancholy that at first she did not recognize, though she had felt it before. It had been with her a long time, and she realized she had felt it on each occasion that she had thought about Ashe over the past few months. It was not until now that she recognized it for what it was, because it had been so long since she had felt anything like it.
What a strange man you are, Ashe, she thought. At times as unassailable as a rampant dragon, now he looked as lost as a kitten. Whatever he was, for good or ill, he had her heart, the heart she hadn’t realized was still there. There was no turning back now.
Down by the water’s edge he shivered and rubbed his hands on his arms as though chilled. Rhapsody hurried to him, bounding down the stairs, throwing wide the door to the cottage, and running to the beach before slowing her steps as she came up behind him. She took the blanket from herself and draped it around him, leaving her arms with it.
Ashe turned and smiled down at her, then drew her under the blanket with him. He kissed the top of her head, trying to decide which was shining more brightly—her hair or her face.
“Sleep well?”
“Very, thank you,” she replied. “I’ve discovered something, and I thought you should know.”
“Yes?”
“I love you, too. And I’m sure of it.”
His reply was a deep, sustained sigh; wordless, but it spoke volumes.
Rhapsody laid her head on his chest, and there on the shores of the lake they held each other until the early light of dawn had given way to the brighter sun of midmorning. The green light that filtered through the bushes that grew above the firmament made the grotto seem as though it lay in some deep forest.
Against all likelihood, a small silver button washed up on the shore of the island, unnoticed.
39
“Clear your mind. Relax your skin-web. Concentrate on the rhythm of your own heart.”
Achmed closed his eyes in the heavy wind of the vast, echoing chamber. He stood within the canticle circle, feeling the dust that hung heavy in the dead air settle on his bare skin.
“Exhale. With the breath expel your kirai.”
Achmed complied; he had done this before each hunt in the old world. It was a technique he had known from birth, honed by Father Halphasion’s instruction, a step in the process that removed the routine rhythms of his body—the beating heart, the tides of breath, the movement of air within his sinuses, the infinitesimal whisper of growing skin—and made it blank, clear, pristine, waiting to be inscribed with the life rhythms of whomever he sought.
Despite his nakedness, his body did not feel the chill of the great chasm that tunneled around and above him. His skin-web, the complex mesh of veins and nerves that scored the surface of his face and neck, hummed placidly at the ready, cleared of the flow of blood for the moment.
The great pendulum of the clock swung slowly through the darkness. From behind his eyelids Achmed could feel it pass, could hear the whir of the spider-silk chain as it went by. In the weight at the end of the pendulum the captive essence of the long-trapped F’dor spirit from the battle of Marincaer burned within its diamond prison. Achmed could sense its smoldering rage, could hear its anger approaching in a crescendo as the pendulum swung toward him, diminishing to a whisper as it swung away again like a spark from a campfire flaring out into the dark night. It gave him cold satisfaction.
“Let your identity die.” The scratchy hiss of the Grandmother’s voice crackled in the empty cavern. Achmed obeyed and felt suddenly cold; no vibrational signature radiated from him at all. He was as gray as the rockwalls of the cavern. He had done this before as well.
“When you have subdued yourself, reach out and catch the essence of that which you seek. Command it stop.”
Slowly Achmed exhaled, loosing his kirai again. His skin-web hummed, this time forming a net of vibrations that rose from his body like mist off the sea, tethered to the sinus cavities above his eyes. He breathed again, his throat joining the vibration, pushing the invisible pulsing net higher into the heavy air.
As the pendulum passed once again, he concentrated blindly on the furious heat flashing inside the facets of the diamond weight. He held up his right hand. Zhvet, he thought. Halt. The net of vibrations expanded around the heat, then contracted suddenly, catching the evil essence
in the invisible snare.
Like a fish on a line the demonic spirit snapped and twisted against his will, screaming in fury at its bondage. The pendulum froze in place, hovering in the air above the chasm. Achmed raised his left hand.
“Within your mind, call to each of the four winds,” the Grandmother instructed softly. “Chant each name, then anchor it to one of your fingers.”
Bien, Achmed thought. The north wind, the strongest. He opened his first throat and hummed the name; the sound echoed through his chest and the first chamber of his heart. He held up his index finger; the sensitive skin of its tip tingled as a draft of air wrapped around it.
Jahne, he whispered in his mind. The south wind, the most enduring. With his second throat he called to the next wind, committing the second heart chamber. Around his tallest finger he could sense the anchoring of another thread of air. When both vibrations were clear and strong he went on, opening the other two throats, the other two heart chambers. Leuk. The west wind, the wind of justice. Thas. The east wind. The wind of morning; the wind of death. Like strands of spidersilk, the currents hung on his fingertips, waiting.
The Grandmother noted with satisfaction that the wind-symbols at the edges of the canticle circle had begun to glow. Four notes held in a monotone. He was ready. Now to the true test.
“Cast the second net,” she ordered. Achmed’s hand contracted, and with a graceful swing of his arm he tossed the ball of wind that had formed in his palm out into the darkness of the cavern. Behind his eyelids he could feel the four winds knot together, anchored to his palm, then wrap fiercely around the struggling demon-spirit.
‘Tie it,” the Grandmother said. “Cut it.” This had been the most difficult part of the ritual for Achmed to master; being half-caste, his physiology did not contain the anatomical structure that allowed full-blooded Dhracians to easily sever the ties of the first net, leaving the strength of the winds alone to maintain the cage he had formed. He and the Grandmother had worked for many hours to find another way for him to perform this last critical step of the Thrall ritual.
He concentrated now on the back of his first throat. He took in a breath and forced the air up over his palate. A harsh fifth note sliced through the monotone of the other four: Achmed felt the threads attached to his fingers go slack. Quickly he clicked his tongue, tying off the ends of the wind-cage, and allowing his first net to dissipate. Then he clenched his thumb to snap the wind-thread taut against the flailing spirit.
The struggle ceased immediately as the diamond weight flinched, then went rigid. The demonic spirit was caught in the grip at the confluence of the four winds under the command of a Dhracian, the Winds’ son. Slowly Achmed twisted his palm, wrapping the tether around it like a kite string. Once secure he gave the tether a strong pull, feeling the unwilling spirit coming closer with each revolution of his hand. He opened his eyes.
Hanging in the air, an arm’s span away from him, was the spider-silk chain of the mammoth pendulum. Its weight, the walnut-sized diamond with the demon housed inside it, hovered before his eyes. Achmed looked at the Grandmother. She was nodding.
“You are no longer Untrained,” she said. “You are ready.
“Now that you are adept in the Thrall ritual, we must prepare you for the hunt.”
Achmed stood silently as the Grandmother pulled the covers over the Earthchild and gently released her hand. He had been standing vigil for hours it seemed, watching wordlessly as the Matriarch tried to console the child’s terrors. She had pitched fitfully from side to side on her catafalque, gasping in fright, ignoring all the Grandmother’s ministrations, refusing to be soothed.
“ZZZhhh, zzzzhhh, little one; what troubles you so? Speak, that I may aid you.”
The child had shaken her head violently, moaning intermittently. “‘Green death,’” the Grandmother muttered. “‘Unclean death.’ What does she mean? Speak, child. Please.” But the only response had been the hiccoughing sobs, the violent thrashing about. Achmed’s teeth set in anger.
It was bad enough that Rhapsody had thrown in her lot with the son of Llauron; the Invoker was still his best guess to be the F’dor’s host. Even worse, she had not returned to the Cauldron in almost a week, though she had sent word through the amplification of the gazebo that she was safe. Now, watching the convulsing child, feeling the Grandmother’s despair in his skin, it was all he could do to keep from striding down to her accursed duchy, killing Ashe where he stood and hauling her back to the Colony by her hair. She should be here, he thought bitterly. If she could witness this and still go to him—
Sour bile flooded his mouth. He dismissed the thought from his mind, unwilling to follow it to the conclusion that haunted his dreams.
Finally the child settled into a less agitated sleep. The Matriarch of the dead Colony brushed her stone-gray forehead with one last gentle caress, then extinguished the light, crushing the spore beneath her heel. She nodded to the doorway of the chamber, and Achmed followed her out into the corridor.
“Her fear is growing stronger,” the Grandmother said.
“Does she have any idea why?”
“If she does, she cannot form an image around it that I can understand. All her mind whispers is ‘green death, unclean death.’”
Achmed exhaled. He had no patience for riddles; this, too, was Rhapsody’s bailiwick. She should be here, his mind repeated furiously.
“What do you wish me to do?” he asked, casting a glance at the soot-stained relief on the wall across from him. It was a geometric pattern that had once had been a map of some sort in the days before the Colony’s destruction, as were many of the images that decorated the walls.
The black ovals of darkness that were the Grandmother’s eyes regarded him seriously.
“Pray,” she said.
In a lush glen on the Krevensfield Plain, Nolo winced in the heat of the afternoon. In all the memory of his ten summers he could not recall a more frustrating day. The minnows had been too swift, the haze of the sun too blinding, and he was too hot, too hungry to remain in the fields any longer. He dragged his line out of the water, squinting in the light that reflected off the pond.
“Hie, Fenn,” he called as he looped the string around his palm, but the little dog was otherwise engaged, stalking grasshoppers, no doubt.
Nolo rose and shook the pond scum off the fishing line, then crammed the string into his pocket. The sack that once held his breakfast had been empty since sunrise, but he checked it again anyway, on the happenstance that a crust of bread or a crumb of cheese had made its way into the seam to hide. Upon examination the sack proved to be as empty as his stomach.
“Fenn!” he shouted again. His eyes scanned the meadow beyond the trees of the glen. He could see movement in the highgrass, could hear rustling. Stupid mongrel, he thought to himself. Nolo crammed the sack into his pocket with the string.
His bare feet stung in the hot grass of the field once he stepped outside the glen’s shade; it seemed to him that the ground beneath them trembled ever so slightly. Nolo glanced around again. There was no one in sight, but suddenly he felt the cold grip of fear, though he had no idea why.
“Fenn, where are you?” he howled, his voice cracking. In answer he heard airy panting a stone’s throw away, and a moment later Fenn’s little yipping bark pierced the humid air. Nolo exhaled in relief and trotted over the brushy scrub to his dog. Upon cresting a small swale, he could see what had held the pup’s attention.
The carcass of a rabbit was impaled on a low-lying bramble, a thick, black vine with long, spiked thorns that looked sharper than those of a blackberry bush. Nolo’s eyes opened wide with interest. The dog must have spooked the coney badly; it had obviously leapt backward with a tremendous force, judging by the point of the thorn that protruded from its chest. Otherwise it would almost appear to have been stabbed forcibly from behind with a murderous intent, but of course that was impossible, Nolo knew. A small puddle of fresh blood pooled around it, a dollop of which adorned
Fenn’s nose. The dog’s eyes glittered excitedly, anxiously.
Nolo thought about freeing the carcass from the bramble and taking it home to his mam for supper, but decided rapidly against it. Something about the day wasn’t right, something that diluted the leisure of his respite from chores and lessons, a waste of the freedom of the Fore-midsummer holiday.
“C’mon, Fenn,” he urged, and gestured to the dog. Nolo turned and ran, the pup at his heels, all the way back to the settlement, to the small thatched house where the candles would soon be lit in the solitary window.
As soon as the boy was out of sight, the bramble flexed slightly. The pool of blood began to recede, disappearing into the skin of the thorn with a greedy eagerness until there was nothing left but dry ground. Then, with but a whisper of sound, the bramble sank into the earth and vanished.
40
The gardens of Elysian were a marvel to behold, even by Ashe’s Filidic standards. Prior to the beginning of his nightmarish ordeal twenty years before he had overseen his father’s conservatories, as well as his own, vast country estates with formal gardens and massive greenhouses devoted exclusively to the holy and ceremonial plants of the religion. His knowledge of horticulture was deep, though limited in scope, and he had overseen hundreds of nature priests toiling in the fields and monastic farms as well. He had seen many strange planting techniques in his life, but nothing prepared him for Rhapsody’s unique gardening style.
She was up each morning before the sun, tidying Elysian, baking muffins and bread, filling the air with heavenly aromas. As she worked she sang softly, so as not to wake him, but the dragon knew she was gone the instant she left the bed, and began a long, unconscious process of vaguely sensing to be sure she was still within his reach. The lovely melodies would lull him back into semi-sleep until finally, when she had finished her work in the house and gone outside, he would wake, rise grumpily, and set about making himself human again.