“Gods! Achmed! Achmed! She’s bound!”
The Three looked to Jo, and then to the ground. The frost from the grass was beginning to swirl into a low-lying mist, and thicken into a ropelike cloud that led from Jo’s abdomen to the field beyond. The cloud darkened, and then grew substantial, knotting into a fibrous vine, shaggy with thorns and sliver-like bark. It twisted as it lifted off the ground and began to tug, dragging Jo abruptly over onto her back and nearer to its terminus.
Flecks of yellow foam spewed forth from her mouth and her skin turned rapidly gray as the blood continued in its rhythmic cascade, spraying the field and her companions with dapples of scarlet; her mouth was open in silent protest, her face contorted in the throes of death. They could see a faint glow of light emerge, wrapped in the bonds of the vine, and then her body went rigid. The physical and the metaphysical merged as body and soul prepared to separate.
Grunthor and Rhapsody fell on Jo, clutching at her stiff limbs and scrambling for purchase on the ground. With grim determination they drew their weapons, Grunthor pulling out the Friendmaker spike, Rhapsody the dragon’s claw dagger. Desperately they began to hack at the snare, trying to pry it from around Jo’s entrails. Pieces of flesh and viscera spattered them as they dug and slashed at what had once been her vital organs. Jo emitted one last deep gurgle. Then the only noise that came from her body was the hissing of the air escaping her bowels, the sound of ripping muscle and skin and the splash of her blood.
The vine fought back as though alive. Its tendrils flexed and banded together to form a squamous claw; it sliced at them savagely, ripping Grunthor’s hide open at the wrist and drawing blood. It coiled around Rhapsody’s foot in a stranglehold, and vines that had grown thorny daggers of enormous size stabbed at her back with snakelike strikes. Where it made contact it burned and smoked as though it was spattering acid.
Vines lashed out like whipcords, lacerating Grunthor’s face with spiny barbs, and hundreds of small tendrils wrapped around his wrists, striking like serpents trying to pierce his hide. The two of them fought on, trying to ignore the assault. And though between them the mass they had secured Jo’s body with was great, the vine appeared stronger, yanking her forward in spasmodic motions, pulling her insistently toward the middle of the field where Achmed had run.
As he crossed the fields of frost-bleached grain, Achmed could feel the air around him charged with power. There was a rip here, a tear in the fabric of the universe like the one he had seen on the Island that led to the horrors that had long ago been locked away in the Earth. When he reached the terminus of the vine Achmed stopped. Hovering in the air before him was the faint outline of a door, from behind which power was emanating and from which smoky darkness was emerging. A nauseating odor with which he was all too familiar tainted the air. It was as it had been with the Rakshas.
“F’dor!” Achmed shouted to Grunthor. The giant Bolg nodded and continued with the grisly task he had set about, trying to avoid the random lashings of the sinewy claws. Achmed pulled his hood back, took a deep breath, and seized the edges of the metaphysical door. He suspected it led to the Underworld from the reek of charnel that billowed through its ghostly cracks. The door bucked, and a great bilious roar issued forth, echoing over the meadow and into the valley below.
His blood boiled, and Achmed could feel the rhythm of his race beginning to rise up in it, humming with an insectoid noise like the scratching of cricket wings. He trembled with rage and the strain of holding the door, using the techniques he had learned ages ago to stay focused. With more force of will than physical strength he rotated his body and jammed his shoulder up against the vaporous portal. On the other side the fury of the screams he heard held a match for his own anger.
Rhapsody gasped in alarm as she saw the coils of the vine that held the formless light diverge from those that entwined Jo’s body—it was taking her soul. Within moments, the sister she had loved, and had sworn to protect, would be eternally trapped within a deep earthern vault of fire, in the hands of the last remaining F’dor spirits. Her skin roared with heat at the thought.
She lunged to the right and rolled on the ground free of the vine, leaving Grunthor hacking away. Clearing her mind as best she could, she took a deep breath and began to sing. She chanted Jo’s name, giving silent thanks that Jo had finally confided that she had no last name. She began a song of holding.
It started as a simple tune, repeated over and over, but with each new refrain a new element was added: a new note, a new rest, a new beat to the rhythm, so that as it became more complex it maintained its repetitive nature.
At the sound of her roundelay a tiny strand of light appeared; it billowed through the air around the formless mass glowing in the spirals of the vine, looping and weaving until it became a luminous chain hanging in the wind. As Rhapsody repeated the verses over and over it melded together, forming a circle, then a ball, of tiny light rings, like the gleaming mail of her dragonscale armor. She directed it in the air like a net, interspersing Jo’s name and her own status as her sister into the song, until she had captured the bright soul with it. Soon the chain and the vine were in opposition, with Jo’s soul caught between them.
The glimmering light struggled against its musical bonds, wrenching back and forth in directionless anxiety. Rhapsody’s breath was growing shorter and her notes became more staccato as the reality of what was happening began to catch up with her. With great effort not to break the tune she picked up Daystar Clarion and, raising the sword above her head, brought it down with all her remaining strength on the great arm of the vine that bound Jo’s body to the door.
A hideous shriek blasted their ears, and the vine began to pulsate, its tendrils and thorns flailing wildly and slashing at whatever was nearby. Grunthor was flung out of the way as the cordage snapped and recoiled like a whip back across the meadow through the door. Only Achmed’s extraordinary agility allowed him to dodge the racing vine; even so his clothes were torn by the barbs as they ripped past him. Jo’s body, released from its tether, fell to the ground, and Grunthor, gaining his feet, finished gouging the remaining pieces of the vine from inside her abdominal cavity.
Achmed stumbled but maintained his balance as the rip in the fabric of the universe melted away into mist, then disappeared. He surveyed the scene around him, then returned to the spot where the Rakshas had fallen. He crouched low and touched the bloodstained ground, thinking.
Rhapsody staggered to where Jo lay as Grunthor was finishing, still singing the song of holding. She dropped to her knees on the frosty, gory earth and gathered Jo in her arms, then gave herself over to tears of deeper sorrow than she ever remembered shedding. Still she chanted, hiccoughing in between notes, unwilling to let Jo leave. Slowly, unconsciously she began to reinsert the girl’s tattered entrails. The bright sun overhead stung her eyes and her world swam in a sickening haze.
Rhapsody. She barely heard the whisper above the pounding of the blood in her ears.
Rhapsody looked down at Jo’s face through the waves of tears. The pallor of death had already set in, and her eyes blindly reflected the sunlight, open, as was her mouth, in frozen finality. The voice, light as air, called her name again above her faltering song.
Rhapsody, let go. It hurts.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I can make it better, Jo.” Her sobs broke through the music. “Hold on, hold on, Jo. A song; I can bring you back with a song. I did it with Grunthor—I’ll find a way; there has to be a way. I can make it better.”
Rhapsody, let me go. My mother’s waiting for me.
Rhapsody shook her head, trying to fend off the words hovering distantly on the wind. Even as they hung, lighter than the air that was pulsating in painful ripples all around her, there was a finality to them, a resoluteness that she could not deny. Deep within her soul, in the part where she and Jo were joined, she felt an impatience, a hurry to be free of the heavy air of the world.
Shaking, she let the rounde
lay grind to an end and drew Jo’s body to her heart again. But the music continued on, soft, low tones within the earth and air responding to the heart of the Singer that did not wish to obey what she knew was right. Jo’s body was beginning to stiffen in death, but she could hear the voice more clearly, though airy as before.
You were right, Rhaps. She does love me. Rhapsody began to tremble uncontrollably as her sobs grew to gasps for breath between the tears. And happiness is waiting for me. Let me go. I want to know what it feels like.
Grunthor’s enormous hand came to rest gently on her head. “Let ’er be, darlin’. Say good-bye and give ’er a good send-off, poor lit’le miss.”
Somewhere inside herself Rhapsody found the strength to release her grip on Jo. Gently she laid her back on the ground, and the music ceased. With hands that shook she closed the sightless eyes. Though her head was swimming from the heat and the gore, she haltingly began the Lirin Song of Passage, the ageless tune sung under countless starry skies clouded by the smoke of funeral pyres. As she chanted the ancient lyrics she wove into them a measure of love and apology, and a clearing of the bonds of the Earth to speed the girl she loved as a sister on her way to the light.
Far off at the pinnacle of the sky she could hear the voice, one last time, soft as the falling of snow.
Rhapsody, your mother says she loves you, too.
Blind with grief, she bent her head again over the body and wept from the depths of her soul. She could feel Grunthor carefully gathering Jo in his arms and carrying her away from the site where she had fallen. Rhapsody tried to stand and follow him but the earth lurched beneath her; she swayed precariously as warm, strong hands shot forth from behind to steady her and keep her from toppling.
“Here,” said Achmed as he turned her around and looked at her. She was soaked in blood from her neck down to her knees, and pieces of the vine and fragments of Jo’s viscera clung to her clothing, which was charred and still emitting smoke. He clasped her to his chest, supporting her shoulders with the embrace of one arm while the other hand ran gently over her hair and her back in a gesture meant to both comfort and bring her around. He stopped when he pulled his hand away, covered with fresh blood.
“Rhapsody?”
Achmed watched as her face turned white and her eyes rolled back. He shouted for Grunthor as he laid her on the ground, desperately examining her to find the source of the bleeding. He pulled off her dragonscale armor, tore open her shirt but found no wound. His bloodsense directed him; he followed her waning heartbeat down to her thigh and found ugly gashes, one the length of his hand, the point of a thorn still embedded in it. The wound pulsed with each beat of her heart; Achmed knew the vine had severed an artery. The ground turned crimson beneath her as bright blood seeped through her clothing and into the earth.
“Come on, Rhapsody, we’ve been in worse fights than this,” Achmed cajoled, trying to keep her conscious. “I know you think you look good in red, but this is ridiculous.” Grunthor rolled her on her side, plucked out the fragment of thorn and held her stationary while Achmed ripped off the bottom of his cloak and bound her leg. Then he took out his waterskin and splashed some of its contents in her face, hoping to revive her. When there was no response he slapped her hand, then her cheek, until her eyes fluttered weakly open.
Achmed could see that her hold on wakefulness was tenuous. “My, I enjoyed that,” he said directly into her ear. “Please pass out one more time so I can slap you again.” Her response was still slight. “Look, Rhapsody, sleep on your own time, will you? This is no way to get out of your share of the work breaking camp.” Her breath was no longer visible in the frosty air. He looked up at Grunthor, and the giant Firbolg shook his head.
“Here, you get Jo; I’ll take her. The horses are about half a league down the grade of this hill. Let’s get them out of here.”
“Right.” Grunthor rushed back to retrieve the body, the ground shaking as he ran.
They carried the two women, one dead, the other not far from it, down the windy hill to the hidden encampment where the horses waited, grimly saddled up and made for Sepulvarta.
47
The Cauldron itself was unchanged. Death was no stranger to the mountain; Canrif, and then Ylorc, had been the site of many a deathwatch after bitter retreat, as well as the planning place for many a brutal killing. For Achmed, however, it was the first time he had found himself in the semi-dark, planning for someone to live.
Unconsciously he was going about it in much the same way that he planned a demise. He went endlessly over the facts of the case, the infinitesimal details of how this could have come to pass, the hunt, the melee, the sites of her wounds, the way the blood had escaped her body. He tried to put the pieces of Rhapsody’s survival into place, the way he would have arranged the sequence of an assassination.
He was not getting anywhere.
Grunthor approached the door as quietly as he could, then knocked softly. Hearing no response, he opened it and came in.
The room was dark but for the minimal light cast by a few scented candles in the corner, far from the bed, and the sporadic radiance of strangely glowing wine bottles positioned in various places about the room. Grunthor had one in his hand; he closed the door quietly behind him, looking for a moment at the flickering container before approaching Achmed who sat, as he had for the past four days and nights, in the chair beside the bed.
“Sir?”
“Hmm?”
“Oi brought you some fresh fireflies. Them must be gettin’ tired.”
Achmed said nothing.
“Any change?”
“No.”
Grunthor looked down at her; asleep or unconscious, it was hard to tell. It was impossible, in fact, to tell at the moment if she was even still alive. Her normally rosy skin was pale like the seashell he had once found at the oceanside, and she looked very tiny in the big bed. He had teased her at every opportunity about her petite stature, but somehow in motion she gave the impression of muscular strength and vitality. Now she appeared frail, childlike.
He looked down at his oldest friend and sovereign, whose lower face was hidden by folded hands. An ancient story occurred to Grunthor, the tale of a Bolg who had placed himself at the gates between Life and Death and would allow none to pass in order to forestall the demise of a comrade. It had a messy ending.
Achmed shifted in the chair. “Has there been any word from Ashe?”
“Not yet, sir.”
The Dhracian rested his chin on the heel of his hand and fell silent again. Grunthor assumed parade rest.
“Would you like me to stay with ’er for a while, sir? Oi’d be glad to, and you could get some sleep.”
Achmed leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his waist. He said nothing.
Grunthor waited a few moments more. “Will that be all, sir?”
“Yes. Good night, Grunthor.”
Grunthor set the wine bottle down on the stone that served as a bedside table, then reached under the bed to turn over the heated rocks that functioned as the room’s source of warmth. Achmed had been insistent that the room be warmed and lit without using the fireplace for fear that the smoke or the acrid fumes from the burning peat would harm her.
It was Grunthor who came up with the idea of the fireflies and ordered the Firbolg army to set about gathering them. It was a dismal task in early autumn anyway, and the sight of monsters in mail clanking through the fields with wine bottles, desperately jumping after the hovering insects would have made Rhapsody laugh if she had been able to appreciate it. Grunthor gave her a kiss on the forehead as he rose, then left the room without another word.
Achmed continued to watch her in silence. After an hour or so the Firbolg medics came in with medicinal herbs and supplies, replacement hot rocks and clean piles of the muslin rags that served as bandages. They behaved quietly and respectfully, finishing with their tasks and leaving the room as quickly as possible.
Achmed waited until they were go
ne, and then gently undressed Rhapsody and bathed her wounds, changing the bandages and her shirt. The irony of the situation made him grimace. He had been so annoyed with her spending time ministering to the Firbolg, soaking gauze bandages in herbs to cure infections, singing to ease their pain. Now the procedures she had taught them, and him, were quite possibly the only things keeping her alive.
He leaned forward in the chair, resting his forehead in his hands, and looked at the waves of golden hair lying around her pillow like a sunlit sea. Against his will, the memory came back to him, the first of their many exchanges about her healing efforts.
Well, that’s a useful investment of your evening, he had groused. I’m sure the Firbolg are very appreciative, and will certainly reciprocate your ministrations if you should ever need something.
What does that mean?
I’m trying to tell you that you will never see any return for your efforts. When you are injured or in pain, who will sing for you, Rhapsody?
Why, Achmed, you will.
So many funny memories had lost their amusement value. He remembered the way her eyes had looked in the dark, how she had smiled as if she knew something. You will.
Achmed rested his fingers on her wrist, then her neck, sensing her pulse to see if the heartbeat had grown any stronger. It was there, fighting on, holding its own, though it still seemed weak to him.
He and Grunthor had braved the streets of Sepulvarta, the nearest place of healing to where they had fought the Rakshas, the place Rhapsody had fallen. Waves of panic had resonated through the city at the sight of the two Firbolg riders galloping up the hill to the rectory, the dying woman in the arms of the smaller one.
The priests in the manse had been unable to bring her around, and even the Patriarch, carried in from his cell in the hospice, had only been able to stabilize her. Achmed knew by the look of despair in the old man’s eyes that it was absence of his ring that prevented him from being able to heal her, and he cursed Ashe silently. All the skills the Patriarch’s clergyman brought to bear merely made it possible for them to take her back, still unconscious and deathly fragile, to Ylorc. The healers Achmed had sent for from the outlying areas had advised him politely to prepare for the worst, and had left hurriedly, without exception, in the face of his wrathful reaction.