“What was his name?” he asked, looking as if the world was about to come to its end.
“Who?”
“This boy,” he said, and he voice grew stronger, and more urgent. “What was his name?”
She looked ashamed. “I don’t even know. He lied.”
“What did you call him, then? Tell me, Aria.”
Rhapsody was beginning to panic; the look on his face was turning into something frightening, and she could feel the bristling electricity signaling the return of the dragon. The air in the grotto had grown unsettlingly still, like the calm before a gathering storm, or the extreme low tide before a tidal wave.
‘Tell me,” he commanded in a voice she had never heard. It was anguished and deep, and filled with alien power. She started to back away, but he seized her shoulders in a grasp that hurt. “Tell me!”
“Sam,” she whispered, not understanding. “I called him Sam.”
His fingers dug into her arms and a roar that shook the house issued forth, full of fury. His face went red and she watched in horror as he seemed to increase in size, muscles uncoiling in rage.
“Unholy BITCH!” he screamed, as loose items in the room began to fall and tables shook. The cords in his neck stood out as his anger increased, and the air charged with power as seething fury took hold of him. The pupils in his eyes narrowed to almost nothing. “Whore! Rutting, miserable WHORE!”
His hands went to his head, and he began to clutch at his hair, digging his fingers into his scalp. As he released her Rhapsody backed slowly away from him, a look of heartbreak and fear written on her face. It has finally come, she thought ruefully. I was wrong. He is the F’dor, and he’s going to kill me now. She thought about running, but decided against it. She either had to stand and fight, or give in and let it end now. Either way, she wouldn’t run. It would be no use to do so anyway.
Ashe continued to roil in unbridled rage, swearing a stream of obscenity the likes of which Rhapsody had never heard. “She knew,” he snarled, lashing out at the air as thunder rolled across the firmament that held the dome of Elysian in place. “She knew, and she lied to me.”
“Knew what? What did I know?” Rhapsody gasped, struggling to maintain her balance as the earth began to tremble beneath her. “I’m sorry—I don’t know what I’ve done.”
His eyes narrowed to slits, blue as hottest part of a flame. “‘She did not land, she did not come’ she said,” he ranted, his voice dropping to a murderous whisper. “But she knew. She knew you had left, you just hadn’t arrived yet. But she knew you were coming. And she didn’t tell me.”
“She? Who? Who knew?”
“ANWYN!” the dragon shrieked. Its multitoned voice rattled the walls.
Rhapsody cast a glance at the door. Achmed. She needed to get to the gazebo and call for Achmed. Killing Ashe without the Thrall ritual would be pointless.
The instruments within the cherry cabinet rattled as tremors rumbled through the cottage. Ashe lashed out in a convulsive sweep of his arms; books leapt from the shelves and tumbled to the floor.
Rhapsody began to back up farther toward the front door. Tears were falling freely, and she glanced regretfully around, knowing that she could never reach Daystar Clarion in time. She wished for death, hoping that whatever manifestation of evil he really was would not be able to bind her soul as he snuffed out her life. The calm that normally descended when she faced danger was nowhere to be felt.
Then, as though hit by falling ice, Ashe stopped his tirade and looked across the room at her. His face crumbled as he saw her, terror in her eyes, the acceptance of death in her countenance, and the manifestations of the dragon disappeared instantly as a look of horror crossed his face. He struggled to speak, and when he did his voice was gentle, but still trembling.
“Rhapsody.” It was the only word he could form for a moment. “Rhapsody, I’m sorry—please—forgive me, I—” He reached out his hands to her, and took a step toward her.
Her own hands lashed out in front of her, holding him at bay. “No, stay there,” she said, taking a concurrent step backward. “Just stay there.”
Ashe stopped, and unspeakable pain filled his expression. He reached inside his shirt, and pulled out a tiny velvet pouch and tossed it onto the floor in front of her. “Aria, open it, please.”
“No; don’t move,” she said, taking another step away from him. She glanced around her again, and moved slowly toward the sword rack.
“Please, Rhapsody, for gods’ sake, please, open it,” he begged, his face growing pale as the blood from his tantrum began to abate.
“No,” she repeated, more forcefully this time. “Stay away from me. If you move, I’ll kill you. You know I never lie. So help me, Ashe, don’t test my resolve. Don’t move.”
Tears began to fall from the crystalline eyes. “Rhapsody, if you ever loved me, please—”
“Don’t,” she said, her voice dissolving to a nasty whisper. “Don’t you dare throw that word at me. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you are.”
“Open the pouch. You’ll know.”
Rhapsody straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eyes. The words that formed on her lips were the same as on the day they crossed the Tar’afel River.
“My refusal wasn’t clear to you?” She had made it, inching slowly, to within reach of the sword rack. She reached for Daystar Clarion.
Ashe did not move, but he spoke once more, his voice calmer. “Emily, please. Look in the pouch.”
Rhapsody froze. She turned back to him slowly. “What did you call me?” she asked, choking.
“Please, Emily. You’ll understand if you look in the pouch.” He took a step back, attempting to keep her fright at bay.
Rhapsody stared at him, shock on her face. After a moment, as if commanded, she went slowly to the small bag lying in the center of the living-room floor and bent to retrieve it. With hands that trembled she pulled the tiny drawstring open and shook its contents into her palm. It was a small silver button, heart-shaped, with the figure of a rose engraved on it; the song that surrounded it was of a land long gone but that lived in her blood. Her eyes returned to his face, which was beginning to relax into a look that she had never seen before.
“This is my button,” she whispered. “Where did you get it?”
He smiled at her gently, so as not to frighten her with the joy that was beginning to creep over him. “You gave it to me,” he said.
She did not take her eyes off him as her hand moved slowly to her throat. She drew forth the golden locket and opened it without looking at it. As the clasp opened a tiny copper coin fell out, thirteen-sided, oddly shaped and polished from years of loving caresses.
Ashe’s eyes filled with tears again. “Emily,” he said softly, and held out his hands to her once more.
The world before her eyes spun in a rapid swirl of colors and textures as Rhapsody fell to the ground in a dead faint.
53
Flickering images danced before her eyes, then disappeared, as Rhapsody struggled to regain consciousness. Through it all there were eyes, dragon eyes, gleaming down at her, their odd vertical slits spinning as her angle of perspective changed.
Finally she came around, focusing on the ceiling above her, the shadows from the firelight wafting over die heavy wooden beams. She blinked and tried to sit up, but gentle hands held her down, stroking her hair lovingly.
“Shhh,” Ashe said. As the world solidified she found she was on the sofa in the parlor, the fire burning quietly on the hearth, her head in his lap. Her shoes had fallen off, and the cool, wet arm of his jacket lay across her forehead. She blinked more rapidly.
“I fainted?”
He chuckled. “Yes, but I won’t tell anyone.”
“I had the most incredible dream,” she murmured, disorientedly touching the white sleeve of his shirt. His smile broadened, and he bent and brushed a kiss on the bridge of her nose.
“Sorry, Aria, it was no dream. It’s really me; i
t’s really you. My heart swore it the first time I saw you, but I knew it couldn’t be. She said you never came through; I had believed all this time you were dead.”
“She?”
“Anwyn. After I came back from Serendair, I was desperate to find you. I went to Anwyn. I knew she would have seen if you had come from the old land, and would know if you were still alive. She told me that you never came, that when the ships landed you weren’t on any of them. And, to my great sorrow, I had to believe her. When speaking of the Past, Anwyn cannot lie without losing her gift. I still don’t understand how you got here.”
Rhapsody sat up, running a hand over her eyes and forehead. “Got here? I’m not sure where I am, and I think I live here.”
Ashe wrapped a bent knee around her, giving her something to lean on. He held up the small coin, shiny copper, with an odd number of sides. “I remember the day I was given this,” he said, musing as if to himself. “I was three or four, and it was a Day of Convening; pompous ceremonies and long-winded speeches, and nothing interesting in any of them. They left me totally alone. I was so bored that I thought I would die, but I was expected to sit there and behave.
“I was beginning to think all my life would be just like this, that I would never be able to run or play or do anything fun like my friends did. It was the loneliest moment of my whole life to that point.
“And then he was there, this old man, leaning over me and smiling, with a gift—two threepenny pieces. ‘Buck up, lad,’ he said, and he winked—I remember that wink clearly, because I spent many days afterward imitating it—sooner or later they’ll shut up. In the meantime, you can examine these. They’ll keep the loneliness away as long as you keep them together, because you can’t have loneliness in a place where two things match so well.’
“And he was right. I had a marvelous time studying them, trying to fit the sides into each other. It seemed like moments later when my father came to collect me, though hours had passed. I carried them with me from that day on, until I gave one to you. Because once I met you, Emily, I thought I would never be lonely again.”
Rhapsody rubbed her temples with her fingertips, trying to ease the headache that had crept behind her eyes. “That was a different lifetime. I didn’t even recognize the name when you first used it.” She looked up and caught his gaze; he looked totally happy, on the verge of giddy. “Are you telling me that you—you’re Sam?”
He sighed deeply. “Yes. Gods, how I’ve longed to hear you call me that again.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her, his lips seeking hers in wonder.
Rhapsody pulled away from him and looked into his face again. “You? It’s really you?” He nodded. “You don’t look the same.”
Ashe laughed. “I was fourteen; what do you expect? And a few things have happened since then, foremost of which was a rather reptilian transformation brought on by a near-death experience. And, by the way, you don’t look the same either, Emily. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, but, well, you’ve changed somewhat yourself.” He ran his fingers through the tendrils of hair that touched the flawless face, watching the light catch the strands, shining like burnished gold.
The emerald eyes ran over his features, trying to place the memory of his face into the one she now knew so well. Though he had changed a great deal, there was a clear resemblance; it was the denial brought on by history that made it impossible to see before. And as her eyes took him in, they began to brim with tears. She struggled to form words, but they took a moment to come out.
“Why?” she asked, her voice coming out fragmented, broken. “Why didn’t you come back?”
His hands cupped her face again. “I couldn’t,” he said, tears welling in his own eyes. “I don’t even know how I got there in the first place. I was flung back into the Past for only one day’s time. One moment I was walking the road to Navarne, and then I was in Serendair. And after we met, I would have gladly stayed there forever with you, even though it meant dying, meant losing my whole world just like you did. I would have given it up in a heartbeat, because I had found the other half of my soul.
“I was incredibly excited that next morning, your birthday. I had made myself as presentable as possible, so your father would give his consent and allow me to marry you. I remember being nervous, and happy, but then, as inexplicably as before, I was back on the road to Navarne, back in this world.
“I almost went insane with grief. I looked for you endlessly, seeking out every First Generationer I could find, asking about you. And then Anwyn told me you had not come, and that made me realize it was too late, that you were dead, dead a thousand years or more, that you had not found MacQuieth, or any of the others from your time who could have saved you.
“My father lost patience, told me I had been dreaming, but I knew that wasn’t true, because I had the button, and had seen three drops of your blood on my cloak, from when we made love. And from that moment on I was like the ooin; odd, not fitting with anything, worth very little, permanently lonely. There has been no one in my life since you, Emily, no one—except you, the woman I know as Rhapsody. Who could have measured up? My father trotted his whores past me, hoping to shake you out of my heart, but I left and went to sea, rather than betray the memory of the only thing in my life that I had ever held holy, that had ever mattered.
“And that’s all. I lived that way, even before the F’dor took my soul apart. I guess it had already been torn beyond recognition anyway by the loss of you. But now you’re here; gods, you have been here all along. Where did you come over? Did you land in Manosse, with the Second Fleet? Or did you go as a refugee to one of the lands nearer to the Island?” As the questions passed his lips, he noticed her face; she was struggling to keep from bursting into tears, trembling.
He pulled her quickly into his arms, caressing her hair. “Emily, Aria, everything is all right now. We’re together; everything is all right. Finally, for the first time, everything is all right.”
Violently she pushed away, scorching pain in her eyes. “It is most certainly not all right, Ashe. Nothing is all right. Nothing.”
His mouth opened in disbelief, then closed again. “Talk to me, Aria. Tell me what is in your heart.”
Rhapsody couldn’t speak. She looked down at her hands, clutching them until they turned white. One of Ashe’s hands closed gently over hers as the other came to rest on her face.
“Tell me, Aria, whatever it is. Tell me.”
“Well, first and foremost, I won’t know this tomorrow, Ashe. I won’t have any idea when the sun comes up that anything is different. I will go on with my life, with the same belief that you deserted me, that I misjudged you utterly, that you died when the Island was destroyed, or before. It is something I think about every day, Ashe, even now, every day. It makes me doubt myself, it makes me afraid to trust. Gods, you will leave me tomorrow, and I won’t know this. And I will believe that even the love I found with you here belongs to someone else now. Perhaps everything is all right for you, but for me, everything will be just as wrong as it was before, in fact, more so.”
She gave in to the tears. Ashe drew her into his arms and held her as she wept. “You’re right,” he said, kissing her ear after he spoke. “I’m going to get the pearl.”
Rhapsody sat up, pulling out of his embrace again. “What? Why?”
Ashe smiled at her, brushing the tears away with his knuckle. “Nothing, nothing in this world, is worth hurting you for one more second. You have carried too much pain for too long, Emily. I’m going to give this memory back to you. You deserve it more than anyone else deserves the selfish fulfillment of their stupid goals.” He started to rise, but she stopped him.
“What will happen to Llauron?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I care what happens to you.”
Rhapsody’s eyes were now dry, and radiating worry. “Well, I do know, and I think you do, too. If I am useless to Llauron as a herald, because I know the truth, if I refuse to immolate a ma
n I know is still alive, then the plan will fail. And it is already too late to prevent the assassination, isn’t it? Lark’s plans are laid; Llauron will die for nothing, and there will be no chance for immortality. He will be gone, because I was too self-serving to wait to know something I have lived without the knowledge of for more than a millennium.” She sighed heavily.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” she said, finally using the name. “You couldn’t believe I’m selfish; well, here’s the proof. My whining almost caused you to let your own father die.”
“That’s hardly what happened.”
“That’s exactly what happened.” Rhapsody wiped the remnants of her tears out of her eyes with the hem of her dress. “But at least we caught it in time.”
Ashe regarded her with a sharp look. “What are you saying, Emily? You don’t want to keep the memory?”
She smiled at him. “You keep it for me, Sam. I can live without it a little longer.”
He took her in his arms and held her quietly for a moment. “Do you want to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“What happened to you? When I didn’t come back?”
“I don’t think you really want to know, Sam.”
“Your choice, Emily. I want to know everything I missed, everything that isn’t too painful for you to tell me.”
“So you wish to nullify our agreement? To talk about the Past?”
“Yes,” he said forcefully. “Up to now we have been keeping silent not only to spare ourselves the pain, but to protect the interests of our families, our friends. Blast them. There is nothing in this world, the next, or the last, that ever was or ever will be more important to me than you are. Nothing. Please, Emily; I want to know what happened, whatever it won’t hurt you to tell me, so that perhaps we can make sense of why it happened, and how.”