I want to go with you. Please.
Achmed closed his eyes, his head heavy with the weight of the memories.
The torch Grunthor carried flickered uncertainly, a pale candle compared to the roaring flame that had first lighted their way into the hidden vault of magic. Achmed wondered if the weak fire was an indication that the concentrated lore, once heavy in the stale air, had begun to dissipate as the wind from the world above made its way down the ancient passages. Or perhaps it was more a sign that the fires of Rhapsody’s soul were burning a little more dimly.
She said nothing, following them silently down into the belly of the mountain, her face drawn and ghostly white in the pale torchlight. All the length of the tunnel to the Loritorium she remained quiet, so unlike their travels overland or along the Root, where she and Grunthor had passed the time with songs or whistled tunes. The absence of noise was deafening.
After they had gone a thousand paces Achmed heard a slow, broken intake of breath, and she knew she was hearing voices in the echoing tunnel as well.
Do you mean to tell me that the Lord Roland sent an unarmed woman into Ylorc without the protection of the weekly armed caravan? These are unsafe times, not just in Ylorc, but everywhere.
I’m just doing my lord’s bidding, m’lady.
Prudence, you must stay here tonight. Please. I fear for your safety if you were to leave now.
No. I’m sorry, but I must return to Bethany at once.
Ghosts, Achmed thought. Everywhere ghosts.
Finally the tunnel widened into the entrance to the marble city. The flame from the firewell was burning brightly, steadily, casting long shadows about the empty Loritorium.
“Everything seems all right here,” Achmed said, examining the fiery fountain. “I don’t feel any strange vibrations here.”
They left the Loritorium and wandered down the corridor to the Chamber of the Sleeping Child.
The Grandmother was in the entranceway, as always.
“You’ve come,” she said; each of her three voices was trembling. “She’s worse.”
From within the chamber the sound of moaning could be heard. They hurried past the enormous doors of sootstreaked iron, into the well of the chamber.
The Earthchild thrashed about on her catafalque, murmuring in panic. Rhapsody ran to her, whispering soothing words, trying to gentle her down, but the child did not respond.
Achmed grasped Rhapsody’s upper arm with a grip that hurt. When she looked up, he turned her toward Grunthor.
The giant stood beside the Earthchild’s catafalque, his sallow skin ashen in the dim light. His broad face was pickled with beads of sweat.
“Somethin’s coming,” he whispered. “Somethin’—” His words choked into a strangled gasp.
“Grunthor?”
The giant was trembling as he reached for his weapons.
“The Earth,” the Grandmother whispered. “It screams. Green death. Unclean death.”
As if to mirror the Firbolg giant, the ground began to shudder all around them. Pieces of rock and granite crumbled from the walls and ceiling as dust streamed down in great rivers, blackening the air.
“What’s happening? An earthquake?” Rhapsody shouted to Grunthor. The sergeant was drawing Lopper, his hand-and-a-half sword, and the Friendmaker, his expression grim. He barely had time to shake his head.
Soft popping sounds erupted around them, like sparks from wet wood in fire. From the floor, ceiling and walls, thousands of tiny roots appeared, black and spiny, poking through the dirt like new spring seedlings. Within a few moments they had grown to the size of daggers, slashing menacingly at the air. By the time they had, Achmed was across the cavern, almost within arm’s reach of Rhapsody. She stifled a gasp as the roots began to hiss, and held up her hands over the head of the Sleeping Child.
Then the world exploded.
From every earthen surface massive vines, each thick as an ancient oak, broke forth, rending the air and crushing the walls. The ground below their feet buckled and reared up violently, shattering beneath the swirling wall of spiny flesh as even bigger roots ripped out of the earth, surrounding them and tossing them about like acorns.
A great wave of stench roared forth, blinding them, causing them to choke and gag. The malodor was unmistakable.
F’dor.
Achmed covered his head as a large chunk of falling debris glanced off him, sending waves of shock through his shoulder and torso. He could feel the heartbeats of the others racing in a cacophonous crescendo, pelting his skin like hard rain. Rhapsody had been thrown out of his line of sight by the violent upheaval of the earth and the lashing vines. “Get out!” he shouted to her, coughing to clear the dust from his lungs and hoping she could hear him over the noise of the chaos.
In answer, a humming light appeared amid the falling rubble, shining through the black ash clouds that obscured all other vision. A metallic ring like a clarion call accompanied it, reaching down into Achmed’s heart, sending an electric thrill coursing through him. The rippling flames hovered steady in the air for a moment, then began a furious, humming dance as the sword hacked into the thrashing vines, throwing flashes of light around the darkness of the crumbling cavern. The Iliachenva’ar was standing her ground, fighting back.
An earsplitting roar exploded next to him. Achmed turned as a huge tendril lashed around Grunthor’s foot and dragged him from the slab of ground he had fallen against, lifting him upside down into the smoky air. Dozens of whipcords wound like lightning around his neck and limbs, then simultaneously snapped with a gruesome force. Grunthor screamed again, more in fury than in agony, before the nooses tightened, choking off his roar.
With a flick of both wrists, daggers were in Achmed’s hands, and he leapt to where the giant was hanging, slicing at the writhing tendrils in a flurry of gouging slashes. He grabbed for one of the weapons, hanging upside down in Grunthor’s backsheath, and began to strike at the vine with both hands. He aimed first for the vines around giant’s wrists, freeing one of them before a large clawlike vine flexed and slapped him against a slab of upturned earth, pinning him beneath itself.
Achmed breathed shallowly, trying to minimize the pain from the crushing blow to his ribs. In the distance he could still hear the ringing of Daystar Clarion, the screaming of the vines as Rhapsody sawed through them, searing the ends. Her heartbeat was remarkably slow and focused, given the thunderous pounding he knew must belong to Grunthor. By the sound of it, the sergeant had wrestled himself free and was hacking ferociously at the vine above Achmed that was holding him captive. A moment later the great root snapped in two, proving him correct. He grabbed hold of Grunthor’s hand, and the giant Bolg hauled him free of the morass of slithering roots that flailed beneath him, hissing and striking at his heels like serpents.
“Hrekin,” the sergeant swore, gulping for air. It was the last thing Achmed heard him say before the ground beneath his feet buckled again, hurling him back toward what had been the cavern entrance, now in ruins.
One of his daggers was wrenched from his hand and fell as he did, though he couldn’t hear where it landed in the fury around him. The cold, gangrenous hand of terror clutched at his viscera as he realized the impossibility of escaping this monstrous root, this demon-vine that was devouring the cavern of the Sleeping Child. The Earthchild’s catafalque was gone, blasted into the air in the initial moments of the attack. Her body was now undoubtedly buried beneath a mountain of rubble or, far worse, wrapped in the tendrils of the serpent vine, being dragged back to the clutches of the F’dor, just like Jo. He could taste his own death in his mouth.
Frozen waves of fear washed over him. It was not death itself he feared, but the hands that were delivering it. He had become used to the freedom that had been his since that humid day in the backstreets of Easton a lifetime ago when Rhapsody had changed his name, snapping the invisible collar of demonic servitude from his neck. He had almost learned to breathe again, to believe that his life, his soul, were
his own once more. And now he was about to die, back once again in the demon’s iron grasp.
And worse, so were his only friends.
The scratching sound of the wind filled his ears, spreading a moment later into four separate notes, held in a monotone. The ritual singing rang through his head, vibrating in his Dhracian blood. He could not see the Grandmother through the upheaval, but he could hear her clearly, the fifth note of the Thrall ritual cutting through the noise like a knife.
As the ritual clicking joined the monotonous tune, the tangled sea of roots and vines pulsed for a moment with the same rhythm as the Thrall ritual, then went rigid. For a moment Achmed was acutely aware of all the sounds around him—the throbbing of the colossal network of vines, now filling the entire cavern above and around him, dwarfing him in their titanic size; the ringing hum of Daystar Clarion, gleaming in the darkness beyond his reach; the spitting growl of the thousands of snakelike tendrils that hovered near him, threatening to strike at any moment; Rhapsody’s flickering heartbeat, and the ritual cadence that was the heartbeat of the Grandmother.
He could not hear Grunthor’s heartbeat.
“Achmed.” Rhapsody’s voice was barely audible, and smoke was wafting from the place it originated. He pushed past a tangle of wriggling rootlets, ignoring their failed strikes, and climbed over to where he had heard her, following the sound of her heart.
He found her, wedged between two great slabs of earth, searing the end of an enormous stalk with the flames from Daystar Clarion. The tributary of the demon-vine was moaning, withering to blackness in the ethereal fire. Her eyes met his, burning green with the same intensity as the sword.
“Elemental fire cauterizes it,” she said softly when she knew he was close enough to hear her. “Do I hear the Thrall ritual?”
Achmed nodded, wincing from the shooting pain that tore through his head with the movement. “The vine’s an extension of the demon, a construct like the Rakshas was,” he answered, taking care to avoid the ropy flesh. “She may be able to hold the demonic essence in stasis for the moment, but she won’t be able to kill the root; it’s much too powerful.”
“Vingka jai,” Rhapsody said to the flame glowing on the root’s edge. Ignite and spread. The fire leapt as if in righteous anger, and the vine shrieked in fury and pain.
“Get—out of there,” Achmed ordered, gesturing toward where the exit to the Loritorium had been. “I don’t know how long she can hold it off.”
“Where’s Grunthor? The child?”
Achmed shook his head. “Get out of there now,” he commanded.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know!” he snarled. The loss of Grunthor, coupled with the knowledge that the keys that would open the prison vault were on their way to the depths of the earth, was more than he could contemplate without losing his mind. The one thing he could concentrate on was getting Rhapsody out of the shards of the Colony before it collapsed. Distantly he wondered if that was doing her a favor, given what was coming. “Damnation! Get out while you can!”
She still wasn’t listening. Instead, she was staring off into the crumbled ruin of the cavern, her mouth open in astonishment. Achmed turned toward where she was looking.
There, standing amid the clouds of ash and dust hanging in the air, was the Sleeping Child. Her eyes still closed, the Earthchild was standing erect, her feet melding into the rubble that littered the Colony floor. The light from Daystar Clarion, now rigid in Rhapsody’s grasp, was breaking in rippling waves over her, illuminating the smoothness of her face, the polished gray of her skin. In the firelight she seemed enormously tall, taller than she had appeared in repose, her long shadow dancing off the broken cavern walls.
“No,” Rhapsody whispered, choking. “No, please. Stay asleep, little one.”
Slowly the child pulled first one foot, then the other, from the ground and took a step forward.
The sleepwalker.
“Please,” Rhapsody whispered again. “Not yet, little one, it’s not time now. Go back to sleep.”
The Earthchild paid her no heed. With a lumbering gait she began climbing through the hills of littered stone, gliding through the rock as if wading ankle-deep in the sea, her eyes still closed. Whipcords and tendrils of the colossal vine flexed and lashed impotently toward her, straining against the thrall caused by the strange insectoid music that the Grandmother was still making.
Achmed put his hand out to Rhapsody. “Come on,” he said. Involuntarily she obeyed, following him over the boulders that had once been part of the ceiling.
They followed in the wake of the Earthchild, whose movements left an open passage in the rocky wasteland that the Colony had become. As they passed the great arms of the demon-root it began to tremble, causing even more dust and grit to rain down from the crushed walls and ceiling. Rhapsody coughed, trying to expel the debris from the back of her throat, as Achmed hauled her over a mound of earth and under a mammoth, hissing vine. Tiny tendrils writhed in the dark, lunging in serpentine strikes, to be reined back by the power of the Thrall ritual. Unable to reach their target, the roots spat in snakelike fury.
At the sound Rhapsody’s eyes suddenly narrowed, brightened by hate and the memory of Jo’s death. She let go of Achmed’s hand. With a movement so sudden that he couldn’t follow it with his eyes, she lashed out with a vicious sweep of the sword and struck off the tendrils, tossing them onto the floor of the cavern. The vine shrieked and shuddered, the tiny branches igniting and burning to ash on the ground.
“Not now!” Achmed hissed. “Listen.”
The Thrall ritual was diminishing. The echo of the Grandmother’s voice in the distance was thinner, rasping, as the strain of maintaining the difficult song began to take its toll.
“She’s failing,” Achmed said, dragging Rhapsody out from under the quivering root and up the tunnel. “We have to get to the Loritorium.”
“Grunthor—”
“Come,” Achmed insisted. He could barely keep the same thought from his mind. The heartbeat of the Grandmother was beginning to wane, the exertion of the ritual wearing her down rapidly. Her ancient heart would give out soon. If it did before they got to the Loritorium, there would be no chance for escape, not for them.
And not for the rest of the world, upon whom the prisoners of the ancient vault deep within the Earth were about to be loosed.
A horrific crash and the sound of falling rock rumbled through the passageway ahead, and a thick fog of dust rolled over them. Instinctively they covered their eyes and heads. When the noise abated, they looked up simultaneously and waved their arms to clear the air of the gray dust. Achmed nodded, and they hurried forward, only to stop.
A solid wall of newly fallen rock blocked the passageway ahead of them. Achmed ran his hands over it desperately, then pointed off to the side. A tiny opening beneath heavy stone slabs was the only break in the wall.
Quickly Rhapsody sheathed her sword, dropped to the ground, and crawled into the hole, breathing in the bitter dust as she did. The broken fragments of basalt ripped through the fabric of her trousers and the skin of her hands as she pulled herself through to the other side, then immediately began clearing as much of the debris as she could from around the hole.
A moment later, Achmed’s head appeared, his face contorted in pain. His shoulders caught as he struggled through, wedging him in the hole. With great effort he pulled himself back again, then reached an arm through first. Rhapsody grabbed his hand and pulled, bracing herself against the rockwall with one foot. She could feel the crack of the bones in his hand and shuddered.
“Pull harder,” Achmed mumbled, his face in the gravel of the floor.
“Your ribs—”
“Pull harder,” he growled. Rhapsody set her teeth and repositioned her foot once more, then pulled with all her strength. A sickening popping vibrated through her hands, and she heard the intake of breath as Achmed swallowed the sound of agony. His head and shoulders emerged. Rhapsody slid her hands un
der his armpits and tugged again, hauling his upper body free of the hole and striping his back with streaks of blood as it grazed against the jagged rocks of the floor. A moment later he was free, clutching his broken ribs, and she helped him rise. They exchanged a quick nod, then turned and ran up the passageway again.
They scrambled over a pile of broken granite that had once been the great archway, the shattered words of the inscription now littering the ground in mute testimony to the wisdom they had once held. The Sleeping Child was no longer within their sight. Achmed’s foot slipped as he reached the summit of the mound and wedged in a crevasse. Rhapsody pulled it out before following him over the hill.
Before them yawned the tunnel opening to the Loritorium.
“Can you see the Earthchild?” Rhapsody gasped. Achmed shook his head, then rapidly descended the hill, running until he reached the smooth marble of the Loritorium floor.
The flame of the firewell was twisting brightly in its fountain, casting grim shadows around the streets and over the silent buildings. Rhapsody ran to the central square where the cases that housed the elements stood, then stopped and exhaled in relief. The Sleeping Child was standing there, near the altar of Living Stone, eyes still closed. The Sleepwalker.
Rhapsody slowed her gait and walked toward the tall figure as quietly as she could, taking care not to frighten her. The Earthchild ran her hands blindly over the altar of Living Stone, then turned slowly. She sat down on the top of the slab and then lay back, crossing her arms over her waist, resuming the position in which she had once rested on her catafalque. The shadows from the firelight illuminated her face, relaxing into a peaceful countenance, as they danced over her. She let loose a deep sigh.
Then, as Rhapsody stared in astonishment, the body of the Sleeping Child seemed to become liquid and began to shift and expand. Her chest and head glistened, then glowed with a light of their own. The flesh of her long, stone-gray body became translucent, gleaming in the flickering light from the firewell, then stretched in an absurd dance, twisting hypnotically, grotesquely, in earth-colors more intensely beautiful than Rhapsody had ever seen, a multiplicity of subtle shades of vermilion and green, brown and purple. Like bread dough being kneaded, she thought as the child’s abdomen elongated, then distended upward. Ethereal bread dough.