The disembodied arm of Entudenin was removed first, and, in a quiet ceremony, brought into the Judiciary’s main rotunda beneath the palace’s famous minarets. There it was put on display, because Yarim had no elemental temple, its people worshipping under the auspices of the Blesser of Canderre-Yarim, Ian Steward, who held services in the Basilica of Fire in Bethany a hundred leagues away. The first day it was available to be viewed by the public, more than four thousand people came to reverently observe it, ten times the number that had paid their respects when the body of Ihrman Karsrick’s father had been lying in state in the same rotunda many years before.
Ashe watched the crowds filing into the rotunda from the balcony of their tower guest chambers west of the central palace, chuckling at the look on Rhapsody’s face.
“What is it now, my love?” he asked teasingly. “You seem amazed.”
“I am amazed,” Rhapsody said, staring over the railing at the snaking line that stretched down the streets, almost to the central Marketway. “That bloody thing stood in the center of their town for hundreds of years, ignored and unnoticed. Virtually every merchant, every tradesman who had business in the center of the city, walked by it every day, and no one paid it a bit of attention except a few pilgrims and a little boy I once saw stop there to relieve himself. And now it is a holy relic of vast interest to the same people who were oblivious to it three days ago. It is amazing.”
Ashe put his arms around her. “Indeed. Well, do you suppose I might be able to draw your interest away from this amazing sight for a while?”
“By all means,” she said, smiling. “What do you have in mind?”
“I thought we might go out into the city in disguise — you could put on a ghodin and I can wear a hooded veil like the Shanouin well-diggers or some other pilgrim.”
His wife laughed in delight. “Back to the days of hiding your face, are we? Well, I did wear a ghodin the last time I was here with Achmed, so that I would not be recognized. There are not too many yellow heads in Yarim; I would have been a curiosity, and since we were here to snatch the slave boys from the tile foundry, that would not have been a good thing. I can wear one again; all that flowing white linen keeps the heat out. So where would we go? It might be a good time to shop the market; all the townspeople are in the Judiciary, bowing to a dead rock formation. The crowds shouldn’t be too pressing.”
“Not quite what I had in mind.”
“Oh?”
“I thought we might make a visit to Manwyn’s temple.”
The laughter in Rhapsody’s eyes resolved to a clear, sober expression.
“Are you certain you want to do that, Sam?” she asked gently.
“Yes,” he answered, taking her hand and leading her back into the tower chambers. “Let us obtain the answers to our questions, knowing we may only get some insane babble, and then we can make an afternoon of it. We can take noonmeal in a tavern or over one of those open-street firepits, and then find something quaint in the market to bring home for Gwydion and Melly.”
Rhapsody made a deep reverence before her husband. “Lead on, m’lord.”
Manwyn’s temple stood at the western edge of the city, the centerpiece of a section that had been a thriving water garden in the time when Entudenin still brought forth her liquid gifts, now all but deserted. Deep, dry depressions that had once been immense pools lined the decaying streets, along which broken statuary of sea nymphs poured empty vessels into dusty fountains.
The temple itself was, like Yarim Paar itself, large, majestically built, but decaying from neglect. Formed of marble which must have been magnificent in its time, the Temple of the Oracle was composed of a central building with two annex wings sprawling at the end of the main thoroughfare, crumbling in places. Cracked marble steps led up to a wide, inlaid patio, where eight huge columns stood on the unevenly paved surface, marred by expanding patches of lichen.
The central building was a large rotunda topped with a circular dome in which two large cracks could be seen. A tall, thin minaret crowned this central building, shining like a beacon in the sun.
Rhapsody stopped at the base of the grand staircase.
“Are you certain you want to do this?” she asked Ashe again. “It was very strange the last time the two of you saw each other here; I don’t want to repeat that, if possible.”
“You do not enjoy being in the center of a battle of dragon will in a motheaten temple?” Ashe replied, looking into her green eyes, the only part of her visible beneath the ghodin. “Teetering on the brink of her yawning well as the ground shakes, dodging falling pieces of the firmament of the dome?”
“That would be accurate, yes.”
“I will do my best to behave,” he promised. “Come, Aria.”
Rhapsody’s green eyes glittered nervously. “Do you remember the wording we planned?”
Ashe caressed her hand reassuringly. “Yes. Come.”
They climbed the great stair and passed through the large open portal that served as the entrance. The inside of the temple was dark, lit only by dim torches and candles, keeping the entranceway in a perennial state of half-light.
The interior of the temple, unlike its edifice, was well maintained. In the center of the vast room a large fountain blasted a thin stream of water twenty feet into the air, where it splashed down into a pool lined with shimmering lapis lazuli. The floor was polished marble, the walls adorned with intricately decorated tile, the sconces shining brass.
To either side of this room were small antechambers where Manwyn’s guards stood, wearing the horned helmets traditional in Yarim and armed with long, thin swords. A large door of intricately carved cedar stood across from them, behind the fountain and its pool, also guarded.
Rhapsody stopped again suddenly and grasped Ashe by the arm.
“Oh! Wait! Remember the last time we came here for a prophecy, Manwyn was very angry because you were hiding your face. Perhaps it is best to remove the ghodin and the veils now; I don’t want to provoke her again.”
“Very well; we will as soon as we are inside.”
Ashe pried her fingers loose from his forearm, took her hand again, and led her around the fountain, stopping before the guards of the great door.
“Ten gold crowns to see the Oracle, for the Seer’s sustenance,” the man said rotely.
Ashe reached into his coin purse and drew forth the amount the guard had demanded.
“If this is really being used for the maintenance of the Oracle, I expect that she will have a new gown since the last time we saw her,” he said, dropping the coins into the offering box. “She looked thin and in a fair bit of disarray, though I see that you are well turned out and of a healthy girth, soldier. But I’m certain that you would never usurp any of the alms given to the Oracle for yourselves, now, would you?”
The guard spat on the floor and opened the beautiful cedar door, motioning them angrily inside.
“You are doing an excellent job of behaving already,” Rhapsody said dryly as they entered the Inner Sanctum.
“I’m a dragon. It’s my job to annoy people.”
“I see that.”
“Well, if we are to reveal our faces in the attempt not to disturb Manwyn, we had best do it now.” Ashe pulled the veil from his face, then gently took down the head veil of her ghodin. He blinked; Rhapsody’s face was almost as pale as the white robe she was wearing, ghostly in the glow of the candleflames around them.
“Aria? Are you all right?”
She nodded wordlessly.
Ashe took her hand; it was cold and trembling slightly.
“Rhapsody, if you don’t want to do this, we can leave now, without a second thought.”
She shook her head, though her grip tightened slightly.
“It’s just all coming back to me now,” she said nervously. “I had forgotten how intimidating a place this is. Manwyn frightens me.”
“Then let’s go back to the bazaar.” Ashe turned and curled his knuckles to rap on the ceda
r door, but Rhapsody stopped him.
“No. We have to hear what she has to say, have to ask her about her last prophecy, or else something that should be a wonderful, exciting event in our lives will only bring worry and fear,” she said. “I am sorry I am being such a coward. Let’s go in.”
Ashe squeezed her hand, and together they went deeper into the Inner Sanctum.
The room beyond the cedar door was immense, illuminated by a series of small windows in the dome of the rotunda and countless candles. In the center of the room was a dais which was suspended precariously above a large, open well, sideless, flush with the floor.
Manwyn sat, as she always did when in her temple, in the center of the suspended dais. She was tall and thin with rosy gold skin and fiery red hair streaked with silver. Her face bore the lines of middle age. In her left hand she held an ornate sextant, and she was dressed, as Ashe had expected, in a ragged gown of green silk, once a magnificent garment, now frayed and worn with age.
The Seer of the Future had eyes that were perfect mirrors, with no pupil, iris, or sclera to delineate them. The first time Rhapsody had beheld her, it had almost felt as if she were drowning in those eyes, deep, reflective pools of quicksilver that gazed only beyond the present, into the realm of what had not yet come to be.
She had learned, over time, how dangerous it was to the conscious mind to meet the gaze of a dragon or its kin. So she lowered her eyes respectfully and waited for the Seer to address them.
At first Manwyn ignored them altogether. Her long fingers were engaged in spinning the wheel of the sextant, which she did while humming a tuneless melody to herself. The lord and lady stood silent while she played, glancing occasionally at each other but saying nothing.
Suddenly, as if she had caught the scent of fire in the wind, Manwyn lurched upright, sniffing the air. Her liquid silver eyes darted wildly around the circular room, finally settling on them. She rose up slightly on her knees and pointed to the great dark hole that yawned raggedly in the floor.
“Gaze into the well,” she commanded in the same harsh voice Rhapsody had heard the last time she had been here, a raspy croak that scratched at the edges of Rhapsody’s skull.
Against her will she began to tremble again; Manwyn had attended the first Cymrian Council and their wedding, and had not been intimidating or frightening at all, merely detached and confused. But here within her temple, she was terrifying, smiling with a confidence that bordered on cruel amusement.
“May the All-God give thee good day, my great-nephew and his lady-wife,” the prophetess said, bowing deeply and saluting them with the traditional address of the Island of Serendair. “And indeed, He shall; it shall be a very interesting day for you.”
“Thank you, Aunt,” Ashe replied, returning her bow. “I hope that’s not the extent of our prophecy. I paid generously at the door.”
The Seer chuckled. “You will always be my favorite great-nephew, Gwydion of Manosse. And your lovely bride; she is quite a hat in your feather. Hat and feather, hat and feather!” She giggled, grinning broadly.
Rhapsody bowed in greeting, glancing askance at Ashe, who shrugged.
“Speak, then, your question,” Manwyn commanded, her solemn expression returning.
The Lord and Lady Cymrian exchanged a glance, remembering what they had planned to say.
“I seek a clarification of two conflicting prophecies you gave to us a few years ago,” Ashe said.
Confusion passed like a cloud over the Seer’s face. “Prophecies?”
“Yes,” Rhapsody said quickly. “To me you said, ‘I see an unnatural child born of an unnatural act. Rhapsody, you should beware of childbirth: the mother shall die, but the child shall live.’”
“And yet to me, her husband, you declared, ‘Gwydion ap Llauron, thy mother died in giving birth to thee, but thy children’s mother shall not die giving birth to them,’” Ashe added. “We seek to know what you meant, Aunt.”
The confusion on Manwyn’s face deepened to bewilderment. She ran a hand over her head through the tangle of matted snarls that was her hair, pulling at it nervously as a child, then shook her head briskly.
“You ask of the Past,” she said petulantly. “I will never be able to see the Past. I know nothing of what you speak.”
Rhapsody’s throat constricted. “Of course she wouldn’t,” she whispered to Ashe. “How stupid of me to phrase the question like that.”
The nervous confusion cleared in an instant from the Seer’s reflective eyes; her back straightened, and she turned in Rhapsody’s direction slowly, like a predator stalking its prey. She slid down onto her belly, causing the suspended dais to swing crazily over the well, and fixed her silver gaze on the Lady Cymrian.
“One should beware the Past, lady,” she said in a grim voice, though she was smiling. “The Past can be a relentless hunter, a stalwart protector, a vengeful adversary. It seeks to have you; it seeks to aid you.” She moved forward even more, her upper body suspended over the well, and whispered, “It seeks to destroy you.” She sat back, pleased with the sight of Rhapsody’s pale face, and twirled her fingers through her knotted hair. “Just as the Future continually seeks to destroy me.”
“Answer this,” Ashe commanded, disturbed by the look in the Seer’s eyes that was bringing fear into Rhapsody’s. “If Rhapsody and I conceive a child, will she or the baby come to any harm of it? I seek a direct answer, Manwyn. I tire of the game.”
The Seer stared at him for a moment, as if stunned, then calmly pointed the sextant at the firmament of the cracked domed ceiling above her and peered into it. Rhapsody huddled closer to Ashe as a dark wind rose from the well in the floor; the thousands of candleflames dimmed suddenly, blackening the room. Above their heads, the dome had faded into a night sky, dotted with stars between which ephemeral clouds passed, unhurried. A cold breeze rippled across their backs, snapping the fabric of the ghodin like a sail on the high sea.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Manwyn lowered the instrument from her eye and turned her gaze back to Ashe, her face sober. She held the golden sextant aloft, the navigator’s tool that guided his great-grandfather, her father, Merithyn the Explorer, across the sea to the shores of the dragon Elynsynos. Ashe understood the gesture; she was reminding him that she was born of that union, as was he, even if consciously she could not see the Past in which it happened, a commonality of dragon blood and ancient lore that was both their bane and blessing.
“You will always fear your own blood, Gwydion,” she said calmly, her voice absent of any wildness. “You need not. Your wife will not die in bearing your children.”
Ashe pointed at her accusingly. “Rhapsody,” he said sternly. “Say that Rhapsody will not die.”
“Rhapsody will not die in bearing your children.”
“Nor become injured or infirm by it? Don’t hedge your answer, Aunt.”
Manwyn shrugged. “The pregnancy will not be easy, but it will not kill or harm her. No.”
Ashe inhaled, gauging the new clarity with which she spoke. “Swear it to me, Manwyn, as your great-nephew, and as your lord. I want your oath; swear to me, descendant of our common ancestors, Lord Cymrian, duly invested, to whom you swore allegiance, that you are utterly certain that my blood will not cause this woman who stands before you harm in the bearing of our children.”
“It will not,” the Seer said patiently. “I swear it.”
Ashe exhaled, watching her carefully. “Thank you, Aunt.”
“You are most welcome, m’lord,” the Seer said, bowing respectfully.
“Anything else you wish to impart us of the Future before we go?” Ashe asked as Rhapsody began to pull the hood of the ghodin over her head again.
Manwyn. considered his question, her curled fist tucked beneath her chin, a finger resting on her cheek.
“The Pot and Kettle will be serving an excellent spiced lamb at the noonmeal,” she said pleasantly. “And today the fletcher will have some wonderful arrows, sparred in fe
athers dropped from an albatross in Kesel Tai; they will bring your ward luck in his bowmanship.”
“Thank you.” Ashe pulled up his own veil. “God give thee a good afternoon, and a peaceful night.” He took Rhapsody’s hand and started to lead her away.
“Gaze into the well before you go,” Manwyn said, her voice soft.
The two exchanged a glance, then Ashe nodded and released his wife’s hand, turning to approach the well.
“Not you, m’lord,” Manwyn chided. “The lady.”
“Do you wish to, Aria?” Ashe asked, running his thumb over her knuckles. “We can leave right away if you wish.”
“That might offend her; I don’t wish to do that,” Rhapsody said quickly. She turned and walked carefully across the dark floor, taking care to stay as far from the cracks in the jagged opening as possible.
When she reached the well, she peered hesitantly over the edge into the endless darkness below, where once she had seen the poor Lirin mother who had fulfilled Manwyn’s childbirth prophecy. A soft howl, the whine of the wind, ululated and echoed deep within the black pit in a discordant wail, but nothing more. She stared, trying to see whatever it was the Oracle was trying to show her, but all she could make out was blackness.
“I see nothing,” she said finally.
The prophetess smiled widely, her silver eyes gleaming with wicked light once again. “No? Pity. I suppose there are no more divinations coming to you today.” She slid down on her stomach again, her chin resting on her hands, and cocked her head to one side.
“Such it is with all those unlike yourself, who are not prescient,” she said, a tinge of haughtiness entering her voice, “who are not Singers, who are not blessed with dreams of the Future — in short, the rest of the world, lady. Who walk the earth, go about their lives, never having any warning of what is coming for them.” She began to giggle again; the mirth increased rapidly, until she was shrieking with laughter.