Once the board was prepared, he looked at Esten, who was busy giving directions to the journeymen, and exhaled quietly.
He reached for the tin-tipped compass, the instrument with which she would draw the window sections, which he was expected to go over with red pigment, noting where the support cames, the leading that bordered each section, would go.
His hand was shaking. No matter how much he tried to control his terror, despite being blessed with a nonchalant aspect and a deadpan expression, there were subtle signs of the fear — the gleam he could see on occasion in his eyes reflecting in the undulating glass, his mouth, dry as the sand and ash from which that glass was formed, the way his voice would occasionally refuse to come forth from his constricted throat.
His quaking hands.
Has she noticed? he wondered, watching the masquerading guildmistress cutting pieces of other glass sheets with a red-hot iron cutter, trimming it with her shoddy groziers. How long will it be before she realizes I belonged to her once, lived under her lash, languished in the inferno of her foundry, witnessed her send the bodies of the dead slave boys to the kilns, and hundreds of other crimes?
Amid all those wonderings, the one he had no question about was what would happen to him when she discovered him.
Please let the king return soon, he prayed to whatever god might hear him.
He could feel the gaze from her black eyes on his neck.
“Sandy, get the stonemasons in here,” she said curtly. “It’s time to measure for the tracery supports.”
Omet nodded without turning around, grateful as always to Shaene for his stupid nickname, and to Rhur, for his unwillingness to speak much. His true name was still guarded because of both of their idiosyncrasies. He rose from his workbench and left the room quickly, heading for the quarry where the masons worked.
He had considered telling Rhur, or Shaene, to be wary of the new artisan, not to use his name in her presence, to try and stall the work until the return of the king. But he could not do that. He had seen her in action, had watched her overtly tossing unfortunate boys who tried to escape into ovens, covertly assigning them to tasks that would inevitably drown or asphyxiate them, knew in the depths of his soul that to speak any of his terror out loud would only hasten his end.
He knew what everyone who knew her name knew.
No secret could be kept from Esten for long, let alone forever.
42
IN THE TIDAL CAVE
After the first few days, Rhapsody managed to settle into a routine, trapped within the tidal cave.
She had made one valiant attempt to swim out with the ebbing current, only to confirm what she already knew — that the spiraling rip tide was too strong for her to bear up against. She was caught almost immediately in the undertow and found herself fighting to keep from drowning.
So she had to look around for another means of exit.
The first thing that she knew she had to find, after warmth, was water. Drying herself during the times when the tide was low was easy enough; the elemental bond to fire in her soul allowed heat to come forth upon her command, and she took every opportunity to summon it, using the warmth to dry her hair and clothes, reveling in the comfort of not being wet until the next time the current flooded, keeping her body from losing too much heat.
Water had been more difficult to come by. A small amount of freshwater condensation could sometimes be gathered from the ceiling of the cave when the tide was high, but it was never enough to slake her thirst. She had to content herself with the blood of the eels that swarmed abundantly in the tidal cave, trapped when the current ebbed, then eating their flesh raw to preserve as much of the liquid as possible. Occasionally she caught a few oysters, fish, or sea urchins that got swept into the cave, but after a few nightmarish days the source of her nourishment hardly mattered.
We will live through this together, you and I, she had promised her unborn child.
She would do whatever she had to in order to keep that promise.
I am a Singer, a Namer, she thought, caressing her abdomen while watching the gray sky turn pink from her perch on the natural ledge in the back of the tidal cave. And also because I am your mother, I must tell you the truth.
She closed her eyes, remembering Ashe’s tender words to her on the night their child was conceived.
And what do you plan to give me for my birthday?
Someone to teach your morning aubade, your evening vespers to.
A tiny shaft of sunlight broke through the gloom at the horizon. Rhapsody cleared her throat, ragged from the salt, and quietly sang one of the ancient aubades, the love songs to the sky that Liringlas had been marking time with for as long as she knew.
Welcome sunrise
Touch the mountains with
Tentative light
Blend the clouds with gold
And gently disturb the dreams of the night
Welcome daybreak
Fill the silence with
Songs of the birds
Lift the sky-lantern to the sound of
Music that swells without singers or words
Welcome morning
Fire of dawn, light of the day
Warming the world with your glow
Awaken again we, your children
Who, chanting the aubade, know
That we have welcomed sunrise.
“Not my favorite,” she said to the unborn baby when she was finished, “but the first one your grandmother taught me. We must learn them in order; they have a pattern, as you will see.”
More and more she had begun to talk aloud to the child, her only regular companion in the prison of her tidal cave. The baby had become her touchstone, her reason for enduring the hours underwater, the thirst, the hunger.
During the times when the tide was high, she had stopped struggling, and instead viewed the hours as instruction in the music of the sea. While floating on her back, she could make out songs on the waves; at first they were wordless, mere melodies of swirling currents, rushing and ebbing along with the seawater. She tried to concentrate on floating, knowing her child was floating within her as well.
If you are not frightened in your small, dark cave full of water, I must not be, either.
Once she had banished the fear from her mind, she could hear it then, the lore of the sea, songs from all the shores that the ocean waves touched, some fragmented, some clear and long. She spent most of her quiet hours listening to the chanties of sailors, the call of the merfolk, scraps of lore from the ancient city of the Mythlin, now silent beneath the waves, the weeping of the families of those lost on the sea; it was an indescribably beautiful symphony of life, of history, sad, heroic, glorious, mystical.
And it was being sung to her, and to her baby.
How lucky you are in a way, my child, to have this time, she thought one night as the moonlight was reflected on the low water of the cave, swirling in great silver ripples. You are being steeped in elemental magic — the baptism of the sea, the fire that warms and dries us when the tide is low, the sheltering cave of earth that was formed in fire and cooled in water, the wind that blows through, singing its ageless song. One day you will make a fine Namer, if you choose to be one. The thoughts were enough to help her keep despair at bay.
Most of the time.
One afternoon, when she was not feeling so strong, and misery had taken a greater toll that it was usually allowed, Rhapsody looked up from her ledge to see bright eyes in a small brown furry face staring back at her.
She started, reeling back against the wall.
The animal started as well, disappearing beneath the surface of the water.
As she skittered back, her boots scraped for purchase on the ledge, sending a small hail of black rocks that had broken off from the wall into the swirling water.
Rhapsody watched, fascinated, as the black igneous formations floated in the surface, spinning in spirals. A moment later, the otter she had seen appeared, bobbing the volcanic
rock in front of its nose, guiding it out of the tidal cave.
She pondered what she had seen that night as she floated with the rising tide, trying to think of a way she might make use of what she had seen.
By the time the tide had fallen, she had an idea.
Every few hours she would use the bolt tip that had lodged in her belt to scrape free pieces of the back wall of the cave, tying them within her shirt. If I can bind them together with something, seaweed, strands of my hair, it would make for a tiny raft of sorts, she reasoned, trying to keep from shredding her fingers too badly. If I can use it to aid my floating when the tide is high, perhaps I can use it to obtain purchase, to work my way around to the front of the cave, so that when the tide falls, it will take me with it. She patted her abdomen and silently corrected herself.
Take us with it.
Each evening that the tide was low, when the weather was clear, she would watch for the pink light that filled the cave, signaling that the sun was about to set.
Even more than the sunrise devotions, Rhapsody had always loved the vespers, the evensong that bade the sun farewell with a promise to be standing vigil until it rose again the next morning. It was a dual devotion, a requiem for the sun, marking the completion of another day as a requiem sung at a funeral pyre marked the completion of a life; it was a greeting to the stars, the sky guardians of the Lirin, as well.
I will not forget you, she whispered as the light in the sky dimmed, disappearing beyond the horizon into night. Please do not forget me.
The phrase rang in her memory, familiar; she pondered while floating where she had heard it before, then remembered as the water swirled around her ears, singing its ageless song.
They were the words, simple in their formation, spoken by her dear friend, the dragon Elynsynos, to her lover, Merithyn the Explorer, before he left her lands and returned to his king, Gwylliam, with the joyous news that there was a land, a verdant, beautiful land, that would take the refugees of Serendair in, would make them at home.
He had promised, and then died at sea on the way back.
As she watched the first star rising at the horizon, twinkling in the deep cobalt blue of the late summer night, Rhapsody wondered what might have come to pass if the sea had not taken him, had he made it back to her, to their children whom he would not live to see. How different would things be now, she thought, her hand, as ever, resting lightly on her belly.
She thought of their descendants, Manwyn and her two mad sisters, the Seers of the Past and Present, the first now dead, the second living a frail and harmless life, moment by moment, in an abbey in Sepulvarta. Edwyn Griffyth, Anwyn and Gwylliam’s eldest son, a self-imposed exile in Gaematria, the mystical island of the Sea Mages. Llauron, Ashe’s father, now lost in time somewhere, communing with the elements in a vaporous dragon form, one with them. And Anborn. Tears welled up in her eyes as her mind came to rest on him, remembering the sight of his body lying in the burning forest, his legs, lost in the effort to spare her three years ago, useless to save him.
A litany of sadness, all born of that one failed promise.
Merithyn’s promise.
Still thinking of Anborn, she remembered their time together around the fire, singing the song her mother had sung to her for him.
A noble tradition. Have you chosen one yet for my great-nephew or niece.
No, not yet. When it is right, I will know it.
It’s the song of the sea, she thought, the music of the endless waves, ever-present but ever-changing, eternal, endless.
Like love.
Touching all the kingdoms of the earth, but free to rove the wide world, home anywhere it went.
As I hope for you, she thought.
She wondered if some of the melodies she heard in the sea were endless vibrations put on the wind by Merithyn; there was lore in the waves that told of his love for Elynsynos, songs she resolved to learn and sing for the dragon one day.
And as the thought brought her warmth in the last light of the setting sun, the child’s name rang in her mind, a paean to the hapless explorer that was its great-great-grandfather, and to the man who would be its father.
“If he agrees, boy or girl, I will call you Meridion,” she said aloud to the child, wanting it to be the first to hear the name spoken. “Merithyn was the past; Gwydion is the present, but you, Meridion, you will be the future, with ties to all three.”
The ocean roared its approval; all else was silent.
43
TRAEG, NORTHERN SEACOAST
From the southern tip of the cove where the Water Basilica stood, the fire spread northward, burning villages and small towns, open farmland and forest, leaving smoldering wreckage that continued to burn with the acrid taint of the Underworld.
The Filids of Gwynwood deployed their foresters all along the coast, the men and women who normally traveled the woods, serving as guides to pilgrims who were making their ways along the Cymrian trail, a historic path of sites the First Fleet of refugees had established upon coming to this new land. That duty, and their countless other tasks of forest stewardship, were abandoned in the effort to contain the burnings, but the firestarters were elusive; occasionally one or two men, sometimes up to four at a time had been seen, traveling the winding roads or untrodden paths that led up the sea coast. They were looking for a woman, a yellow-haired woman, they said on the rare occasions they stopped; not long afterward, a crop of black fires, hissing and resistant to normal methods of extinction, would break out nearby.
Villagers began taking up arms, posting guards, in the effort to protect themselves from the purveyors of the dark fire; blacksmiths could often be seen, hammers in hand, lurking on the roads outside of town, or patrolling the outer edge of villages by day and night.
The demon that clung to the seneschal reveled in the intense heat and the heavy smoke at first, but as the days passed and the woman was not found, there was only so much joy to be had in the ashes.
We need to move inland, the incessant voice insisted, nagging at the base of Michael’s mind. Or south to Port Fallon, where there is more wood, more ships, more buildings, more people. There is nothing here along the desolate coast except for a few thatched hut villages, a tiny town here and there. There is not enough death. What good is fire without destruction, without murder?
The seneschal clawed at his skull in frustration.
“Have you failed to notice how very few of us there are?” he asked the demon angrily, feeling it bristle at the affront. “I have a handful of men. The coast is hundreds of miles long, which is the only reason we have not been captured yet. This is not Argaut; we are not in power here.”
Yet.
Michael glanced around, looking for signs of the longboats. In the distance over the waves he could see dim lights glowing diffusely in the semi-darkness, undulating on the waves.
He inhaled deeply, reveling in the scent of the fire that had consumed the dock here in Traeg, the tiny, windswept fishing village, the northernmost on the seacoast.
“I am going back to the ship,” he stated flatly, looking around to make certain that none of his men were near enough to hear him arguing with himself. “I must consult Faron one more time; perhaps the scales have scried something in my absence.”
The demon screamed in fury.
You execrable, accursed fool! Enough of this idiotic search! The woman is gone; she is not to be found. It is time to move to the next step; either set sail for Argaut, or turn and move inland. But we will wander no more in this vain exercise in futility!
“As ever, it is not your decision, m’lord,” the seneschal replied in a deadly tone. “You may come along, or you may exit now, but you may not direct. If there is a blacksmith or a dock whore you would like to inhabit, by all means go. But if you wish to remain with a more powerful host than the human rats available to you, you will cease your prattle and go back to seething sleep whilst we row out to the ship.”
Faron winced at the sound of the door
to the hold opening, at the approach of the lantern that stung his eyes with unwelcome light.
Out of the darkness the seneschal stepped, carrying a burlap sack that twisted and writhed in the air.
“You’re in luck today, Faron,” he said, his voice barely hiding the raw edge that had been there since his conversation with the demon. “The deckhands have pulled in some lovely eels, the kind you favor; big ones with the heads still on.”
The hermaphroditic creature’s milky eyes lit up with excitement. The seneschal tossed Faron the bag; it fell short of the pool and landed with only its bottom in the glowing green water.
Faron stared at the bag in dismay, then at its own diminished hands, curled under and soft of bone. The creature looked back at the seneschal and mewed pathetically.
Michael stared at Faron coldly.
“You can’t do it alone? You need my help?”
Faron nodded slightly, a look of confusion turning to one of guarded alarm.
Without another word the seneschal swept the bag from the floor, tore open the drawstring, pulled forth the twitching sea creatures and ripped their heads off, slicing the flesh thinly, then fed it off the knife to his child.
When the creature was sated, and the eels were gone, the seneschal patted Faron, then plunged his fingers deep into the soft tissue of the creature’s head.
“Where is she?” he screamed, digging his knuckles down to the bone, lubricating them with the blood that spurted out of the holes.
Faron gasped deeply, then shrieked in agony.
Michael twisted his fingers more deeply in.
“Tell me, Faron, or by the gods, I will pull your head from your shoulders and eat your eyes.”
The creature collapsed, moaning and twitching desperately.
The seneschal loosed the metaphysical ties and allowed his essence to flood in through the holes in which his fingers remained.