How much longer will it be like this? she wondered, stirring the fire with a long, thin reed, dry and cracked from winter’s cold. How many more nights must I spend wandering? When will it end? Will it end?
Nine living children of the F’dor, and one yet to be born. They had two. In a little more than eight weeks the baby would be born south of Tyrian. How can we possibly find them all in time? Rhapsody struggled to keep the panic from gripping her as her stomach knotted. The knowledge that Oelendra was waiting for them at the border of Canderre to take possession of the children they had found, and had been for three days, only made the queasy sensation worse.
A light, shaking sigh matched the whine of the wind, and she looked up from her contemplation. Aric had chosen to sleep near the horses, away from the adults and Vincane, who now dozed in herb-induced slumber near the fire. Rhapsody rose, feeling the cold in her bones, and went to the child, bending beside him to check his festering leg. She crooned a soft tune, aimed at easing his pain in sleep, then came back to her place near the fire beside Achmed.
He was staring into the western distance, his face shielded, his eyes clouded with thought. Rhapsody waited for him to speak. It was not until the bottom of the sun had sunk below the rim of the horizon that he did.
“We can’t make it to the carnival, or to Sorbold now before the birth of the last child.”
Rhapsody exhaled. As always, Achmed was giving practical voice to her thoughts. The oldest child of the Rakshas was a young man, a gladiator in the nation of the Sorbold, in the northwestern city-state of Jakar. Achmed had never been thrilled with the prospect of attempting a rescue of this child, but Rhapsody had been insistent, and finally he had granted the possibility as long as the timing allowed. Prior to their diversion back to Ylorc, had they followed the schedule, the gladiator, whose name was Constantin, could have been found outside Sorbold, at the winter carnival of Navarne. By the time they got there now, however, the carnival would be over and Constantin would have returned to Sorbold. It seemed the rescue of the additional slave children had been bought at the price of the gladiator’s damnation.
“The baby is due to be born in the Lirin fields to the south of Tyrian forest,” she said mildly, watching the sunset herself. “We’ll be in the area. We could go to Sorbold after Oelendra takes the baby off our hands.”
“No.” Achmed tossed some frozen grass into the fire. “It’s too much of a risk. If I’m caught while in Sorbold secretly, stealing as valuable a commodity as a gladiator, it will be an act of war. This mission, as I’ve told you from the beginning, was to gather these children for the blood we could get out of them, not to save their souls.”
“Perhaps for you.” Rhapsody’s gaze didn’t move. “How ironic,” she said, with a bitter tinge in her voice. “I suppose that means we are no better than the Rakshas, tying children up like swine and slaughtering them in the House of Remembrance. I guess blood is the means, whether you are well-intentioned or not.”
“Perspective is everything, Rhapsody.”
“I’m going after him,” she said mildly, still not moving her eyes from the vanishing sun. “I appreciate all that you have done, and will do, but I am not abandoning him. I understand your predicament, and I can’t ask you to risk your kingdom for this. But I’m going into Sorbold, even if I have to go in alone.”
Achmed exhaled. “I’d advise against it.”
“I can ask Llauron for help.”
“I’d advise against that even more.”
“You’re not leaving me many choices,” Rhapsody said, searching the sky for the earliest stars, waiting for their appearance to begin her evening devotions.
“Leave him. When this is over I will hunt him down and put him out of his misery; you know as a Dhracian I cannot abide anything tainted with F’dor blood being left alive.”
“You’ll be damning him to the Vault of the Underworld.” Her comment was rote; they had argued unproductively about this many nights before this one.
Achmed shrugged. “If you like I will sprinkle holy water on the cinders of his corpse for you.”
“Thank you, no.”
“Well, there’s always Ashe. He could round up the rest of them. You called him on the wind once, and he came.”
Rhapsody shuddered. “Yes, I did, but I was standing in the gazebo at Elysian, which is a natural amplifier. I don’t know if it would work in the open air. Besides, you know very well that I don’t want to tell Ashe about these children until I’m back from the Veil of Hoen.”
Achmed’s fists clenched more tightly, but his face did not move. “He doesn’t deserve the protection you are always wrapping around him like a child’s blanket,” he said bitterly. “Perhaps it would do him some good to fight his own battles, to be responsible for wiping his own arse once in a while. It is making me ill to watch you be his arse-rag.”
The light of the setting sun filled her eyes, making them sting with memory. “Why do you hate him?”
Achmed didn’t look at her. “Why do you love him?”
She stared silently over the endless fields to the horizon, darkening now. The rosy glow of sunset was deserting the clouds, leaving only hazy gray where a moment before there had been glory. Finally she spoke, her voice soft.
“There is no reason for love. It just is. And when it’s there, it endures, even when it shouldn’t. Even when you try to make it go away. It’s hard to make it die. I’ve learned it’s also unnecessary—and unwise. It only lessens you for it. So you accept it. You lock it away. You let it stay. You don’t deliberately kill love. You just don’t act on it.”
She glanced his way, noting his eyes fixed beyond the rim of the world, his folded hands resting on his lips, lost in thought. “But hate is different. If you’re going to hate, you should at least have a reason.”
Achmed inhaled the cold wind of the coming night, then let his breath out slowly.
“I don’t hate. I have given up hate. But I disdain Ashe’s promises, his misplaced loyalty, his weakness.”
Rhapsody ran her hand over a dry stalk of highgrass, blanched and frozen, that jutted forth from the snow.
“He’s no longer weak. I’ve seen what he’s endured, Achmed. Even in his agony, his isolation, he spent his time protecting the innocent, struggling to find the very demon that held his soul captive. He’s whole now. He’s strong.”
“You misuse the word; I thought Namers were more selective in their use of accurate language. He’s been mended. Mending him did not make a god of him. He will betray you again, fail you, lose his grasp while you hang in the balance, arrive moments too late. I have seen it before.” He glanced at her and their eyes met. “So have you.”
She pulled the stalk of grass from the frozen ground. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I believe I do.”
The grains of the seedpod slid between her fingers, then scattered onto the snow. “It’s easy to criticize something you think of as a weakness, something you’ve never had. But if you’ve never been in love yourself, never had to balance it against duty, never been totally lost in it, you can’t—”
“Stop!” The word came forth violently enough to make Rhapsody drop the remains of the grass stalk. “How do you know what I have had? How do you know I can’t understand from personal experience how weak love can make you? How dare you presume that I would condemn anyone, even him, without having walked those paths myself?”
Achmed’s eyes finally turned on her, and they were blazing with dark light. “I know everything about the promises of youth. I know that stupid surrender, that need to save the unsavable that love makes you believe is possible. That’s what I despise most about Ashe—that he has made you expect that he can save you, or you him. That he has made you believe you need saving. That he was worth saving at the cost you paid to do it.”
He broke his gaze away and stared out into the new darkness at the horizon’s edge. Rhapsody watched him for a moment, then looked westward hersel
f.
“Who was she?”
The Fibolg king exhaled, then lowered his gaze. “Please. This is lore that will remain lost. Consider this my own Sleeping Child, better left alone.”
Rhapsody nodded. “Does Grunthor know?”
“He knows all, because he doesn’t judge, or remind. You could ask his opinion of Ashe if you really wish to have an objective analysis.”
She rose and stretched her arms. “I don’t. It doesn’t matter. He’s gone.”
“He’ll be back.”
“No, he won’t. He’s off to propose to a First Generation Cymrian woman, someone the Patriarch’s ring of wisdom confirmed as a good choice for his Lady.”
Achmed leaned back and stared into the fire. “Proof again of what I said earlier about his weakness and misplaced loyalty.”
“I don’t think his loyalty is misplaced,” Rhapsody said. “We knew from the beginning that this was his destiny. He was born to be the Lord Cymrian, Achmed, whether he wants it that way or not. He needs a noble bride. I knew it before I fell in love with him—I knew it when I fell in love with him. I know it now. Nothing has changed. He has gone to fulfill his destiny, just like we will one day fulfill ours.”
“Well, that’s good to hear, but I still suspect we’ll see him again eventually.”
“It still doesn’t matter. It’s over.” She scanned the deep blue of the sky, looking for the evenstar, but mist clouded the horizon, making it hard to find. “At least he gave me that.”
“What?”
“An ending. It’s what I want more than anything with these events that have been unfolding ever since we met, you and I. I’m tired, Achmed.” She turned and looked at him, and her eyes had lost their inner spark, fueled now only by weariness. “I’m tired of looking for a hidden demon. I’m tired of living in anticipation that each person we meet could be the host of the F’dor. I want to know who it is, and to kill it, once and for all, with you holding its spirit in thrall so that it can’t escape.” She turned away toward the setting sun again. “I’m tired of the nightmares. I want to finish this; I want it to be over. I want to sleep peacefully for once.”
A choked laugh went up in the darkness behind her.
“That won’t happen. I’m sorry.”
“Why not?” A cold wind blew through her hair, chilling the sweat that had appeared at his words.
Achmed’s voice was soft.
“You do know that if we aren’t destroyed outright there is a good chance that we will never die—at least not for thousands of years? You, Grunthor, and I—like the First Generation Cymrians, we seem to have cheated Time with our little trek within the Earth. That lovely blessing of immortality comes at a cost.
“You want it to be over—it will never be over, Rhapsody. Just as the Grandmother stood for centuries guarding the Sleeping Child, ours will be lives of endless vigilance. After you’ve seen what hibernates within the Earth, and know that there are demons out there that seek nothing more than to release it, how can you ever sleep peacefully again? Only the ignorant and the oblivious sleep well. Only the hopelessly naive believe it will ever be over.”
With a sudden, angry sweep she drew the sword; Daystar Clarion roared forth, blazing, from the scabbard of black ivory, burning deeply in the cold air, reflecting its pulsing light off the snow. Rhapsody turned to face him.
“Fine. Then I’ll be ignorant and oblivious; I’ll be hopelessly naive. I don’t think you understand, Achmed. I have to believe it will one day be over. I have to, or I can’t go on.”
She turned away and walked to the crest of the nearest swale, searching the sky again. The evenstar winked from behind a frosty patch of cloud. Rhapsody cleared her mind and began to sing her evening devotions.
Achmed smiled slightly as the clear notes caught the wind.
“Trust me, you’ll find you can,” he said, more to himself than aloud.
11
On the Border, Northwestern Bethany, Southeastern Canderre
Rhapsody heard Oelendra before she saw her.
Achmed had declared that their earlier misadventure made it hazardous to travel long through Yarim, and so they rode back through the province as quickly and minimally as they could. They found themselves after three days in the somewhat more wooded terrain at the northern tip of Bethany and eastern edge of Canderre’s lush farmlands.
Achmed, who had traveled the entire journey with his strong, clawlike grip on the back of Vincane’s neck, nodded at the end of a long day of riding, reining his horse to a gentle halt at the middle rise of a softly sloping hill. Rhapsody dismounted quickly and put her arms out to Aric, lifting the child carefully from the saddle to avoid hurting his sore leg.
The sun was beginning to set as they made camp; a single star appeared in the patch of sky above the leafless trees. Rhapsody stood and brushed the dirt from her trousers, looking around for a place to sing her evening vespers. Just as she did, she heard a voice in the distance begin the ancient chant.
It was a voice of the ages, warm and ragged in its tone, singing with the power and pain of one who had seen worlds end and begin, who had lived through the worst of nightmarish battles to still rise, victorious but not triumphant, continuing on with the light of each new dawn.
Tears of excitement sprang into Rhapsody’s eyes. She grabbed Achmed’s arm.
“Oelendra! That’s Oelendra!”
Achmed nodded curtly, and continued to truss Vincane to a tree in a position where the demon-spawn could be seen at all times, but still have access to food and warmth. He already knew she was there; he had followed the ancient Lirin warrior’s heartbeat to this place. She was one of a few thousand living souls born on the Island of Serendair he could still track with his blood lore.
“She’s near enough. Perhaps you should go to meet her.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. Rhapsody was already gone.
The glade of trees in which they were encamped grew thinner to the east, stretching up the side of the large hill. Rhapsody ran to the top, ignoring the slippage of snowy dead leaves underfoot, the crumbling rock and roots of the hillside, spurred on by an urgency deep within her heart.
At the crest of the hill she stopped, frozen by the sight of her mentor singing, arms outstretched before her, palms up in supplication to the stars. The tears of excitement blurred into ones of poignant fondness; in the gray light of dusk, and from the side, Oelendra looked for all the world like her own mother, singing the lauds she had taught her a lifetime ago. Rhapsody had not been able to see her mother in her dreams for a long time; she swallowed and joined in singing the lauds, blending her voice in a high harmony.
Oelendra turned as the devotions ended and smiled. Rhapsody no longer saw her mother but her friend and mentor, the Lirin champion, still in fighter’s trim with shoulders as broad as Achmed’s. Her long, thin braid of gray hair was tied neatly up at the nape of her neck, and her large silver eyes lit up with a fond light as soon as she saw Rhapsody.
The two women, the present Ilianchenva’ar and one who had carried Daystar Clarion a lifetime before, embraced on the windy hilltop.
“You are tired,” the Lirin champion observed, brushing a lock of golden hair out of Rhapsody’s eyes.
Rhapsody smiled. “I am also late,” she replied, smiling. “And sorry for it.”
Oelendra nodded. “What delayed you?”
Rhapsody put her arm around her mentor’s waist. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”
Achmed had his back to the women as they approached. Night had come into its fullness, and the sky was dark as they sheltered Oelendra’s mounts, two roan mares, beneath a small copse of trees near Rhapsody and Achmed’s horses.
Rhapsody’s eyes were shining as she brought her mentor over to the fire to meet her friend.
“Achmed, this is Oelendra. Oelendra, His Majesty, King Achmed, Warlord of the realm of Ylorc.”
Achmed rose slowly and turned in the fireshadows, his two-colored gaze coming to rest full
y upon the Lirin champion, who met it serenely. A moment later the look in her eyes hardened somewhat, then relaxed again, keeping an aspect of reservation.
For his part the Firbolg king looked the Lirin champion over cursorily, then turned away. He reached down with his gloved hand and pulled a pot from the campfire.
“Hungry?”
Oelendra continued to study him. Rhapsody’s glance traveled from one to the other as the silence deepened. Finally she took Oelendra’s hand.
“Well, I am. Why don’t you ladle it out, Achmed?” She led her mentor to the other side of the fire, where the young Lirin boy cowered, and bent down beside him. “This is Aric, Oelendra. Aric, Oelendra is my friend—she won’t hurt you.”
She turned to the Lirin champion, who was staring intensely at the boy. “Yes,” Rhapsody said, reading her thoughts. “His mother was obviously Liringlas.”
“Aye.” Oelendra ran a hand over her mouth. “Do you understand what this means?”
“That there are other Liringlas here on the continent that you and Rial were not aware of?”
“Perhaps.” Oelendra stared into the fire for a moment. “Or it could mean that the Rakshas crossed the sea to Manosse, or perhaps Gaematria, the Isle of the Sea Mages—there are Liringlas there, or at least there were. If that’s the case, who knows how many women he has impregnated?”
Rhapsody shuddered, but shook her head. “No—Rhonwyn said that there were but nine living, and only one yet to be born. And the Rakshas was dead by the time we asked her.”
Oelendra exhaled. “Good. I’d forgotten that. Good.” A slow smile came over her face and she looked thoughtfully at the child. “Hello, Aric,” she said in the Liringlas tongue. “Have they treated you well?”
The child was trembling. “Aye,” he whispered in return.
Oelendra turned to Rhapsody. “He knows the language of our people, and yet he was obviously not raised by Liringlas. What does that tell you?”
Rhapsody patted the child’s head. “Do you think he is a natural Singer?”