Achmed handed both women tankards of soup, and a battered steel mug to Aric. Oelendra nodded her thanks, then lifted it to her lips. She took a long sip, then studied the child again.
“You would know better than I,” she said at last. “But it seems the likeliest answer.”
“Well, there’s one way to find out,” Rhapsody said. She sat down, cross-legged, next to the child. “Aric, would you please pull down your stocking and show Oelendra your leg? She won’t touch it, I promise,” she said hurriedly, watching the panic come over the child’s face. Oelendra nodded in agreement.
Slowly, with faltering hands, the boy pulled back the knit sock. In the firelight the festering leg was black, with healing skin visible around the outer edges, and smelled faintly of thyme.
“I’ve been applying herbs since we got him, so it’s beginning to improve; it was gangrenous at first,” Rhapsody said to Oelendra. She turned back to the boy. “Can you sing your name for me, Aric?”
“Pardon, miss?” the young child asked nervously.
“Pick any note that sounds right to you, and sing your name, like this.” Rhapsody intoned his name: Aric.
The boy swallowed, then complied. Aric, he sang softly.
Rhapsody looked at Oelendra. “Sol,” she said. “His Naming note is sol, the fifth note of the scale. He probably has older siblings somewhere. If he were firstborn, like you are, Oelendra, the natural note for him would have been ut.” She did not glance back at Achmed, who was also a firstborn. Oelendra nodded grimly.
“So somewhere on this continent there are other Liringlas children, now motherless.”
Rhapsody exhaled. “Yes.” She looked closely at the leg; it had not changed. “Try again, please, Aric. Just think about wanting your leg to be better.”
The child sang the note again, to no noticeable avail. Oelendra shrugged. Rhapsody sighed silently; then a thought occurred.
“His mother probably didn’t live to see him,” she said quietly to Oelendra. “The children of the Rakshas are all orphans, their mothers died at their births. Perhaps Aric isn’t his true name.”
“Perhaps. But how can you know what the true name is?”
Rhapsody patted the boy and sat back, letting the fire warm her shoulders.
“Discovery of such a thing is a long and arduous process if the person doesn’t know what name they were given,” she said, musing. “It would take far more time than we have, and involves a good deal of trial and error. I’m not even certain the mother would have named her baby—she may have given birth alone, or died before she could name him.”
“Alas, you are probably right. He may have been named by a Filidic priest, or a Liringlas Namer, if there are indeed any still alive. Or a passing stranger, even an enemy, since he ended up a slave.”
The heat that radiated across Rhapsody’s back reminded her of childhood baths before the roaring hearth. She closed her eyes, trying to picture her mother’s face, failing.
“Perhaps she would just call him ‘baby,’ since she may have been too weak to even have known if the child was a boy or a girl.” She finished her soup, waited for the boy to finish his own, then leaned forward again.
“Aric, will you sing another word for me?” The child nodded. “Good! Listen to the word I am going to say, and then sing it however it feels best to you. Here it is: pippin.” She gave the child an encouraging smile, and saw the warmth reflect in his clear blue eyes.
Aric inhaled deeply, wincing with the pain, then sang the word pippin on the note sol.
Oelendra and Rhapsody listened raptly; after a moment they examined his leg intently, then looked at each other. There was no visible change.
The Lirin champion patted the child’s shoulder gently and began to rise, but Rhapsody signaled her to wait.
“That was very good, Aric. I’m going to take my sword out a little bit—it’s all right,” she added hastily as the child’s clear blue eyes clouded over with fear. “Just a little, so that I can touch it. I promise it won’t be any brighter than the campfire. Agreed?”
The child, entranced with the light in her green eyes, nodded again, as if hypnotized. Rhapsody gripped Daystar Clarion’s hilt just below the crosspiece, and slowly slid it out of the black ivory scabbard, willing herself calm and sending the same thought to the sword.
The tiny flame that came forth licked quietly, burning low in response to her command. The elemental bond of fire deep within her blazed, and she was one again with the sword; its song filled her soul as her mind cleared.
She looked at the child again, trying to imagine his tragic birth, the hasty exit of his mother’s tortured soul to the light as his came forward, some eight or nine years before, if she had gauged correctly. Tears of sympathetic anger sprang to her eyes and she imagined the woman writhing in the grip of the agony she no doubt felt, an agony that had begun with her violation a year or more before, and had no doubt been with her through each day of the fourteen-month Liringlas gestation.
Her hands began to tremble, though she didn’t know why, and she heard the harsh, multitoned voice of Manwyn speak in her ear yet again.
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.
What did the wyrmkin mean? Rhapsody wondered hazily. Was this the child? Or was it the Lirin baby not yet born? Or did Manwyn’s prophecy have something to do with her?
Concentrate on the child before you.
Rhapsody shook her head, clearing it instantly. In the depth of her being she had heard a voice, one she had never heard before. Perhaps it was the voice of the sword itself; Oelendra had told her many months before, during her training, that when she bore the sword it had a voice, a voice that was silenced when the sword and Seren, the star it was formed from, were parted forever. Perhaps, however, it was just the voice of her own reason speaking to her, refocusing her.
She smiled at Aric again. “One more? Will you try one more for me, Aric?”
“Aye.” His voice was almost inaudible.
“Good. Now, sing this for me: Y pippin.” My baby.
Y pippin, the boy sang, his voice breaking.
Both women examined the leg again. At the edge of the festering wound, where the skin had been red, the inflammation receded before their eyes, the pus-filled center clearing to a darker red, the black changing to pink. The wound was still there, but even in the weak light of the campfire it was obvious that it was better than it had been.
“Well, would you look at that,” Oelendra murmured.
“I knew he was special when we first found him,” Rhapsody said fondly. “Proof that out of the most evil of moments, good can still come.”
Oelendra patted the child and stood abruptly. She stared across the fire ring to the tree where Achmed had tethered Vincane.
“And what do we have here?” she asked.
“Two whores and the ugliest bastard in the world,” the boy replied with a sneer.
With exaggerated slowness Oelendra walked across the clearing and crouched down in front of Vincane, leveling her gaze into his eyes. The muscles of her back rippled with threat as she studied his face. Even from where she stood Rhapsody could see Vincane wilt under the Lirin champion’s stare; she chuckled, having been the recipient on more than one occasion of that martial glance, a deathly calm, intent look that pierced to the soul from gray eyes that had seen more destruction than the imagination could allow.
“Pardon me,” Oelendra said steadily. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”
The boy tried to scoot back even farther into the tree, his insolence gone, panic taking hold.
“Your name,” Oelendra said.
“Vincane,” the boy said; his voice cracked a little.
“Well, how very nice to meet you, Vincane. I am sure we are going to make fine traveling companions. I trust I will not have to take you to task during our journey, now, will I?”
“No
,” the boy said hastily.
“I thought not.” She returned to the fire, where Rhapsody was tucking a camp blanket around Aric, and nodded toward Achmed, who joined them after checking Vincane’s bonds.
“You are off to get the others, then?” Oelendra asked.
“Yes,” Rhapsody replied.
“As many as we have time for,” Achmed interjected, shifting into ancient Lirin after a meaningful glance at the captive. “We had hoped to capture the gladiator at or after the winter festival, but that is impossible now.”
Oelendra nodded. “Where are you off to next?”
Rhapsody cast a glance at both children; Aric was fast asleep, and Vincane appeared to be dozing lightly, but it was hard to tell if he was merely pretending.
“The Hintervold,” she replied. “Rhonwyn said that there were two children there, and one in Zafhiel. The others are in Roland and the Nonaligned States, closer to you. We should be able to get all of them but the oldest before the baby is born; we’ll determine what to do to obtain the gladiator after that.”
Achmed exhaled in annoyance. He spoke little Ancient Lirin, but he had been expecting her words.
“We may not even get all the others. Winter is deepening daily. A few more complications like we had in Yarim, and we will have to abandon one, possibly more.”
“No,” Rhapsody said firmly. “We are going to get them all. We have to. Someone has to. They’re just children.”
“They are not children, they’re abominations,” Oelendra interjected. Both Rhapsody and Achmed looked at her in surprise. “I cannot believe this is not clear to you, Rhapsody. Look at them—whether they are sweet and shy, or nasty and brutish, they are half-demon—can’t you see it?”
Achmed smiled slightly. “Thank you.” He turned to Rhapsody. “Perhaps now that you have heard this from someone other than me you will listen.”
“I’m dumbfounded,” Rhapsody murmured after a moment. “This is something I’ve come to expect from Achmed, but never from you, Oelendra. How can you curse these children with the association of their father, any more than they already are cursed? They’re just children, like they would be if their father were a thief or a murderer. Look at Aric. He’s Liringlas, for gods’ sake!”
“His mother was Liringlas,” Oelendra said seriously. “He is an abomination with Liringlas ancestry; ’tis not the same. Somewhere in the veins of both those children runs the blood of the demon, Rhapsody, a F’dor. You apparently do not grasp what this means.
“In the old days there were far more F’dor, but their numbers were finite. A whole pantheon of them existed, with the most powerful of them even being catalogued in old manuscripts by name and tendencies. Upworld, or in the vault of the netherworld, if they were killed by a Dhracian while in corporeal form, ’twas one fewer to plague the world.
“Now, however, one very clever F’dor has found a way for its blood to reproduce without having to diminish its power by breaking open any of its own to do so. ’Tis a most disturbing turn of events. Through the Rakshas the F’dor has perpetuated its demonic line, which opens a very dangerous door to the future, and what we may have to face one day very soon.
“I know when you look at them you see children. You must learn to look deeper, and see what is really there, lurking beneath the surface, even in the sweetest of them. Otherwise you may be caught unaware.”
Rhapsody exhaled. “Please tell me I am not making a mistake entrusting them to you,” she said, her voice calm but her eyes shining with intensity. “We need to stay the course, to follow the plan. If we can get them to the Lord and Lady Rowan, and if they can separate out the demon blood, we will not only have the means to find the demon, but the children should be freed from whatever evil taint they now carry. They will be saved from the damnation of the vault, of being eternally demonic. But I need you to be honest with me, Oelendra; can you keep a cool head about this? Because if you can’t, I need to come up with another plan. I will not allow your hatred of the F’dor to jeopardize their safety.”
Anger burned in the Lirin champion’s eyes. “Am I to imagine that you just questioned my ability to keep a cool head?”
Rhapsody exhaled and crossed her arms.
Oelendra pressed again, her body tensing. “Say what you mean, Rhapsody.”
“I just did,” Rhapsody replied tonelessly. “You hate the F’dor to the exclusion of all other motivations. I need you to see your part in this as not just assisting Achmed to find the demon, but to help shelter and protect these children as well. They may be demon-spawn, but they were born of innocent women, and they have immortal souls. I need you to remember that. You cannot allow them to be the target of your hatred of their father. Elsewise we are no better than the demon itself.” A humorous twinkle entered her eyes. “There is my answer to your question. If it would help you hear it better I could set it to music and play it on my lute—oh, wait. Now, what happened to that lute again?”
Oelendra blinked, then winced, then succumbed to a guilty chuckle, remembering how she had smashed the instrument into kindling in a rage over the demon. Rhapsody laughed and put her arms around her mentor.
“Forgive me?” she asked as she embraced Oelendra.
“For speaking the truth?” Oelendra replied. “No one, especially a Namer, should apologize for that. And you have my vow, Iliachenva’ar—I will protect them with my life.”
“I know you will,” Rhapsody whispered in her ear. She gave Oelendra’s broad shoulders a final squeeze, then turned back to Achmed as Oelendra went to ready her horses.
“Did you feed Vincane?”
“To what?”
“Not humorous. Oelendra needs to leave forthwith, and we have to be on our way as well.”
“He wasn’t particularly cooperative, but he has inhaled soup through various holes in his head. I was tempted to make a few more.”
“Well, it probably won’t hurt for him to be hungry until Oelendra makes camp again.”
While Achmed tied the apprentice across one of the roans’ saddle, Oelendra came back to Rhapsody and handed her a small cage made of reeds. In it a black winterbird fluttered, then settled into a curious stare.
“Here’s another avian messenger for you. I will bring one to you at each meeting place, so you can tell me where you will be.”
“Thank you,” Rhapsody said, embracing Oelendra again. “Please know that I do appreciate all that you are doing to help us, and regret the danger in which we are putting you. But you were the only one I knew that would be able to accomplish this successfully.”
“I am honored by the trust of the Iliachenva’ar,” Oelendra replied, smiling as Achmed hoisted Aric over her own mount to ride with her, far away from Vincane. “Look after yourself, Rhapsody—I fear that there may be eyes on these children.”
“There are. And they are the best eyes that they could ever wish to be watching over them. Travel safely. I will notify you when we have the next two.”
Oelendra nodded, then looked up into Achmed’s face again. They stared at each other for another moment; then Oelendra nodded, mounted, and rode off, holding the reins of Vincane’s horse tightly as she went.
“By the way,” she called to Achmed over her shoulder as she left, “once this is over I expect you to repay me by sending her to help unite the divisive factions of the Lirin kingdom again. We will need every Lirin soul ready for what is to come.”
Achmed hid a smile as Rhapsody waved back. What the Lirin champion did not know was that he had already repaid her a lifetime ago by not accepting any of the multitudinous contracts on her life he was offered back in the old world.
12
The Old Cymrian Forges, Ylorc
Grunthor rounded the bend in the dark corridor with his two aides-de-camp, whistling cheerfully. He was in fine fettle on this particular morning; the watches had all gone well, the recruits were coming nicely to heel, the reinforcements in the Hidden Realm and the great watch-tower of Grivven Post were performing to ex
pectation. He was on his way to his last stops on his morning inspection tour, the two enormous forges where the weapons were produced for export and for the armament of the Firbolg army.
The former was the first stop; this was a commercial smithy, and the product it put forth was confined to the less sophisticated designs that he and Achmed had decided were safe to allow into the hands of their trading partners in Roland. If they were anything that resembled a threat I might not have considered giving them access to even these crude weapons, Achmed had recounted to him and to Rhapsody over a bottle of wine provided by Lord Stephen as a gift to celebrate the trade agreement last spring. But as far as I can see, Roland won’t pose a problem until it unites, and even then, they’d break themselves on the mountain before we’d have to teach them another lesson. Putting these inferior weapons into the trade stream may make them overconfident, give them a false idea of what we are capable of making. The king had spun his wine in his glass, then downed it. No, I’m not worried about Roland, he had said, gazing through the glass at the fire. Sorbold, on the other hand, will always worry me.
The better of the weapons, those made in the second forge, were Achmed’s original designs: a heavy but well-balanced throwing knife with three blades; short, compact crossbows with extra recoil for use in the tunnels of Ylorc; split arrowheads and heavy darts for blowguns, balanced and designed for deeper penetration; midnight-blue steel drawknives which were really razor-edged hooks that replaced the makeshift close-combat weapons of many Bolg; and of course the disks of his own cwellan, the strange, asymmetrical weapon he had crafted back on the Island of Serendair and had used to ply his trade of assassination very successfully so long ago.
Grunthor smiled at the blast of heat that slapped his face as he came into the first of the weapons foundries. He looked up with pride at the half-dozen tiered galleries of anvils and fires. Long-dead Gwylliam had designed the smithy complex as if he thought to work there himself. The forges were attached to a central ventilation system that drew the soot gently rumbling through the cacophony, high toward the peaks where the heat was made use of elsewhere before it escaped. The damper system allowed the individual forges to be controlled by teams of only two or three workers each, supported by some few dozen water carriers and coal-hod bearers. In addition to the natural bellows of the flume, each forge had its own crank bellows, the action of which also drew cooler air for the general circulation, and made the place seem less like an inferno and more like the practice hall for some genius if lunatic orchestra.