Rial escorted her down the carpeted path and into the sleigh, helping her up onto the padded seat and straightening her cape for her. Then the procession was off, passing slowly over the snow and up the hill of Tomingorllo, climbing to the throne room, where the crown waited.
No clergyman or noble coronated the new queen, as there was no one in office to do so. The forestfolk of Tyrian were more closely aligned to the religion of Gwynwood than that of Sepulvarta, although several centuries before there had been representatives of both faiths serving there. Rhapsody had refused the suggestion of the Invoker as the one to bless her officially, giving no reason. It turned out to be unnecessary anyway, as the word had come a few days before the ceremony that Khaddyr, the new holder of that office, was missing and had not been seen in more than a fortnight since the great forest fire. The Lirin priests who had trained under Llauron offered to stand in at the general reception and were welcomed to do so.
Instead, as it had on the night she had called it to life, the diadem itself coronated the new queen. She stood before the silver pedestal and slowly opened the case. The sparkling gemstones roared to fiery life at her touch. The gleaming jewels became transparent and whirled out of the case and above her head, causing even those who had seen the sight before to stare in awe. When the radiance settled into a halo pattern of ethereal light, she looked up at Achmed and smiled, receiving a nod in return. Then she glanced at Oelendra and held her head high. The Lirin champion bowed slightly, an approving look in her eyes.
Rial knelt and spoke the ancient benediction, used in coronations that predated the arrival of the Cymrians to the continent.
“Inde arla tiron seth severim vur amasmet voirex.” May the stars give you their eyes and wisdom to lead us as they would if they could speak.
With the exception of the honor guard the assemblage knelt and repeated the words of the Lord Protector.
The sheer absurdity, the preposterousness of it all that Rhapsody had been secretly feeling melted away. She bowed her head and added her own prayer that she be worthy of these people who believed in her.
When the ceremony was over the assemblage dissolved into soft cheers and quiet applause, then laughter and embraces. Rhapsody hugged Oelendra first, then Rial, as she made her way across the circular room to where Achmed was waiting. She took his hands and kissed him on the cheek.
“Well, I survived, with your help,” she said, smiling at him.
“You prevailed, and on your own,” he answered pleasantly. “I just kept you from escaping before you went ahead with what you wanted to do anyway.”
Her eyes went to the strange sunlike brooch on his robe. “This is a nice pin,” she said absently. “Is this a new Bolg emblem?” She reached out to examine it. Achmed took her hand quickly and kissed it. Rhapsody blinked in surprise.
“Don’t touch,” he said chidingly.
“Your Majesty,” came Rial’s voice from across the Great Hall, “your guests are waiting below.”
61
She courtyard of Newydd Dda was filled past overflowing. Lirin citizens and the guests of state crowded the streets of Tyrian City, spilling into the vast forest clearing that surrounded the walls of the palace, hoping for an opportunity to view the newly crowned queen. Delegations of Lirin had come from each of the factional areas, from Manosse and the plains, from the cities in the Nonaligned States and the sea. Roland and Sorbold were represented, as were the Nonaligned States, Ylorc, and the lands beyond the Hintervold. Achmed was astonished; it seemed impossible that the word could even have reached those places so fast, and yet here they were, representatives from each, lining up to greet or bless Rhapsody.
He glanced back at her now, descending the hill in her heavily carved sleigh; a look of serenity was in her eyes that belied the panic he knew she felt at the sight of the throng below her. Grunthor rode before her; where the Lirin had found the horse they had given him for the procession he had no idea, but it was more than half the size of the sleigh itself.
He had managed to slip into the front of the procession as it came down the hill so as to afford himself as much time as possible to assess the crowd near where she would be standing. Assassination was not likely, given the number of trained Lirin guards that had secured the entire city, removing all weapons and potential instruments of damage. When he tried to enter the city that morning they had weighed the flute he carried as a gift for the new queen, leery of its heft. Only the intercession of Rhapsody herself had allowed his entry back into the city after he had left her room the night before. Despite the inconvenience, Achmed was pleased at the effectiveness of her protectors.
He leaned up against the palace wall and waited for Grunthor to pass. The Princes of Sorbold and Bethany were the first in line; Achmed smiled to himself at the irony. He would have been among them had he not been designated the equivalent of her family and invited to the private ceremony. Had he been in that company he would have been the most pleasant of the first three people to honor her.
Her antagonistic interaction with Tristan Steward was legendary throughout Ylorc, and the Prince of Sorbold was a hostile, dried-up old man who was waiting impatiently for his even-more-ancient mother to die so that he might finally succeed her. Rhapsody had met him only once, and she was too annoyed by his petulance to notice that he was utterly smitten with her. After she had left on her journey with Ashe to find Elynsynos the prince had sent emissaries to Achmed demanding her hand; the Bolg king had gloated at the prospect of sharing the news with her upon her return, knowing that the pyrotechnics display from her wrath would be worth inviting guests to watch. He had never told her.
Behind the princes were the Orlandan dukes, Martin Ivenstrand of Avonderre and Stephen Navarne, the Regents of Yarim and Bethe Corbair, and Cedric Canderre, who had nodded politely to him upon entering the courtyard, Stephen signaling his intent to meet up later. The dukes were followed by a small contingent from Gwynwood of Filidic priests of insignificant rank who had come in the effort to represent the religion in the apparent absence of Khaddyr the Invoker and his minions.
The priests were being repositioned by the chamberlain and her staff owing to the arrival a few moments before of another contingent. A gasp had gone up when the group had stepped forth from the enormous carriage that had been escorted under guard from the gates of Tyrian.
From the carriage had stepped the Orlandan benisons, Ian Steward of Canderre-Yarim, Lanacan Orlando, the Blesser of Bethe Corbair, and Colin Abernathy, whose See encompassed the Nonaligned States to the south of Tyrian. They were followed by the Blesser of Sorbold, Nielash Mousa, the only one in the robes of his country, colorful and striking in contrast to the pale holy garments of Roland. At length the Blesser of Avonderre-Navarne, Philabet Griswold, stepped out, a haughty smile on his face. He reached into the carriage and gently assisted a frail man in a tall miter and golden vestments. It was the Patriarch of Sepulvarta.
Though it was unlikely he had ever been seen by anyone present, the Patriarch’s identity was obvious to all. It was his arrival that had caused the gasp to go up from the crowd. After a moment of shock, a smattering of applause began to ring out here and there, then swelled into a polite ripple, finally building into a wave that brought glad shouts with it.
As the Patriarch slowly tottered forward, his benisons and the Orlandan dukes stepped back to allow him access to the front of the receiving line. The two princes, who had been vying to be first, yielded their positions in the queue to him; if there was any resentment, it was well disguised. The Patriarch shook his head and bowed slightly, indicating that they should stay at the front of the line. Nielash Mousa and Philabet Griswold stepped to either side of him, assisting him up the steps of the reviewing stand. The other benisons fell in line behind him, followed by the dukes, then all the other guests of honor and the people of Tyrian.
The crowd swelled as Rhapsody’s procession reached the edge of the city wall, waiting for the queen and her honor guard to emerge and ascend
the dais to begin receiving the blessings and greetings of her well-wishers.
The honor guard was approaching the reviewing stand when suddenly the world shifted around Achmed. The exposed nerves and veins of his skin-web stung, then throbbed to pulsing life; the rhythm of his pulse began to pound in unison with another, one very close by. A moment later it was gone, then back again, moving.
He gulped a breath of the cold winter wind, hoping for clarity but instead breathed the air of the old world, of his life before, and it sickened him; it weighed in his lungs like stagnant water. He looked around, and for the first time in either life felt the crowd reel, felt it press against him like ocean waves; like he was adrift in strong surf. He had lost sight of Grunthor, of the wall he had been leaning on, of his whole awareness of existence in this land.
Just as suddenly, he came around. Instead of fighting the drowning feeling caused by the smell, he drew it in deeply. He opened his mouth and hands and eyes to the scent as he had in the old, hunting days, and it rushed into his mind like a flash fire:
F’dor.
He had come upon it. It was here. He shook his head to clear his mind and eyes, and found himself exactly in the spot he had been in before he detected his enemy. The shared blood rhythm pounded in his veins, beat in his chest like a drum of war, then moved again.
Grunthor had dismounted and was passing him at that moment on his way to the reviewing stand. Achmed touched him on the elbow. Without looking, the giant leant down to a practiced and discreet distance to hear his words.
“It’s here, the Rakshas’s master is here.”
Grunthor sought Achmed’s eyes for an indication of direction, and saw them wide and taut, still scanning the crowd. He was looking with more than his eyes, breathing the particles of odor and breath and identity that wafted on the winter wind, matching them to the blood he had absorbed. The other two members of the honor guard passed him, Anborn eyeing Achmed suspiciously as he walked by. The scent, the malodor of burning human flesh in fire grew stronger, then vanished again as the breeze picked up.
Rhapsody was on the reviewing stand now; the dais had been built to allow her to enter from the back to avoid struggling through the crowd in front of her. Anborn, Gwydion Navarne, and Grunthor took their places behind her, the Bolg Sergeant immediately in back of her. His eyes went from Achmed to the crowd, awaiting the Dhracian’s signal.
Achmed needed to get closer, but knew that if he could feel the demon’s presence there was a chance the demon might feel his as well if he wasn’t careful. He searched the courtyard for a good alcove in which he might be able to watch unobserved.
As he moved he wrapped a leather strap over the holes of the long flute and tied it off, hiding it in the moving folds of his cloak. The cold metal darts had been fashioned into an elaborate brooch that bounced dangerously, tantalizingly over his heart, the pin Rhapsody had commented on. He could feel the sharpness of the poisoned missiles sticking through the fine, thin Lirin ceremonial tunic he wore at Rial’s insistence. As he moved closer to the dais, the scent of the regular air thinned and gave way to the acrid odor of the F’dor. It stood out in the open air of the courtyard much more vividly than it would have in any basilica.
Achmed drew the scent into his throat and across his palms. He closed his eyes and sought to match his heartbeat to that of the F’dor and hold it this time. At once he had it, beating in rhythm with his own, but it was still impossible to tell who it belonged to in the swelling crowd. The tension of the occasion mingled with the incense and the overabundance of rich fragrances worn by the emissaries from over a dozen different lands. He fought to tease out the ancient scent from all the ephemeral ones, to trust in his blood to feel the threads that tied the nightmares of this world to the horror of the last. Intently he tasted for that bitter tang and felt for the fearsome beat. He locked his own on to it.
Tristan Steward and the Prince of Sorbold had each kissed Rhapsody’s hand and wished her well, moving off the platform and into the circle of their own guards. The Patriarch and his five benisons were approaching her now, each ready to bless her as well.
Suddenly Achmed’s heart lurched, and he could see for a moment through the demon’s eyes. It must be in the Patriarch’s group, or near enough to her to touch her; only the other members of the honor guard were close enough.
At the same time his eyes melded with those of the F’dor he could see into its mind as well. There was no intent here to assassinate; it had come to bind the new queen to itself, to enchant her. He could feel it ready to spring, focused, hungry, to possess Rhapsody as it had bound the others. Given the choice, he knew she would have vastly preferred death.
Fear coursed through him and his momentary tie with the demon vanished; it was all Achmed could do to suppress a shout at Rhapsody to run, and take whatever risks would come from revealing themselves to it in this crowd of victims. It would be useless to do so, however; it was like trying to get a bride’s attention from across a town square in the moments right after her wedding. He had to come up with another way to stop the F’dor from getting too close, preferably without letting it know he had discovered it.
He steadied himself, chasing the elusive threads of identity through the currents of air, over the landscape of the wind. The voice of the Grandmother, his Dhracian instructor in the thrall ritual, spoke in his mind.
Let your identity die.
Achmed nodded infinitesimally, willing his heartbeat to slow.
Within your mind, call to each of the four winds. Chant each name, then anchor it to one of your fingers.
Bien, Achmed thought. The north wind, the strongest. He opened his first throat and hummed the name; the sound echoed through his chest and the first chamber of his heart. He held up his index finger; the sensitive skin of its tip tingled as a draft of air wrapped around it.
Jahne, he whispered in his mind. The south wind, the most enduring. With his second throat he called to the next wind, committing the second heart chamber. Around his tallest finger he could sense the anchoring of another thread of air. When both vibrations were clear and strong he went on, opening the other two throats, the other two heart chambers. Leuk. The west wind, the wind of justice. Thas. The east wind. The wind of morning; the wind of death.
A net of wind.
Hear, O guardian, and look upon your destiny: The one who hunts also will stand guard, the one who sustains also will abandon, the one who heals also will kill, the Zephyr, the last Dhracian sage, had said in the last Dhracian prophecy. Beware the Sleepwalker, for Blood will be the means to find that which hides from the wind.
Time to stop hiding, Achmed thought silently. Come out and play, you bastard.
He cast the invisible net outward, toward the place where he had felt the demonic rhythm. Around him the sensitive nerves of his face felt the stinging breeze die down for a moment as the winds knotted together in a snare.
Then the scent, the heartbeat, the position all came together.
He had found the F’dor.
Now that he had finally identified the demon’s host he knew he could get a clean shot off, but without any weapon to follow the first strike, it was likely there would not be a single survivor in this entire assemblage should he yield to the screams of his blood, his nature, and fire the blowgun into its back. His dart might be fatal to the human but it would not kill the demon. It would either flee the dying body of the host or turn and destroy everyone, starting with Rhapsody, unarmed in her beautiful gown. He tried to make eye contact with Grunthor as he raised the blowgun.
“Bye, Father,” he whispered as he put the flute to his lips.
Grunthor, for his part, had seen Achmed move, swinging the flute down out of sight. He was close enough to Rhapsody to touch her in one step; he could easily step between her and any threat he saw or sensed. Achmed’s movement disturbed him, but he suspected he was the only one on the dais who had noticed. Rhapsody herself had only looked to her honor guard once, when the contingent from
Gwynwood had approached.
The Sergeant tried to discern the nature of the threat and of whom Achmed was suspicious. He looked carefully at each of the two princes at the head of the line. They greeted the queen and stepped down without obvious incident. The next group was that of the Patriarch and a handful of his benisons.
Again, Grunthor tried to read the faces and movements of the guests, but saw no weapons or hostility evident. The Patriarch was a special favorite of Rhapsody’s. He was very frail, and depended on many hands to keep his organization and himself alive. Rhapsody had defended him against the Rakshas some months back, and had said that she thought the F’dor might have been involved in the attack. It seemed unlikely that he was either himself possessed by the demon or able to detect it.
Grunthor looked quickly for Achmed again and could not find him.
Rhapsody was embracing the Patriarch emotionally; he was whispering a blessing into her ear.
Delight came over her face as she gently released him and their eyes met. They smiled at each other.
The Patriarch stepped back with the support of his benisons to let them make their personal greetings.
Suddenly he jerked sharply and collapsed into the benisons’ arms.
A unified gasp rose from the crowd.
Grunthor reacted like lightning and interposed himself between Rhapsody and the commotion. He knew that men did not fall that way when something inside broke, and silently cursed Achmed’s timing. Even though he could not see him, he knew the assassin’s work.
“Step back, Yer Majesty,” he said gently; he could feel her lifted off the ground as Anborn spun behind him and swung her to the back of the dais, adding his own body as a layer between her and the crowd. Grunthor, satisfied that she was out of the way, waded into the small flock of horrified benisons clustered around the body.