The song of conjuring was so beautiful, so inspiring, that he felt a loss, like the slap of a cold wave, when it came to an end. A tug within him made him sense that the piece of his soul he had agreed to part with had been removed from within him and now hung, nascent, in the air between them, mixing with hers.
“Achmed,” Rhapsody whispered. “Are you ready?”
He nodded, his eyes still closed.
“Open your eyes.”
He obeyed.
Rhapsody was holding the birthing cloth over his hands.
A glow of spectacular beauty was hovering above it.
“Welcome, little one,” she said, tears in her eyes. “Meet your father.”
The generalized glow became defined; the outline appeared of a tiny head, dusted with golden hair, with arms that reached upward into the world, the skin translucent, scored with the finest of traceries of surface veins, like Achmed’s own.
She looked up at her friend, the other side of her coin.
The father of her last child.
His eyes met hers, and they shared a smile, then looked back at their child as it continued to form.
And then, suddenly, the world around her, glowing with warmth and the profound beauty of the song accompanying a soul’s appearance, went dark and silent.
Silent except for the sound of a horse’s whinny.
26
Rhapsody looked quickly around.
It seemed as if Time had stopped.
Before her, Achmed still knelt, a look of heartbreaking awe on his normally cynical face. He was staring down at the glowing light in the birthing cloth, wonder in his eyes.
Unmoving.
The baby was awake and beautiful, a boy, she thought hazily, feeling her head swim as it had when she had given birth before. His hair was fine and golden, his skin perfect and dewy, with the lightest traceries of veins scoring his head in beautiful patterns like the designs the Lirin wove into their hair. A beautiful boy.
Also unmoving.
She looked up.
Rising behind Achmed in the now-dark stood a gargantuan horse of no breed that she recognized, its coat and mane changing color from moment to moment.
Atop the horse was a figure she did recognize.
He was tall, wearing robes the color of night; his skin was pale, his eyes were black as pitch, and deep. Rhapsody felt she easily could fall into those eyes, crowned with black thundercloud brows beneath a mane of snowy white hair.
She had known his face for a thousand years, having spent the equivalent of seven in his realm, an ethereal place between life and death known as the Veil of Hoen, the Cymrian word for joy.
Yl Angaulor.
The Hand of Mortality.
The Lord Rowan.
The manifestation of Peaceful Death.
The Lord Rowan smiled sadly.
“M’lady, I am here to make good on the promise I made you. Come now.”
Rhapsody’s brow wrinkled. In her haze she shook her head. “Promise?”
The Lord Rowan stretched out his hand.
A sudden clarity filled her mind, like a Namer’s bell tolling, and she heard in her ears her own voice, and his.
M’lord Rowan, will you grant me a favor? Please?
What is it you wish?
Will you come for me one day? Please?
The Guardian of Peaceful Death’s solemn face had betrayed a flicker of a smile.
Fascinating. Usually I only hear prayers asking me to stay away, though you are not the first Cymrian by any means who has prayed for my assistance. You are the first one in the bloom of youth, however.
Please, m’lord. Please say that you will come for me one day.
I will if I can, my child. That is the only promise I can make you.
Rhapsody blinked as realization dawned. “I—am I dead?”
“Come, m’lady.” There was a tone of urgency in his voice.
“But—”
Her protest was cut short as the voice of Manwyn, the Seer of the Future, rang in her head.
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.
“Oh, my God—”
“M’lady—”
She looked down at the translucent baby in her arms, only to see that her arms were frozen in Time as well.
Rhapsody jumped up in alarm, leaving her body, and the child it cradled, behind.
She looked down at her arms, translucent now as well.
The Lord Rowan glanced over his shoulder.
“M’lady, do not panic, I beg you,” he said, his voice controlled, but there was an edge to it. “Be careful of what you say; a Namer’s authority can contravene Time and Death, but you do not wish for that to happen.”
Rhapsody met his gaze. “Why?” she asked, her voice trembling.
The black eyes narrowed. “Another comes for you. Another iteration of Death. Please, m’lady. It is time.”
“But—my child—my baby—needs me—please, m’lord—”
“You are by no means the first woman to utter those words before meeting Death; you brought several children from such mothers to my realm long ago, if you recall.” He stretched out his hand even farther. “Come.”
“Please,” Rhapsody said, choking. “One moment—just one. I beg you.”
The Lord Rowan fell silent, a disapproving look in his black eyes.
Rhapsody inhaled, feeling no air come into her chest. She came closer to the Lord Rowan, walking around her own body, and knelt down beside Achmed, bending again over the child, cradled in the birthing cloth in her hands. She kissed the baby’s head quickly, then spoke his name above him.
Graal, she said in the tone of the Naming invocation. It was the word in Serenne, the language of the Ancient Seren that Llauron had insisted she learn long ago, the word meaning visionary wisdom.
Speaking the word was heavier than she could imagine; it was as if she were swimming through clay. I—love—you, she whispered, forcing the words through the weighty air.
She turned her head with great difficulty and pressed a kiss on Achmed’s temple, just above his ear.
Thank you, she said, struggling for breath. Love—you.
In the distance, thunder rolled and lightning crackled.
The devouring blackness that had appeared a moment after the baby’s emergence lightened to gray, as if it were foredawn. Now Rhapsody could see an endless horizon all around her, shapes of a desolate landscape she could not make out.
In the direction the horse was facing, she thought she could see what appeared to be a wood wrapped in fog and sunlight. A massive gate rose from the mist, open to a realm of shining brightness.
The Lord Rowan’s eyes darkened.
“Now, m’lady,” he insisted. He reached down as far as he could from atop the steed.
Rhapsody stood and came to him. She took his hand.
The Lord Rowan swept her effortlessly up and onto the horse before him and dug his knees into the steed, which took off in a scream of wind toward the foggy place before them.
She turned with difficulty and caught one last sight of the three of them.
Herself.
Her last child.
And the man who had been the other side of her coin. Her child’s father.
His only living parent now.
Beyond the rushing of wind, the thundering of the horse’s hoofbeats, the Gate loomed in the green glade beyond the Veil, magnificent in its brightness.
She bowed her head in grief as the world began to spin away.
Only to raise her face as the Lord Rowan dragged back on his mount in a screaming of horseflesh and anger.
27
Meridion stood at the Gate before them.
The Lord Rowan drew the mighty steed to an unexpected stop, causing vibrations of immense power to shake whatever appeared to be the ground. He glanced at Rhapsody before him.
“My eldest son,” she said
haltingly.
The Lord Rowan’s eyes narrowed as he assessed the man in front of him.
“You have not died,” he said, almost accusingly.
Meridion bowed his head in deference. “No, m’lord.”
“How did you know to come here?”
“I saw it in a dream, m’lord—this very night, a turgid dream of monumental scale. I needed to see my mother, so I came. I beg your forgiveness.”
The manifestation of Peaceful Death drew himself up in the saddle angrily. “Then I am in the presence of an entity with the power to halt Time itself. I had never expected to be thus. What do you want? Your interference puts your mother at grave risk—a gravity I cannot overstate.”
“I must speak to her, I beg you, m’lord,” Meridion said. “Please. I believe I can hold Time in stasis for a few moments, long enough to impart to her what I have to say.”
The black eyes of the Lord Rowan gleamed with displeasure. He turned and looked down again at Rhapsody, after glancing behind them.
“I came to take you beyond the Veil of Hoen and through the Gate because in Life you once asked that boon of me, and I agreed to grant it if I could. But you must know that the circumstance in which Death has come to meet you is not one within my domain. It is not my appointed task or jurisdiction to carry you to the Gate, m’lady, but that of my elder brother.” The expression in the black eyes grew even darker for a moment. “And, upon my word, you do not wish for that to come to pass if you can possibly help it.”
Rhapsody turned and looked beyond his shoulder. The flat sky was darkening in the distance, great clouds of gray dust seeming to dance slowly upward.
“He is coming,” the Lord Rowan said. “And his authority, and power, eclipses yours, Child of Time.”
Meridion swallowed and tried to keep from shaking. “As a Namer, it is my obligation to share lost lore with one who is entitled to know it—and as the Child of Time, I can keep Time at bay for a few moments, at least. Please, m’lord—I promise not to tarry.” He pointed just beyond the Gate, to an enormous loom before which a woman sat, weaving the story of history. “There is something in the Weaver’s loom that my mother must see.”
The Lord Rowan turned in the saddle and looked into Rhapsody’s eyes one last time, the black irises of his own devouring what little light was present.
“This is your decision, m’lady,” he said, “though I strongly advise against it. I caught you in the moment just before your heart exploded, before an agonizing end that cannot be described in words. I will not be able to help you should the one who is coming for you find you here before you enter the Afterlife.”
The Lady Cymrian considered for a moment.
Then she nodded her understanding and dismounted the horse, coming to stand a few steps from Meridion.
“Tell me what you feel you must,” she said softly.
Meridion summoned his courage, sick at heart at the sight of her face, the glowing light in it that had always been present waning before his eyes.
The mist of the Veil of Hoen hung heavy in the air, frozen in Time. He turned to the enormous loom on which the tapestry of history was being woven, and pointed to the place where the original image had been altered, beginning with a tiny knot of interwoven copper and golden threads.
He watched her enormous eyes take in the sight of the rewoven history, the original pattern hovering in the air, evanescent, translucent beside the clear, well-formed threads that represented Time as it was now recorded.
Those eyes filled with unspent tears as she did.
“It was me, Mimen. I am so sorry.”
Rhapsody continued to watch the floating scene of the Forgotten Past unfold before her eyes.
“It was me, Mimen, though I did not know it until I came here to meet you,” Meridion said. He took a breath of the unmoving air and spoke as quickly as he could, trying to maintain a calm tone, relying on his training as a Namer, even as his heart pounded violently. “I just saw it in the Weaver’s tapestry—the gold thread of your hair, the copper of Gwydion’s—and my own fingerprints. I am the one who edited Time, who sent my father back to meet you in the old world. I am the one who caused the strand of Time that you lived before to burn in favor of the one I altered.”
Finally she turned to him and smiled slightly.
“I know,” she said. “I can see it as well.”
“Can you forgive me? For this, and for everything I said?”
A dark wind blew through the glade.
Behind the horse, the clouds of dust on the filmy ground began rising rapidly, reaching skyward into darker ones that were racing again now.
Rhapsody’s eyes grew clearer, and she appeared slightly more solid, as if by force of will. When she spoke, the tone of the Namer was in her voice.
“You had no say in the matter, Meridion. And it was the right thing for the world. There is nothing to forgive.”
The Lord Rowan was looking behind him. “M’lady—”
“I wanted you enough to accept death as the consequence of your birth on both sides of Time, Meridion. Both times, I deem that my decision was wise. I am forever grateful to have been your mother.”
Black rain began to strafe the glade, sending the limbs of the trees writhing, their leaves rustling madly.
“M’lady, he comes.”
Meridion’s eyes widened as he beheld the horizon approaching from behind the Lord Rowan’s mount.
Fire now was leaping from the ground, and thunder crackled and snapped in the clouds shot with lightning.
Before it all rode another horseman, larger and broader in form than the Lord Rowan, clad in spiked armor, a whip of many tails in his heavy-gloved hand.
The face beneath his war helm was exposed to the heavy air, his lips skinned back from his teeth that were clenched in a grin of hatred.
His face was part skeleton, part sunken, in which eyes of fire burned.
He rode low over the back of his mount, a tall, broad steed that seemed to be formed of dark wind and fire.
He was beating that windfire steed mercilessly, urging it onward, a grin of both satisfaction and fury curled on what remained of his lips.
“Mother—”
The remaining spirit of Rhapsody reached out and seized Meridion by the shoulders. Her hands had no weight, but he felt the strength of her will nonetheless.
“Hear me, Meridion: I love you; remember that always. Speak the same words for me to all our family—especially to your father. Be gentle with him. Tell him that no one killed me, there is no revenge to exact—and nothing else about my death. Tell him this additionally—your lady commands you not to rampage; Grunthor’s death brought the continent to the brink of war, but she wishes hers to return it to peace. Honor this command, and your wife will meet you one day beyond the Gate. She thanks you for the most beautiful life she could ever have imagined.”
She took his hand and pressed her lips to the back of it; the warmth and sensation of love conveyed remained there for the rest of his life.
Then her other hand slid down his arm as she backed away from him toward the Lord Rowan’s horse. Her palm, cold as the wind around them, rested in his for one last moment.
“And, my beloved son, above all else, may you know joy.”
She gave him one final smile, then turned to the Lord Rowan, whose white hair was streaming violently in the wind now, and reached up her arms.
Without another breath the Lord Rowan swept her from the filmy forest floor and dragged her onto the mount before him. He kicked its sides savagely and dashed forward through the Gate, riding through Meridion as he did without so much as a whisper of impact.
Meridion spun around in time to see the horse disappear beyond the Gate of Life, then turned back again as the lightning flashed and the rain drenched his skin, stinging and burning, but leaving no droplets or mist.
* * *
Meridion closed his eyes as the howl of the wind before him rose into a scream of fury.
He could feel his eyelids burn as the thundering hoofbeats rode closer, ripping grass and dirt beneath them in a horrific smell.
A violent slap roared through him, dragging his hair behind him and off-balancing him, making his chest, shoulders, and legs ache violently.
Then he heard the sound of a horse in walk, circling him from behind and stopping in front of him again.
“Open your eyes, coward.”
Meridion obeyed.
The manifestation of the Wracked Death stared down at him from atop its evanescent mount in hatred.
His mother’s words, spoken so recently and yet seemingly forever ago, sounded in his ear.
Stand up straight and shrink from no one. Look every man in the eye. Spit in that eye if you need to.
As warmth spread through him, Meridion stared back at Death.
The enormous monster leaned over the side of the horse, bringing its rotting head and the putrid stench of its tattered teeth down next to his face.
“You have taken a valuable prize from me, Namer,” the Wracked Death said. In its voice were sounds of wailing, screams of agony, above the base of a growl that rang with the slamming of cemetery gates. “Your mother made a life of claiming such prizes from me—healing those who were among my spoils, who I deserved to carry beyond the Gate, or staying my hand by comforting them in death—just as you do. This does not come without cost. The ledgers record these thefts, both hers and yours—and now yours of her.”
The eyes of the manifestation of Death burned even darker before him. His final words were considered, slow, and spoken in a terrifying hiss.
“I will never forgive your debt. When your time comes, I will be there to collect you—be certain of it.”
Meridion exhaled.
“Perhaps,” he said, sighting the horseman down. “Or perhaps my mother was right. Death itself is an immutable entity, but the manifestations of it, the traditions and myths, the legends and tales are perhaps given power by the very Namers, priests, and Singers, and their fellows in other cultures who recount that lore. Perhaps all of us have brought you into existence by the very sharing, guarding, and maintaining of that lore.