“I believe I will put that theory to the test—I shall return to the Repositories of Lore and remove any mention of you from the displays. I will rewrite the books and expunge your image, and that of the other monsters who are your brothers, leaving only Yl Angaulor in the record. I will whisper a new lore of Death into the wind: that those whose lives end in pain, or in war, or in the death of worlds, arrive at the Gate in joy. And, if I am wrong, I will apologize if you come to collect me, and you may torment me however you choose. That seems only fair. But trust me—I am confident enough in my ability to rewrite the lore as I have mentioned that I will lose no sleep over the infinitesimal possibility that I will ever see you again.”
The grisly horseman blinked in astonishment. Meridion could not suppress a smile.
Then he closed his eyes and loosed the bonds he had put on Time in the Veil of Hoen, and made his way through its corridors to Ylorc.
28
THE TUNNEL ABOVE THE CHASM, YLORC
In the face of the miracle that he had just witnessed, Achmed’s sardonic nature had failed him utterly.
As he looked down at the child in Rhapsody’s hands, his own poised beneath the birthing cloth, he found himself staring into a pair of eyes, colored in two different shades, looking back at him as if the baby was sighting down a crossbow.
He chuckled in spite of himself.
My son, he thought, still unable to believe what he was seeing. He noticed the traceries of veins that scored the baby’s tiny head, looking as if they had been painted there by an artist from the Inoye clan, a Gwenen tribe that detailed the skin in beautiful runes with inks made of cacao and the excretions of squid. There is a little of me in him after all. He gently touched the infant’s translucent gold hair, and his long black lashes and golden skin with a rosy undertone exactly like that of his mother. Thankfully, very little.
The air of the room suddenly became heavier, pushing against the sensitive skin of his face.
“He’s beauti—”
His instinctive reflexes responded like lightning as the child dropped into his hands.
His mother fell sideways to the floor, limp and lifeless.
“Rhapsody?” Achmed blinked in surprise.
He was over her a moment later, the newborn swaddled in the birthing cloth in the crook of his arm, sensing for a heartbeat he had known intimately for more than two millennia, but finding nothing.
“Rhapsody?” he demanded, his tone unintentionally harsh as it had been in previous times when his worry got the better of him.
Shaking, he rolled her over onto her back and felt her neck numbly for her heartbeat, only to be sickeningly assured of its absence.
Every organ in his body went numb or constricted with shock.
He opened his mouth to taste the air, pulled his veils farther away from his skin-web to allow his senses the best chance of finding her heartbeat in the wind, but, just as it had been a short time ago with Grunthor, there was no trace of it. He let loose his kirai, the gift he had utilized in Serendair to locate any prey by its cardiac trail, but to no avail.
The Bolg king fell back, shaking with shock.
He could hear his own voice, long ago, when she had been grievously injured by the demonic vine that had sprung from her F’dor-possessed sister’s entrails, trying to jolly her into awareness.
Come on, Rhapsody, we’ve been in worse fights than this. Sleep on your own time, will you? This is no way to get out of your share of the work breaking camp.
But there was something so certain, so all-encompassing, so final about her state that he could not even bring himself to joke for old times’ sake.
Achmed opened his mouth and began to breathe shallowly.
Desperation gripped him suddenly. He tightened the cloth around the newborn and set him, with the greatest of care, on the floor, then tilted her head back and pressed his open mouth on hers, breathing for her, pushed rhythmically on her chest, even though he knew before he began it would be to no avail.
He put his hand on the naked skin of her chest, the place she just a few moments before had bared for him, allowing him to rest his palm there.
It was warm, perhaps from the recentness of her heart stopping, perhaps owing to the fire that had been absorbed in her when she sang her way through the molten, towering wall of the element at the heart of the Earth.
“Rhapsody,” he whispered brokenly. “Please, please don’t do this.”
Her eyes, green as the forest canopy, were open, staring blankly.
Achmed let his hand come to rest on them, closing the lids, brushing the luminous black lashes as he took his hand away.
Angrily he contemplated a blind run for the chasm.
A tiny gurgling sound, like the pealing of bell, went up behind him.
He turned to see that the baby had disentangled himself from the birthing cloth and was waving his arms slowly, randomly.
In the back of his mind he could hear the words of a prophecy spoken, something Ashe had obsessed over, that Rhapsody had assured him, during the course of her later, more routine pregnancies, had not been about Meridion or any of his siblings, but a woman who long ago she had delivered of a child with demon’s blood, a spawn of a rape by the Rakshas.
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.
Her later pregnancies after Meridion’s birth had all been healthy and safe, despite his rude comments about Ashe risking her life.
I see an unnatural child born of an unnatural act.
Oh gods, Achmed thought as he looked from his son to the baby’s dead mother. Oh, gods.
There was a lingering warmth against his cheek, the odor of spice and flowers and soap; he put his hand to his face, feeling words he did not think he had actually heard, spoken after what felt like a loving kiss, in a sweet, familiar voice.
Thank you. Love—you.
Oh gods, he thought again.
For the first time he could remember, he felt the presence of caustic, bitter tears burn down his face.
Achmed shook his head to dislodge them from his skin, fearing if they remained there, he would never be able to make the ones that would come after them cease.
The little boy on the floor began to cackle, then cry, the sound rippling painfully across Achmed’s skin-web.
He turned away from Rhapsody’s lifeless body and crawled back to the infant, lifting him carefully from the floor and cradling him against his shoulder.
Now what do I do? he thought, panic rattling at the edges of his consciousness. What do I do?
The Bolg, wandering distantly, still waiting to be summoned to battle, said nothing in reply.
* * *
The first task Achmed had undertaken with his son was the gathering of wood for the pyre of the child’s mother.
Initially he had panicked when the baby cried, believing him to be hungry and knowing he had no way to provide nourishment without Rhapsody. Then, after several terrified moments he recalled a conversation that had taken place a millennium before between his child’s mother and a Dhracian known as Rath, a demon-hunter of his own mother’s race, who had instructed her in the lore that had brought their baby into being.
A summoned entity has no real need of food or drink or sleep, the Dhracian had said as the Namer made careful notes. It is comprised of a piece of a soul of two different people, and the musical vibrations of the lore by which it is sung into life. This is why the Earthchild has spent endlessly passing years in the darkness of the Earth, without the sustenance a normal child would need. The only necessity it has is that of love.
He found that picking the child up and cradling him had been sufficient.
The Bolg king went slowly through the halls of Ylorc, the sleeping baby on his forearm, finding and gathering sticks of any nature, all in the name of making Rhapsody’s funeral bier, passing logy Bolg in armor who were carrying as much in the way of weaponry as
they could.
He had returned her to his bed, where she had awoken in his arms that morning, carrying her back to the place where her smile had made him appreciate the sunrise. Now that she was dead, putting her body to rest on the black satin sheets she had joked about was the least he could do, rather than leaving her corpse in the hallways to possibly be come across and defiled by wandering Firbolg affected by the Night Caller spectrum. The thought of how appalled she had been by that prospect made him willing to do anything he must to keep her safe in death as he had not been able to in life.
You want to fuck me on the tunnel floor among the wandering, mindless Bolg and the rats?
The memory of how ashen her face had been, how bloodshot her eyes, had made his suffering even worse. He had been assuming until now that she had just been joking, sarcastic and exhausted. But it occurred to him now, after seeing her clenched jaw, her trembling chin, that the memory of her torment at Michael’s hands might have been clinging to the edges of her consciousness at that moment.
Maybe it always had been.
He had carried the baby with him the whole time he was gathering and building Rhapsody’s bier, hour into hour until the night had come again. The child had slept, or watched with wide-open eyes, but rarely made a sound as he worked. He had been at a loss, however, as to where to leave or put him when moving the body, so in the end he had carried Rhapsody in his arms with the baby lying atop her, a last communion of mother and son that had made him physically sick.
Many times during the course of the night it occurred to him that he might be dreaming. He found himself wishing and hoping desperately that he was, but eventually he had only a pile of sticks at the opening of the tunnel overlooking the canyon and a body in his bed each time he went back to check on it, so he ultimately surrendered to the reality of Rhapsody’s death and sank into survival mode, accomplishing what needed to be done in the same way he always had—silently and without a lot of fuss.
When the bier was finally finished, he and the glowing child returned to his chambers to gather the baby’s mother and take her to her pyre. Her body had begun to stiffen slightly in the rictus of death, but it was still largely warm, almost as much as it had been in life. Once again he carried her, the child atop her, to the hallway and set her carefully down among the branches and sticks that he and their son had gathered for her.
Achmed had despaired of the ratty dressing gown that was the only clothing she had brought with her to Ylorc, a sad final costume in which to be sent off to the Afterlife. The irony of it amused him darkly; the woman who had most vehemently disdained the trappings of royalty and privilege had nursed a secret fondness for pretty clothing, even among the brutish denizens of Ylorc who were imagining, when they would see her attired in colorful dresses, what flavor the cloth marinades might have imparted to the meat.
The dressing gown was still open at the top, as it had been when she had brought his hand to rest on her heart in the conception of their child. Achmed saw the golden locket that she had always worn around her neck and carefully opened the clasp, took it from her throat, and closed the clasp again, then held it up to his eyes, examining it closely for the first time.
It was an inexpensive piece of jewelry, doubtless more sentimental than valuable. He opened the spring and a small, odd copper coin fell out, thirteen-sided, the like of which he had never seen before. He returned it to the locket and closed it again, putting it in his pocket.
He stretched her out atop the branches on which he had scattered the last flowers of summer that he could find. He had been amazed at how beautiful she had remained in death; it had occurred to him while gathering the wood that he might return to find that Time had caught up with her, that the thousands of years during which she had avoided aging might come to claim her while he was gone, but he noticed no change each time he had returned.
Gently he reached out and with the back of his hand caressed her small, perfect breasts, the nipples still pale pink and rosy, beautiful and desirable in a way she had never understood.
I have no breasts to speak of, she had said shyly as she revealed herself to him.
Then I will never speak of them. There aren’t words worthy to do so.
He lowered his lips to the hollow between them and kissed her heart, still warm, but still, unbeating, beneath his sensitive lips.
Then he moved up to the rose-petal lips, the upper one shaped like a bow, and stared at them for a long moment.
If you want to, I think you should kiss me. It’s not part of the actual ritual, but there’s no reason we can’t. And this time, if that happens, I promise you I will be kissing you with no one waiting to sweep me away, no battle we don’t expect to survive, no comfort of a friend in mind, even though we are and always will be friends. If you kiss me this day, you will be kissing the mother of your child.
Achmed closed his eyes and leaned down, allowing his lips, thin and taut, to come to rest on hers, soft and plush, still warm.
Then he stood, looking down at her, the baby cradled in his arms now, sleeping, and thought back again to the time he had sat vigil over her when she had been at the point of death. The greatest healers of the City of Reason, the citadel Sepulvarta, where the Patriarch had held services in the basilica of the Star, Lianta’ar, had been unable to do anything but stanch her bleeding and advise him to prepare for the worst. Finally, he had remembered how, when he was griping about her wasting her time singing to comfort injured Bolg, she had given him the very tool to save her.
Well, that’s a useful investment of your evening. I’m sure the Firbolg are very appreciative and will certainly reciprocate your ministrations if you should ever need something.
What does that mean?
I am trying to tell you that you will never see any return for your efforts. When you are injured or in pain, who will sing for you, Rhapsody?
Why, Achmed, you will.
Achmed sighed dispiritedly. He recalled sitting endlessly at her bedside, seeing no improvement, when finally the realization of what she meant had come to him. His words had perhaps been the first admission of love he had ever made, even if neither of them knew it, or could hear it, at the time.
Rhapsody, between two worlds I have had but two friends. I am not willing to let you alter this.
Now he had none.
But, through the memory, he now had her dirge.
He stood at the mouth of the cave, watching the wind play with her hair, brushing the edges of her tresses like a lover. He set the sleeping baby down again and carefully drew Daystar Clarion from its sheath.
As if the sword was mourning its bearer as well, no bright clarion call sounded, as it usually had when she drew it. The flames were burning quietly, just around the sword’s tip, unlike the rolling blade of fire that it had been in her hand.
He expected it would be enough to light her pyre.
Then he discovered, upon touching it to the wood, that it wasn’t.
The flames took the kindling at first, burning quietly and steadily, but rather than igniting her hair or her dressing gown, the bier seemed to be burning without taking her with it.
Annoyed, Achmed blew on the flames, but it seemed to have no impact.
“Hrekin,” he said aloud; it had taken the better part of the day and night to gather the kindling, and now it was burning without accomplishing its purpose.
He looked at Rhapsody’s body, glowing and untouched within the flame, and then down at the sword in his hand.
Then he realized his error.
Just as she and he had conjured the baby through their connection, his hand on her heart, so the sword must be mourning her, too, or at least subdued in the presence of an entity with as much or perhaps more fire lore than it had.
Careful of the flames, he laid the sword on her chest and abdomen, the hilt atop her heart, the blade pointing at her feet, and stepped back from the bier.
At first, the flames of the pyre roared higher, then settled into a steady b
urn.
Then, before his eyes, it seemed to him that the elemental fire she had absorbed in their trek through that inferno at the center of the Earth began to seep from her body, brightening the sword and the flames of the bier, leeching the color from her face and hands until she was as white as a dead birch tree. Beautiful as he had always thought the rosy golden glow of her skin to have been, there was something even more heartrendingly magnificent in this aspect of her, absent the fire that had burned within her.
In the distance beyond the opening, morning was beginning to break, the sun still yet to appear, but the black of the night sky was fading to the blue-gray of foredawn.
Achmed took the sleeping baby back into his arms.
An image flashed before his eyes, her face, bruised and bleeding from her first combat on the Root, her eyes glittering in the fire-colored darklight of the path through the Earth they had traveled to come away from what had pursued them relentlessly in Serendair. She had been applying bandages she had soaked in spice to his injured wrist, hesitantly singing her first song of healing.
Music is nothing more than the maps through the vibrations that make up all the world, she had said. If you have the right map, it will take you wherever you want to go.
How I wish I had the map to take you back in Time, he thought as the pyre began to smoke, its curling tendrils beginning to catch the wind of dawn beyond the tunnel opening. How many things would I change if I could?
He watched as the flames began to render her into ashes, and felt the song he had serenaded her back to life with once come to his lips again, a thousand years later. It was a song of his own making, a song of which even he didn’t know the genesis.
He opened his mouth and began to sing in the three voices of the Dhracian race, one sharp and rapid, one low, like the shadow of a musical note just missed in the distance, and, from the back of his throat, coated in bile and nausea from his gut, the words he had sung her long ago.
Mo hale maar, my hero gone