Barney inclined an ear to the rest of the tavern.
“It seems a quiet night, so if you would like to turn in now, you should be availed of mostly peace and quiet,” he said. “And tomorrow, if you wish me to wake you early, I can show you the beach where I have on rare occasions thought that I have seen evidence that MacQuieth’s heart is not still; that great bell you spoke of just tolls in a much wider bell tower than we can usually hear.”
Achmed nodded and followed the tavernkeeper to bed.
34
The next morning, true to his word, Barney woke the Bolg king in the hazy hour ahead of foredawn, and together they took a lantern down to the beach between the guardian rocks of Traeg.
The wind had been even higher that night than Achmed remembered, and so his dreams were full of demonic screaming, making his repose minimal. He had barely slept since Rhapsody’s death anyway; their last night together, close to the musical vibration that had emanated from her, had spoiled him, ruining any expectation of good sleep for him, but this night was especially haunting.
He had dreamt of the Vault, which he had actually once approached and had stood at the entry of, peering through the keyhole. The nightmares that had resulted were not so much a product of what he had seen in the dark, devouring space but more because of what he had heard while standing on the threshold of that lifeless realm; the sounds were beyond anything he had ever been able to describe to anyone, even Rhapsody. Now, with what he had witnessed in the mountains and what he was planning to do, the dreams returned, the noise that still haunted him screaming in his ears.
The airless place was full of sounds of the absurd, the profane, screams and cursing, pleading and whining, the begging voices suffering in agony, voices of judges pronouncing death sentences and the cries of the condemned, ridiculous, shrill commentary and palpably angry words so acid that the inside of his ears burned, set to the ominous pounding noise that all but drowned out desperate gasping and wailing, whispering in fear and threat, spinning like a dust devil tearing up the floor of a waterless desert, rattling his brain in just the split second of time in which he had gazed into the place.
He could not even bring himself to imagine how awful it would be to go inside.
As a result, in the morning he was exhausted, his skin even paler and more sallow than it usually was. The dark hollows around his eyes had caused the gentle barkeep to gasp upon viewing him in the light of the lantern.
The shouting sea wind and the crash of the waves below buffeted his sensitive skin, and Achmed was still nervous about the descent, so he stayed close to Barney and did not look around, but kept his sight drilled on the path.
There was no one on the beach. There was never anyone on this beach, Barney had explained as they made their way down to it, which was precisely why the ancient warrior had chosen, in his advanced age and morning blindness, to dwell here in a shack so small and unassuming that any who would have been fool enough to brave the wind of the beach would not have noticed it anyway.
The hut was now gone, a thousand years after Achmed had seen it, swallowed by the sea and the wind.
“This is where I sometimes find the sand pictures,” Barney whispered in the almost-dark, looking east behind him where Foredawn still had not made any appearance. “I’m not certain what it was about this place, but, for whatever reason, it had a sense of home to him, just as the wind seems to want to make its home in Traeg.”
The Bolg king took in a deep breath, finding the air of the place light of salt and pungent, but otherwise unremarkable.
“Will you hold the light to the water’s edge?” he asked Barney.
“Aye, Majesty. Whatever you command.”
Achmed shook his head, his hair blasting around him in the sea breeze.
“I command you to do nothing—I merely ask it of you. I am no longer a king,” he said, his voice competing with the whine of the wind. “I’ve gone back to being an assassin.”
“I am sick to hear that, Majesty.”
“Don’t be, Barney,” Achmed said, examining the sand beach. “If I have any use to the world now, it’s in that role.”
The waves were rolling to the sand, rumbling as they came with the strength of the morning tide. The Bolg king analyzed the pattern, finally settling on a place where the surf ended without exceeding its reach too frequently, then gathered his robes and veils and sat down in the sand.
Before he descended completely to it, he pulled forth Kirsdarke and Tysterisk from the bandolier and stabbed each of them, point down, into the sand, Tysterisk away from the grasp of the water, Kirsdarke directly in its path.
Tysterisk was a weapon he occasionally had difficulty with because it, like Kirsdarke, had little more than its hilt visible to ordinary sight when in its element. While that meant that Kirsdarke was fully visible in the air of the regular world, and only became fluid in water, Tysterisk in the element of air was little more than its hilt, with the occasional sign of spinning air currents where the blade actually was.
He pulled off his boots and tossed them out of the way of the waves, then rolled up the trousers he wore beneath his robes and stretched out his feet, allowing the cold froth of the sea to surround them.
He kept his hand on the hilt of the sword of elemental water, trying to allow the gentle undulation of its waves to soothe his battered soul, but he was still too damaged by the loss of two-thirds of the Three to gain any comfort in it.
He bade Barney goodbye and continue to sit vigil, his sensitive skin tormented by the buffeting of the wind and the surf. Achmed closed his eyes and thought back to the day that Rath had finally found him.
The Dhracian had been seeking him since his conception, because those of the Common Mind had been linked with his unfortunate mother, had witnessed her mass rape, something that he knew might have contributed to his snapping when he heard what Rhapsody had endured. Upon finding him, Rath had tested both him and Grunthor, had taken the air out of a broken, antiquated vault where he had found them, had allowed them to collapse for lack of it, and thus determined them to be free of the F’dor’s influence, because neither of them had attempted to wheedle or bargain as a F’dor would have.
Then he and Achmed had spoken for the longest time in the open air that either of them remembered doing.
In the ruins of Kurimah Milani, you said something about the bees, how a man could destroy every living specimen of their kind, should he come into their vault with flame, he had said to the Dhracian, of whom he had still been uncertain. Then you alluded that it was such with another vault as well. I told you, I abhor riddles. Speak to me plainly—tell me what you want of me.
Rath had chosen his answer carefully.
It is a great irony that to the Bolg you were polluted, unclean, a half-breed among mongrels that somehow made you less in their sight, he had said. Somewhere deep in the scars of your past you have assumed that the blood of your unknown father somehow tainted you in the estimation of the Kin as well—but I tell you, with the wind as my witness, that nothing is further from the truth. To the Gaol, and all the Brethren who have been seeking you since your conception, you are a special entity, a rare gift to our race, one who might finally tip the scales in our favor. We have not been searching for you to torture or abuse you, to cleanse the race of your blood—but because we need you. You, in a very real way, are our last hope.
He thought of Graal, of how the baby’s eyes were like his own, his newborn skin scored with the patterns and traceries of surface veins and nerves, but how those things had made him beautiful, unique, rather than ugly and despised.
Then he realized for the first time that, to the Dhracian brotherhood, he himself never had been.
You alone among us are born of wind and earth, Bolg king. While we tread the tunnels and canyons of the Underworld in our endless guardianship, we are strangers there—and the demons know it. They understand how deeply our sacrifice costs us, how much the wind in our blood resents being trapped within th
e ground, away from the element of air for all time. And even within their prison they laugh at us, because in every way that matters, we are as much prisoners as they. But the earth is in your blood as much as the wind is. You have a primordial tie to it that neither the Kin nor the Unspoken have. You have power there, a corporeal form that would be protected by the element of earth bequeathed to you by your father, protected by the very Living Stone of the Vault, should you choose to walk within it.
He had chosen to put the pleas aside, to remain Uncounted, much to Rath’s dismay.
Now he was beginning, for the first time, to truly fathom why.
I am not of the Gaol, he had protested. I am but half of the blood of the Brethren—and that which was of the other half raised me, if such words can be applied to my upbringing. I know none of your lore, your prophecies—your history. My skills are limited, my talents pale in this area. While I was given a blood-gift that allowed me to unerringly track the heartbeats of any of those born on the same soil as I had been, that was an upworld gift. Each time I have faced one of the Pantheon, I have needed help to complete the task. Without that assistance, I would be dead or possessed myself.
Rath had fixed the silver pupils of his eyes on Achmed and spoken softly, with more emphasis than the Bolg king had ever heard.
What you do not know is this—you could walk the Vault alone, and when you were done the silence would ring with nothing but the whisper of your name.
Achmed heard the words again in his mind. I certainly hope you are right, Rath, he thought. But with any luck, we are about to find out.
He continued to sit in the sand and contemplate his world and his task until the sky lightened, until the wind of morning calmed somewhat, until he could see beyond the dark water into the western horizon, until he could feel on his back and see out of the corners of his eyes the pinks and pale blues of the sunrise behind him.
Then he sighed.
He had neither felt, nor heard, any words of wisdom, any hints or suggestions or anything else that would make this hateful task successful.
Finally he stood as daybreak came fully, and brushed the sand off his calves and put his boots back on, muttering obscenities under his breath at the feel of the granular dirt rubbing against his feet.
Driftwood and other waste from the sea had floated onto the beach, a piece of which came up on a wave and wedged itself between an indentation in the sand and his boot. Irritated, Achmed kicked it away.
Then he looked at it more closely.
At first it had appeared as a long, hollow stick of driftwood, unremarkable save for the way the sunlight glittered as it rocked from side to side in the low surface and splashover from the waves that were pulling back with the tide. This object, in fact, had been delivered by the sea but had been caught in a similar sand furrow.
Achmed bent down to pick it up.
He turned it over, examining the regular scoring and the shape of it.
And when he had been at it for a few moments, he noticed from the two weapons sticking in the sand nearby that there were crude runes of a sort on it that he had seen inscribed in ancient manuscripts and on historical objects of art.
Different from any he had seen in all his time across the wide world.
His hand shaking, he held the object up to his eyes and the light of the now-rising sun.
“It’s a scabbard,” he whispered, though no one was around to hear him.
* * *
Achmed appeared at the door of the Hat and Feathers later that afternoon.
Old Barney was waiting for him, just getting ready to open for the evening.
“Any luck, Majesty?”
Achmed extended the scabbard.
The elderly barkeep smiled, tired and broadly.
“He is the soul of the sea,” he said. “I hope that whatever it is you’re seeking there will be as easy to come by.”
Achmed merely smiled. “Ever seen this before?”
“Aye; ’twas his. He had several at one time, but I never got to see him in his days as a soldier, except when he would come into the Hat and Feathers in Easton. That was the one his sword rested in during those days; I do know it was special to him. But I did not sail with him—I went with the First Fleet, and he commanded the Second. By the time I got to know him in the new world, he was—well, you know how he was.”
Achmed nodded. “Thank you, again, for your assistance. I wish you continued health and comfort.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Barney said, continuing to wipe down the bar. “I know you and Rhapsody were very close.”
The Bolg king thought of his son and winced internally. “Thank you. Condolences to you as well; I know the two of you meant a great deal to each other as well.”
“Aye, that we did.”
“I would like to purchase some supplies from you, if I may, ere I leave.”
“Of course. What can I get you?”
“Some potent potables and a flask of Canderian brandy, if you have some,” Achmed said. “I’m told the sea can be bitter cold, and I might need some bracing.”
Barney smiled and went to the back room, returning a few moments later with a dozen thin cylindrical metal flasks with belt hooks and a regular-sized canteen.
“Fishermen call these ‘the third pole,’” he said, holding up the thin vessels. “Almost as necessary as the first two poles a man has; maybe more for us old lads. Fair winds and following seas to you, Majesty.”
“Thank you,” Achmed said. He waited until Barney had turned away, then laid five gold sovereigns on the bar, sufficient to pay for the alcohol and room rental.
As well as to purchase the entire establishment.
He slid the scabbard into the bandolier and took his leave, heading back down the rocky path, well lighted by the sun now.
35
THE WINDSWEPT COAST OF TRAEG
Once again, filled with disgust, Achmed waded into the sea.
The swishing silence as the waves closed over his head was a little less horrific this time, but still, being encased in the element that was his nemesis, it was all the Bolg king could do to keep from panicking once he was sinking again into the churning depths.
He had waited until the light had come fully up in the east, so that he could see the rocks along the coast. As he had been waiting, the waves had drawn back, as Barney had mentioned, and a ragged set of marks scored the sand in front of him.
If it was meant to be a drawing, and it could only be called so in the most generous of terms, it was one he thought he recognized.
It appeared to be a circle with a spiral within it, with rays extending from it.
Achmed knew the image well.
He had seen it long ago, both in the old world and the new, particularly in Vrackna, the basilica of Fire. He had explained to Rhapsody on their first visit to the temple in Bethany that, her belief and that of the numbskull clerics who worked there notwithstanding, she was not looking at an image of the sun, but rather the symbol of the goal of the ancient race of demons.
It was a picture of the Earth in flames.
The wyrm within its bowels was represented by the spiral, as the means the F’dor expected to use to achieve that goal.
He still took a rancid delight in remembering the horror in Rhapsody’s expression as she realized what she was seeing, and how it was being misinterpreted.
If this really is a message from MacQuieth, or whatever else may constitute the soul of the sea, it’s a presumptuous one, he thought, amused. As far as he knew, the famous hero had never attempted to go after what slept within the belly of the Earth. Nice of you to suggest that I do, if that’s what this image in the sand is implying.
Now he was traversing the sea, struggling to hold down his nausea, when in the distance he heard, or rather felt, the tolling of a deep bell again.
His disgust abated, replaced by anticipation.
Achmed waited for the sound to return, but his ears were met by nothing but the noise o
f the waves crashing above him, muted in the grip of the water, and the heavy, thick rippling of the drift.
He turned in the direction that he thought the resonating sound had come from, but was lost in the chaos of the waves.
Hrekin, he cursed silently.
Quickly he reached over his head and withdrew the sword of water from the bandolier. It came forth, glowing with light, its blade ephemeral, its hilt solid in his hand.
Achmed closed his eyes.
He tried to block the swooshing and gurgling sounds from his mind and focus instead on the noise of the bell in the Deep.
After a few moments, he heard it sound again, low and far away.
The sword of elemental water vibrated in his hand.
In one of the true triumphs of will over instinct he had ever managed in the course of his life, Achmed let go of his need for control and allowed the sword to lead him, following the vibrations of the tolling of the bell, into the Deep.
He followed it blindly, without any other sense of where he was going.
* * *
All grasp of time and distance was now gone.
The Bolg king, having struggled with losing his sense of control, abandoned it utterly and focused his consciousness, much as he had back on the Island when tracking the heartbeat of prey, on the only clear sound he could hear in the confounding universe of endless water and muted vibration.
He was vaguely aware of passing days and nights from the darkness and deepening cold he could feel at the edges of his eyelids, but soon lost count of them. Traveling the sea in this manner was like voluntarily agreeing to forgo any sense of time, and, after surrendering his meaningless resistance, he just moved on, often with his eyes closed, following the slow tolling of the bell.
He had almost become accustomed to being lost forever in the hateful waves when a ray of sunlight, too bright and glaring to be ignored, pierced the blue gloom, stinging his eyes into opening once more.
The water had gone from endless blue-black to a light shade of green. Achmed looked down to see that he was hovering over a shallow bottom, one that was stirred more or less constantly by the churning of harsher, stronger waves than those he had been passing through. He recognized them after a moment as surf that approached a shoreline.