As is the last key out of the depths of the world, he thought.
Achmed let his head drop back against the earthen wall and closed his eyes.
Behind his eyelids an image of Grunthor appeared, pale and silent, sitting in the same position as he himself was now, his head back, eyes closed, in the light of a blood-red moon. It was a memory from long ago, before Rhapsody had even come into their lives, from a terrible night, a night of loss, of defeat, when the Sergeant’s beloved troops were slaughtered to a one, leaving him the only survivor. He had continued to talk about them for years, as if they were still alive, most likely because the loss had been so profound that he could not really bring himself to actually believe it had happened. Achmed had always accommodated his friend’s gentle self-deceit, but had been secretly grateful when the Firbolg of Ylorc had taken the place of the lost men whom the giant had mourned on both sides of Time and all throughout the trek of the Three through the belly of the world.
Achmed rubbed his eyes, trying to dispel the despair that had crept behind them.
The sad countenance of his best friend was replaced by an image of his newborn son’s face, the infant’s eyes sighting on his, almost in amusement. Achmed’s heart cramped at the knowing look he thought he had seen there.
While he rested, his innate survival sense calculated the movement base of the ancient Dhracians, who were undoubtedly beginning a long and arduous search of every corner of the empty Vault, knowing that if he changed course and relented, following them up to the top levels of the ancient prison, he could eventually catch up with them, return to the land of the living, his kingdom, his life, as much of it was still intact, his people.
His son.
He exhaled again.
I wish I believed I had anything worthwhile to offer you in your upbringing, Graal, he thought, a headache pounding behind his eyes, throbbing at his temples. If your mother had lived, perhaps I would not have been afraid to ruin you. But now the only thing I have to give you is as safe a world as I can help make.
He contemplated what lay before him, and wondered if he even had that.
Achmed mentally reviewed what gear he had left as he rose and shook the loam and dead radix from his robes. The cwellan was still there with a reasonable store of disks, and while he believed it might be useful against the endless armies of vermin, worms with sharp jaws that had slithered down sections of the Root when he had traversed it before, it certainly would have no bearing against what he was seeking. He also bore a thin longsword and a dagger, which were of even less use.
His food was all but exhausted, his water supply as well.
A diet of the glowing Root that ran along the Axis Mundi, as the Three and, apparently, the Dhracians had consumed, had worked before, though his lip curled at the memory of the taste and consistency.
No sane man would have even contemplated going forward.
Thankfully, sanity has never been a character flaw I’ve ever been accused of, he thought.
Then, looking around at the arse-end of the Vault of the Underworld, broken open, drained of the evil that had been contained there from the Before-Time, he turned away and started off in the direction of the whispered sound that he remembered from the last time he had passed through the bowels of the Earth.
44
HIGHMEADOW, NAVARNE
Once Graal had been successfully transported across Time and the sea, and into the temporary custody of Analise in Manosse, Meridion returned to Highmeadow.
As he came out of the tunnel he found himself nauseated and light-headed, something that had never occurred in traveling through the bonds of Time before, so he leaned up against a tree and took several deep breaths.
I should stay in the course of regular Time for the time being, he thought, rubbing his temples to try to ease the pounding in his skull and neck. I think I need to remain where I am for a while.
He inhaled and discovered what he thought to be part of the reason for his misery.
The air of the forest, the place that had been home to him for most of his life, was thin of magic, as if all of the nascent lore and power of the deeply magical place had been stripped from it. It was like a broken eggshell, an empty flask, though to the eye, nothing was different.
Nothing except for the air of the place, which was spinning strangely in a circular pattern.
The stars that had emerged in the darkening sky of the east winked brightly. The spinning of air in circular patterns, a trembling within the Earth itself, carried with it an odor of primordial magic, an unmistakable sign of elemental power.
Meridion whirled around.
Hovering in the air before him, taller than the trees of the forest around their family homestead, was a filmy image of a wyrm, its red-gold scales glittering in the last light of day. Its enormous neck and head, dark of skin beneath the metallic scales and eyes of gleaming cerulean blue, drew power from the four natural elements that had been summoned by its appearance from the ether.
Though in form it was similar to Elynsynos, the matriarchal wyrm of the family, there was something younger, more energetic in its demeanor, a surging and ebbing of its movements that reminded Meridion strongly of the sea, as if the element of water was pounding through its blood like ocean waves.
The draconic image reared up and looked down at him.
Then its eyes took on an expression of fondness and excitement and unmistakable love.
Meridion—I have made my transition.
Meridion swallowed. “So I see. Congratulations, Papa. You—you make an impressive wyrm.”
The diaphanous dragon smiled uncertainly, an expression of almost human reticence on its massive, serpentine face.
Thank you. It was a—an indescribable process. The dragon looked around. It seems the apology, or my supposed execution, worked; the world is intact, at least. I see no signs of wide-scale war. That’s a relief.
Meridion nodded, his throat tightening, knowing what his father’s next question would be, and dreading to hear it.
The beast looked around again.
Where is your mother? I must go to her, beg her forgiveness before anything else. Where is she?
Meridion opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
The dragon inclined its head as darkness began to settle in the forest glen.
Meridion? Where is your mother?
At last, even though he had been given them to speak by Rhapsody just before she passed through the Gate of Life, the Namer had no words.
GAEMATRIA
Just before sunrise, Edwyn Griffyth made his way to the beach at the southern shore of the Island, wrapped in the glow of a lingering dream of good hope.
In the distance he made out a long, thin shadow, and followed it until he was standing beside Jal’asee, who was standing at the water’s edge, staring south as well.
“Good morning,” the usually taciturn High Mage said, watching a gull dive over the waves, looking for fish in the froth.
“Good morning,” Jal’asee answered, smiling. His elderly eyes, golden in the hues of his race, seemed brighter that day. “What brings you down to the waves so early?”
Edwyn Griffyth exhaled.
“I’m not certain,” he said finally as the gull banked away out over the sea and was lost in the glare of the rising sun. “But something blew in on the night wind, I think, something—something promising; a bad word for it, really. Did you sense it?”
The Ancient Seren nodded, his face solemn as he watched the endless rolling of the waves.
“How would you describe it?”
Jal’asee was silent, lost in thought for a long moment.
“A relief of almost incomprehensible proportions,” he said at last. “The air is lighter, the wind cleaner. I feel a lifting of a weight I did not even realize I was carrying. It seems a portent of goodwill.”
The two men continued to watch the rolling surf.
“Care to hazard a guess as to why?” Edwyn Griffyth said at last.
“It is almost too much to hope,” said Jal’asee reverently. “But last night, I dreamt of an empty Vault.”
Edwyn Griffyth let all the air out of his lungs.
“So did I,” he said.
The sun cracked the horizon, bathing the world in a golden light.
Epilogue
THE YEAR 1011, SIXTH AGE GAEMATRIA
At dawn, the Sea Mages were standing at the dock, waiting.
The glistening ship had been in the harbor for more than an hour, its passengers and contents off-loading in an agonizingly slow process, causing Edwyn Griffyth to pace the boards of the quay restlessly, muttering under his breath.
Finally, when the ship was empty of all but the crew and a few remaining berths of cargo, two final passengers came forth from the hold and made their way to the gangplank.
In the lead was a seemingly young man, golden of hair and blue of eye, his dragonesque pupils expanding vertically in the light of the rising sun. As he walked, he kept a careful watch on the passenger behind him, an elderly man with golden skin. Edwyn Griffyth, watching attentively, turned for a moment and glanced at Jal’asee, comparing the Ancient Seren’s coloring with that of the second passenger, then shaking his head and returning his gaze to them both.
“Great-nephew!” he called to the first man. “Here!”
Meridion looked up. He shaded his eyes from the morning light, then smiled and raised a hand in acknowledgment. He took the elderly man’s forearm and led him carefully down the steps onto the dock, where they both came to a halt.
Edwyn Griffyth broke from the ranks of the other Sea Mages and hurried, puffing slightly, to the end of the dock.
“Well met, Meridion,” he said, extending a hand to his great-nephew, who shook it firmly. “It’s been close to three years with no news, except, of course, that of the tragedies on the Middle Continent. I’m terribly sorry for your loss, Meridion. Your dear mother, and—”
Meridion cleared his throat. “Thank you, Uncle.”
Edwyn’s expression of sympathy faltered, and he fell silent for a moment. “You were absent even from the sight of the Tower. We were beginning to fear the worst.”
“I am sorry to have worried you, Uncle,” Meridion said reassuringly. “With your permission, I would like to introduce you to a prospective student.” He turned to the elderly man and took a step back. “This is Graal. Graal, this is the High Sea Mage, and my great-uncle, Edwyn Griffyth.”
The Sea Mage blinked in astonishment.
The elderly man had two different-colored eyes, one green, one black as night, and skin the color of a golden beach. Around his neck a polished golden amulet gleamed, abstract in design but seemingly the image of fire solidly contained within a circle. His skin was lightly traced with what appeared to be veins or nerve endings, but in beautiful patterns which adorned his bald head, and his face was set in a smile of surpassing warmth that was filled with unmistakable wisdom.
The Sea Mage also sensed an undercurrent of humor.
“Well met, sir,” the golden man said. In his voice was the music of the Ages.
“Graal is someone I feel you will want to make the effort to train in every lore, science, and art you have, Uncle,” Meridion said. “He and I have a great deal in common, not the least of which is a rather tenuous relationship with Time.” He is, in actuality, less than three years old and appears to be existing backwards in Time, but we will discuss that with you at a later date, he thought.
“Welcome, Graal,” Edwyn Griffyth said. “Where—where are you from? Your family—”
“He has none to speak of,” Meridion said hurriedly. “But he is as a brother to me. It would please me greatly if you would make him welcome, Uncle; studying with you is something his family always hoped for him.”
“Well, by all means, let us return to the Hall and make you comfortable among us,” Edwyn Griffyth said to Graal, who just smiled.
He glanced at Meridion, who was trembling slightly with anticipation.
Good, the Child of Time thought as the Sea Mages led Graal carefully up the dock. He smiled bemusedly, watching his great-uncle chat with the man who, in the Past, had given Edwyn’s father his warning of the rising of the Sleeping Child.
And every other king of Serendair his prophecy on his coronation day, and had acted as vizier to each of them, giving them advice of the Future of which he had particular knowledge.
Having lived it.
Meridion hurried to catch up with them.
As he did, he passed a young woman, a passenger who had disembarked with the earlier ones, who was claiming baggage at the end of the dock. In his haste, he trod upon her toe, then stopped in mortification.
“I’m so very sorry,” he said hurriedly, turning in apology but still looking over his shoulder to keep the Sea Mages and Graal in his sight.
The young woman looked up and smiled.
“Not to worry,” she said.
Meridion’s mouth dropped open in recognition of the dark hair and eyes, the studious nature, that he had seen so many times in his dreams.
He glanced at Graal again, who had turned to watch him amid the chattering of the Sea Mage delegation, and smiled knowingly before turning his attention back to the Mages once more.
Above all else, may you know joy, their mother had said.
Finally it seemed to Meridion as if he might.
GRAAL’S AMULET
THE SIXTH AGE, AT ITS END, YEAR UNKNOWN
How long he had traveled the endless path of the Root along the Axis Mundi, Achmed had no idea.
His path had not been a straight one; he had encountered countless dead ends and cave-ins throughout his journey, rerouting repeatedly and taking new paths every time an old one closed. The tap in the distance was ever in his head, but not often in his ears. He had taken to filling them with wads of rotting cloth to keep all other sound out but that tap.
Until finally one day it had echoed loudly near him.
A chill ran through Achmed’s body, wasted to little more than bone and sinew in the endless trek through the world.
After a moment, when his fingertips had been coated with frost, the Bolg king looked around him, and recognized for the first time since he had come back onto the Root where he was.
The cold breath of the absence of fire, taken by the long-dead denizens of the Vault of the Underworld, blew around him.
I’m here, Achmed thought, struggling to keep conscious. This is the place where Rhapsody and I came, where she played her harp to change the name of the Wyrm—or, rather, to obscure it from the call of the demons.
It was the place, he knew, where she had put out her hand to touch a tunnel wall and had rested it on a massive scale in the hide of that Wyrm.
As if in confirmation, in the near distance he could hear a buzzing sound, many repetitive notes that clashed in dissonance, almost unrecognizable as music.
Achmed exhaled his breath slowly, expelling the last of the air from his lungs, and taking in another, colder breath.
Slowly he made his way forward to a place where an opening yawned.
He came to the threshold and looked inside.
The tunnel he had once stood at the entry to was filled with countless crystalline threads of sound, frozen in place for centuries, spanning every possible opening or space.
The noise was cacophonous, each new thread of song produced by the harp layering even more soft, musical noise on top of what was already deafening. The Bolg king covered his ears with his hands, adding another barrier over the wads of cloth, but it did little to deflect the vibrations of the music.
Beyond the opening he could see that what Rhapsody had once mistaken for an enormous wall, the scale in the gargantuan Wyrm’s skin, had both solidified and become at the same time vaporous, scored a billion times over with thin lines of light.
It looked for all the world like the silken sac of a spider, wound around the long-dead carcass of its prey.
The Wyrm that he
had lived in terror of awakening was a gargantuan corpse, filling the tunnel with its ever-thickening body of wasted flesh and the tangible vibration of harp song.
Achmed, his body and spirit far beyond exhausted, felt a surge of warmth in the frozen belly of the world.
He thought back to the earliest of days with Rhapsody, still his hostage, when he first had come to learn she was a student of Liringlas music.
So I’ll ask you again, Singer; what can you do?
He could hear her voice in his memory as clearly as if she were standing beside him.
Not very much, outside from singing a rather extensive collection of historical ballads and epics. I can find herbs to throw into the fire to mesmerize people. Obviously that isn’t going to impress you much since you can, too. I can bring sleep to the restless, or prolong the slumber of someone who is already asleep, an especially useful talent for new parents of fussy babies. I can ease pain of the body and the heart, heal minor wounds and comfort the dying, making their passage easier. Sometimes I can see their souls as they leave for the light. I can tell a story from a few bits of fact and a good dollop of audience reaction. I can tell the absolute truth as I know it. And when I do that I can change things.
Achmed’s throat had tightened to the point of choking.
Yes, yes you could, Rhapsody, he thought, his eyes stinging dryly. And you did. You changed the predestined fate of the world.
He swallowed and, in his fading mind, whispered what passed for a prayer, thinking of Graal, as he all but always did.
Finally you are safe as I can make you, my son, he thought. Thanks to your mother.
Then, with one last glance at the dead Wyrm, he continued on his way, back to where he had come from, back in Time.
Back, he hoped, to the remains of Serendair.
* * *
After a trek more endless than the one that brought him from the Vault to the Wyrm, Achmed finally began to recognize parts of the Root he remembered.