“His arm is a lot more enflamed than mine,” Rhapsody said proudly.
“Ya do know Oi’m ’oldin’ back, right?” the Sergeant-Major demanded jovially.
Meridion laughed as he took his leave. “I’m really grateful to have this image in my mind as I write the history of the Three,” he said from the doorway. “If the Cymrian populace could see the epic trio engaging in a game of Crusher rather than ruling the world, it would be most unsettling—or perhaps gratifying. Travel well, Uncle, Godfather, and I will see you shortly, Mimen.”
Achmed was left alone to observe the ridiculous image of the Sergeant and the Lady Cymrian swatting at each other.
A knock sounded on the longhouse door.
Rhapsody rose and went to open it as Achmed and Grunthor moved subtly behind the table, each within reach of a weapon.
As she pulled back the door, Rhapsody laughed aloud.
Her granddaughter Cara, Stephen’s oldest child, stood there, her spouse Evannii beside her, each of the women bearing a plate of gingerbread men and women intricately decorated with frosting as soldiers in the army of the Alliance.
“Are the uncles here, Hamimen?” Cara asked humorously. “As you can see, we’ve been baking for them.”
“Absolutely. Please come in—cookies would be welcome at this point.” Rhapsody stepped aside to allow the two women to deliver their baked goods and receive warm embraces from Grunthor and a pleasant acknowledgment from the Bolg king. Cara stripped the parchment from the plates while Evannii held them out for Grunthor’s inspection.
“Ah—this one looks like Hasgarth Thomlinson, that pompous fart,” said the Sergeant-Major, examining one with a fat belly that resembled one of the captains of the Alliance’s guard units. He bit the head off summarily, to the amusement of all three women. “Goody. Oi love eatin’ vicariously.”
“These taste far better than I expect their models would,” Achmed said, breaking one into several pieces and sampling it. “I have no doubt Hasgarth Thomlinson himself would give me gas, if not diarrhea.”
“Are we interrupting, Hamimen?” Cara asked after Grunthor had helped himself to the better part of three dozen gingerbread soldiers. “We can come back later.”
“Not at all,” Rhapsody said. She turned to the other two of the Three. “I have an appointment with my granddaughters; I hope you will excuse us. It has been wonderful, as always, to visit with you. I do hope you will change your minds and reconsider coming to the family summit.”
Achmed shook his head emphatically while Grunthor sighed.
“Gotta be on my way south, Duchess, but fanks again,” he said wistfully.
“Please do consider what I said about refraining from provoking Ashe,” Rhapsody said seriously as she put her arms around his neck. “I’ve come to greatly appreciate the peace that our kingdoms have enjoyed for all these centuries. I would very much like it to remain thus.”
“I promise nothing,” said Achmed, rising and receiving a farewell hug from Cara and Evannii. “We are occasionally noting shortages in the supplies that Roland merchants who have contracts with the Alliance quartermaster have been delivering to Ylorc. If this flagrant swindling continues, we will have to resort to making unannounced visits to the commissaries and storehouses to retrieve all of what we have paid for. I hope this point is not lost on you, Rhapsody.”
“I will absolutely convey your concerns, and look into the ledgers myself,” she promised.
“Good.” He assumed an annoyed stance as Rhapsody came to him and kissed him on the cheek.
“I love you, you petulant thing,” she said.
Achmed grunted noncommittally, as was his custom, while she went and embraced Grunthor enthusiastically again.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she said from the depths of his embrace.
“Feelin’s mutual, miss.” The giant grinned broadly, the look of exhaustion leaving his eyes for a moment.
“Why does Grunthor get three ‘I love you’s while Achmed only receives one?” Evannii asked in amusement.
“He’s three times as big?” Cara suggested.
“She loves me three times as much?” Grunthor offered.
“Just tradition, started a thousand years ago,” Rhapsody said, patting the giant as he released her. “And the fact that he’s three times more willing to hear it than Achmed.”
“Since when comparing his willingness to mine, you are multiplying by zero, he’s a thousand times more willing to hear it,” said the Bolg king, opening the door of the longhouse. “A million times. A billion times.”
“I will meet you both in the rotunda in the main hall of the palace of Newydd Dda once I’ve taken your uncles to the border,” Rhapsody said to her granddaughters. “I want to be able to consult the diadem in our discussions, and if I’m going to do that, I need to put on more appropriate attire.”
Achmed rolled his eyes.
“Never misses a chance to change into fussy clothes. Some things never change.”
5
TYRIAN CITY
The royal complex of Tyrian City, the capital of the Lirin kingdom, was set on a series of graduated hills leading up to Tomingorllo, the tallest of them, where the throne room was built into the summit.
At the base of the first hill, Newydd Dda, was the main hall where the royal living quarters and the ambassadorial suites were housed.
Rhapsody dismounted and handed the reins of the roan to one of the two Lirin soldiers accompanying her. She gave the horse a cube of sugar and a gentle scratch of the ears, then bade the soldiers goodbye and hurried to the main hall’s great rotunda, the showpiece of Tyrian’s architecture. She walked quickly across the vast central courtyard, where the singing fountains splashed in the sunlight, surrounded by a high stone wall and guard towers.
The courtyard led directly into the rotunda, which contained an enormous circular hearth at the center, where a perennial fire warmed the entire palace year-round. Many tall trees that had been built within the palace’s structure had grown to towering heights, and were beginning to show indications that autumn was approaching, unlike the glorious plants and flowers that were kept in a constant growing season by the heat that circulated from the hearth, making it feel like a conservatory.
A screen of faceted crystal circled the hearth, casting prismatic patterns all around the rotunda, something that had delighted Rhapsody from the first time she had come to this place, and the dancing colors always gave her pause to stop and appreciate the beauty of the palace where she lived part of the year.
Sitting on a cushioned, semicircular bench were Cara and Evannii, holding hands in the glow of the fire.
“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, my dears,” she said, kissing each of them as they stood and embraced her. “It took longer than I expected to see your uncles off.”
“Not to worry,” said Cara. “We really appreciate the time you’ve taken to research the lore for us, but—”
“Tarry a moment, Cara. I know it may sound overly formal, but I need to put on a Naming robe, and to maintain silence as we go up to Tomingorllo,” Rhapsody said. “In matters as important as the one we have been discussing, it’s critical that we observe all the rites and rituals of Naming.”
The women exchanged a glance.
“Very well, Hamimen,” Cara said. “We will follow your lead.”
* * *
A quarter hour later, the three women were standing at the heavy oak doors of the room atop Tomingorllo, where the court and throne stood.
“This, unlike the main hall of Newydd Dda, is a more austere, less ornate hall,” Rhapsody said as she swung the pair of doors open. “I didn’t realize it when I first beheld this place, but the austerity is designed to keep what is said and done within this chamber as clear and commonly understood as possible. It is here that the united Lirin kingdom, representatives from the Lirin of the plains, of the sea, of the forest, and from Manosse on the other side of the Prime Meridian gather to work in unis
on on the business and leadership of the kingdom.”
“Should that not be ‘queendom,’ Hamimen?” Cara asked jokingly. “You have been the monarch for a thousand years.”
Rhapsody laughed. “Fair enough. I shall bring up that nomenclature at the next conclave, but secretly I am always hoping that another will come and take my place every time we meet. Perhaps next time it will be a king.”
“And is that why you leave your crown behind when you go to Highmeadow, Hamimen?” Evannii asked. She was from Manosse, and, having only recently moved with Cara to the continent, had never seen the diadem.
Rhapsody shook her head, smiling.
“No, my dear. It is always a great honor to wear the diadem. I try to remember that each time I place it back in its case. The next time the case is opened, it may choose another head to rest upon. The Crown of Stars is not my crown, beloved granddaughter. It is the crown of our people. Come, I’ll show you.”
They entered the enormous room atop the tallest hill. On the other side of the oaken doors was a marble rotunda with an overarching dome held up by pillars that stood ten feet from the wall. The dome had a large opening in the middle, leaving the center of the room open to the sky.
Across from the doors stood the throne of the Lirin kingdom, carved of black marble with pillar-like arms and a low, straight back. A great stone fireplace stood, dark and cold, at each of the other two directional points of the circle.
Much like the iridescent lights that leapt from the fireplace screen in the main hall at Newydd Dda, glittering colors were dancing around this gigantic room as well. But rather than being generated by the flames of the fire shining through leaded glass, they were blazing with brilliant fragments of light from a small crystal crown resting beneath a clear, unornamented glass dome on an ornate silver stand at the room’s center.
The diadem was constructed of countless tiny star-shaped diamonds, with eight similarly shaped larger stones forming the center ring of the crown. They glimmered in the sunlight that rained down in heavy sheets from the opening overhead. When Rhapsody approached it, the stones began to glow even more brightly and took on an iridescence that made them seem as if they were made of colored air.
“The fragments that make up the crown were once the Purity Diamond, a stone the size of a man’s fist that shone with the light of the stars,” Rhapsody said softly, repeating words that had been spoken to her by her mentor in the sword, Oelendra Andaris, a thousand years before. “It was brought by the Lirin of the First Fleet on a ship that was part of the exodus from the Island of Serendair, prior to the Island’s destruction in volcanic fire from the star that had fallen, many millennia before, into the sea. That star was known as the Sleeping Child.”
The young women, both aware of the history, nodded but listened in silence.
“The Purity Diamond was given as a sign of friendship to the Lirin tribe Gorllewinolo, the first indigenous people that the Cymrians had ever met in this land. ‘Tomingorllo’ means ‘tower of the Gorllewin,’ the people of the west. When Anwyn destroyed it as part of an agreement with a F’dor spirit to kill her hated husband Gwylliam during the Cymrian War, the diamond lost the light that it had once radiated. Queen Terrell, who had commanded that the diamond shards be carefully crafted into the crown, decreed that anyone who could restore the light of the stars to the crown would be recognized as the ruler of both the Cymrians and the Lirin, who would live as a united people. Until that time, however, they would remain separate, following their own monarch.”
“It was Hamimen that restored that light,” Cara said with quiet pride.
“No, it was Daystar Clarion,” Rhapsody corrected.
“In your hand,” noted Evannii.
“Aye. But soon there may be other hands to carry the sword, perhaps even those of your father, Cara,” Rhapsody said. “We shall see. Now, if you are ready, we can discuss what you have asked of me.”
Both women looked at each other and exhaled.
The Lady Cymrian and Lirin queen turned to the case and lifted the dome carefully.
The ethereal diamonds glowed even brighter and began to whirl; then, as if caught by the wind, they floated out of the case and came to rest in a circle above her head like a halo of stars.
“I’ve always loved watching that,” Cara whispered to her spouse.
Rhapsody closed the case and gestured to the two women to follow her to the throne.
They crossed the open metal grates in the floor that had been fashioned in the shape of eight-pointed stars, through which the air atop the hill could be felt, leaving the room fresh and clear. Rhapsody mounted the steps, turned around, and sat on the throne’s hard seat.
“Tradition,” she grumbled jokingly. “If I had known at the time of my coronation that I would be sitting on this thing for a thousand years, I would have gotten a pillow for it.”
The women laughed.
“All right,” the Lirin queen said briskly, “let us invite the wisdom that you seek. At your request of a year ago, I have undertaken to study and master the ancient lore of the summoning of a child, something that is rare in history, and has produced very few progeny. I have, however, seen one such summoned child in my life, and she is a beautiful creation, deeply magical.
“There always should be caution in such an undertaking, because anything that deviates from the natural path always contains a risk,” she continued as Cara and Evannii looked at each other. “But the history records no negative outcomes from the summoning ritual in the times it was undertaken.
“The process is actually quite benign: if two entities that have individual souls are willing, free of coercion or duress, to share them, the one who will give ‘birth’ to the child allows the one who will share that child with her to rest his or her hand on her heart. Both put themselves in a state of willingness, of creation, of the desire to bring forth a soul into the world, and a Namer’s incantation is sung over them. It is one of the most beautiful rituals I have ever studied; the namesong is gorgeous. My understanding is that a light appears between the two parents. Then they name the child, and it forms.
“When dragons undertook to conjure children, it was because of a dilemma described in an even older legend. In the Before-Time, when the Firstborn races that came from the original five elements—the Seren, from ether, the F’dor, from fire, the Mythlin, from water, the Kith, from air, and the Wyrmril, or dragons, from Earth—were forming, it is said that the Creator—called the Architect of the World by the Gwenen, by the way, I just learned that—offered a model to four of the newborn races that were little more than the formless elements they were springing from. That model was said to be the form that three of those races chose to emulate, the human form with the erect skeleton, the head, arms, legs—that design. The F’dor were not shown the model at all by the Creator, who recognized as they were coming into existence that they were, as a race, destructive and cruel, so that withholding a corporeal form from them was necessary for the continued existence of the world. But the dragons were, in fact, offered to glimpse the model—and refused, not wishing to be told what to do.”
“Imagine that,” Cara said, rolling her eyes, eyes whose pupils were vertical.
Rhapsody laughed. “After some time, the dragons noted an error, or at least what they perceived to be an error, in their decision. Each of the three Firstborn races that had used the model had chosen to crossbreed with the others, resulting in the Elder races and beyond, but dragons had chosen a form that was not compatible with the other three—so they decided to try and use conjuring to expand their race.
“They sculpted the model that they had initially refused out of Living Stone, and underwent the ritual, which is odd, since it would seem that stone, even if it is alive, does not have a soul or the ability to commit to share one, and dragons believe they don’t have souls, either. But apparently the concept of a soul is somewhat different than it is traditionally understood, which is what I have been studying in the last centur
y.
“So, if you are still interested, I have learned and committed to memory all the rites and rituals, and I am ready to assist you if you are interested in expanding your family. Summoned children are comprised of vibration, not of flesh, and do not eat or drink the way a child born normally would, but in all other ways, they are very real, with a soul, a personality, and emotions. It seems to me that if you decide to do this, you are in the right family for it.”
Rhapsody took several deep breaths to replenish her lungs, which were spent from the length of the tale.
Cara and Evannii exchanged a smile, then looked back at their grandmother.
“Thank you, Hamimen,” Cara said, genuinely touched. “But we have been doing a good deal of study and thinking and discussing this during the last year. We have decided to wait on this, and adopt an existing child that needs a home instead of summoning one out of our own souls. We’ve actually already located a pair of children who were orphaned, and who have been waiting for parents for some time.”
Rhapsody blinked, then broke into a warm smile.
“How wonderful,” she said quietly but with a glint of excitement in her eyes, the stars in the crown whirling even faster around her like a spinning halo of lights. “I am very happy to hear that, for their sakes and yours. And I know Papa will be as well.”
“Thank you. We’re sorry you went to so much trouble for nothing.”
Rhapsody rose from the throne and went to the pedestal. “Undertaking the study and the learning of lore is never for nothing,” she said, removing the diadem from her head. “If nothing else, it keeps the lore alive in one more mind than had it before. For me it was a joy to do this for you, my dears. I can’t wait to meet my newest Greats when you are ready. Now, let’s prepare to travel to the family summit at Highmeadow. Are you going with Meridion?”