Elegy for a Lost Star (55 page)

Dizzy, he lowered himself to the ground in the utter darkness. He sat, unmoving, on the floor until he could regain his senses, concentrating on the Earth's own song, which was beginning to resound in less of a minor key.

Weakly he walked to the enormous pile of rubble that had once been the Faithful's Stair, and examined it. As soon as he determined that the seal was complete, and the basilica would never be able to be entered through it without the dome of the sepulcher collapsing onto whoever was attempting to enter, he made his way back down the wide staircase, through the inner and outer sanctum, past the Antechamber of the Sisters, until he was standing before the only remaining place in all of Night Mountain through which the basilica could be entered.

The basilica's front door.

Surreptitiously he peeked out of the dry earthen doorway, past the bored guards, seeking one last look at the sunshine he knew he would never see again. It was there, hazy with flecks of snow; silently the benison bade it goodbye.

Then he turned his back on the light of the upworld and made his way to the altar of Living Stone once more.

Softly he began the chant the Words of Closing again; the irony choked him, because those words were the countersign to the song that had sung the cathedral into being, the holy prayer that had revealed Terreanfor for the first time to man, or at least to men who had been able to record history. He tried not to think about that moment of discovery, when the living earth first was seen in all its dark and sacred beauty, because the loss was incalculable.

Safeguard Terreanfor
. The Patriarch had risked his own life and soul reversing the Chain of Prayer to utter the words in a way the Blesser of Sorbold would be certain to hear.

Fighting the nausea, the splitting pain, the blood as it began to pour forth from his nose and eyes, Nielash Mousa continued to chant until the entire opening of the basilica past the Antechamber of the Sisters collapsed upon itself, bringing down a goodly section of Night Mountain with it, burying the guards who were waiting outside in the landslide, trapping himself inside.

Sealing the basilica forever.

D
eep within a distant mountain, in a realm that bordered the lands of Sorbold, the last living Child of Earth took in a breath. The fever in which she had been tossing broke; the smoothly polished skin of her forehead glistened with the dew of its leaving.

And once again, she fell into dreaming.

R
hapsody ran trembling fingers over Meridion's downy hair. Too weak to sing, she started to hum the musical note that was his own,
ela
, the same as her own, the sixth note of the scale, the New Beginning, hoping it would give him some strength, or at least some ease.

She thought back to the times that singing her note had brought her comfort, had served to remind her of the star beneath which she had been born, and her tie to it that remained, even when she was entombed in the Earth, crawling along the Axis Mundi. As the air of the cave became thinner she felt warm and light-headed; in her mind it was easy to believe she was crawling along the Root again, fighting the vermin that fed off it, struggling to survive, teaching Grunthor to read as he taught her to fight, following Achmed as he guided them all through the endless tunnels of darkness, confident in his unerring path lore.

I gave that to him
, she mused as Meridion gasped for air, tears she did not feel falling from her eyes onto his fragile skin.
What was the name I called him by, that allowed him to pass through the fire at the Earth's core, unharmed?
The darkness seemed to grow thicker.
Oh, yes. Unerring tracker. The Pathfinder. Firbolg, Dhracian, Assassin, Firstborn
.

My friend
.

She felt too dizzy to turn her head, but she sensed his eyes might be on her in the dark, able to see in the dimness as cave dwellers could. She thought of Grunthor, and how easily he could travel through tunnels and caverns, and of the name she had given him, too, the lore that had allowed for his safe passage through the fire as well.

Child of sand and open sky, son of the caves and lands of darkness. Bengard, Firbolg. The Sergeant-Major. My trainer, my protector. The Lord of Deadly Weapons. The Ultimate Authority, to Be Obeyed at All Costs. Faithful friend, strong and reliable as the Earth itself
. It had been the nomenclature that had tied Grunthor to the Earth, had allowed its heartbeat to echo in his own.

In the deepening fuzziness something occurred to her.

No, he was already tied to it
, she thought hazily. Elynsynos once said that the race of Firbolg came from a pairing of Children of Earth, the race of the Sleeping Child, and Kith, the Firstborn race born of elemental wind. The name itself, Fir-bolga, meant
wind of the earth. So he had that tie from birth
, she mused.

With great effort she brought her son's head to her lips.

Wind of the Earth
. The words were louder, as if she was hearing them from somewhere—or someone else.

Suddenly the darkness cleared.

T
he perimeter of Ylorc secured, Grunthor made his way in the dark down the long earthen tunnel to the Loritorium, trembling with fear at what he might find in the wake of the dragon's attack.

As he crested the mound of rubble, the last barrier between the upworld and the Child of Earth, his face was brushed by the cool rush of air in the underground chamber, a wind of the earth that carried with it a sense of ease he had not felt in a long time.

He made his way down the moraine as quietly as he was able and approached the sepulcher, relief spreading over his broad face.

The Child slept on, undisturbed, her smooth face of polished stone cold and dry, her eyelids motionless. The sunken circles around the bones of her face had vanished, the withering of her body had ceased. The tides of her breath were gentle, rhythmic, in tune with the beating heart of the Earth he could feel in his soul. Grunthor would not have been able to form words to explain what he was witnessing, but the return of well-being to the subterranean chamber which had seen so much destruction was palpable.

He leaned over carefully and pressed his bulbous lips against her forehead, finding it cool, its tension gone.

“Sweet dreams, darlin',” he whispered.

R
hapsody struggled to sit up. She carefully lowered Meridion onto Achmed's lap and, seeing his hands clasp around the child in surprise, turned to the wall that had once been the body of her father-in-law, a kindly, scholarly man whose desire to right the wrongs of his youth and his family had severed him from the family he so dearly wanted to see prosper.

Now was nothing more than a vessel of fired elemental earth.

Her hands trembled as she clutched at the wall.

From her throat came a sound that Achmed had never heard before, a harsh, guttural noise that vibrated against his sensitive eardrums, issued forth from deep within her. At first he didn't recognize the words, discordant and coarse as the noise was. A moment later he realized what she was chanting . . . in Bolgish.

“By the Star,”
Rhapsody chanted from deep within her throat,
“I will wait, I will watch, I will call and will be heard
.”

She's calling for a Kinsman
, he noted absently, looking down at the tiny baby in his arms.
It's a waste of time, and air. But stopping her could waste even more. Let her cling to worthless hope; it's not going to matter
.

“Grunthor,”
she intoned in the same scratchy vibration, almost a moan now,
“strong and—reliable as—the Earth—itself.”

Nothing happened.

Achmed's head throbbed from the sound.

“Stop it, Rhapsody,” he muttered.

She shook her head, still clutching the wall, and continued to intone the call, over and over, from deep within her throat. She continued to sing for what seemed like forever, until stars began to swim in Achmed's eyes.

Darkness came for him.

A
nborn could hear the screaming even above the cacophonous noise of the tannery.

Night was falling, and the city of Jierna'sid was beginning to shut down its legitimate operations for the night. It was during such time that the Lord Marshal took the opportunity to sleep, as the later hours were some of his prime time for watchfulness, when many of the more nefarious aspects of the city's operations were revealed. Thus he was in the throes of a fitful slumber in his cubby beneath the leathermaker's shop when Faron returned to the city.

The titan had emerged at the far end of the main thoroughfare that bisected Jierna'sid, leading at its terminus to Jierna Tal itself.

The sounds of strife at first were unnoticeable to the townspeople of Jierna'sid, who continued with their nightly preparations; the merchants closed their booths, the soldiers maintained their patrols, the workmen struggled to get a little more of their tasks finished in the fading moments of light. But Anborn's ears were more sensitive, whether from his centuries of military leadership or the latent dragon blood in his veins, he was aware almost immediately of the sound of panic.

By the time he had dragged himself to the opening of the alcove, the town itself had begun to recognize that something terrible was wrong, and it was coming toward them.

From the western gate of the city a shadow was lumbering, a titanic shadow the color of the desert earth in the fading light of the sun. Anborn could feel its approach in the tremors that resounded through the cobbled streets.

God's underpants
, he thought to himself.
In this place of routine horror, what could possibly be so terrifying?

The answer followed a moment later in the twang of bowstrings and the shouted orders of a full cohort of soldiers running forth from the barracks at Jierna Tal toward the western gate.

Screams rent the air as the soldiers who had been stationed at the western gate charged the gigantic man, a soldier of primitive race by his garb
and flat facial features, with eyes of a milky sheen that seemed intently fixed on the palace of Jierna Tal. In a great fountain of blood the charge was rebuffed; bodies were hurled left and right, smashed into oxcarts and torn asunder, their limbs tossed aside as easily as chaff in front of the thresher.

From beneath the step of the tannery Anborn watched the shadow pass, saw it pause long enough to seize hold of an abandoned miller's wagon and heave it, laden with heavy barrels, out of its path and through the window of a boyar's shop a hundred yards away. But unlike the rest of the populace, which was either frozen in fright by the sides of the roadway or scattering like leaves before a high wind, he recognized in the colors of the lurching man's flesh something that no one else had seen. The sight of it caused the ancient hero, general of Gwylliam's army in the Cymrian war, Lord Marshal of the Cymrian Alliance, and a vested warrior in the brotherhood of Kinsmen, first to stare in shock, then to mutter prayers beneath his breath.

Because Anborn could see that it was made of Living Stone.

Having seen more than enough, he waited until the titan had broached the doors of the palace of Jierna Tal, then, in the confusion that was roiling the streets, dragged himself forth from the tannery, stole a horse that had been left riderless, and made his way, in all due haste, back to Haguefort.

T
alquist could hear the screams as well.

He was in the midst of a very pleasant dinner when the noise leaked in through the windows on his balcony; it started as a high-pitched chorus in the distance, but quickly rose to the level of cacophony such that he was given to sudden indigestion.

Irate, he rose angrily from his meal, tossed his linen napkin violently onto the floor, and strode to the balcony, slamming the doors open and stepping out into the chilly air.

From the balcony he could see the world below falling into madness.

The height of the upper terrace afforded him a terrifying view of the streets of Jierna'sid, their roadways a grid visible from the air. Down the central street a human shadow lumbered, gigantic given its ability to be discerned from such a distance. Around it tiny human figures the size of ants were scattering, some of them toward it, to be flung away seconds later, others away, some successful in their flight, most not. Talquist lost his water onto the floor of the balcony.

There was no mistaking what was coming.

In a heart's beat he was screaming orders to the captain of his guard, commanding cohorts and divisions to be activated from the barracks below. He watched in terror as his orders were carried out; an entire column of mounted
mountain guard thundered into the streets, firing at the approaching titan, oblivious of townspeople who were fleeing in their path. Talquist could only stare as the immense statue, now more man than stone, waded through the horsemen as if they were surf, pummeling men and beasts with brutal efficiency that led to such a bloody result he could only turn and flee himself.