Prophecy, Child of Earth (3 page)

Rhapsody was Liringlas, a Skysinger, proficient in the science of Naming.

There were pleasing aesthestics to the music that was inherent in her, part of her physical makeup. She emanated vibrations which soothed the sensitive veins that traced the surface of his skin. Achmed had decided long before that this was one of the reasons that he found her endearingly irritating, rather than a genuine annoyance, as he found most people to be.

The more useful aspects of her musical ability, however, were its powers to persuade and to inspire fear, to heal wounds and cause damage, to discern vibrations that even he could not identify. Rhapsody had been instrumental in their taking the mountain; without her the campaign would certainly have taken much longer and would have been far bloodier. Unfortunately, though these were the talents he valued, Rhapsody did not.

She spent an inordinate amount of time instead using the comforting aspects of her musical healing, singing to the injured to ease their pain, soothing anxiety, ministrations that he felt confused the Bolg and annoyed him beyond belief. But eventually he had come to tolerate her need to alleviate suffering; it secured her assistance in the necessary things.

In addition to helping win the mountain, she had been responsible for negotiating the treaties with Roland and Sorbold, organizing the vineyard plantings and establishing an educational system, all things that were critical to his master plan. So he had come to respect her ideas and rely on her almost as much as he did on Grunthor, which was why her leaving with Ashe felt like betrayal. At least that was the reason he attached to the stabbing sense of frustration he had felt^ever since she had announced her plan to go with this interloper, this stranger shrouded in mist and secrets.

Just the prospect of her departing Ylorc in the morning made him feel physically cold. Achmed cursed again, running thin hands through sweaty hair and sitting down angrily in the chair before his uncooperative fire. He stared at the minuscule flames for a moment, remembering the sight of Rhapsody as she came back from her walk through the wall of fire within the belly of the Earth, having unintentionally absorbed its power and lore, purged from even the smallest of physical flaws. From that moment forward any fire, from the flickering flame of a candle to roaring bonfires, responded to her with the same adulation that men did, mirroring her mood, sensing her presence, obeying her commands. It was power that he needed here, within the cold mountain.

The Firbolg king leaned forward, elbows on knees, his folded hands resting on his lips, thinking. Perhaps he was worrying unnecessarily. Rhapsody's initial work was done and progressing nicely. The hospital and hospice were running smoothly, the vineyards tended carefully, even through the winter, by the Firbolg she had trained in agriculture. The Bolg children now were studying the techniques that would make their clans healthier and more long-lived, more prepared to stand their ground against the men of Roland. The lifeless mountain had grown warm under her ministrations. The Cymrian forges constructed by Gwylliam, the fool who had built and ruled Canrif and had started the war that destroyed it, blazed night and day in the fabrication of steel for weapons and tools, the residual heated air circulating within the mountain. The Bolg would barely miss her presence.

And her status as a Namer provided the insurance against her going unnoticed as an unwilling thrall of the demon. F'dor were the masters of lies, deceptive and secretive; Namers were forsworn to the truth. Their powers were deeply tied to it; it was the act of keeping their thinking and speaking honed on the truth as they knew it that allowed them to discern it on deeper levels than most. Rhapsody had demonstrated the ability to manipulate the power of a true name in the moment they had met, though she had done so unintentionally.

A moment before he and Grunthor had come upon her in the old land he was still known by the name given him at birth: the Brother. He was enslaved, breathing air tainted by the sickening smell of burning flesh; the malodor of the F'dor whose mark was upon him, the demon that had possession of his own true name. The invisible chain around his neck was tightening as each second passed.

Undoubtedly the F'dor had begun to suspect that he was running, trying to escape its last hideous command.

And in the next moment, he had tripped over Rhapsody, running from her own pursuers in the back streets of Easton, trying to escape the lascivious intentions of Michael, the Waste of Breath. A slight smile crossed his lips and he closed his eyes, turning the memory over in his mind again.

Pardon me, but would you be willing to adopt me for a moment'? I'd be
grateful.

He had nodded, not having any idea why.

Thank you
. She had turned back to the town guards who were chasing her.
What
an extraordinary coincidence. Tou gentlemen are just in time to meet my
brother. Brother, these are the town guard. Gentlemen, this is my brother
—

Achwed
—
the Snake
.

The crack of the invisible collar had been inaudible, but he had felt it in his oul F°r tne fifst ti111 since the F'dor had taken his name the air in his nostrils cleared, dispelling the hideous odor from his nose and mind. He was free, released from his enslavement and the damnation that would eventually follow, and this stranger, this tiny half-Lirin woman, had been his rescuer.

She had, in her own panicked moment, taken his old name, the Brother, and changed it forever into something ridiculous but safe, giving him back the life and soul over which he had lost control. He could see in his memory even now the look of shock in her clear green eyes; she had had no idea what she had done. Even as he and Grunthor had dragged her overland and into the root of Sagia, the immense tree sacred to the Lirin, her mother's people, she was still suffering the notion that in their escape they were trying to save her from the Waste of Breath. To his knowledge she was still under that mistaken impression.

So if the F'dor should come upon her and bind itself to her soul, it would be easy to discern. She would no longer be able to act as a Namer, would lose her powers of truth once she was the host of a demonic spirit that was an innate liar. It was small comfort, given all the other dangers that were lying in wait for her out there somewhere, beyond his lands and his protection.

Achmed shivered and looked at the hearth. The last of the firecoals had burned down, vanishing in a thin wisp of smoke.

vp'eep within the barracks of the Firbolg mountain guard, Grunthor was dreaming, too, something he did not tend to do. Unlike the Firbolg king, he was a simple man with a simple outlook on life. As a result, he had simple nightmares.

His bad dreams, however, tended to cause more collective suffering.

Grunthor, like Achmed, was half-Bolg, but the other half was Bengard, a giant race of grisly featured desert dwellers with oily, hide-like skin that held back the effects of the sun. The Bolg-Bengard combination was as unappealing to the eye as Rhapsody's human-Lirin mix was pleasing, even to the sensibilities of the Bolg, who held Grunthor in high esteem dwarfed only by their utter fear of him. It was an attitude that pleased him.

As Grunthor muttered in his sleep, whispering through the meticulously polished tusks that protruded from his jutting jaw, the elite mountain guard captains and lieutenants who shared his barracks remained still. To a one the Bolg soldiers were afraid that any movement might in some way disturb the Sergeant-Major or set him off, which undoubtedly qualified as the last thing any of them wanted" to do. It seemed that neither Grunthor nor any of the Bolg who shared the sleeping corridor with him would be getting any rest that night.

Grunthor dreamt of the dragon. He had never seen one before, except for a rather bad statue of one in the Cymrian museum, so his visions were limited to the scope of his imagination, which had never been vast. His only knowledge of them came from Rhapsody, who had told him dragon tales during their endless journey along the Root, stories of the great beasts' physical might and power over the elements, as well as their ferocious intelligence and tendency to hoard treasure.

It was this last characteristic that was giving him nightmares. He feared that once Rhapsody was within the dragon's lair, it would seek to possess her and never let her return to the mountain. This was a loss he could not contemplate, having never before cared enough about anything to miss it.

Unconsciously he patted the wall next to his bunk, whispering in Bolgish the words of comfort he had imparted to Achmed not long after they had emerged from the Root, seeking to console his longtime friend and leader about the loss of his blood gift. Grunthor had known him in the days when he was the Brother, the most proficient assassin the world had ever known, so called because he was the first of his race born on the Island from which they had come.

Serendair was a unique land, one of the places Time itself was said to have begun. As the Firstborn of his race in that unique land, the Brother had a bond to the blood of all who lived there. He could seek out any individual heartbeat with the skill of a hound on the hunt, matching his own to it and following it with deadly accuracy, relentless in his quest until he found his quarry. Watching him seek and find his prey was a marvel to behold.

All that had changed when they came forth from the Root into this new land on the other side of the world. Achmed's gift was gone; now the only heartbeats he could hear were the ones that had come from the old world of Serendair. Even though Achmed had said nothing, Grunthor had felt his despair, and so knew that there were things in life that brought sorrow when they were no longer there. It was the first time he had ever had this realization. He was now experiencing the feeling himself. Rhapsody was Lirin; a slight, frail race upon which the Firbolg in the old land had preyed very successfully, though what Lirin lacked in strength they generally made up for by being sly and swift. They were a race he had even consumed a few of himself, though not as many as he had teasingly led her to believe.

In many ways Lirin were as opposite to the Firbolg as he. himself was to Rhapsody. Lirin were sharp and angular where Bolg were sinewy and muscular.

The Lirin lived outside, in the fields and forests beneath the stars, while the Bolg were born of the caves and mountains, the children of the dark of the earth. In Grunthor's opinion Rhapsody had benefited from being sired by a human; her appearance was still slight but not frail, the sharp angles giving way to slender curves, high cheekbones and softer facial features than her mother undoubtedly had. She was beautiful. No doubt the dragon would think so, too.

At the thought Grunthor roared in his sleep, sending his lieutenants scram UP the roughhewn walls of their chamber or out of their bunks entirely.

, woOd of his massive bed screamed and groaned as he thrashed about, rtine and growling, finally settling onto his side in silence again. The only nd in the roorn f°r a few moments afterwards was the quickened breathing f his unfortunate bunkmates who huddled against the barracks walls, their eves glittering and blinking rapidly in the dark.

Unconsciously Grunthor pulled his rough woolen blanket up over his shoulder and sighed as the warmth touched his neck, a sensation similar to being near Rhapsody. He had initially been reluctant to leave the Root once they had arrived here. He had been bound to the Earth by the song of his name that she had sung to lead them through the great Fire.
Gruntbor, strong and reliable as the Earth itself
, she had called him in his namesong, among other descriptions. From the moment he had exited the Fire he had felt the beating heart of the world in his blood, a tie to the granite and basalt and all that grew above it. The Earth was like the lover he had never had, warm and comforting in the darkness, a feeling of acceptance he had never known, and it was inextricably linked to Rhapsody.

In a way he did not miss being within the Earth, or the earthsong that still hummed in his ears when he was wrapped in silence, because she was there. He could still see her smile in the dark, her dirty face gleaming in the glow given off by the Axis Mundi, the great Root that bisected the world that had been their path away from Serendair and to this new place.

He had been her protector from the very beginning, had comforted her in her night terrors, let her sleep on his chest in the dank chill of their journey along the Root, kept her from falling into nothingness during the arduous climb. It was a role so far removed from any he had ever played before that he hardly believed himself capable of it. It had taken every resource of self-control that he had to keep from locking her in her chambers now and driving her guide from the mountain. How he would deal with a double first loss—Rhapsody herself, and the memory she kept alive of being within the Earth—was more than he could imagine. If she were to die, or just never come back, Grunthor was not sure he could go on.

And then, as ever, his mind cleared as the thoughts became too complicated, and pragmatism returned. Grunthor was a man of military solutions, and weighed the odds of her survival unconsciously. She carried a credible weapon—Daystar Clarion, a sword from the old world they had found within the earth, for reasons unknown, here on the other side of the world. It, like they, had undergone a significant change; its blade burned with flame now, where in Serendair it had only reflected the light of the stars. He had taught her how to fight with it, and she was a credit to her instructor, performing admirably in their campaigns to subdue the Bolg. She could take care of herself. She would be all right.

Grunthor began to snore, a sound that was music to the ears of his bunk-mates.

They settled back in for the night quietly, taking care not to disturb the Sergeant-Major's newly found sleep.

Across the hall from Rhapsody's chambers, Jo was having the dreams typical of a sixteen-year-old with an obsession, full of chemical excitement and pictures of hideous deformity. She slept on her back in her grotesquely messy room, the favored sleeping position of street children who had found a comfortable spot in an area of town in which they didn't belong. From time to time she unconsciously dabbed at the beads of perspiration that dotted her chest, or drew her legs more tightly together when the flesh between them began to burn with arousal.