Prophecy, Child of Earth (52 page)

'Aw, don't feel bad, Duchess," he said. " 'Twasn't that bad-soundin'."

The Grandmother was growing agitated as well; Achmed could tell by the electricity in her vibration. "Isn't there something else?" he asked Rhapsody, who was making soothing sounds, trying to hush the child's panic.

'My mother sang me hundreds of songs," she answered, running her hand over the child's flailing arm. "I have no idea which one the prophecy refers to."

'Perhaps you're interpreting it wrong, then," Achmed said. "Maybe it's not
your
mother the prediction means; maybe it's
hers
."

A note of clarity rang through Rhapsody's head. "Yes, yes, you're probably right," she said nervously. "But how can I sing her own mother's-song? I don't even know who her mother was."

'She had no mother," said the Dhracian matriarch firmly. "She was formed, as you see her, out of Living Stone."

'Perhaps the dragon that made her, then?" Rhapsody suggested.

'No," said Grunthor quietly. "It's the Earth. The Earth is 'er mother."

The three others stared at him in silence. "Of course," Rhapsody murmured after a moment. "Of course."

'And you know that song as well, Duchess. 'Eard it over and over again, ya did; sang with it all the time we was travelin' inside the Earth. Can you sing it now?"

The Singer shuddered. It took a great deal of effort to force herself to think back to those days on the Root, the living nightmare they had endured to escape Serendair. Rhapsody closed her eyes again and concentrated on trying to hear the hum, remembering the first time she had actually listened to it, the great, slow vibration that modulated ever so lightly in the endless cavern towering above them.

It was a song deep as the sea, thrumming in her skin, rumbling through her heart, though soft as the falling of snow, almost inaudible. It was more a feeling than a sound, rich and full of wisdom, magical and unique in all the world. The melody moved slowly, changed tones infinitesimally, unhurried by the need to keep pace with anything. It was the voice of the Earth, singing from its soul. And in the background, deep and abiding, was the ever-present beating of the heart of the world, a cadence that had steadied her in her moments of despair, that reassured her in the dark of the Earth's belly. She heard it again now in her ear, as she had each time she had slept with her head against the ground.

Then the realization came. More often than not she had slept not with her head on the earth, but on Grunthor's chest. The two sensations were very similar; the giant's chest was broad and strong, solid as basalt, the beating of his heart matching the rhythm of the Earth's song exactly. It rang through him, comforting her in her nightmares.
Ton know Oi'd take the worst of them dreams for you if Oi could, Ter
Ladyship
, he had said. Rhapsody reached out and touched the Sergeant.

'Grunthor," she said, "will you help me do this? Like you did with the wounded soldiers?"

A slight grin broke through the consternation on his face. "O' course, miss," he said. "You want a few choruses o' that ol' Bolg mother-song, 'Maw's Claws'?"

'No," she said. "I just need you for percussion. Bend down so I can reach your heart."

Grunthor complied amid the soft squeaking of armor, the rustic of his greatcloak. Gently Rhapsody ran her hand over his chest until she could feel his heartbeat, the slow, steady pounding she had come to know over what seemed like a lifetime. It was still the same, attuned to the rhythm of the Earth.

Rhapsody closed her eyes and cleared her mind of everything but that sound. It rang in her head, vibrating in her sinuses and through the roots of her hair, making her skull tingle. She took a deep breath and drank it in further, feeling it run down her spine and into her muscle, out to the very edges of her skin. When it had reached her fingertips she extended her free hand and touched the Earth child's chest, slipping it inside the folds of the child's garment until it came to rest on her heart as well. The rhythms matched exactly, though there was a tremolo to the child's pulse that worried Rhapsody. She bent closer to the child's ear, pressed her lips together, and began to hum.

She knew the exact pitch when she found it, because instantly her mind was filled with the musical images from that mystical, horrific time, the deep basso of miners singing as they carved their way through the depths of the world, the slow, melodic rumbling of the magma beneath the surface, peppered with the occasional staccato hiss or pop, the sweet, steady tune of the Axis Mundi that bisected the Earth, and the Root that had wound around it. It was an ancient symphony of earthsounds, wordless and almost just beyond hearing, but filled with power and awe.

She sang the earthsong as best as she could, keeping time with Grunthor's steady heartbeat, only changing the tone subtlely, as slowly as it would within the Earth. In the near distance she heard Achmed exhale softly, and realized it was a signal; they must be seeing some effect, some transformation from the song.

Beneath her fingers the trembling vibration within the child's heart vanished, replaced by smooth, steady tides of respiration. Rhapsody recognized the state; the Earth Child was finally sleeping dreamlessly, deeply and soundly. She felt the same state of calm come over herself, as if she, too, was sleeping deeply and soundly. So deeply, so soundly, in fact, that the hideous gasps that issued forth from Grunthor and the Grandmother did not disturb her at all.

It was the thudding sound of their bodies hitting the sandy floor that did.

<_Achmed was already on the floor, checking the Grandmother, when Rhapsody opened her eyes.

The child was still sleeping, beads of crystalline sweat dotting her forehead like dew, as though she had just broken a fever. She was breathing easily, not moving.

Once she was certain that the child was safe for the moment, Rhapsody ran to where Grunthor was lying sprawled on the floor. She helped him to sit up, examining him worriedly as he clutched his head.

'Somethin's comin'," he muttered. His eyes were glassy, his breathing shallow.

'What, Grunthor? What's coming?"

The giant continued to mutter, becoming more disoriented by the moment. "It's comin'; it had stopped but now it's on the way again. Somethin'—so-methin's comin'." Rhapsody could feel his gargantuan heart racing, pounding ferociously, and it frightened her.

'Grunthor, come back," she whispered. She spoke his true name, a strange collection of whistling snarls and glottal stops, followed by the appellations she had given him so long ago when they passed through the Fire at the Earth's core:
Child of sand and open sky; son of the caves and lands of darkness
, she sang softly.
Benard, Firbolg. The Sergeant-Major. My trainer, my protector. The Lord
of Deadly Weapons. The Ultimate Authority, to Be Obeyed at All Costs
.

Grunthor's eyes cleared, and focused on her again. " 'At's all right, darlin'," he said woozily, awkwardly pushing her hand away. "Oi'll be fine in a minute. 'Elp the Grandmother."

'She's all right," Achmed said from the other side of the catafalque. A moment later he rose, assisting the elderly woman to a stand. "What happened?"

The Grandmother seemed steady, though her hand remained at her throat.

"Green death," she murmured in all three of her voices. "Unclean death."

'What does that mean, Grandmother?" Rhapsody asked gently.

'I know not. It is repeated over and over in her dreams; I could hear the words suddenly. Now I cannot make the voice grow still." The elderly woman's hand trembled; Achmed took it carefully between his own. "It was as if your song broke them free from her mind, gave them to me." The Grandmother's strange eyes glittered nervously in the dark. "For that I thank you, Skychild. At least I now know some of what plagues her, though I understand it not. Green death; unclean death."

'She's also dreamin' about somethin' comin'," Grunthor added. "He took the handkerchief Rhapsody held out to him and mopped his sweating brow."

'Any idea what?" Achmed asked. The giant shook his head.

'I'm so sorry," Rhapsody said to them both. "I fear I may be responsible for your visions. I was thinking about how you said you would take the worst of my nightmares on yourself, Grunthor. Perhaps I've inadvertently condemned you both to do that for her as well."

'If you did, it was because we were both willing to accept them," said the Grandmother. She leaned down and kissed the Sleeping Child, brushing the last of the moisture from her forehead. "She sleeps peacefully again, at least for now."

With a final caress, the Grandmother rose to her full height again.

'Come."

Rhapsody bent down and kissed the Sleeping Child's forehead as well. "Your mother the Earth has so many beautiful clothes," she whispered in the stone-gray ear. "I'll try and write a song for you so that you can see them, too."

L,'he letters on the arch above the Chamber of the Sleeping Child gleamed as the torchlight passed over them. Time had begun to fill the carvings in soot and the crumbling detritus of the centuries.

'What does this inscription say?" Rhapsody asked.

The Grandmother slipped her hands inside the sleeves of her robe. " 'Let that which sleeps within the Earth rest undisturbed; its awakening heralds eternal night,'

" she answered.

Rhapsody turned to Achmed. "What do you think that refers to?"

His mismatched eyes darkened angrily in the dim light of the passageway. "I think you've seen it once yourself."

She nodded. "Yes. I think you're right, but only partly."

'Explain."

'It seems to me that there is an entity known as the Sleeping Child in more than one mythos," she said. "There was the star that slept beneath the waves off the coast of Serendair, a story from Seren lore. I think we know how correct the prediction was of the consequences of its awakening. There was the—She flinched under the intensity of the look Achmed shot at her—"the one we saw on our journey here, the one the dragons refer to as the Sleeping Child. Those consequences would be even greater should it happen to waken."

'And now there is this one, the one that rests here in the cavern. It seems to me that the prophecies of the Dhracians, if that is what this inscription is"-she pointed at the archway above the child's chamber—"are warning of the same cataclysmic possibilities should this child wake." Rhapsody stared back into the Sleeping Child's chamber, now wreathed in darkness.

'Freeing her from her nightmares might be the way to keep her asleep."

Achmed said.

The Grandmother turned and stepped into the shadow of the hallway leading to the vast cylindrical cavern. Her word echoed in the hollow corridor.

'Come."

'"Che enormous pendulum swung through the hollow cavern, crossing the circle on the central stone slab with each pass. Rhapsody could see the weight at the end of the spider-silk strand glitter in the darkness.

'What weights the pendulum?" she asked, her voice heavy in the sand of the dead wind.

'It is a diamond from Lorthlagh, the Lands Beyond the Rim, the birthplace of our race," the Grandmother answered. Her heavy cloak flapped stolidly in the musty air of the cavern. "It is a prison; within it is held captive a demon-spirit from the battle that wounded the Sleeping Child. Diamonds of great purity and substantial size, properly used, can house a captive spirit, though not as well as Living Stone can. And only a special kind of diamond, found only at places where pieces of stars have fallen to Earth, leaving ethereal crystals behind. These crystals come from a time before the Earth was formed, before fire came into being—they predate all elements save for ether. Their power is greater than that of the F'dor."

As if in sullen response, the pendulum's weight flashed angrily. A slash of red light bounced around the cavern's walls, then vanished.

'The Purity Diamond Oelendra told you about must have been such a crystal,"

Achmed said. "Sounds like it was big enough to imprison even the strongest of demon-spirits."

'Small wonder the F'dor wanted it smashed," Grunthor said.

'Why would you suspend such a valuable and potentially dangerous object like that over an endless chasm?" Rhapsody asked, staring down into the circular abyss that surrounded the flat central formation. "Isn't there a greater risk that the diamond will be lost if the strand breaks?"

The Grandmother's vibration grew more intense, causing their skin to itch.

'What you are witnessing is the power of the winds at work," she said. "This is why the training in Thrall ritual was done here; all four of the winds from Above are knotted here, around that rocky pedestal. They are anchored in this place; they hold the pendulum steady, in time with the turning of the Earth.

The diamond is safer there than anywhere else in these mountains." She turned to Achmed. "When you are undergoing training, the winds will be your teachers."

She pointed to the crumbling bridge that spanned the dark chasm. "Follow me to the canticle circle, and I will show you what has been written about you. It is your destiny. Deny it, and it would be better to hurl yourselves into the abyss now." The matriarch ignored the glance that passed between the Three as she stepped out onto the bridge, braving the billowing wind.

>Vhy do they call this the canticle circle?"

Rhapsody stepped carefully around the pattern on the floor, making sure to stay out of the pedulum's path. She recognized the symbols for the four winds, but none of the other inscriptions, despite being told that they were in part an ancient clock.

The Grandmother gazed up into the silence of the endless cavern, as if staring into the Past. She let the Singer's question hang heavily on the dusty air as her black eyes scanned the ancient hallways, now nothing more than empty holes in the hollow shell of what had once been the great civilization's heart. At last she spoke.

'Lirin are the descendants of the Kith and the Seren, the children of the wind and stars. Dhracians are begotten only of the wind; the
Zhereditck
are direct descendants of the Kith, different only in that we were the clan chosen for our diligence and endurance to forsake the world Above and live within the Earth, guarding the vault of the F'dor for all time. It was only when that prison was broken open that we came Above again, joining in the Great Hunt to find and destroy those demons that escaped. But our roots were in the wind, not the Earth."