Destiny: Child of the Sky

38

The morning light broke over the forest, shining through the flakes of quietly falling snow. All around them the woods were silent, and the absence of sound seemed to grow deeper with each step. Occasionally one of the children would whimper, or giggle nervously, but by and large even they felt the heavy stillness in the air and succumbed to it.

Oelendra stopped, and Rhapsody followed her lead, clicking softly to the mare. They were in a forest clearing, unremarkable in its appearance, with heavy woods around them on all sides, impenetrable to the eye. There was a solemnity to the place, a deep and ancient song of power that Rhapsody could feel in her bones. She looked at her friend.

Oelendra was casting her gaze around the forest, as if trying to discern a direction. Finally her eyes opened wider, and she pointed off into the distance.

“There ’tis, the alder with the split trunk. That was my landmark.”

Rhapsody followed Oelendra’s direction with her eyes until she, too, saw the tree, and she nodded. “How far is it from there?”

Oelendra shook her head. “I don’t know,” she answered quietly, her voice barely audible in the stillness of the clearing. “You’ll see what I mean in a moment. There’s a bend in Time around here somewhere; ’tis the best I can describe it. I had passed this way a thousand times before that night and I had never seen the Veil of Hoen.”

Rhapsody nodded and looked off into the distance again. The Veil of Hoen, the Cymrian word for Joy, was the doorway to the realm of the Lord and Lady Rowan, the entities Oelendra had told her about the first night they met. There was something mystical about these legendary people, the Keeper of Dreams and her mate, the Peaceful Death, something beyond Rhapsody’s comprehension. Had anyone but Oelendra related the tale of Ashe’s rescue to her, she would have suspected an unhinged mind or an excessive amount of ale, but Oelendra’s words were always carefully considered, and carried the ring of knowledge when she used them. The Lord and Lady, she had said, only intervened, only allowed guests, in cases of life and death. She swallowed, hoping they would consider this situation worthy.

“Perhaps it only is visible when you need it to be,” she suggested, patting the mare on the flank.

Oelendra shrugged. “Perhaps,” she said, and she squinted, looking into the forest again. Then she turned and took Rhapsody by the shoulders. “There is something you need to remember. Time does not pass there the way it does here. I was within their realm for hours, perhaps days, when they were working on Gwydion.” The reflection of a cloud passed in her silver eyes, or perhaps it was just the irony of the memory. Oelendra had taken the news of Ashe being alive with a solemn silence, back when Rhapsody had first returned to Tyrian, seeking her help with the children of the F’dor. She had often wondered what the Lirin warrior was thinking, but Oelendra never shared her thoughts about it. “When he—after there was nothing more I could do, and the Lord Rowan sent me back, nothing had changed from the moment I had entered, Rhapsody; my saddle was still warm. You may find yourself staying for a very long time, months, years perhaps, but when you come back it may only be a moment later than when you went in. It may be hard for you to find your place in Time again.”

Rhapsody patted her hand. “Thank you,” she said. “I know where I will come first for help if I lose my way.”

For the first time since they had entered the wood Oelendra smiled. “Well, that’s a lesson you have learned well. My door is always open to you, dearest. My home is yours. Now, I will wait here with the children, and him.” She gestured toward the gladiator, propped up in the saddle of the roan Oelendra had led, his eyes bleary in the herb-induced stupor. “I hope you find them.”

Rhapsody swallowed hard. She tried not to think about what she would do if she couldn’t. Slowly she drew Daystar Clarion and held it before her, watching the twisting flames whisper up the shining blade, gleaming with the light of the stars. She ran the tips of her fingers through the fire, feeling the humming pulse in her skin; at her touch the flames leapt and roared, quieting into a windy billow a moment later. Then with a decisive jab she plunged sword, tip first, into the snow to serve as a marker and walked away without looking back.

She had walked for what seemed like a very long time, stepping in the ankle-deep snow, leaving almost no trail. The wind blew gently here, and the breeze was warm, even in the depths of winter. Though she had no idea where she was going, and barely knew from where she had come, Rhapsody did not have the sense of being lost. She closed her eyes and drank in the song of the forest, deeper, more solemn, than the song of Tyrian she had come to know so well.

The song resonated louder to the west, and she followed it blindly, her hands outstretched before her. It was a deep, warm melody, like the song of miners in the depths of the hills, what the Earth itself sounded like when she heard it singing while traveling along the Root. It undulated on the wind, growing stronger in one direction; Rhapsody turned toward it and opened her eyes.

The air before her and all around her was shrouded -in mist, thick with silver vapor. The droplets sparkled in the air, reflecting the light of the rising sun. It was like standing within a cloud, with the sky and forest no longer visible. She put out a hand to brush the mist away; it did not move, but rather hung heavy in the air, like rain that had frozen in time.

Rhapsody wandered for a while, trying to find the other side of the misty Veil, but the fog was ever-present, inviolable. She called out every few minutes, but heard nothing; no voice or birdcall answered her. Directions became difficult, then impossible, to discern. She began to fear losing her way. Finally she sighed, the sound swallowed by the thick layers of vapor, and turned back to Oelendra and the children again.

She could see them at the very edge of her vision after a few minutes, clustered around and on the horses in the distant part of the fog. Rhapsody quickened her step, trotting through the snow, until she came within clear sight of them. She stopped in her tracks.

The children of the demon were as they had been when she had left them. The person holding the reins of the roan was not Oelendra, however, but rather a slim, pale woman with hair as white and silver as the mist, dressed in a plain white robe. She smiled and held out the reins of the mare to Rhapsody, who took them as if entranced, then turned and walked off into the thickening fog. A moment later Rhapsody shook her head as if shaking off sleep, and followed the woman, leading the horse and the children into the mist.

After a long time the fog began to dissipate. At first Rhapsody didn’t notice it, she was too focused on following the woman in white and the children, but eventually she became aware of a few trees here and there, then some denser patches of woods, until at last the mist evaporated like smoke in the heat of the sun rising in the sky above them. Rhapsody found herself in a forest not unlike Tyrian, except that it was spring or early summer. The ground was green, as were the leaves and new shoots of the trees, many of which were white birches, ashes, silver maples, and pale beech trees, their ivory bark giving the woods an otherworldly appearance.

The children, who until then had been solemnly silent, began to talk softly to each other, then laugh, and finally to run about, enjoying the sun. It was as if an enormous weight had been lifted from them; now they felt as if they could fly, and so they tried, extending their arms wide and dashing in between the trees and up small rises, leaping and giggling.

Rhapsody smiled as she turned to survey them all and caught the eye of the Lady, who had been watching her intently. She colored under the stare, and the woman smiled. Then she turned toward the deeper part of the wood and two young men appeared, dressed as the woman was, in white robes. They took the semiconscious gladiator down from the roan and led him and the horse away toward a settlement of small huts, visible to Rhapsody for the first time only in that moment.

Rhapsody turned back to the children and her heart leapt to her throat; they were gone. Only the woman in white remained, and she approached the Singer slowly, her hands extended. Rhapsody took them in her own; they were warm, as her mother’s had been as she brushed Rhapsody’s hair before the fire in childhood. Aches and pains she did not even know she had been carrying vanished, along with the raw, black patches of frostbite, leaving her feeling whole and rested, though not entirely awake. The pale woman spoke. Her voice was like the soft sigh of the warm wind.

“You need not fear, they are well attended. Come; I will show you your place here.” She led Rhapsody by the hand over the rise of a hill to a small thatched hut, the same as she had seen in the settlement. She nodded to it. Rhapsody blinked in her inner fog.

“But what if they wake in the night, crying?” she asked. She had not even thought of the question; it was as if it had been placed directly into her mouth, bypassing her mind.

“They never will,” a voice answered behind her. Rhapsody turned to see a pale man, attired in the same type of robe, but the color of night. His eyes were black as pitch, and deep; Rhapsody felt she easily could fall into those eyes. They were crowned with black thundercloud brows that gave way to snowy white hair. Suddenly she realized that the question had been put into her mouth so that she would hear the answer. She felt the heavy sleep fall off her shoulders like a woolen cloak, clearing her mind at last.

“Thank you for taking them in, m’lady, m’lord,” she said. “I will do whatever I can to help in any way.”

“Good,” said the man. His face was solemn. “They will need your help more than you can imagine.”

“Come, child,” said the woman, smiling. She held out her hand again. Rhapsody took it once more, and followed the Lady Rowan deeper into the peaceful forest.

The realm of the Rowans was a serene one by all appearances. The children ran about, playing in the sunshine, their joyful voices shrieking and laughing through the forest, breaking the stillness. Rhapsody did not see the gladiator, but all the other children were there, frolicking in between the trees, even Quan Li, the oldest girl, who up until that point had been serious and reserved. The sight gladdened her heart. She felt a hand touch her elbow, and she turned. The Lady was beckoning to her.

They walked over the rise of a hill and came to a stop under a stand of white birch trees. In the valley at the foot of the hill was a large wood building without ornament except for a thin wooden steeple crowned with a silver star. She followed the Lady down the hill and into the building.

Inside it was dark and cool, with a rotunda off which were a number of doors. The Lady opened one across the rotunda from the door they had entered by and stepped back, allowing Rhapsody to go in.

The room was dark as well, with a wealth of beeswax candles in boxes and the minty smell of pipsissewa, a herb used for easing the pain of the dying. Open bags of other medicinal herbs, juniper puffballs and shepherd’s purse, lay on the table, their contents scattered across its top. In the center of the room was a plain cot with short legs, close to the floor, and several tables with strange-looking implements and containers. The Lady offered her a candle, and she took it. The beeswax was soft and fragrant; there was something hypnotic about holding it. She extended a finger to light it, but the Lady shook her head.

“Not yet.” Rhapsody curled her finger back into her fist quickly. The Lady smiled reassuringly. “Before you light the candle, you must understand that it is a promise.”

“A promise?”

“Yes, and one you may not be willing to make.”

Rhapsody blinked. “What is the promise?”

“Come, and I will show you.” The Lady walked through the door of the room and went to the next door, which she opened as before. Rhapsody looked in to see an identical room, except that on the cot was the gladiator, asleep. She turned and looked questioningly at the Lady, who nodded at the demon’s oldest child. Rhapsody looked back at him again.

“Stay here.” The Lady Rowan entered the room and bent next to the cot, touching the gladiator’s forehead gently. Behind her Rhapsody could hear the door of the building open. The two young men entered and joined the Lady by Constantin’s bedside. They were carrying a crystal beaker and several sharp metal implements and glass tubes that Rhapsody did not like the look of. She opened her mouth to speak but her question was choked off before she could utter it by a sharp look from the Lady Rowan.

A moment later, the Lady took the instruments from the men and arranged them on the table next to the cot. The men took hold of the gladiator’s feet and wrists. The Lady Rowan nodded to her assistants and turned back to him, a long awl-like needle in her hand. As Rhapsody watched in horror she plunged the needle into Constantin’s chest. He awoke in agony, screaming.

—

Rhapsody tried to run into the room but found her way barred by an unseen force. She struggled against it futilely and banged on the doorframe, producing no sound; she cried out, but her voice was silent as well. She could only stare in dismay as Constantin writhed in pain, pleading with his tormentors to stop. The tears that ran down his face were mirrored on Rhapsody’s own.

The procedure seemed to last forever. Finally the Lady held up a thin glass tube filled with red liquid, a slash of black in the middle. She nodded to the assistants and removed the implement from the gladiator’s chest, causing him to shudder in anguish once more. Then she handed the tube to one of the men and carefully bandaged the chest wound, speaking softly to Constantin as he lay on the cot, weeping. Rhapsody’s heart wrung in sorrow. Pain great enough to reduce the gladiator to sobbing must truly be unbearable, given what she knew about Constantin’s life and profession. The Lady Rowan bent to kiss his forehead; his shuddering stopped and he fell back asleep immediately. The Lady came out of the room and took Rhapsody’s elbow, leading her back to the empty room. The Singer was shaking.

“This is the procedure that we will have to perform every day, on each child, to separate them from their father’s blood,” the Lady Rowan said simply, ignoring the Singer’s tears. “It must be removed directly from the heart. As you can see, it’s extremely painful.”

Rhapsody choked. “Even the baby?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Rhapsody stammered, fighting nausea. “Please.”

“The alternative is far worse, isn’t it?”

Rhapsody stared at the Lady in silence, then bowed her head. “Yes.” The Lady Rowan watched her intently; Rhapsody could feel the woman’s eyes on her. “For how long?”

“Years. At least five; probably seven. To do it faster would mean to take more heart’s blood, and that might prove fatal. If they die before the separation procedure is complete, they will join their father in the Vault of the Underworld, for eternity.”

“Gods,” Rhapsody whispered. She looked over at the table, at the instruments identical to those that had been used on Constantin. “Please, tell me there is another way.”

“There is no other way to separate out the blood,” said the Lady Rowan directly. “There is, however, something you can do, if you choose to.”

“Whatever it is, I will do it,” said Rhapsody quickly. “Please tell me how I can help.”

The Lady Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “You are rash, child; that is not good. The children will need you to tend to their daily needs for love and comfort; you should not be agreeing to something you have not heard yet.”

“I’m sorry,” said Rhapsody humbly. “Please tell me what I can do.”

The Lady looked at her evenly. “You can take the pain for one or two of them, if you should so choose.”

“Take the pain?”

“Yes. You are a Singer, a Narner; you can make their namesong your own, and keep the pain for yourself. It is much to ask, and much more to give. If you should choose not to do so, no one would blame you. I know you seek to be a healer; it will teach you much. It will make you empathetic, make you able to heal others by taking their injuries yourself. But you will feel the pain in its fullness, sparing one or two of the children the daily suffering you have just witnessed. It will be agony for you.”

Rhapsody stared at the floor. “One or two? How on earth could I ever choose?”

A sympathetic smile crossed the Lady’s face. “That will not be easy, either. It may seem to make sense to choose the smallest ones, but suffering is suffering, no matter who experiences it, as you have just seen.”

Rhapsody considered her words. “And will it do me damage physically?”

“No. It is only the pain you may take, not the procedure; you will not have a wound or a scar.”

Rhapsody’s eyes cleared. “I’m not concerned about any scarring except that which the pain will inflict on those children’s souls,” she said. “And if I light the candle, is that the promise to sit vigil for a child, to take his or her pain?”

“Yes.” The Lady smiled at her. “Are you going to do so?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. Shall I set aside one candle, or two?”

Rhapsody smiled back at her, and took two candles out of the nearest box. She set them on the table. “Here?”

“Yes. You are very brave.”

“Do I light them now?”

“Yes, but then you must name the children for whom you are going to sit.”

Rhapsody extended her finger and touched the first candle. “Aria,” she said softly. The flame sparked to life between her thumb and forefinger, snapping for a moment, then glowed on the wick. She moved to the next candle. “Mikita,” she said, lighting the second taper. She turned back around to face the Lady, who nodded approvingly.

“You should lie down here now, child. I will give you such herbs as I can to ease your pain, but I should warn you: I gave them to the gladiator before the procedure as well. I must tell my assistants to retrieve those two children.”

Rhapsody reached into the box and pulled two more tapers forth, setting next to the lighted ones. She touched the first one. “Jecen,” she said as the candle began to glow. “Aric.”

The Lady Rowan reached out and seized her wrist. “What are you doing, child?”

“You said it would not harm me physically, that I am just agreeing to take their pain.”

“Yes, but—”

Rhapsody pulled her hand away and lit two more tapers. “Ellis. Anya.” She looked back at the Lady. “How can I possibly choose? Having to let even one of them go through agony like that would be the same as experiencing it myself anyway.”

“Don’t underestimate the combined effects, child. Your heart may be willing, but your body will be racked. You are still healing from the effects of the exposure on your journey here; I don’t think you understand what you’re doing.”

Two more flames appeared. “Marl. Vincane.” She smiled at the Lady Rowan. “No doubt, but I have nothing better to do while I’m here. Besides, which of their mothers wouldn’t have agreed to do so? They aren’t here, so someone has to.”

“But you are not any of these children’s mother.”

Rhapsody’s eyes glowed in the light of the brightening room. “Quan Li.” She looked up. “No,” she said, smiling. “I’m their grandmother. I have much to atone for in my life. Perhaps this will serve as a beginning.” The last candle sparked to life.

“Constantin,” she said.