Destiny: Child of the Sky

21 of the Finders

From the very oldest of days, in the very darkest corners of Firbolg history, there had been Finders.

The Bolg of Canrif had no recorded legends, no traditions immortalized in a permanent fashion; they were as a race illiterate, or at least had been until Achmed, himself of their bloodline by half, appeared as if by magic from the other side of the world and took the mountain almost by the mere demand of it.

Subduing the mountain had been a simple undertaking, really. One of the first places that the Three had found in the abandoned ruin which had once been Gwylliam’s seat of power was the royal library, the heart of Canrif. It contained an endless collection of maps, plans, and manuscripts, some brought from the Lost Island of Serendair, all carefully catalogued and preserved in scroll tubes of marble and ancient ivory, stored under the watchful eyes of the enormous red-gold dragon fresco sprawling across the domed ceiling, its silver-gilt claws poised in mute threat.

The library also guarded the entranceways to the deeper treasure vaults and reliquaries in which items of great value to the long-dead king had been kept. It had even contained the body of the long-dead king himself; they had discovered Gwylliam’s mummified corpse sprawled on its back amid the rotting fabric of his robes of state, his shriveled chest cruelly sundered. His simple crown of purest gold lay on its side next to him, testament to exactly how the mighty had fallen.

But the items in the library of most value to Achmed’s conquest of Ylorc were the apparatuses the Cymrian king had built to track movement within the labyrinth, and the series of listening and speaking tubes that ran throughout the mountains, some visible, some hidden, most of them still operational, all of them useful. It had only been a matter of manipulating these inventions, along with the ventilation system that brought heat and fresh air into Canrif, to convince the current inhabitants that they were outmatched in their own land.

The Bolg surrendered more or less willingly to their new warlord, someone who could return the mountainous cities of the “Willums,” as they called the Cymrians, to their former glory, this time under the hand of a leader who was half-Firbolg. They knew nothing of his other nature, the Dhracian side, which sought above all things to find any of the F’dor demon-spirits that might have escaped the great Vault of Living Stone which the dragons had built to imprison them in the Before-Time. It was a blood vow far more ancient than any he swore to them as their new king, but the Firbolg were utterly ignorant of it.

Once Achmed’s reign had begun in Ylorc, Rhapsody had insisted that educating the Bolg in lessons other than warfare was necessary if they were to be able to stand on their own and not only hold the mountain against the bloodthirsty men of Roland, but build a culture that would hold currency outside the mountain. Until this year those men had participated in an annual genocide known as Spring Cleaning, a ritual of butchery in which the Bolg had offered up their old, weak, and ill in exchange for being left alone for the rest of the year.

This past spring, however, a new wind was blowing through the peaks of the Teeth. The soldiers of Roland had come as usual, this time two thousand strong at the insistence of Tristan Steward. They had discovered, much to their woe, that the monsters they were used to dispatching with indifference had been learning the lessons of slaughter that they themselves had inadvertently taught. Achmed had delivered the news of the Orlandan brigade’s massacre at the hands of the Bolg to the Lord Roland personally, waking him from his sleep in his own bedchamber with the ultimatum that would lead to a reluctant peace treaty ten days later.

I’m the Eye, the Claw, the Heel and the Stomach of the Mountain. I have come to tell you that your army is gone.

The Lord Roland had risen shakily from his slumber, trembling as he listened to the sandy voice that seemed to be part of the darkness itself.

You have ten days to draft a trade agreement and to sue for peace. My emissary will be waiting at the present border of my realm and Bethe Corbair on the tenth day. On the eleventh day the border will begin to move closer, so as to facilitate our meeting. If the inclement weather discourages you from traveling, you can wait a fortnight and hold the meeting right here at the new border.

Tristan Steward, his cousin, Stephen Navarne, duke of the province that bore his family name, and Tristan’s brother Ian Steward, the benison of Canderre-Yarim, had indeed appeared at the border, the first two prepared to pursue political ends, the benison religious ones. They had all been easily bested in their negotiations by Rhapsody, who had charmed them into trade agreements generous to the Bolg and peace accords restrictive to Roland with little more than an unconscious blink of her green eyes. Tristan Steward had returned home to his central province and his unpleasant fiancee with the disturbing sense that he had handed over both his birthright and his soul to Ylorc.

What Tristan Steward could not have known was the nature of the fuse his misguided decision to send a full brigade against Achmed’s troops had lighted.

The natural process of establishing diplomatic ties with a new regime is traditionally a long one for good reason. It takes time for a freshly crowned monarch to learn everything he needs to know about his kingdom from his newly ascended throne, to sort out the positive and negative aspects of having a relationship of any kind with neighbors, allies, and enemies.

The destruction of Tristan’s army had hastened that legitimizing process. The horror of it rippled like wildfire through the provinces of Roland and the outlying continental lands of Sorbold to the south, Gwynwood to the west, the Hintervold to the north, and even the nations beyond the Teeth to the east. Only the Lirin realm of Tyrian, the vast forest that abutted the southwestern seacoast, sent no ambassador to Ylorc, gave no indication that the ascension of a Firbolg warlord to Gwylliam’s throne had made any impression upon them at all.

With that exception, all the neighboring realms of Ylorc were eager to press for whatever accords they could to ensure the continuation of peace with the Bolg and to perhaps engender a little bit of commerce on the side.

Particular interest existed in Sorbold, the arid realm of sun that had once been part of the Cymrian empire but now stood alone, an independent nation tied to Roland only through the common religious connection to the elderly Patriarch of Sepulvarta, the head of the religion of both lands. The Sorbolds craved access to the fine weapons being produced in the fires of the Firbolg forges. There were few natural resources in their land, and steel production there was expensive and difficult.

They pressed the issue through Syn Crote, their ambassador, who was noted for his persuasiveness. But Achmed, while signing trade treaties for other goods, withheld the sale of armaments to Sorbold, reasoning that it was singularly unwise to outfit a bordering nation, no matter how friendly its ambassador, with the weapons of his own arsenal. The Crown Prince of Sorbold bit his tongue and smiled painfully, but any fool could see that the resentment of this arrangement would sooner or later lead to, at bare minimum, renewed discussions, and probably worse. For the moment, however, peace reigned.

Once the trade agreements were set in place, King Achmed drafted a plan to protect those transactions and other correspondence from the random and inexplicable violence that had been a staple of this new land since he, Rhapsody, and Grunthor had crawled out of the Root into this place.

A series of guarded caravans, accompanied at weekly intervals by two score and ten of Tristan Steward’s soldiers, made the rounds of all the interconnected lands of the middle continent—Ylorc to Bethe Corbair to Sorbold to Sepulvarta, across the Krevensfield Plain to Bethany and Navarne, then on to Tyrian to Avonderre to Gwynwood and Canderre, north to the frozen Hintervold, then east to the heat of Yarim and back, at last, to Ylorc. The route was a fairly easy one, though it traveled through varied terrain, making use of the old Cymrian road system that had been built in the empire’s heyday.

With the return of relatively safe mail and selective travel came at last some relief from the sense of isolation the different realms of the continent had felt over the last twenty or so years, since the violence had escalated to its terrifying level. Those traveling in carriages and merchant carts would schedule journeys, when possible, to coincide with the weekly caravans, grateful for the opportunity to benefit from their protection.

For one group, however, one unknown, secret group in a little known land, the mail caravans provided something completely different. To the Finders, it was an opportunity, the first in history, to seek something in a distant place that might help bring the Voice to them again at last.

-

Oven the Bolg populace that shared the same mountains, held the same watches, and had inhabited the same realm for five centuries knew nothing of the existence of the Finders who lived among them. It was a society that was secret, membership seeming to pass inconsistently through certain clans, its lineage unclear. The harsh reality of Firbolg existence coupled with a decided lack of sophistication when it came to genealogy tended to prevent a trend from being recognized. Even within families the secret was kept—it was not spoken of from father to son, or between mates. No one knew of the Finders except the Finders themselves, and even they did not seek to know the names of all who felt the calling.

And it was a calling in the strictest sense that brought them together. They had nothing else in common that they could discern—no physical attributes that they could see as similar. Part of the reason for this was the widespread pollution of the Bolg bloodline; they were a truly bastard race, adulterated with the blood traits of every other race they had contacted, and so no pure Bolg racial characteristics existed. Another reason, however, was that they met in the dark, and therefore could not see what others might have—that there was a unique aspect to most of them, a slightly more human, or perhaps just slightly more refined, appearance than the other Bolg.

Appearance, however, was not the main trait the Finders had in common. Had Bolg life been less treacherous, less prone to early demise, it might have been noted that the Finders had a tendency toward longevity, at least by Firbolg standards. But since the day-to-day reality of Ylorc was a harsh one, there was often such early mortality that this trait never grew into a trend, either. Even the new warlord’s party of four, which had arrived and taken the mountain the previous winter, had been reduced by one; the Second Woman, the yellow-haired teenager called Jo that the Bolg believed to be King Achmed’s less favored courtesan, had died as the leaves had begun to fall, less than one turn of the seasons after they had come.

So, though the Finders did not recognize a common physical similarity among themselves, nor notice their disposition for a somewhat longer life span, they did observe one very specific ability to be unique among the members of their unspoken fellowship—they had a sense of the whereabouts of Willum objects, especially those marked with the Sign.

The Bolg as a race were not given to storytelling, and so the tales of their history were inconsistent as well as few and far between. But one piece of history was more or less common knowledge among all the clans of the Bolg: the Eyes, the mountaintop-dwelling spies; the Claws, those Bolg that inhabited the western areas of Ylorc that ended with the vast, dry canyon and the Blasted Heath above it; and the Guts, the fierce, war-prone clans of the Hidden Realm, the deep lands beyond the canyon.

Regardless of clan, all the Bolg knew the story of their taking of the mountain from the Willum king.

Before they inhabited Canrif, once one of the wonders of the world, ruined for centuries and now, slowly, undergoing reconstruction, the Bolg had been cave dwellers, a subhuman population barely more manlike than the cave bears and subterranean wolves that preyed upon them, and that they in turn preyed upon. They had lived in endless darkness, and bred with whatever small enclaves of outsiders they could subdue. Firbolg as a race lived all over the world, but the individual members would never have known that, because their concept of the world was limited to the caverns and hillsides in which they scratched out a hard and sometimes brutal living.

At least, that is, until the Willums came. The Firbolg had made note of the Cymrians almost from the moment the wayfarers from Serendair arrived in the Teeth; the ragtag caravan of storm-tossed survivors of the Third Fleet’s tumultuous crossing had at first looked like prime targets for attack—vulnerable, exhausted, utterly without hope, or so it seemed; Bolg could smell such a thing. When, however, their numbers became clear—there were more than fifty thousand of them—the Bolg slunk back to the shadow of their caves. They watched as the newcomers transformed the mountains into towering cities, sprawling farmlands, well-tended forests, and deep labyrinths, the empire Gwylliam named Canrif, the Cymrian word for century, because he had vowed that within a hundred years’ time it would be the marvel of the world.

And so, as the Cymrian empire grew and expanded, the Bolg disappeared deeper and deeper into the earth, moved farther back into the wastelands to the east, until the War came.

Gwylliam’s battle with his wife and queen, Anwyn, the half-dragon daughter of the wyrm Elynsynos, had started as the result of what the Cymrians called the Grievous Blow, a strike across her face resulting from a marital spat of unknown cause. The resulting war decimated both the continent and the Cymrian population, which had split in twain, some choosing to follow Anwyn, others remaining loyal to Gwylliam. It was a bloody conflict that tore families asunder, even pitting Anwyn and Gwylliam’s own sons, Llauron and Anborn, against one another, and causing the eldest son, Edwyn Griffyth, to abandon the family altogether.

The Bolg knew none of the details. They did know, however, that the once impenetrable fortress in the Teeth was crumbling at the edges; the border patrols that had held an iron grip on the mountains were scarcely seen at all after the first two centuries of the seven-hundred-years-long war. Five hundred years into the conflict, the Bolg finally worked up the courage to begin to take advantage of the situation.

Slowly at first, and then, encouraged by their success, with a bolder outlook, a few clans began to establish small enclaves at the outskirts of Gwylliam’s vast realm. The Lord Cymrian had been too engaged to care that a ratty population of cave dwellers found its way across the eastern steppes and into some of the older sections of his vast labyrinth. Minor reports of lost Cymrian patrols or stores unaccounted for were hidden in the greater and bloodier balance sheets of the battles against Anwyn. His indifference proved to be his kingdom’s undoing in the end.

As Anwyn’s army was approaching, preparing to launch their last in a series of unsuccessful assaults on the mountain, the Bolg took the opportunity to overrun Canrif. Gwylliam had disappeared, and Anborn, Gwylliam’s youngest son and his general, was faced with the grim decision to evacuate while he could, or try and fight the battle on two fronts, from within the mountain as well as from without. He calculated wisely that he could not hold both, and that, in fact, the mountain was already lost to the Firbolg. Canrif, the crown jewel of the Cymrian empire, which had stretched from the mountains to the western seacoast, encompassed great provincial cities, built and maintained thousands of leagues of roadways and aqueducts, basilicas of visionary architecture, and harbors sheltering a thousand ships at a time, crumbled like sand and fell forever into the eagerly outstretched hands of a populace the humans considered to be monsters.

With the overrunning of Canrif came looting, of course, and all the treasures left behind—at least those things not hidden within the library’s vaults, because the library had been fitted with a musical lock that the Bolg had never been able to open—were gathered, split, battled over, or destroyed. So much of what the Cymrians valued—writings, art, maps and artifacts of the old world, museum pieces and items of technological invention—were of little or no use to the Bolg, and ended up as spurned booty. An entire private library of ancient manuscripts became fuel for a celebratory bonfire.

What the Cymrians left behind that the Bolg did value was joyfully divided or viciously fought over, sometimes again and again. Livestock, textiles, weapons and armor, and food stores were seized and carried off. Jewelry was prized as well. Even now, five centuries later, it was not uncommon to see the most ragged of Bolg women or even men, their bodies hard and leathery from lack of clothing and exposure to the elements, walking the corridors of Canrif wearing ornate necklaces on their heads like circlets or earrings clipped in their hair.

Gold coins, while initially interesting because of their shine, quickly were discarded by most of the Bolg. The culture had no concept of currency, though they did grasp the idea of barter, but only in that they knew how to trade useful goods for other useful goods. Shiny, heavy metal, while pretty, but too soft to make a reasonable weapon, had no real value, and thus was left, discarded, when the Bolg scavenged the abandoned hallways and chambers where the Cymrian populace had once lived.

But these coins did have value to the Finders, because they bore the Sign.

The sign was common in the Willum city. It was a symbol that meant nothing to the Bolg, and, in fact, contained pictures of things they had never seen before. In the foreground of the image was a star shining over the heads of a rampant lion and a griffin, beasts the Bolg had never seen nor even could have imagined. Behind those beasts was an image of the Earth, an oak tree growing on it, with roots that pierced through the bottom; again, nothing recognizable to such a primitive culture.

The Finders valued anything Willum they could find, but in order to have a place in this secret brotherhood, a man or woman had to prove himself or herself to be a true recipient of the call by finding something that bore the Sign.

In the early days after the Willums had been driven from the mountain this had been a relatively easy thing to do. But as the centuries wore on, anything that had been lost in the melee had most likely been found, or had fallen so deep into the ruin of the underground city that discovering it was sheer luck. Each new discovery was cause for great excitement, because perhaps it was the item the Voice had demanded be brought to it. Over the centuries a vast hoard of items had been found, but none had proven to be the right one. Eventually, it seemed that everything that could be found within the mountain, or across the Heath in the Hidden Realm, had been found.

Still, the late-generation Finders did feel the presence of a few trinkets here and there in distant places. Most were within the realm of Roland, and therefore “finding” them would be out of the question. A few items, however, had been sensed by many generations to be in Sorbold, but until the trade agreements and the great caravans made it possible, there was no way to broach the mountains to get them.

Until now.

The coming of the Dark Man, one who called himself the Snake King, to the mountain had provided the means for the Finders to finally obtain their treasure.

And his leaving had provided the opportunity for them to do so.

Hagraith waited in the shadows of the barracks fire, the stew in his battered metal plate growing cold, untouched. As the soldiers of his regiment, selected from the heartier of Eye and Claw clans of the Inner Teeth, chortled and ate greedily in the flickering light, he was watching, listening for the sign only he knew was coming.

At first he almost didn’t hear it. It was muffled by the clanging of metal plates, the grunting and scuffling. But deep and distinct, repeated twice, he heard the tones, five together, chanted twice. He lowered his eyes into his mug.

Tonight the meeting place would be at the Hand.

In the darkest corridors of the part of the labyrinth known as Sigreed, the Crypt, or more literally the Village of the Dead, four men met in secret. In the distance they could hear the ringing of the ancient forges pounding out new weapons, new armor, new steel for the Rebuilding, a hollow, clanging sound that was more than a little unnerving. If the Bolg had been literate they might also have found it unnerving to be hiding among row upon row of burial plaques that lined the walls of the corridors, marking the tombs of viceroys and chancellors, confessors and advisors of the Cymrian Age long gone, their wisdom now buried deep.

Hagraith crouched nervously in the Thumb of the Hand, the eastern tunnel that led to the central area known as the Palm, where four other tunnels also met. Tucked beneath his jerkin was a bundle wrapped in tanned leather, his prize for admission to the brotherhood. He had discovered it quite by accident when on maneuvers deep within the Hidden Realm, and had felt its call intensely. Buried within a rotten crate in a peat bog that had once been the ruins of a Lirin city, the porcelain plate he was hiding in his jerkin was a miracle for many reasons; it not only bore the Sign quite clearly, but it was as yet unbroken, unmarred by Time. If he could will himself to stop shaking, it might remain that way long enough to be presented.

Krinsel, one of the most powerful of the Finders, and one of the First Woman’s favored midwives, nodded to him in the dark. She was holding a wick of candle tallow at the end of which a tiny spark burned, the only light in the consuming darkness. Krinsel sat cross-legged in the Palm, where she could see the other Finders who cowered in the other Finger tunnels which fed into the central area. Near her left foot were the ropes that would seal each tunnel if any sound came near other than the clanging of the forges in the distance above them.

When Hagraith did not move Krinsel’s eyes narrowed, becoming slits in the darkness.

“Give.”

Trying to keep his hands from shaking, Hagraith crept to the opening where the Thumb joined the Palm and carefully pulled the leather package from beneath his jerkin. He held it out to Krinsel, who took it with steady hands, the hands that had caught a generation of infants and more than a few treasures that bore the Sign. He skittered back to the recesses of the Thumb, panting.

With great delicacy Krinsel unwrapped the plate, holding it in one hand as she held the low-burning tallow up to examine it. Her eyes widened, and her face relaxed into a slight smile.

“It is the Sign,” she said reverently. After a moment she turned her dark gaze on Hagraith. “Finder you are.”

Hagraith bowed his head in relief, feeling the tightness in his abdomen abate. Sweat that had been held back by fear now poured from his brow.

He could keep his testicle, the price of misinterpreting the Sign or presenting a false find.

Krinsel held the plate aloft in both hands and closed her eyes.

“This one it is, Voice?” she asked quietly. The other Bolg crouched in the Fingers closed their eyes, listening intently, but they heard nothing but the noise of the smithy, the hammers ringing steadily, slowly.

After a moment she opened her eyes and shook her head stoically. “For the hoard this is. Good, Hagraith. Finder you are.” She turned to the tunnel that lay in the place of the Smallest Finger. “Give.”

One by one she examined the objects—a coin like the thousands of others in the hoard, the badly scarred lid to a box made of wood with a blue undertone to it, and finally a pot that had been brought all the way from Sorbold with the Sign inscribed inside. Each item Krinsel pronounced as genuine, and held high for the Voice to recognize.

As always, there was no answer.

Smoothly Krinsel rose and nodded to the empty tunnel in the place of the Pointing Finger that led down an endless corridor to the hoard. The Finders followed her, bearing their treasures to the place such things were housed.