Destiny: Child of the Sky

41

She returned a short while later, her arms filled with scented candles, her lute slung across her back. Constantin opened the door and caught some of the tapers as they fell from her overfull grasp. They had been a gift from the Lady Rowan the night before. Something to improve your dreams, she had said. Rhapsody had lit a few of the pastel-hued candles before falling asleep, and found that her dreams were sweet and free of nightmares, much as they had been when she slept in Ashe’s arms, or with Elynsynos in her cave. In addition, the dreams she had of home were intense in their clarity, and left her, upon waking, with the sensation of having actually visited with the family members of whom she had been dreaming. She had seen and embraced her father, all of her brothers, and many of her friends, but her mother had eluded her; she had wandered the fields of her homeland, searching for her in vain.

“There is already sufficient light in here from the moon,” Constantin said as she began setting the candles on the nightstand.

“These are not for light; they’re for your dreams,” Rhapsody said. She touched the tallest of the tapers and watched as it sparked to life. When she had lit -them all she turned to see the gladiator staring at her in the soft glow of the candlelight. “The Lady Rowan is called Yl Breudiwyr, the Keeper of Dreams, the Guardian of Sleep. Under her eye, the dreams you have in this realm can seem more real than they normally do. Back in the other world, they are only fragmented visions of what happens in this realm. Here it’s as if you are actually experiencing what you’re dreaming about.”

“So what are the candles for?”

Rhapsody smiled. “I don’t know what she makes them of, but they should help make the reunion an almost-tangible one.”

“Reunion?”

“Yes, didn’t you say you dream every night of your mother?”

Concern, and deeper emotions, filled Constantin’s face. “Among other things.”

“Well, these candles seem to hold the unpleasant dreams at bay, while bringing out the ones in which your heart speaks. If you will allow me, I’ll play my lute to lull you to sleep, and keep playing to help encourage the dream to stay for a while. I can make the candles burn longer than they normally would, and that would give you more time with her.

“My mentor used to say that memories were your first lore, the strongest you would ever know, because you wrote them yourself. Only you have this memory, the memory of your mother. Working together, we may be able to bring her here, if only for a few moments.”

The piercing glance was back. “You would do that for me?”

“Only if you want me to. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable in any way.”

Constantin smiled. “I’m honored,” he said in his deep voice. “And it isn’t me that is likely to be uncomfortable.”

The gladiator had been asleep for more than an hour; the candles were burning brightly, but still Rhapsody saw no sign that he was dreaming. He lay in the massive bed curled on his side, snoring intermittently.

Rhapsody’s fingers were beginning to cramp slightly; it had taken him a while to fall asleep. The smell of the dream-inducing herbs she had brought in, cinquefoil, agrimony, angelica, and star anise, was beginning to make her head swim. All in all she had been playing for more than two hours, and was beginning to wonder if this was a good time to stop.

She had her answer within a moment. Through the haze of the candlelight and the soft smoke in the room she thought she saw the door open. Standing in the doorway was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with gray-blond hair touched with white. Her face was handsome, and she had the same intense blue eyes as her son, who sat up in his sleep as she entered.

Rhapsody watched, entranced, as the dream-woman embraced Constantin, sitting beside him on the bed, and cradling him in her arms like a lost treasure. The gladiator wept in his sleep. Rhapsody continued the lutesong, playing softly. As the aroma from the candles reached her she struggled to keep from falling under its spell herself.

For a long time the two sat, speaking in a language she recognized as the tongue of Sorbold, though she could not make out what they said over the sound of the lute. She didn’t want to intrude in any way on their conversation, but was having trouble keeping her eyes open and her hands moving over the strings.

Finally the woman rose, kissed her smiling son on the cheek, and whispered final words in his ear. Then she left the room and Constantin lay down, falling back into his sleep, still smiling.

Rhapsody was bringing the song to an end when Constantin turned over, still in the throes of slumber. The door opened again; this time she saw a dream image of herself enter the room, closing it softly behind it. Rhapsody’s heart skipped a beat; it was all she could do to keep the song going.

In the darkness of his dream she was dressed in the same white robe they all wore in the realm of the Rowans, which the dream-image dropped to the floor as she stood beside his bed. Rhapsody saw the look in his eyes as he stared at the image, more real than it must usually have appeared to him owing to the candles, now short in their remaining life, and the song she had played to extend them.

Her stomach twisted as he drew the image of herself closer, resting his hands on her waist. She knew what was about to happen, and did not want to watch it; her skin burned as Constantin set about enacting his fantasy. Rhapsody would have closed her eyes, but felt compelled to observe one interesting thing about his actions: they were tender, gentle, without the brutal fervor she remembered from Sorbold. He was making love to what he thought was her, not ravaging her as he said he would have in the bedchamber of the gladiatorial arena. The knowledge that what she had viewed as a dangerous predator was capable of such mild and affectionate actions brought a lump to her throat; she had been right about his familiarity with kindness. She closed her eyes, leaving him to his privacy, and plucked the strings of her lute a little more firmly to cover any sounds that might issue forth.

When she was sure the dream was truly over, she went to the bed and stood over him, looking down at him tenderly in the shadowlight of the two remaining candles that burned low in their stands now. His immense size and the scars he bore belied his age; he was like her, seemingly young, but bent under the weight of the experience he carried. With his eyes closed and a content look on his face he seemed vulnerable.

You promised me a- night with you in my bed. Surely you will not go back on your word.

Rhapsody extinguished the candles and pulled back the covers slowly, as if in a trance. She crept into the bed and between the sheets, careful not to waken him, then slid through the rough fabric until she felt him beside her. She lowered her head gently onto his shoulder, and wrapped her arm around his waist, settling in next to him as she had with Grunthor when they traveled along the Root.

In his sleep Constantin pulled her closer and sighed; the sound went to Rhapsody’s heart. Kyle him, she thought. Life is what it is. She just wished it weren’t so damned sad sometimes.

She rose just before the sun did, timing her exit to coincide with its first rays touching the floor of his room. As the first shaft of light fell across the blankets on the bed, she rested her hands on his shoulders and leaned over him, as. she had seen the image of herself do in his dream. She gave him a long, warm kiss on the forehead, allowing her hair to brush against his chest, as he inhaled the scent of her skin with his first waking breath.

His eyes were just beginning to open when she took both his hands in hers and kissed them, too.

“Now the scales are balanced between us,” she said softly.

She walked to the chair where her white robe lay. She slipped it on, smiling at him as he watched in amazement; then she opened the door and left, closing it behind her softly.

Rhapsody slept beneath the warm glow of one of the Lady’s candles herself that night, a sweet pillar of rose-colored beeswax perfumed with lila-belle, a flower known for its calmative properties and ability to promote clarity. The spicy smoke seeped into her mind, clearing away much of the confusion, leaving her head aching from its effect. Pooling tufts of misty vapor gathered, then dispersed in her dreams as if blown away by a cold, cleansing wind.

In the haze of painful sleep Rhapsody opened her eyes. Standing before her was the Lord Rowan, garbed in forest green, leaning upon a staff of winter wood.

Do you understand now what you are fighting for? The words filled her mind, though they did not fall from his lips.

Her answer came like a song she didn’t remember but had known once, long ago.

Life itself, she replied. The F’dor hate life, seek to snuff it out. We are fighting for Life itself.

Tes, and more. The Lord Rowan began to walk away into the misty forest of her dream, then turned for a moment and looked back at her. You are fighting for the Afterlife as well.

I don’t understand.

The battle that is being waged is not just for this life, but for the Afterlife. There is Life and there is Void. Void is the enemy of Life, and will swallow it into oblivion if it can. Life is strong, but Void grows stronger.

The Lord Rowan faded into the mist, leaving only his words hanging in the foggy air of her dream.

In this you must not fail.