Destiny: Child of the Sky

53

Gwylliam’s Vault, Ylorc

Rhapsody came into the ancient library Grunthor was certain for a moment that she was a ghost.

He resisted the impulse to sweep her into a wild, silly embrace, and instead let out a slow breath, pushed away the platter of ham he had been idly consuming, stood up from the table, and came gently over to her, stopping an arm’s length away.

“Well, Duchess, welcome ’ome. Was starting ta think you might ’ave forgotten the way back.”

She shook her head. Her face was thinner than it had been when she left so many months before, and there were deep circles under her eyes, but by far the most dramatic change was in the eyes themselves. They were clear, as they always had been, but with something guarded behind them. In her hand she carried a cowl of undyed wool like those the Filidic priests wore, discolored with a brown-red stain.

“I have blood from someone who might be the demon’s host, though more likely he is merely a thrall,” she said directly. “I’m sorry it has taken me so long to bring it to you.”

Achmed rose from the table next to the listening and speaking apparatus whose pipes wound throughout the mountains through which he had been announcing a round of new conscriptions. At her words his skin began to hum as it had when she first gave him the hematite vial; his heart began to pound. The deep and abiding racial anger within his blood began to burn with murderous fury, but he wasn’t sure whether it was his taste for the F’dor or his disbelief at how worn and tired she looked, partly on his account, when but a few days before she had seemed so healthy and content. Silently he cursed himself for leaving her to go to Bethany alone. “What happened at the wedding?” he demanded. “Tristan and Madeleine were married.”

“Don’t be annoying. What did you learn?”

Rhapsody handed him the cowl and turned to leave. “Nothing about the Bolg, or any plans to invade. Sorry to have failed in that mission. But it’s good to be home anyway. By the way, the dead bodies strung from the high crag of Griwen were charming decorations. Did you really have to position them so that they appeared as if they were buggering each other?”

The Sergeant and the king exchanged a glance. While Achmed was away Grunthor had caught the two Bolg soldiers pilfering the cull pile of weapons; they had been captured on their way to Sorbold.

“Yes, actually,” Grunthor said. “Coulda been an ’ole lot worse. Will be, if Oi catch any more of ’em. Get a real party goin’ up there on the crag.”

“Wonderful. Well, then, if we’re finished, I’m going back to Elysian. Come and get me when it’s time to go after the demon.” She started for the door.

“Wait a moment, there, missy,” Grunthor said severely. “Where do ya think you’re goin’? You’ve been gone all winter—and now you’re off again without so much as an ’owdedoo? Oi don’t think so.”

“I’m afraid I’m not particularly good mealtime company at this moment, Grunthor,” she answered, her eyes on the floor. “I don’t want to dampen the atmosphere and ruin your supper.”

“One more step, and you’re going ta be my supper,” Grunthor said. “And quite frankly, you’ve never been particularly good mealtime company, always insistin’ on prissy Lirin manners like not throwin’ bones on the floor and eatin’ with utensils. ’Ave a seat, miss. Oi want ta sit across the table and look at you, and decide whether or not Oi’m ’avin’ dessert.” He opened his arms. Rhapsody turned back and came into the enormous embrace. She stayed there a long time, listening to the thudding rhythm of Grunthor’s heart, a cadence she knew well from all the time she had spent sleeping on his chest in their endless journeys. The words of the saying that Gwylliam had once given to Merithyn the Explorer, and all the refugees of Serendair, to greet people they met in the new world, filled her ears suddenly.

Cyme we inne frið, from the grip of deaþ to lif inne ðis smylte land. Come we in peace, from the grip of death, to life in this fair land.

She shook her head at the strange timing of the thought. Like those who had left the Island, she, Grunthor, and Achmed had escaped the grip of death.

Whether or not this new land held life for them, or something worse than what they had left behind, she still did not know.

Finally the Sergeant released her, and she sat down in a chair on the other side of the table from him and Achmed, pulling the platter with the ham in front of her. She shuddered momentarily; the place at the table where she sat was the place in which they had once found Gwylliam’s mummified body, its empty eye sockets staring at the high ceiling overhead. She shook the thought away and turned her attention to the ham.

Achmed held up the scrap of fabric she had brought. “Whose is this?”

“Khaddyr’s.”

The Bolg king snorted. “I doubt it’s him. He’s too much of a pantywaist. But one never knows.”

“No, one never does. Would you care to explain what has happened to Ylorc since I’ve been away?” she inquired, pulling a knife from her boot and sawing a slice off the shank of meat. “Outside it’s desolate; I thought for a moment I had arrived at the wrong mountain range when I came to the abandoned outpost at Griwen. I was starting to worry until I got past the barricades and found myself in an active muster. There must be one hundred times as many guards marching through the corridors as there were when I left; I got stopped five times. Where did all those soldiers come from? What happened to the schools, the farming programs?”

“We’ve gone back to being monsters.”

“Why?”

Achmed leaned back and stared up at the sprawling fresco of the dragon on the ceiling overhead.

“Monsters are more likely to survive the attack that is in the offing.”

Rhapsody stopped chewing. “From where?”

The Bolg king shrugged. “I don’t know. But you’ve foreseen it yourself.” He shuffled through a pile of parchment papers and picked up an oilcloth scrap, which he tossed at her. “I received this from Llauron by avian messenger while you were gone.”

Rhapsody put down her knife and took the scrap, holding it up to the fire. Her brow furrowed as she read the tiny script. Finally she tossed the oilcloth back at Achmed.

“He was such a liar. I never said anything like that to him.”

The Bolg exchanged a look. “Was?” Achmed asked.

Rhapsody sat back in her chair and exhaled. “You haven’t gotten any news about Llauron from the mail caravan?”

“No. What happened?”

“It appears there was a challenge from Khaddyr under the succession laws of Buda Kai, an ancient fight to the death from which the victor emerges the Invoker. Llauron lost.”

“Interestingly phrased,” Achmed noted. “I noticed you didn’t use the words ‘he’s dead.’ What are you really saying?”

Rhapsody pushed the rest of her supper away and resheathed her knife.

“I’ve been in Elysian for a while, trying to recover from what I witnessed. Ashe came there yesterday and told me that it was a hoax; that Llauron knew all along that there would be a challenge, and was prepared for it. It was an opportunity to get what he wanted. He made it seem as if he had been killed—though I’m surprised his trick fooled Lark, because she certainly is aware of all the herbs he must have employed to adopt a deathlike state. It was horrific—I was his witness and herald, and so went directly to Lord Stephen, as the nearest head of state, and informed him that Llauron had been killed in a challenge, and Khaddyr was now the Invoker.” She coughed as sour bile filled her mouth at the memory.

Grunthor shook his head incredulously. “Why would ’e do that?”

“Because all along he has wanted to transcend his human form and move on to an elemental one, a dragon form, much like Ashe was able to do, at least partially, as a result of having a piece of a star sewn within his chest by the Lord and Lady Rowan. Just as Ashe was pulled back from the brink of death, and that innate dragon’s blood within his veins awakened to prominence, so Llauron wanted to pass from the impending mortality of his failing human body into elemental form, by bringing his wyrm blood alive. He needed me to do that for him by calling starfire down onto him. He also knew that I never would have agreed to that had I known he was alive. He’s been planning this all along, ever since we came to this place. He used me; I played right into his hands.”

Grunthor passed her a flagon and watched as she drank deeply. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then belched loudly in true Bolg fashion, earning smiles from both men. She sat back and crossed her arms over her abdomen.

“In addition, he thought that if he were to appear to die, the F’dor might be emboldened, and perhaps show itself. So I hate to disappoint you, but any festivities you might undertake upon receiving the news that he is dead are premature at the very least. I know you never liked him.”

“You’re correct on that point,” Achmed said, settling back with his own flagon. “But this would hardly be an event that warranted celebrating. Having another wyrm like Elynsynos out there in the ether somewhere is not a source of comfort for me. But I suspect that he may prove to be more an ally now than he would ever have been in human form.”

Rhapsody blinked. “Why?”

The Bolg king held the hematite vial up to the light of the library’s glowing crystal lanterns in his gloved hands. “With the human concerns of life stripped away now, he has only the things that matter the most to him left. What did you once tell me those two goals were?”

“Finding and killing the F’dor, and the reunification of the Cymrians, most likely establishing Ashe as their Lord.”

“Right. Finally his goals align with ours, at least partially. I could not care less who the Cymrians choose as their leader; Ashe is as good as any, I suspect.”

The shock on Rhapsody’s face caused both of her friends to laugh aloud. When she recovered her composure she sat forward.

“How long have I been gone?” she asked, amazed. “Are you saying you think the reunification of the Cymrians is a good idea?”

Achmed regarded her seriously. “It depends on what form it takes. The lands that Gwylliam and Anwyn once ruled will never be under one sovereign again; Sorbold and Ylorc have their own rulers now, and it would be a bloodbath if anyone tried to unseat them. Roland is splintered into provincial factions; Gwynwood and Sepulvarta are both in the throes of transition to new religious leaders, or will be once your friend the Patriarch spins off this mortal coil. The continent is in chaos, and that makes it a prime hunting ground and hiding place for the F’dor. The more alliances that can be made, the better, at least from my vantage point. If the old Cymrian loyalties can be resurrected, they might be deep enough, ancient enough, to supersede any new thrall that the demon might seek to wrap around a single ruler, a single army.” He drank from the flagon, then slammed it down on the table. “Besides, Ashe is such an impotent fool that he will be a mere figurehead, and the rest of us will be left to our own ways.”

“You assume the Cymrians would choose Ashe at the Council,” Rhapsody interjected. “There are any number of royal houses, including all the dukes of Roland, that have a claim as well, not to mention Gwylliam’s sons Anborn and Edwyn Griffyth, if the latter is still alive. Choosing a leader may be uglier than remaining divided.”

“For them, perhaps. As far as I’m concerned, the greatest enemy is the chaos.”

Rhapsody nodded. “Tyrian is the same. It was never part of the Cymrian realm, but the Lirin were allied with Anwyn and the First Fleet, to their eventual ruin. They are a fragmented kingdom—the people of Tyrian are divided from the Lirin of the sea, and of the cities, and even those in Manosse across the sea with whom they once had strong ties. I don’t know if you could bring them into a Cymrian alliance, but it certainly would be worthwhile to try and see if they will unite for their own sakes.” She stared off into the dark stacks, endless shelves of manuscripts, scrolls, and ivory tubes containing ancient writings.

Achmed stared at her. “So you are on your way back there, then?”

“Ya just got ’ome,” Grunthor protested.

Rhapsody sighed. “I don’t know, now. It was my plan to go and try to facilitate the reunification—I talked to Oelendra and Rial at length about it. But now that I am no longer a Namer, I don’t know that I have any skills to bring to bear, any credibility. I’m an outsider there, a half-breed. It’s probably best to let them work it out among themselves.”

“

“Oo says you’re no longer a Namer?”

She smiled sadly at Grunthor. “That’s how it works. I lied, and it was a lie with significant scope. I’ve injected falsehood into important lore, the lore of Llauron’s life and death. I’ve violated my oath. Anything I say from here on is only folklore, like anyone else can pass along. Without the powers I gain from Singing, from Naming, there is little help I can be to the Lirin. That was my credibility with them.”

“Hrekin,” Achmed spat. “You’re the Iliachenva’ar—one might think that would grant you a bit of credibility with them. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

-

I have a piece of lore for you; listen well: Truth is subjective. Llauron proved that to you. What exactly did you say to Stephen?”

Rhapsody thought for a moment. “ ‘I bring news. A challenge of Buda Kai was issued by the Filidic Tanist Khaddyr. The battle took place at the waxing moon, in accordance with the laws of the faith. Khaddyr was victorious. Llauron the Invoker is dead. Khaddyr bears the staff of the Invoker now.’”

Achmed slapped the table decisively. “There you have it. There is no falsehood in that. Llauron the Invoker certainly is dead. If you had instead used his full name, then perhaps it would have been a different story, but no one would dispute that what you said was accurate.” He leaned forward for emphasis. “And even if they did, you are missing the point. Your power as a Namer comes from your study, your training, not from your oath. Had your mentor not died before you were fully trained, he would have told you this. The oath you took is the way your profession protects the lore from misuse; it doesn’t give you power. You have had the power all along. It is only your sense of honor and duty that prevents you from misusing it.”

The two Bolg watched as she looked away, trying to absorb what he said, then exchanged a glance.

“Ya might as well test it out, miss,” Grunthor said after a moment. “Go see what you can do to help the Lirin. You’ve got lots of weapons in your arsenal for that particular fight.”

Finally Rhapsody looked up and met his eye. “So now you want me to leave? After I’ve finally come home?”

Achmed shrugged. “Stay, go, it’s entirely your choice. But I don’t think you are going to be terribly pleased with the way things are evolving here. I’ve had to suspend the school, the midwifery training, the agricultural programs for export. We are in battle preparations now. The entire realm has been conscripted, men and women both. The children and the old are serving as support troops. The forges are going day and night; this is probably what is was like in this place during the War, the same kind of frenzy that led to the destruction of the Dhracian Colony. I am more than happy to participate in a peaceful alliance, but I am also going to be ready for war on any front; your own vision told me I need to be. I will give you the Cymrian horn, and then it will be your decision, whether you want to call them or not. So stay if you want to, but understand that I will tolerate no deviation from the battle preparations, not even from you. On the surface, in the eyes of the world, we appear dead. It is my intention to keep up that appearance, not to make it factual.” He rose from his chair, then held the hematite vial up before his eyes.

“Thank you for this,” he said distantly. “Now excuse me. I am going to put it to use.” He stood slowly, still staring at the tiny stone tube of blood, and gestured toward Grunthor. “Bring me the horn.”

The words, as soon as they were spoken, filled Rhapsody’s ears, echoing softly. The words repeated, expanding, the voice deepening, changing dialect slightly to the one they spoke in the old land. Her eating knife fell from her hand, clattered against the table, falling farther to the stone floor.

Bring me the horn.

The words of one king, who stood now before her with the vial of blood in his hand, staring, dissipated like smoke on an unseen wind, replaced with the same words in a darker tone, one thick with pain and fear. The words of another king. A king who had died where she now sat.

Bring me the horn.

Rhapsody clutched the table, holding on as the voice took deeper root in her mind. Her jaw clenched, with great effort she shook her head slightly at Grunthor, who had risen from his seat in alarm, and closed her eyes, letting the words spin through her head and out through her mouth.

Bring—me the—horn! For gods’ sake—

Both Bolg started at the sound; it was a voice they did not recognize, a man’s voice, rasping in the throes of death. Pain contorted Rhapsody’s brows, and she gripped the table tighter.

Anborn! Bareth! Someone—oh, gods—

Achmed reached out quickly and seized Grunthor’s arm as the Sergeant stepped toward the Singer again. “Leave her,” he said tersely. The Bolg giant shook his hand off fiercely, but did not intervene.

No, Rhapsody choked. Damnation! Anwyn—damn you—oh, no—

“Oi don’ want to watch Gwylliam die through her,” Grunthor muttered. “Good riddance to ’im, and may maggots eat ’is soul.”

My—people, she whispered. Mygood people—please—help me. Bring me the Great Seal. I must—I must—

Even Achmed grew alarmed as Rhapsody rolled over onto her back, lying on the table, staring at the ceiling above her with glassy eyes, and began to gasp.

The Seal, she said in Gwylliam’s voice. Please—the Great Seal—and water, please, someone—give me water.

The Bolg looked at each other. Grunthor gripped the chair in front of him until the wooden back shattered; no matter how many times he witnessed these visions it was never something he could tolerate without becoming fiercely upset.

A glazed look of bewilderment came over Rhapsody’s face. This cannot be, she said sadly. She squinted, staring blindly at the domed firmament above her where the copper scales of the dragon fresco glittered among the crystal stars in the cobalt-blue ceiling, its silver claws extended.

Ah, Anwyn. So at last you have vanquished me, Gwylliam’s voice intoned softly, bemused. What irony your sisters, the Fates, employ, that I die here, beneath the cruel visage of the great copper wyrm I had gilt in this place to honor your mother. Even in my last moments I am forced to see you—to leave this life with the image of you in my eyes.

The color was leaving Rhapsody’s cheeks; her skin fading from the rosy blush of health to a deathlike ivory. As the tides of her breath became ragged, panic clutched at Achmed. He put down the vial and bolted around the table, followed a moment later by Grunthor, pulling her from the chair, patting her face with his left hand.

“Enough, Rhapsody,” he said quietly. “Enough—let the vision go.”

She looked past him, as if looking beyond the Veil of Hoen. Her lips were bloodless, pale and parched.

All for naught, she said dully, the light leaving her eyes. All my—great works, my great dreams. For—naught. Hague, you were right. You were right.

Achmed shook her gently, trying to break the vision’s hold, but it had taken root inside her. Behind him he could hear Grunthor breathing shallowly, trying to remain calm.

“It’s all right,” he said to the Sergeant. “It just has to run its course.”

“The end of that course is ’is death,” Grunthor snarled. “Come on, miss, snap to, now.”

I stare into the Vault of the Underworld, the cracked voice whispered. But it is a vault of my—own—making. The Great—Seal. Anwyn—forgive me; forgive me, my—people. The Seal—

“Rhapsody-”

Come we in—peace, from the—grip of—death—to life in this—fair—land—

With a great shuddering gasp Rhapsody convulsed in Achmed’s grasp, shaking violently. Then her body went slack, became still. She blinked, and her eyes focused. She looked up into the fear-contorted faces of her friends and exhaled deeply.

“I really have to find another hobby,” she said.

Achmed scowled, giving her a shake for good measure, then released her and picked up the vial. “What do you suppose all that nonsense was about the Great Seal?”

Rhapsody shook her head. “I don’t know—he was terrified, and that’s all I felt; the blood was leaving his body with every beat of his heart, and he could feel himself dying by bits. What an awful sensation. I hope I go quickly.” She thought of her request to the Lord Rowan, and his pledge to try and accommodate her; the memory calmed her. “I now have the Last Words of the Lord Cymrian.”

Achmed nodded. “Bound to be useful one day.”

Grunthor embraced her. “Ya sure you’re all right?” As she nodded, he glared at her severely. “Well, that ought ta tell you something about your status as a Namer. Kinda wish you were right and it was gone, but no, you’re undoubtedly going to continue to scare the hrekin out of me with these damnable fits you ’ave.”

“By ‘Great Seal’ do you think he meant the royal crest?” Rhapsody asked Achmed. “And which one would it be? There are two in their bedchambers—the coat of arms of the Seren royal house, the same one that was on all the coins back in the old world, or the one above Anwyn’s bed, the dragon on the edge of the world?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, heading for the door. “I have more important things to attend to. If you are heading to Tyrian, travel well. Send word when you are ready to call the Council—we’ll keep the horn here until you come back. If you are planning to stay, remain out of sight. I want anyone who looks on the mountain with the thought of taking it to see nothing but a carcass, a shell. If they are foolish enough to make the attempt, let them have the true pleasure of discovering what’s inside.” vp’eep within the mountain, the Bolg had been listening to the king’s announcement carefully, noting the changes in call-ups to the army and the other orders that he now imparted daily along with other military briefings.

When the orders, uttered in the Bolgish tongue, ceased, they went back to their tasks, ignoring the distant conversation that filtered down through the mountain corridors in the language of men, a tongue they didn’t understand. King Achmed had the power to make the mountain speak, but he didn’t always do it in their words. The Bolg knew nothing of the speaking tubes, the listening apparatus. They assumed that the king was the voice of the mountain, and its ears; he had established dominion over the earth beneath their feet, the air around them. Over time they had become accustomed to being ruled by a god.

And so most of the Bolg ceased to even hear the conversation between the king, the Sergeant-Major, and the First Woman as the sound blended into the cacophony of marching feet and ringing anvils.

Except for the Finders.

Each member of the secret society, each Bolg possessed of an inexplicable inner desire to collect the Willum belongings that bore the Sign, stood, transfixed, as the Voice began to speak for the first time in more generations than they could count. Like the forefathers they knew only in ancient tales, they felt a resonance in their souls, a command in their blood, primal and deep to the bone, painful in its insistence, unable to be denied or understood.

Bring me the horn.