Destiny: Child of the Sky

70

With the knowledge that Tyrian was in good hands, Rhapsody headed northeast on her way to the Bolglands. The earth around her was beginning to stretch in the relief of the thaw that was coming, tufts of frozen grass and ground emerging here and there. The trees of the forests and the fields were starting to send forth tiny precursor buds heralding the new leaves that would arrive with spring, and the hardiest early snowdrops were blooming everywhere.

Rhapsody took in the sights with pensive eyes. She endeavored to make note of each of the things she had always found beautiful, cataloguing the memory of them in the knowledge that she might never see them again.

Seeing them now was not the same as appreciating them as she once had; it was a joyless time.

Her abdomen, though still flat and lithe, cramped more each day, and what food she could occasionally force down often refused to stay there. In addition, her nightmares had grown violent and more intense than ever; visions of the benison laughing as the Rakshas violated her over and over again, speaking in Ashe’s voice, then curling up inside her to await his abhorrent rebirth. Even the tamer dreams, images of Ashe and their time together, their gentle, reassuring love, would always end in his transformation into the construct of the F’dor.

Try as she might, she could not seem to shake the incubus that had attached itself to her. As a result, she had taken to sleeping only as long as she needed to sustain her life. She became haggard in appearance and in speech, occasionally unable to form coherent sentences or complete simple thoughts. Rial had grown alarmed and tried to keep her from going alone; Oelendra had volunteered to travel with her, but she had refused them both, saying only that she would sleep long and well soon.

Before she left she had made sure to say goodbye to the people in Tyrian that she loved, Sylvia and the pages in the palace, Rial, the townsfolk of Tyrian City, the soldiers and the Lirin children, as well as her adopted grandchildren, and most especially Oelendra. Her mentor refrained from all well-meaning advice and had stayed with her in silence or trivial conversation, watching the fire, sitting under the stars. The elderly warrior had held her hand and had sung Rhapsody’s devotions for her when her voice would not come. On the night before she left, Rhapsody had opened the door of her chambers in Newydd Dda to find the ancient woman standing there, clutching a package. She had placed it hurriedly into Rhapsody’s hands, refusing the invitation to come in.

“I want you to have this, darling,” she said in response to Rhapsody’s questioning look. “It was Pendaris’s first gift to me, and there is more love in it than you can imagine. I hope it will bring you as much comfort as it did me. I will see you at the Council.” Rhapsody opened her mouth to protest, but before the words formed on her lips, Oelendra was gone.

Rhapsody went to the balcony of her room and watched as the warrior walked away, her broad shoulders bent as if carrying a great weight. She took the package to her bed and opened it. Inside was the red silk robe with the embroidered image of a dragon that Oelendra had left for her the first night she had stayed in the warrior’s home. Her stomach turned; the image on it reminded her of Ashe. She hurriedly packed it up and placed it carefully out of sight in her satchel.

Anborn had come to see her, and had provided much useful information about the various Cymrian Houses and their leaders, as well as refreshing and brutally honest insight into the expected hostilities and bad blood between them. Rhapsody found him easy to talk to, as always. When he left he had taken her comfortably in his arms and warmly kissed her goodbye, then pulled back and regarded her with amusement.

-

“I suppose you are going to make me wait until after we are wed before going to bed with me.”

“Of course,” she had answered breezily. “It’s the only honorable thing for me to do. Otherwise, you might fear I was taking advantage of you, having my way with you to leave you, despondent and brokenhearted, at the altar. I know you would be consumed with worry.” His laughter had rung in her ears long after he had taken his leave that night.

Now, as she rode over the fields of Avonderre and western Navarne, she drove the thoughts of the people she cared about from her mind. The F’dor was dead, but she was now more afraid than ever.

Finally, after a week of hard riding, she found herself in the right place at sunset, in the secluded glade where she had come a year before, walking slowly around a quiet lake at the base of the hillside. When she could see the cave she felt the wind pick up, blowing her hair lovingly around her.

“Do you want to see me?” she whispered.

“I always want to see my friend,” came the multitone voice, warm and windy. “Come in, Pretty.”

“I may be with child, and if I am, it is demon-spawn,” she whispered again in a tone so low that no one save the dragon could hear her. It was something she had given voice to only once before, and she choked on the words, her eyes filling with tears.

“Do not cry, Pretty,” the harmonious voice answered. “I love you.”

Oelendra winced at the look on Ashe’s face; he had obviously been to the palace and had been turned away. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said gently, opening the door of her cottage wider to allow him entrance. “She’s gone. Do come in and rest awhile.”

Ashe looked away for a moment. “No, thank you, Oelendra, I have to find her. Please tell me where she went so I can be on my way.”

“Come in,” Oelendra said firmly, in the same voice she had used to coerce Rhapsody’s secret out of her. “I have dot mwl on the fire; it’s a beverage Rhapsody has loved since childhood. Perhaps it will ease your heart a little as well.”

Ashe sighed reluctantly and removed his hooded cape, then followed her into the house. He sat in the willow rocker before the fire as Oelendra ladled him out a mug of the steaming drink.

“You must go to the coast, Gwydion,” she said as she handed him the dol mwl. “The Second Fleet will be arriving soon in response to the horn of the Council. It is your responsibility as head of the House of Newland to greet them and lead them into the Moot.”

Ashe’s startlingly blue eyes opened wide in the hot vapor that rose from the mug. “She’s calling the Council?”

“Aye.” Oelendra studied his face. “Is that disturbing to you?”

He took a deep drink, letting the soft flavor fill his mouth, then warm his throat as he swallowed. “Only a little.”

“Why?”

Ashe looked into the fire. It was burning steadily, without an opinion, so unlike the way it did when Rhapsody was nearby. “Because I expect the Council will change a great many things about her life, about our lives. All she wants more than anything in the world is to find a goat hut in the forest and live out her days in peace. If I could grant her anything, it would be that.

“But it will never happen now. Once the Cymrians see her they will idolize her. She will be sought after, harassed endlessly. I don’t really want to share her with them, Oelendra; they don’t deserve her any more than I do. For all I know I will be at the end of the line for her attention and her love.”

Oelendra nodded knowingly. “It must be very difficult for you now.”

“Difficult?” His laugh was almost a bark. “I’m afraid that doesn’t even begin to describe it. Can you imagine what it is like being married to someone like her, and she doesn’t even know it? She hates me, Oelendra.” His tone was more frightened than bitter.

“No, she doesn’t, Gwydion. She loves you. She is under great pressure and false assumptions.”

Ashe nodded and took another sip, hoping it would loosen the choking knot in his throat. “It probably doesn’t help that she is being pursued mercilessly by every idiot in the world, slathering over her, locking their horns like stags in rut.”

“Undoubtedly not,” Oelendra said gravely. “Are you behaving like one of them?”

Ashe set the mug down with a graceless thump. “Of course; I never denied I was an idiot. So she has gone back to Ylorc; bloody hrekin, I just came from there. Well, at least I found all the shortcuts so the way back will be faster.”

“Gwydion, listen to me,” Oelendra said sternly. “Do not go to Ylorc; go to the coast. She doesn’t want to see you now; she won’t see you now. Wait until after the Council is over; then everything will have been sorted out, and you’ll know what you’re dealing with.”

Ashe stood up. “You expect me to wait for months to see my own wife? To delay telling her that I love her, only her, and always have? Oelendra, I don’t think you understand. I hid from the world for twenty years, believing that the next moment held my death and damnation; it was indescribable torture. But I would gladly go back to that state in a heartbeat rather than remain in the torment I am in now. By the time she finally consents to see me she’ll have wed Anborn, or Achmed, gods forbid, or have been stolen away by one of her suitors against her will—”

“I doubt that,” Oelendra interjected.

He was already at the coat peg, retrieving his cloak. “Perhaps not; I don’t care. I can’t let this go on any longer. I could carry this secret the rest of my life if I thought that the alternative was better, but it’s not. She’s going to find out someday what we promised to each other. If she has married another in that time, it will kill her; it will be like Llauron all over again, only worse.”

The ancient warrior sighed. “Now you know why she hates lies so much, Gwydion. I will offer my advice to you once more, and it is yours to ignore if you choose: Forbear. Wait a little while longer. What’s a few months to a man who is virtually immortal?”

“Too much to stand, that’s what,” Ashe replied as he opened the door. “Thank you, Oelendra. I’ll give her your love.” He bowed politely and took his leave, closing the door quietly behind him.

Oelendra sighed sadly at the closed door. “You won’t even get to give her yours, I’m afraid.”

In the quiet of dreams they met in a misty place, a place of unreality, Rhapsody and the great dragon Elynsynos. All sound, all vibration, any signature of the world around them had been muted into silence, stilled by the wyrm matriarch’s power over the elements. Rhapsody could barely see for all the steaming clouds of white, could hardly discern the great luminous eyes, their prismatic brilliance looking back at her through the hazy magic. She realized dimly that she was looking through the translucence of her own eyelids, seeing beyond her own tortured nightmares into the safe place the dragon had made for her between the dream world and the real one. And in that place she told the dragon her greatest worry.

What if I fain

The warm, iridescent eyes of the wyrm disappeared in an extended blink.

You may.

There was no fear, no panic in Rhapsody’s heart at the answer; it was as if the dragon had removed all emotion in this ethereal place as well, leaving only words as they would be on a written page, not resonating within her heart.

I have lived through the death of one world. I do not wish to witness such a thing again.

I know. Through the haze the face of the dragon moved away, becoming more distant in the mist.

Rhapsody tried to look past the rolling clouds of vapor, straining to see through her closed eyelids, but only the faintest outline of the dragon remained.

Failure could bring about the end of Time, she whispered wordlessly. I cannot even contemplate it.

The warmth in the faraway eyes radiated through the mist. You are at the place where the beginning of Time had its ending. Just a i tturely the ending of Time will have its beginning here, M well. You cannot change it, though you may delay its coming.

Why? Why me? Why was this onerous responsibility given to me?

The filmy outline of the dragon vanished, leaving only a whisper of her voice in the mist.

Because you are not alone.

Rhapsody slept deeply and dreamlessly in the crook of Elynsynos’s arm that night. She had awakened many hours later, refreshed but still distressed. The great wyrm had regarded her with sympathy and concern.

“There is something evil growing within you, Pretty,” she said seriously, fixing her multicolored gaze on Rhapsody’s tearstained face. “Right here.” The claw gently brushed her abdomen. “It feels wrong, unnatural, but that is all I can tell.”

Rhapsody nodded. “I know.” She struggled to stand up. “I’ll go now.”

The dragon shook her head, causing clouds of sand to spin around the cave, stinging Rhapsody’s sore eyes. “No; stay with me. Keep me company. What grows within you does not matter. Whatever must be done, I will help you.”

The Singer smiled. “I know, I know you will. You already have. I haven’t had as much sleep in weeks as I had last night; thank you.”

“It is strange to have a growing thing that is not of your own kind taking root inside you,” Elynsynos said, pulling Rhapsody into the crook of her arm again. “When I carried Merithyn’s children, it was a sad time for me. The body I was trapped in was so small, like yours, and they moved like moles within the earth, poking and kicking me, struggling to get out. It was horrible. I was so lonely, and I waited and watched each day, wishing he was here with me. He never came back, Pretty; he never knew he had made me with child.”

Rhapsody stroked the scaly forearm. “It must have been awful. I’m so sorry, Elynsynos. I wish I could have been there for you. The Lirin have a song that they sing to women in the throes of childbirth to ease their pain.” Her eyes clouded over at the memory of Aria’s birth; she shook her head to drive the ghastly image out of her mind. The irony of how her own fate was now tied up with that experience was too much to bear.

“But who will sing for you, Pretty?”

She forced back the tears that struggled to break free. “No one,” she said softly. “No one will.”

“That is why it is better to mate with a dragon,” Elynsynos said sensibly. “Then perhaps you can just lay eggs, like normal beasts do. It hurts a little more when they come out, but it is over much more quickly.” Rhapsody laughed in spite of herself.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Actually, if I live through this, I plan to. I’ve chosen a dragon for a mate, and he has agreed.” Anborn’s face swam before her rapidly drying eyes.

The iridescent eyes twinkled. “Good. Then perhaps I will have children to play with again that are of my own bloodline.”

“Perhaps.” Rhapsody looked away. She did not tell the dragon about her arrangement with Achmed.

Rhapsody stayed several days with Elynsynos, sleeping peacefully, growing strong again in the magical lair. She sang her the ocean songs the sea Lirin had taught her, getting drenched by the dragon’s reminiscent tears. She also showed her the crown. Elynsynos was fascinated with the diadem, endeavoring to catch the whirling stars that spun around Rhapsody’s head, entranced like an infant captivated by an especially shiny toy.

The dragon was delighted that she was about to call the Cymrian Council, and spent long hours telling her stories about the early days of the First Fleet. She had taken great pride in the accomplishments of the Cymrians in those times, despite mourning her loss of Merithyn, whom she spoke of often.

Rhapsody smiled each time Elynsynos repeated the same story. Merithyn and Elynsynos’s time as lovers had been brief, and the dragon’s lifetime long, so there were only so many tales to tell, each kept like a cherished treasure. When the prismatic eyes grew soft in memory, Rhapsody thought back to Anborn’s cynical comments about his grandparents; obviously he had not gotten to know Elynsynos at all. Whatever else she felt toward anything, it was impossible to miss the depth of the love the dragon had felt for her lost sailor. Its poignancy made Rhapsody’s heart ache.

The brimstone heat from the dragon’s breath stirred her memory, and an image arose in her mind of another night, long ago, in the shadows of a crackling campfire.

So that’s why I say you may have a problem, Ashe had said, hidden within the misty fold of his cloak, watching her intently from across the fire. If you are a later-generation Cymrian, you will be extraordinarily long-lived, and you will undoubtedly face what others did: the prospect of watching those you love grow old and die in what seems like a brief moment in your life. And if you are a First Generation Cymrian, it will be even worse, because unless you are killed outright you will never die. Imagine losing people over and over, your lovers, your spouse, your children—

Stop it.

As Ashe’s words about immortality rang in her ears; Rhapsody wondered if she herself would be destined to endlessly relive the same few happy moments she had with him as well. Then she remembered the demon’s words.

You will be a wonderful mother, Rhapsody, at least while the child is in your womb. It’s a shame that you won’t live through the delivery.

Perhaps a lonely immortality was not so much of a threat after all.

I doubt I will even live to see the end of what is coming now, let alone forever.

Achmed’s voice spoke to her in the darkness of her memory.

He’s damned, like the polluted Earth. She hurtles through the ether, bound even the gods don’t know where, carrying inside, deep in her heart, the first and last Sleeping Child, the burden whose birth may be its mother’s ending.

As am I, she thought morosely.

When finally Rhapsody left the lair of the lost sea to head off on her last mission to unite the people of this new land, Elynsynos wept.

After several weeks of furious, mindless travel, the rising sun found Rhapsody sitting on the crest of the cwm. The Great Moot of the Cymrian Council had once been a glacial lake, formed by the freezing and thawing of ice on the mountain faces of the Teeth when they were young. The glacier had carved the Bowl of the Moot as a vessel for the melting tears of the great wall of moving ice. As the land warmed, the lake had sunk into the earth or sent its water skyward, dried by the sun, leaving the amphitheater hewn into the mountainside. It was a place of deep power, and Rhapsody could feel it now as she sat on its brow, looking around the Bowl, watching the dawn fill the Moot with rosy light.

Spring had come while she was in the dragon’s lair; she had emerged to find the snow all but gone, the trees in the advent of full bud. The desolate dust that was the floor of the Bowl in the height of summer was now green and lush, with new spring grass forming a verdant carpet along the floor and up into the terraced sides. It waited, having been deserted for centuries, as if in anticipation.

When the intense gold light of the top slice of the sun crested the horizon Rhapsody glanced behind her, having felt shadows fall on her shoulders. It was the other two-thirds of the Three; they had remembered to come.

They stood in silence behind her, looking around. She remained where she sat, watching the morning light come to the strange outcroppings of rocks that formed the natural features of the Moot. Gwylliam’s manuscripts had mentioned the two most significant characteristics. The first was the Speaker’s Rise, a towering pulpit sculpted from the limestone by what must have been a twisted blanket of ice millions of years before. As a result of the inconsistent erosion it had a curving natural pathway that spiraled to the top where a speaker could stand erect and be seen by the entire assemblage. In addition, that speaker could be heard clearly all around the Moot, owing to the intrinsic acoustics of the place.

The second attribute was known as the Summoner’s Ledge. It was a long, wide horizontal sheet of slate, flat but for a vertical rock outcropping that resembled a pulpit, balanced between two great slabs of rock, at the summit of the tallest of the bordering hills around the Bowl. From this vantage point someone could see all of the vast Orlandan plain stretching out at his feet, as well as the entirety of the Bowl, with the shadow of the Teeth at his back. It was the best possible point at which to sound a call that would echo over the land and beyond, vibrating within the earth itself, to reach the ears of those whose past and future was tied to the horn. Rhapsody shuddered; it was a long climb up to the unstable-looking place, and a longer fall down from it.

The Bowl itself was immense, larger than the gambling complex in Sorbold. What nature had not sculpted into the geologic bowl, the Cymrians had, although so many centuries had passed since it had been used as a gathering place that it was difficult to discern what was the work of natural forces and what was the work of man. A series of rising ledges had been hewn into the earth around the circumference of the Bowl, following the glacier’s lines, to allow seating for tens of thousands. Enormous wedges had been cut from some areas of the Bowl’s side to give access and egress from the arena. Though overgrown and forgotten by all but Time, it was the perfect place for a convocation. The air within it hung heavy with moisture and foreboding.

“Well? Are ya ready, Duchess?” The low rumble of the Sergeant’s voice rent the air and shattered the heavy silence.

“I suppose so,” she said, looking east to where the bottom rim of the sun was just clearing the mountain.

“That’s inspiring,” said Achmed with a wry smile. “You’re acting as the Summoner, and you’re not even certain you want to do it? Why are we bothering?”

“Because it’s time,” said Rhapsody with a long sigh as she rose. “Roland is a land ripe for war, as is Sorbold. The Lirin are united, but there is no one leader who can guarantee a treaty with them on behalf of the human realms. The only place not on the verge of bloodshed is Ylorc.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Oi think it’s sad,” said Grunthor with a melancholy tone in his voice. “Oi finally got myself an army to be proud of, and no one wants to come out and play.”

Rhapsody patted his shoulder. “Well, think of it this way, Grunthor; if the Cymrians do select a Lord and Lady, and do as good a job of it as they did before, you should have lots of opportunity for armed conflict, and with a bigger, more powerful opponent; you’ll have everyone in Roland, Sorbold, Tyrian, and possibly the Nonaligned States as well to play with.”

“Oh, goody.”

“Well, let’s begin the show,” Achmed said. He handed Rhapsody the slim box that contained the Cymrian horn.

Rhapsody’s eyes twinkled in the clear morning light. “Now, that would be Doctor Achmed’s Traveling Snake Show, if I’m not mistaken.” She cast a glance at Grunthor; it was a reference he had made on the Root long ago. The giant Bolg grinned.

She opened the box and carefully took out the horn, then began the slow, careful climb to the top of the Summoner’s Ledge, its stone pulpit casting a long shadow in the morning light.

Achmed and Grunthor followed her up, and the Three stood in awe for a moment, mesmerized by the view from the Ledge. From the observatory at the top peak of the Teeth the world had appeared at their feet; now, as they stood on the high rim of the Bowl, it still stretched out below them, but it was impossible to feel distanced from it, as one did in the mountains. As far as the eye could see a fertile panorama swept out before them, the landscape turning from brown to chartreuse almost before their eyes. It was a stunning sight, and to Rhapsody a humbling one. A high wind blew across the plain below them and over the Ledge around them; it was a cleansing wind, strong and cold, carrying with it a scent of hope and destiny. She closed her eyes, raised the horn to her lips, and sounded it.

A silver blast, like a bugle call but richer, shattered the air and the stillness of the morning. It reverberated off the Teeth and the hills below, rolling in a wave of music over the land, spreading like the ripples in a pond. Rhapsody could feel the music ringing through her, forming a bond from her feet through the stone she stood on, which in turn echoed through the Bowl itself.

Suddenly she understood why she needed to remain within Canrif. The Summoner was the instrument through which the horn tapped into the power of the Moot. It was much like the call she had sent on the wind to Ashe long ago, the summons that brought him to Elysian, to her. The horn issued a compelling invitation, tied to the person who winded it. The Summoner was the directional point, much as the gazebo in Elysian had been. By the Summoner’s remaining within the range of the Bowl the vibration was sustained, and the call held constant until all the Cymrians had arrived, an invisible thread they could follow to find Canrif again, wrapped inexorably around each of their hearts.

Rhapsody closed her eyes. She was tied to the call, and her mind followed it as it spread through the earth and the air, ringing across the Orlandan Plateau and into the hilly steppes and deserts of Sorbold. It sang through the current of the Tar’afel and into the forests of Gwynwood and Tyrian, washing over the sea and crashing with the ocean waves on the shores of Manosse, a thousand leagues away.

It spread like the touch of the king, back toward every soul that had made promise on that horn in the old land, before terrible voyages, before wandering in the wilderness, before the new empire, before death and war. The great horn sounded only at first on its own glory in the air; then it seemed to fade, as any blast will. But Rhapsody was carried at the beginning of its wave, and she heard it take new shapes, possess what the ancient magic must have deemed its own.

It moved from hand to hand in the spark of coins, in the drum of ax against tree, in the mule driver’s call and snap of the whip. It rumbled through messengers’ hoofbeats and whispered in hunters’ arrows. It inhabited the creak of saddle and mast and axle, the grunt of livestock, the wheedle of merchants, the ring of smithies and whistle of sails, and carried the call of the builder king back to each drop of blood sworn in fealty to his exodus and venture more than a thousand years before. The call rolled and flew, reached over the entire conquered continent to drag and beckon fulfillment of the oath.

Every brick laid in his service, every nail driven, every artifact and monument echoed and hummed the call, so that when night fell, the imperative silence would make everything still, wolves, water, wind. The summons of Gwylliam’s horn drove away the exhaustion of age-frozen survivors of those early voyages. Tired eyes suddenly shone their way out of dementia; breath of purpose entered the breasts of resigned patriarchs; ancient, stiffened fingers flexed for the feel of ancient swords.

Those who had made the vow originally felt rather than heard it, the king’s presence. They stood first, interrupted their meals, their counsels, their baths. As if his scent and genius had entered, the sensation passed from father to son like a gesture, in a moment of silence to recall, reclaim the lost memory. It took the huge quietude to determine that they had been called to a pilgrimage.

Those who had no blood ties to the Cymrians were at a loss, wondering what had transpired to make the Earth, for one brief moment, stop in its path…

While Rhapsody’s vision traveled at the front of the wave of sound, singing from goat bells, rasping in the purl of hoe pulling earth, Achmed was being driven mad feeling the air reconstructed around him. The thready curtains of wind he routinely saw and passed through thickened into ethereal kelp, entangling, pulling, adhering, leaving him short of breath, swimming where he should have been walking. The sound was not just a ripple, but a palpability, drawing in, as if the Moot had become a huge maw, a wyrm anglerfish draw ing every particle in. Rhapsody was the luminescent center, the bait, and he reeled, unsteady, plankton-sized and drifting beneath the call of the Great Seal that reached perhaps beyond where the daylight touched.

Grunthor too felt rather than heard the sound, but he did not react to the airborne pulse of the call. He followed the echo through the earth. Like a tremor clawing its way from a wrenching fault, it crawled and twisted across the plains, a concentric serpent buried and on fire. It raged and pounded, blaring through the mountain behind them, stentorian and shrieking, as if every voice, every utterance had been peeled from the cave walls and released into the air again, but still with nowhere to go.

Rhapsody looked lost and distant; Achmed crouched, leaning against the stone of the platform, and Grunthor stood with his palms over his ears, his eyes shut tight, when the silence arrived. As disturbing and insistent as the shout of the horn had been, its wait for response pinched harder. It turned Achmed’s vision of water to ice.

Across the sea at the farthest twilight soundrise of the call, Rhapsody felt the few hundreds of remaining Cymrians who had actually laid hands and oaths on the Great Seal stop breathing, stop living, as though they had been moving into the everyday futures of their lives when an invisible leash from their past had pulled them up short. Some few actually perished, from fear, or relief. The rest took up breathing again, but the conversations that had been interrupted would never resume. Each of the First Generation turned as a body to acknowledge the call and their debt. In a thousand years, this was only the second time they had heard it.

Those original Cymrians received the call first, but sons listening to fathers, daughters tending to mothers, felt their answer to the elders’ moment of pause only momentarily later, in the time of a short intake of breath. Each of fifty generations felt it in their turn, as insistent as the need to slake thirst, satisfy hunger, make water, sleep, or yield to death. The straighter, purer family lines tasted the journey to come, moved in unison to prepare, and knew what might lie at the end. Some had even been told that the call might come, of how it had come to terror and ruin before, but how they were destined to answer it regardless, since what they had been offered for the ancient pledge was the only chance at life.

Bastard lines, deeply mixed genealogies, individuals with no lore and less concern about their heritage were compelled no less deeply. The first embers in the blood itched and scored vessel walls, struck like cloud-soft lightning, chewed delay and resolve so that a matter of hours or days perhaps stood between the unknowing descendant and his journey. All across the continent, men, women and children began the pilgrimage, thralls to a dead tyrant.

The youngest of all the Cymrian lines heard the call last. Being short-lived, most of them were a full fifty generations removed, but they possessed two advantages. The first was culture; nomads and scavengers by nature, they felt little resistance to the impulse to follow the call. The second was proximity; they already inhabited the catacombs beneath the Teeth.

Cymrian heritage was the dire and wonderful secret of the Finders. They had descended from those captured by the Bolg in the last days of Gwylliam’s reign, their longevity, their blue eyes all historic traces of the blood of the unfortunate victims who could not get out of Canrif in time when the Bolg overran the mountain.

Deep within the tunnels near the Hand, or at the forges, the hospice, the caves in which they dwelt, the Finders felt the call like silver lightning shock through their bones. To a one the bastard children of the Cymrian line put away tools or food, turned away from tasks, and headed out into the sunlight of the foothills, blind fish, squinting and shading their eyes.

Hours after she had sounded the clarion, had opened the Great Seal, Rhapsody was still in the trance of following the call. Achmed had recovered his breath and bearings. He was free from the pull of the horn, but sensitive enough to its power that the vacuum it created to summon and guide the Cymrians made his ears pop.

Grunthor had been surprised by the volume and breadth of the instrument, but felt little disturbance until the summoned Cymrians began to answer. So deep was the debt, so overweening the oath, that even the faithful dead wished to comply. All around him, across and within the plain, throughout the mountain, scratched the hum and shiver of bones shifting in the earth. In the tremendous, immobile, windless hush, the giant’s sense of the earth around him stretched like the view of a vast silent sea, where a single fin stands like a mast above the surface. Grunthor’s awareness was teeming, crawling with myriad tiny ripples of the scrape of marrowless bones against the rags of their death shrouds and interments in mass graves, or picked driftwood-clean under dustings of sand and sod. For the first time he understood the scope of the slaughter that had ensured the Cymrian legacy. As his sense gave way to his real vision of stillness over the earth, resurrection seemingly beyond the power of this artifact, he did catch some movement on the crags out of the corner of his eye. He stared east into the blinding morning light.

“

“Ey, thanks a lot, Yer Ladyship; you’ve given me an infernal ’eadache.”

Rhapsody looked fondly at him as the rising sun touched his head, making him glow with radiant light like a mythic Firbolg god. “Sorry, Grunthor. It’ll go away soon.”

“

“Ow soon?”

She glanced around as the image of the distant shores of Manosse faded from her mind, followed by the seacoast of Avonderre and the Nonaligned States, then Tyrian and Gwynwood, the Orlandan Plateau and Sorbold, finally leaving her with just the vast panoramic view at her feet. She shrugged and set the horn on the stone pulpit.

“My best guess? About two months.”