Prophecy: Child of Earth

12

The darkness in the underground series of tunnels was so complete that it was difficult to see the Grandmother as she led them even deeper into the earth. Occasionally Grunthor could make out a whisper of her robe or the crackle of the ground beneath her bare feet, but by and large her passage through the tunnel was silent and all but invisible in the dwindling light of their torch.

The failing torchlight illuminated little of the tunnel walls, but what they could see caused Achmed and Grunthor to wish they were traveling more slowly with an opportunity to examine them. Unlike the newly hewn earthen walls of Grunthor’s burrowing passages, these corridors had been mined centuries before and bore the hallmarks of deliberate architectural planning, though very different from that of the Cymrians. They were smooth and even, carved with the vestiges of the ancient reliefs that had once adorned them, all marred with a heavy layer of dank soot and the smears of fire ash, the byproduct of forges where iron was smelted. However long it had been since they were despoiled, the odor still remained, now a permanent part of the stone passageways and the air they held within them.

After a short distance the tunnel opened before them into an immense cavern. The basalt ceiling was almost as tall as that of the Loritorium, hewn from the Earth itself and polished. Over the opening to a chamber deeper within the cavern was an immense arch on which words were inscribed. The letters, each at least as tall as a man, were in no alphabet that either of the Firbolg men recognized. The walls of the cavern were thick with ancient smoke and stained with the black streaks of soot from the fires of a forge or smithy. From this large central cavern tunnels ran in all directions.

The Grandmother stopped before the chamber and pointed a long bony ringer at the massive inscription in the arch above it. “Let that which sleeps within the Earth rest undisturbed; its awakening heralds eternal night,” she translated. Again her speech came forth wordlessly in two different voices. Grunthor and Achmed shuddered inwardly with the memory of their walk along the Root that ran the length of the Axis Mundi. They had seen something that slept deep within the bowels of the Earth for themselves. Neither disagreed with the words of the inscription.

The Grandmother folded her hands again and eyed them seriously. “This place was known in its time as the Colony,” she said in her hissing, clicking language without words. “Before the end it was a city-state of Dhracians. Extinguish your torch. I will show you the reason my ancestors built the Colony in this place.”

Achmed tossed the remains of the torch to the ground and stamped out its light. A plume of smoke rose in the cavern, to dissipate a moment later. The Grandmother turned and walked away into the chamber beyond the words of warning. The men followed her through the archway into the deepening dark ness.

It took Achmed’s sensitive eyes a round moment to adjust to the darkness within the chamber, thick and palpable as liquid night. Just as they did the Grandmother struck something against the wall, sparking a tiny burst of light. Achmed saw that it was a spore like the ones they had used in their travels along the Root, a fungus that gave off light when friction was applied to it. The small light threw his focus off again, and it took another moment to adapt once more.

The elderly Dhracian woman climbed up a set of steps to an earthen slab and reached high above her head, then moved away as the light from the spore began to expand. Achmed and Grunthor could see after a minute that she had set it into a small lantern, a globe of muted light that hung from the ceiling of the chamber. With the aid of its glow they were able finally to see the room’s dimensions.

It was three-sided, with a passageway secured by massive iron doors that led back to the cavern from which they had come. The polished walls tapered up in to a curved triangular point from which the globe was suspended on a long, tarnished chain. The walls of the chamber were utterly without ornamentation.

Beneath the globe was a large obsidian catafalque, a platform on which a coffin might rest. In the shadows cast by the globe it did in fact appear that a body was laid out on the catafalque as if it was lying in state. Achmed and Grunthor drew nearer.

The sleeper was like none they had ever seen before. While her body was as tall as that of a full-grown human, her face was that of a child, her skin cold and polished gray, as if she were sculpted from stone. She would have, in fact, appeared to be a statue but for the measured tides of her breath.

Below the surface of filmy skin her flesh was darker, in muted hues of brown and green, purple and dark red, twisted together like thin strands of colored clay. Her features were at once coarse and smooth, as if her face had been carved with blunt tools, then polished carefully over a lifetime. Beneath her indelicate forehead were eyebrows and lashes that appeared formed from blades of dry grass, matching her long, grainy hair. In the dim light the tresses resembled wheat or bleached highgrass cut to even lengths and bound in delicate sheaves. At her scalp the roots of her hair grew green like the grass of early spring.

“She is a Child of Earth, formed of its own Living Stone,” the Grandmother said softly, the delicate rhythms of her buzzing language more present on their skin than in their ears. Gently she ran a thin hand over a rough lock of the child’s hair. “In day and night, through all the passing seasons, she sleeps. She has been here since before my birth. I am sworn to guard her until after Death comes for me.” She looked up, her black oval eyes gleaming. “So must you be.”

The elderly woman rested her aged fingers on the child’s forehead, then climbed the steps next to the catafalque and extinguished the light. “Come,” she said, and left the chamber. The two Bolg stared at the stonelike face of the Earth Child as it receded into the darkness again, then followed the Grandmother.

When Rhapsody came out of the cave, the earth seemed disproportionately greener, the sky more intensely blue than when she had left. How many days have passed?, she wondered. Two? Five? She had no idea.

She looked around her to try to get her bearings, plotting a course southeast. That route would take her to the forest edge of Tyrian, the kingdom of the Lirin, outside the borders of Roland, and, with any luck, to Oelendra.

Rhapsody made her way off the slippery rocks and down to the edge of the lake when something touched her arm.

“Rhapsody?”

She jumped in fright and instantly drew her dagger; her assailant was too close for the sword. Ashe held up his hands and took a step back.

“Sorry.”

Rhapsody exhaled furiously. “Will you please stop doing that? You’re going to give me a fatal fit.”

“I apologize, I really do,” he said, folding his hands passively. “I’ve been waiting here since you went in to make sure you came out again.”

“I told you I’d be fine.” Her breathing was almost back to normal when she heard Elynsynos’s voice in her memory.

And hear me: it is very close to here now, nearby. When you leave, be careful. Beads of cold sweat appeared on her brow. The dragon couldn’t have meant Ashe, she thought. When she stopped to contemplate it, the prospect seemed impossible. He had been alone with her for weeks now. If he had meant to do her harm he would have had ample opportunity. Unless he had reason to follow her. “Rhapsody? Are you all right?”

She looked up into the hood, seeing nothing in the darkness. Then the memory of his face came back to her, the hunted, uncertain look in his eyes, and her reservations vanished.

“I’m fine,” she said, smiling up at him. “By any chance, do you know the way to Oelendra’s?”

“I know how to get to Tyrian.”

“Can you draw me a map? I’m heading there next.”

“Really? Why?”

Rhapsody’s mouth opened, then snapped shut again. “I’d like to see her—Elynsynos thinks I should. Maybe I can find some answers there, among the Lirin.”

Ashe nodded. “Could be. Well, as luck would have it, Tyrian is on the way to where I need to go next also. Shall I escort you there?”

“I’d hate to impose on you again,” she said uncertainly, remembering the conversation around one of their many campfires. She knew he must be anxious to return home to his lover who had been waiting for him all this time.

“As I just said, I’m on my way there anyway. It would be no imposition, and it would make me feel better knowing you’re in Oelendra’s capable hands. What do you say?”

“I say ‘thank you,’ ” she replied, checking her gear. “Well, then, shall we go?”

Ashe nodded and turned to the south, stepping easily over the slippery rocks of the reflecting pool that glowed with mist from the dragon’s cave. Rhapsody followed him around the shore of the lake, back to the sleepy glen, until the cave entrance was almost out of sight. Then she stopped and looked at it one last time.

“Goodbye, my friend. I love you,” she whispered.

The wind in the trees picked up slightly, caressing her face and the loose strands of her hair.