Prophecy: Child of Earth

34

Achmed was already on the floor, checking the Grandmother, when Rhapsody opened her eyes.

The child was still sleeping, beads of crystalline sweat dotting her forehead like dew, as though she had just broken a fever. She was breathing easily, not moving.

Once she was certain that the child was safe for the moment, Rhapsody ran to where Grunthor was lying sprawled on the floor. She helped him to sit up, examining him worriedly as he clutched his head.

“Somethin’s comin’,” he muttered. His eyes were glassy, his breathing shallow.

“What, Grunthor? What’s coming?”

The giant continued to mutter, becoming more disoriented by the moment. “It’s comin’; it had stopped but now it’s on the way again. Somethin’—somethin’s comin’.” Rhapsody could feel his gargantuan heart racing, pounding ferociously, and it frightened her.

“Grunthor, come back,” she whispered. She spoke his true name, a strange collection of whistling snarls and glottal stops, followed by the appellations she had given him so long ago when they passed through the Fire at the Earth’s core: Child of sand and open sky; son of the caves and lands of darkness, she sang softly. Benard, Firbolg. The Sergeant-Major. My trainer, my protector. The Lord of Deadly Weapons. The Ultimate Authority, to Be Obeyed at All Costs.

Grunthor’s eyes cleared, and focused on her again. “ ‘At’s all right, darlin’,” he said woozily, awkwardly pushing her hand away. “Oi’ll be fine in a minute. ’Elp the Grandmother.”

“She’s all right,” Achmed said from the other side of the catafalque. A moment later he rose, assisting the elderly woman to a stand. “What happened?”

The Grandmother seemed steady, though her hand remained at her throat. “Green death,” she murmured in all three of her voices. “Unclean death.”

“What does that mean, Grandmother?” Rhapsody asked gently.

“I know not. It is repeated over and over in her dreams; I could hear the words suddenly. Now I cannot make the voice grow still.” The elderly woman’s hand trembled; Achmed took it carefully between his own. “It was as if your song broke them free from her mind, gave them to me.” The Grandmother’s strange eyes glittered nervously in the dark. “For that I thank you, Skychild. At least I now know some of what plagues her, though I understand it not. Green death; unclean death.”

“She’s also dreamin’ about somethin’ comin’,” Grunthor added. “He took the handkerchief Rhapsody held out to him and mopped his sweating brow.”

“Any idea what?” Achmed asked. The giant shook his head.

“I’m so sorry,” Rhapsody said to them both. “I fear I may be responsible for your visions. I was thinking about how you said you would take the worst of my nightmares on yourself, Grunthor. Perhaps I’ve inadvertently condemned you both to do that for her as well.”

“If you did, it was because we were both willing to accept them,” said the Grandmother. She leaned down and kissed the Sleeping Child, brushing the last of the moisture from her forehead. “She sleeps peacefully again, at least for now.” With a final caress, the Grandmother rose to her full height again.

“Come.”

Rhapsody bent down and kissed the Sleeping Child’s forehead as well. “Your mother the Earth has so many beautiful clothes,” she whispered in the stone-gray ear. “I’ll try and write a song for you so that you can see them, too.”

The letters on the arch above the Chamber of the Sleeping Child gleamed as the torchlight passed over them. Time had begun to fill the carvings in soot and the crumbling detritus of the centuries.

“What does this inscription say?” Rhapsody asked.

The Grandmother slipped her hands inside the sleeves of her robe. “ ‘Let that which sleeps within the Earth rest undisturbed; its awakening heralds eternal night,’ ” she answered.

Rhapsody turned to Achmed. “What do you think that refers to?”

His mismatched eyes darkened angrily in the dim light of the passageway. “I think you’ve seen it once yourself.”

She nodded. “Yes. I think you’re right, but only partly.”

“Explain.”

“It seems to me that there is an entity known as the Sleeping Child in more than one mythos,” she said. “There was the star that slept beneath the waves off the coast of Serendair, a story from Seren lore. I think we know how correct the prediction was of the consequences of its awakening. There was the—She flinched under the intensity of the look Achmed shot at her—“the one we saw on our journey here, the one the dragons refer to as the Sleeping Child. Those consequences would be even greater should it happen to waken.”

“And now there is this one, the one that rests here in the cavern. It seems to me that the prophecies of the Dhracians, if that is what this inscription is”-she pointed at the archway above the child’s chamber—“are warning of the same cataclysmic possibilities should this child wake.” Rhapsody stared back into the Sleeping Child’s chamber, now wreathed in darkness.

“Freeing her from her nightmares might be the way to keep her asleep.”

Achmed said.

The Grandmother turned and stepped into the shadow of the hallway leading to the vast cylindrical cavern. Her word echoed in the hollow corridor.

“Come.”

The enormous pendulum swung through the hollow cavern, crossing the circle on the central stone slab with each pass. Rhapsody could see the weight at the end of the spider-silk strand glitter in the darkness.

“What weights the pendulum?” she asked, her voice heavy in the sand of the dead wind.

“It is a diamond from Lorthlagh, the Lands Beyond the Rim, the birthplace of our race,” the Grandmother answered. Her heavy cloak flapped stolidly in the musty air of the cavern. “It is a prison; within it is held captive a demon-spirit from the battle that wounded the Sleeping Child. Diamonds of great purity and substantial size, properly used, can house a captive spirit, though not as well as Living Stone can. And only a special kind of diamond, found only at places where pieces of stars have fallen to Earth, leaving ethereal crystals behind. These crystals come from a time before the Earth was formed, before fire came into being—they predate all elements save for ether. Their power is greater than that of the F’dor.”

As if in sullen response, the pendulum’s weight flashed angrily. A slash of red light bounced around the cavern’s walls, then vanished.

“The Purity Diamond Oelendra told you about must have been such a crystal,” Achmed said. “Sounds like it was big enough to imprison even the strongest of demon-spirits.”

“Small wonder the F’dor wanted it smashed,” Grunthor said.

“Why would you suspend such a valuable and potentially dangerous object like that over an endless chasm?” Rhapsody asked, staring down into the circular abyss that surrounded the flat central formation. “Isn’t there a greater risk that the diamond will be lost if the strand breaks?”

The Grandmother’s vibration grew more intense, causing their skin to itch.

“What you are witnessing is the power of the winds at work,” she said. “This is why the training in Thrall ritual was done here; all four of the winds from Above are knotted here, around that rocky pedestal. They are anchored in this place; they hold the pendulum steady, in time with the turning of the Earth. The diamond is safer there than anywhere else in these mountains.” She turned to Achmed. “When you are undergoing training, the winds will be your teachers.” She pointed to the crumbling bridge that spanned the dark chasm. “Follow me to the canticle circle, and I will show you what has been written about you. It is your destiny. Deny it, and it would be better to hurl yourselves into the abyss now.” The matriarch ignored the glance that passed between the Three as she stepped out onto the bridge, braving the billowing wind.

“Why do they call this the canticle circle?”

Rhapsody stepped carefully around the pattern on the floor, making sure to stay out of the pedulum’s path. She recognized the symbols for the four winds, but none of the other inscriptions, despite being told that they were in part an ancient clock.

The Grandmother gazed up into the silence of the endless cavern, as if staring into the Past. She let the Singer’s question hang heavily on the dusty air as her black eyes scanned the ancient hallways, now nothing more than empty holes in the hollow shell of what had once been the great civilization’s heart. At last she spoke.

“Lirin are the descendants of the Kith and the Seren, the children of the wind and stars. Dhracians are begotten only of the wind; the Zhereditck are direct descendants of the Kith, different only in that we were the clan chosen for our diligence and endurance to forsake the world Above and live within the Earth, guarding the vault of the F’dor for all time. It was only when that prison was broken open that we came Above again, joining in the Great Hunt to find and destroy those demons that escaped. But our roots were in the wind, not the Earth.”

The elderly woman finally broke her eyes away from the towering edifice above her and focused instead on the ancient stone bridge that connected the place where they stood to the rest of the Colony.

“Our race heard the vibrations in the music of the wind, just as yours does. We are even more sensitive to those messages than you are, Skychild. It was the greatest sacrifice we made, separating ourselves from the wind by going in. Some, born later, like me, have never even known it, have never felt it on our skin, free from the bonds of the Earth that surrounds us. That break cost us dearly; it denied us the Present, the ability to ascertain what was going on in the world, in the life all around and above us. We lived in darkness, and in the absence of knowledge, except for one.

“Just as one of our Colony was raised from birth to be the Matriarch, one was also raised to be the Zephyr, our Prophet. Candidates for the Zephyr were generally chosen for the sensitivity of their skin-webs and their abilities to taste the wind, to absorb its vibrations, to read its hidden wisdom. For while the wind is a fleeting repository of knowledge, it is a wide one, and much can be learned by listening to it. You have heard the wind speak, Skychild? You have heard it sing?”

“Yes,” Rhapsody said. “And the Earth, and the sea. I have heard the song of fire as well, Grandmother, and, though earlier you said the stars do not reveal what they know, I can assure you that they sing as well; they impart their wisdom to those who observe their passage through the sky. That was the belief of my mother’s people, the reason the Liringlas sing their devotions to the sunrise and star-rise.”

“And all those vibrations, no matter what lore they come from, are carried on the wind,” the Grandmother said. “The Zephyr could hear them, even below the ground, here, within the canticle circle. High above, there is a hollow structure that resembles one of the mountain’s peaks, through which the wind reaches down into the Earth, here. It dances about this flat central stone outcropping, forming a corridor of air that brings with it random vibrations from the above. The wind sings; its holy song was the canticle of the Brethren. The Zephyr heard the song, and brought the news it carried to the rest of the Colony. This was the way the Zhereditck were able to still keep in touch with the world Above, even though they were no longer part of it.

“From these vibrational signatures the Zephyr not only drew knowledge of what was happening Above, he or she also could sometimes tell what was to come. These prophecies were extremely rare; I only know of one, in fact. You stand within it now.”

The three looked at the words which encircled the design that had been inlaid in the stone floor. Achmed bent down and touched the letters, lost in thought.

“The wind that brought this prophecy was a hot one, a strong one, from the other side of the world,” the Grandmother continued. “It carried death on it, and hope. That was many centuries ago, and but a short time before the Builders came.”

Achmed caught Rhapsody’s eye, and saw the same thought mirrored there as had formed in his own mind. He winced at the memory of his Master’s last minion, the one remaining Shing that had followed him from Serendair. The lone survivor of Tsoltan’s Thousand Eyes, it had spoken very softly before it vanished.

“Where are the other eyes”? Rhapsody had demanded. The rest of the Thousand? Gone, the dying Shing had said, long dissipated on the wind in the heat of the Sleeping Child. I alone remained, having crossed the wide ocean in search of him.

In the heat of the Sleeping Child. The wind that told of the destruction of their Island home.

The wind that foretold their coming.

“What was the prophecy?” Grunthor asked.

“Can you read it?” the Grandmother asked Achmed. “Any of it?” He shook his head. “Then we will need to instruct you in the language as well as the Thrall ritual.” She bent and touched the letters as well.

Within a Circle of Four wilt stand a Circle of Three Children of the Wind all, and yet none The hunter, the sustainer, the healer, Brought together by fear, held together by lave, To find that which hides from the Wind.

Hear, oh guardian, and look upon your destiny: The one who hunts also will stand guard The one who sustains also will abandon, The one who heal also will kill To find that which hides from the Wind.

Listen, oh Last One, to the wind:

The wind of the past to beckon her home

The wind of the earth to carry her to safety

The wind of the stars to sing the mothers-son^ most known to her soul

To hide the Child from the Wind.

From the lips of the Sleeping Child will come the words of ultimate wisdom,

Beware the Sleepwalker

For blood will be the means

To find that which hides from the Wind.

“Blood will be the means,” Rhapsody murmured. “I don’t like the way that sounds. Does it foretell the certainty of war, then?”

“Not necessarily,” Achmed said, “though I would guess it will be unavoidable.”

“Wonderful.”

“What do you expect, Rhapsody? You know the history. The only thing F’dor crave is conflict, destruction, chaos. Where better to find that than in war?”

“If we had some of the F’dor’s blood, could you track it, Achmed? As you did in the old world? The F’dor’s blood is old; you should still be able to match your heartbeat to it.”

The Bolg-king’s eyes grew steely. “If I had some of its blood, I wouldn’t need to track it,” he growled. “Having its blood presumes we know who the host is, since we would have gotten it from the host.”

“Can we get it from the Rakshas?” Rhapsody asked. “It was made from the demon’s blood.”

“Commingled with several others, a wolf, and them kids, if Oi’m not mis taken,” Grunthor said, forestalling another impatient remark from Achmed. “It would ’ave to be pure, miss, to find the right one.”

Achmed looked above him again, at the empty, hollow cavern that had once been the heart of the Colony, the center of a great civilization.

“Mark my words, Rhapsody: by the time we discover who the demon’s host is, there will have been more blood than you could imagine commingled, soaking into the earth. And if we don’t discover it soon, it will be enough to fill the sea.”

Prudence was dreaming fitfully in darkness. After traveling for many hours over the rough terrain of the Krevensfield Plain, the roadway had finally smoothed out again, and she had fallen into a light slumber, her neck resting against the pillowed back of the carriage seat. The support it offered her was probably the only thing that spared her from injury when the carriage hit something large in the road and shuddered, rocking wildly from side to side. Just as the carriage righted itself, it happened again, thudding, careening, and then rolling to a slow stop.

She sat up in terror, her heart pounding audibly. The moon was new, having vanished the night before, and no light filtered through the heavy curtain at the coach’s window. Prudence listened for the small slat to pull back, but heard only silence.

After what seemed like an eternity had passed, the carriage door opened.

“Are you all right in there, miss?”

“Yes,” she called back, her voice much louder than she had intended it to be. “What happened?”

“We hit something in the road. Let me help you out of there.”

Prudence rose unsteadily and took the guard’s hand. She stepped out of the carriage and into profound darkness, black as pitch and hanging heavy in the humid air of summer. She squeezed the man’s hand, trying to stop her own from trembling.

“What is it?”

“I’ll go look,” he said, and gently loosed her hand.

In response she gripped his tighter. “No,” she choked. She could not even see him, so dark was the night, and he was standing right beside her. She was afraid if he let go she would be lost to the starless black void all around her. “No, please.”

“As you wish, miss, but I really should have a look.”

Prudence tried to breathe deeply and failed. “All right,” she said at last, “I’ll go with you.”

The man gave her hand a comforting squeeze, then turned her toward the back of the coach. Slowly they picked their way through the stones in the road, Prudence keeping her free hand on the carriage for balance, pausing for a moment at the wheel. Dark rain had pooled beneath the wooden cogs where the wheels met the earth, muddying the ground at Prudence’s feet. She walked through the mire and around the back of the carriage, her sleep-fuzzy mind trying to remember if the rain had begun before or after she had dozed off. When her eyes focused, she choked.

Lying in the road behind the carriage was a tattered pile of clothes that had once been the body of a man. Not far behind him in the road was a similar broken bundle.

Stifling a scream, Prudence clutched the guard’s hand in a viselike grip. She looked down at her shoes, thick with the mud of the road. The scream tore loose from her throat as she realized the muck she had stepped in was earth thickened with blood, running in a small river from the wheel to the body behind the coach. She lurched forward, then backed up into the guard, unable to tear her eyes away from the grisly sight.

“Sweet All-God,” she whispered. “Who is that? Where did he come from?”

The man behind her released her hand and brought his own hands to rest on her upper arms, giving her another comforting squeeze.

“I believe that’s your driver, and he came from the coachman’s perch.”

The words echoed through Prudence’s ears, making no sense. Distantly she was aware of a coldness in her limbs as the blood rushed away from her extremities, filling and coursing through her racing heart. She looked at the second body, farther up the road, the silvery symbol of Tristan’s elite regiment barely visible within the crumpled fabric of its cape.

It was her guard.

Time slowed, and with it Prudence’s breath. A resolute sense of calm fought with her abject fear and won; she stood stock-still in the hands of the man who she had mistaken for the soldier Tristan had sent to ensure her safety. After a moment he chuckled softly, then lowered warm lips to her ear.

“If it makes you feel any better, they were dead before they hit the ground, and certainly before the wheels went over them. They felt nothing.”

Panic coursed through Prudence again, and she bolted forward, only to be held firm as the man’s grip tightened. Slowly he turned her around to face him. She found herself staring up into the darkness of a hooded cloak, gray or black, almost invisible against the backdrop of night.

The man said nothing. Within his hood Prudence thought she saw the twinkle of blue eyes gazing down at her with an almost sorrowful expression, but realized it was merely the reflection of her own terrified tears.

“Please,” she whispered, “Please.”

The man released her right shoulder, then gently ran his fingers through her hair.

“Now, don’t cry, Strawberry,” he said. His tone was almost wistful. “It would be a shame to mar such a pretty face with tears.”

Prudence felt blackness close in at the edges of her consciousness. Strawberry. It rang hollowly in her memory, a name from the distant past.

“Please,” she whispered again. “I’ll give you whatever you want, please.”

“Yes, yes, you will,” he said soothingly. His hand ran down her hair one last time, and then moved to her cheek, caressing it with his fingers. “More than you know, Strawberry. You will be the beginning of everything. You’ll give me Tristan. And Tristan will give me everything I want, one way or another.”

Her stomach writhed in agony. “Who are you?” she stammered. “I—I am only his servant. I’m nothing to him. Let me go. Please. Please.”

The hand was back in her hair again, gently unwinding the curls. Prudence could tell by the strength of his grip that she was no match for him. For a moment, the hooded man said nothing. When finally he spoke, his words were tempered with sadness.

“There is so little time left; you really shouldn’t sully it by denying something as real as his love for you, Prudence. It has been very clear, ever since childhood. Even if he is a selfish snob who would never compromise his chance at the throne to marry you.”

“Who are you?”

The gentle tone vanished, replaced by something darker. “I’m crushed you don’t remember me, Strawberry. I certainly remember you. And while I’ve changed a good deal, I daresay so have you.”

Crystalline realization cleared her vision as the memory of the childhood nickname finally returned, only to be obscured again. “It can’t be,” she choked. “You’re dead. You’ve—you’ve been dead. Years. Tristan mourned you for years. It can’t be.”

The man laughed aloud, a barking laugh, then released her hair and pulled down the hood of his cloak; laughing again as she made a strangling sound.

“Well, you’re not entirely wrong,” he said humorously. “I’m not really alive, at any rate.”

The coppery hair gleamed in the dark. He looked the same as he had all those years ago, laughing and roughhousing with Tristan and his cousin, Stephen Navarne. Stephen’s best friend. The Invoker’s son—what was his name? Strawberry, he had called her then. Pulling her curls, admiring their mutual redheadedness. Oblivious to the class difference between them in a way that Tristan never was. Pleasant fellow, she had told Tristan, but seems sad, melancholy when no one is watching. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, his name came to her lips.

“Gwydion. Gwydion, please, come back with me to Bethany. Tristan will give you—”

“Don’t,” he said pleasantly. “Don’t waste your breath, Prudence. I have other plans for you.”

His eyes gleamed in the dark, glittering with naked excitement in an otherwise passive face. Distantly Prudence was aware of the tears pouring down her cheeks, but she fought to keep her voice calm.

“All right,” she said, trying to keep her shaking voice from betraying her utter panic. “All right, then. But not like this, Gwydion. Give me a moment to collect myself, and I promise you I will make it worth your while. I am quite experienced in pleasuring a man. But please, not here. I swear to you—

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, amusement in his voice. “With all due deference to your charms, that was never my intention. I’m really not myself these days, Prudence. I only take a woman in that manner if she serves a different purpose than I intend for you. It’s really not my call, anyway; I have no free will, I only follow orders.”

Prudence could no longer summon control over any of her limbs. Numbness was taking her over.

“What are you going to do with me?”

The cloaked man laughed again, then drew her into a warm embrace, and bent his lips to her ear again.

“Why, Prudence, I’m going to eat you, of course; what else is a strawberry for? Then I’ll carry your carcass back to Ylorc and toss it in the Moot. And if you don’t cause me any trouble, for the sake of our old friendship, I’ll try to make sure that you’re dead before I begin.”