Rhapsody: Child of Blood

36

“What do you mean, I can’t go into the city? I’ve ridden this bloody horse for a week, and now I can’t go into the city? You’re a fornicating pig, Achmed. I hope you get the pox. It couldn’t make your face any uglier than it is.”

Achmed cast a glance at Rhapsody, who had turned away quickly, trying to contain her laughter. Then he dismounted with an annoyed sigh.

“Remind me again why I allow you to share our food with her,” he asked, tossing the reins over the horse’s back, ignoring Jo utterly.

“Because you like her,” Rhapsody answered, her green eyes twinkling affectionately.

“Hmmm. Well, perhaps you had best go over the plan with her again. Explain to her that we can’t risk her walking the streets of Bethany lest she be snapped up by the local charm school as an etiquette instructor.”

Rhapsody pulled her saddlebag down and carried it to the copse of trees where Grunthor had laid camp. Jo trailed behind her, arguing the entire way. Finally she turned back to the whining teenager.

“All right, look. Achmed and I are making a quick foray into Bethany. Bethany is the capital seat of Roland, and there are three times the number of soldiers and guards as there are in Navarne.” She chuckled silently as the color drained from Jo’s face.

“We need to be in and out as rapidly as possible. But our next stop is the province of Bethe Corbair’s capital city. We’re going to do some provision shopping there, and some scouting. You’ll get a chance to go into the city then, if you behave yourself.”

“All right,” Jo said sullenly.

“Look, I’m sorry this isn’t as exciting as your life on the streets, but it’s safer, believe me,” Rhapsody said, untangling a snarl in Jo’s stringy blond hair.

“Not necessarily,” said Grunthor. He was stretched out under a leaf-bare tree, hands behind his head. “If you want the lit’le miss to still be ’ere when you get back, make sure to leave the food behind when you go.”

“You always say that, but when was the last time you actually ate someone?” asked Jo, still not mollified.

“Dead or alive?”

Rhapsody shuddered. “All right, we’re going now. Goodbye, Jo.” She held out her arms, but Jo just nodded. The Singer turned instead to the Firbolg giant, who leapt to his feet and swept her up in a warm embrace.

“You be careful,” he warned as he put her back down.

“We expect to be back by morning,” Achmed said to Grunthor under his breath. Frost hung in the air between them, like frozen words hovering for effect. “Give us a day or two slip factor. After that, you and Jo are on your own.” He signaled to Rhapsody and shouldered his pack. A hint of a smile crossed his face.

“And for that possibility I apologize most sincerely.”

Bethany was a round city, two or three times the size of Easton by Rhapsody’s estimate, with a wide ring of settlements and villages outside its ramparts. From a distance it appeared to be almost dome-shaped, with the tallest buildings in the center, tapering down to those of lesser heights at the perimeter walls. The battlements within the circular walls looked out in all directions, the sweeping panoramic defense of a spherical city, in the middle of the province, at approximately the midpoint of the nation of Roland.

Their initial reconnaissance of Bethany had included a ride around the entire perimeter, keeping a respectable distance, back before they parted company with Jo and Grunthor. Achmed had determined early on that the number of soldiers and defenses, visible and otherwise, made anything but entering on foot in the guise of humble peasants impossible.

So now Rhapsody and Achmed stood, robed and hooded in the simple garments they had been given at Llauron’s, outside Bethany’s southeastern gate, one of only eight entrances they had seen during their scouting.

While Navarne had been a province primarily of scattered farms and villages broken by the large landholdings of its nobles and a small, charming capital city, Bethany appeared to have been designed from the very beginning to be a cultural center, the epitome of an Age now long gone.

Even at the city’s outskirts the streets were paved, with small shops, inns, and taverns interspersed with rows of buildings that each seemed to house several families. Within the city proper every street was lined with more lanternposts than Rhapsody had ever seen, glass domes covering the wicks atop gleaming brass poles. Watering troughs for horses as well as hitching racks appeared at the same place in each street.

By law all cattle and other animals of trade could only enter the city by certain gates, demarking Bethany into different districts. Markets and mercantile areas were limited to the eastern and western sections, while museums and the public gardens were located to the north and south. The basilica of fire and the castle of Tristan Steward, the Lord Regent and Prince of Bethany, the two most elevated of Bethany’s structures, stood near each other in the heart of the city. Only the barracks of Bethany’s soldiers could be found in all directions.

It seemed appropriate that the basilica dedicated to the element of fire had been built in the direct center of the city, an echo of the fire at the heart of the Earth. From far away Rhapsody had been able to feel the wellspring, a pulsing flame that called to the fire within her. Even though the fire source was just a shadow of the real conflagration through which the three of them had walked, there was an authenticity to it that told her its genesis was the same inferno; it was genuine, a pure elemental fountainhead.

“Keep your hood up and your head down,” Achmed advised softly as yet another troop of guards passed, prodding the occasional citizen to move along. “Just keep walking toward the fire. I’ll be right behind you. You don’t need to look back.”

Rhapsody nodded and concentrated on the song of the flame in the distance, pushing her feelings of unease into the corners of her mind. For all its beauty, Bethany seemed a town without mercy or a sense of humor. The neatly manicured gardens appeared almost too perfect, the buildings too elegant, too architecturally commanding. There was a decided absence of poor people or beggars. And the soldiers were everywhere. But, she reminded herself, it is the capital, after all. Some higher level of security was to be expected.

After almost two hours they finally located the basilica. Long before it had come into view they had seen evidence of its proximity in the street below their feet.

Rhapsody had noticed that the cobblestones in one roadway had been gilded in gold leaf and positioned in the pattern of a flame, stretching outward toward the east. The closer they came to the temple, the more ray-like patterns appeared in the streets. She stopped and waited for Achmed to follow her lead.

“Remember those etchings in Lord Stephen’s museum?” she whispered. A hand came to rest gently on her upper arm, moving her forward; a town guard had made note of her coming to a halt, and Achmed wanted her to keep walking. When the guard’s attention was drawn elsewhere, he released his hold on her.

“Yes.”

“The exterior of the basilica was a courtyard inlaid with flame-colored mosaics. They would look something like this up close. We must be in the outer courtyard.”

A moment’s walking proved her correct. As they came around the corner the enormous basilica came into view. It was a circular structure, grand and imposing, rising to a great height above the other buildings and built of polished white marble with gold flecks running through it in veins.

The inner courtyard was a great mosaic, neatly bordered by topiary hedges in the shape of tongues of flame. The floor of the courtyard was inlaid with stones the color of fire in patterns that suggested the sun’s rays. The rays were trimmed with lapis and other precious gems, which evoked an incandescent glimmer when the sunlight hit them. Vast gardens stretched out to the foot of the elevated palace to the north, brown and dry in the death grip of winter.

The structure of the basilica itself was composed of several huge concentric circles, each a layer of elevated hewn-marble seating, all facing toward the center, where a wide golden brazier could be seen. A few faithful sat or knelt in the various levels of seating, praying or meditating silently while two robed ordinates walked about, tending to the basilica.

Leaping from the brazier was a flame of intense light, crimson and orange with twisting ribbons of blue, burning intensely, silently. The same power, the same pure light and heat, it evoked deep memories of the wall of flame they had passed through so long ago, back on the other side of Time. It was all Rhapsody could do to keep back tears at the recollection of the fire’s embrace, the all-consuming acceptance she had felt at the Earth’s heart as it surrounded her.

She could have stayed for a long time, staring rapturously at the brazier, but her reverie was interrupted by the thin, strong fingers encircling her upper arm again.

“Come on,” Achmed whispered, shattering her trance of memory. “He looks like a good candidate.”

He nodded slightly toward a nearby ordinate, a man of late middle years with a shiny bald head. The man was wearing a brown robe with a stylized image of the sun emblazoned on the chest, its center a curling red spiral. It was similar to the amulet they had seen in the portrait of the Blesser of Canderre-Yarim, Bethany’s benison, in the Cymrian museum.

Rhapsody flexed the muscle in her upper arm to signal her understanding. It had been decided beforehand that she would seek to learn as much of the basilica’s lore, and the stories that those who tended it imparted to the faithful, as she could while Achmed sought out the less public aspects.

When the grip released she made her way to the clergyman and stopped at a respectful distance. The ordinate was crouched over, polishing a brass railing that separated the first layer of seating from the one after it. Without looking up he waved a dismissive hand at her.

“Peasantry in the last Ring only.”

When he went back to his task, puffing slightly, Rhapsody looked back to Achmed, already a fair distance away. He touched his hood, signaling for her to remove her own. She did, then turned back to the ordinate.

“Ordinate?”

The bald man sat back on his haunches and glared up at her. Then, an instant later, his face slackened and his mouth fell open, a look approximating horror filling his now-round eyes.

“Sweet Creator. Now?” he whispered, dropping the polishing cloth.

Simon had been cleaning the basilica all morning, preparing for the benison’s service on the high day of the week. Despite the winter chill, the work was exhausting, and he had been sweating for the better part of an hour.

Humility, he kept reminding himself, one of the seven vows of the ordinariate. Again, for the fourth time that morning, he began to recite his prayer. But despite his rote repetition of the rite of humility, jealousy bordering on anger still permeated his pores, oozing out with the sweat, leaving him nauseous with it. He had, in fact, been feeling sick and weak all day.

Once again Dartralen had been given hospice duty by the Abbot when the wounded soldiers arrived. And once again, despite his seniority, and his age, and his skill at healing, Simon had been relegated to the rites of preparation—also known as housecleaning—while Dartralen smugly tended to the injured, that clumsy butcher.

He was struggling to put the malicious thought out of his mind when the peasant woman approached him. Simon pointed the way to her proper place, the outer Ring, but she had apparently not heard him.

“Ordinate?” The voice was soft and warm, like the breath of the fire itself.

When he looked up his heart lurched into his throat.

Standing before him, clothed in the brown sackcloth of a peasant, was Beauty itself, a woman with eyes as deep and green as the emerald depths of the sea, and hair the color of the sun, glistening in the winter wind. A warmth radiated from her; he had been around the Holy Brazier long enough to recognize its source. This must be the Fire Spirit, the harbinger of death in the Ancient Lores, now come for him. The exertion of cleaning must have been greater than he thought.

And when this angelic escort had come for him, he was thinking jealous thoughts, arrogant thoughts. His heart sank into the Earth. He was damned.

“Sweet Creator. Now?” he asked, his voice tremulous.

The beautiful apparition blinked. “Are you unwell?”

Simon struggled to rise. “Ah, forgive me. I—I mistook you for someone else.” He closed his eyes, praying that mistaking her for a peasant would not make his punishment in the Afterlife even more painful.

The vision bowed respectfully. “I was wondering if I might impose upon you to instruct me in the lore of this basilica? I am from far away.”

Simon’s trembling grew more violent. Ah, that’s it, he thought, his eyes casting about wildly to see if anyone else was witnessing his imminent demise. I’m being tested. Only a few of the faithful were scattered in the Rings, lost in prayer or meditation. Another hooded peasant was wandering the basilica, making note of the frescoes and mosaics on the walls and floor.

Well, he thought grimly, my place in the Afterlife depends on this moment. I am being judged on my priestly comportment, and how well I am versed in religious ritual and rite. I may as well expend every effort of which I’m capable.

“It would be my pleasure,” he said, making the attempt to smile benevolently, choking back his fluttering heart as it tried to escape through his throat. “This way.”

“Thank you,” Rhapsody said, folding her hands inside the sleeves of her robes as the ordinate did. This was much easier than she had expected, especially after his initial reaction.

The look of utter terror on the ordinate’s face when he first looked up had made her stomach clench in cold nausea. It was a reaction she had seen a few times before, in Stephen’s servants, in the guards at the House of Remembrance, among Llauron’s followers. It was Anborn, the great Cymrian general, who had summed it up most succinctly.

Ah, now I know who you are; you’re Rhapsody, aren’t you?

How did you know that?

There could only be one such freak of nature.

Even Khaddyr, who as a healer had seen people in all degrees of illness and decay, had stared at her.

I thought perhaps she would interest you, as I am at a loss to define what she is. I’ve never seen a Lirin like that.

Whether it was her Liringlas appearance, or something that had happened to her in her walk through the fire that had made her appear freakish, she seemed to evoke responses that she did not recognize.

Occasionally she saw something that almost resembled awe, an emotion she had seen in another form back in the brothel. Either way, she would need to learn to live with it, probably much the way Achmed did—by remaining hidden. Rhapsody pulled her hood back up and followed the sweating ordinate.

He began by leading her directly to the brazier.

“This is the holy flame-well of Vrackna, Lord All-God, Fire of the Universe,” he said carefully.

Against her will Rhapsody went pale, then swallowed, an action that caused the nervous ordinate even more consternation. She had forgotten the misuse the Cymrians had made of the ancient evil fire god’s name. The ordinate struggled to regain his composure.

“The—the basilica—is, of course, consecrated to the Creator. It is unique in that it is dedicated to one of His five children, the element of fire. The flame within this Brazier comes directly from the heart of the Earth, the fire at the core of the world.”

Rhapsody smiled but did not look at the fire for fear she would begin to weep or stare, entranced by the leaping colors. Instead she nodded to Achmed, who hovered nearby.

“This is my associate,” she said, gesturing to the Dhracian to join them. “I believe he is interested in what you have to say as well.”

A beneficent smile now frozen firmly in place, the ordinate turned to greet Achmed, who dropped the veil from in front of his face and grinned. Rhapsody had just enough time to grab the cleric’s arm as his eyes rolled back and he lurched forward.

Death’s angel had apparently not come alone.

“This is my associate,” the apparition said softly. “I believe he is interested in what you have to say as well.”

Simon had steeled himself, expecting another vision of supernatural countenance, perhaps a lesser spirit of the fire. Instead the face that stared back at him, silhouetted against the Brazier’s leaping flames, was a face born of nightmares. The eyes, piercing with the look of the Soul-stealer, stared into his own. The mouth, a twisted line in the pocked skin’s surface, contorted into a leer in greeting.

As the world grew dark around him, Simon knew that this was his fate if he failed, the demonic other side of the angelic coin. Instead of ascending to the Afterlife in the arms of the Fire Spirit, he would be choked in the clutches of this denizen of the Underworld who laughed at him now. Good and evil, battling for his soul where he stood.

With his last clear thought, he wished desperately that he had paid more attention to the lessons of the Ancient Lore, now no longer part of the dogma. Simon began to tremble violently, then pitched forward as the blood rushed from his head.

A strong, warm hand gripped his forearm, and he was uplifted again. As Simon raised his head he inhaled the fragrant scent of the Fire Spirit’s hair, and found himself staring into the hypnotic eyes, green and verdant with life.

“Ordinate?” The smile she gave him had a ring of encouragement to it, and he took heart. Perhaps she was not dissatisfied with his answers after all.

She leaned closer, the sweet scent of her skin making his head feel light again. “You needn’t fear him,” she whispered. A blessing, Simon thought gratefully. My faith, and the All-God’s harbinger, will protect me.

He struggled to a stand. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. Now, where was I? Yes, of course. The faithful of the See of Bethany attend services here, using this gift of the Creator to center their thoughts, to purify them, to make their prayers worthy of offering up to the Patriarch.”

The Fire Spirit nodded. “And these?” She extended a graceful arm and pointed to the frescoes and mosaics that decorated the basilica’s walls.

Simon summoned the strength to stand alone. He pointed to the fresco of a young man in red robes and a horned miter painted on the northern wall of the innermost Ring.

“That is a portrait of His Grace, Ian Steward, the Blesser of Canderre-Yarim. He is the benison of the See for which this is the basilica.”

“Tristan’s brother?” asked the demon. His voice was as dry as black fire, with a haughty undertone to it.

Simon shuddered. He did not want to be responsible for aiding in the damnation of his sovereign in any way, though it was of little surprise to him that the demon was intimately acquainted with the prince.

Simon cast a glance around for Brentel, the other ordinate assigned to preparation duty, but he had disappeared, probably into the reliquary or the vestry. He looked backed to the Fire Spirit, who was, by her expression, also anticipating his reply.

“Ye—yes,” he stammered. The angel nodded, as if pleased; it gave him a sudden jolt of courage. He turned to the other mosaics.

“These are artistic representations of the birth of Fire,” the ordinate said, nervously wiping the sweat from his shining pate.

Rhapsody followed his outstretched arm. A series of mosaic images graced the other three walls of the basilica’s Innermost Ring. In the first, on the eastern wall, an image of the sun appeared in the distance behind a shooting star, blazing across the black tiles that represented the void of the universe. The globe burned brightly, flames dancing across its surface.

“The Earth was formed when a piece of the star that is our sun broke off and streaked across the void, coming to rest in orbit about its mother,” the ordinate intoned. His eyes sought hers anxiously, and though she had no idea why he was seeking her validation, she smiled and nodded. He relaxed visibly and turned to the south.

“Fire burned, unchecked, on the Earth’s surface. In the absence of ethereal fuel, however, Fire could not sustain itself and sank into the Earth, forming its core, where it burns to this day in the purest of its forms.” The mosaic captured, in tens of thousands of tiny tiles, the image of the Earth, now dark at the surface, a red spiral leading down to the center, where it glowed intensely.

Achmed and Rhapsody followed the ordinate to the last of the picture-walls, the stylized image of the sun with the coiled red center from the amulet, the image he himself wore on his chest.

“This is the symbol of the F’dor, the primordial race that existed long before the birth of mankind. They were the children of fire, the ancient culture that it originated, that sprang from it.”

“It was the F’dor that tamed fire, at least a little, and gave it to mankind for its use in protection, in the warming of homes in winter, in the forging of weapons. The F’dor, now long deceased, were the forefathers of steel, of hearths, of every way in which we now make use of this holy and powerful element, one of the original gifts of the All-God.”

The ordinate’s words ground to a halt as he caught the expression on Achmed’s face. He quickly looked back at Rhapsody, who smiled again.

She extended a hand to the cleric, who took it, still shaking.

“Thank you. I think we should be going now.”

The ordinate collapsed in a faint. Rhapsody barely had time to stop him from slamming his head into the paved mosaic of the basilica floor.

“What on Earth is the matter with this man?” she asked as they propped him against the inner wall of the basilica beneath the F’dor symbol.

“Nothing,” Achmed answered, casting a glance above him at the mosaic. It’s something within the Earth, he thought.

Rhapsody was uncorking her flask of brandy. She held it to the unconscious man’s lips and poured a little down his throat. The ordinate sputtered, spilling a little of the flask’s contents down the front of his robe, but did not regain consciousness. She gave him a little more, then recapped the flask.

“There; I hope that helps,” she said.

“Well, it might temporarily,” Achmed said with a smirk. “Clerics who tend shrines of fire are generally forsworn from alcohol, for obvious reasons. I imagine he will have a hard time explaining the reek of brandy on his clothes when he wakes up.”

He saw concern cloud her eyes, darkening them. “Let’s go,” he said impatiently, forestalling Rhapsody from any further attempt to wake him. “Don’t worry about him, he’ll come up with something. These people are almost as good at self-delusion as you are.” He pulled her to a stand.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“Come with me now, and I’ll tell you once we’re outside the city walls,” he said. He gave her hand another tug, and together they bolted from the basilica, walking quickly away and blending into the crowded streets.

Simon fought to waken, and lost. In his few fragmented moments of awareness he could recall the scent of the Fire Spirit’s sweet skin, and the warmth of her hands as she tilted his head back.

He had seen the moment of his own death. The Fire Spirit had taken his hand. Thank you, she had said. I think we should be going now. At least she had chosen him; he had won salvation, not the damnation of the demon with the nightmare face. The world had gone dark.

Then his head was in her hands, and the burning liquid ripped down his throat, searing him with molten fire. He had gasped, had tried to fight it, only to find that her ministrations had filled him with a sense of well-being, a warmth that lulled him to sleep, easing his fear and his distress. At least it had until the Abbot found him.