Rhapsody: Child of Blood

39

They sat in silence for a long time, listening to the wind in the distance, watching the darkening sky. Finally Achmed looked at Rhapsody. Her face was calm, but concern resonated in her eyes.

“Can you play that new instrument enough to have it cover the vibrations of what we are saying, so that they don’t get onto the wind?”

She nodded and pulled out the physician’s harp, loosing the ties that had held it under her robes. With a gentle tug she pulled off the soft cloth cover and ran her fingers over the strings.

“Any particular song?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Just something to distract the wind, keep it from carrying what we have to say anywhere else.”

Rhapsody thought for a moment, then began to pluck out a tune, abstract and discordant. It had very little tonal variation or melody, and no obvious repeating pattern. She played for a few moments, then set the harp on the log next to her.

“Samoht,” she said.

Achmed smiled wryly as the small harp began to play, repeating the unpleasant song. She had no idea how ironic her action was.

He caught her glance again and held it for a long moment. There was anticipation in her eyes, and trust, something he had rarely seen. And none of the revulsion he frequently did.

“Tell me the stories of the Ancient Lores, as much as you know.”

Rhapsody blinked. “What do you mean?”

“We heard a little of the story of the birth of the world today.”

“Yes.”

“I want you to forget what that imbecile ordinate told you for a moment, and think back to what you learned from your mentor when you were studying. Those were undoubtedly the purest of conditions under which to learn lore, so he was probably the most reliable source we have.”

“Yes.” A tinge of confusion was beginning to gleam in her eyes.

“What is the story, as you know it? Tell me, as a Namer, Rhapsody. Do the most credible job you can. Believe me, nothing you have ever done in your profession has been more important, has been more critical to be done correctly, than what you are about to tell me.”

“About the birth of the elements?”

“Yes.” Achmed sat back in the dark, leaning against one of the shelter’s slender trees.

“It’s in Ancient Serenne, a language I don’t speak well. I had to translate it from a lore scroll, so though the language might not be exact, the lore itself is.”

“Do the best you can.”

She took a deep breath, clearing her mind, and concentrated on the moment in her memory when she had learned the tales he wanted her to impart. When she had a firm fix on them, she began.

“In ancient days, in the Before-Time, the five elements were born. They came into being as the paints of He-Who-Created-the-Universe, the tools with which the cosmos was made. They are sometimes called the Children of the All-God, or the Five Gifts, because they were what He chose to create first.”

She looked at Achmed, who was still leaning back, listening with his eyes closed. He nodded for her to continue.

“The first element to come into existence was ether, the matter which makes up the stars. It was believed to hold the very essence of time, of life, of power, of what some called magic. Ether existed before the birth of the world, and therefore contained the secrets of power that preceded worldly knowledge.”

“The second element to be born was fire, and it was in the origination of this element that the world became an entity separate from the rest of the universe.”

“The mythos says that the Earth itself was a piece of a star that had broken away and streaked across the black void, coming to rest in its orbit around the sun that was its mother. Fire burned on its surface, finally cooling in the absence of ethereal fuel and subsiding into the core of the world. But the fire was not satisfied being relegated to the darkness inside the world, and repeatedly attempted to escape through eruptions of volcanic lava.”

Achmed smiled broadly, but did not open his eyes. “You’ll notice our friend the priest left that little part of the mythos out.”

Rhapsody’s eyes kindled dark green in annoyance. “Shall I continue?”

“Yes.”

“Then shut up; it’s hard enough to concentrate on a translation from an ancient language. As the fire receded, the world was left covered with water, the next element in the mythos to be born. In water there was balance; it could be both destructive and healing.”

“With the cooling of the world’s surface in water came strong winds, so air is accorded the next rank in the order of the elements.”

“As the wind swept the surface of the globe, blowing back the water, earth was revealed.”

“This last, youngest element had none of the speed and elusiveness of the earlier ones, but was strong and steadfast, and in that enduring strength was its power. Just as the stars were the keepers of the knowledge and wisdom of the Before-Time, the era prior to the birth of the world, the Earth was the repository of all the knowledge of its history and its present.” She took a deep breath.

“There. Now you know what I know.”

Achmed chuckled. “Actually, I know a good deal more than you know, but that will come in a moment.” He opened his eyes and leaned forward.

“Do you know anything about the Firstborn?” he asked.

Rhapsody hesitated. Achmed did have access to knowledge that only the great Namers should have.

“A little,” she admitted reluctantly. “The Ancient Lores are one of the last things a Namer learns, Achmed. I had only begun to study them when Heiles disappeared.”

He sat forward so quickly that she started and almost fell off the log.

“Think clearly. You need to remember that time as accurately as you can. What were you able to learn about the Firstborn before he vanished?”

“I’ll just tell you what I remember, fragmented as it is. I know more about some than others. Long before the races of man, Lirin and human, Nain and the like, came to Serendair, there were older, primordial races of beings who sprang from the elements themselves, retaining some of the characteristics of those elements. These races were known as the Firstborn.”

“The race born of ether was that of the Ancient Seren, tall, lithe people with golden skin and eyes. They were extremely long-lived and had an ageless, patient perspective; their tie to the matter of the stars attuned them to the rhythms of nature and of power.”

“Their name, literally translated as star, was also given to the bright celestial object that was visible year-round over the Island. Serendair, literally star-land, was the place the race originated, and was therefore known as one of the five birthplaces of Time.”

Achmed nodded. “What happened to the Ancient Seren?”

“They died off over time, or went to live within the Earth during the racial wars of the Second Age.”

“And what about the races that came from the other elements? Do you know anything about them?”

Rhapsody swallowed, trying to remember the fragments of the lessons. “There were the Mythlin, the race descended from the element of water. That race lived within the seas that spanned the globe, almost indiscernible to human sight. Like the Ancient Seren race they held a long worldview, but generally were unconcerned with happenings outside their own domain.”

“It was in Mythlin that humans were said to have their origin, that the human body was an evolutionary solidification of the salt water and translucent membranes that comprised the Mythlin physiology. This was offered as an explanation as to why men often felt drawn to the sea, and why human tears and blood are salty.”

Achmed smirked. “Did you notice that Stephen thought Abbat Mythlinis meant Lord-God, King of the Sea, or something like that?”

Rhapsody laughed with him. “I was wondering if you were listening when he said that. I think it might have been Master of the Sea.”

The face within the hood lost its smile. “You’re about to see how dangerous the sloppy use of lore can be, Rhapsody. The Cymrians certainly have added their own beliefs, or polluted the originals, in many of their interpretations of the ancient stories.”

“Everyone does, Achmed. Folktales and myths that get handed down over time change and evolve as they pass from one teller to another. That’s why Singers and Namers exist; the science—well, perhaps it’s more an art—was developed precisely to counter that tendency, to try and keep the history pure. To separate the lore from the folklore.”

“And look how well it worked. Go on. What others do you know about?”

Rhapsody loosed the hastily tied ribbon and ran her fingers through the shining locks of her hair. “I know a bit about the Kith. They were the race believed to be born of the wind, beings with an innate knowledge of the currents of the air and the vibrations of the world. The Kith were people who looked to the sky for guidance. It is in their ancient teachings that the sciences of astronomy and meteorology have their basis.”

“The Kith were the originators of music, and the forefathers of the Lirin race. The name Lirin comes from the Ancient Seren word for singer.”

A look of amusement came into his eyes, evolving a moment later into something darker. “The Dhracians are descended of them as well. That’s where we inherited our vibrational sensitivity.”

Her face went blank. “Really? I didn’t know that.”

“How would you? Had you ever heard of Dhracians before we met?”

“No.”

Achmed pulled his cloak closer around him as if cold. “There are a great many things that exist in the world that you don’t know about, Rhapsody, that almost no one knows about,” he said, his voice a little softer than it had been a moment before. “Just because no one knows about them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. And the Earth?”

“That primordial race was dragons, and we learned a little of their more modern lore, First and Second Age stuff, but nothing ancient.”

Achmed nodded. “And now, the last. What about fire?”

She shook her head. “I only know what I heard today. You asked about Heiles. I’m fairly certain that this was the lesson we were about to study when he went away. He had laid out all the materials that he needed for the instruction. I know this, because I helped set it up the night before, just before I left him.”

Achmed’s glance grew cold and piercing. “What were they? Do you remember?”

Rhapsody shook her head. “Not really. A brazier of some kind, I think. Assorted herbs and roots, a few elixirs. He would have explained those to me during the lesson, but of course we didn’t get that far. And there was the scroll. He had used it in the teaching of all the other lores.”

“So the two of you made these preparations, and the next day he was gone.”

“Yes. He sent me to gather some rare manuscripts and music. I never saw him again. I haven’t thought about that lesson since, until today when the ordinate told us about the F’dor.”

Achmed reached into his robe and pulled out a small folded cloth, which he tossed into her lap. Rhapsody opened the edges gingerly. It was an altar wiping cloth, the kind used for cleansing holy goblets or other small religious items, a piece of white fabric embroidered with the stylized image of the sun she had seen in the temple of Bethany. She let out a long whistle.

“Well, you certainly are brazen, stealing from a basilica in broad daylight.”

“What do you think that symbol is?” Achmed asked.

Rhapsody tossed it back at him, irritation building in her features. “I’m getting really sick of this game, Achmed. I’m not deaf. I heard what he said. It’s the symbol of the F’dor.”

His face was in hers in the next second. “I misspoke. What do you think the symbol represents, literally?” His voice was arid with intensity.

Rhapsody tried to shake off the sudden chill that gripped her.

“The sun?”

Achmed shook his head slowly. “That’s what you think, because that’s what they think. I assure you, it’s not. Or at least it wasn’t when it was used in the old world.”

She struggled to keep from giving in to the tremors that were now causing her to shake, like a brown leaf clinging to a bare tree in the winter wind. “What was it?”

Achmed opened the cloth again. He ran a long, bony finger around the golden circle gently, almost lovingly.

“The Cymrians must have thought it was the sun when they saw the old symbol. It looked much like this representation, but rougher. This,” he said, touching the central circle, “is the Earth, and these rays were flames—the Earth, in flames. Not from the old times, when the fire was born, but the race’s ultimate goal. The Earth in flames. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Rhapsody?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“And this, this represents the means by which that goal would be achieved.” His finger followed the red spiral up from the center of the design to the outside edge of the circle. “I assume you can figure out what that was supposed to represent, having seen a very small part of it with your own eyes.”

Her voice came out in a whisper, barely audible above the jangling of the harp. “The wyrm.”

“Indeed. Now, as far as I can tell, your lullaby worked. Serendair was destroyed in volcanic fire, the explosion of the Sleeping Child, not by the wyrm, as planned. But bear in mind it was the impact of that falling star that let the F’dor out of the Earth in the first place, so it’s not impossible that one might have survived the cataclysm that took the Island down. And if even one of that race is still alive, it will seek to make good on that goal. And it will find the means.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rhapsody pulled her hair back into the ribbon, tying it nervously.

Achmed sat back, his hands pressed together, the fingertips at his lips again.

“Perhaps we’d best begin over. Back in the Before-Time when they were born in fire, the F’dor were demonic spirits, twisted, dark beings with a jealous, avaricious nature, longing to consume the world around them, much like the fire from which they came. Their birthplace was the Fiery Rim, a ring of five active volcanic mountains submerged beneath the sea.”

“Also like fire, F’dor have no corporeal form, but rather feed off a more solid host, the way fire grows by consuming fuel, destroying it in the process.”

“Like fire, the second element, F’dor were the second race to be born. And while the F’dor were less powerful than the Ancient Seren race which preceded them, they were stronger than the others that came after them. Like their birth element, they retreated into the shadows, emerging occasionally; when they did, they were as destructive as their counterpart in nature.”

“Fire itself eventually began to burn purely in the Earth’s core, as you have seen. It would only occasionally erupt in ruin. F’dor, however, never underwent that cleansing transformation. If anything they became even more twisted, and thrived by using deception.”

“They would attach themselves, spirits that they were, to a human host—or Lirin, or Nain—and feed off it, possessing it until it coexisted as two entities, one of them man, the other demon. They had tremendous power to hold their victims in thrall, to make them do their will. And they were almost impossible to discern, sometimes even to the person who was the host. Perhaps you might gain an inkling of insight now into why I don’t appreciate you adopting everyone under the sun. For all I, or you, know, you could be one yourself now, or under its power, and not even know it.”

“How do you know all this?” Rhapsody exploded. “Where did you get the ancient knowledge that only the greatest Namers are supposed to have?”

Achmed looked up into the darkness. The stars winked between the clouds that hung heavy in the air above. Mist was beginning to form on the ground, as if rising to meet its counterpart in the sky.

“I learned some of the secrets of the F’dor while in its employ.”

“The demon that was your master? It was F’dor?”

“Yes. It had my name, was holding it captive, and could bend me to its will as a result. The F’dor’s own name was Tsoltan; perhaps you’ve heard it before.” He glanced at the harp, still grinding out its discordant song.

Rhapsody sought the answer in her memory, and found it a moment later. “Llauron said that the enemy of the king in the Great War that raged after we left the Island was named Tsoltan. Is that the one?”

Achmed nodded. “And just when he was telling us about him, you interrupted with something inane, though you didn’t know better at the time.”

“I could have, if you had told me about him earlier, instead of waiting until now.”

“When? Would you have had me speak his name within the Earth? You, a Namer, should know more than anyone what might have happened.” The anger in her eyes diminished, like an ember burning out, and she nodded.

Achmed’s voice grew softer. “There is another reason I know of the F’dor. I’m part Dhracian. As a race, we loathe the F’dor with every fiber of our souls. I suppose part of our hatred stems from their indiscernibility; as a people sensitive to vibration it is particularly offensive for a Dhracian to know that the demons are there, but they can’t be detected.”

“Our history is one of racial conflicts, great crusades by the Dhracians against the F’dor. This is a long story, better suited to another night, but I will tell you just one fragment of the history.”

“After the Dawn of Time, in that era sometimes known as the Day of the Gods, the primordial races you spoke of had their own difficulties with the F’dor. What eventually came to pass was an alliance of sorts, albeit a tentative one, between the Ancient Seren, the Mythlin, and the Kith—the dragons stayed out of it. It was the union of these three, working together, that drove the F’dor back into the Earth, containing them there, until they were released by chance.”

“The falling star, the Sleeping Child, hit the Earth in the middle of the Second Age, millennia later. Its impact tore a hole in the fabric of the world, and some of the F’dor escaped from the core. I believe the spirit that eventually came to possess Tsoltan was one of them. Tsoltan was evil before the F’dor took him, a priest to the Goddess of Void, the Devourer. He was a perfect host for the F’dor.”

“You’re losing me.”

“I’m sorry; I digress. In the battle in that First Age, when the F’dor were contained, it was the Kith, our ancestors, who found the F’dor, and held them in thrall by means of vibration. They were the assassins, the ones who had studied how to kill both the host and the demon. They bequeathed that ability to their descendants, the Dhracians.”

“The Dhracians are an elder race, though not Firstborn, obviously. They came before the races of man. And for reasons too complicated to explain tonight, the Dhracians made it their lives’ ambition to destroy every last trace of the F’dor. So we have the ability to do it; it is our racial gift, our lore. Which is what made the fact that I was Tsoltan’s thrall, his personal assassin, all the more perverse and nauseating.”

“So it comes down to this, Rhapsody: our world, the world we knew, is gone. I need to find out if it took Tsoltan with it, either by MacQuieth’s hand, or by death in the cataclysm.”

“Most likely the F’dor died in the Great War. MacQuieth was the one non-Dhracian warrior that might have been able to kill both the demon and the human, but we don’t know that for certain. Obviously the wyrm was not released, or we would not be out here, freezing our arses off in the middle of a winter’s night half a world away from Serendair.”

“But the possibility exists that the F’dor didn’t die, as well. Something is definitely behind these strange incursions, and where there is unexplainable chaos, it is often a bellwether of F’dor. Of course, F’dor do not have exclusive rights to mayhem and aggression; man has been an active participant in that for centuries on his own.”

Obviously, the greatest fear is that a F’dor spirit escaped, and has come here. It would not have to be the same one I knew in order to wake the wyrm, assuming that monstrosity is still alive in the bowels of the Earth. And any F’dor would know of its existence; that’s their lore. Any F’dor would seek its release. I need to know if the F’dor that I was enslaved to survived, but it is critical just to find out if any F’dor is here among us.”

“Well, that’s easy,” Rhapsody said, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to dispel the chill. “Its temple is right here, in Bethany. They’re worshipping it, in plain sight.”

Achmed laughed. “Not necessarily. You have to remember, Rhapsody, if the legends are correct, the forces of the F’dor lost the Great War of Serendair. The loser’s history isn’t the one that is told and, retold until it becomes legend. These poor fools, the descendants of the war’s victors, probably only had crumbs of the, truth, just another example of Cymrian self-delusion. They wanted to honor the elements, the five children of their Creator. They just didn’t know the whole story.”

“Is it possible that they are just evil, and sincerely worshipping it?” Rhapsody asked.

“Anything is possible, but let’s assume for a moment those idiots in the basilica are innocent dupes. They seem too stupid to be evil. Besides, F’dor don’t tend to reveal themselves, and their infrastructure, publicly. Their strength is in remaining hidden.”

“So where did the Cymrians get this inaccurate story? Perhaps they came upon a painting of the symbol somewhere. Tsoltan used to wear an amulet depicting the Earth in flames, but it had an eye in the center. Maybe by the time they built the cathedrals, trying to commemorate their heritage, they had forgotten the origin of the fire symbol, or maybe they never knew it in the first place. That’s one of the reasons I asked you how long it was between our leaving, and the Cymrian exodus.”

“It doesn’t matter. What they’ve done, however inadvertent, has exposed a large segment of the population in this place to the F’dor if it is here. By putting themselves in a worshipful mode, in the presence of an elemental well of fire from a vent in the Earth’s heart, and by speaking of the F’dor as a beneficent force, they’ve handed this continent over to it, if it’s here. They invited it here.”

The winter chill had crept into Rhapsody’s bones, along with something colder. “Then what do we do? How do we find something that can’t be found, in a place we don’t know, a thousand years out of our own time?”

“We start in Canrif,” Achmed said. “It would have followed the Cymrians if it came with them. That was where the power was. It’s where the Bolg are now, and even if it turns out that nothing evil followed the Cymrians, it will be worth the journey just to see Canrif, and the Firbolg that live there.”

“And that’s why this has been your plan all along, ever since you heard Llauron’s tale?”

“Yes. And even more so since we met the Rakshas, and you told me of that vision you had near the altar in the garden. Though that was certainly demonic, it doesn’t sound much like the work of F’dor. Truthfully, Rhapsody, if the religion of this place is struggling with its own demons, I say we leave them to it.”

“I suspect the blood of those children is the source of sustenance for the Rakshas, keeps it alive. Stephen plans to set a trap for it. If his army, and the army of his cousins, can’t destroy the Rakshas, we have no chance against it anyway. This problem is of their world; we need to find the answers to our own concerns. And the place to do it is Canrif.”

Rhapsody sighed. “All right, then. I suppose there really is no alternative but to at least try and find out if something came with the fleets or not, and if it’s what is causing all the strife. Can I just ask you one thing more?”

Achmed rose and stretched, gathering his robe around him. “Certainly.”

“What are you going to do if it turns out to be what you fear it is?”

He looked up into the branches that arched above them, white bare arms gleaming in the dark, lost in thought for a long moment. “I don’t know what I can do,” he said at last. “Since we were remade in the fire, many things are different. I have powers and skills I never had before, and have lost some of those I used to count on. I’m not sure what weapons I still have to bring to bear against it.”

“That’s only part of the answer,” Rhapsody said softly.

“Maybe I should have asked what you’re willing to do. I don’t know how much you care about this place and its people. In the past you have seemed distant from both of them.”

He stared at her, unblinking, then finally smiled. “I don’t know, either. Let’s get back. Grunthor is probably sitting on Jo to keep her from eavesdropping.” He took her hand and pulled her to a stand.

“All this talk of ancient races made me think of something,” Rhapsody said, pulling up her hood. “Do you remember the prophecy of the Three? Child of Blood, Child of Earth, Child of the Sky?”

“Indeed.”

“Could that have referred to those primordial races, the alliance of the Kith, the Mythlin, and the Ancient Seren, rather than Anwyn and her sisters, the Seers, like Llauron said?”

Achmed stared at her in disbelief. “Is that really who you think that prophecy is about?”

“I have no idea who the prophecy is about. I was just posing a suggestion.”

Achmed smiled and pointed to the harp. “Get that thing and make it stop; it’s addling your brain.” Children of the Sky must have air between the ears, he thought. Liringlas. Your own race, and you don’t even recognize yourself. Or Grunthor and me. “You definitely are a Cymrian, Rhapsody; your self-delusion exceeds even theirs, and that’s a hefty accomplishment.”

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

The mismatched eyes twinkled. “Nothing. Let me just tell you this: prophecy is clearest after the fact. I don’t allow myself to be taken in or led astray by it. Overconfidence is often a result of trying to read signs you can’t translate with certainty. After all, what has your prescience ever done for you? You dreamt of the Island’s death—were you able to stop it?”

He pulled aside the branches of the thicket and started back to the camp. Rhapsody watched for a moment before following him.

When morning came, it was like the spell of the night before had been broken. The companions saddled up sullenly, preparing for their journey to Bethe Corbair, the last human stronghold before the Bolglands.

Once they came to the western edge of the Krevensfield Plain, the endless meadow that wrapped around the province of Bethe Corbair, Rhapsody tried once more to sound Achmed out, to see what he was thinking, to no avail. He had returned to his customary distance, resisting any overture she made with thorny silence. It was as if the conversation had never happened.