Prophecy: Child of Earth

Rhapsody did not sleep well the night before she handed herself over to a man she barely knew, a man whose face she had never seen. Having been girted with prescience, the ability to see visions of the Future and the Past, she was accustomed to restless nights and terrifying dreams, but this was different somehow.

She was awake for much of the long, torturous night, fighting nagging doubts that were very likely the warnings, not of some special foresight, but of ordinary common sense. By morning she was completely unsure as to the wisdom of her decision to go overland with him, beyond the stalwart protection of her strange, formidable friends.

The firecoals in the small, poorly ventilated grate burned silently while she tossed and muttered, neither awake nor really asleep. The mute flames cast bright sheets of pulsing light on the walls and ceiling of her tiny windowless bedchamber deep within the mountain. Upon becoming king of the Firbolg in Ylorc, Achmed had named his seat of power the Cauldron, but tonight the place more closely approximated the Underworld.

Achmed had made no secret of his disapproval at her leaving the mountain with Ashe. From the moment they had met on the streets of Bethe Corbair the two men had exuded a mutual mistrust that was impossible not to notice; the tension in the air made her scalp hum with negative static. But trust was not Achmed’s common state. Aside from herself and Grunthor, his giant sergeant-major and long-time friend, as far as she knew he had extended it to no one.

Ashe seemed pleasant enough, and harmless. He had been willing to visit Rhapsody and her companions in Ylorc, their forbidding, mountainous home. He had not appeared uncomfortable with the fact that Ylorc was the lair of the Firbolg, primitive, sometimes brutish people that most humans feared as monsters.

Ashe had exhibited no such prejudices. He had dined agreeably at the same table with the glowering Bolg chieftains, taking no notice of their crude table manners and ignoring their propensity to spit bone fragments onto the floor. And he had taken up arms willingly in defense of the Firbolg realm against an attack by the Hill-Eye, the last holdout clan to swear fealty to Achmed, whose reign as Warlord was still new and sorting itself out. If he was amused or displeased in any way by Rhapsody’s obnoxious companion’s ascent to monstrous royalty, Ashe did not show it.

But there was little, in fact, that Ashe did show. His face was always carefully covered by the hood of his cloak, a strange garment that seemed to wrap him in mist, making him even harder to discern than he already was.

Rhapsody rolled over bed and let out a painful sigh. She accepted his right to concealment, understood that the great Cymrian War had left many of its survivors disfigured and maimed, but still could not escape the nagging thought that he might be hiding more than a hideous scar. Men with hidden faces had plagued many different areas of her life.

Rhapsody opened her emerald eyes in the darkness of her cavelike chamber. In response, the coals on the fire glowed more intensely for a moment. The remnants of charred wood, reducing in the heat to white-hot cinders, sent forth wisps of smoke that rose above the coalbed and up the chimney that had been hewn into her chamber centuries before, when Ylorc was still Canrif, the old Cvmrian seat of power. She drew a deep breath and watched as more smoke billowed up, forming a thin cloud above the ashes.

She shuddered; the smoke had seeped into her memory, bringing back an unwelcome picture. It was not one of the lingering images from her old life on streets of Serendair, her island homeland, gone now beneath the waves of the sea on the other side of the world. Those days of abuse and prostitution that had haunted her for so long rarely plagued her sleep anymore.

Now she dreamt mostly of the terrors of this new land. Almost every night brought the hideous memories of the House of Remembrance, an ancient library in this new world, and of a curtain of fire that formed a hazy tunnel. At the end of the column of smoke a man had stood, a man in a gray mantled-cloak, much like the one Ashe wore. A man whom the documents they had found identified only as the Rakshas. A man who had stolen children, sacrificing them for their blood. A man whose face she had also not seen. The coincidence was unnerving.

The coals were doing little to dispel the dampness of the room, she thought hazily. Her skin was clammy, causing the blankets to cling to her and scratch. Beads of sweat tangled the hairs at the back of her neck in the chain of the locket she never took off, pulling painfully as she writhed again, struggling to break free of the clutching bedding.

Just as her stomach was beginning to twist in cold worry, a pragmatic thought descended. Achmed was arguably her best friend in this land, the surly other side of her cheerful coin, and he tended to walk the world veiled from sight as well.

It never ceased to amaze her, after all this time, how she could be so close to this assassin-turned-king, a man who seemed to make it a life’s goal to annoy anyone with whom he came in contact. The fact that he had dragged her through the Earth itself, against her will, away from Serendair before the Island was consumed in volcanic fire, saving her life in the process, had not inspired gratitude in her. Although she had ceased to resent her kidnapping over time, a tiny corner of her heart would never forgive him for it. She had learned to love him and Grunthor in spite of it.

And she had learned to love the Firbolg as well, largely through the eyes of these two friends, whose blood was half-Bolg. Despite their primitive nature and warlike tendencies, Rhapsody had come to appreciate many aspects of this cave-dwelling culture that she found surprisingly sophisticated, and far more admirable than some of the behavior she had seen exhibited by their human counterparts in the provinces of Roland. They followed leaders out of respect and fear, not arbitrary or dubious family heritage; they spent what meager healing resources they had on bringing forth infants and protecting mothers and their young, a moral tenet Rhapsody shared. The refined social structure Achmed and Grunthor had introduced was just beginning to take root when the need for her journey had become clear.

Rhapsody writhed onto her back, seeking refuge from her dreams and a more comfortable position, but neither was to be had. She succumbed to the rapid whirring of thoughts through her brain again.

Finding the claw had changed everything. From deep within the vaults of Ylorc they had unearthed the talon of a dragon, fitted with a handle for use as a dagger. The claw had rested undisturbed for centuries, even as the Bolg took over the mountains, making the abandoned Cymrian realm their own. Now it was in the air, and the dragon to whom it belonged would feel it, would taste its vibrations on the wind. Rhapsody believed she would come for it eventually. Having heard the tales of the mighty Elynsynos, and seen the fierce and horrific statues of the beast in the Cymrian museum and in village squares across Roland, she had no doubt that the dragon’s wrath would be virulent. Images of that wrath had led the parade of nightmares on this last night in Ylorc, causing her to wake for the first of many times, trembling.

It was to spare the Bolg from the devastating consequences of that wrath that she had decided to find the wyrm first and return the dagger, though both Achmed and Grunthor had objected strenuously. Rhapsody had stood firm in her decision to go, her determination fueled by the thought of her adopted Bolg grandchildren withering to ashes beneath the dragon’s breath. It was another of the dreams that haunted her, though sometimes the victims changed. Her dreams did not discriminate.

She feared for Jo, the teenaged street child she had found in the House of Remembrance and adopted as her sister. She also feared for Lord Stephen, the pleasant young duke of Navarne, and his children, whom she also had taken into her heart. Each of these loved ones took turns in her nightmares roasting alive before her eyes. This night the honor had belonged to Lord Stephen.

It was within his castle that she had first seen a statue of Elynsynos. He had already suffered the loss of his wife, his best friend, Gwydion of Manosse, and countless people within his duchy to whatever evil was plaguing this land, causing inexplicable outbreaks of violence. The loss of Rhapsody’s world and her family had almost killed her; the Bolg and her friends, this was her family now. To leave that family open to attack would be almost as bad as losing it the first time, in some ways worse. Ashe said he knew how to find the dragon. It was well worth risking herself and her safety to save them. She just couldn’t be sure, in this land of deception, that she was not endangering them even more by going with him.

Rhapsody twisted onto her side, entangling herself in the rough woolen blankets again. Nothing made sense anymore. It was impossible to tell whom what to trust, including her own senses. She could only pray that the dreams f the coming destruction were warnings, not like the foregone premonitions that had told her of the death of Serendair, but either way, it would be impossible to tell until it was too late.

As she drifted off to troubled sleep it seemed to her that the smoke from the fire had thickened and formed a ribbon in the air, a translucent thread that wound around her dreams and settled behind her eyes.

Achmed the Snake, king of the Firbolg, was having nightmares as well, and it irritated him. Sleeping terrors were Rhapsody’s personal curse; generally he was immune to them, having lived out more than his share of torments in the waking world, the old world, a life that he was well glad to be rid of.

The inert stone walls of the Cauldron, his seat of power within the mountain, normally provided him with dark and restful sleep, dreamless and undisturbed by the vibrations of the air to which he was especially sensitive. His Dhracian physiology, the burdensome gift granted to him by his mother’s race, was both a blessing and a curse. It gave him the ability to read the signals of the world that were indiscernible to the eyes and minds of the rest of the populace, but the toll was great; it left him with little peace, having to daily endure the assault of the myriad invisible signatures that others defined as Life.

He was therefore unintentionally appreciative to find this fortress hewn deeply into the mountainous realm of darkness that was Ylorc. The smoothly polished basalt walls held in the quiet, stagnant air of his royal bedchamber, keeping the noise and tumult of the world at bay. As a result his nights were generally free from disturbance, tranquil and comforting in their silence.

But not this night.

In a flurry of growled curses Achmed spun over in his bed and rose to stand, angry. It was all he could do to keep from striding down the corridor to Rhapsody’s room and dragging her out of her own sleep, demanding to know what was wrong with her, why she was so oblivious to the danger in what she was about to undertake. There would be little point in doing that, however; Achmed already knew the answer to that question.

Rhapsody was oblivious to almost everything. For a woman whose brain was keen and mind vibrant with an intelligence he could feel in his skin, she was capable of disregarding even the most obvious facts if she didn’t want to believe them.

Initially he had assumed that this was a factor of the cataclysmic transformation they had each undergone, a metamorphosis that occurred when they walked through the inferno that burned at the center of the Earth during their escape from Serendair. Upon exiting the conflagration Rhapsody was vastly different; she had emerged from the fire physically perfect, her natural beauty enhanced to supernatural proportions. He had been fascinated, not only by the potential power that was inherent in her now, but by her utter inability to recognize the change. The open-mouthed gawking that she experienced in the street whenever she put the hood of her cloak down had done nothing to convince her of the magnificence of her visage; rather, it made her feel like a freak.

Achmed gave the bedsheet that had remained wrapped around his foot a savage kick. Over time, as he had gotten to know Rhapsody better, he realized that her self-deceptive tendencies had long preceded their walk through the fire. It was actually her way of protecting the last shred of her innocence, her fierce desire to believe in good where none existed, to trust when there was no reason to do so.

Her life on the street had clearly been one from which innocent belief could not hide easily. She had had commerce with one of his master’s servants, Michael, the Wind of Death, and had doubtless been introduced to the harshest of realities by him. Nevertheless, she was always looking for the happy ending, trying to recreate the family she had lost in volcanic fire a thousand years before by adopting every waif and foundling she came across. Up until now this tendency had only served to set her up for heartache, which didn’t bother him a bit. Her latest undertaking, however, threatened to compromise more than her life, and that aspect of it disturbed him deeply.

Somewhere out in the vastness of the lands to the west was a human host harboring a demon, he was sure of it; he had seen the work of F’dor before. He had, in fact, been the unwilling servant of one. A twisted race, evil and ancient, born of dark fire, he had hoped that the demise of their Island homeland would have taken the last of the F’dor with it. Had he been there during the Seren War that raged after they left he would have seen to it as his final act of assassination, the trade he had plied in those days.

But he had escaped the Island early. The war had come and gone, Serendair had disappeared beneath the waves a millennia before he emerged from the Root, half a world away, on the other side of Time. And those that had lived through the conflict, had seen the cataclysm coming and had possessed the wisdom to leave before it did, had undoubtedly brought the evil with them to this new place.

It had all the pathos of the World’s Cruelest Joke. He had broken the unbreakable chain of the demon, fled from something from which flight was impossible, had made a successful escape from that which could not be escaped only to find it here again, waiting out there somewhere for him, indiscernibly bound to one of the millions of inhabitants of this new land, biding its time. For the moment they were safe from it, it seemed; the evil had not broached the mountains yet, as far as he could tell. But now this brainless harlot was leaving the protection of his realm. If she survived, she would undoubtedly come back as its thrall without even knowing it.

In earlier days, this would actually have been, in a warped way, a good thing. The possibility that the F’dor had bound itself to her would have alleviated need for him to go in search of it. Upon Rhapsody’s return to the Teeth,

Firbolg mountains, Grunthor would have killed her in front of him while performed the Thrall ritual. It was another racial gift he possessed as half-Dhracian, the strange death dance he had seen but never performed that would event the demon from escaping as the host died, destroying it eternally along with its human body, in this case Rhapsody’s. If she had not, in fact, been ossessed, her needless death would have caused neither of them a second thought.

But that was no longer the case. Grunthor loved Rhapsody fiercely, defended her with ever fiber of his monstrous being. At seven and a half feet, and the same width as a dray horse, that was a lot of ferociously determined protection.

Even he himself had come to acknowledge that she was useful to have around. In addition to her compelling beauty, which frightened the Firbolg or at least made them hold her in awe, there was Rhapsody’s music, one of the most useful tools they had in their arsenal aimed at bringing about the conquest of the mountain and the advancement of the Firbolg civilization.

Rhapsody was Liringlas, a Skysinger, proficient in the science of Naming. There were pleasing aesthestics to the music that was inherent in her, part of her physical makeup. She emanated vibrations which soothed the sensitive veins that traced the surface of his skin. Achmed had decided long before that this was one of the reasons that he found her endearingly irritating, rather than a genuine annoyance, as he found most people to be.

The more useful aspects of her musical ability, however, were its powers to persuade and to inspire fear, to heal wounds and cause damage, to discern vibrations that even he could not identify. Rhapsody had been instrumental in their taking the mountain; without her the campaign would certainly have taken much longer and would have been far bloodier. Unfortunately, though these were the talents he valued, Rhapsody did not.

She spent an inordinate amount of time instead using the comforting aspects of her musical healing, singing to the injured to ease their pain, soothing anxiety, ministrations that he felt confused the Bolg and annoyed him beyond belief. But eventually he had come to tolerate her need to alleviate suffering; it secured her assistance in the necessary things.

In addition to helping win the mountain, she had been responsible for negotiating the treaties with Roland and Sorbold, organizing the vineyard plantings and establishing an educational system, all things that were critical to his master plan. So he had come to respect her ideas and rely on her almost as much as he did on Grunthor, which was why her leaving with Ashe felt like betrayal. At least that was the reason he attached to the stabbing sense of frustration he had felt^ever since she had announced her plan to go with this interloper, this stranger shrouded in mist and secrets.

Just the prospect of her departing Ylorc in the morning made him feel physically cold. Achmed cursed again, running thin hands through sweaty hair and sitting down angrily in the chair before his uncooperative fire. He stared at the minuscule flames for a moment, remembering the sight of Rhapsody as she came back from her walk through the wall of fire within the belly of the Earth, having unintentionally absorbed its power and lore, purged from even the smallest of physical flaws. From that moment forward any fire, from the flickering flame of a candle to roaring bonfires, responded to her with the same adulation that men did, mirroring her mood, sensing her presence, obeying her commands. It was power that he needed here, within the cold mountain.

The Firbolg king leaned forward, elbows on knees, his folded hands resting on his lips, thinking. Perhaps he was worrying unnecessarily. Rhapsody’s initial work was done and progressing nicely. The hospital and hospice were running smoothly, the vineyards tended carefully, even through the winter, by the Firbolg she had trained in agriculture. The Bolg children now were studying the techniques that would make their clans healthier and more long-lived, more prepared to stand their ground against the men of Roland. The lifeless mountain had grown warm under her ministrations. The Cymrian forges constructed by Gwylliam, the fool who had built and ruled Canrif and had started the war that destroyed it, blazed night and day in the fabrication of steel for weapons and tools, the residual heated air circulating within the mountain. The Bolg would barely miss her presence.

And her status as a Namer provided the insurance against her going unnoticed as an unwilling thrall of the demon. F’dor were the masters of lies, deceptive and secretive; Namers were forsworn to the truth. Their powers were deeply tied to it; it was the act of keeping their thinking and speaking honed on the truth as they knew it that allowed them to discern it on deeper levels than most. Rhapsody had demonstrated the ability to manipulate the power of a true name in the moment they had met, though she had done so unintentionally.

A moment before he and Grunthor had come upon her in the old land he was still known by the name given him at birth: the Brother. He was enslaved, breathing air tainted by the sickening smell of burning flesh; the malodor of the F’dor whose mark was upon him, the demon that had possession of his own true name. The invisible chain around his neck was tightening as each second passed. Undoubtedly the F’dor had begun to suspect that he was running, trying to escape its last hideous command.

And in the next moment, he had tripped over Rhapsody, running from her own pursuers in the back streets of Easton, trying to escape the lascivious intentions of Michael, the Waste of Breath. A slight smile crossed his lips and he closed his eyes, turning the memory over in his mind again.

Pardon me, but would you be willing to adopt me for a moment? I’d be grateful.

He had nodded, not having any idea why.

Thank you. She had turned back to the town guards who were chasing her. What an extraordinary coincidence. You gentlemen are just in time to meet my brother. Brother, these are the town guard. Gentlemen, this is my brother—Achmed—the Snake.

The crack of the invisible collar had been inaudible, but he had felt it in his soul. For the first time since the F’dor had taken his name the air in his nostrils cleared, dispelling the hideous odor from his nose and mind. He was free, released from his enslavement and the damnation that would eventually follow, and this stranger, this tiny half-Lirin woman, had been his rescuer.

She had, in her own panicked moment, taken his old name, the Brother, and changed it forever into something ridiculous but safe, giving him back the life and soul over which he had lost control. He could see in his memory even now the look of shock in her clear green eyes; she had had no idea what she had done. Even as he and Grunthor had dragged her overland and into the root of Sagia, the immense tree sacred to the Lirin, her mother’s people, she was still suffering the notion that in their escape they were trying to save her from the Waste of Breath. To his knowledge she was still under that mistaken impression.

So if the F’dor should come upon her and bind itself to her soul, it would be easy to discern. She would no longer be able to act as a Namer, would lose her powers of truth once she was the host of a demonic spirit that was an innate liar. It was small comfort, given all the other dangers that were lying in wait for her out there somewhere, beyond his lands and his protection.

Achmed shivered and looked at the hearth. The last of the firecoals had burned down, vanishing in a thin wisp of smoke.

Deep within the barracks of the Firbolg mountain guard, Grunthor was dreaming, too, something he did not tend to do. Unlike the Firbolg king, he was a simple man with a simple outlook on life. As a result, he had simple nightmares. His bad dreams, however, tended to cause more collective suffering.

Grunthor, like Achmed, was half-Bolg, but the other half was Bengard, a giant race of grisly featured desert dwellers with oily, hide-like skin that held back the effects of the sun. The Bolg-Bengard combination was as unappealing to the eye as Rhapsody’s human-Lirin mix was pleasing, even to the sensibilities of the Bolg, who held Grunthor in high esteem dwarfed only by their utter fear of him. It was an attitude that pleased him.

As Grunthor muttered in his sleep, whispering through the meticulously polished tusks that protruded from his jutting jaw, the elite mountain guard captains and lieutenants who shared his barracks remained still. To a one the Bolg soldiers were afraid that any movement might in some way disturb the Sergeant-Major or set him off, which undoubtedly qualified as the last thing any of them wanted” to do. It seemed that neither Grunthor nor any of the Bolg who shared the sleeping corridor with him would be getting any rest that night.

Grunthor dreamt of the dragon. He had never seen one before, except for a rather bad statue of one in the Cymrian museum, so his visions were limited to the scope of his imagination, which had never been vast. His only knowledge of them came from Rhapsody, who had told him dragon tales during their endless journey along the Root, stories of the great beasts’ physical might and power over the elements, as well as their ferocious intelligence and tendency to hoard treasure.

It was this last characteristic that was giving him nightmares. He feared that once Rhapsody was within the dragon’s lair, it would seek to possess her and never let her return to the mountain. This was a loss he could not contemplate, having never before cared enough about anything to miss it.

Unconsciously he patted the wall next to his bunk, whispering in Bolgish the words of comfort he had imparted to Achmed not long after they had emerged from the Root, seeking to console his longtime friend and leader about the loss of his blood gift. Grunthor had known him in the days when he was the Brother, the most proficient assassin the world had ever known, so called because he was the first of his race born on the Island from which they had come.

Serendair was a unique land, one of the places Time itself was said to have begun. As the Firstborn of his race in that unique land, the Brother had a bond to the blood of all who lived there. He could seek out any individual heartbeat with the skill of a hound on the hunt, matching his own to it and following it with deadly accuracy, relentless in his quest until he found his quarry. Watching him seek and find his prey was a marvel to behold.

All that had changed when they came forth from the Root into this new land on the other side of the world. Achmed’s gift was gone; now the only heartbeats he could hear were the ones that had come from the old world of Serendair. Even though Achmed had said nothing, Grunthor had felt his despair, and so knew that there were things in life that brought sorrow when they were no longer there. It was the first time he had ever had this realization. He was now experiencing the feeling himself. Rhapsody was Lirin; a slight, frail race upon which the Firbolg in the old land had preyed very successfully, though what Lirin lacked in strength they generally made up for by being sly and swift. They were a race he had even consumed a few of himself, though not as many as he had teasingly led her to believe.

In many ways Lirin were as opposite to the Firbolg as he. himself was to Rhapsody. Lirin were sharp and angular where Bolg were sinewy and muscular. The Lirin lived outside, in the fields and forests beneath the stars, while the Bolg were born of the caves and mountains, the children of the dark of the earth. In Grunthor’s opinion Rhapsody had benefited from being sired by a human; her appearance was still slight but not frail, the sharp angles giving way to slender curves, high cheekbones and softer facial features than her mother undoubtedly had. She was beautiful. No doubt the dragon would think so, too.

At the thought Grunthor roared in his sleep, sending his lieutenants scram up the roughhewn walls of their chamber or out of their bunks entirely. Wood of his massive bed screamed and groaned as he thrashed about, rtine and growling, finally settling onto his side in silence again. The only sound in the room for a few moments afterwards was the quickened breathing of his unfortunate bunkmates who huddled against the barracks walls, their eves glittering and blinking rapidly in the dark.

Unconsciously Grunthor pulled his rough woolen blanket up over his shoulder and sighed as the warmth touched his neck, a sensation similar to being near Rhapsody. He had initially been reluctant to leave the Root once they had arrived here. He had been bound to the Earth by the song of his name that she had sung to lead them through the great Fire. Grunthor, strong and reliable as the Earth itself, she had called him in his namesong, among other descriptions. From the moment he had exited the Fire he had felt the beating heart of the world in his blood, a tie to the granite and basalt and all that grew above it. The Earth was like the lover he had never had, warm and comforting in the darkness, a feeling of acceptance he had never known, and it was inextricably linked to Rhapsody.

In a way he did not miss being within the Earth, or the earthsong that still hummed in his ears when he was wrapped in silence, because she was there. He could still see her smile in the dark, her dirty face gleaming in the glow given off by the Axis Mundi, the great Root that bisected the world that had been their path away from Serendair and to this new place.

He had been her protector from the very beginning, had comforted her in her night terrors, let her sleep on his chest in the dank chill of their journey along the Root, kept her from falling into nothingness during the arduous climb. It was a role so far removed from any he had ever played before that he hardly believed himself capable of it. It had taken every resource of self-control that he had to keep from locking her in her chambers now and driving her guide from the mountain. How he would deal with a double first loss—Rhapsody herself, and the memory she kept alive of being within the Earth—was more than he could imagine. If she were to die, or just never come back, Grunthor was not sure he could go on.

And then, as ever, his mind cleared as the thoughts became too complicated, and pragmatism returned. Grunthor was a man of military solutions, and weighed the odds of her survival unconsciously. She carried a credible weapon—Daystar Clarion, a sword from the old world they had found within the earth, for reasons unknown, here on the other side of the world. It, like they, had undergone a significant change; its blade burned with flame now, where in Serendair it had only reflected the light of the stars. He had taught her how to fight with it, and she was a credit to her instructor, performing admirably in their campaigns to subdue the Bolg. She could take care of herself. She would be all right.

Grunthor began to snore, a sound that was music to the ears of his bunk-mates. They settled back in for the night quietly, taking care not to disturb the Sergeant-Major’s newly found sleep.

Across the hall from Rhapsody’s chambers, Jo was having the dreams typical of a sixteen-year-old with an obsession, full of chemical excitement and pictures of hideous deformity. She slept on her back in her grotesquely messy room, the favored sleeping position of street children who had found a comfortable spot in an area of town in which they didn’t belong. From time to time she unconsciously dabbed at the beads of perspiration that dotted her chest, or drew her legs more tightly together when the flesh between them began to burn with arousal.

The image in her dream was that of Ashe, and it changed from moment to moment. This was largely because she had never actually seen what Ashe looked like, though she had been closer to doing so than most. From the moment of their awkward introduction in the marketplace in Bethe Corbair she had longed for him. She had no idea why.

Initially he had been nothing more than a pocket to pick, the glint of a sword hilt as he stood, near-invisible, in the street, watching the commotion that Rhapsody was unintentionally causing across the way. Upon slipping her hand into his trousers pocket, however, she had felt a surge of power that had unbalanced her. The mist that enveloped her wrist had caused her to lurch and slip, grasping his testicles instead of his coin purse. The row that had ensued served as an unpleasant but effective introduction, not only between Ashe and herself, but Ashe and Rhapsody as well. It had sorted itself out neatly, as everything seemed to when Rhapsody was involved.

Now Jo dreamed of the image of his eyes, furiously blue and clear within the darkness of his hood, blazing down at her beneath a wave of coppery hair, the only aspects of his face visible from below. She had watched carefully ever since Ashe had come, months later, to visit them in Ylorc, waiting for any glimpse of further features, but it had never happened. Sometimes she wondered if she had actually seen anything at all, if the memory of his eyes and hair was just her mind’s way of filling in the desperately desired blanks.

Sometimes Jo would dream of his face, but more often than not it was an unpleasant experience. No matter how nicely the image had begun, it would often resolve itself into something frightening. In her waking moments Jo had come to realize that men who shielded their faces from sight often had good reason to do so, and generally it translated into some form of hideous appearance. Achmed, another man with a hidden face, was ugly as death; uglier, if at all possible.

The first time she had seen Achmed without the benefit of the swath of material that usually veiled his lower face she had gasped aloud at the sight. His skin was pocked and mottled, lined with exposed veins and imbued with an unhealthy pallor. And always above the veil were the eyes, closely set and somewhat mismatched, giving him the appearance of being transfixed in a perennial stare.

She had pulled Rhapsody aside.

How can you stand looking at him?

Who?

Achmed, of course.

Why?

Her adopted older sister had been of little use in making sense of the confusion she felt within the Firbolg mountain. Rhapsody seemed at ease among the ugly and the monstrous. She had stared at Jo as if she had two heads every time Jo made reference to the fact that looking at Achmed was not a pleasant experience. At the same time she seemed utterly unaware of any reason to be attracted to Ashe. Jo was secretly glad; it made the furtive desire that was growing daily within her a little less guilt-ridden.

There was enough guilt to bear about the other thing that secretly gladdened her; she was relieved that Rhapsody seemed ignorant of Ashe’s attraction to her as well. Jo’s life on the street had made her a keen observer, and even though Ashe tended not to display his interest noticeably, she had picked up on it anyway. Achmed and Grunthor had seen it too, she was certain. But Grunthor was gone most of the time on maneuvers, and Achmed had found other reasons to dislike Ashe, so it was hard to confirm without asking them, something she would rather die than do.

Jo turned onto her stomach and curled her knees and arms under her, trying to shield herself from the missiles of jealousy that rained down on her now in the dim light of her bedchamber. As much as she thought she wanted the attention of this hidden stranger, she found herself shuddering at the brutal thoughts that plagued her about Rhapsody, the only person who had ever loved her; who was now an unintentional obstacle.

Rhapsody and the two Bolg had rescued her from the House of Remembrance, saving her from the blood sacrifice of the other children she had witnessed there. And while Achmed and Grunthor would have turned her over to Lord Stephen, Rhapsody had adopted her instead, bringing her along with them, protecting her, giving her an opportunity to belong, loving her. Jo was just beginning to learn to love her back when Ashe came to visit, complicating things. Life before had been a simple matter of survival, daily brushes with the law and other unsavory types, and the simple challenge of finding food and shelter for the night. Now it was far too complicated.

The last flickering candle in Jo’s chamber faltered, then burned out, leaving nothing but the glowing wick and the acrid smell of the liquid wax in the new darkness. Her nose wrinkled, and she pulled the covers over her head. Morning couldn’t come soon enough.

<_Ashe’s dreams were not of anyone in this world, or in this time. Being neither dead nor really alive, the only comfort Ashe ever found from the agony he carried each waking moment was in his memories of the Past.

Even unconsciousness was not a respite from his torment. What few night visions his hideous half-sleep now granted him were hazy and filled with pain. They were generally nightmares of what his life now was, or even more agonizing memories of what it had once been. It was difficult to say which kind of dream was harder to endure.

The dragon blood within him, his dual nature that was both alien and his own, lay dormant for the moment, allowing him a few seconds’ peace in the constant torture of his existence. When it awoke it would begin whispering to him again, nattering away with a thousand stupid insistences, a thousand demands. But now, at least for a little while, the constant drone of it was quiet, crowded into the back recesses of his mind by the sweetness of the dream he was having on this, his last night in the strange realm of Ylorc.

In the silence of the guest chamber he now occupied, Ashe was dreaming of Emily. It had been years, decades, even, since she had graced his dreams, beautiful, innocent Emily, his soulmate, dead a thousand years now. He had met her but once, had passed only one evening in her company, and had known almost from the moment his eyes beheld her that she was the other half that completed him.

She had known it, too, had in that briefest of moments said that she loved him, had gifted him with her heart, her absolute trust and her virtue, had consummated with him what had felt like their marriage, even though they were both barely out of childhood. One night together. And now her ashes blew about somewhere in the winds of Time, on the other side of the world, a lifetime away. The only vestige of her that remained was hidden away in the rusted vault of his memory.

But while Emily was dead, in the Past, Ashe was half-alive in the Present. His existence was a secretive one, hidden from the many who hunted him and dictated by the one who manipulated him. For that reason he walked the world in a cloak powered by the element of water, drawn from Kirsdarke, the sword formed of and dedicated to that element. The cloak wrapped him in mist and shielded him from those who could read his vibrational signature on the wind.

His living shroud obscured him from the eyes of the rest of the world as well. He was only here now, in the realm of the Bolg, on orders to observe the three who ruled the monsters of Ylorc and report back. Ashe hated being used in this way, but had no power to do otherwise. It was one of the drawbacks of his life not being his own, his fate and destiny in the dark hands of another.

The one pleasant thing about this assignment was that it allowed him to be with Rhapsody. From the moment the dragon in his blood had felt her presence for the first time on the Krevensfield Plain he had been involuntarily fascinated with her, drawn like a moth to a flame as intense as the fire that burned in the belly of the world. Upon actually meeting her, both sides of his nature, the dragon and the man, had fallen deeply under her spell. Had he more a living man than the shell of a man that he was, Ashe might have h en able to resist whatever charms she had bound him with. As it was, he feared her almost as much as he was enchanted by her.

Sam. The word echoed in his memory, Emily’s soft voice bringing water to the edges of his eyes, even in sleep. She had called him Sam, and he had loved the sound of it. They had parted far too soon; he had not had the chance to correct her.

“I can’t believe you really came, she had whispered on that night, that one night, so long ago beneath an endless blanket of stars. Her voice still whispered to him now, in his dreams. Where are you from? Tou were my wish, weren’t you? Have you come to save me from the lottery, to take me away? I wished for you to come last night on my star, right after midnight, and here you are. Tou don’t know where you are, do you? Did I bring you from a long way off? There was magic in her, he had decided then, and still believed now. It was magic strong enough to have brought him over the waves of Time, back into the Past to find her waiting there for him in Serendair, a land that had disappeared into the sea fourteen centuries before he had been born.

All a dream, his father had insisted, trying to comfort him when he found himself back in his own time, alone, without her. The sun was bright, and you must have been overcome with the heat.

Ashe turned on his side and groaned, overcome with heat now. The fire in the small grate twisted and pulsed, casting its warmth over him in waves. The image of Rhapsody rose up in his mind again. It was never far from the edge of his consciousness anyway; the dragon’s obsession with her was strong. His fingertips and lips still stung with the unspent desire to touch her that had pooled like acid there since he first beheld her, the consequences of the dragon’s unsatisfied longing. Bitterly he struggled to put her out of his mind, reaching back blindly to the sweetness of the memory he had been reliving only a moment before.

“Emily,” he called brokenly, but the dream eluded him, dissipating at the edge of the room beyond his reach.

In his sleep he fumbled in a small pocket of the mist cloak until his fingers brushed it, tiny and hard in its pouch of velvet, worn thin from years of serving as his touchstone. A tiny silver button, heart-shaped, of modest manufacture, given to him by the one woman he had ever loved. It was the only thing he had left of her, that and his memories, each one cherished with the ferocity of a dragon guarding its greatest treasure.

Touching the button worked; it brought her near to him again, if only for a moment. He could still feel the ripping of the lace as he inadvertently tore it from her bodice, his hand trembling with fear and excitement. He could still see the smile in her eyes.

Keep it, Sam, as a memento of the night when 1 gave you my heart. He had complied, had carried the tiny button heart next to his own scarred one, clinging to the memory of what he had lost.

He had searched for her endlessly, in the museums and the history vaults, in the House of Remembrance, in the face of every woman, young and old, that had hair the color of pale flax on a summer’s day, as Emily’s hair had seemed in the dark. He had carefully examined any female wrist, looking for the tiny scar that was burned into his memory. Of course he had never found her; the Seer of the Past had assured him that she had not come on any of the ships that escaped Serendair before it was consumed in volcanic fire.

Well, child, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but no one by that name or description was among those to leave on the ships from the Island before its destruction. She did not land; she did not come.

The Seer was his grandmother, and would never have lied to him, both for that reason and because she was unable to do so at the risk of losing her powers. Anwyn would never have hazarded such a loss.

Nor would Rhonwyn, Anwyn’s sister, the Seer of the Present. He had begged her to use the compass, one of three ancient artifacts with which Merithyn, her Cymrian explorer father, had first found this land. His hand had trembled as he gave her the copper threepenny piece, a valueless, thirteen-sided coin, which was the mate to the one he had given Emily. These coins are unique in all the world, he had told the Seer, his then-young voice wavering, betraying his agony. If you can find the one that matches this one, you’ll have found her.

The Seer of the Present had held the compass in her fragile hands. He recalled how it had begun to glow, then resonate in a humming echo that stung behind his eyes. Finally Rhonwyn had shaken her head sadly.

Tour coin is unlike any in the wide world, child; I am sorry. None other like it exists, except perhaps beneath the waves of the sea. Even I cannot see what treasures are held in the Ocean-Father’s vaults. Ashe could not possibly have known that the Seer’s powers also did not reach into the Earth itself, where Time had no dominion.

He had given up then, had come to almost believe the awful truth, though he still sought her in the face of anyone he came across who could have even possibly been Emily. She had lingered in his every thought, smiled at him in his dreams, had fulfilled the promise he had unwittingly made in his last words to her.

I’ll be thinking about you every moment until I see you again. It was not until many years that her image deserted him, had left in the face of the horror his life had become. Where once his heart was a holy shrine to her memory, now it was a dark and twisted place, touched by the hand of evil. Emily’s memory could no longer remain in such a charnel house. He had no idea why she had been able to return this night, lingering lightly on the smoke that had risen up from the firegrate and wrapped itself behind his eyes.

VII he thinking about you every moment until I see you again.

Th image in the distance grew dimmer. Ashe rolled, grasping again at the ***n his memory as she began to disperse, calling to him as she left. I love you, Sam. I’ve been waiting for you for so long. I always knew you would come to me if I wished for you.

Ashe sat up, sweat pouring from his clammy skin, wrapped in the cool vapor f the mist cloak, shaking. If only the same magic had worked for him.

Firbolg guard standing watch at the hallway’s end nodded deferentially to Achmed as he emerged from his chamber and made his way down the corridor to Rhapsody’s room. He knocked loudly and swung the door open, part of the morning charade performed for the benefit of the Bolg populace, who believed Rhapsody and Jo to be the king’s courtesans and therefore left the women alone. Both Achmed and Grunthor derived great amusement from the smoldering resentment they knew this survival game stoked in Rhapsody’s soul, but she had adopted a practical attitude about it, mostly for Jo’s sake.

The fire on her hearth was flickering uncertainly, mirroring the look on her face. She did not look up from the scroll she was poring over as he entered.

“Well, good morning to you, too, First Woman. You’re going to have to work a little harder at this if you’re going to convince the Bolg you’re the royal harlot.”

“Shut up,” Rhapsody said automatically, continuing to read.

Achmed smirked. He picked up the teapot from her untouched breakfast tray and poured himself a cup; it was cold. She must have been up even earlier than usual.

“What Scumrian manuscript are you reading this time?” he asked, holding the tepid tea out to her. Without looking up, Rhapsody touched the cup. A moment later, Achmed felt the heat from the liquid permeate the smooth clay sides of the mug, and took a sip, making sure to blow the steam off first.

“‘The Rampage of the Wyrm’. Amazing; it just appeared out of thin air under my door last night. What an extraordinary coincidence.”

Achmed sat down on her neatly made bed, hiding his grin. “Indeed. Learn anything interesting about Elynsynos?”

Finally a small smile crossed Rhapsody’s face, and she looked up at him. “Well, let’s see.” She sat back in the chair, holding the ancient scroll of parchment up to the candlelight.

“Elynsynos was said to be between one and five hundred feet long, with teeth as long and as sharp as finely honed bastard swords,” she read. “She could assume any form at will, including that of a force of nature, like a tornado, an earthquake, a flood, or the wind. Within her belly were gems of brimstone born in the fires of the Underworld, which allowed her to immolate anything that she breathed on. She was wicked and cruel, and when Merithyn, her sailor lover, didn’t come back, she went on a rampage that decimated the western half of the continent up to and including the central province of Bethany. The devastating fire she caused lighted the eternal flame in the basilica that burns there to this day.”

“I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice. Do you reject this historical account?”

“Much of it. You forget, Achmed, I’m a Singer. We’re the ones who write these ballads and this legend lore. I’m a little more versed in how it can be exaggerated than you are.”

“Having done so yourself?”

Rhapsody sighed. “You know better than that. Singers, and especially Nam-ers, can’t make up a lie without losing their status and abilities, although we can repeat tales that are apocryphal or outright fiction as long as we present them that way, as stories.”

Achmed nodded. “So if you reject this story out of hand, why are you worried?”

“Who said I was worried?”

The Firbolg king grinned repulsively. “The fire,” he said smugly, nodding at the hearth. Rhapsody turned toward the thin flames; they were lapping unsteadily around a heavy log which refused to ignite. She laughed in spite of herself.

“All right, you caught me. And, by the way, I don’t reject the story out of hand. I just said there are some parts that I think are exaggerated. Some of it may very well be right.”

“Such as?”

Rhapsody put the manuscript back down on the table and folded her arms. “Well, despite the disparity in the reports of her actual size, I have no doubt that she was—is—immense.” Achmed thought he detected a slight shudder run through her. “She may actually have the ability to assume those fire, wind, water, and earth forms; dragons are said to be tied to each of the five elements. And though she may, in fact, be evil and vicious, I don’t believe the story about the devastation of the western continent.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, the forests there are virgin in most of the parts we passed through, and the trees are the wrong kind to have sprung up after a fire.”

“I see. Well, I don’t doubt your knowledge of forests, or virgins—after all, you’ve been one twice—

“Shut up,” Rhapsody said again. This time the fire reacted; the weak flames sprang to violent life, roaring angrily. She pushed her chair back, rose and walked purposely to the coat peg near the door. She snatched down her cape. “Get out of my room. I have to go meet Jo.” With a savage shrug she donned the garment, then rerolled the scroll and slapped it into Achmed’s hand.

“Thanks for the bedtime reading,” she said sarcastically, opening her door. “I assume I don’t need to give you specific anatomical directions as to where you should store it.” Achmed chuckled as the door slammed shut behind her.

I was beginning to abate, or so it seemed. It had been hovering decisively on the threshold of leaving for some time, reluctant to release its grip entirely while giving way grudgingly to a fairer wind and sky. The air f early spring was clear and cold, but held the scent of the earth again, a promise of warmth to come.

Rhapsody climbed carefully up the rocky face of the crags that led to the heath at the top of the world, a wide, expansive meadow beyond the canyon that a long-dead river had carved many millennia before. The basket she was lugging had almost spilled twice by the time she reached the flat land; she was off-balance, weighed down by the additional burden of the gear for her impending journey.

Waiting above in the dark meadow, Jo watched in amusement as the basket appeared at the crest of the heath, wobbled a moment, then righted itself. It slid forward a few inches as if under its own power, then finally a golden head surfaced, followed by intense green eyes. A second later Rhapsody’s smile emerged over the edge; it was a smaller version of the sunrise that would come in an hour or so.

“Good morning,” she said. Only her head was visible.

Jo rose and came to help her, laughing. “What’s taking you so long? Usually you can make this climb in a dead run. You must be getting old.” She offered her elder, smaller sister a hand and hauled her up over the edge.

“Be nice, or you don’t get any breakfast.” Rhapsody smiled as she laid her pack on the ground. Jo had no idea how right she was. By her own calculations she was somewhere in the neighborhood of sixteen hundred twenty years old in actual time, though all but two decades of that had passed while she and the two Bolg were within the Earth, crawling along the Root.

Jo grabbed the basket and unhooked the catch, then dumped its contents unceremoniously onto the frozen meadow grass, ignoring Rhapsody’s dismayed expression. “Did you bring any of those honey muffins?”

“Yes.”

The teenager had already located one and stuffed it into her mouth, then pulled out the sticky mass and looked at it in annoyance. “Ick. I told you not to put currants in them; it ruins the flavor.”

“I didn’t. That must be something from the ground, a beetle, perhaps.” Rhapsody laughed as Jo spat, then hurled the partially masticated muffin into the canyon below.

“So where’s Ashe?” Jo asked as she sat cross-legged on the ground, picking up another muffin and brushing it off carefully.

“He should be here in half an hour or so,” Rhapsody answered, sorting through her satchel. “J wanted to see you alone for a little while before we leave.”

Jo nodded, her mouth full. “Grnmuthor um Achmmegd are commiddg, too?”

“Yes, I expect them shortly, although I had a hostile exchange with Achmed earlier, so perhaps he won’t bother.”

“Why would that stop him? That’s normal conversation for Achmed. What was his problem this morning?”

“Oh, we just had an argument over a Cymrian manuscript he slipped under my door last night.”

Jo swallowed and poured herself a mug of tea. “No wonder; you know how much he hates the Cymrians.”

Rhapsody hid her smile. Since the Cymrians had come from Serendair, their homeland, she, Grunthor, and even Achmed were technically Cymrians themselves, a fact she had not been allowed to share with Jo. “Why do you think that?”

“I heard him talking to Grunthor a few nights back.”

“Oh?”

Jo leaned back importantly. “He said that you had your head wedged up your arse.”

Rhapsody grinned. “Really?”

“Yes. He said the dragon probably had a Cymrian agenda, because she was the one who invited the arse-rags here in the first place to please her lover—that’s what he called them: arse-rags.”

“Yes, I believe I’ve heard him use that word about them myself.”

“He also said that you were trying to find out more about the Cymrians, to help bring them back into power, and that it was stupid. He thinks the Bolg are much more worthy of your time and attention, not to mention your loyalty. Is that true?”

“About the Bolg?”

“No, about the Cymrians.”

Rhapsody looked off at the eastern horizon. The sky at the very edge of the land was beginning to lighten to the faintest shade of cobalt blue; otherwise the coming of foredawn was still indiscernible. Her face flushed in the darkness as she thought back to Llauron, the gentle, elderly Invoker of the Filids, the religious order of the western forest lands and some of the provinces of Roland.

Llauron had taken her in not long after the three of them had arrived, had made her welcome. He had taught her the history of the land, as well as many useful things that were now helping Achmed build his empire, among them planting lore, herbalism, and the healing of men and animals. His voice nagged in her head now, expecting information and solutions to problems she didn’t understand.

Now that you’ve learned about the Cymrians, and the growing unrest that threatens to sunder this land again, I hope you will agree to help me by being my eyes and ears out in the world, and report back what you see.

I’ll be glad to help you, Llauron, but—

Good, good. And remember, Rhapsody, though you are a commoner, you can still be useful in a royal cause.

I don’t understand.

Llauron’s eyes had glinted with impatience, though his voice was soothing. The reunification of the Cymrains. I thought I had been clear. In my view, nothing is going to spare us from ultimate destruction, with these unexplained uprisings und acts of terror, except to reunite the Cymrian factions, Roland and Sorbold, and possibly even the Bolglands, again, under a new Lord and Lady. The time is almost here. And though you are a peasant—please don’t take offense, most of my following are peasants—you have a pretty face and a, persuasive voice. You could be of great assistance to me in bringing this about. Now, please, say you will do as I’ve asked. Tou do want to see peace come to this land, do you not? And the violence which is presently killing and maiming many innocent women and children; that is something you’d like to see ended?

Jo was staring at her intently. Rhapsody shook off the memory. “I’m going to find the dragon to give her back the claw dagger, in the hope she won’t come and lay waste to Ylorc, and all the Bolg in the bargain,” she said simply. “This journey has nothing to do with the Cymrians.”

“Oh.” Jo took another bite of her muffin. “Does Ashe know that?”

There was a warning note in her sister’s voice that Rhapsody heard, a fluctuation to which she, as a Singer, was sensitive. “I assume so. Why?” An awkward silence took up residence between them. “What aren’t you telling me, Jo?”

“Nothing,” said Jo defensively. “He just asked if you were Cymrian, that’s all. More than once, in fact.”

Rhapsody’s stomach turned over in the grip of cold to rival the chill that the land still held. “Me? He asked you that about me?”

“Well, about the three of you; Achmed and Grunthor, too.”

“But not you?”

A blank look crossed Jo’s face as she considered the question. “No, he never did. I think he assumes I’m not. I wonder why that is.”

Rhapsody rose to a stand and brushed off her trousers and cloak. “Maybe you’re the only one of us he doesn’t think is an arse-rag.”

Jo’s eyes sparkled wickedly. “I hope not,” she said, looking innocently up at the sky. “Grunthor’s certainly not an arse-rag, either.” She laughed as a shower of snow and dried leaves flew into her face. “Seriously, Rhaps, I mean, have you ever even met a Cymrian? I thought they were all long dead.”

The sky was lightening at the horizon to a thin gray-blue. “You’ve met a Cymrian yourself, Jo,” Rhapsody said flatly, beginning to pack up the remains of breakfast. “Lord Stephen is of Cymrian descent.”

“Well, I guess that proves the arse-rag theory,” said Jo, wiping the crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand. “I meant an old one, one of the ones who lived through the War. The kind that lives forever.”

Rhapsody thought for a moment. “Yes, I think so. I was once almost trampled on the road from Gwynwood to Navarne by the horse of an obnoxious soldier named Anborn. If he is the one mentioned in the history we heard, he was Gwylliam’s general in the War. That would make him fairly old. The War ended four hundred years ago, but it went on for seven hundred.”

Jo had been there when they had opened the library vault and found Gwylliam’s body. “Guess the old bastard didn’t look that bad, then. He didn’t seem dead a day past two hundred.” Rhapsody laughed. “Was he the one who started the war when he hit his wife?”

“Yes; her name was Anwyn. She was the daughter of the explorer, Merithyn, the first Cymrian, and the dragon Elynsynos—”

“The one you’re going to see now?”

“Yes—who fell in love with him and told him the Cymrians could come live in her lands, where no human had ever been allowed before.”

Jo popped the last muffin into her mouth. “Whyys diggeeay wanddadoo dhat?”

“The king of Serendair, Gwylliam—”

“The same stiff we found?”

Rhapsody laughed. “The very one. He had foreseen that the Island was about to be destroyed in volcanic fire, so he wanted to relocate the bulk of the population of his kingdom somewhere they could maintain their culture, and where he could remain their king.”

“Power-mad arse-rag.”

“So they say. But he did save most of his people from certain death, brought them safely halfway around the world and built Canrif—”

“Now there’s an accomplishment. A fancy place with indoor plumbing that the Bolg don’t bother to use.”

“Stop interrupting. The Bolg overran it later. He and later Anwyn built an extraordinary civilization out of very little, and reigned in peace over an era of unprecedented advances until the night he hit her. That incident was called the Grievous Blow, because that single slap between the Lord and the Lady started the war that destroyed about a quarter of the population of the continent and much of the Cymrian civilization.”

“Definitely arse-rags,” Jo said resoundingly. “Is there anything you need me to do while you’re away?”

Rhapsody smiled. “Now that you mention it, yes. Would you keep an eye on my Firbolg grandchildren for me?” Jo made a face and a gagging sound, which her sister ignored. “And don’t forget your studies.”

“Sorry I asked,” Jo muttered.

“And look in on Elysian from time to time, will you? If the new plantings need water, give them a drink.”

Jo rolled her eyes. “You know I can’t find Elysian.” Rhapsody’s house, a tiny cottage situated on an island in an underground grotto, was virtually impossible to discern by anyone except Achmed or Grunthor. The four companions kept its secret deliberately.

“Get Grunthor to take you. Sorry these tasks seem so odious. What did you have in mind when you offered?”

Her pallid face lit up. “I can keep an eye on Daystar Clarion for you.”

Rhapsody laughed. “I’m taking my sword with me, Jo.” Jo had long been ***ted with the burning blade, watching the flames as though hypnotized.

When they were traveling overland, Rhapsody had kept the sword out at night til Jo had fallen asleep, the starlight that radiated from the blade comforting her in the dark.

“Oh.”

“After all, I might need it. You do want me to come back, don’t you?” Rhapsody said, patting Jo’s crestfallen face.

“Yes,” said Jo quickly; there was an unintended urgency in her voice. “If you leave me here alone among the Bolg I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”

The sky in the east had faded to a soft pink, with a ribbon of palest yellow touching the edge of the horizon below it. Rhapsody closed her eyes, feeling the coming of the sun. At the edge of her hearing she could feel a musical note sound softly, wafting on the wind; it was re, the second note of the scale. In the lore of Singers, re was the portent of a peaceful day, a day without incident.

Softly she began her morning aubade, the love song to the sun that her race, the Liringlas, sang to greet the daybreak. It was a song passed from mother to child, like the vespers that bade the sun Godspeed at the end of the day and welcomed the stars as they came forth in the twilight. To Rhapsody, the act of marking these ancient devotions was always a poignant one; it was the only way she had left of feeling close to the mother she missed more than anything else she had lost with the sinking of the Island.

Beside her she could feel Jo begin to tremble as she listened to the song, and Rhapsody took her hand. The primordial song of mother-to-daughter passage was especially poignant to her, too. Jo had never known her mother, having been abandoned to the streets as a child. Rhapsody took the girl into her arms as the song came to its end.

“She loved you, I know she did,” she whispered. She had been trying to convince Jo of it for a long time.

“Right,” Jo muttered sardonically.

“That was beautiful,” said Ashe. Both women jumped. As always, they had not seen him approach. Rhapsody colored in embarrassment, her face taking on the same hue as the edge of the predawn horizon.

“Thank you,” she said, turning hurriedly away. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. Achmed and Grunthor are right behind me. I assume they want to say goodbye.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back,” Rhapsody said, giving Jo one more hug. “If we pass through Sepulvarta, the holy city where the Patriarch lives, I’ll try to get you some more of those sweets you liked.”

“Thanks,” said Jo, wiping her eyes with her sleeve defensively. “Now hurry up and leave so I can get out of this fornicating wind; it’s stinging my eyes.” t-As Grunthor hugged her goodbye, Rhapsody struggled not to gasp, but her face was turning an unhealthy shade of red in the giant’s embrace. The panoramic vista of the Orlandan Plateau swam before her eyes, the crags of the Teeth tipping at a sickening angle. In her disconnected thoughts she wondered if this was something like being squeezed to death by a bear.

Finally Grunthor set her down, released her, and patted her shoulder awkwardly. Rhapsody looked up into the great gray-green face and smiled. The Bolg’s face was set in a nonchalant expression, but she could see the tightness of his massive jaw, and the faintest hint of glistening liquid at the corners of his amber eyes.

“Oi really wish you’d reconsider, Duchess,” he said solemnly.

Rhapsody shook her head. “We’ve been through this already at great length, Grunthor. I’ll be safe. I’ve haven’t had a single bad dream about this trip, and you know how rare that is.”

The giant folded his arms. “And just ’oo is gonna save you from the dreams you do ’ave on the road?” he demanded. “Last Oi knew, that was my job.”

The amused expression on the Singer’s face softened with his words. “Indeed, you’re the only one who’s ever been able to,” she said, running her hand along the enormous muscular arm. “I guess it’s just another small sacrifice I’ll have to make to keep the Bolg safe.”

Another thought occurred to her, and Rhapsody dug for a moment in her pack, finally pulling out a large seashell. “But I have this,” she said, smiling brightly. Grunthor chuckled. He had given it to her not long after they had emerged from the Root, a memento from a journey he and Achmed had made to the seacoast, searching for a way to get her back to Serendair after their long journey through the Earth’s belly.

His smile faded with the memory. When finally they had met up again, she had informed them that the Island was gone, swallowed by the sea more than a millennium before. At that moment, he had felt guilt for the first time in his life, knowing that he and Achmed had dragged her away from a home and a family she would now never see again. She slept sometimes with the shell covering her ear, attempting to use the noise of the crashing waves to drown out the torturous nightmares that left her thrashing and sobbing in despair.

“You know Oi’d take the worst of them dreams for you if Oi could, Yer Ladyship,” he said sincerely.

Rhapsody felt her throat tighten, and a sense of overwhelming loss tugged at the edges of her consciousness. “I know, I know you would,” she said, and hugged him again. Abruptly she pulled away, trying to regain her composure. A wicked twinkle came into her eye. “And believe me, if it was within my power, I’d give you the worst of them. Where’s Achmed? Ashe and I need to be going.”

A sudden lightheadedness washed over her, a sensation that time was expanding all around her. She had felt this way before, but where or when she s uncertain. Grunthor seemed to be feeling it, too; the amber eyes clouded er for a moment, then he blinked rapidly, and smiled.

“Don’t forget to say goodbye to ’Is Majesty,” he said merrily, pointing to the cloaked figure standing a little way off.

“Do I have to? Our last exchange was probably about as tender a goodbye as I’m ever going to get out of him. We almost came to blows.”

“Yes, you ’ave to,” Grunthor commanded with mock severity. “And that’s an order, miss.”

Rhapsody saluted, laughing. “All right. Far be it from me to defy ‘The Ultimate Authority, to Be Obeyed at All Costs,’ ” she said. “Does that ultimate authority apply only to me?”

“Nope,” said Grunthor.

“You have final dominion over everyone in the world?”

“Damn right.” The giant sergeant signaled to the Firbolg king. “Aw, come on, Duchess. Tell ’im goodbye. ’E may not show it, but Vs gonna miss you terrible.”

“Sure he is,” she said as Achmed approached. “I’ve heard he’s already taking bids on my quarters and planning to auction off my worldly goods.”

“Only the clothes, and only if you aren’t back in a reasonable amount of time,” the Firbolg king said as pleasantly as he was able. “I don’t want that hrekin cluttering up my mountain.”

“I’ll be back, and I’ll send word with the guarded mail caravan as often as I am able,” Rhapsody said, shouldering her pack. “Now that the interprovincial messengers are coming regularly to Ylorc, I should be able to get a message to you if need be.”

“Of course. I’m sure the dragon’s cave is a regular stop on the mail caravan’s route,” Achmed replied, a note of angry sarcasm creeping into his voice.

“Don’t start,” Rhapsody warned, casting an eye over toward Jo, who was chatting with Ashe.

“No,” Achmed agreed. “I just thought I’d give you a little send-off.” He handed her a scroll of tightly bound parchment. “Be careful. It’s very old and very valuable.”

“If it’s another version of The Rampage of the Wyrm, I’m going to stow it forcibly in the place I suggested to you earlier this morning.”

“Have a look.”

Carefully Rhapsody unbound the ancient thread of silk that tied the scroll closed. Achmed had made a substantial study of the writings from Gwylliam’s library and reliquary vault, but the collection was so vast that it would take him hundreds of years to examine even half of it. The fragile parchment crumbled a bit as she unrolled it. It was a careful rendering of an architectural design.

After a few minutes of staring intently at the plans, she looked back to find the Firbolg king watching her with equal interest. “What is this?” she asked. “I don’t recognize it. Is this someplace in Ylorc?”

Achmed looked over at Ashe, then back to her, moving slightly nearer. “Yes, if it exists. It was Gwylliam’s masterpiece, the crown jewel of his vision for the mountain. I don’t know if he got to build it or not. He called it the Loritorium.”

Rhapsody’s palms grew moist. “Loritorium?”

“Yes, the corresponding documentation describes it as an annex, a deliberately hidden city, a place where ancient lore was housed and the purest forms of elemental power in the Cymrians’ possession would one day be stored, along with a vast conservatory in which to study them. I believe the sword you carry might have been one of those exhibits, based on the dimensions of the display cases and some of the notes.”

She turned the scroll over. “I don’t see any words. How do you know this?”

Achmed nodded slightly toward Ashe and lowered his voice even more. “I’m not an idiot; I left the text safely in the vault. I’ve told you repeatedly that I do not trust him. Besides, I didn’t know if the dew might damage the scrolls.

“From what I have been able to glean, this place was never opened to the Cymrian inhabitants of Canrif. It may never have been started, or if it was, it may never have been finished. But of course, it may have been both, and just known to Gwylliam and a few of his closest advisors. Who knows?

“What is most fascinating is the way the complex is laid out, at least according to these maps. The cases and displays must have been intended to contain something with great care, judging by the detail with which those elements were rendered. Gwylliam devoted a good deal of effort to designing the defenses, both from the outside and the inside. I’m not sure whether he was more intent on protecting his displays, or protecting the Cymrians from them.”

Rhapsody shuddered. “Any idea what it might have been, besides Daystar Clarion?”

“No, but I plan to find out. While you’re gone, Grunthor and I will be checking into some of the Cymrian ruins, the parts of Canrif that were built last and destroyed first when the Bolg overran the mountain. We’ve already seen some signs that point the way to what might have been the Loritorium. It promises to be a fascinating exploration if we find it. Interested?”

“Of course I’m interested,” Rhapsody whispered fiercely, annoyed by the smirk on his face. “What Namer wouldn’t be interested in a place like that?”

“Then stay,” Achmed suggested with mock innocence. “It certainly would be better if you were along. Grunthor and I, clumsy oafs that we are, might inadvertently make a mess or destroy something of historical significance, who knows, perhaps even a one-of-a-kind piece of ancient lore.” He laughed as her cheeks reddened with smoldering anger. “All right, we’ll wait for you. We’ll locate the place, and give you a reasonable period to return. If you’re not back by the time we had discussed, we’ll start without you. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she said. “But you don’t need to give me incentive to hurry back, Achmed. Believe it or not, I have plenty of that.”

The Firbolg king nodded. “Do you still have your dagger from your days on the streets of Serendair?”

Rhapsody looked at him oddly. “Yes; why?”

Achmed’s face lost the last vestige of a smile. “If you find yourself in a compromising situation with Ashe, use your dagger to cut his balls off, not your sword. Daystar Clarion’s fire will cauterize the wound, as you’ve seen before. If that need arises, you want him to bleed to death rapidly.”

“Thank you,” Rhapsody said sincerely. She knew the grisly comment was an expression of genuine concern, and she opened her arms. Achmed returned her embrace quickly and uncomfortably, then looked down at her.

“What’s that in your eyes?” he demanded. “You’re not crying, are you? You know the law.”

Rhapsody wiped her hand across them quickly. “Shut up,” she said. “You can stuff the law right in the same cavity behind The Rampage of the Wyrm; there’s certainly enough room in your case. By your own definition, you should be Lord of the Cymrians.” Achmed smirked as she turned and went over to where Jo and Ashe were standing.

“Are you ready?” Ashe asked, picking up his smoothly carved walking staff.

“Yes,” Rhapsody said, hugging Jo one last time. “Take care of yourself, sis, and our two big brothers.” The teenager rolled her eyes. Rhapsody turned back to Ashe. “Now let’s be off before I say something else to Achmed. I want the last thing I said to him to be something as obnoxious as what he said to me.

Ashe chuckled. “That’s a contest you don’t want to get into,” he said as he checked the bindings on his gear. “I believe you will lose every time.”

As she and Ashe reached the summit of the last of the crag before the foothills, Rhapsody turned and stared east into the rising sun, which had just begun to crest the horizon. She shaded her eyes, wondering if the long shadows were really the silhouettes of the three people she loved most dearly in the world, or only the hollow reflections of rock and chasm, reaching ominously skyward. She decided after a moment she had seen one of them wave; whether or not she was right didn’t matter, anyway.

“Look,” said Ashe, his pleasant baritone shattering her reverie. Rhapsody turned and let her gaze follow his outstretched finger in the direction of another line of shadows, miles off, at the edge of the steppes where the lowlands and the rockier plains met.

“What is that?” she asked. A sudden gust of wind swirled around her, raising a cloud of dust and whipping her hair into her eyes. She pulled her cloak tighter about shoulders.

“Looks like a convocation of some sort, humans, undoubtedly,” he said after a moment.

Rhapsody nodded. “Ambassadors,” she said softly. “They’re coming to pay court to Achmed.”

Ashe shuddered; the tremor was visible, even beneath his cloak of mist. “I don’t envy them,” he said humorously. “That ought to shake up their notions of protocol. Shall we?” He looked off to the west, over the thawing valley and the wide plain past the foothills below them

Rhapsody looked back for a moment longer, then turned her eyes toward the west as well. A slice of the sun had risen behind them, casting a shaft of golden light into the gray mist of the world that stretched out below them. By contrast, the distant line of black figures moved through a jagged shadow.

“Yes,” she said, shifting her pack. “I’m ready.” Without looking back she followed him down the western side of the last crag, beginning the long journey to the dragon’s lair.

In the distance, a figure of a man touched by a darker, unseen shadow stopped for a moment, gazed up into the hills, then continued on its way to the realm of the Firbolg.