Prophecy: Child of Earth

45

Ashe rose slowly, like a man in shock. He savagely pulled up his hood, then walked to the other side of the room and began to gather his belongings. Rhapsody watched him in sorrow; the muscles of his body were coiled like springs, visible even beneath the ever-present mist cloak, and she knew he was struggling desperately to keep from running out the door and dragging Jo out of bed. At least he still had maintained enough common sense to know that awareness of his presence might provoke a demonic attack they were unprepared for.

“We have to go after it now, we can’t delay any longer,” Rhapsody said. “We had planned to wait until the first day of winter, but obviously that’s off.” She could not see his face, but when he spoke his voice was calm, his words pragmatic.

“You understand that she may be in thrall now, Rhapsody? That she may be under the control of the F’dor?”

Rhapsody said nothing.

Ashe took her chin in his hand; his grip was gentle, but she could feel him trembling with rage.

“You do understand, don’t you, Aria? You can’t trust her now, not with anything. The contact may have been brief enough to only enthrall her temporarily, like the soldiers who attack their own villages, then can’t remember doing it. Or the influence may be deeper, stronger; it may be using her as a spy.”

“I know.”

The grip on her chin tightened slightly, and Ashe turned her face up so that her eyes were aligned with his inside the wide hood of the mist cloak.

“She may be bound to it, Rhapsody. It may have gained access to her soul. It may own her now.” Her jaw clenched, but her eyes did not waver. “It’s not likely, though—the F’dor requires a blood contract, whether freely given or taken by force, to fully ensnare an immortal soul. Did she say that it had taken any of her blood?”

Rhapsody’s face went white in his hand; Ashe loosed his grip and caressed her face gently.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said after a moment’s thought. “She said the act was—violent, but she didn’t mention being actually injured.”

“Was she a virgin?” Rhapsody went numb. “Yes.”

Ashe released her face and belted Kirsdarke. “I think you should prepare for the worst, Aria. If she is bound to it—

“If she is bound to it, I will secure her release as well as yours when I kill the Rakshas,” she said harshly. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning before daylight, before she knows we’re gone. I’ll have the guards keep an eye on her until we get back. Whatever needs to be done to save her from this, I will do, no matter what the cost. She’s my sister, Ashe. She was bound to me long before she met the Rakshas. I have first claim on her soul, by the gods, not the F’dor.”

Ashe grasped her arm. “Don’t sacrifice yourself for her. It’s not worth it.” Rhapsody twisted away angrily. “How dare you say that! Who are you to tell me what it is worth? Would it only be worth it if I were to make that sacrifice for you?” Ashe stood still in shock at the venom in her voice. Even without seeing his face, she knew how deeply her words had stung. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“The answer to your question is no,” Ashe replied, bending to secure his boots. “Nothing is worth that sacrifice. I only meant that your death would not save her.”

“I’m not going to die,” Rhapsody said, staring down at her own hands. “Not to save her, not to save you.”

The silence between them echoed for a moment. Finally Ashe spoke. “I should leave immediately, before it discovers I’m here.” Rhapsody nodded numbly. “It’s for the best.”

Ashe nodded as well, then turned away. Rhapsody watched him from behind as he ran a hand through his unkempt locks, trying to regain a sense of calm, and failing miserably. He dressed in silence, never removing the mist cloak, his knotted muscles speaking volumes about his anger.

Rhapsody drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly, trying to stave off the despair that was clutching at her as she watched him pack. She had known this moment was coming, known all along that he would leave, but somehow she thought it would be later, and gentler. She fought back tears as he slung his pack over his shoulder and came to the bed, crouching down beside her.

“How long do you think the hunt for it will take?”

“I don’t know. It depends on how far away it is. As soon as you’re away from here I will go to Achmed and tell him we have to move the plans up immediately. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Make sure Jo doesn’t hear you.”

“Of course. But she was told about our current strategy, so if she has communicated anything, we’ll catch them looking.”

Beneath the hood she heard the snort of breath that always accompanied his wryest smile. “Well, that’s something to be grateful for, anyway.”

Rhapsody threw her arms around his neck. “Please, please be careful.”

Ashe pulled her tightly to him, holding her so as to be able to recall the memory in darker times. “Tow be careful, Aria. You will be the one facing the Rakshas. I never realized how much I dread your doing this until now.”

She patted his shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll be fine. We all will. I was almost able to take him down by myself. If Grunthor and Achmed are there, too, and we have the element of surprise, we should be able to end it quickly, and forever.”

“When you fought it, you were on sacred ground on the holiest night of the year. Don’t underestimate it, Aria; the gods only know what demonic powers it can draw on.”

“I won’t. Don’t underestimate us, either, Ashe. We know what we’re doing. I need you to promise me you’ll stay far enough away to be out of danger. We’ll slay the damned thing, then you’ll have the piece of your soul back, and the F’dor will no longer have power over you. It’s probably not a good idea to call you as I did, to put your name on the wind again. How can I find you to let you know when it’s over?”

He moved back and took her face in his hands again, tenderly this time. Inside his hood she could see the blue eyes gleaming intensely. “You can’t. If I could be found, I would be dead. I’ll return in a month; you should be back by then, yes?”

“Gods, I hope so. Where will you go?”

“I don’t know, the coast, maybe. Don’t worry about me, Rhapsody. Just get through it and don’t get hurt. Leave the soul fragment if you have to—it won’t be worth anything if something happens to you.”

“Nothing is going to happen to me. I’ll be fine.”

“I will pray every moment until I see you again that you’re right.” His fingers slid into her hair as he pulled her face to him and kissed her. She could feel the rage quivering within him, and her lips trembled as well, fearing his anger would make him foolhardy. Her mouth clung to his, filling it with warmth as she tried wordlessly to console him, but it was of little use. She had never seen him so angry.

With great effort Ashe pulled away, then strode to the door and left without a word. Rhapsody sat for a moment, still stunned, then bolted to her feet. She ran to the door and looked for him in the hall, but he was already gone. He had not said good-bye. She had not told him she loved him.

For the second time that night Rhapsody crept down the hall, still watching for Bolg sentries. Seeing none, she put the basket of tonics on the floor outside Jo’s door, opened the door silently, and peered in.

The girl she loved as a sister was asleep, snoring softly, curled up like a baby in the womb, or a child with a stomachache. Rhapsody watched her in sorrow, knowing how she must have suffered, how she must be suffering still.

Hatred took hold in her heart, and she felt her fingers curl into claws as she unconsciously pictured the Rakshas’s smug smirk. It would take extreme force of will to prevent herself from gouging his eyes out when they met. She was not sure yet if she would avoid castrating him when they were taking him down.

As she pictured his gory death Ashe’s face appeared in her mind and she started; she forgot sometimes their identical visages. Her stomach went suddenly cold with the knowledge that he had left in a tearing hurry, without the promise of staying away. Rhapsody’s heart cramped in sudden fear. Perhaps he was tracking it now, seeking to spare her the danger. On a moment’s further contemplation, she knew he was. She hurried back to her room, threw on her boots and cloak and ran for the gates of the Cauldron.

The darkness was thick in the Teeth, thicker than pitch. The rocky crags held the night fast, as though trying to shield themselves a little more from the prying eyes of the world, wrapping their summits in mist and anonymity. The wind was high, and cold, even as the scraggly vegetation stiffened in the rictus of autumn, bowing and bending before it with less vigor than in the supple moisture of summer. The annual death ritual of the land had begun. In the dark it held none of the promise that the colorful leaves of the forests made in daylight as to the temporary nature of summer’s demise. Now it seemed as though the world might be swept forever into the cold and the dark.

Rhapsody clung to the walls of the rocky passes, trying to stay upright in the roaring wind. Her legs trembled with the chill that blasted up her nightgown, whipping it and the cloak she had hastily donned, making her feel as though tied to the mast of a ship under full sail. Only her knowledge of the terrain prevented her from plunging headlong down into the chasms that yawned around each turn. She could barely see a few feet in front of her, so pervasive was the darkness.

She called Ashe’s name at each rise, the wind swallowing her voice and hurling it back into her face, blended with a wail of its own. His mist cloak would keep him from her sight, she knew, and unless he heard her she had no chance of finding him. Her heart grew tighter with each step; she was unable to shake the clutching fear that had clawed at her soul since she had seen the look in Jo’s eyes earlier that night. Soon he will have reached the steppes, and then I’ll never be able to find him, she thought, shielding her eyes from the dust and tiny shards of rock blasting against her face as she rounded the cliff face that led to the windward side of the mountain.

The wind was so fierce here that Rhapsody’s cloak ripped loudly, tearing loose the stays that kept the flaps together, and nearly pulling it from her body.

She cried out in pain, then made for the shelter of the pass in front of her, the last outcropping of rocks before the sheer drop to the steppes four thousand feet below. The wind had hollowed out an arch over the centuries, leaving a thin rocky refuge, open on both sides but solid in front, jutting into the middle of the pass. It seemed stable, and would afford her a few moments’ rest before turning back. There was no way she could go forward and live.

Rhapsody’s fingers stung where the skin had been scraped away from clinging to the rock, and when the archway was within reach she took hold, only to find her grip give way. She was vaguely aware that her hands were bleeding, and struggled to hold on, pulling herself inside the shelter. The front face of the wall seemed solid and she rested her head against it, trying to regain her breath. When she could speak she called Ashe’s name one last time into the wind, hoping it would carry down the crag. Then she leaned against the wall in exhaustion, watching the wind shriek by on either side of her through the doorways of the arch. A shadow partially blocked the view on the southern side of the rock refuge.

“What’s the matter? Gods, what are you doing out here? The Rakshas could be anywhere, haunting these passes, waiting for—waiting for one of us.”

Rhapsody looked up, still panting, and saw that the darkness which obscured the doorway of the arch was man-shaped. His voice had a note of panic in it. With great effort she answered him.

“I—forgot to—get—something.”

He hurried into the sheltered arch and dropped his pack, then came and took her by the shoulders. “What?”

Rhapsody could barely see him in the inky darkness, even though he was immediately in front of her. She looked up into his hood, attempting to make eye contact. She swallowed, trying to find her voice.

“Your promise.”

She felt the muscles in his arms tighten through the grip of his hands, and he shook her slightly; she could tell he was struggling from letting the intensity of his feelings cause her harm. “Are you insane?” he asked incredulously. “They would never find your body if you misstepped even once. Gods, Rhapsody, what promise could have been so important?”

She coughed as he took her bare hands in his gloved ones, turning the bleeding fingers to his lips, caressing them in a rough gesture of comfort. “I need you to swear you will not hunt it,” she answered, her throat tightening as the wind howled through the arched shelter, snapping his hood stiffly.

The dark figure remained silent, brushing her fingers with kisses that became slightly more gentle. Rhapsody’s hands began to tremble, and she knew she had been right; he had set off in search of the twisted vessel that housed his soul. She thought about how desperate he must be if he would risk something so eternally awful, and realized that he was probably confronting the one prospect that was worth gambling his own damnation: the possibility of hers.

“You must stay away,” she said, her words coming out as frightened gasps. “I told you, I will be able to kill it, and I will not be alone. Promise me, Ashe. Swear to me you will not hunt it. Let me do this. Trust me, please.”

The hood lowered, and she knew his head was bent low with the weight of her demand. “I can’t let you do this,” he said at last, his voice full of pain. “I couldn’t bear it if—”

Violently she slapped both palms on his shoulders, shoving him against the side of the mountain cliff. His head snapped back up, and she glared up into the hood again, this time catching a glimpse of blue eyes opened in shock by her blow. She took the collar of his cloak at the throat into her clenched fist.

“Listen to me,” she snarled, her voice low and deadly, but clearly audible above the howling wind. “You will not do this to me! You will afford me the belief that I know what I am capable of, and you will believe in it unwaveringly. And if you can’t do that, you will still yield to my request and^t out of sight. I have already let this abomination harm the only sister I have ever had. It has ravaged her, and it’s my fault. I will not lose you to it also, Ashe.” She began to shake uncontrollably, and he pulled her into a tight embrace as she succumbed to hiccoughing sobs.

His lips touched her frozen ear. “What happened to Jo was not your fault,” he said, raw pain in his voice. “If anyone is to blame, it’s me. I could have looked harder—I didn’t even check the heath.”

“Because I told you not to,” Rhapsody choked. “I told you not to pursue her too much because I thought she was back in her room crying. I had no idea how much we had hurt her; I never thought she would go outside alone. Gods, what have I done?” The sobbing dissolved into gasps of agony, and her tears soaked his cheek. He leaned against the mountain, slipping a hand behind her neck and another behind her back, holding her with all his strength as she cried tears of deeper grief than she had ever been allowed.

The wind whined in discordant accompaniment to her weeping, and when she paused to draw breath he pulled her face up and kissed her roughly. Her own response was ungentle as well, her hands reaching under his cloak to clutch his back as her mouth sought the harsh comfort of his. He ran his hands over her flying hair, stopping long enough to pull off his gloves and throw them on the ground near his pack. Then he reached beneath her cloak, grasping her waist, pulling her closer, his mouth breaking from hers.

“You came out into the Teeth in a nightgown and a cloak? Where’s your armor? Gods, what’s the matter with you?”

“Promise me you won’t hunt it,” she whispered, fear filling her voice. “Please. Please, I love you. I love you. Do this for me. Please.”

She could feel him begin to tremble, his tremors matching her own. Then he nodded.

“All right,” he said, his voice cracking. “All right, Rhapsody, I agree. I will not hunt it. But if it takes you, so help me, I’ll—

She kissed him again, her mouth seeking to silence him. “It won’t,” she said, her hands releasing his back from their grip and moving to his chest. “Have a little faith in me.”

His hands grasped her waist more tightly. “There is no end to the faith I have in you, Rhapsody, but you forget, I’ve fought this demon myself. It reached into my chest like it was an open sack of grain and dragged out a piece of my soul without breathing hard. That was the sealing of our blood contract. If I hadn’t been able to break free then, it would have owned me, too.

“It was like a vine growing up my spine, wrapping itself around my essence, becoming part of me as gently as a breeze, spreading without hesitation until it reached through my entire chest cavity. What do you think damaged me so much? I injured myself as much as it did, ripping it out with all my strength before it consumed all of me. The piece of me that it took I had to sacrifice, like an animal in a trap chewing off its foot to escape. It only took an instant, Rhapsody; I don’t know if I could get away a second time. I don’t know if you can, either.”

“Stop it,” she said fiercely. “I’m not going against the F’dor yet; I’m only killing his toy. And I have far better reason to. Besides what it has done to you, it has hurt and degraded Jo. She has suffered enough in her life, she didn’t need this. I have never felt this much hate before—if I don’t give vent to it I will burn alive.” Her voice broke. “Do you hear me, Ashe? I will burn alive.” She buried her face in his chest, her fingers drawing into claws once more.

He pulled her away and kissed her repeatedly, his mouth hard and insistent. “Now you listen,” he said between touches of his lips, “you sound like me. That’s criminal, Rhapsody. You are the one who made me believe that love was not just a false concept in this sour world. Don’t you dare turn away from it now. Don’t become like the rest of us. You’ll be abandoning us to our hatred forever.” His last kiss lingered; she felt all the intensity of his pain in it, and the feeling was alien to her, so unlike the gentleness she had always found in him. “I love you. I believe in you. And I’ll stay away, may the gods forgive me.” He almost spat the last words.

A crosswind blasted through the arch, pushing both of them off the mountain wall and chilling her through her flimsy clothing. He grabbed her as she fell out of the rock shelter and swung her around, pulling her back inside the arch and pushing her up against the face of the mountain.

“Are you all right?” he gasped, panic in his voice. His hands clutched her and found her skin to be cold; he began to run them over her in the attempt to warm her, and found himself lost in the throes of desperation, of fear, and he wanted her, wanted to hide her away from the danger, wanted to shelter her in his soul, to protect her with his body, with his life.

She felt the same longings; she clung to him and pulled him back into the kiss of lovers who didn’t know if it was their last. Her hands ran over his upper body, dien set about freeing him from the laces of the trousers that kept them apart. She trembled violently as his hands moved up under her nightgown, and she gave herself over to the darkness of fear.

There on the mountain pass, leaning against the cliff face, sheltered only by the open rock arch, they made love in panic, in desperation, cloaked in the night wind, covered only with the blanket of the misty darkness, thick as pitch, that hid the peaks of the Teeth. They found little comfort, and no joy, just the frenzy of the need for contact, perhaps for the last time. No clothes were shed, no words spoken, just the fierce need met in a way that left neither of them reassured.

When the tumult had passed they held each other, still braced against the mountain, and whispered words of promise, his oath to not pursue the Rakshas, hers to be careful. Then he kissed her, fastened her cloak for her, and ran his hand over her hair tenderly before guiding her back to the path that led to the Cauldron. She watched until the darkness swallowed him up, then made her way carefully back toward the lights in the Firbolg seat of power, buffeted by the screaming wind.