Prophecy: Child of Earth

4

When dawn came the next day they rose in heavy mist that blanketed the forest. It burned off quickly in the light of the rising sun, and they set out on what they knew was the last leg of the journey.

Midday they came to Tar’afel River, the child of the same waterway that carved the canyons of the Teeth uncounted millennia before. It bisected the forest lands of northern Roland, forming an unofficial boundary between the inhabited and generally uninhabited woodlands.

The Tar’afel was a strong river, wide as a battlefield, its current swift. Rhapsody walked to the edge of the woods and watched it, roaring in fury and swollen with the rains of early spring. She glanced back at Ashe, who had made a quick camp and was preparing the noonday meal over a small campfire.

“How much of this is floodplain?” she asked, pointing to the riverbank and the grassy area between it and the forest.

“Almost all of it,” he replied, not looking up. “It’s over its banks a bit now. By the end of spring the water will be up to where you’re standing.”

Rhapsody closed her eyes and listened to the music of the rushing river. Her homeland had been bisected by a great river, too, though she had never seen it. She could tell that the current was uneven, faster in some places than others, and by listening to the variations in tonal quality she could almost plot a map through it, finding the sheltered spots. After the meal was over she would put the theory to the test.

They ate in companionable silence, the noise of the water drowning out the ability to converse in anything but a shout. Rhapsody found herself forgetting

“My refusal wasn’t clear to you?”

“No. I mean yes. There’s no excuse, except, well, perhaps it’s just a natural impulse, you know—I mean—I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.” His words ground to a sheepish halt, under the fury of her eyes. They were blazing, green as the grass, and they held none of the ready forgiveness she had so easily extended for other rudenesses she had suffered in the past.

“Men have used the excuse of natural impulse to justify many things they did and wanted to do to me. Make no mistake, Ashe—I swear by whatever is holy in this unholy place that before you or anyone else takes me anywhere or in any way against my will, one of us will be dead. This time I think it would have been you.”

“I think you’re right,” he said, rubbing his chin.

“But it wouldn’t matter even if it is me who dies. I’ll not be taken in any way against my will. Not by you; not by anyone.”

“I understand,” he said, but he didn’t, not fully. The degree to which she was upset flabbergasted him; her face was as red had he had ever seen it, and she was angry to a degree she had never been, even in battle.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Tell me what to do to make amends.”

“Just stay away from me.” Her face began to cool, but still she glared at him as she walked to the water’s edge, looking across. He could tell she was calculating something. Then she sheathed her weapons, turned and left the riverbank and began to walk south again in the direction they had just come. She paused at the edge of the floodplain. “Well, you’ve cost me some valuable gear.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Ashe said. “It hasn’t been injured—you can see for yourself when we get to the other side.”

“I won’t be going on with you. We part company here.”

“Wait—”

“You can sell it when you get back to Bethany, or wherever it is you’re going,” she said, walking away. “Perhaps it will pay for your time serving as guide. Goodbye.”

Ashe was dumbfounded. Surely she was not so offended by this that she would abandon her quest and her musical instruments over it—yet there she was, rapidly disappearing into the forest. He ran after her, struggling to catch up.

“Rhapsody, wait—please, wait.”

She drew her sword again and turned to face him. She no longer looked annoyed, just guarded. And there was a look of resignation on her face that he had never seen before; it twisted his heart, though he had no idea why.

He stopped, leaving a respectable distance between them, and pondered the extremity of her reaction. Men have used the excuse of natural impulse to justify many things they did and wanted to do to me. Dismay knotted his stomach as he began to suspect what she might have meant. He felt sick as he contemplated it.

Never in his life before had he been at such a loss for words, so unsure of what to do. She had a way of unbalancing him, and had from the moment he had first met her in Bethe Corbair. He cursed his own stupidity and tried to think of what he could say to win back her trust.

Ashe got down on one knee on the ground before her. “Rhapsody, please forgive me. What I did was stupid and thoughtless, and you have every right to be angry. If you’ll just come back I swear to you that I will never touch you again against your will. Please. What you are looking for is too important to give up just because you have an idiot for a traveling companion.”

Rhapsody looked at him with no real expression on her face, saying nothing. For the first time Ashe could not read her thoughts by looking into her eyes; they were closed to him. Anxiety was beginning to choke him, and though he displayed no outward sign, he felt that if she were to abandon him and her mission that he might die right there for lack of a good reason to go on. He knew that she had no personal investment in this undertaking, that her motives were altruistic, that walking away would be easy; her obnoxious sovereign back in Ylorc would be thrilled. At the edge of his consciousness the dragon in his blood berated him mercilessly, but it was no worse than what he was saying to himself.

Finally she dropped her eyes and sheathed her sword again. She made no gesture toward him, but located a large stick the size of a quarterstaff and walked directly back to the river. She tested the depth of the first area she had guessed was sheltered by the rocks of the riverbed and the pattern of the current, and found that it was, in fact, shallower. She turned and gave Ashe a measured look.

“Don’t distract me.”

Ashe nodded.

Rhapsody closed her eyes and spoke the river’s name. She began to hum a tune that matched the music of the current. When she finally located the right pitch and note pattern she could see the river in her mind as a tremendous continuous flow of power, racing along the space before her eyes.

She listened for the shallows and could see them as stepping-stones across the rushing flood. She tied her cloak up around her waist and slowly stepped out into the water, eyes still closed, feeling her way along. She sank almost immediately up to her waist and shoulders, but the water did not seem to have the force to unbalance her in the places she forded the river.

When she was a few feet into the river Ashe followed her in slowly. He still believed she was too small to withstand the rush of the current, that her body mass was too slight to keep from being swept away in the torrent. For a moment he considered using his power over water to calm the raging river, but decided it would be ilnwise to reveal even more to her than he already had. He hoped fervently that when she lost her footing he would be able to reach her in time, given that he knew he had to hang back or risk facing her ire again.

He watched in amazement as she stepped from rock to rock along the river bottom seamlessly, with her eyes closed. She seemed to be able to sense the river’s floor and navigate around it, using the intrinsic moraines and dredges to step in places where the water was naturally blocked and the current slower. Somehow she had found a way to determine the underwater topography that was innately clear to him because of his nature and his sword.

Rhapsody had made it two-thirds of the way across the river when she stopped. Ashe knew her dilemma instantly; before her was a large sinkhole, sheltered in a dam of rocks and debris. It was not safe to cross, nor was it easy to get around due to the swiftness of the current that its barricades circumvented. She stood in a swale, puzzling what to do. It seemed the best route might be to climb the dam on its upriver face and then use it to brace herself against the surge of the diverted current. Just as she decided to try it and took the first step, Ashe called out from behind her. “Watch for the hole in—”

Rhapsody’s concentration shattered and the song vanished. With it went the vision of the river’s floor; she toppled into the water and was lost in a raging torrent that threatened to pull her down. She struggled to keep from panicking as the current dragged her off the dam and swept her over the sinkhole. Her hand flailed as she grabbed blindly for the place where she had seen the rock outcropping. The water surged over her head, choking her.

Ashe rushed forward, moving effortlessly through the rapids. He was about to reach out and snag her cloak when she emerged, gasping, anchored to a log wedged in the riverbed. He hung back and watched as she dragged herself up over it, steadied herself, and began to hum again. It took her a moment to find the song, but then she was off again slowly, picking her way across the bottom once more. Ashe stood where he was and waited until she had pulled herself, sodden and dripping, from the river and up onto the shore of the floodplain.

She bent over for a moment. Ashe assumed she was catching her breath, but then saw her pick something up from the ground. He climbed up onto the debris dam and headed for shore himself.

He was almost to the edge of the dam when the sizable rock she hurled at him caught him in the forehead. His dragon senses had registered her movements, her intent, even before it had left her hand, but the action shocked him so greatly that he was unable to react. He tried to duck at the last second and succeeded only in stumbling into the water and losing his balance. It was the first time he remembered anything like that happening. The Kirsdarkenvar, master of the element of water, one of the most agile men in all of Roland, tripped and plunged face-first into the Tar’afel.

Ashe stood up, dripping for a moment, then emerged, dry, from the river. He went up behind Rhapsody, who was picking up the gear he had brought across the river previously.

“What was that for?” he demanded.

I

She stood, hoisted her pack onto her shoulder and glared at him. “It’s the same thing you did to me. Don’t ever interrupt me when I’m concentrating, unless something is swooping in from a place I can’t know about. For me it’s the same as if you had thrown a rock at my head. I can hurl one at yours each time you break my focus, if you’d like, to remind you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Ashe, annoyed. “So, now I’m to speak only if spoken to, is that it?”

“That’s tempting, but not required,” Rhapsody replied. “If you want to go back now, I think I can find my way from here.”

“No, you can’t,” Ashe said. Before the words had left his lips, he regretted them. Twice already that afternoon he had condescended to her, doubted her ability to do what she said she could, and it only served to infuriate her more each time, as evidenced by the glowering anger that was taking up residence on her exquisite face now. “Wait; I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I don’t want to give up the journey now. We’re almost there. I said I would escort you as far as Elynsynos’s lair, and I don’t want to break my word. Surely you can respect that.”

The rolling boil tempered to a steaming simmer. “I suppose,” she said grudgingly. “But I’m very tired of not being taken seriously because of my size.” She carried the packs to a small clearing in the woods and dropped them on the ground, then stripped off her cloak. She was dripping wet from head to foot, her boots sodden and squishing, her clothes clinging to her body. The sight made Ashe swallow hard and give silent thanks that he could not be seen. To quell his building arousal he challenged her statement.

“You think people don’t take you seriously because you’re small?”

Rhapsody pulled her soaking shirt over her head and draped it over a tree branch. She was wearing a sleeveless camisole of Sorboldian linen trimmed with lace, the outline of her graceful breasts made obvious by the way it clung to her wet body. Ashe could feel his temperature rise and his hands begin to tremble.

“That, or my hair color. For some reason people seem to equate the darkness of someone’s hair with the mental heat their head is generating. I don’t understand it at all.” She pulled off her boots and unlaced the ties of her trousers.

Ashe was beginning to fear losing control. “Well, perhaps it’s more a matter of lack of common sense,” he said, hoping to forestall her removing any more clothing and at the same time wishing she would continue.

The rolling boil was back. “Excuse me? Did you just say I had no common sense?”

“Well, look at you. You’re alone in an uninhabited forest glade with a man you barely know, stripping down to your undergarments.”

“My clothes are wet.”

“I understand that, and, believe me, I’m enjoying the sight, but if I were someone else, you could be in considerable hazard at this moment.”

He thought he could translate it fairly closely: How can I expect you to answer? You don’t know me. I have lost the star.

A jumble of feelings swarmed in his head. Delight—his suspicions had been all but confirmed; she must be Cymrian to know the tongue of the Lirin of Serendair. Uncertainty—was she addressing the stars, or him, or perhaps another altogether? And pain—the despair in her voice was of a depth he recognized; it held a loneliness not unlike his own.

Ashe stood up and walked slowly around the fire until he came up behind her. He could feel her shoulders straighten as he approached, and the tear dissipated as the surface temperature of her skin rose momentarily. She remained otherwise motionless. He smiled to himself, touched by the use of her fire lore, then made his voice as casual as he could.

“Are you looking for any star in particular?” She shook her head in response. “I have a—well—that is to say, I know something of astronomy,” he continued, groping for the right words, and missing, in the dark. “Why do you ask?” It really wasn’t even a question.

Ashe winced at his inept attempt. “Well,” he said, trying the honest route,

“I thought I heard you say ‘diefi aria.’ Doesn’t that mean ‘I’ve lost the star’?”

Rhapsody’s eyes closed, and she sighed deeply. When she turned to him there was a look of sadness and resignation on her face. He could detect no trace of anger.

“

“‘Diefi’ is ‘I have lost,’ you’re right,” she said, looking past him. “But you have mistranslated ‘aria.’ It doesn’t mean ‘the star;’ it means ‘my star.’”

Ashe knew better than to claim victory in his quest for her past. “And what does that mean, if you don’t mind my asking? What star have you lost?”

Rhapsody walked back to the fire and sat, resting her forehead on her palm. She was silent. Ashe cursed himself again.

“I’m sorry; that was inexcusable of me. I had no right to pry into things I overheard.”

Rhapsody looked up at him for the first time since supper. “My mother’s family were Liringlas, the people of the woods and meadows, Skysingers. They watched the heavens for guidance, and greeted the passing of the night into morning, and the dusk into night, with song. I believe you’ve noticed.”

“Yes. Beautiful.” His words had many meanings.

“They also believed that each child was born under a specific guiding star, and that there was a bond between each Lirin soul and its star. ‘Aria’ is the word for ‘my guiding star,’ though of course each star had its own name as well. There were many rituals and traditions around it, I guess. My father thought it was nonsense.”

“I think it is a wonderful belief.”

Rhapsody said nothing. She gazed into the fire again, the light reflecting off her face in a somber rhythm.

“So which star is your star? Perhaps I can help you find it again.”

She rose and stirred the fire. “No, you can’t. Thank you, nonetheless. I’ll take the first watch. Get some sleep.” She went to the gear and prepared the weapons for the night.

It was not until he was deep within his bedroll that Ashe fully understood her answer. Her star was on the other side of the world, shining over a sea that held the place of her birth in a watery tomb.

He lay back in the silence of his bedchamber and listened to the sound of the warm Spring wind. All around him the noise and distraction of the day had settled into muffled torpidity. How he loved this time of the night, when the mask could come off and he could relish all those things he had put in place without being discovered.

If the wind was clear and the night silent enough he could feel the heat, the friction in the air from violence that was being made by his manipulation, even from a great distance away. This night, it came to him courtesy of the squad of Yarimese guards in his thrall that had turned from their normal duties patroling the water routes outside the crumbling capital city of Yarim Paar, safeguarding the Shanouin, the clan of well diggers and water carriers as they bore their precious burden back to the thirsty town.

The Shanouin had depended upon the protection of the guards for centuries. He chuckled at the thought. Mayhem was always valuable; it brought the electric fervor he craved. It was even better when the victims trusted the thralls. The static from the initial shock added to the amusement value. And the horror of the guards that would result when the thrall wore off and they had to confront their murderous actions was the stuff of delicious anticipation.

His skin tingled at the rush of fear that broke over him in waves as the slaughter began. The water carriers were men of brawn, but worked routinely with their families in tow. He took a deeper breath, stretching his limbs as the warmth of spilling blood coursed over them.

It was friction, the heat of contact, of violence, that roared through his body, that caressed his spirit nature now, the power of heat that so recalled the fire from which he had come. All nature of actions generated it, but the place it was most surely found was the fierce combat of murder, heinous and ferocious and utterly stimulating. He felt arousal building in his human flesh, flesh denied satisfaction in most other ways due to age and the other restraints of dual nature.

The patrol was efficient; too efficient—they weren’t taking their time. He grunted in frustration, willing the guards to slow their efforts, to stab more rather than decapitate, to leave the children until the end. His hopes for the heat of the gore building to an invigorating climax grew dim; he had not committed enough of his own essence when he had enthralled the group. A shame, really. A mistake he would not make again.

There was no need to conserve his power anymore. He was now powerful enough to spare more of his life essence, that which would have been a soul if F’dor had such a thing. The next time he had the opportunity to make a[...]