Rhapsody: Child of Blood

44

Contrary to the timetable in Cymrian legends, the Bolg had actually inhabited parts of the mountains long before Gwylliam’s war ended. The Lord Cymrian had been too engaged to care that a ratty population of cave dwellers found its way across the eastern steppes and into some of the older sections of his vast labyrinth. The Bolg were aware of him, however, and quietly opened a hidden front inside Gwylliam’s realm. Minor reports of lost Cymrian patrols or stores unaccounted for were hidden in the greater and bloodier balance sheets of the battles against Anwyn.

The Bolg were not heroes, or soldiers; they were cruel and considered anything they could catch worth eating. They had stolen fire and the concept of war, and they could live in any climate or terrain, though they were poor builders.

Centuries before, some distant warlord had enslaved several tribes of them and found them tractable when well fed, but upon his death, they destroyed his estate, stayed for a short time, then wandered somewhere else. His survivors theorized that, not unlike wolves, they obeyed him because they felt he was one of their own. That was a unique situation; most of mankind they viewed as prey, not partners.

The groups that inhabited Gwylliam’s mountains were an unmatched lot of refugees and savages fleeing bad weather or poor hunting. Some had been chased out of their previous homes by greater strength. This faction of Bolg brought with them in retreat the weapons and harsh view they had of the world; encounters with them were uniformly unpleasant.

After Gwylliam discovered the Bolg, he made halfhearted attempts to exterminate them. He set traps, sent contingents into their lairs, but that only served to weed out the stupid and the weak. It was Grunthor’s observation that Gwylliam had perfected the Bolg. They had come to his forges flawed and he had made them sharp and hard. They were a weapon he never had a chance to use against Anwyn.

The day after the companions took up residence in a sealed-off drainpipe of the Canrif aqueduct, a party of ragged Bolg hunters cornered a subterranean wolf in the Killing Hall deep within the Teeth. The hall was the traditional spot to which game was lured, a killing ground for the larger animals or hominid intruders that were unfortunate enough to be chosen by the Firbolg for slaughter.

The Bolg had found the ancient corridor after the Cymrians had been routed and fled. It was massively long and twisting, with a heavy stone door at the end that they had been unable to unlock or pry open. So instead they trapped their victims there, though it was not always in their favor to do so.

It appeared to have been a mistake this time; the wolf was winning. Prehistoric mammals the size of a large bear, the subterranean variety of the species were ferocious creatures, solitary and vicious, with the musculature of an animal that survived and hunted in underground tunnels with the eyesight to match.

This one had already taken out one of its Firbolg predators and was chewing on an unfortunate second when the dark man came. He arrived without being noticed, managing to appear at the precise moment when the hunting party had determined itself outweighed and were tottering on the edge of flight.

At first they did not see him, his flowing black garments blending into the inky darkness around him. Instead, it was the voice they heard, sandy and full of snarling spit, speaking in a tongue that they recognized as an older version of their own.

“Down.” The word bounced up and down the corridor like the green wood of the hunters’ crude arrows against the stone.

The Bolg reacted as if they were travelers turning into a strong wind. One folded himself against the floor, others turned slowly toward the source of the word. What they saw froze them where they stood, making it impossible to obey the growled command.

The dark man’s hood had fallen back as he drew his long, straight sword over his shoulder. The face was frightening, even to the Bolg, and unknown to them, but it held a kinship as well, a familiarity that made them realize that this was, in a very disturbing way, one of them.

The figure made a blurred movement and light whistled through the dark corridor. The slender sword spun end over end and pierced the throat of the rampant monster that had risen over the body of one of its victims. The fire was still in the wolf’s eyes as its deep growl choked off and the beast fell.

The dark man was there as it did, moving to retrieve his sword with speed akin to that of the weapon’s deadly flight. He stood in the midst of the hunting party; all were armed, but none made a move until he reached to pull his sword from the neck of the wolf.

As he touched the fur in which it was buried, the Bolg hunter who had fallen to the floor slashed at his legs with a wicked-looking hook that had been honed on the inside edge. The dark man broke the hunter’s wrist with the first stamp of his heel, and then his neck with a fierce kick. He stood for a moment and met the gaze of each of the remaining hunters before reaching down again. This time there was only the feathery sound of the blade’s exit from the tangled fur.

“Good hunting.” The black-cloaked man turned and melted into the darkness.

Print’s pallid eyes glittered in the reflection from the embers of the small fire. He had barely touched the belly meat and shank of the wolf, accorded to him as the one who had brought the kill back to the clan.

“Man was like the night,” he whispered to the others. The children, watching from behind their mothers with great interest, were pushed back, only to wriggle forward again to better hear the tale the great hunter was telling. “Did not see him come.”

“What wanted he?” demanded Nug-Claw, the clan chieftain.

Print shook his head. “Nothing. Killed wolf, and Ranik. Ranik tried to hook him. Man stamped him out like a fire-spark.” He shuddered, and the children retreated a little.

“Took no meat?” Nug asked. Print shook his head. “Said nothing?”

Print thought for a moment. “Blessed the hunt.”

Nug’s eyes widened. “And?”

“After we left Killing Hall, found two goats and rat. Got all.”

A murmur of fearful excitement swept through the clan. Nug’s woman spoke.

“Maybe Night Man is god.” Nug aimed a blow at her, but she dodged out of the way.

“Not god. Nug is clan-god. But we beware Night Man. Must warn all of Ylorc.”

Print blinked rapidly. “Maybe Night Man is all-Bolg-god.”

In the shadows behind Nug, Achmed smiled and slipped away into the darkness.

The walls of Canrif’s labyrinthine tunnels had crumbled somewhat over time, leaving uneven roadways where the detritus had eventually hardened into mounds and pits. The obstacles meant nothing to Achmed’s ease of passage and silence, but left him feeling strangely sad at the neglect of what had once been a majestic fortress.

In Canrif’s heyday the tunnels had each been wider than a city street and smooth, carved and polished painstakingly from the basalt of the mountain’s interior, laid out with mathematical precision. Formidable and confusing from the exterior to thwart attackers, they were systematic and easy to predict from the inside. At one time they had been lined with sconces that had illuminated the great underground complex. Now all that remained were the broken bases, still attached to the walls, or holes where the sconces had been.

The enthusiastic pulsing of his own heart brought an awareness to Achmed of the secret delight he was taking in his mission. This sort of work brought him back to the old days, the era of his training, the time when the race of F’dor was engaging in a campaign of extermination against the Dhracians.

He had reveled in those journeyman days, before his invention of the cwellan, before his ascension to the rank of the world’s foremost assassin, when he still had to make his reputation one killing at a time, letting his name slip on the wind ahead of him, leaving it behind like his signet.

He slid through the shadows now as the tunnel emptied into a wide, cavernlike room, something he recognized as a guard barracks by the contours of the floor and the stairs that had once been wall-mounted beams, the actual weapons racks and bunks long gone or decayed. Even the soldiers’ quarters had at one time been beautifully appointed, with an elongated domed ceiling on which peeling frescoes of historic battle scenes could still be faintly seen, the paint cracked and marred with time.

Achmed stared up at the corroded figures, images of soldiers in combat, musing. The science of combat was dictated by the philosophy of connection, the art of making a deadly impact on one’s opponent, clinging to the enemy, making contact over and over again until the enemy could no longer withstand the connection.

It was a rubric which worked very well in explaining the motives and actions of F’dor. The demonic spirits clung fast to their hosts by necessity; it was a fact of their existence. Connection was required of them in order to survive. It was little wonder, then, that F’dor hated the Dhracians.

Dhracians, unlike fighters of other races, subscribed not to the philosophy of connection but to one of separateness. Detachment from the fight meant a keener perspective into flaws and chinks in armor. It was the finding of places where the enemy’s weapon was not, where the armor was not, that Dhracians relied upon to give them entry into the places between the blows, below the armor. It was this detachment that made the Dhracians anathema to the F’dor, beings who had to cling by nature, had to be connected, or cease to exist.

It had occurred to Achmed back when he and Grunthor first observed the explosions of inexplicable violence that perhaps the violence itself was really the intention all along. While Tsoltan had been a strategic thinker, with a long worldview, it was possible that whatever was now causing men to erupt in senseless mayhem did not need a master plan, or an end goal. Perhaps it was just the power, the friction caused by men connecting with each other through violence, that it sought, that gave it life, and strength.

His contemplation was interrupted by sounds of strife in the tunnel on the other side of the barracks. Achmed trotted across the vast room, taking care to remain within the shadows, and stopped at the tunnel entrance. He breathed deeply and let his mind follow the path through the tunnel to the source of the grim noise.

His second sight did not have to go far to find it. Ahead in the tunnel a ragtag crowd of Bolg was brawling, slashing at each other with fragments of spears and what may once have been swords. There were markings from two different clans, one sign etched in the faces of its members, the other inscribed on their forearms. A screaming female with an arm-sign was pinned to the ground by two from the face-marked clan, doubtless the prize for the victorious chieftain. Achmed unslung the cwellan.

The Night Reavers were on the brink of winning when lightning whistled through the tunnel, cutting down both chieftains. The Bolg stood stock-still, watching the bodies topple and fall, each with the same slash across the throat, front and back, where the shining blades had entered and exited, ripping through one on its way to the other. The partially detached heads wandered in and out of the rapidly forming pools of blood.

A man formed out of the darkness in the hallway before them. With little more than a whisper the blackness around him became robes and a hood, beneath which two piercing eyes could be seen, looking them up and down.

One of the Reavers had heard the stories from the Killing Hall.

“Night Man.” The word carried with it a primal fear that was palpable.

The Night Man took a step forward, and the Bolg of both clans rushed to the walls. He bent to pick up a broken sword and tossed it to the woman, then turned back to the others.

“Run,” he said. Even the Bolg could recognize the whisper of death in the colorless voice.

In a blind panic, the tunnel emptied of both clans, stumbling and tripping in their haste to obey. Only the woman hesitated for a moment, and so she alone caught a glimpse of the smile beneath the hood. Then she turned and followed her clansmen, leaving the darkness to swallow the Night Man again.

The four companions returned to the Killing Hall later that night. Achmed had led them through the easiest of the passes in the Teeth; the route was a little longer but avoided the interior tunnels as much as possible. Jo could not see well in the dark, and though Rhapsody had survived the dimness of their endless journey along the Root, becoming accustomed to the lack of light, she was uncomfortable within the Earth, at least initially.

They had been attacked twice on their way across the crags.

“Twice too often,” said Rhapsody as they entered the caves.

“Half as much as we should o’ been,” said Grunthor, wiping off his snickersnee. “Pathe’ic. It’s gonna take some real work to get these lads in shape.”

“Well, not those lads,” said Jo, looking back at the bodies from the unsuccessful ambush. Grunthor cuffed her playfully.

Achmed raised his hand, and the other three fell silent. They followed him down the twisting pathways, the stone cold and crumbling from neglect and time. Rhapsody shuddered. The desolation within the mountain was tangible; she could feel it in the air around her.

When they passed a large opening in the hallway, Rhapsody stopped for a moment and looked through the portal. She could see a ledge that led out above an enormous cavern. She turned questioningly to Achmed, who nodded.

Stepping past the opening, she looked over the rim of the ledge. In the colossal space that surrounded her a heavy wind blew, thick with dust, and none of the freshness of the air of the open world. She shielded her eyes and looked down into the blackness at her feet.

Below her spread a vast, ruined city, dark and silent. Streets and buildings, broken and decaying, stretched to the edges of her vision. She could see places where fountains and gardens had once been, now standing dead and quiet, the life in them long since dried up. Yet despite the squalor there was evidence of order and beauty in the design of it, architecture that in its lifetime had far outstripped that of Bethany or Navarne. Now fading into history, crumbling in a melancholy state of anonymous rot.

Gwylliam’s great masterpiece, Rhapsody thought sadly. Canrif, the word meaning century. Surely just the carving of the cavern’s great firmament that reached up into the peaks of the Teeth above them must have been the life’s work of thousands of men. It still stood, a hollow testament to the hollow vision of a hollow genius, who had thrown it arrogantly away. Now it was nothing more than a hollow shell, sheltering packs of roving demi-humans who walked its crumbling tunnels, oblivious of the glory that had once been.

Achmed touched her shoulder. “The Killing Hall isn’t far now,” he said.

When they reached the point of the last curve before the straightaway section of the hall, Achmed nodded and Grunthor stopped. He and Jo took their positions just around the curve of the bend, guarding the hallway. Achmed and Rhapsody ventured down the remainder of the corridor until they came to the heavy stone door at its end.

“I expect this is the vault, Gwylliam’s library,” Achmed said softly. Rhapsody nodded in agreement. There had been no map or account of the interior of Canrif in the book they found in the House of Remembrance, but the description of the door was unmistakable. Deep within the stone face was a cracked inscription, a disintegrating artistic rendering of Gwylliam’s aphorism.

It was carved above a rusted metal plate and solid handle, beneath which had been bored a series of identical holes, approximately the diameter of an arrow shaft, arranged in symmetrical rows.

“It’s a lock of some kind,” Achmed said, running his thin, bony hand over the holes. Dust and fragments of rocks fell from the door’s face as his fingers passed over it. “I’m sure that stupid motto of his has something to do with the key. That man was a one-stringed harp.”

“Gwylliam was an engineer and a mathematician, so he must have somehow encoded the axiom into a number pattern corresponding to the holes,” Rhapsody said, brushing the residual dirt from some of them. “There doesn’t seem to be a correlation between these holes and the alphabet of the old Cymrian language, however.”

“Could it have been in another language? Nain? Lirin?”

Rhapsody shrugged. “I don’t know. That seems politically precarious, especially if others used the library. There would be a taint of favoritism to it. I don’t think Gwylliam would have risked it.”

She counted the holes again; they were set up in lines of six, with five rows in all. Her face clouded over as she thought. Then she broke into a smile; Achmed observed, even out of the corner of his eye, that it was as if the sun had suddenly risen in the tunnel.

“Of course! It’s a musical lock. They only counted six notes back then, instead of the eight that Lirin Singers always had. When I was at Llauron’s I discovered that the rest of the world now uses the eight-note scale as well. Back then they only commonly used five groupings, what we now call octaves.”

“I hadn’t realized Gwylliam was a musician.”

“Gwylliam was an engineer and an architect. Music is a largely mathematic system; I’m not surprised.” Rhapsody pulled an arrow from her quiver and snapped the point off. Slowly, painstakingly she inserted it into the hole that would have corresponded to the initial C in Cyme.

Deep within the stone they both heard an almost imperceptible click, a grinding sound that hummed for a moment and then fell silent. Rhapsody’s face grew more excited, as did Achmed’s.

“Easy; take your time,” he admonished. “If you mess it up you may fuse the locking mechanism, and then we’ll never get it open.”

“Sshh,” she whispered, her eyes gleaming. Her brows knit with concentration as she counted off the letters, pushing each of them within the pattern of the words in the aphorism. She was on the second-to-last word when Jo appeared at the corner.

“Someone’s coming; a whole bunch of them.”

Achmed turned to Rhapsody. “Keep going; I’ll help Grunthor. Don’t hurry.”

Rhapsody nodded and pressed in the next hole, exhaling in relief at the click as Achmed ran up the tunnel, exchanging places with Jo. The teenager looked over her shoulder at his retreat, then joined her adopted sister at the door.

“What are you doing?”

“Sshh,” Rhapsody answered, trying to concentrate. “I’ll tell you in a minute.”

Sounds of strife issued from around the corner and echoed down the hall. To Rhapsody’s dismay Jo turned and bolted down the corridor again.

“Jo, stop! Stay here.” She turned around and made a grab for her.

Jo shook her off. “Are you insane? There are at least ten Bolg out there.”

“Only ten? By the time you get there Achmed and Grunthor will have already looted the bodies and stacked them out of sight. Wait here and watch my back, please. I can’t protect myself and work the lock at the same time.”

Jo sighed, then agreed reluctantly. “You never let me have any fun.”

Rhapsody hid her smile as she returned to the lock. “I let you fight in the passes on our way through the Teeth, didn’t I?”

“Oh, that was a challenge,” the teenager said sarcastically. “Slicing up night-blind mongrels armed with weapons made of sharpened rocks. As Grunthor would say, ‘Pathe’ic.’”

“You’ll get your chance; I imagine you’ll see plenty of fighting. In fact, I’m going to attack you myself if you make another sound.”

Rhapsody struggled with the last hole, scraping bits of debris from the hole with her finger, rubbing the skin raw and drawing blood. She shook her stinging hand, then slid the arrow shaft in one more time. The hole clicked, and deep within the rusted metal panel was a sound like a cymbal striking.

“Go get Achmed if it’s clear; stay hidden and keep back if the fighting’s still going on,” Rhapsody said to Jo, who could barely contain her excitement. The younger woman nodded and dashed up the hall, to return a few moments later with their two Firbolg companions.

“Did you get it open?” Achmed asked, wiping his sword on his cloak as he walked and returning it to his scabbard without missing a step.

“I think so,” Rhapsody answered, surveying the door. “It tripped, or at least it sounded like it did. I didn’t try to pull it open until you got here, of course.”

“Have at it, big fellow,” Jo said to Grunthor, who smiled down at her. Achmed nodded. Rhapsody drew forth her bow and nocked an arrow onto the string. She was not entirely certain she wanted to see what was behind the massive door to the hidden vault.

Her reservations proved right a moment later. Grunthor swung the immense slab of stone open and a hissing of air issued forth, bringing with it the dusty stench of death. It was an old smell, long contained within the huge room beyond the opening, but putrid enough to cause Jo to retch where she stood.

Rhapsody ran to her side and held her head while Achmed looked within the vault. Grunthor took up a position between the women and the hall to guard against any other Bolg that might come down the tunnel. Jo’s nausea cleared up quickly, and after a few minutes she insisted she was able to investigate the cavernous room behind the door.

Gwylliam’s vault opened above and around them, preserved Time had never touched it. The great cavern was filled with documents, scrolls of parchment and bound manuscripts, maps and globes and charts enough to have kept an army of scribes and sages working for centuries. Polished shelves of immense height stood in rows, holding the remnants of Gwylliam’s plans and serving as the repository of the knowledge of the Cymrian civilization in silent testimony to what had once been the pinnacle of the age.

Rhapsody looked around the vast room in amazement. The ceiling had been carved into a great smooth dome, which was painted the color of cobalt and dotted with silver-gilt stars in constellation patterns, set up in precise position to map the heavens above this land. The landmasses had been graphed in minute detail on the walls, and were annotated in the nomenclature of the time.

What were now the countries of Roland and Sorbold were jointly described as the Cymrian lands, while Tyrian was noted as Realmalir—the Lirin Realm. Other parts of the world were mapped as well, including the Lost Island that had once been their home, lovingly rendered in exquisite detail.

Sprawled across the great dome, in between the stars, was the enormous image of a dragon, its scales layered in red-gold leaf, each one inlaid individually within the beast’s hide. Cruel talons, gleaming in silver gilding, stretched out over the lands to the west. The eyes had been set with clear gems, faceted into prisms, sparkling down into the darkness from the ceiling. Fresco flames of yellow and orange poured from its open maw.

In the center of the room was a large round table carved from black marble, its center covered with a clear dome. Several odd types of apparatus protruded from the floor next to it, and one strange fixture hung suspended from the ceiling above it. The metal from which it was wrought displayed no hint of rust or tarnish, even with the passing of centuries. Rhapsody would have liked to examine it further, but was held at bay by what lay on top of it and on the ground in front of it.

Slumped over the table was a mummified body dressed in robes. It had fallen on its back, a deep, cruel wound bisecting its chest. A simple gold crown lay balanced on its side next to the body’s head; as Achmed approached it began to roll slightly back and forth on the table, glittering in the dark.

On the ground in front of the table lay another dried figure, a parchment-skinned skeleton with a broken neck. The skeleton was dressed in fine mail armor that had obviously not been sufficient to spare its owner his fate.

Grunthor closed the door after setting several stones in place to hold it ajar and determining that the handle worked from the inside. He looked over at Achmed, who stood above the bodies, arms crossed, looking down with a half-smile on an otherwise-serious face.

“Well, here’s the great and mighty Gwylliam, I’ll wager.”

Rhapsody and Jo came forward slowly.

“Who is the other one?” the Singer asked.

Achmed looked in the direction of the other skeleton. “A guard, possibly. Strange; one would think there might be two of them. That was a hallmark of the Seren royal guard.”

Rhapsody looked sharply at him. “How do you know that?”

Achmed ignored her question. “I would also hazard a guess that Gwylliam may have killed this one himself.” Grunthor nodded in agreement; he had been examining the angle of trajectory at which the body had fallen and had come to the same conclusion.

Rhapsody looked puzzled. “I thought Llauron said Anwyn killed Gwylliam.”

“So he did. Well, perhaps he doesn’t know as much as he pretends to; wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t trust anybody,” said Jo absently. “Can I have the crown?”

“Hold off a bit, lit’le miss,” said Grunthor gently. “Give us a chance to look around first, eh?”

Rhapsody walked around the table, giving the bodies a wide berth, and examined the dome in its center. It was outside the reach of her arms, though Achmed might have been able to touch it, and, despite being coated with dust, showed a high level of craftsmanship.

It appeared to be composed of a single, highly polished stone with a diameter longer than she was tall. The dome rested above what appeared to be a schematic of the labyrinth, interior and exterior views, which was intricately carved into the stone of the tabletop.

“All right, Achmed, what do you make of this?”

The Dhracian came over to the table and examined it, his eyes flickering over the schematic and dome more rapidly than Rhapsody could follow. After a moment he reached out and touched the dome; as he did it glowed foggily beneath his fingertip. Parts of the map began to shimmer as well.

Achmed smiled. “I don’t make anything of this. It will make something of me.”

“And that is?”

“King.”