Destiny: Child Of Sky (14 page)

At the crest of the hill she stopped, frozen by the sight of her mentor singing, arms outstretched before her, palms up in supplication to the stars. The tears of excitement blurred into ones of poignant fondness; in the gray light of dusk, and from the side, Oelendra looked for all the world like her own mother, singing the lauds she had taught her a lifetime ago. Rhapsody had not been able to see her mother in her dreams for a long time; she swallowed and joined in singing the lauds, blending her voice in a high harmony.

Oelendra turned as the devotions ended and smiled. Rhapsody no longer saw her mother but her friend and mentor, the Lirin champion, still in fighter's trim with shoulders as broad as Achmed's. Her long, thin braid of gray hair was tied neatly up at the nape of her neck, and her large silver eyes lit up with a fond light as soon as she saw Rhapsody.

The two women, the present Ilianchenva'ar and one who had carried Day-star Clarion a lifetime before, embraced on the windy hilltop.

'You are tired," the Lirin champion observed, brushing a lock of golden hair out of Rhapsody's eyes.

Rhapsody smiled. “I am also late," she replied, smiling. “And sorry for it."

Oelendra nodded. “What delayed you?"

Rhapsody put her arm around her mentor's waist. “Come with me and I'll show you." Achmed had his back to the women as they approached. Night had come into its fullness, and the sky was dark as they sheltered Oelendra's mounts, two roan mares, beneath a small copse of trees near Rhapsody and Achmed's horses.

Rhapsody's eyes were shining as she brought her mentor over to the fire to meet her friend.

'Achmed, this is Oelendra. Oelendra, His Majesty, King Achmed, Warlord of the realm of Ylorc."

Achmed rose slowly and turned in the fireshadows, his two-colored gaze coming to rest fully upon the Lirin champion, who met it serenely. A moment later the look in her eyes hardened somewhat, then relaxed again, keeping an aspect of reservation.

For his part the Firbolg king looked the Lirin champion over cursorily, then turned away. He reached down with his gloved hand and pulled a pot from the campfire.

'Hungry?"

Oelendra continued to study him. Rhapsody's glance traveled from one to the other as the silence deepened. Finally she took Oelendra's hand.

'Well, I am. Why don't you ladle it out, Achmed?" She led her mentor to the other side of the fire, where the young Lirin boy cowered, and bent down beside him.

“This is Aric, Oelendra. Aric, Oelendra is my friend—she won't hurt you."

She turned to the Lirin champion, who was staring intensely at the boy. “Yes,"

Rhapsody said, reading her thoughts. “His mother was obviously Lir-inglas."

'Aye.“ Oelendra ran a hand over her mouth. "Do you understand what this means?"

'That there are other Liringlas here on the continent that you and Rial were not aware of?"

'Perhaps.“ Oelendra stared into the fire for a moment. "Or it could mean that the Rakshas crossed the sea to Manosse, or perhaps Gaematria, the Isle of the Sea Mages—there are Liringlas there, or at least there were. If that's the case, who knows how many women he has impregnated?"

Rhapsody shuddered, but shook her head. “No—Rhonwyn said that there were but nine living, and only one yet to be born. And the Rakshas was dead by the time we asked her."

Oelendra exhaled. “Good. I'd forgotten that. Good." A slow smile came over her face and she looked thoughtfully at the child. “Hello, Aric," she said in the Liringlas tongue. “Have they treated you well?"

The child was trembling. “Aye," he whispered in return.

Oelendra turned to Rhapsody. “He knows the language of our people, and yet he was obviously not raised by Liringlas. What does that tell you?"

Rhapsody patted the child's head. “Do you think he is a natural Singer?"

-

Achmed handed both women tankards of soup, and a battered steel mug to Aric.

Oelendra nodded her thanks, then lifted it to her lips. She took a long sip, then studied the child again.

'You would know better than I,“ she said at last. "But it seems the likeliest answer."

'Well, there's one way to find out,“ Rhapsody said. She sat down, cross-legged, next to the child. "Aric, would you please pull down your stocking and show Oelendra your leg? She won't touch it, I promise," she said hurriedly, watching the panic come over the child's face. Oelendra nodded in agreement.

Slowly, with faltering hands, the boy pulled back the knit sock. In the firelight the festering leg was black, with healing skin visible around the outer edges, and smelled faintly of thyme.

'I've been applying herbs since we got him, so it's beginning to improve; it was gangrenous at first,“ Rhapsody said to Oelendra. She turned back to the boy. "Can you sing your name for me, Aric?"

'Pardon, miss?" the young child asked nervously.

'Pick any note that sounds right to you, and sing your name, like this." Rhapsody intoned his name: Aric.

The boy swallowed, then complied. Aric, he sang softly.

Rhapsody looked at Oelendra. a Sol, she said. "His Naming note is sol, the fifth note of the scale. He probably has older siblings somewhere. If he were firstborn, like you are, Oelendra, the natural note for him would have been ut. She did not glance back at Achmed, who was also a firstborn. Oelendra nodded grimly.

'So somewhere on this continent there are other Liringlas children, now motherless."

Rhapsody exhaled. “Yes." She looked closely at the leg; it had not changed. “Try again, please, Aric. Just think about wanting your leg to be better."

The child sang the note again, to no noticeable avail. Oelendra shrugged. Rhapsody sighed silently; then a thought occurred.

'His mother probably didn't live to see him,“ she said quietly to Oelendra. "The children of the Rakshas are all orphans, their mothers died at their births. Perhaps Aric isn't his true name."

'Perhaps. But how can you know what the true name is?"

Rhapsody patted the boy and sat back, letting the fire warm her shoulders.

'Discovery of such a thing is a long and arduous process if the person doesn't know what name they were given,“ she said, musing. "It would take far more time than we have, and involves a good deal of trial and error. I'm not even certain the mother would have named her baby—she may have given birth alone, or died before she could name him."

'Alas, you are probably right. He may have been named by a Filidic priest, or a Liringlas Namer, if there are indeed any still alive. Or a passing stranger, even an enemy, since he ended up a slave."

The heat that radiated across Rhapsody's back reminded her of childhood baths before the roaring hearth. She closed her eyes, trying to picture her mother's face, failing.

'Perhaps she would just call him 'baby,' since she may have been too weak to even have known if the child was a boy or a girl." She finished her soup, waited for the boy to finish his own, then leaned forward again.

'Aric, will you sing another word for me?“ The child nodded. "Good! Listen to the word I am going to say, and then sing it however it feels best to you. Here it is: pippin." She gave the child an encouraging smile, and saw the warmth reflect in his clear blue eyes.

Aric inhaled deeply, wincing with the pain, then sang the word pippin on the note sol.

Oelendra and Rhapsody listened raptly; after a moment they examined his leg intently, then looked at each other. There was no visible change.

The Lirin champion patted the child's shoulder gently and began to rise, but Rhapsody signaled her to wait.

'That was very good, Aric. I'm going to take my sword out a little bit—it's all right,“ she added hastily as the child's clear blue eyes clouded over with fear. "Just a little, so that I can touch it. I promise it won't be any brighter than the campfire.

Agreed?"

The child, entranced with the light in her green eyes, nodded again, as if hypnotized. Rhapsody gripped Daystar Clarion's hilt just below the cross-piece, and slowly slid it out of the black ivory scabbard, willing herself calm and sending the same thought to the sword.

The tiny flame that came forth licked quietly, burning low in response to her command. The elemental bond of fire deep within her blazed, and she was one again with the sword; its song filled her soul as her mind cleared.

She looked at the child again, trying to imagine his tragic birth, the hasty exit of his mother's tortured soul to the light as his came forward, some eight or nine years before, if she had gauged correctly. Tears of sympathetic anger sprang to her eyes and she imagined the woman writhing in the grip of the agony she no doubt felt, an agony that had begun with her violation a year or more before, and had no doubt been with her through each day of the fourteen-month Liringlas gestation.

Her hands began to tremble, though she didn't know why, and she heard the harsh, multitoned voice of Manwyn speak in her ear yet again.

Is an unnatural child born of an unnatural act. Rhapsody, you should beware of childbirth: the mother shall die, but the child shall live.

What did the wyrmkin mean? Rhapsody wondered hazily. Was this the child? Or was it the Lirin baby not yet born? Or did Manwyn's prophecy have something to do with her?

Concentrate on the child before you.

Rhapsody shook her head, clearing it instantly. In the depth of her being she had heard a voice, one she had never heard before. Perhaps it was the voice of the sword itself; Oelendra had told her many months before, during her training, that when she bore the sword it had a voice, a voice that was silenced when the sword and Seren, the star it was formed from, were parted forever. Perhaps, however, it was just the voice of her own reason speaking to her, refocusing her.

She smiled at Aric again. “One more? Will you try one more for me, Ark?"

'Aye." His voice was almost inaudible.

'Good. Now, sing this for me: Y pippin." My baby.

T pippin, the boy sang, his voice breaking.

Both women examined the leg again. At the edge of the festering wound, where the skin had been red, the inflammation receded before their eyes, the pus-filled center clearing to a darker red, the black changing to pink. The wound was still there, but even in the weak light of the campfire it was obvious that it was better than it had been.

'Well, would you look at that," Oelendra murmured.

'I knew he was special when we first found him,“ Rhapsody said fondly. "Proof that out of the most evil of moments, good can still come."

Oelendra patted the child and stood abruptly. She stared across the fire ring to the tree where Achmed had tethered Vincane.

'And what do we have here?" she asked.

'Two whores and the ugliest bastard in the world," the boy replied with a sneer.

With exaggerated slowness Oelendra walked across the clearing and crouched down in front of Vincane, leveling her gaze into his eyes. The muscles of her back rippled with threat as she studied his face. Even from where she stood Rhapsody could see Vincane wilt under the Lirin champion's stare; she chuckled, having been the recipient on more than one occasion of that martial glance, a deathly calm, intent look that pierced to the soul from gray eyes that had seen more destruction than the imagination could allow.

'Pardon me,“ Oelendra said steadily. "I'm afraid I didn't hear you. What did you say?"

The boy tried to scoot back even farther into the tree, his insolence gone, panic taking hold.

'Your name," Oelendra said.

'Vincane," the boy said; his voice cracked a little.

'Well, how very nice to meet you, Vincane. I am sure we are going to make fine traveling companions. I trust I will not have to take you to task during our journey, now, will I?"

'No," the boy said hastily.

'I thought not." She returned to the fire, where Rhapsody was tucking a camp blanket around Aric, and nodded toward Achmed, who joined them after checking Vincane's bonds.

'You are off to get the others, then?“ Oelendra asked. "Yes," Rhapsody replied.

'As many as we have time for,“ Achmed interjected, shifting into ancient Lirin after a meaningful glance at the captive. "We had hoped to capture the gladiator at or after the winter festival, but that is impossible now.“ Oelendra nodded. "Where are you off to next?" Rhapsody cast a glance at both children; Aric was fast asleep, and Vincane appeared to be dozing lightly, but it was hard to tell if he was merely pretending.

'The Hintervold,“ she replied. "Rhonwyn said that there were two children there, and one in Zafhiel. The others are in Roland and the Nonaligned States, closer to you. We should be able to get all of them but the oldest before the baby is born; we'll determine what to do to obtain the gladiator after that."

Achmed exhaled in annoyance. He spoke little Ancient Lirin, but he had been expecting her words.

'We may not even get all the others. Winter is deepening daily. A few more complications like we had in Yarim, and we will have to abandon one, possibly more."

'No,“ Rhapsody said firmly. "We are going to get them all. We have to. Someone has to. They're just children."

'They are not children, they're abominations,“ Oelendra interjected. Both Rhapsody and Achmed looked at her in surprise. "I cannot believe this is not clear to you, Rhapsody. Look at them—whether they are sweet and shy, or nasty and brutish, they are half-demon—can't you see it?"

Achmed smiled slightly. “Thank you." He turned to Rhapsody. “Perhaps now that you have heard this from someone other than me you will listen."

'I'm dumbfounded,“ Rhapsody murmured after a moment. "This is something I've come to expect from Achmed, but never from you, Oelendra. How can you curse these children with the association of their father, any more than they already are cursed? They're just children, like they would be if their father were a thief or a murderer. Look at Aric. He's Liringlas, for gods' sake!"

'His mother was Liringlas,“ Oelendra said seriously. "He is an abomination with Liringlas ancestry;'tis not the same. Somewhere in the veins of both those children runs the blood of the demon, Rhapsody, a F'dor. You apparently do not grasp what this means.