Prophecy, Child of Earth (56 page)

Curls matted with black blood.

From these dreams he would wake in a cold sweat, shaking violently, willing her to leave his thoughts, wishing he could somehow exorcise this beautiful demon who still haunted his dreams.

The Lord Roland did not know that his obsession with her, deep and intrinsic as it had become to his soul, was the one thing saving him from being given over completely to the command of another, much darker demon.

v_,'he cold stone steps leading up to Elysian's gazebo gleamed in the diffuse sunlight. It had taken a vast amount of effort to clean the centuries of grime and lichen off the marble columns, as well as the charred black soot, but it had been worth it, Rhapsody decided. The small pavilion glistened like a holy shrine in the quiet green of the underground cavern.

She had spent the morning puttering in her gardens, stalling. Jo and Grun-thor had come to visit, Jo because Rhapsody missed her and had been longing to see her, Grunthor because Jo was utterly incapable of finding the underground realm of Elysian. She was even unable to locate Kraldurge, the area above the grotto that the Firbolg thought was haunted, or the guardian rocks that hid it, no matter how many times she visited. It had become a joke among the four of them.

They ate their noonday meal in the garden, the rich blossoms of Rhapsody's many plantings filling the air with a heavy, sweet scent, the blooming colors a symphony to the eye. Jo said very little, but spent most of her time staring at the shady gardens and the cavern above her, amazed more by the alien nature of the place than the sheer beauty of it. The stalactite formations, the glistening waterfall, and the iridescent colors of the cave held both her eye and imagination. Grunthor caught Rhapsody up on all the gossip and they exchanged bawdy jokes, Jo laughing along.

It was a good and pleasant meal, and Rhapsody was sorry to see it end. But finally Grunthor stood up, wiped his tusked mouth politely on his napkin, and patted Jo on the head.

'Come on, lit'le miss, time we was gettin' back. The meal was scrumptious, Duchess." Rhapsody gave him a hug, and then Jo. They walked down to the banks of the lake, still chattering away.

While Grunthor made ready the boat, Rhapsody pulled Jo aside. "Well? Have you thought about coming here to live with me?"

'A little," said Jo uncomfortably. "Don't get me wrong, Rhaps, I miss you like crazy, but I'm not sure I could live down here."

Rhapsody nodded. "I understand."

'I can't even find the place, you know. That could be a problem."

'I know. It's all right, Jo. I'll try to come and see you more often in the Cauldron, unless Achmed gave my room away."

'Not yet, but he keeps threatening to sell your clothes." Jo smirked as Rhapsody laughed. "Give me a little while to get used to the idea," Jo said. "Can I have the room with the turret?"

'Anything you want," Rhapsody answered, hugging her again. She could see Grunthor was ready. "Take however long you need; we have all the time in the world."

Jo smiled and gave her a kiss. Then she ran to where Grunthor was waiting, and got in, waving as they rowed across the lake. Finally, when the boat was out of sight, Rhapsody stopped waving and sighed. She had just run out of excuses.

The evening had come, and she could hear the birds singing in her tiny trees, planted recently. They had found their way underground, and occasionally she would see one in the garden or hopping on the grass. The sunlight was leaving the sky in the world above, so the darkness had already corne below the ground in Elysian. Only the warmth of the evening air told her the night was still at least a few moments away.

Rhapsody took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. What she was about to do put many of the things she loved at risk—Elysian and its status as a safe haven among them. Far more important, her friends and their safety might be compromised if she was wrong, though what she had told Achmed about his strength and position she still believed to be true.

She walked through the gardens and around the benches, up the walkway to the gazebo. Rhapsody climbed the steps slowly, turning in a circle once she was inside to survey the glory of the cavern around her. She closed her eyes and listened to the music of the waterfall high above splashing into the lake below. Then she stood still, breathing shallowly, and concentrated on the face she had seen in the forest glen, the face that had smiled uncertainly. The face with the dragon eyes.

In a high, clear voice she sang his name, the tone sweet and warm. It was a long name, and it took a moment to get it all out, but once she had finished, it rang like a bell in the grotto. The natural podium that was the gazebo amplified her song and held it hovering above the lake, spinning in circles faster and faster. She sang it again, and again, then attached to it a clear directional thread, a note for him to follow. The lingering note would lead him to this hidden place, this place where, if he came, he would find healing.

When she was finished the song continued to hover for a moment, then rose and expanded through the cavern, permeating the walls and echoing for miles around.

Then it dissipated, but she could hear it in the distance, ringing through the night on its way to the one she hoped would hear it.

<_Ashe woke from his dream of Rhapsody to the sound of her voice calling his name. He shook his head and settled back under the tree beneath which he had been sleeping.

He dreamt of her almost every night. In this dream she was dancing with the wind through the highgrass of the heath, her arms spread wide, like she was flying.

Then the wind took her; it blew her over the edge of the chasm and into the canyon below. He cried out her name, but his scream was swallowed up by the gale. He ran to the edge of the heath and looked down, but he could not see her.

Then he heard her voice calling him, and he turned to see her standing once more on the heath, attired in a dark dress and her signature black ribbon, the ever-present locket around her slender neck, holding out her hand to him. He reached for her in the darkness, and awoke to find himself alone, as he always did.

At first he had cursed the dreams. Waking itself was a painful enough process, the agony that was centered in his chest, radiating outward, returned full force once sleep was gone. But to have to endure the loss of her at the end of each night was depressing beyond belief.

Eventually, though, he took to looking forward to his nightly visits with her in his mind. In the realm of the Lady Rowan, Yl Breudiwyr, the keeper of dreams, the guardian of sleep, Rhapsody was his own on most nights. She knew of his feelings and returned them with joy, she slept in his arms, she made love to him without fear. Occasionally a nightmare would creep in and she would be cold, distant, or he would be unable to reach her. Once he dreamt that he had sought her endlessly to discover her in the bedchamber of the Firbolg king and had been unable to convince her to leave. From that dream he woke in a cold sweat and with a headache that lingered for hours.

Worst of all were the nights when no visions of her came to him in his sleep.

Once he had not dreamt of her for three nights in a row, and he grew so despondent that when his mission was over he made a foray back to his small room behind the waterfall.

When he opened the door he could still smell the fresh, sweet scent of her; it lingered on the bedsheets and in the clothes she had washed and folded for him.

Ashe stretched out on the bed, remembering their last night together, Rhapsody curled around the pillow like a dragonling. He grew wistful as he thought of how he had comforted her in her endless quest for a peaceful night's sleep. That night he had dreamt of her again, singing to Lirin children, large with child herself.

He heard her voice a second time, calling him not by the name she knew, but by his real given name in all its complications.

Gwydion up Llauron up Gwylliam tuatha d'Anwynan o Manosse, come to me
.

His name had been the bane of his existence his entire life, as a child because of its ridiculous length and the associations with it, now because it might lead the demon to him. He had never considered it beautiful until he heard it on the wind, spoken by the voice that sang in his dreams.

Ashe was still unsure as to whether or not he was dreaming, but the voice kept calling, softly but insistently, moving farther away, leading him to somewhere he did not know.
It could be a trick of the demon
, he thought. Similar entrapment^ had been tried before. But unlike those snares, the voice did not coax or wheedle him, it merely called to him surely, with a gentle firmness.

Gwydion, come to me.

Where would she have gotten his name? In the eyes and mind of the world, in history itself he was dead, gone a score of years. Only his father knew he was alive; great care was taken when he visited to always enter through the secret door in the back of Llauron's compound. His family and friends believed him dead as well. For all intents and purposes his life had effectively come to an end that night twenty years before. There was no one else who knew, no one except possibly the F'dor. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that what was calling him was demonic.

Gwydion.

Ashe stood up and shook off his slumber. The agony surged back, as it always did, but somehow his head was clearer than it usually was. He thought of his father, and the reconnaissance Llauron expected shortly; he thought of the latest border incursion, and how he would again find no explanation anyway. He closed his mind and sensed the voice; it sounded for all the world like Rhapsody. He knew her voice; he had memorized it with each word, each tune, each aubade, each vesper. He had to follow it, whatever the risk.

cXhapsody was sewing by the fire in the darkness that came with early afternoon when she felt a strange stirring within her. Ashe had come to Elysian, though she was uncertain how she knew. She was sitting in her bedroom and so leapt up and ran to the room with the turreted window, sitting on the window seat as her eyes scanned the dark water for the boat that was bringing him to her. It had been five days since her song went out; she was surprised he had come so quickly.

He must have been very nearby when the song reached him.

Then her stomach knotted with the realization that she had no idea that this was, in fact, Ashe. She had hoped to ensure it by the way she had called, but, having seen the demonic powers of the Rakshas put to use, she was unwilling to assume anything. She went downstairs to wait.

On her way past the looking glass she checked herself to be sure she did not appear vulnerable, and winced at what she saw. She was dressed in a pleated white linen blouse, the pintucks lined in azure blue, the same color as the wool skirt she wore. Her hair ribbon matched her skirt; all in she looked like a schoolgirl. It couldn't be helped, she decided. There was no time to change.

Rhapsody paced back and forth in front of the parlor fire, trying to calm her nerves. She went over all the things in her mind that she, Achmed and Grunthor had fought about.

They are all liars, too. At least in the old world you knew who sided with evil
gods because they professed what they stood for. Here, in this new and twisted
place, even the allegedly good ones are calculating users. The ancient evils could
never wreak the level of havoc that the 'good Lord and Lady Cymrian did. And you
want to hand yourself over on a, silver platter to the potentially biggest liar
of all.

Well, if I do, it is my choice to do so. I will take the risk, and live or die by
my own volition.

Wrong. We may all suffer that fate, because you aren't just compromising
yourself, you are throwing all of our neutrality into the pot, and if you overbet your
hand, we all lose.

She fought the panic that was rising within her.
Please let me be doing the right
thing
, she whispered.
Please don't let me be wrong
. She owed Ashe nothing, no allegiance, no friendship, not like she owed Jo and the two Bolg.

Oi say we kill Jim. And if we're wrong, and another one shows up, we kill 'im
too.

Tou can't go around killing people if you're not sure whether you're right.

And why not? Always worked for us before. Seriously, miss, this is too big to
take chances with, if you're not sure.

There was a knock on the front door of the house at Elysian.

Q) rom the moment he had entered the Bolglands, Ashe had felt a sense of awe.

His amazement grew as he followed the voice, through the dark mountains and over the heath, into the depths of the Hidden Realm. He had stopped only long enough to hide from the sentries, then followed his beacon once more.

When he came into the meadow at Kraldurge the voice became clearer and stronger. He looked around at the rockwalls towering above him, knowing he never would have found this place, even with his dragon sense. And because of that, a feeling of safety was beginning to come to rest on him.

Tou would be safe in my house, too.

In the Cauldron? No, thank you.

My house is not in the Cauldron. And it is even harder to find than this place,
I'll wager.

As he descended into the cavern, his wonder began to grow beyond all

• '

bounds. The place was magical, with its crystalline lake, the splashing waterfall, and the gleaming stalactites and stalagmites that sprang from the earth within the grotto.

But what dazzled him the most was the song of the cave. It was joyful, unlike the feeling of the Bolglands; it rang through the air, touching the edges of his senses with a harmonious, peaceful tone. That could only be Rhapsody, he thought.

If this was a place that had been here before the Bolg, had been inhabited at one time by Gwylliam and Anwyn, it would have been polluted by hate, the tangible, twisted anger that had laid waste to the old Cymrian lands, leaving them barren and lifeless. That it felt warm and easy was a sure sign she was here.