Rhapsody, Child of Blood (39 page)

'Eight hundred and seventy-six ships set out, though considerably fewer landed, and they sailed in three Waves, which all left and landed at different times and in different places. It was harrowing, and difficult, but they survived, and eventually met up again, banding together to form the greatest nation this land has ever seen, and ushered in the most enlightened Age it has ever known. But that civilization has been gone for a very long time."

Rhapsody tried to maintain her composure. "I still don't understand why they were called Cymrians. Didn't you say they were from Serendair?"

The Invoker stood up again and stretched, then crossed the room to a case where a strange, rocklike object was displayed under glass. Rhapsody followed him, fighting rising hysteria. He pointed at the rock, into which runes had been carved. She stared down at the words through the glass.

Cyme we inne friS, fram the grip ofdea't't> to lifinne

Rhapsody nodded. It was written in a combination of what Llauron had referred to as Old Cymrian, the language of her father, the common tongue of her homeland, and the strange language of sailors and merchants that was universally used in shipping trade.

'Come we in peace, from the grip of death to life in this fair land."

Llauron smiled approvingly. "Very good. This was Gwyl-liam's command to Merithyn, the salutation with which he was to greet anyone in the new land he might find.

'Gwylliam translated it into a universal tongue, to expand its chance of being recognized somewhere in the world. They were Merithyn's first words to Elynsynos, words he carved upon her lair, with her permission, of course, as a signpost to any who might come after him.

'When the Cymrians arrived, each fleet having landed in a different place, they left markers along the way as they traveled to find each other again and make their settlements. Those historical paths are called the Cymrian Trails, and they were the origin of the name Cymrian.

'The indigenous people of the land, like the Lirin of the Great Forest of Tyrian, saw the words on the signposts or were greeted with the words upon meeting these refugees, and began to refer to them as Cymrians, which is why their appellation sounds like 'come.' So it has come to mean the people of the Lost Island, and their descendants, without regard to race or class, for all were represented on the ships."

'I see," said Rhapsody politely, but inside she was feeling the world spin. "How long ago was this?"

'Well, the fleets departed just shy of fourteen centuries ago." Rhapsody gasped in spite of herself. "What?" Llauron smiled. "Yes, it may seem hard to believe, but fourteen centuries ago a civilization lived here that gave us many of our greatest inventions and contributions to our culture. They were, in some ways, even more advanced than we are now. It was the war that changed it, the war that ended the Cymrian Age and set us back many centuries. Are you all right, my dear? You look pale."

'I—I'm really very tired," Rhapsody said, her voice barely above a whisper.

'Of course you are; how thoughtless of me." Llauron went to the door and called into the study. "Gwen? Is our guest's room ready?"

A moment later Gwen came into the office. "All ready, Your Grace. The bed has been turned down."

-

'Good, good," said the Invoker. "Why don't you head up with Gwen, my dear? Have a good night's rest and sleep in late. I'm sure you could use it after your long journey."

Rhapsody nodded as if in a trance. She made a slight bow in Llauron's direction.

"Good night, and thank you."

'Not at all. Sleep well." His eyes twinkled merrily in the firelight as she left the room and followed Gweh up the stairs again, clutching the railing.

c_Xer room was at the end of a long, crooked hallway. Gwen not only had turned down the blankets but had slid several warm stones under them to drive the chill from the sheets.

The room itself was simple and neat, with a chest, chair, and looking glass in addition to the bed, as well as a coat peg and sword rack. A small glass window looked out a different side of the house than she had seen, though nothing was visible in the dark. The woolen blankets on the bed had been woven with hex signs for protection from nightmares. Rhapsody wondered ruefully how potent they were. To spare her from her dreams would require nothing short of a miracle.

As the door closed behind her she sat down on the bed numbly, unable to allow the thoughts to come through sensibly. The Island of Serendnir prior to its destruction.

Llauron had said that Gwylliam had foreseen its ruin, but perhaps that had not occurred. Prophets made predictions all the time that never came to pass, like the soothsayer in the Thieves' Market in Easton. Then she thought back to her nightmare on the Root, the image of the star falling into the sea, the burning walls of water enveloping the land, and knew that it had come to pass. It was a premonition; Serendair was gone.

Even if they had survived the catastrophe, even if they had been among the refugees who survived the voyage, no one she had ever known or loved would still be alive. Her heart twisted in misery at the thought of her parents and her brothers. Her father was definitely gone, dead for centuries, more than a millennium, if Llauron was to be believed. Her mother was Lirin, and therefore by race blessed with a longer life span; some Lirin had been known to live as long as five hundred years. But almost three times that length of time had passed. She was gone as well, and her brothers, too. Rhapsody felt her heart shatter under the weight of the agony.

She crawled into the bed and curled up like a baby in the womb, trying to remember her life before the nightmare of the Root. It would be easy to curse Achmed now, but it was really her own fault.

She had been headstrong and thoughtless as a young girl, running away from home. Some of the price of her foolishness she had paid herself; life on the street had been unspeakable in its horror for a while. But the worst part was knowing the pain she had caused her family, the despair they must have felt, wondering what had happened to her. The only salvation from the crushing guilt had been the intention and the knowledge that someday she would find a way to go home. And now that was gone, too.

One by one her brothers' faces came into her memory, smiling and laughing. She could almost feel her father's strong embrace, her mother's gentle caress. All gone now.

She'd never see any of them again, never fall asleep to the sound of her mother singing. Never feel truly safe again.

A lump of anguish took hold in her throat. The Past was too painful to contemplate, the Future more so. Exhausted and overwrought, Rhapsody fell into a troubled sleep.

Her dreams were even more terrifying than they normally were, visions of great walls of water crushing children beneath them as they consumed the land, tall golden people immolated by a bursting star, Sagia sinking slowly beneath the waves with the Lirin in its arms.

In the last of her dreams, she stood in a village consumed by black fire, while soldiers rode through the streets, slaying everyone in sight. In the distance at the edge of the horizon she saw eyes, tinged in red, laughing at her. And then, as a bloodstained warrior rode down on her like a man possessed, she was lifted up in the air in the claw of a great copper dragon.

c,'Vhapsody woke, gasping for breath. She reached out for Grunthor, who had been her source of comfort from the nightmares, but the grinning green face was nowhere to be found. The room and the bed had grown cold while she slept, but as she came to consciousness her anguish roared back, and the fire within her raised the temperature of the air around her immediately.

It was almost morning. Gray light was filling the sky outside her window, signaling the approach of another dawn. Somehow the world seemed different today, although nothing had oc —curred in the night. The changes were centuries ago; the world had been inexorably altered while she was crawling within it. A great deal of time had passed. What she didn't understand was how it had managed to miss her. She looked into the mirror to find a face not vastly older from when she had left, at least to her view.

Rhapsody went to the window and looked out into the wakening sky. Dawn would be coming soon; she needed to sing her morning devotions, wanted the comfort of the memory of her mother teaching them to her beneath the sky half a world away. She was afraid of being alone with the knowledge of the Island's death, but had no one to share it with—no one living, at least.

Even if she could find Achmed and Grunthor, who were undoubtedly far away by now, neither of them would feel moved to any sadness at the loss. Achmed, in fact, having been hunted, would probably celebrate, and that would be more than she could bear. She made the bed, then walked to the coat peg and took down the hooded cape Khaddyr had given her.

Rhapsody made her way quietly down the stairs so as not to disturb the Invoker and his staff. She opened the heavy door slowly and nodded to the guards, who stared at her. They said nothing, so she passed between them, then through the snow-covered garden and over the fields to the Tree.

The dawn was just beginning to break as she arrived at the edge of the meadow.

Rhapsody walked between a stately maple and a towering elm in the circle of guardian trees and came, for the first time, within clear sight of the trunk. The bark of the Great White Tree caught the first ray of the sun and glimmered in the morning air, heavy with fog. As the light touched it, the song of the Tree deepened, then soared, as if it too was greeting the dawn with music.

Rhapsody closed her eyes, feeling the tones of the Tree rumble through her. For the first time in as long as she could remember she felt small, insignificant in the presence of so much magnificence, of such inestimable power.

But there was also a familiarity to the lifesong that was humming within her. The melody of the Great White Tree was very much the same as the song of Sagia, a deep, abiding presence that spoke to her soul. It was a part of her; it would sustain her through her loss, even though her heart would never heal.

Softly she sang her morning aubade and, when the devotions —were finished, whistled the all-clear, the signal for which Achmed was waiting. Then she left the ring of guardian trees and hurried back to the house.

She exited the tree-circle from a different place, taking the path between an enormous holly-berry bush and an engilder, a slender, silvery tree she had known from the old land. From where she now stood she could see a different side of Llauron's keep, a winding side garden that led around behind the house.

In the distance she could hear the sound of the Filids beginning their day, tending to their labors. Still seeing no one in the meadow, she walked around to the back of the keep and found herself in expansive gardens for as far as the eye could see.

Llauron's lands reached out to the forest again a mile or more away. In between the house and the woods were trees and ponds that dotted the landscape, around which beds of herbs and flowers had been built. Here and there marble benches stood where the leaves of the trees would cast shade in summer. The garden slept now in the depth of winter, the beds mulched and packed with snow.

Near the back of the house stood a young ash tree, tall and vigorous, beneath which grew a small sheltered herb garden. Llauron was sitting on the ground next to the tree, tending the plants in the beds, singing in a mellow baritone that sent shivers up her back. It was not the beauty of his voice that made her tremble, but the vibrations issuing forth from it.

He was using musical lore, the skills of a Singer, though it was clear from the occasional vocal wobble and the incorrect phrasing that he was not one himself. The song was a simple one, though she did not recognize the language. She opened her mouth to offer a few simple changes that would make the song work better; it was a song of warmth and healing, obviously meant to sustain the plants through the winter.

She closed it again rapidly as Achmed's words came ringing back to her.

And when we do make contact, let's keep as much information as possible nmong ourselves until we agree to share any of it. It's safer for all of us that way.

As she approached, the Invoker stopped singing and turned to meet her. A smile lit up the wrinkled face.

'Well, well, good morning, my dear. I trust you slept well?"

Rhapsody thought back to the terrifying nightmares. "Thank you for the use of such a lovely room," she said.

-

'Not at all. I hope you will be staying for a while." He began to get up.

Rhapsody came to him, forestalling his attempt to stand, and sat on the bench beneath the ash tree. The stone was cold, causing a shiver to race through her. "What was the song you were singing?"

'Ah, that. It's a healing song intended for the plants, a piece of lore passed down from the Filids of Serendair. I use it to help some of my medicine garden through the nastier weather, keep it healthy. The more fragile plants I keep inside, of course, but there is only so much room, after all. Besides, Mahb here likes the music, too." He patted the ash tree beside him.

'Mahb?" It sounded like the Serenne word for son.

'Yes, yes, he looks after the garden, keeps away any man or beast or malevolent spirit that might bring it harm, don't you, old boy?" Llauron looked the young tree up and down, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "Confidentially, I don't think he likes Khaddyr much," he said, his eyes twinkling. Rhapsody smiled wanly. "Now, perhaps I could impose on you to add your lovely voice to my own, and do the plants some real benefit."

Rhapsody looked surprised. "Excuse me?"

'Now, my dear, don't be modest. I can tell you are a Singer of great skill, perhaps even a Namer, yes?" She blinked; the chilly wind blew over her body, suddenly moist with sweat, causing her to shiver. "When you speak, you make the day a little brighter by the sound of your voice. It's really quiet beautiful, my dear. I can only imagine how you sound when you sing. I hope you will not leave me guessing much longer. Come, favor my plants with a song."