“And that is the way of the world, I have learned over Time. In each era of history a civilization is formed, holds sway for a time, and then is displaced by another, either over centuries, or quickly, brutally, in conquest, until history is but a swirling sea of change, supplanting what had been before, keeping pieces of it, moving on. It is foolishness to hope that what you have built will survive—though we all do.”
The golden-skinned man blinked in the light of the sun, then turned his gaze on her once more.
“When, in the Second Age of history, known to scholars on Gaematria as Zemertzah, literally ‘The Broken World,’ it became clear to the Ancient Seren that our culture and in fact our people were facing destruction from the advancement of the human habitation of Serendair, and the conflicts that habitation brought with it, we decided there were but two choices for our people if we were to survive. We could leave the Island, emigrate to a distant and unoccupied land, as Gwylliam later did at the end of the Third Age, or we could go into hiding in the earth, deeper than the mountainous realms where the Nain lived, in catacombs left over from the birth of the world.
“The first choice was unimaginable—our race, few in numbers as it was, had been spawned from the very light of the stars, sprung from the clay of the Island where the starlight touched. Even in the face of war, of death, we could not abandon our birthplace, our home. So instead we disappeared from the sight of the world, the bulk of our population slipping away to those undercrofts, those vaults deep in the earth, leaving a few of our number in the air of the upworld to watch out for us, to wait for a time when it might be safe to return.
“The races of men, the Nain, the Lirin, the humans, and their like, barely noticed we were gone. They were busy in their own racial wars, and when the dust settled, the humans emerged victorious, as your history must have taught you. Each racial kingdom maintained its sovereignty under the human High King, the line which eventually ended with Gwylliam. That confederation of kingdoms shaped the Island to their will. So it was when you were born, and until the time that the fleets left it was still so. All that remained, in the eyes of the world, of my race was a handful of upworld Seren, Graal, the king’s vizier, as you mentioned, myself, and a few others numbering less than would need two hands to count. Eventually only Graal remained; when one of our remaining number of upworld brethren was brutally killed, the rest of us save for Graal quit the air and sought refuge in the catacombs with our people.
“And there we remained, until the Sleeping Child began to signal it would arise. Then we came up into the world again, those of us who chose to leave Serendair for life elsewhere beyond the Cataclysm.”
“I had no idea,” Rhapsody murmured.
Jal’asee smiled. “Had you remained, rather than leaving the Island with your friends, you might have known it. But it happened while you were traveling through the Earth, along the root of Sagia. And yes, m’lady, I know that you entered the World Tree with a key of Living Stone, in the company of he who is now the Bolg king, and his Sergeant-Major, because when you were climbing down into the darkness, along the Tree’s taproot, I looked out from the catacomb entrance that the Tree guarded and saw you myself.”
The memory of the journey within the Earth roared back in Rhapsody’s mind, the suffocating feeling of being underground, disconnected from the sheltering sky, and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. She closed her eyes and swallowed, trying to fight back the fear that she could still taste, even four years later, though the journey within the world had been timeless. When they had emerged, they discovered that fourteen centuries had passed without them; all they had known in the world was gone. It was a loss she no longer thought about consciously, but still felt keenly when it was recalled.
“What did you see?” she asked haltingly.
The smile left Jal’asee’s eyes, and he regarded her seriously.
“I saw a girl, fearful and yet brave, an unwilling captive who struggled futilely but did not give in. I saw a creature, half Bolg, half Bengard, I would wager by the height of him, who seemed intent both on holding her captive and helping her along at the same time. And I saw someone else, someone I thought I recognized.” His forehead wrinkled deeply, but otherwise his face did not change. “I may know your friend, the Bolg king, but I will not be certain until I see him again.
“Those of us who lived beneath the surface of the world were in a state of half-sleep, m’lady. Had I been able to aid you, and had I been certain you were in need of such aid, I would have tried. But all that I saw, all that I relate to you now, was like a very intense dream; for a long time thereafter I was not even certain if it had been real or only a prescient vision, which the Ancient Seren were prone to. I apologize for not being able to help you, but it seems as if you have come out the better for surviving whatever hand Fate has dealt you.”
The Lady Cymrian smiled slightly. “Ryle hira,” she said softly, intoning the old Liringlas adage. “Life is what it is.”
“Indeed,” Jal’asee agreed. “I know that your path has not been one that followed a predictable pattern, but it has led you to places you might never have lived to see, and inspired in you powers that you might never have known had you followed a more traditional route. You say that your mentor disappeared before you had finished your study of Naming, and that you had to complete your training alone. Forgive me when I say this, but it shows. I have had the privilege of knowing many Lirin Namers, both on Serendair and Gaematria, and it is evident that you missed out on the final step of the process of becoming one—the baptism in the light of Aria, the Namer’s guiding star.”
Rhapsody flushed red with embarrassment. “I—I don’t even know what you are referring to,” she said nervously.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and not surprising that you do not know of it,” said Jal’asee soothingly. “It is a ceremony that marks the end of a Namer’s studies, and is not revealed to him until it is upon him. If your mentor was not with you at the end of your training, it is not surprising that you did not benefit from the baptism. As you are undoubtedly aware, each Lirin soul is tied to the star he or she was born beneath—and each day and each night of the year is dedicated to a different one. That is what you think of as Aria, is it not?”
“Yes,” said Rhapsody. “I was born beneath Seren itself. My aubades have always been to Her.”
Jal’asee nodded. “And they have no doubt drawn power from that star, even half a world away. So while you are self-taught, while you have not had the advantage of the final baptism in the light of your guiding star, you have undoubtedly gained other strengths, other insights, because you have had to make your own road, rather than following the prescribed path, much as you and your companions found your way within the Earth. If anything, your link to the star may be even stronger than it would have otherwise been, because you have kept vigil for it, lost as it is to you. It is a special celestial body, you know, an old star by the way the universe reckons. Your husband carries a piece of it within his chest—how it came to be there, I do not know, but I sense its song within him.”
A chill ran through Rhapsody’s blood again. It was as if Jal’asee knew not only all of her secrets, but those of the people she loved as well. The Sea Mage ambassador noted the change in her eyes and took her hand in his long, articulated one.
“Your child will be blessed, and cursed, with the power of all the elements, Rhapsody,” he said in a voice as warm as Midsummer’s Day. “You walked through the fire at the heart of the earth—do not fear; of course I know this, because you clearly absorbed it. In what the rest of the world mistakes for mere beauty, one such as myself, who has seen the primordial elements in their raw form, can recognize them. You and your child were cradled in the arms of the sea during your recent captivity—I know this too, not by seeing it, but because the waves told me of it during my journey here from Gaematria. Your husband is the Kirsdarkenva’ar, the master of the element, so there is a tie to water in both parents. The earth
is in you both as well—you because you have traveled through Her heart, your husband because he is descended of the wyrm Elynsynos, and thus linked to it, as you are both linked to the star Seren. And finally, as the Lirin Queen you are a Child of the Sky, a daughter of the air. So your child will have all of the elements nascent within his blood. Do you know what all of those elements add up to?”
“Tell me,” Rhapsody said. Her voice came out in a choked whisper.
Jal’asee smiled broadly. “Time,” he answered. “He will have the power of Time. I hope you will do me the honor of allowing me, when the child is old enough and the occasion permits, to help teach your child how to use it.”
The child within her belly lurched. Rhapsody flinched; the song of the fountain’s splashing had come to an end, and with it her nausea returned. She stood slowly, trying to maintain her balance, and put a hand over her brow to shield her eyes from the ascending sun.
“Thank you,” she said noncommittally. “I will discuss that with Ashe when the time is right. I thank you for all the lessons you have imparted to me today, and hope that you will convey my thanks to Edwyn Griffyth for the walking machine he sent to Anborn.” She sighed regretfully. “I hope he will deign to make use of it. I confess that it strangles my heart to see him so impaired.”
The Ancient Seren ambassador rose as well and looked down at her, his shadow blocking the sun.
“Why?” he asked, taking her arm and leading her back up the garden path to the keep.
“Because he was injured in battle saving me, as I assume you know,” Rhapsody said, struggling to walk steadily. “I tried to employ my skills as a Singer and Namer to heal him at the time, but as you can see, the hapless state of my training and the limits of my abilities kept him from healing completely. Perhaps that is because, lacking a baptism in my guiding star’s light, I am only fooling myself into believing I can draw on its power.”
Jal’asee continued walking, but his voice moved closer to her ear, as if he could cause it to sink on the air.
“A tie to a guiding star, like love, is often stronger when it has to be found at great cost,” he said softly. “And Anborn is not crippled because you were unskilled to heal him, but because he was unwilling to allow you to do so. Perhaps someday he will forgive himself, and then you might try again. But having watched him over the last seven centuries, I am not going to wager anything valuable on it. Your child may benefit from the blessings of all five primordial elements, but he will undoubtedly be cursed with pigheaded stubbornness of epic proportions. It runs in deep rivers on his father’s side of the family. You have my deepest sympathy in advance.”
Rhapsody laughed in spite of herself all the way back to the garden gate.
13
THE MONSTROSITY
True to her word, Duckfoot Sally set herself up as Faron’s protector.
The long ride south from Bethany to Sorbold was a difficult journey under normal circumstances; housed in a fragile tank of fetid water, in the back of a circus wagon lurching over pitted and unkempt roads was just short of agony. Sally moved her cot into Faron’s wagon after the first night, when the creature’s tank was nearly shattered by the lion-faced man and the sword-toothed geek, two of Faron’s wagonmates, who saw the new arrival as a source of jealousy or food, or both. Duckfoot Sally had interposed herself between the ravenous freaks and the cowering creature’s tank with a broom handle and a snarl of such intensity that the men, both more than twice her size, had shrunk back into the dark recesses of the wagon, muttering threats and grousing quietly until sleep took them into a realm of relative silence.
For several days the Monstrosity traveled without stopping except for the night; no shows were given, because there was no place along the route with a population worthy of the effort. The Ringmaster had chosen to avoid the holy city-state of Sepulvarta, which was the citadel of the Patriarch of the largest religion in Roland, knowing the Patriarch would have them arrested and tried for peddling human misery. So there was little to do but travel by day, and camp by night. Duckfoot Sally tended lovingly to Faron, and the creature seemed to settle into relative calm, though it still shrank away whenever anyone else came into the wagon. Sally happily took on all of the responsibility of Faron’s maintenance herself.
The keepers, the Ringmaster’s henchmen who served as control for the freaks and guards for the audiences, began grumbling among themselves about Sally’s new obsession. Malik, an older keeper with a scar running from the base of his skull down the centerline of his back to his waist, took to lying in wait outside the new freak’s wagon, watching her comings and goings and reporting them back to an increasingly displeased Ringmaster. On the night before they came to a small farming settlement on the Krevensfield Plain to the south of Sepulvarta, he caught her as she came off the ladder, empty fishbowl in hand. Malik leaned around the wagon’s side and grabbed her around the waist.
“Ahoy, now, Sally, where ya been? Seems like yer slightin’ the rest of us to wait upon the fish-boy hand an’ foot—if he had a foot, that is.”
Duckfoot Sally gave him an impatient shove, extricating herself from his grasp. “He has feet, ye rock-headed lout. They just be soft.”
“Aye, an’ I’ll betcha all the rest of his parts are soft as well,” Malik grinned, catching her waist and turning her around again. “But you know that ain’t the case with me, Sally, doncha, girl?” He buried his bearded face in her neck, nibbling playfully.
“Yeah, ye have a right hard head, Malik,” Sally said crossly, but the keeper’s lips were having an effect.
“ ’Sss been a long time, Sally,” Malik crooned, his hands moving higher. “You fed him jus’ now, right?” The carnival woman nodded, her eyes starting to glaze over. “And is he asleep?” Another nod. “Then he should be all right for the moment, eh? Let’s go off behind the privies, and I can have my way with you.”
Sally snorted contemptuously. “ ’Twill be the other way round,” she said, setting the fishbowl down on a barrel and glancing furtively around the camp for any sign of the Ringmaster; he was not to be seen. “Always is.”
“Either way,” said Malik agreeably. He took her clawed hand and led her into the darkness.
As soon as Duckfoot Sally had disappeared into the night, three of the other keepers came out of nearer shadows and made their way quietly into the wagon.
The creature was asleep in its cloudy tank, floating limply in the water, as the shirtless men crawled through the dark wagon, stepping carefully over the bedding of the other freaks who were out taking the air or eating their nightly meal. When they were finally in the back of the circus cart they conferred quietly through hand signals, then leapt out of the darkness, banging noisily on the tank, pressing their faces up against the glass walls and screeching hideously.
The new creature bolted awake, squealing piteously, its fused mouth flapping at the sides, gasping and cowering in the back of the tank.
The keepers were still making faces at the creature, banging on the canvas lid of the tank with sticks, when Duckfoot Sally charged into the wagon, fastening the stays of her many bodices, fire blazing from her eyes. Behind her Malik, his pants still unlaced, glowered angrily.
She raked her nails savagely across the backs of two of the keepers, drawing blood, and bellowed in a voice that threatened to shatter the glass tank.
“Ye bloody bastards! Get away from my Fair ’un!”
The only keeper not in range of her swinging talons gave her a mighty push that sent her sprawling backward, where she landed at the feet of the Ringmaster, who stood in the doorway of the wagon, a lantern in his hand.
“What is going on in here?” the tall, thin man demanded.
“They’re bedeviling my poor Fair ’un!” Duckfoot Sally spat, rising furiously from the floor and starting into the fray again, only to be pulled back as the Ringmaster seized her arm.
“If you idiots have harmed the fish-boy in any way, I will draw and quarter you,” he said in a deadly
hiss. “That freak has tripled our take.” He turned to Malik and gestured at the floor. “Move this bedding to the carnivore wagon, and bring the dead displays in here.” He turned toward the trembling creature in the tank. “I don’t want to take any more chances with the fish-boy’s bunkmates.”
“The contortionists and oddities won’t get no sleep in with the meat-eaters,” one of the keepers protested. “All that howling and pacing don’t bother the dead ’uns.”
“Get out of here, and do as I ordered!” the Ringmaster snarled, shoving the man toward the curtained door.
He stepped aside and let the sullen henchmen pass, then turned back to Duckfoot Sally.
“You can stay in here. Make certain nothing else happens to him.”
“Aye, that I’ll do,” Sally said, still panting from the fight.
The Ringmaster glared at the creature in the glass tank once more, then turned and disappeared through the curtains.
Duckfoot Sally wiped her nose with the back of her arm, then made her way across the wagon to the tank that gleamed dully in the dark. She untied the canvas cover, then pulled a small wooden chest over to the tank and stood atop it, plunging her arms into the unclean water.
“There, there, Fair ’un,” she said softly, gesturing, making smooth ripples in the creature’s prison. “Yer safe. I won’t leave ye; and the Ringmaster’s word is law here. No one will bother ye again. Come, my pet. Let Sally rock ye back to sleep.”
The creature hovered in the water at the back of the tank for a long time, staring wildly at her in the dark. She could see the cloudy eyes, open and round like moons, above the wrinkled skin of its face, the rest fading away into the watery green. Finally it swam cautiously over to her, and laid its head in her open hand.
Duckfoot Sally smiled her broken smile, curled the fingers of her other hand into a fist, and wordlessly caressed the creature’s cheek with her knuckles, crooning a melody she had heard, though where she had long ago forgotten.
Elegy for a Lost Star Page 14