Requiem for the Sun

by Elizabeth Haydon

  The water that was flowing now from Entudenin had spilled over the fountainbed and was coursing through the streets, turning the dry red clay to dark mud. The sound of merry laughter, of celebratory music and clamor could be heard, muted but unmistakable, in the distance; it echoed off the rocky hills on which they stood, a joyful vibration in the normally silent desert.

  Rhapsody lifted her head, then slowly slid down to a stand, bracing herself against her husband, and smiled. She inhaled deeply, but said nothing, staring at the rainbow in the desert.

  Where the skycolors touch the earth.

  Ashe drew her closer, steadying her.

  “See, Aria? See what your faith has wrought here?”

  Rhapsody leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder, and watching the combined celebration of humans and earth in the Fountain Rock’s life-giving spray. Reveling in the song of it.

  “Our faith, and the Bolg’s knowledge of the right way to proceed. And Achmed’s refusal to be deterred by the bigotry of the Yarimese.”

  “Perhaps that is all that a miracle is — faith and the knowledge of what is right in combination with refusal to be deterred.” His hand came to rest on her abdomen. A moment later hers came to rest atop his.

  “I am sure you are right.”

  He led her back to the carriage, leaning on his arm but walking on her own. Once she was settled inside, he took a final glance at the ancient wonder on the windswept plain below, then called to the coachman.

  “Take us back to Navarne — gently, now.”

  THE CAULDRON, YLORC, IN THE FORGE

  “Easy, Shaene — the glass will shatter before it anneals; it’s not sufficiently cooled.”

  “Bugger yourself, Sandy,” Shaene growled, clutching the giant pincers with the leather rags, his thick arms trembling with the effort. He shifted the cylinder of just-melted frit, the earliest stage of glass, to the edge of the forge and brought it to rest above the slab where it would be flattened into a sheet.

  Achmed struggled to contain his impatience.

  “The color is wrong already,” he said through gritted teeth. “The red is too light; it’s almost pink.”

  “Give it a few hours of heat,” Omet suggested, interposing himself between the king and the craftsmen who were standing near the kilns that had been built near the iron forges; the men and Bolg were uniformly dripping with sweat and exhaustion. “The color changes in the curing. It will darken.”

  Achmed turned away in frustration and aimed a savage kick at an almost empty pot of powdered cobalt ore that sat at the brink of the open fire. A streak of blue light erupted in the flames as the mineral ignited, then extinguished a second later.

  Shaene started at the sound, dropping the pincers and bouncing the glass cylinder off the rock slab. The resounding crack echoed through the cavernous chambers around the forge, followed by the dispirited sigh of the glassworkers.

  “Enough of this!” Shaene shouted, heaving the metal pincers against a nearby stone wall where they fell onto a wooden scaffold, sending pots, tools, and smalti flying. His demeanor melted before their eyes, like the glass in the kiln. “I cannot bear this anymore, not for all the gold in Gwylliam’s treasury! This project is cursed, cursed!”

  “Calm yourself, Master Shaene,” Omet said, glancing between the livid craftsman and the narrowing eyes of the Bolg king.

  A gruff cough drew their attention. Achmed turned around to see a Firbolg guard standing off to the side of the forge overhang, signaling to him.

  “Get back to work, Shaene, or I will tell your mother you are having tantrums again,” he spat, then strode over to the soldier.

  “What is it?”

  “Messenger, Sorbold.”

  “A messenger from Sorbold? From the mail caravan?” The soldier shook his head; Achmed scratched his own, slapping the sweat away. “Very well. I will be right down.”

  The man was waiting in the Great Hall when the king arrived, dressed in the livery of the empress and the armor of the mountain columns, staring at the domed ceiling above the hall. He turned immediately upon hearing the king enter and bowed perfunctorily.

  “Majesty.”

  “What do you want?”

  The soldier eyed him with a mixture of nervousness and contempt. The Sorbolds were not a naturally courteous people; rudeness was so much a part of the national character that special regiments, like the one to which this soldier belonged, were trained in the politics of etiquette, so that messages could be delivered across borders without international incidents being started. He stood at straighter attention and cleared his throat.

  “The Blesser of Sorbold, the benison Nielash Mousa, greets King Achmed of Ylorc, extending to him the salutations of–”

  “What do you want?” Achmed demanded impatiently. “I am busy.”

  The messenger, caught up short, swallowed the words he had painstakingly prepared, then met the king’s eye.

  “Her Serenity, the Dowager Empress, has passed from this life in her sleep,” he said shortly.

  “I am sorry to hear that,” Achmed said curtly. “Her son must be thrilled.”

  “Doubtful,” replied the Sorbold soldier, abandoning royal protocol in the attempt to deliver the message. “He is dead himself.”

  “What happened? Did they hire a new chef?”

  The soldier paused long enough to recover from the insult. “Her Serenity had seen ninety-four summers, the Crown Prince sixty-two. It was the will of the All-God, nothing more.”

  The Firbolg king eyed him in silence for a moment, then put out his hand.

  “Do you have an official decree?” he asked.

  “Yes, Majesty, and a request for you to attend the state funerals from the benison.”

  Achmed broke the seal and opened the folded parchment, scanning it rapidly. It contained the same information that had been relayed to him orally, in more flowery language, with the addition of a single long sentence at the bottom of the decree.

  As the Crown Prince left no legitimately recognized heir, a Colloquium is summoned by invitation to address the absence of a line of succession to the Throne of the Dark Earth, issued to the Lord and Lady Cymrian, sovereigns of the Alliance to which Sorbold is a sealed ally, as well as rulers of bordering nations, namely His Majesty, King Achmed of Ylorc, Her Majesty, Rhapsody, Queen of Tyrian, Lord Tristan Steward, Regent of Roland, and Viedekam, Administrator of the Nonaligned States as well as representatives of the Church, the Nobility, the Mercantile and the Army, to convene directly after the burial during the Period of Mourning, eleven days hence.

  The Bolg king stared at the decree for a very long time, then looked up into the face of the messenger, almost as if he had had forgotten the man was there.

  “You may go now,” he said, nodding to his own guards. The Sorbold representative bowed and left.

  Achmed waited until the footsteps of the soldier from the rocky, secretive nation that bordered his own had died away, then sat down on the marble throne in the Great Hall, his stomach churning in rare-felt anxiety. He stared at the words on the parchment, words whose import he was only beginning to absorb, and swore in the language of the Bolg.

  “Hrekin,” he said.

  19

  ON THE TRANS-ORLANDAN THOROUGHFARE, BETHANY

  The royal coach, already traveling at half-speed, slowed appreciably. The small internal window slid open, and the driver’s voice could be heard over the noise of the decelerating caravan.

  “One of your regiments is approaching, m’lord.”

  Ashe, leaning back against the leather bench with Rhapsody propped up, asleep, in his arms, reached for the velvet curtain on the carriage’s side.

  “One of my regiments?”

  “Yes, m’lord. It appears that Anborn is at the lead.”

  “Very well, slacken the reins and roll gently to a stop. Make it as gradual as you can.”

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  The sound of hoofbeats and shouted orders grew lou
der as the coach came to a halt, amid squeaking and the clattering of the horses and tack. Carefully Ashe slid his wife from his chest to the pillows, covered her carefully with the carriage blanket, and stepped quickly from the coach, endeavoring to keep the blinding sun from encroaching on the cool and comfortable darkness within.

  As he came around the front of the carriage he could see the Lord Marshal in the fore atop his beautiful black stallion, leading the second regiment of Haguefort in a steady canter eastward to meet them on the thoroughfare; the General motioned to the soldiers behind him to slow to a walk, and spurred his horse onward in Ashe’s direction.

  “Well met, Uncle,” Ashe said, shielding his eyes from the sun as Anborn approached. “Please keep the regiment back — Rhapsody is sleeping, and I do not wish her disturbed.”

  The General laid on the reins and drew his mount to a brisk halt; the animal danced fluidly in place, then stopped completely, perfectly trained to the needs of the horseman who had lost the use of his legs.

  “Sleeping?” he demanded, his voice terse on the hot summer wind. “Midday? Is she ill?”

  Ashe motioned to Anborn to follow him out of the hearing of the carriage guards; when they were about fifty paces away, he glanced at the two regiments setting to a watch, then returned his attention to Anborn.

  “She is not feeling well,” he said, looking up from the ground at his uncle. “She is with child.”

  Anborn stared down at him from the stallion’s back, absorbing his words for a moment, allowing the horse to edge uncomfortably close to Ashe. Then, with a speed born of years of soldiering, he pulled the greave from his useless leg and heaved it at the Lord Cymrian, striking him square in the chest.

  “Are you out of your misbegotten mind?” he hissed, fury evident in his tone. “What have you done, you idiot?”

  Ashe inhaled deeply, struggling to remain calm, though his fists curled at his sides, and the dragon in his blood began to rise.

  “If you need ask, Uncle, I am sorry for you,” he said as pleasantly as he could.

  The General drew himself up in the saddle, anger radiating from his azure eyes. “You unspeakable fool! Did you forget, perchance, what happened to your own mother?”

  Ashe finally took a step back. “Why are you here, Anborn?” he asked, the multiple tones of the dragon creeping into his voice. “I trust you have a reason other than to assail me with questions that are none of your concern.”

  The General spat on the ground to his right side, as if trying to clear a bad taste from his mouth, then walked the horse in a tight circle to return to court distance, reached angrily into the folds of his jerkin and pulled forth an oilcloth packet, which he tossed to the Lord Cymrian.

  “The Empress of Sorbold is dead, finally,” he said contemptuously. “As is her fat bump of a son.”

  Ashe stared at him for a moment, then pulled the missive from the oilcloth and broke the seal, his dragonesque eyes scanning the document.

  “This is worrisome,” he said as he read the missive. “There is more than just a lack of a direct heir; over the empress’s long life, even those distantly related to the crown have died out. Sorbold is a headless body now; it will be chaos there.”

  “You have your father’s talent for understatement,” Anborn observed, staring down at him from the saddle. “Mark this moment in your mind, nephew; this is the day when the war that is to come began.”

  “You see war in every waking moment, Uncle,” Ashe replied, the more human tone of annoyance in his voice now. “There is a council in place, an Alliance to which Sorbold is a friend, not only through Leitha, but those who came to the Moot and pledged their fealty. Let us not borrow trouble, shall we?”

  “The second regiment is outfitted with the appropriate state mourning finery and all that other nonsense of protocol,” the General said, ignoring his words. “They are here to escort you both to the funeral.”

  Ashe glanced over at the carriage. “We cannot possibly attend,” he said, rolling the parchment into a scroll and sliding it back inside its oilcloth sheath. “Rhapsody is fragile, ill, and I will not jeopardize her with such a long journey over mountainous terrain.”

  “You cannot possibly not attend,” the General snorted, glaring down from the saddle. “This will be the moment when Sorbold’s destiny is decided, the genesis of a new dynasty, or a new form of government altogether. Those distant royals who may attempt to stake a claim to the throne will face a possibly bloody challenge from the nobility, who, as head of their own city-states, may seek to dissolve Sorbold as an empire altogether. Then there is the army, the mercantile, and the church, all of whom have interests they will want to advance. You are the bloody high lord of all this mess; you have no other choice but to go.”

  “He’s right, Sam.” Rhapsody’s voice, weak but clear, caused both men to turn abruptly toward the carriage, where she crouched at the door, preparing to disembark. Her long hair, normally bound back in a simple black ribbon, hung loose down her back, but otherwise she seemed alert.

  “Rhapsody — wait,” Ashe said, running to her side. He slid an arm behind her to brace her, then helped her out of the carriage, into the warm air. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “Well, draconic tones tend to rend the vibrations of otherwise bland air,” she said, entwining her arm through his to stand on her own. “I assume that the other multiple-toned voice could only belong to Anborn, yes?”

  The General nudged his mount closer slowly. “Indeed, lady. Can you not see me?”

  Rhapsody shielded her eyes and looked up at him. “I can see your shadow, your outline,” she said, smiling wanly. “But I would know your vibrational signature anywhere, Anborn, whether my eyes are working or not.”

  The General gave her a slight smile in return, which quickly faded, as he looked at Ashe with a mixture of accusation and disgust.

  “Did I hear correctly that the empress is dead?” Rhapsody asked.

  “The empress and the Crown Prince both,” Ashe replied, looking off to the south in the direction of the Sorbold border; even at this distance the rocky peaks of the Teeth could be seen, swathed in the intermittent clouds that cloaked the mysterious realm. “Within hours of each other.”

  “How awful,” Rhapsody murmured. “Did they get a new chef recently?”

  “It’s not clear. But they were both quite aged, and they died in their sleep.”

  “Leitha probably had nothing left to live for, after accomplishing the one thing she still had to do–outlive anyone who was a challenge to her sovereignty,” Anborn said, shifting in the saddle.

  “Stop it. What a terrible thing to say.” Rhapsody’s face went pale, and she clutched her abdomen suddenly.

  “You must go to the funeral for me, Anborn, as my representative,” Ashe said, taking her into his arms and guiding her back to the carriage. “As you can see, Rhapsody is in no condition to be left alone.”

  The General’s expression blackened. “So as to not risk offending the lady’s ears, or senses, I won’t curse you properly as I should, and tell you what a ridiculous thought that is. You agreed to take on this accursed lordship, if you recall. I, being the more intelligent and sensible of us, refused to even be considered for it. Now you see why.” He looked at Rhapsody, whose face was blank with illness and concern. “But you are correct in that the Lady Cymrian is not able to be left alone. So I will take her back to Navarne, and you can go off to Sorbold and try and sort out the situation there.”

  “If you think I would leave–

  “He’s right, Sam,” Rhapsody said, her voice strained but somewhat stronger. “If we can’t both be there, you must go.”

  “Very well,” Ashe said, looking displeased, “I will go once you are safely ensconced in Haguefort.”

  “The timing will not suit,” interjected the Lord Marshal. “You will only be on time for the funeral services if you head straight from here to Jierna Tal in Jierna’sid. The rites take place in the Night Mountain, a
t the basilica of Earth, Terreanfor,. That’s a good five days’ ride or more, with favorable weather. They want to bury the old hellkite and her useless blob of a son before they begin to rot and stink in the heat.”

  “Oh gods,” Rhapsody moaned. She turned away rapidly and retched.

  “You think I would leave you to tend to her?” Ashe demanded incredulously as he handed her his handkerchief.

  For the first time since he had arrived Anborn appeared taken aback.

  “My apologies, lady,” he said quickly. Rhapsody, her back turned, waved her acceptance. “Listen, nephew, I promise to be on my best behavior — I will comport myself in the manner which she deserves in an escort. And I will protect her with my life.”

  Ashe’s face was doubtful as he ran his hand over her back. “Rhapsody? What do you think?”

  His wife ran her hand through her thick gold hair, pulling it back off her face, and turned around again.

  “I will be perfectly safe with Anborn,” she said, breathing deeply. “I want to get back and check on Melisande and Gwydion Navarne. But I don’t want to remain at Haguefort.”

  “Where do you wish to go, then, Aria?”

  “To Elynsynos.”

  Uncle and nephew looked at each other in shock. Anborn was the first to recover his voice.

  “You wish to go to the dragon’s lair? Unsteady as you are?”

  Rhapsody nodded. “Yes. She alone of anyone alive that I know has carried a child of a totally different racial line, has blended the blood of dragon and human in her own body. I will be safe with her, and well, in her cave of the Lost Sea. The waves will lull my nausea until Ashe returns from Sorbold. Elynsynos will take care of me.” She smiled wanly. “Those aspects aside, I miss her terribly. It will be good to visit and catch her up on the gossip.”

  Ashe exhaled deeply. “I suppose there is nowhere I can think of where you will be safer during your confinement, Rhapsody,” he said at last. He looked at his uncle. “And there is no one else to whom I would entrust getting you there. Very well, Anborn; if you will escort my wife to Haguefort, and then to the northern wilds to the lair of Elynsynos, I will be in your debt.” Anborn nodded. “I will take one of the falconers with me. If there is need of me, if anything goes wrong —”