But now it was clear that he was really only being tolerated, appreciated for his administration skills, an emasculating feeling if ever there was one. It called his very brotherhood into question.
Knowing that Trentius, Sandon, and Dhremane did not even see death coming in the Bolglands was easing the injury a bit, however.
Beside him the dust in the air shifted, a subtle way that Dranth had for letting him know he was back. No one who was unfamiliar with the ways of the guild scion would even have noticed. The thought raised Yabrith’s fallen spirits a bit.
“Done movin’ yer bowels?” he asked politely.
Dranth said nothing, but took up the pouch he had left behind in his scouting and affixed it to his waist.
“We’re only one day out of the steppes,” he said, his voice grainier than the sandy wind. “Two more to the official entrance road. It’s heavily guarded, and while I utilized it when I came for the emperor’s second Weighing and coronation, I suspect I would be welcomed less hospitably now. So we will take the back way and get there in three.”
Yabrith nodded and took up his own provisions.
“No time like the present,” he said pleasantly.
Dranth stopped in his tracks and stared at him. “I was just thinking that same adage,” he said suspiciously. “What is the likelihood of that?”
Yabrith shrugged. “Don’ know,” he said. “But if we don’ heed it, we will be arriving in four, and that’s a far less lucky number ’n three, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s be off.”
They blended into the shadows cast by the finally rising sun and were gone.
TYRIAN FOREST EDGE, NEAR THE BORDER OF JAKAR, SORBOLD
The end of his hidden passage on the way to Sorbold was about to come to an end, Achmed knew.
And, when it ended, he expected it would end in a goodbye, said to someone from whom he hated to part almost as much as he hated to meet up with her.
At least now that her husband was out in the ocean somewhere, attempting to rally support from the Cymrians who lived across the Wide Central Sea, the reason for his dislike of meeting up with her had been eliminated.
And so the meeting of the two old friends in secret in the forest of Tyrian had been the only pleasant thing either of them had experienced in recent memory. Rhapsody had been for some time in the Lirin wood where she reigned as their titular queen, making preparations for its defense and coping with the loss of Port Tallono, the Lirin harbor; Achmed had managed to get word to her through the first of the Lirin stables where he boarded a horse upon arriving in Tyrian at the northeastern fringe of the forest, just south of Navarne.
The roan that he had quartered in the private livery there was nervous upon seeing him at first: a strange thing, given that he had trained it personally, but after an hour or so in the forest, he came to understand that its discomfort had not been with him, but with being taken out of the thinner forestlands for the deeply forested greenwood. Roans were forest horses; once they had traveled for a short time in the uninhabited woods, no other people in sight, the animal had settled down and had virtually flown over the untrimmed ground.
Outside of Tyrian City in the central part of the mighty forest, he traded the roan for a Mondrian, a horse of the same bloodline as that of the late Llauron the Invoker, Ashe’s father, who had been knowledgeable about and fond of the breed. He had been pleased enough with the animal to get over his initial distaste for agreeing on something with Llauron; it was one of the nimblest mounts in his network.
Rhapsody had met him a few hours outside the stable. Her own responsibilities only allowed her the span of three days to travel with him before she needed to return to the front in Roland, but they had met up without incident and traveled speedily and silently together, covering ground that should have taken twice as long in Tyrian, arriving at last in a thick glen near the southeastern forest edge, through which the towers of the bloodsport complex of Nikkid’sar in Sorbold could be seen in the far distance.
It was a place of bad memories for the Lady Cymrian; she had followed some foolish advice from Llauron long ago and made her way in, without reinforcements, to that complex to capture and steal a gladiator who turned out later in life to the be the Patriarch, now in exile.
The memories must still be fresh, he knew, judging by Rhapsody’s eyes, which glittered more noticeably the closer they came to the end of the route.
She said nothing, however.
As they came to the terminus at last, Achmed dismounted and, waiting until Rhapsody’s mount had come to a halt, took the bridle in hand while she did so as well.
“You’re moving better,” he observed as she came off the horse one-handed, avoiding the arm that had been bound to her chest in a cloth sling. “How’s the wound?”
“Almost healed, but Ylsa has been after me to allow it as much of what she calls ‘gentle time’ as it can have; the muscle mends less rapidly in that area of the body than others, so improvement can be deceptive as to how much strength is really there.” The Lady Cymrian turned her head and whistled a quiet trill, then glanced about the forest and turned back to him. “It’s so strange to be here on horseback.”
“Why?”
She smiled slightly. “I’ve been here many times since, usually on foot and in the open, but the first time I ever came through here I was escorted by Oelendra and a few of her most trusted scouts, in secret and mounted, just before I made my way clandestinely into Sorbold, as you are about to attempt.”
The Bolg king’s sharp gaze flickered for an instant in surprise.
“Attempt? You doubt my ability to make my way clandestinely into Sorbold? What have I ever done to you to merit such a vicious insult?”
“It’s not meant as an insult or a lack of confidence. I am not worried about you getting in at all. I just hope you can get out again. And I am also just trying to keep as much clarity of speech as I can these days. Without possession of my true name, my entire identity is contained in ‘Rhapsody,’ which is the Namer part of me, the one sworn to truth in speech. So while I believe you will make it to Sorbold, just as I believe it will be a fine day, I can’t be sure, and so I say ‘attempt.’ I know, however, that in spite of evidence to the contrary this morning, the sun will eventually rise, and your passage will be riskier, so if you want me to return your mount to the way station for you, I will be happy to do so. I know you like to check on each of your Wings personally after riding them, but I suspect you know that the border guards who tend to that livery have it well in hand.”
“I do. Thank you.”
The woman who was at once the Lirin queen, the Lady of the Cymrians, and his second-oldest living friend smiled a little more broadly at him.
“It’s strange; I can remember virtually every detail about you, or at least what I’ve known and experienced with you—Grunthor too. But I only remember Ashe, who I have been told is my husband, from the time when we met him in Bethe Corbair on our initial journey to the Bolglands, and the journey he and I made to find Elynsynos. And I can barely recall the fact that we have a child at all—some days I am shocked to be reminded of it. But I met you as Rhapsody, and as a result, all those memories are intact. It’s amazing what memories are tied to different parts of one’s nomenclature.”
Achmed swallowed his initial comment and smiled in return.
“Well, I’m glad you remember what is important, at least,” he said lightly. “Thank you for the unnecessary escort. I should be off. Did you bring the floating lanterns?”
“Of course,” Rhapsody said. “They’re in the left saddlebag, if you don’t mind getting them yourself.”
“Not at all.” The Bolg king slashed the rope on the saddlebag and affixed it to his pack.
“Would you mind telling me why you wanted objects the Lirin use in religious celebrations over the sea, and that for humans are mere toys? Floating lanterns. It seems a strange thing to bring into Sorbold. Are you planning to use them to signal for help?”
; “Perhaps.”
“I don’t think I will see them from here—or from Roland.”
“Oh well. Another idea into the Great Latrine of Life.” He glanced around the glen. “I should be off.”
“Travel well,” she replied as he turned to the Mondrian and slashed the bindings of the rest of his gear. “The liverymen should be here momentarily in response to the call; do you want me to delay them so they do not see you?”
“They won’t see me,” the Bolg king said as he shouldered his packs. “I perceive no breakage of branches or changes in the wind—I have more than enough time to be clear of this glen before they arrive.”
“Good.” Rhapsody patted his arm. Then, as her smile faded, she let the hand of her good arm encircle his elbow, pulled him closer to her, and pressed a soft kiss onto his cheek, letting it linger there for a moment. “Be careful. I know it’s not a necessary warning, but take it as a sign of friendship.”
Achmed exhaled. “Given that you are about to go back into Bethany soon, and into the heat of the war, I would offer the same advice. In your case, I think it’s a similar sign and a necessary warning.”
“Why? Do you think me suddenly foolish just because I got injured in battle?”
“You’ve always been foolish; there is nothing sudden about it. And no, not because you were injured. You are not yourself, Rhapsody. And while I have to admit I find this aspect of you oftentimes preferable to the woman I met in Easton long ago, I grudgingly admit that when your instincts were your own, misguided as they often were, you knew yourself enough to keep yourself safe most of the time. Even though I did have to sing you back to life once back then.”
She grimaced. “I beg you not to remind me. My body recovered, but my eardrums never did.”
Achmed’s expression grew even more solemn.
“You have used your only chit given to you by the house for free,” he said seriously. “You have tricked Fate one too many times; you have no fixes left. Now everything counts, especially when you are not with Grunthor or me. We have been in truly dangerous situations together, but now you are more or less alone and in the center of a continent at war, as well as being the mother of a child that is the sole obsession of a soulless man who rules the sea, and a good deal of the continent. We Three are spread more thinly than we have ever been before; if you recall, all our greatest victories in and out of battle have been together, not apart. All I am asking is that you try to remember not to take risks. You’ve never been especially good at it, but now you are working, quite literally, with one hand tied behind your back.”
“Actually, it’s in front of my chest.”
“Well, there is little enough difference in the topography of those places on your anatomy that one can be forgiven for not noticing the arm placement. One day, one hideous and eventual day, we face the possibility that the Three will become Two, or even One. I just don’t want that day to be any time soon.”
Rhapsody shrugged with her one good shoulder.
“You are a believer in the myth that we may live forever,” she said. “Until this moment, I’ve never even heard you entertain the notion that we Three might die. I didn’t realize it was an option.”
“It’s not. Especially not for you. You are, after all, someone’s mother now. Even if he is irritating and smells bad. And even if you don’t remember him.” He exhaled deeply, as he often did when words were difficult. “I apologize for being unduly offensive about him.”
Rhapsody shrugged. “No need. I feel no insult anymore, if I ever did. It’s amazing how little I feel at all.” A thought occurred to her, and she opened her pack, pulling forth the box of Black Ivory given to her by Faedryth, the Nain king, and containing strange, translucent strips of a filmy material, burnt at the edges, that she had not been able to identify. “Does the name Werinatha mean anything to you, by any chance?”
The Bolg king, a man who was almost impossible to surprise, blinked in astonishment.
“Yes,” he said tersely. “Why?”
Rhapsody shrugged. “Anwyn said something to me in the broken vault of Kurimah Milani, when I followed her down and killed her some months ago. It has been nagging at me, and has something to do with this strange substance that Faedryth unearthed in the mines of the Nain kingdom.”
The Bolg king looked over his shoulder, listening for the approach of the liverymen, then silently motioned for her to continue.
“She told me that history, Time itself, had been altered for me. She made reference to a figure I have mentioned to you that I had seen in the realm of the Lord and Lady Rowan, behind the Veil of Hoen—the Weaver, the manifestation of Time in history. She said that there was a flaw of some sort in the Weaver’s tapestry, where the threads of Time had been cut and rewoven—a thread removed that affected all of the rest of history. And that, for some reason, it was done to improve my lot in life in the Past—though she had no idea by whom or why. She said it had something to do with my grisly death in childbirth that was unnatural.”
“As in the prophecy Manwyn threw at you in Yarim?”
“Perhaps. Anwyn said that this filmy substance was the only record of it.”
Achmed glanced into the Black Ivory box, then shook his head. “Go on.”
“Apparently she heard one word when scrying into the Forgotten Past, as she called it, though I don’t know if it was connected in any way to that whole ‘death in childbirth’ episode. She said it was a name that connected me to another person in my life, earlier than I had come to know that person in this second iteration of Time. It was the name of someone that this person and I had both cared for, and whose death brought us together. Then she spoke the name—Werinatha—and that was all she said.”
Silence filled the forest glade.
“I was wondering if that ‘another’ was you.”
“Perhaps,” Achmed said, “since Werinatha was indeed someone I knew.”
“Who was it?”
The Bolg king lasped into silence again. Rhapsody stood quietly awaiting his answer. Finally he spoke.
“A fellow student at Quieth Keep—the place I met that infernal idiot Jal’asee, from Gaematria.”
“It sounds like the name of a woman.”
“Yes.”
“Did she—did she die in whatever accident happened at Quieth Keep, that you and Jal’asee argued about when he came to Gwydion Navarne’s investiture?”
The Bolg king was silent again for a long moment. “Yes.”
“Hmmm. Well, Anwyn said that supposedly I knew this woman too, or in some way she connected me and someone else who knew her, and who also knew me. So that may indeed have been you. Anwyn was a vicious liar, but she, like her sister Seers, was supposedly unable to lie about the realm that was her domain, the Past, without losing her power to see into it. So while I have no idea what any of this means, at least it is good to know that the prophecy about death in childbirth is something that may have already occurred, in the Past, and that Time, for whatever reason, was altered to spare me from it.”
Achmed glanced over his shoulder again.
“I hear the liverymen,” he said. “They will be here in a moment, and I don’t wish to be seen.”
“Very well,” the Lirin queen said. She squeezed his arm affectionately. “Be on your way.”
Achmed looked at her for a long moment. He let his free hand cover hers that encircled his elbow, then took it from himself, raised it, and pressed it to his lips, releasing it a moment later. “Goodbye.”
Her slight smile returned. “Goodbye. I hope when I see you again we will be celebrating victory.”
“Well, if you are still acting as a Namer, your words of hope may be a good contribution to that. They certainly can’t hurt.”
He turned and slipped into the shadows that the rising sun was allowing to break into the trees, casting dusty light all around.
14
SOUTH OF SEPULVARTA, IN THE TEETH, SORBOLD
Hrarfa was starting to become worr
ied.
During the course of their journey the Faorina spirit whose host body she was clinging to had grown even more distant and quiet. Hrarfa knew, or at least suspected strongly, that it was still there, still aware; there was a testy, almost hostile mood she could sense in the dark of their walking stone prison.
The inability to successfully manipulate her demonic co-conspirator was disturbing to Hrarfa. Her most recognizable characteristic throughout the entire history of her time in the upworld, free from the Vault and able to take on human hosts that were weaker than she was, or willing, was the ability to manipulate and deceive even powerful host entities, or their associates, into doing whatever it was she wanted.
In her last body, that of a beautiful First Generation woman named Portia whom she had caught unaware and had violently overtaken, eating the poor woman’s soul alive in an orgiastic fever of glee, Hrarfa had easily managed to successfully seduce Tristan Steward, a weak man but nonetheless a powerful one, into giving her everything she wished for, the price for which was the repugnant but necessary surrendering of her host body to his lascivious needs. What’s a little repulsive knobbing if it achieves the desired end? she told herself while he continuously gripped her thighs painfully as he rode her up against closet walls, fornicated her, facedown, in piles of stable straw, groped her in the backs of carriages and insisted on sliding his insufficient tarse into her mouth at any available opportunity in a variety of uncomfortable positions. He has no idea his conquests of me gave me control of his soul long ago.
He certainly had not been the first man, nor the hundreth, to succumb to her will while assuming she was his toy into which to pound himself.
But the young misfit she had convinced to share the body of the stone titan was another matter.
Hrarfa did not understand the motivations of the Faorina spirit, the demonic child named Faron. Obviously charms of the flesh had no power over him, nor, it seemed, did her constant promises of reunion with his dead father always mollify him.
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