Grunthor's she had seen right away. He had been her protector from the beginning, advocating for her with his partner, assisting her in her climb, protecting her from her dreams. It was this other one in whom she had seen no good until now.
You cannot see the beauty without facing the darkness. Remember this.
"And rather than circumventing this place you have brought us here in the hope that we can help contain it."
"Yes, if possible." The mismatched eyes glittered in the darkness. "And even then, Rhapsody, you will only be buying time. You will never have the power to destroy it completely, nor I, nor any living soul."
She rested her throbbing head in her hand. "I can sing it a song of slumber, but I don't have any idea if it will work. And I will have to be very close to it to ensure it hears me."
Within his hood she heard a sigh. "I had suspected that. Grunthor and I discussed that possibility."
"And he objected, which is why you waited until he was asleep to talk to me."
"Careful, Rhapsody, you sound almost astute. You're going to ruin my opinion of you."
"I have an idea, but I'll need my pack," she said, hiding her smile. "You are more likely to be able to get it without waking Grunthor."
"Before you do anything foolish, why don't you tell me what you are planning?" Achmed handed her the pack, remembering a night long ago by the light of a hidden campfire in the fields outside Easton's wall.
So I'll ask you again, Singer; what can you do?
I can tell the absolute truth as I know it. And when I do that I can change things.
When the thought passed he looked up again. Rhapsody was untying the rawhide strings that held the burlap cover over her shepherd's harp.
"Thanks for your confidence in me." She pulled the ragged cloth loose and uncovered the instrument. It had not been damaged by its time within the Earth, much like Pilam's bread. "You said that at some point this beast will be summoned."
"Yes."
"What if it didn't hear the call?" Achmed stared at her blankly. She tried again. "In order to summon something, you need to know its true name. Of course, I don't know this thing's name. But if we could obscure the call, keep the beast from hearing it properly, or feeling it, perhaps it would just stay asleep and not answer. At least for a little while."
A fragment of a grin crawled over Achmed's face. "And how would you achieve this?"
"I'm not sure yet. But I'll have thought of something by the time we get to the tunnel."
With great care they crept across the vast, glowing Root, taking their time to ensure silence. Eventually they came to its edge and stepped off it for the first time onto the black basalt rock through which the Axis Mundi ran. In the shadows not far from the Root's edge was an immense tunnel, so huge that it faded into the darkness of the stone around it, its edges barely visible.
The closer they came to the tunnel, the colder Rhapsody felt. When they were close enough for her to see it, she knew why.
An icy wind was rising from the depth of the vast circular cavern. Her ears and fingers stung as it blasted through, freezing the wet clothing to her skin.
"Gods," she whispered. "Why is it so cold?"
Achmed slowly turned to her. When he spoke his words were measured.
"The demonic spirits that secreted the egg here took the element of fire with them when they went upworld to keep the wyrm in hibernation. They wanted it to grow to its greatest possible size before setting it free. I think that's why the vermin are attracted to heat and light." The natural percussion in his voice seemed stronger, as if his teeth were chattering.
"Are you all right?"
Achmed smiled through the ice that was forming on his lips. "I'm pondering hibernation myself."
"What do you mean?"
He leaned slowly over so she could catch his whisper. "You're the one who named me Achmed the Snake."
Concern filled her eyes as Rhapsody reached out and brushed the frost off of his face. His movements were now so slow as to be almost imperceptible. "Gods," she whispered again. He was trapped, living up to the reptilian name she had given him.
What have I done ? she thought miserably, watching him freeze where he stood. If I fail and wake the serpent, he will be unable to escape. He'll be its first victim. No; its second.
"I'm going to take you back first," she said, taking his frigid hand. "You can't stay here."
With the last of his remaining mobility, Achmed shook his head. His eyes, still piercing, sought hers and stared down at her.
"Rhapsody," he said with great effort, "you do this. I will wait." His words had the ring of finality to them.
She looked down the tunnel into the icy darkness. "Can you still sense its heartbeat?" He blinked twice. "Good. All right, then, I'm going to set up right here. You need to tell me if it reacts to anything I'm doing, if it starts to wake. I'm going to begin softly, so we can stop if we have to. Give me a moment to gauge the direction of the tunnel."
Quietly she put down the harp and tiptoed into the vast opening. Its walls were wider than she could see in the dark, its ceiling higher, so once inside she was blind. She rested her hand on the wall and leaned forward slightly to try and estimate the angle of descent, but could see very little. The dirt beneath her hand was sandy and cold. The tunnel sloped downward, curling into the distance. Rhapsody returned to where Achmed waited.
"The wyrm must be very far away," she whispered. "I can't see an end to the tunnel."
Achmed struggled to speak. "The tunnel—wall—"
She moved nearer to hear him. "What about the tunnel wall?"
"—is—a scale in—the—skin of—the wyrm."
Frost ran through her veins as she realized what he meant. He had said that the body of the serpent was a large part of the Earth's mass, but she hadn't realized that it was part of the cavern around them. If the immense tunnel wall was a tiny piece of one of its coils while its heart was far away, deeper within the belly of the Earth, then surely there was nothing in the known world that could contain a beast of this size should it arise. And she had touched it.
Fighting nausea and panic Rhapsody sat on the ground and took up her harp. She cleared her mind and attuned herself to the diffuse music in the air around her. After a moment, its low, smooth tone began to fill her ears. There was little fluctuation, just the occasional variation in the monotone up or down a half-step. A sign of deep sleep.
Softly she began the simplest slumber song she knew in the same key as the music around her. She looked to Achmed's face, looking for signs that the heartbeat of the wyrm had increased, but his eyes remained steady, watching her intently within the frozen prison of his body.
The melody wove through the music in the air, matching its tune. Slowly Rhapsody added a harmonic element, and noted a slight increase of warmth in the air around her. She looked up at Achmed, questioningly, and he blinked once. Still no change.
A stray thought knocked on the door of her mind, and Rhapsody shook her head to drive it out again. The import of what she was doing, and its potential consequences, was something that had to remain in abeyance until she was finished. Otherwise it would have buried her in its weight.
When the demon summoned the wyrm he would be using its true name, something that would match exactly the musical vibration it was attuned to. She needed to change that vibration subtlely, needed to wrap it in a slightly discordant song.
When using music to cause pain, it is better to be slightly sharp or flat than either of those things in the extreme, her mentor had said. If she did it slowly enough, took it up a degree at a time, perhaps the wyrm would not notice the subtle change, but it would still be enough to interfere with the call of its name.
Rhapsody breathed in time to the song, focusing all the rhythms of her body. All sense of time melted away as it had in the Wide Meadows. She had no idea how long she played, repeating the monotonous refrain over and over again, varying its tone infinitesimally. She shaped it as a roundelay,
singing the repetitive melody again and again, over and over.
She added a slightly different beat to the rhythm. Suddenly Achmed's eyes opened wide; the heartbeat had leapt, the ocean of serpentine blood had begun to pump. He blinked furiously.
Rhapsody scarcely noticed. She was attuned to the song herself; it had become part of the fiber of her being. She continued to play, raising the key a half-step.
The wall of the tunnel vibrated as the great beast stretched slightly, then settled back into sleep. The air cooled imperceptibly, the heartbeat slowed. Achmed closed his eyes and sighed, willing the dangerous game to end.
Hours later, Rhapsody finally rose, exhausted, still playing, and walked back to the entrance of the tunnel.
"Samoht." she said to the instrument. Play on endlessly.
The harp continued the lullaby, even as her fingers left the strings. Over and over the roundelay played, repeating the same complex melody. Rhapsody set the instrument carefully on the floor of the tunnel near the entrance, then stepped back. On it played, endlessly. Samoht.
She turned and went quickly back to Achmed, whose eyes were now closed. Fighting fatigue, Rhapsody stood on tiptoe and sang his name into his ear.
"Achmed the Snake, warm; come."
Achmed blinked but didn't move. The command in the song had not worked.
Exhaustion roared through her, consuming the last of her strength. She fought back tears with the effort to remain standing, and grasped his arms, pulling with all her might.
"Come on. Please."
Still there was no response. Rhapsody pulled harder, trying to drag him from the tunnel's maw, but her strength failed her and she only succeeded in knocking his frozen body to the ground, where it lay unmoving.
Tears began to flow, and even the act of crying made her too tired to think. Grunthor. She had to get Grunthor.
Blindly she stumbled back toward the Root where they had left him. She got to the edge of the Root before she fell and landed, sprawling, on the glowing surface of the Axis Mundi.
For a moment she lay, too spent to go any farther, her ear resting against the humming floor beneath her. The song of the Root filled her head again, bringing with it ease, solace.
Rhapsody took a deep breath. The music of the Root had sustained her before. Perhaps, even in her utter exhaustion, there was strength she could tap. She began to sing her Naming note, ela, trying to match the tonal modulations of the Tree.
After a moment she felt a fragile spark of energy enter her legs, and she stood slowly. Grunthor was here somewhere. She had to find him. She had the strength to find him.
Concentrating on the Root's song she pushed on, step after agonizing step, keeping her head down, breathing slowly, until she was stopped in her tracks by the grip of huge hands.
"Miss! Are ya all right?"
"Achmed," she choked, looking up into the face of the Bolg. He was trembling. "Help me get him out of there."
Without a word the giant swept her up in his arms and ran back to where she had come from.
Achmed was still lying on the ground, motionless, when they reached the spot where he had fallen. While Grunthor took off his greatcoat Rhapsody patted the Dhracian's face to check for signs of awareness and was overjoyed to see the familiar scowl radiating up at her from the frozen features.
With an efficient sweep the Bolg Sergeant swathed him in the greatcoat, then lifted him to a stand. Grunthor hoisted Achmed's body, too stiff even to bend, against his chest and shoulder. He turned to Rhapsody.
"Can you walk on your own, miss?"
Rhapsody nodded, watching Achmed carefully. Color was returning to his face, and he flexed his limbs slightly. Rhapsody smiled. She took his hand and gave his arm a solid pull, and was not surprised to find resistance in the muscles. He bent forward slightly and whispered in her ear.
"Look."
She turned and stared back at the tunnel. Slowly it was filling with slender threads of light, like the gossamer of a spider's web. Each new repetition of the melody had formed a new strand, attaching itself in a circular pattern to the cavernous walls of the tunnel.
"The song is freezing in place," she murmured, fascinated.
With each new round the threads grew thicker, the sound of the song louder. Its key was now up three notes from where it had been when she started, different enough, with any luck, to jangle the namesong when the demon eventually spoke it. The roundelay, something Singers learned early in their training in order to be able to sing harmony with themselves, continued on, creating more strands of glowing spider-silk. Each strand hummed, repeating its simple melody, vibrating like the strings of her harp, each song beginning a few seconds apart.
"After a while it's going to be cacophony," Rhapsody said.
Grunthor nodded. Already the vibrations were in pleasant discord, like a band of musicians without a conductor, each playing at his own speed.
"Come on, miss, let's get out of 'ere," he said.
Once they left the wyrm's tunnel Achmed's strength returned rapidly. He was able to walk almost immediately and insisted on being allowed to do so, listening, as before, for the sound of the thudding pulse. It was unchanged.
They fell back into the business of finding an exit from the earth, traveling in their accustomed silence for the most part. Achmed had not spoken about the incident with the wyrm, and Rhapsody avoided mentioning it, hoping that one day they would be able to talk about it openly. She understood that there were many battles still to be fought and won in Achmed's memory before he would be able to do so.
For a while the root tunnel ran fairly straight. It didn't tend to twist much, though it often varied its elevation, winding up or down at will, undoubtedly following whatever water source had once allowed the Tree to grow roots this deep, probably the father of what was now the sea. The deeper within the Earth they seemed to burrow, the more often they seemed to encounter slightly wider tunnels, allowing them to walk upright for longer before crouching or crawling again.
Occasionally they would come to great open spaces, places where the ceiling of the tunnel arched high above them, giving them room to breathe freely. Grunthor had speculated that these tunnels were places where the Root had once taken on great quantities of water, swelling in response, then shrinking again as it grew longer. These places were often the most dangerous of all. Cave-ins were common, and it was here that the infestation of vermin was oftentimes the worst.
"They're coming." Achmed's voice roused Rhapsody from her fitful sleep. She swallowed dryly and drew Lucy. They had camped in a cavernous place and there was sufficient room to use the weapon.
Despite becoming accustomed to the endless task of destroying the vermin, she never really had been able to overcome the horror those words always struck in her soul. Her years in the streets had given her the fortitude to face many abhorrent tasks, however, so she brushed the hair off her forehead and looked up into the darkness above her.
Will this never end?she thought as the wriggling worms came into view. They had learned to fight them in the dark, since light made the vermin more excited, causing them to move more quickly and attack more ferociously. How many times have we done this now?
The dim light of the glowing lichen in the cavern allowed her to see them coming along the Root. Like a blanket of creeping decay, they swarmed forward, falling from the branches of the Root above them.
The three companions lined up on the Root surface, Grunthor with Lopper at the ready, Achmed drawing the thin silvery sword he hadn't deigned to give a name. The vermin began to drop from above, at first one by one, then in swarms like leaves in autumn.
As was always their unspoken custom, the three formed a circle, slashing at the vermin as they fell. Only Achmed could match the speed of the worms; Rhapsody and Grunthor instead had learned their patterns of movement. The giant Bolg and the Lirin Singer had become accustomed to predicting when they would strike, dodging their painful bites with a twisting motion which at once they turne
d into a cutting strike. It didn't always work—at times they would miss—but most of the time they would cleave the vermin and be ready for the next attack.
The crawling mass was coming closer; soon she and Grunthor would have to deal with the devouring carpet instead of the strays dropping from above. They left it to Achmed to guard them from the overhead assault while they began their rhythmic slaughter of the oncoming crawlers.
Rhapsody took the left, Grunthor the right, as they hacked wildly at the creatures, Achmed swinging above them to swipe the dropping parasites out of the air.
It often occurred to Rhapsody while they were engaged in this vile activity that this, more than any other action, demonstrated the trust that had grown between the three of them over time. Achmed's weapon whistled past their ears and scalps, diverting the painful attacks of needle-like teeth and insidious venom that caused an insatiable burning itch and occasional fevers.
He left himself completely open to the attack of the encroaching mass, relying on the efforts of the other two to fend off the majority of the creatures. Occasionally in the thick of the fight Rhapsody would find herself musing about how the unequal contributions of all three had grown into an impressive display of synchronized fighting, one in which she had eventually come to feel an equal partner.
The hideous popping of the creatures' flesh as they were severed with the sword, the repulsive smell that their fluids left on clothes for days afterward—it had all the qualities of a full-fledged nightmare each time the task was undertaken. Finally she would look up to see one or the other of the Bolg giving the all-clear signal, as Grunthor was doing now, and she collapsed in exhaustion after kicking a space on the ground clear of the worm bodies.
Now came the cleanup, the crucial act of checking every crevice of their bodies and clothing for the smallest creatures that would hide, attaching themselves to their skin. Generally the vermin were able to wait, without moving, until their host was asleep, before burying their purple heads in the skin like a tick and feasting on blood, leaving behind illness and stinging pain.
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