Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

At this meeting the duke of Yarim promised the Shanouin free citizenship again, and the protection of the Yarimese army, if they would find a way to bring forth water from the dry clay to sustain life in the province’s thirsty cities.

And so the Shanouin slowly regained their social status over the centuries, establishing successful water camps that fed the province of Yarim, though never again as abundantly as it had been in its glory days. Though they were now without the Artery that brought forth life from the heart of the Earth, there were still any number of small veins running near the surface, which the former priestesses of Entudenin were able to divine. The work was difficult and chancy, but somehow Yarim survived its apocalypse. The once-glorious capital of Yarim Paar withered in the heat, drying out in the sun and cracking as it did.

As for Entudenin, it continued to stand, stalwartly rising toward the sky, but silent now. The great marble basin around it dried out as well and crumbled away. The obelisk baked in the heat, losing its luster, its colors, until finally it was as dry and red as the rest of the clay that had built Yarim. It was visited from time to time by pilgrims from across the desert, who stood at its base, gazing up at the carcass of the dead Fountain Rock, shaking their heads either at the overwhelming sadness of its loss, or the exaggeration of the stories they had heard about it in the first place.

When darkness fell each night, however, just as twilight was leaving the sky, someone watching the ancient formation might note the tiniest glimmer of gold, the silvery sheen of fragile mica, forever forged in the heat into the dark, spindling rock, pointing the way to the stars.

«J take it Ashe never brought you to this place when the two of you visited Yarim?”

“No. Why?”

Achmed stared up at the tall, thinning shaft of the towering obelisk. “I would think this giant phallus would only reinforce his feelings of inadequacy. Justifiable feelings, I might add.”

Beneath the veils of the pilgrim disguise that shielded her face from sight, Rhapsody smiled but said nothing. Instead she waited until the three elderly women, draped as she was in flowing white ghodins with their faces shielded behind veils, finished their prayers and moved on. She then moved closer to the ancient formation.

Entudenin was smaller than she had envisioned, and thinner; it had the appearance of frailty to it. They had, in fact, walked past it twice, because it stood in the midst of the central town square like an unappreciated statue, while oxcarts and cattle caravans rumbled past and around it as if it were not there. The three women who had just walked away were the only people in all of the busy traffic of Yarim Paar that had stopped to look at the obelisk that morning.

The deposits of mineral sediment that had once formed it now had solidified into hard red rock, pocked and scarred with deep gouges and holes. Rhapsody observed that it looked vaguely like a dismembered arm balanced on the ground, missing the hand as well.

She cast a glance around the busy town square, then quickly averted her eyes as a cadre of Yarimese soldiers, distinguished by their horned helmets, rode past. When she could no longer hear the sounds of the horses’ hooves, she looked back at Achmed. He was staring off toward the south.

“What do you think happened to the water? Why did Entudenin go dry?”

Achmed smirked. “Are you mistaking me for Manwyn just because we’re in the same city?”

“Hardly. She’s ever so much more pleasant than you are.” Rhapsody shuddered, remembering the Oracle’s hideous laughter, her unprovoked taunting of Ashe, her ugly prophecies.

I see an unnatural child born of an unnatural act. Rhapsody, you should beware of childbirth: the mother shall die, but the child shall live .

Ashe had been furious at his aunt’s words. When he demanded an explanation, Manwyn had thrown puzzling words at him as well.

Gwydion ap Llauron, thy mother died in giving birth to thee, but thy children’s mother shall not die giving birth to them.

There had been something else, but Rhapsody could not remember what it was, almost as if it had been plucked from her memory.

She blinked and found Achmed’s mismatched eyes staring at her. Rhapsody shook her head to drive the memory away.

“If I wanted to ask a Seer about what happened to Entudenin, it would have to be Anwyn,” she said. “She’s the one who sees the Past. I think I’ll pass, thank you. I’d rather ask you, even if you can only give your opinion. What offense do you think was committed that caused the Fountain Rock to run dry?”

Beneath his veils she could tell he was smiling. He turned and stared up at Entudenin. “The offense of a mineral clog, or a shifting of strata within the Earth.”

“Really? That’s all?”

“That’s all, at least in my opinion. Have you ever noticed, Rhapsody, that when something miraculous and good happens it’s a gift from the All-God, but when something baleful or terrible takes it away, it was man’s fault? Perhaps everything that happens, good and bad, is just random chance.”

“Perhaps,” she said hastily. She pulled out the journal and began thumbing through it. “Rhonwyn said the child’s location was Tarim Paar, below Entudenin , didn’t she?”

Achmed nodded, not looking away from the fossilized geyser. “Listening to you pry the names, ages, and locations of those demon brats out of that lunatic Seer was torture.”

L -

Rhapsody chuckled. “I’m sorry. It’s not easy to get information from someone who can’t remember who you are from moment to moment, because she can only see the Present. A heartbeat later the Present becomes the Past and she can’t remember what she said, let alone what you said. And if you think Rhonwyn was bad, be glad you didn’t meet Manwyn.” She leaned forward and tried to peer over the domes of the buildings toward the Oracle’s crumbling temple, but could not see the minaret. “The fountain square is the direct center of the city. Do you think ‘below’ meant south of the square?”

The Firbolg king shrugged, trying to concentrate. The heartbeats were muffled now, swallowed by the hum of human traffic, the whine of the winter wind through the narrow alleys, the haggling of the women, the cacophony of merchants in the marketplace shouting their wares. Added to this was the muffling of the veils that were worn by almost everyone in Yarim to keep the blowing dirt from the eyes and nose.

His chest was still aching from the shock of the arrhythmia, the jolt of dissonance that his heart’s rhythm had experienced when the second pulse had ricocheted off it. He understood what Rhapsody meant about name-songs, songs of one’s self; the way that she could attune her music to something’s true name. Her musical lore worked in much the same way that his tracking ability did, locking both of them to the unique vibrations that each individual emitted. He had always known how vulnerable he was when matching his own heartbeat to another’s. It made him wonder what her exposure was as well.

He could still hear both rhythms, distantly. There was such an infinitesimal amount of blood from the old world in the makeup of the children that he hardly should be able to hear it at all. One of the heartbeats was fainter and more intermittent than the other.

“One of them—the first one—is at the southeastern edge of the city,” he said finally. “As for the other one, it could be anywhere.”

Rhapsody adjusted the veil in front of her face nervously. “That doesn’t inspire great confidence.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be angry. It’s just that your ability to track these children is the only hope we have of finding them.”