Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

“I don’t know what will happen,” he replied simply. “It would be preferable for you to be on your way to try and talk some sense into the Lirin when I begin the ritual. I am in a sense making it up as I go; I, like you, lost my mentor early. And he would never in his wildest dreams imagine what has come to pass in this world, and the last.”

Rhapsody sighed and wrapped her arms about her knees. “I still am not certain I can be of any help to the Lirin. It’s so far to travel if I’m not going to be of use.”

Achmed snorted contemptuously.

“Are we back to questioning your status as a Namer?”

“I’m not sure of my abilities. I don’t want them to fail me in the midst of something important.”

“They won’t. I would think reliving Gwylliam’s sorry death might have convinced you otherwise.” He stared for a moment at the distant flame from the vent at the Loritorium’s center, then fixed a steady gaze on her again. “That first night we spent by the campfire, I asked, ‘What can you do?’ You replied, ‘I can tell the absolute truth as I know it. And when I do that, I can change things.’ And that’s what you’ve done.

“The sense that a Namer is born or invested, like an albino or a virgin, and once changed can never again speak with the same power or conviction, is like assuming a healer must save every wounded or dying person she tries to help to remain a healer; that an assassin must never miss, must never be a tool or weapon for someone else’s purposes; that a Sergeant-Major can never lead again once his entire company has been slaughtered. You must know, Rhapsody, that in every profession there is at least a small bit of failure to be expected. Don’t be daunted by it; losing that confidence will surely drain the power that the demon could not have taken from you otherwise.

“The F’dor is in a way an Unnamer, it lies to bring the world to its end. Treaties, lives and deaths, even the form the demon takes are all subject to the way it tries to unmake the world, hide the lore, break the prison, make the Earth not a place where life goes on, but cosmic dust, nothing more than the scattered eggshell of some unimaginable beast. We have seen everything, there, in our trek through the world. We have touched what can not be imagined; we speak here, now, in the presence of a race as old as your oldest lore, nevertheless we do not tell all we know. We dare not. What would the Lirin do to explain, to defend, to survive the awakening of the wyrm? There is nowhere to go, no grove of safety in which to hide. How deeply must the Nain delve to protect themselves? Can any sailor sail far enough, any soldier train hard enough? When your own race decrees ‘Kyle him ,’ Life is what it is, you choose instead to speak the truth that says that our individual lives mean something. Though it was not the truth of these shadows, of this child, it was truth enough to take you through the flame at the center of the world.” He turned to go back up the tunnel. “To see the world as it is surely leads to madness. Better to see the world you wish to see. I believe you are the one who first explained that truth to me.”

“And what world do you wish to see?”

He stopped, turned slowly to see her standing, adjusting the sword on her hip, shaking her hair straight. He chuckled soundlessly.

“I wish to see a world where F’dor are extinct, a legend in distant memory,” he said. “You wish to see a world where the Lirin are united. Perhaps we should both apply ourselves to making those worldviews ones which can someday be accurately expressed by Namers.”

Rhapsody was suddenly struck by the music in his tone, and what the subtext of his words was.

He didn’t know, once she left, if he would ever see her again. She crossed her arms, regarding him fondly. “Tell me something.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Grunthor told me a little bit about how and where you met.” Achmed looked at the floor and slowly shook his head. “Grunthor will say anything to get you to stay in the mountain. And though he is one of the cleverest men I know, he is also blessed with the gift of a certain amount of naivete. He’s had all these years to understand how he is cursed, and he will mercifully never understand.”

“Cursed?” Rhapsody asked, dumbfounded. “How can you suggest such a thing? Grunthor has such purity of purpose. He can’t be cursed.”

“Grunthor is cursed deeper than you are, with your nightmares and your purposeful blindness to things you don’t want to see. Grunthor has the curse of Earth, being its child.”

“I hate it when you say cryptic things like that. Explain.”

“Grunthor has a gift for guardianship, and the need for it. Surely you must have noticed; he’s been guarding your arse since the moment we met you in the back alleys of Easton. It was the same with Jo; it is the same with the Earthchild, with the Bolg soldiers that he bullies and loves. It was the same in the old land. It is and has always been the same with me. If he could hold every valuable thing inside his skin and put his blood and life around it, he’d find that guardianship easier, but here, now, everything tied to the Earth has a trace of the wyrm. Protecting you will one day kill him, with your wandering, your misplaced trust and affection. And he couldn’t bear to die because of the pain it would cause you. He’s damned, like the polluted Earth. She hurtles through the ether, bound even the gods don’t know where, carrying inside, deep in her heart, the first and last Sleeping Child, the burden whose birth may be its mother’s ending. Like the Earth, like the Grandmother, Grunthor will give his life in the guardianship of you.”

Rhapsody shook her head as she checked her gear. “No. There is no need to guard me anymore. I can tend to myself. Grunthor knows that better than anyone—he trained me.”

“I know. But you seem to be insistent on taking dangerous risks. If you are going to do that, at least do it in a worthwhile cause, so that if you die, and Grunthor does, too, in the process, that it will have at least been for a good reason.”

She looked into his eyes, meeting their steady gaze. “And what causes that I espouse do you consider worthwhile?”

“Helping build the Bolg into a nation of monstrous men.”

“I did that. You eradicated every contribution I made.” The Firbolg king rubbed his eyes. “Not every one. And that is only temporary, assuming we survive whatever attack is coming. There is also the unification of the Lirin—you should be safe among them, at least for a while. Forming a Cymrian alliance, while annoying, may prove to be useful as well.”

“So what risk have I taken that you don’t think is worthwhile?” He reached within his robes and produced the hematite vial, the smooth stone catching the light of the flamewell and gleaming dully. “You felt the need to save those creatures, those demon-spawn, even though it may have meant the end for all of us. The blood from one of them would have been enough; we should have executed the rest. But you were insistent; you put yourself repeatedly in harm’s way to rescue them, even though it may eventually be your undoing.”

Rhapsody shrugged. “I thought it more prudent to make sure that all the blood was collected, that you would have a better chance of catching the demon’s scent with more of it. If you recall it was you that said trying to trace the F’dor was like trying to catch a breath of perfume across a crowded bazaar. Sometimes you remind me of the Rakshas, Achmed; these children aren’t tainted receptacles of blood and nothing more. They have souls, immortal souls. It is heinous to use them for our own purposes and then discard them as if they were nothing. If we really are going to live forever, or have lives so long that it seems like forever, I don’t want that on my conscience. I don’t think you could abide it, either.”