Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

He gulped a breath of the cold winter wind, hoping for clarity but instead breathed the air of the old world, of his life before, and it sickened him; it weighed in his lungs like stagnant water. He looked around, and for the first time in either life felt the crowd reel, felt it press against him like ocean waves; like he was adrift in strong surf. He had lost sight of Grunthor, of the wall he had been leaning on, of his whole awareness of existence in this land.

Just as suddenly, he came around. Instead of fighting the drowning feeling caused by the smell, he drew it in deeply. He opened his mouth and hands and eyes to the scent as he had in the old, hunting days, and it rushed into his mind like a flash fire:

F’dor.

He had come upon it. It was here. He shook his head to clear his mind and eyes, and found himself exactly in the spot he had been in before he detected his enemy. The shared blood rhythm pounded in his veins, beat in his chest like a drum of war, then moved again.

Grunthor had dismounted and was passing him at that moment on his way to the reviewing stand. Achmed touched him on the elbow. Without looking, the giant leant down to a practiced and discreet distance to hear his words.

“It’s here, the Rakshas’s master is here.”

Grunthor sought Achmed’s eyes for an indication of direction, and saw them wide and taut, still scanning the crowd. He was looking with more than his eyes, breathing the particles of odor and breath and identity that wafted on the winter wind, matching them to the blood he had absorbed. The other two members of the honor guard passed him, Anborn eyeing Achmed sus piciously as he walked by. The scent, the malodor of burning human flesh in fire grew stronger, then vanished again as the breeze picked up.

Rhapsody was on the reviewing stand now; the dais had been built to allow her to enter from the back to avoid struggling through the crowd in front of her. Anborn, Gwydion Navarne, and Grunthor took their places behind her, the Bolg Sergeant immediately in back of her. His eyes went from Achmed to the crowd, awaiting the Dhracian’s signal.

Achmed needed to get closer, but knew that if he could feel the demon’s presence there was a chance the demon might feel his as well if he wasn’t careful. He searched the courtyard for a good alcove in which he might be able to watch unobserved.

As he moved he wrapped a leather strap over the holes of the long flute and tied it off, hiding it in the moving folds of his cloak. The cold metal darts had been fashioned into an elaborate brooch that bounced dangerously, tantalizingly over his heart, the pin Rhapsody had commented on. He could feel the sharpness of the poisoned missiles sticking through the fine, thin Lirin ceremonial tunic he wore at Rial’s insistence. As he moved closer to the dais, the scent of the regular air thinned and gave way to the acrid odor of the F’dor. It stood out in the open air of the courtyard much more vividly than it would have in any basilica.

Achmed drew the scent into his throat and across his palms. He closed his eyes and sought to match his heartbeat to that of the F’dor and hold it this time. At once he had it, beating in rhythm with his own, but it was still impossible to tell who it belonged to in the swelling crowd. The tension of the occasion mingled with the incense and the overabundance of rich fragrances worn by the emissaries from over a dozen different lands. He fought to tease out the ancient scent from all the ephemeral ones, to trust in his blood to feel the threads that tied the nightmares of this world to the horror of the last. Intently he tasted for that bitter tang and felt for the fearsome beat. He locked his own on to it.

Tristan Steward and the Prince of Sorbold had each kissed Rhapsody’s hand and wished her well, moving off the platform and into the circle of their own guards. The Patriarch and his five benisons were approaching her now, each ready to bless her as well.

Suddenly Achmed’s heart lurched, and he could see for a moment through the demon’s eyes. It must be in the Patriarch’s group, or near enough to her to touch her; only the other members of the honor guard were close enough.

At the same time his eyes melded with those of the F’dor he could see into its mind as well. There was no intent here to assassinate; it had come to bind the new queen to itself, to enchant her. He could feel it ready to spring, focused, hungry, to possess Rhapsody as it had bound the others. Given the choice, he knew she would have vastly preferred death.

Fear coursed through him and his momentary tie with the demon vanished; it was all Achmed could do to suppress a shout at Rhapsody to run, and take whatever risks would come from revealing themselves to it in this crowd of victims. It would be useless to do so, however; it was like trying to get a bride’s attention from across a town square in the moments right after her wedding. He had to come up with another way to stop the F’dor from getting too close, preferably without letting it know he had discovered it.

He steadied himself, chasing the elusive threads of identity through the currents of air, over the landscape of the wind. The voice of the Grandmother, his Dhracian instructor in the thrall ritual, spoke in his mind. Let your identity die .

Achmed nodded infinitesimally, willing his heartbeat to slow. Within your mind, call to each of the four winds. Chant each name, then anchor it to one of your fingers .

Eien , Achmed thought. The north wind, the strongest. He opened his first throat and hummed the name; the sound echoed through his chest and the first chamber of his heart. He held up his index finger; the sensitive skin of its dp tingled as a draft of air wrapped around it.

Jahne , he whispered in his mind. The south wind, the most enduring. With his second throat he called to the next wind, committing the second heart chamber. Around his tallest finger he could sense the anchoring of another thread of air. When both vibrations were clear and strong he went on, opening the other two throats, the other two heart chambers. .Leuk . The west wind, the wind of justice. Thas . The east wind. The wind of morning; the wind of death. A net of wind.

Hear, O guardian, and look upon your destiny: The one who hunts also will stand guard, the one who sustains also will abandon, the one who heals also will kill , the Zephyr, the last Dhracian sage, had said in the last Dhracian prophecy. Beware the Sleepwalker, for Blood will be the means to find that which hides from the wind .

Time to stop hiding , Achmed thought silently. Come out and play, you bastard.

He cast the invisible net outward, toward the place where he had felt the demonic rhythm. Around him the sensitive nerves of his face felt the stinging breeze die down for a moment as the winds knotted together in a snare.

Then the scent, the heartbeat, the position all came together.

He had found the F’dor.

Now that he had finally identified the demon’s host he knew he could get a clean shot off, but without any weapon to follow the first strike, it was likely there would not be a single survivor in this entire assemblage should he yield to the screams of his blood, his nature, and fire the blowgun into its back. His dart might be fatal to the human but it would not kill the demon. It would either flee the dying body of the host or turn and destroy everyone, starting with Rhapsody, unarmed in her beautiful gown. He tried to make eye contact with Grunthor as he raised the blowgun.

“Bye, Father,” he whispered as he put the flute to his lips.

Grunthor, for his part, had seen Achmed move, swinging the flute down out of sight. He was close enough to Rhapsody to touch her in one step; he could easily step between her and any threat he saw or sensed. Achmed’s movement disturbed him, but he suspected he was the only one on the dais who had noticed. Rhapsody herself had only looked to her honor guard once, when the contingent from Gwynwood had approached.