Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

The day had been a nightmarish one. Rhapsody’s skills as a Namer had served to keep the frightened assemblage calm, and she had stayed in the courtyard well past midnight, comforting those in mourning and greeting each of the well-wishers who had come to witness her coronation. Now she was taking a bath, hoping to wash away the effects of the chaos that had been her coronation ceremony. Her Firbolg friends sat before the fire in her chambers, discussing the next move before she came out again.

“You don’t think she noticed the dart?” Achmed took another deep swallow, clenching his teeth as the burning liquid ripped down his gullet.

“Definitely not,” said Grunthor, taking another swig. “She thinks the old goat dropped dead on ’is own, as ’e said ’e was gonna months ago.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way. I doubt she would appreciate it if she knew her friend’s death was a diversion.” He saw a scowl cross Grunthor’s face, but the giant said nothing.

A moment later Rhapsody came into the main chamber in her dressing gown, her hair wet, with a drying cloth in her hand. She went to the fire, which crackled as she approached, and bent over before it, drying her hair with the drying cloth. Finally she shook her head, the semi-dry tresses falling around her face, rosy from the bath and the firelight. Then she came to Grunthor and took the bottle out of his hands, taking a swig and handing it back to him. She sat on his knee.

“Soon no one is going to want to come to any party I give,” she said. Grunthor chuckled; Achmed merely smiled. Her eyes darkened. “Thank you both for all your help today. I would never have made it through without you.”

“It was a little worse than you think,” Achmed said, swallowing the rest of his whiskey and pouring himself another splash. “Our friend from the Vault of the Underworld decided to come to your party.” Rhapsody looked at him questioningly. “I discovered who the F’dor is today.”

Rhapsody sat straight up, almost falling off Grunthor’s knee. “Who?”

Achmed set his glass down. His face grew solemn in the firelight. “Lanacan Orlando, the Blesser of Bethe Corbair.”

“Are you certain?” she asked, her eyes widening.

“Absolutely. I could smell him when the Patriarch’s contingent got out of the carriage. I traced him and caught his heartbeat; it’s him, the demonic knob.”

Rhapsody leaned back against Grunthor’s shoulder, deep in thought. “Well, that makes some sense. The Patriarch said Lanacan was the priest he would send to heal the injured and bless the armies; that gave him access to them when they were completely open to him. He could bind them as he was blessing them, planting the seed for them to erupt in murder later on, that bastard. Oelendra suspected Anborn because he had the very same kind of access.”

“

“E’s been on our bloody doorstep all this time,” muttered Grunthor as Achmed took the whiskey bottle and poured another glass. “No wonder ’e volunteered to be our personal cleric. Thank goodness we Bolg are godless pagans on our way to eternal damnation in the Afterlife.”

Achmed nodded. “Well, the good news is that I don’t believe he knows we’re on to him. The Patriarch’s timely, er, untimely demise covered my finding out, so we didn’t have to move against him.”

“Yeah, what a coincidence,” muttered Grunthor. Achmed shot him an acid glance.

Rhapsody was looking puzzled. “Something still doesn’t make sense to me,” she said, taking another sip from the bottle. “I know that the benison holds services every week in the basilica in Bethe Corbair. All the benisons do, each in his own See, except for Colin Abernathy, because the Nonaligned States don’t have a basilica. Those basilicas are sanctified ground, blessed by the elements themselves; I can’t believe it is within the power of even the mightiest demon to circumvent something like that. If he were to desecrate the holy ground in some way to allow himself to be able to even stand on it would be resanctified immediately by whatever element it is consecrated to.”

“Do you remember what element the basilica in Bethe Corbair is dedicated to?”

Rhapsody thought for a moment, retracing her conversation with Lord Stephen. “I think it’s the wind,” she said at last. “Of course it is. Remember the sound of all those beautiful bells? You could hear them everywhere in the town.”

“It’s ’ard to get around that,” Grunthor said. “But, o’ course, nothin’ is impossible.”

“Right,” said Rhapsody. “So what do we do now?”

“Well, Grunthor and I are leaving tonight or tomorrow to follow his caravan back,” said Achmed, downing his remaining whiskey. “I asked Sylvia to let you know when and if the benisons take their leave; they should be easy to track.”

“What about me?” the new queen asked indignantly.

“You’re to stay here for the moment and get established in your new kingdom. If you leave immediately after being coronated it will arouse suspicion. We will scout to see what is going on; then we’ll come back here and plan the sortie to kill it. It should give you a few weeks to get things in order. Fair enough?”

“I suppose,” Rhapsody said, looking out the window. “Let’s not wait too long, though, all right? I don’t want the body count of innocents to be any higher than it already is.”

Grunthor and Achmed exchanged a glance. It was one higher than she realized.

Blesser of Bethe Corbair was a patient man. He had always been so. Even in the days before the Taking, in the time prior to becoming the host of the demon, Lanacan Orlando had been a patient man. Not suited by temperament or position to fight for dominance with Mousa or Griswold, he had instead chosen the path of long-suffering, humble service in the hope that the Patriarch would see the depth of his commitment to the All-God and to the Patriarch himself. Instead, the years passed; he repeatedly accepted the Patriarch’s sincere thanks for taking on the most onerous of tasks, loyally serving as the healer to the festering wounded of the armies, the low-life populations of Bethe Corbair and the farming villages of the Krevensfield Plain, while the power and prestige were routinely reserved for the more assertive and combative benisons. Lanacan waited for the Patriarch, a soft-spoken man with a distaste for strife, to ultimately reward him for all his good works, his mild manner, but it never came to pass. His only thanks for all that patience was the Patriarch’s good opinion.

When finally Lanacan Orlando made his deal with the demon, he discovered that it, too, was patient. Unlike most of the others of its race, intent on mayhem and chaos at all costs, lusting for power and the friction of destruction, the F’dor that took him on, came into him like breath, remaining in his lungs like heavy vapor, clinging thickly to his blood, had a long worldview, a plan it was willing to wait to implement until all the pieces were in place. Over the years, as he grew more and more demonic, it seemed as if the F’dor’s avarice might have even been tempered somewhat by the patience he had possessed before it possessed him.

Now, spring was coming. He stood in the thin snow of the Krevensfield Plain, the anger from being thwarted at such an important juncture still unabated, growing more fierce and furious, like a spreading fire, by the moment. The Patriarch had died in Tyrian, not in Sepulvarta. He had died without a successor, and, more important, without the Ring. Had he remained in Sepulvarta, where he had spent his entire life since investiture, the benison would have been the one to comfort him in his remaining days. To ease his transition from life to death, in Orlando’s own time. To make sure all the pieces were in place for Orlando’s ascension as the new Patriarch, which would give him the chance to crown his thrall King of Roland.