Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

Achmed looked back up at the sky. “I hope you’re right.”

Grace?”

Within the darkness of his study, the benison turned toward the solitary rectangle of light, shining through the open doorway.

“Yes?”

“Word has come from Sorbold that the Lirin queen has left Tyrian. She was seen ten days ago, riding alone across the bordering plains of their northern city-states.”

“Where was she headed?”

“They tracked her as far as the outer reaches of the Teeth, then lost her.”

From the doorway Gittleson could see nothing but the benison’s silhouette in the chair. Then Lanacan Orlando opened his eyes, two points of white in the dim outline, rimmed in the color of blood. He smiled, causing a third patch of light to appear in the shadow, gleaming with amusement.

“Perhaps the bitch is in heat,” the specter said, his voice warm and sweet. “Her stud of choice is chasing down poor Khaddyr’s followers; perhaps she wants the Firbolg king to tumble her, eh?”

“Perhaps, Your Grace.”

The chair turned slowly away from him again. “Don’t be a fool, Gittleson. She is coming here.” food in this place was wretched; why do you want to go back here?” Rhapsody cuffed the Firbolg king affectionately. “There was nothing wrong with this tavern’s food,” she said sensibly. “It was the company you objected to. This was where you first met Ashe.”

“That would explain it. Small wonder my stomach was writhing.” Achmed glanced around the street, but he didn’t see Grunthor. The noon sun was casting shadows of unimpressive length; the Sergeant was probably still lurking in back alley doorways, waiting for more hospitable shade. He held a chair out for Rhapsody, watching her pull her hood more tightly around her face as she sat down. The wind was high and cold; they were the only customers of the pub who were sitting outdoors, the others taking comfort inside nearer to the fire and the ale.

-

The bells of the basilica were ringing wildly in the wind, sweet random music sweeping through the streets and over the buildings of Bethe Corbair. It was a sound that resonated in Rhapsody’s soul, but the knowledge that somewhere beneath that bell tower lurked an unimaginable evil made the music in it feel off somehow. She bowed her head and averted her eyes as Achmed ordered rum and lamb for himself and soup for her, then looked over her shoulder at the church once more as the tavernkeeper hurried back inside.

Achmed closed his eyes. On his first scouting of the area near the basilica he had picked up nothing unusual in the vibrations around it, though the smell of the demon was unmistakable. Grunthor had immediately located the boundaries of the tainted ground. Their suspicions were right; the basilica had been desecrated in a way that was invisible to the eye and other regular senses, the contamination stretching several yards into the street around it. Thousands of unknowing churchgoers walked over the defiled earth every day, oblivious of its demonic possession. Achmed winced in the memory of his first sight of Ashe in the basilica’s shadow. He had felt the taint then for a split second, and assumed Llauron’s son to be its source; it was a mistaken association.

Rhapsody was listening intently to the music of the carillon. Her soup was delivered; it was left untouched as she sat, deep in thought, and absently watched it grow cold. Finally she looked up at him; unnatural light was gleaming in the emerald eyes, her face glowing.

“ Ela ,” she whispered. Excitement snapped in her eyes, and she reached out and took his hand in hers; it was trembling. “ Ela ,” she said again. “What are you babbling about? I don’t understand Ancient Lirin.”

“It’s not Ancient Lirin, it’s a musical term,” Rhapsody said softly. “It’s the last note in the old six-note scale, the way music was notated at the time the basilica was built centuries ago. Ut, re, mi, fa, sol , and la , or ela; it wasn’t until hundreds of years later that they began using ti , the seventh note of the octave, and do , which is the same as ut but one scale higher. It also happens to be my Naming note, the note to which I am attuned.”

“Rhapsody, stop babbling at me. What has you so excited?”

“It’s missing.”

“What’s missing?”

“ Ela . The last tone in the scale is missing from the carillon; it’s only ringing five of the notes.”

“And how many bells does that affect?”

“Well, Lord Stephen said there were eight hundred seventy-six bells in the bell tower, one for every Cymrian ship that left the old world. If that’s the case, and if they had set the bells up in equal sets, since they must have been using the six-note scale, then one hundred and forty or so of them would have been that one.”

“One hundred forty-six.”

“Right. I can discern the other groupings, and that many are missing. It’s very subtle, and if the bells have been playing that way for a long time, no one except a Singer would even notice it, and then only if listening for it.

Lanacan must have taken the clappers out of those bells, since removing the bells themselves would have been more than obvious, it would have been impossible to do without notice. The biggest one must weigh several tons.”

Achmed downed the last of his rum. “He’s a clever bastard; F’dor always are. So that’s how he circumvented the wind sanctifying the ground. How can we fix it?”

Rhapsody smiled. “I think I know. We had best find Grunthor; we have plans to make.” was alone in the marketplace buying arrows from the fletcher when Gittleson spotted her. She was hard to miss despite being disguised in the plain brown traveling clothes of a peasant; the smooth golden fall of her hair was neatly tied back in a simple black ribbon, and the afternoon sun reflected off it, drawing the eyes of the handful of townspeople braving the freezing wind of the square. She was lucky; it was only the weather that prevented her from being mobbed by the merchants who instead gazed at her from inside shops and from behind barrel fires next to their wares. Gittleson made careful note of the number and types of arrows she bought, primarily those with silvered points and made to hold flame, taking care not to let her see him.

Her next stop was the spice merchant, whose tents stretched half a city block and were open in the front. Huge burlap sacks of pods, roots, beans, peppercorns, and grains were set out along the street, along with bags of herbs and jars of spicy flakes. Rhapsody spent a great deal of time carefully examining the contents of each bag. Finally she bought several large heads of pungent garlic, two bunches each of horehound, mugwort, and datura, and three dozen long, fat vanilla beans, stuffing her purchases quickly into her sack and looking around hastily. Not satisfied, she gave a final glance to the bell tower rising above the rooftops before heading off into the shadows of the back alleys, losing her human shadow, who slunk off, back to the dark basilica, as dusk began to fall.

“How disappointing.” The robed figure in the vestry paused in front of a silvered mirror and checked his face. The countenance of an older man, a kindly man with sparse white hair and laugh lines around his eyes, looked back at him. It was the face of the quintessential grandfather, or the beloved village priest. “What does she think I am, Gittleson, a nosferatu ? Look in the glass; can you see my reflection?”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

“Yes, of course. And if you, Gittleson, even you know that, one would have hoped for more from the Iliachenva’ar. Garlic, mugwort, and silver arrows; really. Oh well, I guess I just expect too much. After two decades one would have thought that Oelendra could have come up with a brighter one, a better trained one, than the last, but alas, it is not to be. This will be far too easy. Are those the only things she acquired?”