Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

“Oelendra, then,” suggested another voice, and there was a change in the tone of the rumblings. “She led us after the storm that took Merithyn, brought us safely to this land and established us in here in peace.” The crowd began to mutter in agreement, then took up her name as a chant.

“I decline,” came a quiet voice from the hillside away from the assemblage.

Rhapsody looked up to see the ancient warrior standing apart from the others on the lip of the Bowl. She turned and began to walk away.

Rhapsody’s heart sank. She knew as Summoner it was her duty to remain neutral, but the words of encouragement were about to spill out anyway. She glanced down at Grunthor and smiled.

“We must forgive ourselves,” she repeated softly; her words echoed around the Bowl.

“Right,” said the giant Firbolg. “None o’ my bizness, o’ course, but Oi think you’re the perfect choice. If the fleet had listened to you, they never would have gotten into the stupid war in the first place. And if the Lirin had listened to you, neither would they, eh? And if Annie had listened to you, we’d all be ’ome havin’ supper and not tryin’ to put a bloody continent back together, now, wouldn’t we? So whaddaya say, miss? Give ’em one last chance to get it right this time.”

After a moment of stunned silence at the Sergeant’s speech, the First Fleet burst into cheers and began proclaiming her name even louder. Rhapsody blew Grunthor a kiss, then turned to Oelendra for her answer. Even as far away as she was Rhapsody could see a glint of tears in the warrior’s eyes.

“Very well,” she said, and the cheers turned to shouts of acclamation.

“Good,” said Rhapsody, blinking back tears herself. “Now, I suggest that the various speakers come together in one of the meeting rooms of Ylorc while the rest of us make merry and get to know each other. Perhaps that will engender goodwill enough to keep us through the next several days of session, through the selection of the new Lord and Lady, and the other work of rebuilding. You asked of the Future; we are making it here.” She picked up her harp again; there was a collective intake of breath from the Council.

“I’m not Manwyn, you know,” Rhapsody said, a glint of humor returning to her eyes. “I can only tell you what I think is possible; it’s your choice to make it true or not.”

She signaled to a small, golden-haired child within the Lirin delegation.

“Aric—you are the Future. Come and sing with me.” The child ran to the foot of the Summoner’s Rise.

She began to play again, this time a trippingly melodic tune. It was a Gwadd song from the old land called “Bright Flows the Meadow Stream,” a love song to the rolling hills and pasturelands that were the home of the diminutive folk. As she sang, a number of them came forward beside the golden-haired boy, along with the other smaller races with which they had interbred, and stood, transfixed, listening to her, a few endeavoring to sing along. The tiny pointed faces shone, the large, angular eyes glittered, and the slender forms of the Gwadd cast long shadows in the afternoon sun.

When the song had been taken up by that contingent she wove into it another, the only Nain song she had ever learned, which was a mining chant that was sung within the caverns as the people of the Night Mountain went about their endless labor, uncovering the treasures of the earth. The chant was picked up instantly by ten thousand Nain voices, voices deep and rich as the earth in which they lived. Rhapsody had chosen a key that would blend harmoniously with the Gwadd song, and as they sang together their voices resonated through the Moot, echoing through the bones of the gathered

Cymrians.

One by one she added the songs of other lands, anthems and hymns, the simple farming songs the Filids sang while working in the fields, the sea chanteys of Serendair, joined by the voices of each group that recognized it as its own. The rhapsody of the Past she had sung in tribute to Anwyn had become a glorious symphony, its movements diverse as the people who stood in the Bowl before her, but beautiful in their unity. The faces of the Cymrians mirrored the brilliance of the afternoon sun that was sinking low beyond the Teeth, and in her heart, for the second time, she felt one with them, and the love she shared with Elynsynos for them as a people. It was like looking for one last time at the Patchworks in her homeland, the fields of grass and grain making a beautiful quilt in the landscape below the sky.

At last the opus was finished, and silence took root in the Bowl as Rhapsody put her harp away. The gleaming aura of hypnotic power that had surrounded her since she braved the Fire at the Earth’s core seemed to be gone; now it hovered in the air of the Moot, brightening each of the souls that had heard the song, tying them together in a common bond.

She turned toward the west and began her vespers, singing to the setting sun and the evening star that glimmered above the tallest crag of Achmed’s mountains.

The evensong was picked up by tens of thousands of Lirin voices, many from the Tyrian contingent, but others from the various fleets, Roland and the Isle of the Sea Mages. It rang to the evening sky, echoing through the Bowl and over the Orlandan plains, through the Teeth and over the heath and beyond. They sang the sun down as the sky filled with glorious ribbons of orange and red, entwining through the azure blue of the western horizon, which reached out its arms into the fading darkness as if reluctant to leave.

When the echo of the last note had died away, Rhapsody shouldered her pack. “My service to you has now ended,” she said to the assemblage. “If you will have me among your ranks, I will be glad to join you now and leave the leadership of this Council to those whom you have chosen from among you.”

At the crest of the rising wave of acclamation, Ashe leapt forward from his place in the crowd and signaled to the departing Summoner. “Your Majesty, may I have the floor?”

Rhapsody sighed wearily; she had been standing all day and her feet were sore. “You certainly may,” she said, grateful for the break. She sat down on a carved rock that functioned well as a stool near the back of the Ledge.

Ashe broke from the ranks of the Manossian contingent and ran to the Speaker’s Rise. He climbed to the highest crest and looked down at the sea of his fellow Cymrians, the red light of the setting sun making his hair gleam as though crowned with fire.

“As Speaker of the Second Fleet, I ask that we turn our attention at once to the matter of our leadership as a Council. As Anwyn said, with no Lord or Lady, we are not a Council. Gwylliam is dead, and I feel it is clear that though she still lives, Anwyn has proven herself unfit time and again to be our leader.”

To this there was a general murmur of consent. Even those present who had voted to keep her as Lady at the end of the war could not now agree to it. Time and Anwyn’s earlier behavior had guaranteed it.

“So,” Ashe continued in a louder voice, “to that end, I nominate Her Majesty, Rhapsody, Queen of the Lirin, as Lady Cymrian!” He had to shout to be heard over the commotion that erupted. “She is of the First Generation, but sailed with no fleet, and therefore has no preference for any one group over another. She is one of the Three of whom Manwyn spoke. Indeed, she is the Sky in the prophecy, the Liringlas, the one who encompasses all, that cannot be divided; the only means by which peace will come and unity will result. She has killed the F’dor, the ancient enemy of our people and bringer of so much woe since our flight from Serendair. She has united the Lirin and brought peace between them and the principality of Bethany, with whom they were on the verge of war. She has helped the Bolg enter a new age of peace and prosperity. As with the last of the kings of Serendair, she is of mixed blood, signifying a new unity between the races. She is foretold to be our Lady, Anwyn’s opposite, the one who can bring us together where Anwyn drove us asunder. And if that is not enough, she has managed to silence my grandmother, which by itself is an act worthy of high praise.”