Elizabeth Haydon - Prophecy - Child of Earth

She struggled to keep her eyes open against the fireball that ensued.

The licking flames from Daystar Clarion’s blade leapt forward angrily, righteously, blazing a gleaming arc from the sword to the fountainhead. When the flame from the sword touched the Earth’s fire they melded, forming a ray of light more intense that Rhapsody had ever seen, even in the starfire that had lighted Jo’s funeral pyre. A commingling of the fire with the Earth, the ether of the stars, and the purest of elemental fire’s flames, the burning ray blasted out of the fountainhead and torched the liquid fuse Achmed had made, sending a ferocious sheet of fire crackling to the upper reaches of the vaulted ceiling.

Then, with an earth-shattering roar, the fire and the lampfuel erupted, surging through the tunnel and into the remains of the Colony. As the mammoth fireball billowed forward, it filled the entire space, sending liquid heat and blinding light into every crevasse, expanding until it reached to the edges of the caverns and tunnels. It washed over Rhapsody, filling her with exquisite warmth and joy; in its passing she heard the song of the fire at the Earth’s heart, a song she had carried with her since the first time she heard it. It was like being reborn again, cleansed of the pain and grief she had been carrying for so long.

From within the ruins of the Colony a hideous shrieking issued forth, screams of demonic intensity that tore through the Loritorium, shaking its flame-scorched walls. Rhapsody gripped the sword harder, concentrating with all her strength on directing the fire through the broken tunnels, envisioning it burning the tangled vine into obliteration.

I

“Cerant ori sylviat,” Rhapsody commanded. Burn until all is consumed . The intensity of the flames increased in the distance, raising the moan of the enormous serpent- vine to an earsplitting wail.

Above the fire’s roar Rhapsody began the Lirin Song of Passage, a dirge for the Grandmother. Though she had lived her entire life within the earth, the Dhracian Matriarch was also descended from the Kith, the race of the wind. Perhaps the wind would take her ashes now and set them free to dance across the wild world, a place she had never seen from above. The song cut through the cacophony and melded in harmony with the billowing flames.

And then, suddenly, the flames grew weak and extinguished, taking with them the last of the air in the cavern. A hollow silence thundered through the Loritorium, then diminished into an ominous hiss. Rhapsody fell to her knees, breathless and gasping for air in the lifeless smoke.

The one who heals also will kill.

The enormity of what she had done to the Grandmother overwhelmed her, and, choking, she retched.

Grunthor and Achmed covered their eyes and heads, shielding the Sleeping Child as the backwash of the flame roared up the tunnel past their bunker. Their clothes grew hot from the searing heat that radiated through the solid wall of rock, and their eyes locked. Achmed smiled slightly at the gleam of fear in Grunthor’s eyes.

“She’s all right.”

Grunthor nodded. They waited until the noise abated, but heard nothing.

“We’ll wait,” Achmed said. “She’ll be coming momentarily.”

“How can you be sure?” Grunthor asked.

Achmed leaned back against the rockwall. “I’ve learned a few of her tricks myself. Believe what you want to happen, expect that it will, and somehow, miraculously, it does, at least for her. It worked with singing her back to life. It will work now.”

Grunthor nodded uncertainly and turned his focus to the Earthchild. She lay in his arms in the dark, still for the first time, sleeping so deeply that he could barely see her breathe. He watched her silently take the air in, saw it ever-so-slightly slip back out, over again, and again, utterly mesmerized by the sight.

They had shared one body for a fleeting moment, the Child of Earth and he. From the experience he had gained an understanding of many of the Earth’s secrets, though he would have been at a loss to explain any of them. There was something almost holy about having felt the beating heart of the world pulsing in him, a surpassing vibrancy that left him feeling bereft now that it was gone.

He stared at the Earthchild’s face, roughhewn and coarse like his own, while still strangely smooth and beautiful, visible to him even in the absence of light. He knew there were silent tears running in muddy trickles down her polished cheeks, knew that she was mourning the Grandmother, holding a silent vigil behind her eyes. Now he understood what the Dhracian Matriarch had meant when sh said she had known the child’s heart. Perhaps now he would know it as well.

It was not until Achmed shifted nervously and leaned closer to the rock sealing their bunker that it dawned on him how long Rhapsody had been gone. The king put his ear to the wall, then moved back, shaking his head.

“Anything?” Grunthor inquired hopefully. Achmed shook his head again.

“Can you feel her through the earth?”

Grunthor thought for a moment. “Naw. Everything’s all jumbled, like tt ground is still in shock. Can’t tell anything.”

Achmed rose shakily. “Perhaps I can’t feel her heartbeat for the same reason Grunthor’s eyes glinted with fear. “We’ll give her a moment more, and if si doesn’t come, we’ll go after her.” He leaned against the stone, trying to mal out any sound he could on the other side of the rockwall. He heard nothin

“Rhapsody!” he shouted, the sound bouncing futilely back at him, to be swallowed a moment later by the earthen bunker. He turned to Grunthor, 1: dark eyes glittering.

“Open it,” he ordered tersely, pointing at the rocky barrier.

Grunthor carefully shifted the Earthchild in his arms and reached one hai into the wall. A sizable piece of it fell away before him. As if in reply, he heard Rhapsody’s voice calling to them from the other side of the stone wall.

“Grunthor! Achmed! Are you all right in there?”

The giant Bolg stood up and reached the rest of the way into the stone the wall, tearing it away from the opening. When he broke through to ’t other side his face lit up with a tired grin.

“Well, well, Yer Ladyship, you certainly took your time, now, didn’t you? ’Ad us worried, you did.”

Rhapsody smiled and offered Achmed her hand, giving him a tug out the bunker. “You’re a fine one to talk,” she said to Grunthor. “For the long time I thought you were still in the Colony, buried under a mountain of rock.” Her smile faded as he stepped out of the hole in the rockwall, carrying the Sleeping Child. “I have to admit, when I saw her walking, I thought it was over. What did you do, meld with her the way you do with stone?”

“Yep. What do you think she is, if not stone?” Grunthor answered simj “Didn’t think Oi could carry ’er safely out through all that mess. ’Twas the easiest way.”

Achmed gestured toward the Colony entrance. “Come on.” enormous tunnel was deathly silent save for the occasional pop hiss from the ash that blackened the entirety of the walls and floor. Aroi and above them, where the vine had broken violently through the cave nothing remained except for scorched fragments of root and the twisting n. of the tunnel it had carved in the earth.

Achmed bent down at what had once been the arch over the Sleep Child’s catafalque and ran his sensitive fingers over the scattered letters of words that had been carved there. Once they had warned a world that never saw them about the dangers of disturbing that which slept within it. Now they littered the floor of the cavern, broken into pieces of senseless babble.

Rhapsody’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”