Elizabeth Haydon - The Assassin King

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Is everything all right?”

“That would depend upon how you define ‘all right,’” Achmed replied, turning slowly around and surveying the damage before him.

The towering walls of rock were scorched in places rising up almost to the summit. The ground that at one time Rhapsody had believed might contain the bones of soldiers who fought and died in the Cymrian War or, perhaps even before mat, the bodies of those souls, starving or sickly, who had not survived very long after the stragglers of the Third Fleet had arrived in Canrif was sundered from one side of the meadow to the other. “Don’t look quite the way it did when you were ’ere, Duchess,” Grunthor said. “The new tenant is a bit less tidy than you were.”

“New tenant?” Rhapsody said humorously, straggling to focus her eyes. “What new tenant? Who did you rent my lands out to, Achmed? I thought you were going to keep them for me in perpetuity; I earned them, after all.”

“Well, this is more a squatter than a tenant I would say,” Achmed answered, searching for the passage down to the hidden grotto known as Elysian. He found it a moment later in a pile of overturned rocks and sod that had been riven by the wyrm’s passage. Originally the passage had been hidden in an alcove that always seemed touched by shadow, so carefully obscured that it had taken Achmed quite some time to find it the first time. “I don’t know if you’re going to be able to go down to the grotto or not, Rhapsody. Perhaps it would be best if you just come into the city itself, and take rooms inside the mountain.”

Rhapsody recognized the tone in his voice. “What are you not telling me, Achmed?” she asked sharply, turning again and struggling to see.

“As always, you are listening for what I am not telling you, rather than to what I am.”

“That’s because you always say much more in what you are not saying. Tell me; what has happened here?”

The Bolg king sighed. “Before she came to find us in the forest at her mother’s lair, Anwyn came here looking for you,” he said. “Whether she remembered this place from the battle at the Moot, or whether there was something about it that called to her from the Past, Grunthor and I have no idea. I did not know until after we had set forth on our journey that she had come to the Bolglands first. Apparently she did not like the fact that your scent now was clinging to her cottage, or maybe she hated the way you redecorated it. In any event, it’s my understanding that she’s destroyed the grotto, or at least the house on the island in the middle of the lake. There’s no sense in going down there now, Rhapsody; the firmament that holds up the cave is probably unstable. It’s not safe, and I promised your infernal husband that I would do everything in my power to keep you safe, so while this was a good choice of destination because of the strength of the wind here, there’s really no reason to stay.”

The men watched as the Lady Cymrian turned around again, still struggling to see the place they first came when they arrived in the Bolglands. She extended her arms out in front of her and made her way to where the passage had been, then felt about on the rock wall. She turned back to them, her face contorted with grief.

“The opening is still here, Achmed,” she said. “Please; I want to see the grotto. I need to know what has happened to my house.”

“Oi don’ think that’s a good idea, Duchess,” said Grunthor gently. “Are you telling me that the structure of the cave is unsafe?”

“No,” said the Sergeant-Major, unwilling to lie to her. “Nuthin’ but an earthquake will take down that dome. That cave’s right solid, and the lake is there still. But there’s nothing left of your house; nothing worth mentioning, anyway.”

“Are you certain?” Rhapsody pressed, numbly feeling the wall face again. “My instruments, my clothing? Did nothing survive?”

“Nothing Oi saw,” said the giant Bolg. “I didn’t row out to the island itself, o’ course, but that was partly because Oi could see pieces o’ the house floating all about the lake. If ya want to come back at some point and see if there’s anything we can salvage, Oi’d be glad to come with you. But for right now Oi think we should get you settled inside the complex. It’ll be good to have you in there again, miss.”

“What are you looking for specifically?” Achmed asked impatiently. “Whatever need you have, it can be met within the walls of Canrif.”

Rhapsody sighed and began to walk back to them, her hand on her swollen belly. “I doubt it,” she said. “But we can go if you wish. There was a Naming garment there, one that no doubt had been worn by the three brothers, Meridion’s grandfather and great-uncles. It was a family heirloom, and I thought perhaps it would’ve been nice for him to be able to wear it when we have time for a proper Naming ceremony.”

Achmed snorted and started out of the meadow.

“Perhaps you ought to wait and see when and if he decides to be born again,” he said, following the pathway out of Kraldurge. “If I heard the prophecy correctly, he’s not subject to the whim of Time. For all you know you could be carting him around in there until his eighteenth birthday or beyond.”

“All right,” Rhapsody said briskly, ignoring him. “Let’s get to Canrif; now that I’m pregnant again, I’m in desperate need of a privy.” Rath had not expected to find what he did in Canrif. He had not had occasion to walk within the mountain for centuries, a reasonably long period of time, even for one of his advanced age. At that time he had been tracking the demon known as Vrrinax, a F’dor with an inordinate amount of patience that had taken refuge on the last of the ships of the Cymrian Third Fleet, too weak to subsume any host but a sickly cabin boy. The demon had bided its time, slowly growing stronger, passing to more and more powerful hosts as it could, until it had learned to hide so successfully that Rath had been asked to take it on.

For all that he was modest, and had not shared the information with Achmed, Rath was the most accomplished of all the Gaol, the single greatest hunter of the Brethren. In short, an Assassin King himself.

He could still smell its essence as he silently traversed the hallways of the underground city that the Cymrians had called Canrif, the word meaning Century in their now-dead language. It had been a very long time, but some traces of evil remained in stone, in water, in wood where great wrongs had been perpetrated, or great deeds of maliciousness formulated. Something of that ilk must have happened here, he reasoned. And in particular, he believed it had begun on the floor of the throne room. Still, the Three were inured to it. Even the Firbolg king did not notice as he trod the floors of the place, an action that made Rath almost sick with disgust. Only the Lady Cymrian avoided the place where the taint was emanating from, as if she had seen a vision there, or was made uncomfortable by the traces of memory.

What troubled Rath about that was the lack of racial memory. While the Lady Cymrian and the Sergeant could hardly be expected to do so, those of Dhracian blood carried within them forever the scent of the Mood of every beast they slew.

And Achmed had killed two of them in relatively short time.

It did not bode well that the Assassin King could even sleep within the walls of such a place, the place where the blood of a F’dor that had died at his hands still vibrated in the walls, the very floor of the place.

He followed his hosts silently around as they went about their business, to the corridor where his quarters were, to the hallway outside the mountain peak of Gurgus, where the Lightcatcher was being rebuilt, and even to the overlook of the underground city itself, still in the process of being restored. Everywhere he looked, he saw Firbolg artisans and soldiers, archons, educators, and masons, all working to restore what had been one king’s vision. It was clear to Rath that the Bolg were another king’s vision, a king who saw himself as building a people, not a mountain stronghold, a noble cause in the eyes of men, but a distraction for one who could be an even greater hunter than Rath. He would watch closely. When the two Bolg, Rhapsody, and Rath entered the room at the base of Gurgus Peak, a tall young man with a full beard and head of dark hair came up to the Lady Cymrian immediately, smiling broadly. “Hello, Rhapsody,” he said. “Welcome back; it’s wonderful to see you.”