Rhapsody rose and came back over to them. She stopped in front of Achmed and pushed aside the folds of the cloak of mist to reveal the infant’s leg.
The welt was gone, healed as if it had never been there.
She turned around, taking in the sight of the vast desert behind them, the mountains in the distance to the east, listening intently.
“What is it?” Achmed asked.
“Can’t you feel it?” she asked. “There’s a very deep vibration here, a vibrant song, but I missed it in the hum of the bees and the howl of the wind. It is ancient in tone, the musical note Lisele-ut, attuned to the color red in the spectrum.”
“Blood saver,” said Achmed. “Healing?”
“Yes. But I can’t even fathom how strong this is—it’s too deep to be audible; I can only feel it. Can you as well, Grunthor?”
The Sergeant-Major nodded in assent. “We should stay ’ere tonight, sir,” he said loudly, watching Rhapsody as she wandered northward, her eyes closed, following the tone. Then he leaned over and spoke quietly to Achmed.
“Look at ’er, look at ’er face.”
As they had done once long ago in the light of a campfire, having just emerged from their long trek through the belly of the Earth, the two Bolg stared at Rhapsody. Then they were seeing the effects of the elemental fire she had absorbed in the Earth’s core, a purging of physical flaws, a brightening of her eyes and hair until it radiated the same warmth as the element. She had become hypnotic to behold, an experience similar to gazing into roaring flames on a hearth.
Now what they saw was different, but similarly compelling. The woman who had ridden with them from Haguefort had been wan and pale, thin and listless from the difficulty of bearing a dragon’s child. Even though she had remained fair, she was waiflike, a shadow of herself, her health fragile, her vitality, so much a part of her before, weak and sapped. She seemed almost dry, bloodless, as though color had been drained out of her in childbirth.
As she passed northward, however, guided by the tune the Earth was singing in this place of endless arid clay and merciless cold sun, she seemed to rehydrate, as if she was drinking in the color from the world around her. The flaxen hair peeking from beneath the hood of the mist cloak was growing brighter, back to the gold of the old days, her pale skin turning rosier, her flesh gaining more solidity and heft the farther along she walked. Even her gait grew stronger; there was more vigor in her step, more energy in her movements.
As she approached the fissure in the ground, the Sergeant started back to the horses.
“Whatever this place is, sir, it seems to be ’ealing the Duchess. Oi think we oughta just settle ’ere until she gets a lit’le better; she was lookin’ about ready ta drop.”
Achmed watched as she knelt down next to the fissure, then nodded. “All right,” he called to Grunthor, “let’s see if we can find a sheltered spot within the ruins where we won’t be buried if another sandstorm blows through.” Then he walked over to where Rhapsody was kneeling and stood silently while she listened to the music only she could hear.
At last she looked up, her face shining brightly in the light of the setting sun.
“I think I know what this place may have been,” she said excitedly, her eyes shining green as the forest canopies in Tyrian. “When we were in Yarim Paar, drilling beneath Entudenin to restore water to the province, do you recall hearing a legend of a lost city named Kurimah Milani?”
Achmed chuckled wryly. “No, when the Bolg artisans were in Yarim Paar we were not being accorded fancy hospitality and having legends related to us—we were digging every hour of the day and night, sweating blood and enduring the hostile stares and jeers of the imbeciles who we should have allowed to die of thirst in the heat. You, on the other hand, were the guest of that idiot duke, Ihrman Karsrick, if I recall correctly, so I can see how you may have had a moment to indulge in the gathering of lore and legend.” He stopped, seeing her face fall, and remembering that in fact she had arranged for better housing and treatment for the Bolg workers, which he had refused. “Tell me the tale.”
Rhapsody stood, cradling the baby close to her.
“I don’t know the tale, I only have heard snippets of the lore. In the oldest days, long before the Cymrians came to this continent, there was said to have been a marvelous city called Kurimah Milani somewhere around here, in the lee of the northern mountains. I’m not sure of the origin of the name, but the sounds it contains are all the musical notes that promote healing, much like the red spectrum of your Lightcatcher is supposed to. I heard fragments of the tales from the Shanouin priestesses, that tribe of well-diggers who alone were able to locate water in the desert clime of Yarim. The Shanouin are said to have been descended from the inhabitants of Kurimah Milani, but the city has been lost to the ages for so long that even they do not know if that is truth or fantasy.
“I know little else about it, except that it was said to be a place of hot springs rich in minerals, runoff from the Manganese Mountains to the north of the Teeth. The legends said that the hot springs imparted healing and other magical properties to those fortunate enough to bathe in or drink from them. That’s all there was; the lore is too old for anyone now living to remember. It may all have been a mirage of the mind, a fantasy that desert dwellers told each other in the hot seasons when water was scarce and they were made a little insane by thirst.
“But somewhere beneath here a song of immense power is resonating, emanating from the One-God only knows what. It is a melodious tune, deep and slow, faster than the heartbeat of the Earth that we heard when we were walking within it, but regular, like tides of the sea; strange, all the way out here in the desert. The power is vibrating within the ground—can you feel it?”
Achmed lowered his veil to allow his skin-web access to the open wind, then pulled the glove from his left hand. He crouched down and held his palm over the fissure.
“I can,” he said after a moment.
“Then perhaps these are the ruins of that place,” Rhapsody said. “Interesting, and potentially useful. I think Meridion needs changing.”
The Bolg king flinched against the wind as it roared through again, stinging his eyes. Grunthor jogged back to them, having settled the horses and the provisions in the shelter of the ruins.
“Right nice spot, out of the wind,” he said cheerfully. “C’mon, Duchess, I got a place set up fer you an’ the lit’le one; you should be clear of the wind, most part.”
The Bolg king gestured at the ground.
“Grunthor, can you tell what is beneath here? Is it sand and clay for as far as you can sense, or are there other strata? Is there a city below?”
The Sergeant-Major walked to the edge of the fissure, then jumped down onto a clay ledge and examined the ground. “The ruins o’ one, maybe,” he replied. “Can’t rightly tell—there’s somethin’ powerful in the way makin’ noise, masking whatever the Earth says. There seems ta be a lot o’broken bits below, but that’s all Oi can tell. O’course, we could just go see fer ourselves. There’s a right big tunnel just beyond this fissure, tall and wide—we could go below; we done it before, after all.”
Rhapsody shuddered. “Don’t remind me, please. The nightmares will only get worse. Let’s take shelter with the horses in the ruins.”
“Oi’ll go get the diaperin’ supplies and the rest o’ the provisions,” Grunthor said, jogging to the ruins.
“Oi think you’re right about the young prince needin’ changin’. Hrekin.”
“You don’t want to see what’s below the sand?” Achmed asked while they waited.
“No. I want to get to Ylorc, get out of the wind, and get started working on your bloody Lightcatcher. I don’t need a reminder of our travels along the Axis Mundi, thank you very much. I’m Lirin; we don’t belong underground, and you well know it.”
“Oh, come now, you said you were looking forward to returning to Elysian, and that’s underground,” said Achmed in exasperation. “What’s the difference?
How can you, a Namer, pass up the chance to possibly find what sounds like it would be one of the greatest recoveries of lore in the Known World? If this is Kurimah Milani, do you want to leave it for someone else to find?”
“Yeah,” said Grunthor, dropping her pack in front of her. “What would ol’ Talquist make of this place, Oi wonder?”
“I will not deliberately take the baby into danger just to—”
“It can’t be any more dangerous than being out in plain sight, especially with night coming on,” Achmed said.
“It could be a good deal less dangerous, miss,” said Grunthor seriously. “Look be’ind you.”
Rhapsody and Achmed turned around simultaneously and were slapped full in the face by the sandy wind. From the west a great wall of dust was approaching, sweeping ahead of it whatever scrub vegetation had been drying in the wide expanse of red clay desert, its force growing with each second.
Grunthor leapt down into the fissure again and began clearing the sand away from in front of the rift where he had indicated a tunnel to be present.
“‘urry in if you’re goin’,” he said. “Can’t ’old the bloody sand up fer long. Give me good ol’ Bolgish basalt any day.”
Achmed climbed down into the fissure and crawled within the rift, emerging a moment later.
“It’s all right, Rhapsody—the ceiling is high, and it appears to be a vault or cavern of some sort. We can stay in here until the sandstorm passes, then be on our way.”
The Lady Cymrian exhaled, then climbed down behind him, followed by Grunthor, into a place of vast and endless darkness.
As the gathering windstorm approached, a shadow followed silently behind them.
32
“Grunthor, can you see me in the dark?”
“Yes indeed, Duchess.”
“Can you give me the pack and some light, then?”
“Certainly.”
A cold blue light emerged, casting a glowing radiance at the mouth of the tunnel. The three companions looked around.
They were in a smooth hallway formed of ancient clay, with semicircular walls in which long deep grooves had been carved. The light of the globe reflected off those walls and glittered in the darkness with the same eerie radiance as that of the broken walls and towers of the ruins above. A cool breeze blew in from the darkness at the end of the corridor.
“Looks like a sluice of some sort,” said Achmed. Grunthor nodded assent. “Perhaps part of a sewer system.”
Rhapsody removed her cloak with the baby wrapped in its folds.
“Wonderful,” she muttered as she riffled through the pack. “Why is it that whenever the three of us enter a city, we always seem to come in through the sewer? If I recall, that was our first sight of the Bolglands as well.”
“Seems oddly appropriate, given what you are currently engaged in doing,” said Achmed acidly over the soft cooing sounds of the baby. “Gods, Rhapsody, are you certain you’re not feeding him sulfur?”
“Fairly certain,” she replied, smiling down at the child in the dark. In the gleam of the cold light globe his hair and skin were almost translucent, the tiny vertical pupils of his clear blue eyes twinkling. She kissed his tiny belly, then swaddled him quickly as the howl of the wind rushed past them, screaming in and around the tunnel entrance.
“Good thing you got over yer fear of the underground in time, Duchess,” said Grunthor, looking outside. “That’s a strong one, strong as the last. Oi ’ope the ’orses don’t get buried. Glad Oi got the supplies when Oi did.”
Rhapsody stepped over the grooves in the floor of the tunnel, cradling Meridion in the cloak, and sat with her back against the wall. Achmed and Grunthor turned away while she nursed the baby, watching the fury of the sandstorm outside the tunnel and listening as the harsh cry of the wind and the soft sounds of the child both faded into silence.
When the storm appeared to have passed Grunthor hoisted himself out of the tunnel and looked around. “Fissure’s filled in a bit,” he reported upon returning. “May ’ave ta dig out when we leave.”
The Bolg king nodded, then turned and walked past where Rhapsody was sitting and followed the broken sluice down into the breezy darkness. He gestured to the others.
“There’s a large opening ahead at the tunnel’s end, where that wind is coming from. Bring the light, and we’ll have a look around before making camp for the night.”
Grunthor offered Rhapsody his enormous hand and helped her to her feet, then took out the light globe. They followed the Bolg king down the sluice to the end of the tunnel where a dark opening yawned.
As they neared the opening, both Rhapsody and Achmed flinched. A humming drone of immense volume was issuing forth from beyond it, echoing up the sluice tunnel and vibrating against their skin and eardrums. It was not the deep, slow song that Rhapsody had described, but more the noise of static, a discordant buzz that was electric.
Rhapsody’s eyes glinted nervously in the cold light. “I’m not certain this is a good idea, Achmed,” she whispered. “Isn’t that constant droning irritating to you?”
“Your constant droning has been irritating me for fourteen hundred years,” he replied. “I will survive. Better to know what is in there than to be caught unaware. Stay here. Grunthor, give me the light. Careful; the floor has some oily spots beyond here.”
The blue-white ball was passed forward; the Bolg king stepped up to the opening, avoiding the thick pools on the floor, holding the light ahead of him. He leaned in and looked around.
“Well, that explains the bees,” he said after a moment.
Rhapsody and Grunthor exchanged a glance, then joined him at the opening.
Beyond the hole was an immense cavern, the ruins of what may have at one time been a huge public bath. Gigantic stone columns glittering with mother-of-pearl held up the remains of the ceiling that had at one time been painted with extravagant frescoes, intricate mosaics lined the walls, formed from tiles of fired glass, the colors still brilliant though partially obscured with grit, the reds especially vibrant, even in the cold blue light. It was difficult to see much of the floor below, hidden as it was in shadow beyond the light’s reach, but the remains of a system of water delivery could be made out, leading away from the sluice, where long trenches lined with colored tile fed into long-dry fountains containing what appeared to be rows of stone seats. An enormous vault reached into the darkness above, shattered at one end. The trickling sound of water could be heard, just below the droning hum that rose to the level of a roar past the opening.
Growing along the walls and columns at the extreme edge of the light were nodules of every size, thick mold spores of fungus that covered entire frescoes. Higher up, the ceiling was covered with what appeared to be massive stalactites, long hanging threads that looked like fangs in an enormous maw. Around those stalactites bees were swarming, more bees than their eyes could even take in.
The buzz of the immense hive was as loud as thunder echoing through the mountains. The stalactites were only the outermost edge of it; the remainder, cemented by sand and bee saliva over two millennia, sprawled threatening across the ceiling of the vault and out of sight in the darkness beyond the light’s reach. Near the hole in the vault, the hive was shattered, with broken combs of wax and honey oozing thickly down to the floor below, around which tens of thousands of agitated insects swirled, buzzing angrily. The vibration of it traveled up Achmed’s skin, leaving it burning with static. Rhapsody drew the baby closer within the folds of the mist cloak and struggled to cover her ears with one arm.
“All right, Duchess, perhaps we were safer outside,” whispered Grunthor.
“Don’t make another sound,” Achmed cautioned in a low voice. “If you spook them, they’ll swarm us; we can’t outrun them.”
Nor can you outrun me, Ysk.
The words crawled over Achmed’s skin, echoing in his blood. Though no sound reached his ears, he heard them as clearly as if they had been spoken right next to him. Almost imperceptibly
he started to turn to look behind him.
Do not move.
The command scratched against the insides of his eyelids. The Bolg king flinched in pain. There was a familiarity in the words, an unspoken and voiceless communication that was transmitted through his skin-web, inaudible to his or any other ears. He had been spoken to like this twice in his life before, once by his mentor in the old world, Father Halphasion, and again by the Grandmother, the ancient woman who guarded the Sleeping Child, but neither of their methods of communication had transmitted the raw power and pain that was being forced upon him now. They were spoken in no language, just transmitted in understanding.
Tell them to move within.
Achmed swallowed. With each command it seemed as if another invisible thread was cemented around him, hampering his ability to move. He inhaled into his sinuses, attempting to loose his kirai to see if the Seeking vibration would help him glean information about the speaker, but his breath stopped in his throat.
“Rhapsody,” he said quietly in Old Cymrian, “step forward and aside, out of the sluice. You as well, Grunthor.”
The Lady Cymrian, standing at his right, who was at that moment assessing the tone of the hive’s vibration in the hope of generating a complementary one, looked askance at him and, seeing the serious expression on his face, complied, stepping onto the ledge and to the right of the opening.
Grunthor, on his left, obeyed as well, but as he crossed in front of the Bolg king he glanced back up the sluice behind him and slowed his gait. A shadow of a man stood directly behind Achmed, robed and hooded in the darkness, less than a breath away. Grunthor continued to cross, but subtly reached for the throwing knife in his belt.
Suddenly, the breeze that had been blowing up the sluice, generated by the movement of millions of wings, died away, along with all the rest of the air in the sluiceway. The two Bolg gasped for breath as even the air within their lungs was dragged from them. Grunthor’s hand went to his throat, but Achmed remained still, the veins in his neck and forehead distended.
Rhapsody turned and, seeing her two friends compromised, stepped hurriedly back toward the opening in alarm. A voice, this time audible, spoke in a low tone that hovered below the droning of the hive.
The Assassin King Page 29
