-
He crouched behind a wire rack, waiting, stilling his breathing until it was almost nonexistent. These opponents posed so little challenge that he turned his mind to avoiding the waste of supplies. He would wait, patient, until the remaining seven were all positioned in simultaneous view.
One round for the rest of them, at the most two, he thought. Conserves disks that way.
8
When Rhapsody first crawled into the tunnel she felt no harkening back to their passage along the Root at all. Unlike the dank darkness of Sagia’s sheath, which was uneven in its height and full of stringy, hairlike minor roots called radix, the catacomb had been carefully and evenly tiled, more closely resembling one of the aqueducts in Canrif, part of the enormous ventilation and water-collection system Gwylliam had designed and built into the mountain. In addition, the warm glow of Daystar Clarion’s flames, burning low and steady above the murky water through which she was crawling, made the tunnel walls shine as bright as day.
She pushed all thoughts of confinement and depth out of her mind, concentrating instead on the ethereal light below the flames of the sword. So focused was she on the sword, so intent on keeping her panic in check, that she barely caught sight of the two glittering eyes in the distant darkness up ahead.
As soon as she saw them she stopped; the flames of the sword, deeply bonded to her through her tie to elemental fire, roared to life with her excitement.
A shriek of pain and fear echoed up the catacomb as the slave child, night blind from digging and living in the endless dark, covered his eyes and scurried away, sobbing in horror.
Quickly Rhapsody sheathed the sword, dousing the light, feeling remorse for not realizing what dread the glowing radiance might be bringing to those who lived in this place of endless night.
“It’s all right,” she called softly up the tunnel. “It’s all right. I’m sorry.”
Only silence and the sound of trickling water answered her.
Now blind herself, she felt along the died floor, conscious now of the rats that skittered along the edge of the tunnel, the snakes that swirled in the deepest parts of the flow, the worms. In the absence of the light the vermin began to return.
The smooth skin of a snake that darted over her hand put her in mind of the sluglike, carnivorous larvae that infested the root of Sagia, calling forth a deep shudder from within her memory. Rhapsody swallowed and crawled forward, struggling to see in the absolute blackness. Ahead of her she heard scuffling movements, larger than rats, she thought, but perhaps not just large rats.
Her internal bond to the sword, now housed in its scabbard of black ivory, seemed tentative, distant. Black ivory was an impenetrable material; no vibra tion passed through it, preventing anything held within a vessel made of the material from being scryed upon, an important measure of safety for the Iliachenva’ar. The disadvantage was that the power of the sword did not reach her, did not tie its strength to her, as it did when Daystar Clarion was unsheathed in her grasp.
Tentatively Rhapsody passed a hand through the murky water on the floor ahead of her, shuddering inwardly again, and pressed forward. The walls of the tiled tunnel began to feel closer, tighter than they had in the light; in her ear she could hear her own voice whispering her confession to the giant Sergeant-Major, then a stranger, now one of her dearest friends, in the dank tunnel along the tree root.
I’m Lirin. We don’t do well underground.
Oi can see that.
Her stomach rushed into her mouth, and she fought down her gorge as the world around her began to spin.
How did it feel to you? Elynsynos, the ancient dragon, had queried in her sonorous, multitoned voice. Were you, Lirin as you are, comfortable there, within the Earth, separated from the sky?
Her own reply came out in a whisper now, as it had then.
It was like a living death.
Her arms began to tremble. Balanced as she was on her hands and knees, her elbows shuddered under the strain, then buckled for a moment, causing her to lurch forward and splash, chest-first, into the fetid water, banging her chin on the wet tunnel floor.
Hurriedly she righted herself again. She wanted to shout to Achmed, as she had when the sword was still lighting the passageway, just to hear his voice, but realized immediately that she could not panic and call for help. The slave children hovering somewhere beyond her in the dark tunnel were still, for the moment, perhaps as frightened of her as she was of the catacomb, the snakes, the rats. One sign of weakness on her part, however, and they might take the opportunity to attack her as a group, pressing a clear advantage on this home turf, this dark land that they inhabited. She had no doubt that they were hard, brutal, toughened by the cruel life they were forced to lead.
They could tear her to pieces.
Her heart began to race. She thought desperately of Grunthor and his tie to the earth, wishing mindlessly that he were there. Child of Earth, Manwyn’s prophecy had declared him.
The Three jatle come, leaving early, arriving late,
The lifeage of all men:
Child of Blood, Child of Earth, Child of the Sky.
If their speculation was right, and she, Achmed and Grunthor were the Three in the divination, then she was the Child of the Sky—the term Lirin used to describe themselves. It’s wrong, wrong for me to be here, she thought woozily, fighting growing nausea. She should be out in the open air, beneath the stars, singing her aubades and vespers to the sky.
-
Death was in the air; she could feel it hovering, squalid, thick. Had a child died in this place, perhaps many of them, succumbing to the backbreaking work, the vile conditions, the lack of air? Or was it her own death she could feel coming for her? She could sense the children closer now. Had they summoned the courage to come for her?
Coward, she thought as her trembling grew stronger. The Iliachenva’ar, the bringer of light into darkness. Struggling to keep from curling up like a babe in the womb. Mama—my dreams are chasing me. Come to my bed; bring the light.
The words of the Liringlas aubade, the morning love song to the sky, found themselves in her mouth. Shakily she began to sing, softly chanting the words her mother had taught her, words she had sung for many days with Oelendra, her mentor, words born in a place deep in her soul that was old as the ages.
In that deep place she felt a flicker of warmth, a pulse of light, as if she had physically touched the bond she had to the sword. The thought gave her courage, and she began to sing a little more strongly, loud enough to hear the notes echo slightly off the black tunnel walls ahead of her.
Then, a moment later, she heard another echo, softer than the first, and in a different voice, a voice that was familiar but not recognizable. A high voice, a frightened voice.
A child’s voice.
Mimen?
The word rang in her ears; it had come forth, spoken haltingly in Ancient Lirin, the language of the Liringlas, her mother’s people. Its meaning was unmistakable.
Mama-?
Rhapsody raised her head up. In the tunnel ahead of her she could almost make out the silhouette of a head, shoulders—thin they seemed; scraggly. Or perhaps it was just her imagination; the darkness was so complete that her eyes could not focus. She felt a great exhalation of air come out of her, breath she had not known she had been holding.
“Nay,” she said softly. “Hamimen.” Grandmother.
“Hamimen?”
“Aye,” she replied, louder, a little more clearly, still in the ancient tongue of the Liringlas. “What be your name, child?”