As they traveled the rough-hewn tunnel that led from the chest at the foot of Achmed’s bed to the chamber in which the Earthchild slept, Achmed could still smell a hint of the smoke of the battle fought to save her four years ago. To any other nose it would have been indiscernible, but along with his skin-web of nerve endings and surface veins, Achmed’s sinus cavities and throat were exceptionally sensitive. This strange anatomical system, bequeathed to him by his Dhracian mother and his unknown Bolg father, was both blessing and bane; it gave him early warning of hazards others might miss, and a memory of things others had long forgotten.
Even Grunthor. He cast a glance at the Sergeant-Major as they descended, noting the blank expression on his friend’s face in the cold light of their lantern formed from glowing crystals that had been found in the depths of the mountains. Grunthor was in a state of watchful autonomy, listening to the song of the Earth that only he could hear. Whatever the Earth was singing had him guarded, concentrating, but he was not feeling the same dread that Achmed felt every time he came down to this place.
Each time he descended into the fractured remains of the Loritorium, the sepulcher deep within the mountains where the Earthchild slept, the Bolg king was assailed with frightening memories of the battle they had fought near there. The F’dor had corrupted a root of one of the World Trees, using it to slither through the Earth’s crust, past the guard towers and bulwarks he and Grunthor had painstakingly assembled, into the very heart of the mountain range to the hidden chamber in which she had slumbered for centuries.
They had had no warning at all, except for the nightmares of the Child.
And the Child could not speak, could not tell them what was coming.
Achmed quickened his pace as they neared the opening to the chamber. He ran to the rough-hewn entranceway and climbed quickly over the barricade of rock and loose stone that was the last bulwark before the broken Loritorium. He held his breath as he crested the gravelly hill.
In the distance he could see her there, still slumbering. Achmed exhaled slowly, then nodded to Grunthor, who followed him down the slippery rockpile and over to the altar of Living Stone on which she slept. They peered down at the Earthchild, their eyes searching for any change, any discrepancy since the last time they had seen her.
An icy chill descended on them both at the same time.
“She’s withering,” Grunthor whispered.
Achmed nodded. He pulled out the glass calipers and carefully measured the body that at one time had been taller than his own. She had lost some of her smoothly polished flesh, once alive with the colors of the earth, green and brown, vermilion and purple, twisting bands of color that now seemed to have faded somewhat beneath her silver-gray translucent skin. How much was lost he was uncertain, but at least now he had a point of reference.
Hesitantly he stretched out his hand and brought it lightly to rest in the Earthchild’s hair, brittle as strawgrass at summer’s end. The roots of her hair were golden as ripening wheat, a sign that the earth from which she had come was preparing to celebrate harvest before slipping into slumber with the coming of winter. But below the grasslike locks were strands of wasted black weeds, burned as if in fire or slicked with poison.
“No,” Achmed whispered. “Gods, no.”
“Do ya think she’s sick, sir?” Grunthor asked in concern, his eyes scanning the empty vault. Achmed didn’t answer. “ ’Ere, let me ’ave a look.”
The Bolg king moved numbly aside as the giant Sergeant stepped up to the catafalque on which the Sleeping Child lay. He watched as Grunthor stared down at her pensively for a moment; the giant was tied to the earth as the king was, but more so, had a connection with it that had been established long ago. Earth spoke to him in his blood. Sometimes all Grunthor gleaned from this connection was an impression, an image in his mind, and could never communicate it fully to the Bolg king in words. But that wasn’t necessary anyway. Achmed could gauge the severity of the message by the expression on Grunthor’s face.
He continued to watch, nervous, as the giant reached out a hand and laid it gently on the Child’s midsection, resting it on top of the blanket of eiderdown Rhapsody had covered her with years ago. The Child’s face was the same cold and polished gray it had always been, as if she were sculpted from stone, but Achmed felt a nauseating dizziness as he noticed tiny rivulets of muddy water trickling down her forehead.
It looked like she was sweating in the throes of a fever.
The tides of her breath, once almost indiscernible in sleep, were now ragged. There was a wheeze in the depths of her inhalations, a sound that did not bode well for her health, if an ancient being formed from Living Stone could have such a thing as health.
Let that which sleeps within the Earth rest undisturbed; its awakening heralds eternal night, the words over her chamber had once read, words that had been inscribed in letters the height of a man, as if to emphasize their importance. Whether the prophecy referred to the Child herself, or other, more terrifying things that slept within the Earth, Achmed did not know. But having seen some of those things with his own eyes, he knew that keeping this being at peaceful rest was of consummate importance, not just to his safety, or that of his subjects, but to the whole of the world.
And now she was flinching, moving from side to side, as if preparing to awaken.
Achmed thought back to the first day he had seen her, almost four years before. He had been shown her by the Grandmother, a Dhracian woman of ancient years who had lived alone with the Child for centuries, guarding her, the last survivor of a colony of his mother’s race who had given their lives in the Child’s rescue and protection. He had stared down at the remarkable creature under her guardian’s careful eye, observing that her features were at once both coarse and smooth, as if her face had been carved with blunt tools, then polished carefully over a lifetime. He had marveled at her eyebrows and lashes, which appeared to be formed of blades of dry grass, matching her grainy hair, delicate sheaves of what looked like wheat.
She is a Child of Earth, formed of its own Living Stone, the Grandmother had said in her delicate buzz of a language. In day and night, through all the passing seasons, she sleeps. She has been here since before my birth. I am sworn to guard her until after Death comes for me. So must you be.
He had taken the edict seriously.
“Well?” he finally demanded softly, unable to restrain his anxiety. “What is happening to her?”
Grunthor exhaled, then walked away from the catafalque, out of the Child’s possible hearing.
“She’s bleeding to death,” he said.
For time uncounted they waited together in the darkness in which smoke from years past still lingered, standing watch over the Sleeping Child, searching for any clue as to what was causing her to wither.
Grunthor, in whose veins ran the same tie to the Earth, whose heart beat in the same rhythm as her own, attempted futilely to find the source of her dissipation by communing silently with her, but discovered nothing more than an agonizing sense of deep loss. He finally stepped away, shaking his massive head sadly.
“P’raps you can give it a try, sir,” he suggested to Achmed, who crouched beside the Earthchild’s catafalque, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands entwined before his veiled lips. “Can ya use yer blood-gift?”
The Bolg king shook his head as well. “That was broken long ago,” he murmured in a passive undertone so as not to disturb the Earthchild. “The gift is but a sporadic one now. And it only was truly in place with those born on Serendair. So while I am useless in helping her, the heartbeat of every living Cymrian still rings clearly in my head, and you know how much I love those idiots. The irony is sickening; the gods must be choking with laughter.”