He barely recognized her.
She had changed physically since the festival, but at first Achmed had difficulty trying to isolate in what way she was different. Her features had seemed to sharpen, to have lost some of the softness of angle that her father’s human blood had given her otherwise Lirin face. Now her appearance was colder, more severe; the warmth of the elemental fire that she had absorbed walking through the Earth’s core had diminished, leaving her skin paler, more alabaster, less rosy than it normally was. She seemed detached; she must have heard him come in, but she did not favor him with a glance. There was an almost draconic edge to her, and Achmed swallowed angrily, bile rising in his throat at the sight.
“Are you forming this baby, or is it forming you?” he asked.
Rhapsody turned then and looked at him. Achmed’s throat tightened; her clear green eyes, emerald in the torchlight, were scored with the same vertical pupils that her husband’s eyes, and those of the dragon, had.
“Both,” she said. There was an echo in her voice that was reminiscent of the multiple tones of the wyrm, though less pronounced. “And hello to you, too.”
Achmed measured his breathing, trying to beat down the rising sense of distress that was welling up inside him.
Rhapsody slid out of the hammock then and came to him. She nodded to Elynsynos, who glared at Achmed once more and slipped deeper into the cave through a mountain of gleaming silver coins.
“It’s only to be expected that a blend of such powerful blood would have an impact on both the mother and child,” Rhapsody said calmly, but clearly disturbed by Achmed’s reaction. “It’s temporary.”
“Has Ashe seen you like this?” Achmed demanded.
Rhapsody’s brow furrowed. “Yes. Did you bring Krinsel, as I asked you to?”
“She is outside. Did you finish the translation?”
“I did,” Rhapsody said.
“Where is it?” Achmed asked, his hackles beginning to rise from the static air in the cave and the disturbing change in Rhapsody.
Rhapsody crossed her arms. “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “I am not going to give it to you, Achmed.”
The air in the damp cave suddenly seemed to go completely dry. The two friends stared at each other intently. Finally Achmed spoke, and his voice was calm, but with a deadly undertone.
“I must have misheard you.”
“You didn’t,” Rhapsody said flatly. “You cannot have this lore, Achmed—it mustn’t be used. Not now, not ever. For any reason. You must abandon your plans to rebuild the Lightcatcher, and find some other way to keep the Earthchild, and Ylorc, safe. This way will only make things more dangerous.”
The pupils in Achmed’s mismatched eyes contracted, as if drinking in a blinding light. His breath became more measured, shallower, but there were no other outward signs of the towering rage that was building within him. Both of them knew it was coming. Finally he spoke.
“Over the time I have known you, Rhapsody, you have given me many reasons and even more opportunities to kill you. You always do it so blithely that your sheer ignorance saves your life every time, because it would be difficult to summon up the initiative to terminate the existence of someone who is so clearly missing the point.” His eyes narrowed perceptibly. “This time, however, you are so willfully unaware of the thinness of the ice on which you are treading that it is breathtaking.”
Rhapsody exhaled but did not blink. “Do whatever you think you must, Achmed,” she said evenly, but with a deadly undertone of her own. “If my death at your hands is what it takes to keep you from moving forward with this folly, then it will have been worth it.”
Achmed flinched. She was using the Namer’s skill of True Speaking; there was no sarcasm, no jest in her voice.
“Why?” he spat. “Tell me what is so worrisome to you about me having this information that you would jeopardize—no, sacrifice—our friendship, and possibly your own life, to keep it from me, knowing how much I have need of it? Have you lost your mind, or just your commitment to the Earthchild and her safety?”
“Neither.” The pupils in Rhapsody’s emerald eyes expanded in the same way Achmed’s had, mirroring the control he was struggling to exert over his anger. “My commitment to keep her, and the rest of the people for whom I have responsibility, safe has not changed. Not even in the face of having to refuse my dearest friend something he craves beyond reason. Whatever that costs me is a price I’m willing to pay because, unlike you, I understand what is at stake here.”
“I am fully aware of what is at stake,” Achmed said softly, menace dripping from his words. “What is at stake here is the continued existence of life, and the Afterlife. Should the F’dor find the Earthchild, they will tear her rib of Living Stone from her body, and use it to unlock the Vault of the Underworld, in which all their remaining kind are imprisoned. Once loose, the demons will destroy all that lives on the earth, for that is what they crave, but since their existence is not limited to the material world, well fed with the power of that destruction, they will use it to undo even that life which exists beyond this one. Even I, godless man that I am, find that to be a fate that I cannot allow while there is breath in my body. So why is it that you, who see yourself as the savior of the world, not to mention every lost wastrel, child, and cat, cannot see the need to help me in this totally baffles me, Rhapsody.”
She exhaled deeply, then glanced over to the wall of silver behind which the dragon had disappeared.
“For ages you have had Grunthor’s loyalty, loyalty without limits, unto death and beyond. And yet there have been times over the course of your association that he has had to refuse you, has he not?”
“There is a considerable difference between Grunthor and you,” Achmed said, the hint of a sneer in his voice. “I trust his judgment. He is wiser than me in many ways. So when he questions me, I listen, because he and I have the same basic goals in mind, and he never does it just to be cantankerous. You, on the other hand, are like a spinning top. Your ethics, while consistent, are frequently foolish, your loyalties ill placed. Ofttimes you defy me or what I mean to do for reasons that make no sense to anyone ruled by his head rather than by whatever body part rules your decisions.”
He waited for the hurt reaction he knew would result from the cutting words, but saw none. The arrows of his words bounced off her unnoticed; her facial expression did not change.
“And does Grunthor support your decision to rebuild the Lightcatcher?”
The Bolg king’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever doubts he has had have been assuaged both by his knowledge of the instrumentality’s history, and of what is at stake.”
“Liar,” Rhapsody said contemptuously.
The air between them crackled with sudden dryness.
“Grunthor has done whatever he has to support you in the feverish intensity of your plan, which has consumed you,” she continued. “He has expressed his worry to you, I am certain of it. And this is what frightens me more than anything, Achmed. It does not surprise or distress me that you would disregard my concerns, for we both know you do not hold them in any regard. You have defied the pleadings of the Sea Mage, because you despise him and blame him for losses in the past. The king of the Nain, the people who built the very mountain realm that you now rule, and the Lightcatcher itself, sent you an emissary to warn you against building it again, did they not? That was the reason he came to you, though you did not confess that when you told me of his visit during the carnival.” Achmed did not answer. “All these people who are your friends, or at least your allies, have begged you not to do this, and their pleas fall on your deaf ears. I am not surprised.
“But then, your own chief Archon, your supreme military commander, your best friend who has followed you with the unquestioning loyalty of a born soldier throughout more than a millennium of time, not to mention through the very bowels of the Earth itself, tells you he doubts the wisdom of what you are doing, and you still do not heed? You should ask yourself whose judgment is really impaired here, whose soul is possessed of irrational ethics and goals.” She put a hand to her belly and took a deep breath.