“Don’t cry, Elynsynos.”
The dragon angled her massive head downward and regarded her intensely, a blinding glint shining in her eyes. “Then you will stay for a little while?”
“Yes. I will stay.”
6
Grunthor lumbered to a halt for the fourth time that afternoon, too ungainly to stop quickly as Achmed did, and sighed aloud.
“Is she still there, sir?”
“Yes.” The tone of irritation in Achmed’s voice had grown darker with each pause. The Firbolg king turned around in the tunnel and shouted back behind them.
“Damn you, Jo, go home or I’ll tie you to a stalagmite and leave you until we return.”
The air next to his head whistled, and a small, bronze-backed dirk imbedded itself into the cave wall next to his ear.
“You’re a fornicating pig,” Jo’s voice answered with an echoing snarl. “You can’t leave me alone with those little brats. I’m coming with you, you bastard, whether you like it or not.”
Achmed hid a smile and strode back up the tunnel, then reached behind an outcropping of rocks and dragged the teenager out of her hiding place.
“A word of advice about fornicating pigs,” he said almost pleasantly. “They bite. Don’t get in their way, or they’ll take a piece out of you.”
“Yeah, well, you’d know all about fornicating pigs, Achmed. I’m sure you do it all the time. Gods know nobody else would ever knob you, unless they were blind.”
“Go ’ome, lit’le miss,” said Grunthor severely. “You don’t want to see me lose my temper.”
“Come on, Grunthor,” Jo whined, making an attempt at wide-eyed, innocent pleading and failing utterly. “I hate those little bastards. I want to go with you. Please.”
“Now, is that any way to talk about your grand-nieces and nephews?” asked Achmed disingenuously. “Your sister would be very distressed to hear you referring to her grandbrats that way.”
“They’re little beasts. They try to trip me when we’re out on the crags,” Jo said. “Next time I might just accidentally boot one or two of them into the canyon by mistake. Please don’t leave me alone with them. I want to go wherever you’re going.”
“No. Now are you going to go back on your own, or will you need to be escorted?”
Jo crossed her arms, her face fixed in a furious expression. Achmed sighed.
“Look, Jo, here’s my final offer. If it turns out that we find what we’re looking for, and the danger is manageable, we’ll bring you back with us the next time. But if you follow us again, I’m going to bind you hand and foot and throw you into the nursery, and Rhapsody’s grandbrats can use you as a ball, or play Badger-in-the-Bag with you. Do you understand?” Jo nodded sullenly. “Good. Now get back to the Cauldron and stop following us.” Grunthor pulled the knife he had given her from the wall and held it out. Jo snatched it from his hand and stuck it back in her boot.
The two Bolg watched as the teenager whirled angrily and stalked back up the ascending tunnel. After a few moments of hearing nothing they returned to their descent, only to stop once more.
Achmed spun about in annoyance. The light from the world above was no longer within sight; they were deep within the tunnel now, too deep to go back without wasting the entire day. It had taken a number of weeks to put aside time when both he and Grunthor could go exploring, searching out the Loritorium, the hidden vault he had shown the maps of to Rhapsody. Unfortunately, the teenaged brat she had adopted as her sister had gotten wind of the expedition, and refused to heed his commands that she stay behind, both before they left the Cauldron, and all along the way. It was evident she still was not complying with his directive.
He could sense her, though her heartbeat was not audible to him as Grunthor’s and Rhapsody’s were, along with the few thousand others he sometimes heard drumming in the distance. The ability to discern those rhythms was the fragmented remains of his blood-gift from the old world; the only hearts he could hear were ones that had been born there.
Sensing Jo was different. This was his mountain, he was the king, and as a result he knew she was here again, defying his instructions, following behind them just out of sight. He turned to the giant Sergeant-Major.
“Grunthor, do you remember how you once told me you thought you could feel the movement of the earth?”
Grunthor scratched his head and grinned. “Goodness, sir, Oi don’t ever recall getting that personal with you. In fact, the only sweet talkin’ Oi ever remember doing was with old Brenda at Madame Parri’s Pleasure Palace all those years ago.”
Achmed chuckled and pointed at the ground beneath their feet. “Fire responds to Rhapsody, and the more she experiments with it, the more she is able to control it at will. Perhaps since you have a similar bond with earth, the same might be true for you.” He looked up the tunnel again. “And perhaps your first experiment in manipulating the earth might take a form that would grant us a respite from the recurring nightmare that won’t stop following us.”
Grunthor considered for a moment, then closed his eyes. All around him he could feel the heartbeat of the Earth, a subtle thrum whispering in the air he breathed, pulsing in the ground below his feet, bristling across his hidelike skin. It was a vibration that had hummed in his bones and blood since they had traveled through the Earth along the Root that connected the two great trees. It spoke to him now, giving him an insight into the layers of rock around him.
In his mind’s eye he could see the paths of the different strata as the Earth sang to him of the birth of this place, a lament recalling the horrific pressure that forced the great sheets of rock upwards, screaming in the pain of its delivery, erupting into the craggy peaks that now formed the Teeth. Through his bond to the Earth his soul whispered wordless consolation in return, gentling down the age-old memory.
He could see each pocket of frailty within the ground, each place where an obsidian river scored the basalt and shale, each crack where the Nain, other earthlovers tied to the lore as he was, had carefully sculpted out the endless passageways of Canrif, the tunnels like the one in which they now stood. He could sense Jo’s feet resting on the crust a stone’s throw away, and willed the earth to soften there for a moment, to swallow her ankles and solidify again.
Her scream of shock broke his reverie, and Grunthor opened his eyes to a stabbing pain pulsing behind them. A string of vile curses punctuated with screeches of fury reverberated around them, unsettling some of the loose rock and raising a minor storm of dust. Achmed chuckled.
“That ought to hold her, at least until we can make it to the entrance tunnel to the annex. Then you can release her. I doubt even Jo would want to risk having the ground grab her feet again.” His eyes narrowed as he noticed the paling of Grunthor’s skin in the half-light of the torch he was carrying, the beads of sweat on his friend’s massive brow. “Are you all right?”
Grunthor wiped his forehead with a neat linen handkerchief. “Not sure Oi like the way that felt,” he said. “Never ’urt before when I was just generally aware o’ things in the ground, or makin’ myself look like the rock.”
“It’s bound to be somewhat painful the first time,” said Achmed. “As you become more experienced, more proficient at using your gift, I think you will find the pain subsides.”
“Oi bet ya say that to all the girls,” Grunthor retorted, folding his hand kerchief and storing it away again. “Come to think of it, Oi think them’s the exact words I used on oP Brenda. Well, shall we be off, then?”