Rath nodded again silently, and followed the Bolg king back into the upper mountain to a causeway tunnel overlooking the vast canyon that separated the main part of Canrif from the Blasted Heath beyond.
The wind echoed down and through the tunnel, singing a mournful song. The Bolg king and Rath took seats on the ground at the opening of the tunnel, staring west, and watched the sun spill its light like blood over the piedmont, the steppes, and the wide Krevensfield Plain beyond. They sat in silence, awaiting the sundown, until finally Achmed spoke. “Tell me of the F’dor, and of those who guard them,” he said. “I only know what little I was taught by Father Halphasion. Being disconnected from the Hunt, he could tell me very little, so I have carried the bloodlust in my veins with no understanding all my life.” Rath looked down into the rocky canyon, where great fissures had caught the last of the daylight in their crags. “There are two pantheons of the beasts—the Older Pantheon, and the Younger. They are not faceless, but each a unique personality, each with strengths one must guard against, and weaknesses that can be exploited. We know each one, for they have all been alive since the very dawn of Creation—and they have not reproduced, at least for the most part.
“The demons of the Older Pantheon were born of the fire that burned on the surface of the Earth at Creation. Those of the Younger Pantheon were born of the flames that sank into the Earth’s core shortly thereafter. The Younger are more innately evil, because tainted fire is all they have ever known, the element that destroys and consumes. But the Older had access to another way, a way they did not choose. Formed as they were, they were witnesses to the sky, to the stars, to the universe and its infinity—and they chose to disregard the life they saw abounding, to embrace the Void instead of the Creation they knew was out there. They knew of fire’s creative and positive uses—warmth, heat, light, the smelting of steel, the cooking of food for sustenance, the purging of illness— but they disregarded it, choosing instead only to torture and destroy with it. That choice of path is why the Older Pantheon is considered so much worse.
“The Older Pantheon stole the egg of die Progenitor Wyrm. Those of the Younger Pantheon stole its scales. Both are evil, avaricious, and seek destruction at all costs; so it is with those that worship Void. It does not matter that their actions will spell the end of their own race; our outlook is merely to help them achieve that end without taking us, and the rest of me world, with them.” Achmed nodded, then was silent for a long time. Finally he spoke, and when he did his voice was devoid of its usual arrogance, its customary edge. “In the ruins of Kurimah Milani, you said something about the bees, how a man could destroy every living specimen of their kind should he come into their vault with flame. Then you alluded that it was such with another Vault as well. I told you, I abhor riddles. Speak to me plainly—tell me what you want of me.”
Rath stared at him, then looked out over the deep canyon to the place where the light from the setting sun was bathing the Blasted Heath in colors of fire. “It is a great irony that to the Bolg you were polluted, unclean, a half-breed among mongrels that somehow made you less in their sight. Somewhere deep in the scars of your past you have assumed that the blood of your unknown father somehow tainted you in the estimation of the Kin as well—but I tell you, with the wind as my witness—that nothing is. further from the truth. To the Gaol, and all the Brethren who have been seeking you since your conception, you are a special entity, a rare gift to our race, the one who might finally tip the scales in our favor. We have not been searching for you to torture or abuse you, to cleanse the race of your blood—but because we need you. You, in a very real way, are our last hope.” Ram smiled at the look of rancid disbelief on Achmed’s face.
“You alone among us are born of wind and earth, Bolg king,” he went on. “While we tread the tunnels and canyons of the Underworld in our endless guardianship, we are strangers there— and the demons know it. They understand how deeply our sacrifice costs us, how much the wind in our blood resents being trapped within the ground, away from the element of air for all time. And even within their prison they laugh at us, because in every way that matters, we are as much prisoners as they.
“But the earth is in your blood as much as the wind is. You have a primordial tie to it that neither the Kin nor the Unspoken have. You have power there, a corporeal form that would be protected by the element of earth bequeathed to you by your father, protected by the very Living Stone of the Vault, should you choose to walk within it.”
Achmed felt his throat tighten. Deep in his blood the words appealed to him, fed the dark racial hatred that he harbored within him. Still uncertainty held sway. “I am not of the Gaol,” he said. “I am but half of the blood of the Brethren—and that which was of the other half raised me, if such words can be applied to my upbringing. I know none of your lore, your prophecies—your history. My skills are limited, my talents pale in this area. While I was given a blood gift that allowed me to unerringly track the heartbeats of any of those born on the same soil as I had been, that was an upworld gift. Each time I have faced one of the Pantheon, I have needed help to complete the task. Without that assistance, I would be dead or possessed myself.”
The silver pupils of Rath’s eyes expanded as the light faded over the steppes. He fixed his gaze on Achmed, as if to add measure to his words.
“What you do not know is this—you could walk the Vault alone, and when you were done the silence would ring with nothing but the whisper of your name.”
“I think you overestimate me as an assassin,” Achmed replied. “The answer to the question you asked me in the cavern is this—though it was not always so, I am more king than assassin now. My primal calling is to protect the Earthchild, and the Earth, but not for the sake of old racial enmity, but rather for her own sake, and the sake of those who live upon that earth. And for my own selfish ends as well. It is, as you said before, an upworld calling. So I am a king, though if you knew me better, you’d judge me not much of one.”
The Dhracian hunter shook his head.
“I do not have to judge you. You guard the Sleeping Child. A king with foresight, but no courage, no mercy, would have shattered her, broken the ribs, smashed all possible keys. The doorway would be just as safe. No, whatever reputation you wish to have, I know what kind of king you are.”
“Tell me of the Older Pantheon,” Achmed said, his curiosity finally getting the better of him. “What do you know of the eldest of the F’dor? What are the names of those that you hunt?” Rath pulled the small dagger from his calf sheath and ran it idly over the wall of the tunnel. “To say the entire name is rarely possible. It would be like identifying a waterfall by imitating its rhythm until it could be distinguished from every other waterfall. How long would that take? A year, all spring? This is a race not bound by the motion of tongue, nor, at first, by the notion of time. They were all born whole, so to speak. Their growth is a measure of fuel, not years; their experiences and strength counted in souls, not centuries. “Nevertheless, we must name them, to catch them, to call them, to count them. There are few enough now to begin to master the list. I shall give you enough of a name to hold in your ear, but too little for the wind. Hrarfa is one that I seek; she, a whispering flame, like incense, sometimes smoldering, more scent than fire, like a beacon, or flickering bog light at other times, beckoning with false promises. The Liar of liars.
“Then there is Hnaf, sputtering, almost wet, at home near water, hiding by it, pretending to be nearly extinguished. In the small lore we have of the Vault, he was mistrusted by his own kind, possessed of a cheap malice. The Outcast of outcasts.