Prophecy, Child of Earth (16 page)

Achmed turned to the tall bank of rock that had plowed out into the caver in front of Grunthor as he had tunneled into this place. He swung the tor around looking for the Firbolg sergeant, but saw nothing save for great mounds of stone and earth heaped on the smooth cave floor, with mart fragments scattered around the base of them. "Grunthor!" he shouted again, shadows flashing over the newly made moraine and the ancient walls ,n tJ dark His voice echoed for a moment, then was swallowed by silence.

A low pile of rubble at his feet stretched and shrugged. Moments later « took on a more distinct outline and shape. What appeared to be a large'ssculpture of a giant man flexed and began to breathe, each moment becoming a little more distinguishable from the rock.

As Achmed watched, color began to return to Grunthor's face. The Sergeant-Major was sitting on the ground, propped against the great pil stone rubbish left from his burrowing, breathing shallowly as he returned to himself, separating himself from the earth as once he had at the end of their journey along the Root.

'Blimey," he whispered as Achmed knelt beside him. He shook his head at the waterskin the king offered him, crossing his arms over his knees and lowering his head onto them.

Achmed stood and looked around again. The Loritorium was approximately the size of the town square in what had once been the capital city of Canrif, a city built within the crags and base of the guardian mountains at the western rim of the Teeth. When they had first come to Ylorc he had found the dead city in a desolate state of ruin. Now the Bolg were working feverishly to restore it to the magnificence it once had in the Cymrian heyday. Even in its decay, the genius of its design and the craftsmanship of its construction had been readily apparent.

The design and construction of the Loritorium was even more impressive. It would have stood as Gwylliam's masterpiece, if he had had the chance to complete it. As with most of the structures Gwylliam designed, the Loritorium had been fashioned in the shape of an enormous hexagon, sculpted in precise proportion from within the mountain itself. The marble walls met the vault of the ceiling more than two hundred feet above the floor. The floor was smoothly polished marble inlaid in mosaic patterns whose colors glimmered in the flickering shadows. In the center of the ceiling was a dark hole which Achmed could just barely see in the blazing light of the torch.

The streets of the Loritorium were lined with beautifully sculpted stone benches and bordered with half-walls from which lampposts fashioned of brass and glass emerged every few yards. The capping stones of the half-walls were scored by shallow troughs that ran between each lamppost, channels blackened with ancient stains that appeared to be the residue of a thick oily substance.

Two large buildings loomed in the darkness at the far side of the Loritorium, identical in size and shape, with huge doors, intricately wrought and gilded with rysin, a rare metal, gleaming a metallic blue-green in the torchlight. Achmed recognized them instantly from the plans as the Library and the Prophe-sory, the repositories Gwylliam designed for the most valuable of his books and manuscripts. The Library was expected to house all forms of writing about ancient lore, while the Prophesory was to contain all records of prophecies and other predictions known to man. Warehouses of ancient knowledge.

Achmed turned back to his friend. "Are you all right? Are you coming around?"

he asked the giant Sergeant.

Grunthor shook his head. "If it's all the same to you, sir, Oi'll just take a to'le rest right 'ere."

Achmed nodded. "I'm going to have a look about, not far; I'll be right back."

Grunthor waved* a weak hand dismissively, then stretched out on the debris of the marble floor, groaning, and closed his eyes.

The Firbolg king watched his friend a moment longer until he had ascertained that Grunthor was fully separated from the earth and drawing breath without difficulty. Then he reassessed the torch; it had consumed almost none of its fuel, but still burned brightly in the darkness, as if eager to be shining in this place of ancient magic.

Achmed dropped his pack and equipment to the ground, saving out twin daggers Rhapsody had given him as a coronation gift, found on one of her exploratory sojourns within the mountain some months before. He examined them quickly; they were formed from an ancient metal that no one knew the name of, seemingly impervious to rust, that the Cymrians had used in the framework of buildings and to bard the hulls of ships. Achmed sheathed one of them at his wrist, keeping the other drawn, and quietly made his way through the empty city.

His footsteps echoed hollowly up the streets and reverberated to the vaulted ceiling as he walked, even though he was most often able to travel without sound in the world above. Achmed slowed his pace in the vain attempt to pass more quietly, but it did little good. The heavy air of the newly unsealed cavern seized upon each sound and amplified it. Achmed was filled with an unwelcome sense that the place had been without company too long and was now relishing it.

When he reached the center of the hexagonal cavern he stopped. In the Loritorium's central area was what appeared to have been a small garden with an immense dry fountain, its large reflecting pond surrounded by a circle of marble benches. Around the fountain's base in the dry pond was a small puddle of shining liquid, thick as quicksilver. The font from which water once undoubtedly sprayed was capped with a heavy block of volcanic rock.

This central spot afforded an excellent view of the whole Loritorium. Achmed cast a glance around. Here and there in the narrow streets were more pools of the viscous silver liquid, their iridescent surfaces glimmering in the torchlight. He brought his hand nearer to the pool in the fountain and pulled it quickly back, stung by the intense vibration issuing forth from it. It was signature of great power, one that he did not recognize, that made his fingers and skin hum with its concentrated purity. He broke his attention away from the luminous puddles and looked at the rest of the square.

Set at the directional angles north, south, east, and west around the Loritorium's square were four displays, each roughly built in the shape of an altar. Achmed recalled the drawings of each of them from the manuscripts of Gwyl-liam's plans.

They appeared to be cases which were intended to house what Gwylliam had called the August Relics, items of surpassing importance from the old world tied to each of the five elements. Achmed cursed silently. He had not fully understood the manuscript that had recounted the descriptions of each of these relics, and Rhapsody had left before she could study the scroll and explain it to him.

Carefully he circumvented the fountain and approached the first of the cases. It was fashioned in the shape of a marble bowl on top of a pedestal, similar to a birdbath, encased in a great rectangular block of clear stone taller than Grunthor. Achmed's skin prickled as he recognized the deadly shatter trap that had been set within the base of the clear stone block. The other altars also seemed to be similarly rigged with protective devices and other defenses to keep them from being removed.

Under normal circumstances Achmed was an aficionado of well-thought-out defenses. Now he was merely annoyed. Gwylliam's paranoia toward the end of the Loritorium's construction had led him to abandon some of the higher aspirations he had originally held for the complex. Instead of allowing it to be the seat of scholarship where broad, unfettered knowledge was enthusiastically pursued, as he had envisioned in the first records of his plans for the place, Gwylliam had seemed to become jealous of the power he planned to store there. He had ordered his artisans to set aside the craftsmanship that was beautifying the small city into a showplace of architecture and art in favor of building ingenious traps and defenses to protect it from attack. It made Achmed wonder what those cases must have once contained.

His consideration of that question was shattered by Grunthor's bloodcurdling scream.

J-vould you like to see my hoard, Pretty?"

'Yes," said Rhapsody. She was still recovering from the initial fear of losing her heart to the dragon. So far everything seemed fine; Elynsynos had made no false moves nor tried to restrict her in any way. The true test would come when it was time to leave. "I would be honored."

'Then come."

The immense beast hoisted herself out of the fetid water in the cavern's basin and began the process of turning around. Rhapsody pressed up against the cave wall in an effort to stay out of the way, but her actions proved unnecessary.

Elynsynos was far more agile and fluid than Rhapsody could have imagined; it was as if she had no solid form. She shifted her body with a smooth rolling movement, and within moments her enormous head was pointed toward the depths of the cave.

She waited as Rhapsody came alongside her, then led the way down into the darkness.

As they descended the cave began to curve, bending in a circular fashion to the west. At the bottom of the tunnel she could see a vague glow, like the distant
light
of a raging fire. The dark walls began to brighten as they walked on, reflecting the glow of the tunnel before them. The scent of the air changed, too; rather than growing more dank, as Rhapsody had expected, it began to freshen and take a salty tang. She recdgnized it after a moment as the smell of the sea.

As the light became blindingly bright, Elynsynos stopped. "You go on ahead, Pretty," she said, nudging Rhapsody forward with her brow. Rhapsody complied, walking slowly toward the glow, squinting to avoid the pain her eyes had initially felt. She put one hand out in front of her, hoping to both shield her face and avoid walking into something unseen.

After a moment her eyes adjusted, and she saw she was in a vast cavern, almost half the size of the grotto that held Elysian's lake. The blinding glow was the reflection of the radiance of six huge chandeliers, each large enough to light the ballroom of a palace, each illuminated by a thousand candleless flames. The illumination was mirrored by more sparkling items than Rhapsody could even imagine, let alone count, piles of gems in every color of the rainbow and mountains of shimmering coins in gold, copper, silver, platinum, and rysin, a rare green-blue metal mined in the High Reaches of Serendair by the Nain of the old world.

The chandeliers were fashioned from the ship's wheels from hundreds of vessels, the coins piled high in captain's chests and hammocked in massive sails strung from ropes that were moored to the walls of the cave with rigging hardware.

Wrecked prows and decks of ships were lovingly displayed throughout the cavern, as were anchors, masts, and several salt-encrusted figureheads, one of which bore a startling resemblance to Rhapsody.

In the center of the great cave was a lagoon of salt water, complete with waves that rolled gently to the muddy edges. Rhapsody walked down to the water's edge and bent to touch the sand. When she looked at her fingers she saw that it was laced with traces of gold.

She looked into the lagoon at the rocks that held more treasures: a golden statue of a mermaid with eyes fashioned from emeralds and a tail that was made from individually carved scales of polished jade, intricately woven caps of merrow pearls, a tall bronze trident with a broken point. A secluded spot in the sand held scores of globes, the orb-shaped maps Llauron had shown her, charts and nautical renderings, as well as sea instruments—compasses, spyglasses and sextants, pulleys and tillers, and chests full of ships' logs. It was a veritable maritime museum.

'Do you like my hoard?" The harmonious voice echoed in the vast cave, causing the water in the lagoon the ripple out of pattern. Rhapsody turned to face the dragon, whose prismatic eyes were glowing with unmasked excitement.

'Yes," Rhapsody answered, her voice filled with awe. "It's incredible. It's—well, it's—" words failed her completely. "It's the most beautiful hoard I've ever seen."

Elynsynos laughed in delight. The sound was like nothing Rhapsody had ever heard before, higher and thinner than the dragon's gargantuan size would have suggested, with a bell-like quality that rang in Rhapsody's bones. "Good, I'm glad you like it," she said. "Now, come over here. There is something I want to give you."

Rhapsody blinked in astonishment. Everything she had ever heard about dragons had reiterated that they were avaricious, coveting their treasure above anything else. She had heard tell in the old world the legend of a dragon that had laid waste to five towns and several villages, all to recover a plain tin cup that had been inadvertently taken from its hoard. And now the matriarch of wyrms and wyrmkin of this land, Elynsynos herself, was offering her a gift from her hoard.

She was unsure how to react, but she followed the giant serpent over piles of winches, bells, oars, and oar locks.

On the other side was a large net secured by a harpoon thrust deep into the rock wall. Rhapsody shuddered at the thought of the strength needed to bury prongs that far into solid rock. Elynsynos rustled with an extended claw in the bulge of the net and drew forth a waxwood lute, beautifully polished, pristine as the day it was finished by the harper. She wrapped her serpentine tail around it, lifted it out of the net and held it out to Rhapsody.

The Singer took the lute with wonder, and turned it over in her hands. It was in perfect condition, despite unknown years of exposure to the salt air and water.

"Would you like to hear it?" she asked the dragon.

The iridescent eyes twinkled. "Of course. Why else would I have given it to you, if not to play?"

Rhapsody sat down on an overturned dinghy and tuned the lute, quivering with excitement.

'What would you like to hear?"

'Do you know any songs of the sea?" asked the dragon.

'A few."

'And are they from your home, the old world?"

Rhapsody felt her heart skip a beat. She had not revealed anything to Elynsynos about her origins, as far as she could remember. The dragon smiled, revealing swordlike teeth.

'You are surprised I know where you come from, Pretty?"