Requiem for the Sun (37 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Haydon

BOOK: Requiem for the Sun
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The irony of the moment caused his throat to tighten, recalling how Rhapsody had taught him to read and write during their endless trek through the Earth along the Root.
He hoped she remembered the fighting lessons he had given her in exchange.
He watched as the birdkeeper ascended the tower again, into the branches of the high trees in which it was built. A moment later he saw her step out onto a balcony at the top of the tower and release the birds; they banked immediately to the east, flapping their wings in unison, then caught a warm updraft, flying off together into the sun.
He closed his eyes and willed them to hurry.
HAGUEFORT, NAVARNE, AT THE ARCHERY RANGE
A
t noon the master of the range called for the close of flights.
Gwydion Navarne sighed dispiritedly. Three center shots out of twenty in the last quiver. It was probably just as well that the range was shutting down; his aim was getting progressively worse.
He unstrung the bow and was gathering the quiver up, preparing to see what arrows he could retrieve, when he caught sight of Gerald Owen, moving as quickly as the elderly man could across the wide, grassy range. The look on his face caused Gwydion to drop both the bow and the quiver and run to the chamberlain.
“What is it?” he asked the puffing man.
Owen stopped and bent over at the waist, his hands on his knees.
“Word — has come in by — avian messenger, for the Lord — Cymrian,” he said, breathing heavily. “Rhapsody has been taken prisoner, or killed.”
The young man who would soon be duke heard the words, felt the electricity of the statement hum in his skin as his stomach went icy, but his mind refused to allow their meaning to penetrate. He had heard horrible news too often in his young life, the tidings of his mother's death, and had witnessed that of his father in battle. This was too much.
“No more,” he said. He stared blankly at the chamberlain. “No more.”
Gerald Owen laid his hand on the boy's thin shoulder. “Come with me, Master Gwydion,” he said with a tone that was both gentle and authoritative. “I've summoned the falconer. There is no time to waste; the bird can't sight at night. It has to away by at least fifty leagues before nightfall, or it will come back without delivering its message.”
Gwydion Navarne nodded numbly and followed Gerald Owen back over the darkening fields, the sun overhead not casting as much as a hint of a shadow.
31
NEAR THE SEACOAST
R
hapsody was jostled from her waking nightmare into awareness as the seneschal reined his horse to a halt.
Throughout the course of the ride the creature she had known as Michael in the old world, now a living corpse, once despicably human, now truly demonic, had berated her relentlessly, punctuating his discourse with new gouts of wind and flame released for emphasis, burning everything in sight. As each new fire erupted she was overwhelmed with the reek of burning flesh, the unmistakable fetor of an excited F'dor.
Her hold on her stomach had already been tenuous; she now was roiling in the dry nausea of horror. The heat of the demon's breath on her neck, coupled with the skeletal hands groping her body, probing beneath her clothes, fondling her, revolted her to the core of her being and made her wish for death.
Her touchstones of comfort had been polluted, deviated, into thoughts that only served to make her despair. Any memory of Ashe caused her soul to bleed, knowing how terrified he would be for her. Far worse, any reminder of the child she was carrying made her quake with fear, praying that its presence would not be discovered.
As each hour passed, her belief that she would be able to escape from her captivity lessened. Michael never left her alone, never let her out of his sight
for a moment, assuring her repeatedly that this was the way she would be passing her days from now on.
“Do you remember our last fortnight together in Serendair?” he had inquired as they rode, his lips tracing the line of her neck to the shoulder. Rhapsody had closed her eyes, trying to block the memories, but they came flooding back — the captivity, the depravity, the total breaking of her spirit which only served to feed his perverted enjoyment. “It is a time I hold dear in my heart, Rhapsody. A return to those glorious days is at hand. When we return to Argaut, you will be the courtesan of the seneschal, the minister of Justice, by day, the whore of the baron by night.” She tried to close her mind and senses to the rise of the stench that indicated the demon was even more excited at the prospect.
Michael had inhaled deeply, breathing in the smoky air with vigor, then pulled her closer so that his lips were next to her ear.
“I will make you love me again, Rhapsody. You have never ceased to be mine, remember that. I owned you long before any other man did; I will drive the memory of him out of your heart, and from between your legs. You will be so full of me soon that there will be room for no other anywhere in you.”
She thought of her child and fought back tears.
Finally, after time undetermined, the burning forest began to thin, the trees winnowing into outer forest growth, then copses and glades, with wide expanses of open land between them, finally disappearing altogether.
Rhapsody, her sense of smell heightened since the child was conceived, caught a trace of the sea air the moment the burning forest was behind them. As they rode on, the wind grew heavy with salt as they traveled west, heading straight for the seacoast.
The sound of the ocean came up with a gust of wind as the sun began to descend. The greatest fear in Rhapsody's mind, being alone with Michael when the group made camp for the night, was cast aside as she realized that the voyage he had been alluding to was imminent.
She had foolishly believed the nearest place they could embark on a vessel would be Port Fallon or Traeg, the most northerly of the major and minor ports along the seacoasts of Avonderre and Gwynwood. She had already been planning her escape, hoping to find assistance in the crowds of Port Fallon or among the stoic fisherman who plied the cold, windswept waters off the tiny inlet of Traeg. Now it was becoming clearer that Michael had other means, other plans.
She was in even greater danger than she had known.
The riders came to a halt at the opening of a rocky promontory, a great precipice overlooking the churning sea. The sound of wind and waves crashing
in concert against the cliff walls below rang with a familiar tone, the discordant wail she had heard within the well of the prophetess's temple in Yarim.
Manwyn's voice rose up in Rhapsody's mind, smug and mysterious.
Rhapsody will not die bearing your children. The pregnancy will not be easy, but it will not kill or harm her.
Was Manwyn predicting something else?
she wondered dully as Michael seized her by the waist and hauled her off the horse.
Mayhap this is what she saw
.
Her death at Michael's hands. Or at her own, faced with an even worse fate.
One should beware the Past, lady. The Past can be a relentless hunter, a stalwart protector, a vengeful adversary. It seeks to have you; it seeks to aid you.
It seeks to destroy you.
She struggled to remain upright as the strong sea wind roared over the promontory, buffeting her face, whipping the tatters of her shirt.
Michael took her wrist and dragged her forward on the promontory; it was a wide ledge, narrowing to a distinct point, where the wind was fierce. His dark hair streamed behind him like a triumphant banner, matched by the cloak, now blowing behind him as well; he seemed invigorated by the wind, Rhapsody noted. She struggled to keep from trembling in his grasp, but was finding it hard not to do so when faced with the reality of her captor's strength; aside from his obvious advantages of size and strength, he was evidently tied to two elements, air and fire, both of which he seemed able to command at will.
And he was the bodily manifestation of a F'dor.
The sun turned red as it sank toward the ocean, hovering only a few hands from the horizon.
Michael ran his cadaverous fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck, running the skeletal digits through the tresses, entwining them. He jerked her head up and turned her so that they were looking southward and pointed to the left of the setting sun, his arm bathed in bloody light.
“There it is, my love, our ship of dreams, come to sail us away from this place and back to Argaut, where I will make good on all my promises to you.”
He waved his free hand high in the air; a shower of black fire shot forth, burning through the dusty afternoon light in a screaming arc.
As the searing light faded she could see the ship, anchored deep. In response to the flash of fire, the sails began to rise.
Rhapsody started to shake with the effort to hold back from sobbing.
I will not give this bastard the satisfaction of making me cry ever again
, she thought, though her resolve was fading in the face of the circumstance.
She peered over the end of the promontory. The volcanic rock of the cliff stretched down directly into the sea a hundred or more feet below, leaving a
shoreline scored with jagged rocks. The waves crashed menacingly below, surging violently against the cliff face. Rhapsody closed her eyes and staggered slightly as her balance shifted, leaving her nauseous and faint.
“Please,” she choked, “move back from here.”
The seneschal laughed harshly and pulled her away from the edge of the promontory, back toward his seven men, who were reconnoitering, getting their bearings and making preparations to descend to the ship.
“You are afraid of heights? Now, that's odd, Rhapsody. I hadn't realized you were afraid of anything. Perhaps it explains why you never liked being on top.”
Rhapsody swallowed her retort. Her head cleared as they moved away from the churning sea, making her realize that there was nothing to be gained by infuriating him.
“How did you survive, Michael?” she asked softly, no tone of contempt evident in her voice. “I have long believed you dead.”
The seneschal turned and looked down at her, his blue eyes piercing, as if trying to gauge her intent. Rhapsody forced herself to return his gaze without any of the disdain she felt, and had always felt, for him, searching his face for changes.
The chiseled lines of his jaw and cheekbones were the same as they had been when she had known him in the old world, but they had gone much more hollow; it was as if the skin was stretched over the framework of his face a little too tightly. When he was excited, however, he seemed to thicken, his gaunt frame gaining flesh, probably from the presence of the demon rising in his blood. She had seem similar physiological changes in Ashe, when the dragon was getting the better of him.
But while the dragon in Ashe's blood was covetous and petty, avaricious and difficult to reason with on occasion, it was an innate part of him, a trait handed down from his grandmother and great-grandmother that had come into prominence because of a near-fatal blow, coincidentally from another F'dor, and the extreme measures that had been undertaken to save him in the land between life and death, the realm of the Lord and Lady Rowan. It was as much a part of him as the color of his eyes or his ability to ride a horse, and had as many endearing aspects as annoying ones.
Michael's physiological manifestations were a sign of an evil spirit that had moved into his flesh as if it were an inn or a brothel, making itself at home.
But the eyes were the same. They were the same blue, like a cloudless summer sky, with the same propensity to gleam with unholy excitement, the same unstable gaze that could break like a sudden thunderstorm without warning. His eyes had always haunted her.
Those cold blue eyes were now tinged with the flame of the Underworld itself.
“Did it matter to you when you thought I was?” he asked quietly. His face was guarded, but Rhapsody believed she saw a vulnerability there, beneath the rictus of the demon.
“Yes,” she said directly and honestly. The belief that she had escaped him, would never again have to see his face, had been one of the few happy thoughts that comforted her when she came out of the Root and discovered the Island was gone.
“I found a way to live forever,” he said simply. “It involved taking on a partner.”
“You sold yourself to a demon?”
“In a manner of speaking, but in truth it made out far better in the deal. I am not a mindless host, Rhapsody; it is I who am in control.”
Liar
, the demon whispered in his mind.
Cast me off, then, and see if you can still make that claim.
Rhapsody could not hear it, but saw his face suddenly contort, and knew he was struggling with the monster. She stood as still as she could, fearing that the ire would turn on her if she moved.
“Your Honor! We've found the pathway down to the sand beach,” Fergus called from the southern side of the promontory. “If we leave now, we can be at the shoreline before dusk. The longboats are already on their way.”
Michael's grip on Rhapsody's arm tightened again, causing her to gasp against her will. He dragged her back over to the rim of the promontory, and stared out over the ocean, now bathed in rosy golden light.
Rhapsody looked out on the sea. Away from the base of the cliff walls below them, to the south, she could see a sandy shoreline past the rocks, where the incoming tide rolled in breakers, whispering up the beach and rolling away again, unlike the mad crashing of sea against stone wall that was the shoreline directly below.
Three longboats had been launched by the vessel that lurked in the depths, rowing smoothly to the sandy shore.
“Take an archer and start down,” the seneschal ordered his reeve. “When you get to the switchback, light it and signal me; I want to know where it is if it has gone dark before we make it down.” Fergus nodded, lit the lantern and signaled to one of the bowmen, disappearing into the rocky boulders that lead down the cliff face to the beach.
“Why are you tarrying, Michael?” Rhapsody asked, a nervous edge to her voice. She was exhausted and overwrought; her normal reserve was beginning to crumble.
And she feared she already knew the answer.
He turned slowly and looked down at her thoughtfully. A beam of red sunlight broke through the low-lying clouds at the horizon, illuminating his face, making it glow with a demonic sheen.
“Isn't this a romantic spot?” he asked, his grin widening to the point of being malefic. “We have at least an hour before the longboats land. That should be plenty of time.” He tossed his head in the wind whipping up from the bellowing sea, his eyes sparking with its power, then fixing on her with a gaze that terrified her.
“I have been waiting for this for a very long time, Rhapsody. I've mourned the loss of you ever since the day you escaped from that ratty tavern, the Hat and Feathers, or some such thing, in Easton; do you remember? I sent my man to bring you to me, but you never came. They told me the Brother had taken you — was that true? What happened to him?”
“The Brother — is no more,” she stammered, her teeth chattering from fear and the chill of the night wind coming off the cold sea.
“Good. So, before we make our way down to the beach, before we spend the next six weeks on board a cramped ship tossing its way across the world, I intend to have you here, in the wind, on solid ground. I'll be denied no longer. I want to make some boulders fall into the sea.” He patted one of a pair of large rocks that formed a V near the promontory's edge.

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