The Merchant Emperor (50 page)

“I do not doubt your word. I am also not fool enough, no matter what you have come to believe, to be unaware of the risk of giving what you ask to a dragon in payment for something that should be incumbent in your stated mission anyway.”

She drew Daystar Clarion.

The dragon reared up, shock on its enormous face. The billowing flames raced down the sword’s blade, reflecting in the beast’s wide eyes.

Rhapsody reached over her own shoulder and seized the root of the fall of shining golden tresses that she wore bound in a black ribbon. Her hair had not been cut, at Ashe’s humorous insistence, for several years, and reached to just below her knees when unbound. She looked at the burning blade in her hand.

Slypka,
she said. Extinguish.

The fire that licked the epic blade disappeared, snuffed for a moment.

For the first time since entering the cave, Rhapsody looked directly into the dragon’s wide eyes.

With one smooth, almost vicious slice, she severed the entirety of the fall of golden hair at the base of her neck, just above the ribbon.

She struggled to ignore the gasps behind her, then held the sword at her side again until the flames returned a moment later. She sheathed the blade, then wound the long fall of gleaming hair like a rope and tossed it over the river of fire.

“Here,” she said. “Take it all.”

The dragon’s artificial voice gagged on its words. “Wha—”

“A larger amount should serve to remind you better of your promise.”

Like lightning the beast’s claw shot out and seized the hair, dragging it quickly up and away from the molten river racing beneath it.

“We have a deal,” Rhapsody said. It was not a question.

Witheragh stared at her. He withdrew his claw and held the hair up before his eyes on a talon as a wide smile wended its way across his face. When he looked back, his eyes were absent the condescending expression that had been there from the moment he came to the river.

“We do,” he said.

“Then let us go in peace,” Rhapsody said. “Remember your promise; guard this doorway, and keep my child safe.”

“I will,” said Witheragh. He coughed awkwardly as Rhapsody bent to retrieve her pack and turned to go. “Do you have any word of Elynsynos?”

Rhapsody stopped and looked at him again.

“I do, sadly,” she said. “I sent my most trusted scout, along with the Invoker of the Filids, to her lair, bringing healers in case she was found injured. There was no sign of her at all. The lair was sealed.”

Witheragh nodded. “As we all feared.”

“My husband stands to hold the land as he can,” Rhapsody said, shouldering her pack. “He is her direct descendant, Llauron’s son. He will do the best he can, along with the Invoker, to keep that part of the Shield intact.” She smiled slightly. “And he will appreciate your help in keeping his child safe, I can assure you, though he will not like the price. Farewell and thank you. Enjoy the hair.”

“Wait!” the dragon called as she walked back to rejoin the other women. “Where is this child I am guarding—this great-grandchild of one of the Five Daughters? Can—can I see him?”

Rhapsody’s smile was broad in return.

“Not today, I think,” she said mischievously. “That is an honor that you don’t deserve yet; I’m sorry. With all due respect, you’ve been obnoxious, and the prospect of mixing chocolate with cheese when stuffing a smoked Lirin—ugh. Revolting. And I never said the child was a boy. When I return from battle, if you have done your part and guarded my child well, perhaps then you will have merited it, and I will introduce you. Goodbye, Witheragh.”

She turned and made her way back to the women, taking her walking stick from an astonished Melisande and signaling to the others to come forward and follow her.

Melisande lagged behind for a moment, rooted to the spot on which she had been standing by the look of utter shock on the face of the beast before it turned and vanished back into the shadowy darkness of the massive cave beyond the Molten River.

Then she ran to her adopted grandmother and took her hand, fairly dancing with glee as they passed by the Molten River and traveled on to the gate of the Nain kingdom.

“
Me?
I’m your most trusted scout?”

“Well, of course. Come along, now.”

47

Once inside the massive tunnel that led to the gate of the Deep Kingdom, the leadership of the group changed. Rhapsody stepped back into the rear flank and took Meridion and the heavy cloak of mist from Krinsel, whose face remained stoic but whose body seemed happy to be relieved of the burden. Rhapsody took Gyllian aside before they went forward.

“How long to the gate?”

“A league and a half.”

The Lady Cymrian sighed. “I’m not sure Krinsel is up to that long a trek without rest.”

Gyllian nodded. “We can take refuge in one of the side-cavern barracks. If we come upon soldiers, I will address them.”

“Of course; thank you.” Rhapsody reached for Melisande’s hand. “Come, Melly—we are going to rest for a little while, have some supper, and feed Meridion before we go on. Help me put the cloak on, will you? I need to keep him covered at all times.”

The little girl nodded excitedly and helped her adopted grandmother pull her hood up. She kissed the baby’s head, then stepped away, pulling up her own hood, grinning widely.

The women followed Gyllian deeper into the earth, feeling the weight of the mountains rising above them growing heavier as they traveled. The tunnels were dark, utterly lightless except for the occasional glowing spore; Analise’s globe cast wide blue shadows in the dark main corridor, dimly illuminating the evidence of the rough-hewn tunnel making a slow change to smoothly engineered walls, ceilings, and floors with drainage runs and air vents.

Along each side of the main corridor smaller access tunnels yawned; before one of them to the right, Gyllian stopped, listened for a moment, then motioned her companions inside.

The four women and the little girl followed the Nain princess into what appeared to be a bunker of a sort, with a towering ceiling and side walls lined with what looked in the dark to be wide shelving.

“Close your eyes,” Gyllian said. She felt around in the darkness and a moment later a series of torch sconces, much like the ones that lined the hallways of Ylorc, sparked to life, smelling slightly of rancid oil.

When Rhapsody opened her eyes again, she saw that the shelves were actually bunks, made to house fifteen score or more soldiers, stacked on top of one another and connected by a series of ladders. By her estimation of the number of access tunnels, this single main corridor housed somewhere in the vicinity of twelve thousand soldiers.

And it was but one of many such main corridors that she had seen at the opening of the Deep Kingdom.

“Sit, please,” Gyllian said, indicating the lower bunks. She pulled her pack from her shoulders, laid it on the floor of the barracks tunnel, and started to pull the remains of bread and cheese stores and thin water flasks from the depths of it.

“We should eat and get back on the move as soon as we can,” she said quietly, handing bread to Analise and Krinsel, cheese to Melisande, and a waterskin to Rhapsody, who had sat down on a nearby bunk and was preparing to feed Meridion. “These outer troops have the widest sweep in their patrol routes, and will be gone for longer than most of the others, but they will return eventually; it would be best if we were gone when they do.”

The women nodded and set to eating, all except for Rhapsody, who took a quick drink from the waterskin, then put Meridion to the breast and wrapped him carefully in the mist cloak, humming a gentle tune of calming. Melisande came closer and sat down by her side, munching her cheese, and leaned up against her, loosing a deep sigh. The Lady Cymrian put her free arm around the little girl and smiled down at her.

“How are you holding up?”

The young Lady Navarne nodded, her mouth full, and caught a crumb of cheese as it threatened to fall from the corner of her lower lip.

“Mmmm fine.”

“I had no doubt. You are so brave and strong, Melly; your brother will be so proud of you when he hears all the impressive feats you have accomplished. You will be a great woman one day, because you are an amazing young lady.”

“I have an amazing example,” Melisande said, brushing away the last sands of the cheese. “I cannot believe you slashed your
hair
off like that. I almost cried—but I was so proud of you. The look on that dragon’s face when you threw it across the river—” The little girl stopped, at a loss for words.

Rhapsody chuckled. “It’s only hair, Melly; it will grow back.”

Melisande’s face grew solemn.

“Ashe would have had a fatal fit if he had seen that.”

“Perhaps, but I doubt it. One of the many things Ashe and I have in common is a willingness to do whatever it takes, no matter how much we dislike it, no matter how much it costs us, to take care of you and your brother and your little cousin.”

The Lady Navarne’s face lit up like the sunrise.

“Is Meridion my cousin?”

Rhapsody smiled.

“Well, in a way. Your father and Ashe were as close as brothers, so that pretty much makes you cousins in all ways that matter.”

Melisande sighed dramatically.

“Good. The only other cousin I know that I have is Malcolm Steward, and he’s a pest.”

Rhapsody laughed in spite of herself. “Oh, come now, Melly, he’s just a toddler. All babies are pests when they are his age.”

Melisande shook her head vehemently.

“No, they’re not. I am very certain that
I
was not a pest when I was his age—”

“You might ask your brother if he agrees with that assessment. I can assure you, all five of mine thought I was one.”

“Well, I may have been annoying, but I didn’t whine and cry for everything I wanted. Malcolm’s so fat that he won’t even go and get a toy if he wants it, but rather sits on the floor and bellyaches and points at it.” Melisande leaned back and began a realistic rendering of the half-mewing, half-whinnying noise of her young second-cousin, to Rhapsody’s barely hidden amusement. “The servants, and even his parents, grab whatever he wants and rush to get it to him just to make him stop his caterwauling. It’s
awful.
”

Rhapsody’s face grew thoughtful.

“Perhaps he is just missing his father,” she said, more to herself than to Melisande.

“Missing Tristan?” Melisande frowned. “Is he in battle?”

Rhapsody turned to her. “He’s with Ashe, or at least nearby.” She laced up her shirt, wrapped Meridion in the cloak again, stood carefully, and pulled Melisande to her feet. “Now, come along. We have a Nain king to meet.”

*   *   *

The dark feeder corridor that they rejoined had gone on for almost twice as long as they had traveled already when they began to see a glow in the distance.

Rhapsody turned to Krinsel, who was following at the back of the group.

“Are you up to carrying the baby again?” she asked quietly. “Please don’t fear to decline, Krinsel; I want you to feel secure.” The Bolg midwife nodded, and Rhapsody transferred the mist cloak and the sleeping infant to her, then moved up to behind Gyllian.

“Is that the gate up there?” she asked the Nain princess.

Gyllian smiled slightly. “I fear not; that light is the entrance to the main thoroughfare to the capital city. But the palace is not too far past the gate.” Rhapsody nodded, adjusted her pack, and took Melisande’s hand.

They continued on in silence. The light from the tunnel opening ahead was brightening their way, and every now and then they could see figures passing by, their bodies of thicker mass and broader stature for the most part. As they neared the opening, Gyllian pulled her hood down.

“Follow me, if you please, m’lady.”

“Without question.”

The princess stepped around the corner and onto the thoroughfare, followed a moment later by the rest of the women.

Rhapsody blinked in astonishment turning to delight.

The roadway was far wider than she had imagined, and passed through what appeared to be an underground village, carved from the stone of the mountain range. Houses, shops, cathedrals, even lampposts seemed to almost grow out of the stony ground, beneath smoothly carved stone bridges that spanned the tops of buildings towering in the air above them. Gardens of shade-loving plants that Rhapsody had established in her own underground flower beds in Elysian surrounded sparkling fountains and elegant statuary, all of which had an alien style to them, like the buildings and bridges, sized to a race of people built like Gyllian.

In the center of the village stood an enormous clock, formed of multicolored stone; it was surrounded by a circle of marble benches on which mothers talking to young children and elderly men drowsing were sitting, oblivious to the ticking of the metalworks of the towering timepiece with brass hands that ended in what looked like pointing fingers.

The village apparently was outside the gate; the massive stone wall that closed off the thoroughfare in the distance ahead held an imposing set of doors, taller than four human men and bound in intricate brasswork. Many levels of scaffolding held guards on both sides of the doors, behind mounted crossbows aimed over the heads of hundreds of Nain that plied the streets, shopping, bartering, arguing, and otherwise going about the business of any upworld town.

Gyllian strode deliberately down the thoroughfare, past clusters of Nain that stopped talking and stared as she walked by, with the four women hurrying to keep up behind her. As she approached the gate the streets began to fill with the noise of murmurs and whispered excitement; by the time the group arrived at the enormous wall, the sound had swelled and risen to the upper levels of the buildings lining the streets and was bouncing off the barrier, filling the square.

The guards on the ground stepped forward to meet the arriving princess, who stopped and assumed a regal stance. She relayed a series of quiet commands in a language that Rhapsody understood a few words of, recognizing it as a modernized version of the tongue that the Nain of the old world spoke. The guards exchanged wide-eyed glances of confusion, then stared at the women behind the princess, finally assenting and opening the massive doors of the gate. Rhapsody and Melisande smiled in identical pleasantry as they passed through the doorway, causing the Nain guards to blink in astonishment and shake their heads, even after the doors were beginning to close again.