The Weaver's Lament (14 page)

Leaving you at last to Achmed, who has been patiently waiting for you all this time, though you have never understood this.

Rhapsody shook her head again as a dazzling smile broke over her face, reminding Ashe of a sunrise at sea.

“I would go with you,” she said, squeezing his hands. “I have no desire whatsoever to remain in this life without you. When whatever longevity you are granted by Fate is over, I will go to the Rowans with you. The Lord Rowan has promised me that he would take me, would come for me one day if he could. I expect that they will welcome me, just as they will welcome you when the time comes, just as Oelendra went in peace to join her husband Pendaris when the F'dor was finally dead, the Council reunited.

“Had you died, in battle or otherwise, while our children were young, I would have remained here, widowed, until they were old enough to fend for themselves and establish good and happy lives. Then I would have followed you to the Veil. But that's not an issue anymore, unless—”

The music in her voice changed so abruptly that Ashe's grip on her hands tightened.

“What is it, Aria?”

Rhapsody's face went solemn, but her eyes gleamed even brighter.

“I hear another tone,” she said softly. “As I've told you. It grows stronger each day.”

Ashe sighed. They were words he had heard her speak a half dozen times before, words that had always been a source of great joy to him, though he had not heard her speak them for a very long time. Each time they had undertaken to conceive one of their children, it was in response to just such words, Rhapsody's inner sense that a child was waiting out in the ether, preparing to come through the doorway that was their love for one another, into the material world. She had, in fact, spoken these words to him several times over the last few decades, but had refrained from bringing them up after he had started to inquire about the strike of starfire from Daystar Clarion. He held out his hands to her, hands that trembled slightly with age.

“I am too old to do this again,” he said wearily. “I'm sorry, my love.”

Rhapsody's glowing expression faded.

“I—I—but there is a child waiting, Ashe, a person, an entity, a living soul waiting to be born of our love. Our last child.”

“We are great-grandparents,” Ashe said. “Most of our grandchildren are grown. Time may not have marked a day on you since you stepped forth from the Root into this world, but even if my Cymrian lineage prevents it from showing, I am an elderly man.”

“I can assure you that you still knob like a boy of fourteen.” Her voice was light but strained. “In all the good ways—your stamina is stellar.”

“Be that as it may, I cannot imagine putting you, or both of us, through another pregnancy. You have given me the six most beautiful, wonderful children in the world, and they in turn have given us precious grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They are inestimable treasure, both to the human and the dragon side of me. We have so much to be grateful for already.”

“You are missing the point,” she said archly. “You do not need to tell me to be grateful for our children; words do not exist that sufficiently describe how much I am grateful. But there is another soul, a unique entity, that is
waiting to be born
. We can't ignore it; I can
hear
it. I have tried not to push you on this, because you have been so insistent upon your own transformation, but we have a daughter or a son who needs us, who has been waiting for a very long time.”

“I'm sorry, Emily,” Ashe said as gently as he could. “I truly am. I understand that you are, in the eyes of Time, a young woman still. But I am not a young man; I can feel myself declining more each day. I have dearly loved each time you have made me a father, but I am too old to do it again.” He felt her agitation rising and reached for her but she pushed him away.

“What—what am I supposed to do, then, Ashe? The presence of this tone is haunting; on nights when you fall asleep before me it hounds me, ringing within my soul. How do you expect me to live with that knowledge, that we have a child waiting for us that you have decided not to bring into the world?”

“The same way any other parents live with the knowledge that they might have had more children, but have decided not to.”

“Other parents cannot hear their children calling before birth the way Namers can. Once we conceived each of our children, joined pieces of our souls to make them begin, once they took root inside me I could perceive glimpses of their personalities; I knew Meridion would be a Namer, that Laurelyn would be in love with the Earth, that Allegra could lead armies, that Joseph was tied to fire. They were not merely possibilities to me, Ashe, nor is this one that has been calling for so long; you do not understand what you are decreeing by telling me you will not give me another child. It would be as if a child we had deliberately made had died within me.”

Ashe turned away dispiritedly.

“You want me to father another child, a child I will not live to see grow up, while I disintegrate into a useless wreck, or spin madly into a rampage which may kill him, or you?”

Rhapsody exhaled, her face absent any internal light. “I no longer know what to say. I have no words.”

Ashe watched her for a long time, seeing the fire on the hearth diminish behind her. Finally he crossed the small room to where she was standing and took her into his arms again.

“How about this—what if this child is, well, meant to be like a farewell gift? I could break open my soul one more time, could help you conceive him or her; then, when the baby is born, or at least once you are pregnant, you could finally grant my request.

“If I am transitioned to wyrm form, I suppose I could help at least with a young child's training. It would not be the same for this child as it was for the others, and you would have to ponder whether or not that would be acceptable to you. You would have to decide if you could be the only parent with arms to hold him or her, and whether having a father that is a noncorporeal dragon would be too scarring. The other children would help you raise their sibling, I'm certain, and I would be as present in the child's life as it is possible for me to be. But the risk you run then is that he or she will be more dragon than human, because that is the makeup of my blood now, as opposed to when I sired our other children.”

Rhapsody wiped away stinging tears from her eyes.

“Please forgive me; I can't talk about this any more. I will ponder everything we have said tonight, Ashe, as I hope you will as well. Now I must return to the dishes; I want to give them a chance to drain so you can tend to your drying duties before bed.”

She tossed a dishcloth to him and turned to the sink. If it were not for the sensitive network of draconic senses that obsessed over every detail of his wife, Ashe would never have known that tears were streaming down her face as she scrubbed the plates and pots amid the steam of the sink.

Finally, when the dishes were clean and dry and put away, Ashe came up behind Rhapsody, turned her around gently, and took her into his arms. He kissed her upturned ear.

“Are you angry with me, Aria?”

“Not in the slightest,” she said, her answer spoken into his shoulder. “I'm just sad because, after more than a thousand years, I don't know what to do to make you happy.”

The Lord Cymrian exhaled, then pulled slowly away from her. He looked down into her eyes, studying them. Then he slid his fingers into the crown of her hair, caressing her head.

“Not in the long term, perhaps,” he said quietly. “But I am absolutely certain that until this night becomes the new day, you know exactly what to do to make me happy.”

He kissed her again, taking his time, then led her to bed, blocking out the notice that the smile she had given him in return had a tinge of sadness.

*   *   *

In the morning it was as if the conversation had never taken place, just as it had been every year before.

 

12

Ashe held the door of the turf hut as Rhapsody carried the last of her gear outside, then locked it carefully, amused at the ritual that was a gesture with no real meaning, but seen as a sign of his protection of their special place and its privacy.

As always, she had gotten up with the sun to launder the sheets, towels, and tablecloths and sweep the tiny house clean, had made the bed and written her note for their return next year.

The notes were another tradition that had begun at the end of the honeymoon after their formal wedding, wishing each other well amid loving and occasionally randy commentary. The honeymoon had been a gloriously private respite away from all the planning and celebration that they had endured and enjoyed leading up to the big day. After all the strife and misunderstanding, the betrayal and pain that had occurred prior to the success of the Cymrian Council, which had itself ended in tragedy and battle, the fortnight they had spent alone in the turf hut, adorned only with fresh rose petals and the simplest of luxuries he had provided as a surprise, had been the closest thing to reliving their one night in Serendair that he had been able to arrange.

He closed his eyes as the sweet wind buffeted his face, and inhaled, as he had done for a thousand years, trying to keep this place embedded in his memory.

A random thought appeared in his mind, a recollection from the second night they had spent as lovers, long ago, deep in the grotto of Elysian. His heart, until the previous day wounded from being torn open two decades before, was finally healed, and it overflowed into his eyes, which could not stop staring into those of the woman he held in his arms, tangled in the sheets of her bed.

All I ever want to do is to protect you,
he had said to her, unguarded love ringing in his husky voice.
I never want anything terrible to happen to you.

Rhapsody had smiled up at him, but her eyes had held a trace of sadness.

You're sweet,
she had said.
But you are too late. Many terrible things have happened to me—and yet I am still here, having survived them.

I want to wrap my body and my life around you, and make anything that would seek to harm you have to come through me first,
he had said.

Eyes closed, he could still see the tears form in hers as she smiled and kissed him.

When he opened them again, his wife was no longer in his sight. He let the dragon sense for her and found her down at the banks of the rushing waterfall, so he dropped his gear and made his way to her.

When he found her, he stopped for a moment to take in the sight.

The Lady Cymrian and Lirin queen was dressed in simple skirts and a woven shirt, her hair loose around her shoulders, looking for all the world like a peasant or commoner, the birth class to which she had been born. She had dipped her toes in the water, and was now sitting with her arms around her knees, watching the pools of golden sunlight form and rush away over the waterfall's drop.

Ashe, who had dressed simply in common clothing as well, descended the hillside and sat down beside her.

“Are you ready to go?”

She smiled at the waterfall. “Not yet, unless you're in a hurry.”

“No hurry,” he said, watching a tern dive and flap away again. “The children, the Grands, and the Greats have been arriving sporadically for the past sennight or so. We can go back whenever you want.”

Rhapsody sighed. “Another secret wedding anniversary come and gone,” she said, letting the sunlight dance on her eyelashes.

“Indeed,” Ashe said, putting his arm around her.

His wife turned and kissed his cheek. “I have three things I want to say to you before we go home.”

He pulled her closer and returned the kiss on her lips warmly, lingering as the wind rustled their hair, then smiled as she did. “I am listening, my love.”

“The first is this—thank you for keeping the land at peace for the better part of a thousand years,” she said, gently touching his freshly shaven face. “It has made the inevitable loss of the people we have loved a good deal easier. So far, Fate has blessed us; we have lost none of our children, our Grands, or our Greats, even as some of their spouses have passed. The next millennia will surely be a good deal harder.” Her face took on a trace of sadness. “I beg you not to leave me to face that alone if you possibly can help it.”

Ashe exhaled but said nothing. He turned back to the waterfall.

She kissed his cheek again. “I love you.”

“I know,” he said. “I love you, too. And I apologize for the discussion last night. I'm selfish and grumpy and I say stupid things. I feel so very old, especially when I see you sitting here in the sunlight, the image of the girl I remember from Merryfield. I sense the time is coming when my aging will be more of a trial for you than it has been for me.”

“How so?”

“I don't want you to waste your youth tending to a cantankerous old man.”

Rhapsody chuckled. “Why not? You spent yours putting up with a demanding and hotheaded woman.”

He turned to her and looked at her seriously. “I have been nothing but blessed.”

“How's this?” she said, trying to sound practical. “This was the second thing I wanted to say: we have another anniversary coming up shortly—that of our formal wedding. Let us each consider what the other has said, and agree to talk about it again on that day, a few weeks hence, instead of waiting another year. I will try to behave less emotionally. But please understand, what you have asked of me is without question the most awful request I have ever had to contemplate. I am trying to be brave about it, but I have not been able to find the courage to face it. I understand that you believe this to be the best solution to your torment and pain, but I am in great fear of losing you in the Afterlife—and, were that to happen, I might as well be condemned to the Vault of the Underworld after death.”