The Weaver's Lament (6 page)

The Three had not arrived yet.

He imagined by now Avriel had become aware of his exit, and most likely was not particularly surprised. She had become accustomed to his odd comings and goings, and rarely complained, unless he had forgotten to leave a note.

He was pleased that he had remembered to so do this time.

Avriel—thank you for your stellar help, as always. Answering the Lady's call. Will return shortly. M

He smiled, anticipating the arrival of the Three, the trio of epic renown that to him had always been guardian, godfather, and mother.

He was indulging in fond thoughts and funny memories when a twinge of the Future rattled his good mood.

Meridion looked rapidly around, but saw nothing. He cursed under his breath.

While his gift with the manipulation of Time was a very convenient and useful one most often, on occasion it was unduly disturbing. He had almost unlimited access to the noncorporeal vision of the Past, allowing him to step back in Time, if he knew where he needed to go, to see things that had occurred long ago, or, one of the traits most annoying to his friends and relations, repeating disputed words of an event for the record. He also could travel, quickly and unseen, over great distances in the wink of an eye, in the Present.

The Future, while more available to him than to most people, was a mystery that occasionally gave him broad or subtle hints, but only small ones.

And it raised his hackles without giving him reassurance.

It was a small enough price to pay for the other aspects of the power.

And, he reminded himself that, while as far as he knew, his ability to pause and manipulate Time was a unique one, many people had such glimpses of the Future, from premonitions and dreams to simple gooseflesh out of nowhere. His own mother had been bedeviled by such premonitions and dreams until she had married his father, a man with dragon's blood who could chase such nightmares away.

He cherished a memory of her from the distant Past that he had once caught while experimenting with the Time Viewer, a machine of a sort, an invention he had been tinkering with that allowed him to catch glimpses of things that had happened in the Past. It was a vision of his mother as a young child, four or five, perhaps, working on her family's farm in Merryfield in the old world.

She had been gathering eggs in the chicken coop when a shiver had run through her.

Daddy,
she had said to her father, a man Meridion had never met.
It happened again.

His human grandfather had turned around and smiled at her.

The tickle?

Yes.

That's just a goose walking over your grave. Pay it no mind.

His mother had looked at her father seriously.
I have a grave?

His grandfather's smile had resolved into a pleasant, though serious, expression.

Everyone has a grave, child, but being that you are half Lirin, yours will probably be the wind. It's just a silly farm-folk expression. Now, finish up with the eggs.

The little girl had nodded.
Yes, Daddy.
She had gone back to the nests, shaking her head of wavy golden hair, muttering to herself, too quietly for her father to hear.

No damn goose better be walking on
my
grave, whatever that is. I don' like gooses.

Meridion chuckled as he always did upon seeing the image again. He leaned back against the door of the longhouse and closed his eyes.

Enjoying the memory, the sun on his face, the wind in his hair, the song of the birds in the trees of southern Tyrian, and the undisturbed Present he was sharing with the rest of the world, without a thought of the Future, looming in the distance, beckoning.

SOUTHWESTERN TYRIAN, NEAR THE FOREST EDGE

Achmed sat back in his chair and raised his tankard to his lips, hiding his smile behind it.

A pleasant serenity reigned in the longhouse where the Three had taken shelter; the food had been more than satisfactory and the ale was of a solid quality and pleasant. The laughter that had accompanied the meal had banished the Sergeant's exhaustion, and his own disquieted melancholy.

Now Grunthor and Rhapsody were engaged in a fiercely competitive Bolg game of cards known as Crusher that, when played in Ylorc, involved the exchange of varying levels of violent blows, usually to the face, but occasionally to the balls. The other two of the Three were exchanging flicks of the fingers, still more dangerous to Rhapsody than to Grunthor, while he himself sat, with his feet on a footrest of perfect height, taking in the tableau of how things had once been when days were simpler.

And happier,
he thought.
Definitely happier.

There had been a good deal of catching up, of bawdy laughter and repulsive humor, the sharing of stories, both amusing and sad, and, above all, an ease of being in one another's presence again.

Meridion, Rhapsody's eldest son, had met them at the door of the longhouse upon their arrival. Achmed was grudgingly fond of all of her children, but had a special affinity for Meridion, having participated in his life-threatening delivery and through the many stages of danger that had hovered around him as an infant, to see him grow into a likable young man with a worldly sense of humor and an appropriate view of his own place in said world.

Rhapsody's youngest and oldest children favored her physically, being the slightest of both the men and women in the generation, both with their mother's golden hair, though Meridion had inherited his father's curls, and both had the vertical pupils in their blue eyes that all of Ashe's children displayed.

After Meridion were two strapping offspring, Allegra and Stephen, each sporting their father's red-gold hair and their mother's emerald eyes atop bodies reflecting the soldier's build of their father more than the slight build of their mother.

Then a pair of brown heads had been born a century or so apart, Elienne, who had arrived in between the two redheads, and Joseph, who Rhapsody claimed had the same hair color as her brothers. Achmed and Grunthor had disputed those claims and had made great merriment pointing at a multitude of dark-haired men of revolting backgrounds, nominating them as her so-called “bastard” children's fathers, much to Rhapsody's amusement and Ashe's annoyance.

The final child was Laurelyn, recently ordained as the Invoker of the Filids, who looked so much like Rhapsody from a distance that it still tended to startle the Bolg king, who had searched her for her heartbeat, without finding it, more than once before approaching her.

Though he would have never admitted it, some of Achmed's favorite times over the millennia had been those days in which Rhapsody had brought her children to Ylorc for visits and training, particularly in the forge and the engineering that their great-grandfather Gwylliam had originally brought to the mountain. Stephen and Elienne had shown the most aptitude for that, while Allegra had trained at length with Grunthor in military leadership, and Laurelyn had been effective in learning the ways of the Bolg midwives. Joseph and Meridion had studied the Lightcatcher, the redesigned machine set into the peak of Gurgus within the mountain range, that made use of the science of colored light and sound.

But a millennium had passed, and now Rhapsody's children were grown, as were most of their children. Achmed had begun to notice some aging occurring in the line among a few of the grandchildren whose other parents had little or no Cymrian heritage, and the discovery had unsettled him.

Thankfully, the oldest child, Meridion, still maintained the appearance, air, and demeanor of youth. He sat with Achmed while the other two exchanged gentle finger flicks and participated in delightfully sardonic commentary.

“Do you wish to lay a wager on the game?” Achmed asked him in a loud aside. “I will give you two to one on Grunthor.”

Meridion bowed his head in false modesty and demurred.

“Stand up straight and shrink from no one,” his mother said in similarly false annoyance as she flicked Grunthor's hand, causing him to whimper and put it in his mouth for comfort. “Look every man in the eye, Meridion, and spit in that eye if you feel the need to—including that of your loudmouthed guardian.”

Both the Bolg king and her son chuckled.

Finally, Meridion rose from his chair.

“I must return to the Repository to finish up with the cataloguing of the symposium,” he said, a tone of genuine regret in his voice. “I'm delighted that you summoned me, Uncle; it's been marvelous seeing you both on this side of the continent. Don't let me disrupt your game, Mimen; it appears you have Grunthor at disaster's door.”

“His arm is a lot more enflamed than mine,” Rhapsody said proudly.

“Ya do know Oi'm 'oldin' back, right?” the Sergeant-Major demanded jovially.

Meridion laughed as he took his leave. “I'm really grateful to have this image in my mind as I write the history of the Three,” he said from the doorway. “If the Cymrian populace could see the epic trio engaging in a game of Crusher rather than ruling the world, it would be most unsettling—or perhaps gratifying. Travel well, Uncle, Godfather, and I will see you shortly, Mimen.”

Achmed was left alone to observe the ridiculous image of the Sergeant and the Lady Cymrian swatting at each other.

A knock sounded on the longhouse door.

Rhapsody rose and went to open it as Achmed and Grunthor moved subtly behind the table, each within reach of a weapon.

As she pulled back the door, Rhapsody laughed aloud.

Her granddaughter Cara, Stephen's oldest child, stood there, her spouse Evannii beside her, each of the women bearing a plate of gingerbread men and women intricately decorated with frosting as soldiers in the army of the Alliance.

“Are the uncles here, Hamimen?” Cara asked humorously. “As you can see, we've been baking for them.”

“Absolutely. Please come in—cookies would be welcome at this point.” Rhapsody stepped aside to allow the two women to deliver their baked goods and receive warm embraces from Grunthor and a pleasant acknowledgment from the Bolg king. Cara stripped the parchment from the plates while Evannii held them out for Grunthor's inspection.

“Ah—this one looks like Hasgarth Thomlinson, that pompous fart,” said the Sergeant-Major, examining one with a fat belly that resembled one of the captains of the Alliance's guard units. He bit the head off summarily, to the amusement of all three women. “Goody. Oi love eatin' vicariously.”

“These taste far better than I expect their models would,” Achmed said, breaking one into several pieces and sampling it. “I have no doubt Hasgarth Thomlinson himself would give me gas, if not diarrhea.”

“Are we interrupting, Hamimen?” Cara asked after Grunthor had helped himself to the better part of three dozen gingerbread soldiers. “We can come back later.”

“Not at all,” Rhapsody said. She turned to the other two of the Three. “I have an appointment with my granddaughters; I hope you will excuse us. It has been wonderful, as always, to visit with you. I do hope you will change your minds and reconsider coming to the family summit.”

Achmed shook his head emphatically while Grunthor sighed.

“Gotta be on my way south, Duchess, but fanks again,” he said wistfully.

“Please do consider what I said about refraining from provoking Ashe,” Rhapsody said seriously as she put her arms around his neck. “I've come to greatly appreciate the peace that our kingdoms have enjoyed for all these centuries. I would very much like it to remain thus.”

“I promise nothing,” said Achmed, rising and receiving a farewell hug from Cara and Evannii. “We are occasionally noting shortages in the supplies that Roland merchants who have contracts with the Alliance quartermaster have been delivering to Ylorc. If this flagrant swindling continues, we will have to resort to making unannounced visits to the commissaries and storehouses to retrieve all of what we have paid for. I hope this point is not lost on you, Rhapsody.”

“I will absolutely convey your concerns, and look into the ledgers myself,” she promised.

“Good.” He assumed an annoyed stance as Rhapsody came to him and kissed him on the cheek.

“I love you, you petulant thing,” she said.

Achmed grunted noncommittally, as was his custom, while she went and embraced Grunthor enthusiastically again.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she said from the depths of his embrace.

“Feelin's mutual, miss.” The giant grinned broadly, the look of exhaustion leaving his eyes for a moment.

“Why does Grunthor get three ‘I love you's while Achmed only receives one?” Evannii asked in amusement.

“He's three times as big?” Cara suggested.

“She loves me three times as much?” Grunthor offered.

“Just tradition, started a thousand years ago,” Rhapsody said, patting the giant as he released her. “And the fact that he's three times more willing to hear it than Achmed.”

“Since when comparing his willingness to mine, you are multiplying by zero, he's a thousand times more willing to hear it,” said the Bolg king, opening the door of the longhouse. “A million times. A billion times.”

“I will meet you both in the rotunda in the main hall of the palace of Newydd Dda once I've taken your uncles to the border,” Rhapsody said to her granddaughters. “I want to be able to consult the diadem in our discussions, and if I'm going to do that, I need to put on more appropriate attire.”

Achmed rolled his eyes.

“
Never
misses a chance to change into fussy clothes. Some things never change.”

 

5

TYRIAN CITY

The royal complex of Tyrian City, the capital of the Lirin kingdom, was set on a series of graduated hills leading up to Tomingorllo, the tallest of them, where the throne room was built into the summit.