Destiny: Child Of Sky (90 page)

From within the Lirin contingent at the edge of the First Fleet, Oelendra's voice rang out, cutting through the noise of the Bowl. “She is the Lirin queen, and the Iliachenva'ar," she declared. At once discussion broke out again, murmured and muttered, particularly among the Nain.

'Irrelevant,“ shouted Anwyn; silence fell immediately. "You have no right to have even touched that horn, girl. Those rights are reserved to the Lady or Lord Cymrian, as is the right to call this Council."

'Nonsense,“ Anborn bellowed from within the Third Fleet. "That is the horn of the Cymrians, made for use in time of need or to summon the Council, as is the right of any Cymrian soul. No restrictions were put on its use, it is not your personal possession." His brazen tone resulted in the assemblage taking a collective breath and holding it.

Anwyn's anger smoldered, and her eyes burned more brightly blue. “You'd best be careful, Anborn; I disowned you centuries ago. Do you wish to challenge me here?" Anborn met her gaze without looking away, but said nothing. The air became slightly more static-filled, and overhead the sky began to darken as the wispy clouds thickened, heavy with unshed rain. A moment later Anwyn smiled. “I thought not. In the presence of witnesses, it is usually best for a traitor to keep silent."

'Traitor?“ shouted one of the Lirin of the First Fleet. "Who are you to accuse another of treachery?" Murmurs of agreement rose softly around the speaker.

Anwyn turned slowly and glared at the man, who seemed to sink before her withering stare. He trembled in fear, unable to break the wyrmkin's serpentine gaze.

'Grandmother!" Ashe cried out, his voice clear in the silence that had returned.

“We are in Council! You are prohibited by the law of the Moot from assaulting another within the Bowl, you know that better than anyone!"

'Since when has Anwyn ever abided by the law?" muttered someone from the Second Fleet.

Anwyn ignored the comments and turned her glower on Ashe. “Are you turning against me as well? Siding with him over me?"

'There is no need to take sides; I am only pointing out that you are on the verge of breaking your own rule. Whether you like it or not, the fact that we are all here proves we are officially in Council, and Her Majesty has called us to order."

'If we are in Council, then this girl has no right to chair it,“ Anwyn retorted, turning to Rhapsody once more. "There can be no Council without the Lord or Lady to preside over it. There is now and always has been, and will ever be only one Lady Cymrian. I am the Lady of this Council! Stand down, wench." She strode across the Bowl to the foot of the Speaker's Rise and began to climb the twisting path to the pulpit structure.

The Bowl erupted in turmoil. Words of condemnation and disbelief filled the air, drowning out all of Rhapsody's attempts to restore order. Achmed was certain that Anwyn's smile grew brighter as the outcry increased in intensity. Anborn was speaking strongly to Edwyn Griffyth, who in turn glared skyward and pointed in anger as Anwyn ascended the Speaker's Rise. The fleets and the Diaspora had dissolved into chaos, with foul shouts being heard and the shaking of fists seen everywhere. When she reached the first crest of the Rise, Anwyn stood tall and smiled proudly, reveling in the upheaval she had caused.

A moment later the air was rent by the blast of the horn. The assemblage froze, and even Anwyn's face blanched in shock. The last echo of the note died away, taking with it the resentful murmurs.

Rhapsody's face was calm as she lowered the horn from her lips. Achmed smiled at the grace with which she was comporting herself. He could tell by the color of her eyes that she was furious.

'There seems to be some dispute with your claim, Anwyn," she said politely.

'What this rabble says is of no consequence,“ Anwyn answered, unruffled by the silent hatred, rising in almost palpable waves, from the floor of the Moot. "I am the Lady Cymrian. While I live, there can be no other."

At once the air was filled with ugly shouted threats from volunteers offering to rectify that situation. Angry voices surged forth again, and Anwyn stared coldly down at the rabble calling for her to step away from the Rise. The sonorous voice of one of the ancient Seren could be heard above the others.

'Despite what you claim, you were cast out of this Council and stripped of your position. You no longer hold any tide here."

'I do not recognize the authority of the Council to perform such an act," Anwyn replied icily.

'You do not recognize?“ shouted Anborn, angrier than those about him had ever seen him. "What makes you think you have the right to recognize anything? The Council named you Lady, and after you disgraced yourself and almost destroyed all of us, we threw you out!"

Anwyn drew herself up to her full height and glared at her estranged son, whose words had driven the mob back into silence again. “You are a fine one to accuse another of disgrace, Nonentity. And my right to this land comes from a legacy far older than anyone here. My blood is the eldest in this land—I am the child of Merithyn the Explorer, and the dragon whose realm this was long before any of you came here. I am the bond! My very existence is the symbol of the tie between the Cymrians and this land, the union of the blood of the most ancient from the Island of Serendair with the Firstborn of this land as well. Which of you can claim that? Who can dispute my right?"

'Actually—" began Edwyn Griffyth, but his words were drowned by Anwyn's continuing tirade.

'I am the Seer of the Past, the child of the Ancient Ones, the living emblem of the unity of the people with the land. Without me you would have been cast back into the sea from which you crawled! You owed me your lives then, as you do now—who do you think is responsible for your longevity, your immortality? Who among you has the right to decry me?"

There was silence. As the echo of her voice died away unanswered, Anwyn looked down on the quiet throng with a victorious smile. She glanced around at the Cymrian assemblage, the piercing blue eyes taking in the people she had once ruled, once fought beside, once fought against. Her gaze came to rest for a moment on Oelendra, and the smile melted from her face, replaced by seething hatred. The Lirin warrior met her stare without blinking. Anwyn began to tremble with rage and raised her hand, pointing at her in accusation.

'I have the right to decry you.“ Ashe's voice broke the silence, and all eyes turned immediately in his direction. "You have betrayed your position as Seer. You lied to me."

A low murmur swept through the crowd again, colored more with astonishment than anger.

Anwyn's golden face deepened to a shade approaching purple. “Blasphemy! I told you no untruth."

'No, you told me a half-truth! You manipulated what you saw and told me only what you wished me to know, not what I needed to, and not what I asked. That, Grandmother, is the same thing as lying. You betrayed the last shred of trust I had in you.

'Your lie broke my heart, but that is my suffering alone, and for that, perhaps, you could be forgiven. But in choosing to keep the truth from me, to keep me under your thumb, you hid the nature of the coming of the Three. Far too many have died because of that, Grandmother. It is yet another betrayal of the Cymrian people, and their champions, who were needlessly slaughtered seeking a demon we could have defeated without costing their lives! You will never find forgiveness now."

His eyes turned to Rhapsody; the rest of the Council presumed he was yielding the floor, but Achmed, who stood slightly below her, facing the same direction she did, saw something more. He had no knowledge of what lie it was that Ashe was referring to, but it somehow seemed to have something to do with her. He glanced up in Rhapsody's direction; her face was blank. Obviously she had no idea what he was talking about, either, but the sudden attention brought a rosy blush to her cheeks.

He was not alone in his notice; Anwyn was staring at the Lirin queen, too. Her face grew hard, and she looked from Rhapsody to Oelendra and back again.

'Stand down, girl,“ she commanded. "These are my people, this is my Council. I am the Lady of the Cymrians, and I do not cede to you any right to act as the chair of this Council."

Rhapsody smiled. There was a quiet but audible intake of breath among the assemblage, and they began to mutter angrily among themselves. In the time since the first to arrive had come, the Cymrian people had lost their hearts to the gentle Singer, the unassuming queen who behaved like a respectful peasant, and Achmed knew their devotion to her was strong.

A deeper anger was brewing within them now, an outrage at the insulting manner in which Anwyn was treating her. Achmed knew that Rhapsody understood this as well, and that was why she smiled. It was a way of defusing the situation before it exploded in a frenzy of loyal violence.

'I hardly think you should be referring to me as 'girl,' given that my birth predates yours by several centuries," she said calmly.

A haughty sneer curled on the Seer's lip. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Achmed felt no such compunction to be polite. “It means," came the cool, sandy voice of the Firbolg king, cutting through the murmurs of the crowd like a slashing sword, “that the girl doesn't like the way she is being addressed by the hag."

Laughter mixed with gasps of shock rippled through the crowd. Anwyn's face contorted in rage, and Rhapsody looked horrified.

'Achmed, you're out of line,“ she said reproachfully. "Anwyn is not a hag."

'Right you are,“ came the furious voice of Grunthor. The assemblage turned toward the sound to see the giant Firbolg commander straining to control his wrath; he was losing the battle, and it was a horrific prospect. The outrage the Cymrians had felt on Rhapsody's behalf paled by comparison to the rage in the eyes of her dear friend. "She's a bloody 'arfy. Oi'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your flamin'

'ead, missus, and act more respectfully towards 'Er Ladyship, or Oi'll personally rip out whatever is where your 'eart oughta be and eat it raw." There was another collective intake of breath from the Council. There was no way that could be perceived as an idle threat. Rhapsody gestured to Achmed, who stood beside the Sergeant, and he touched the giant's elbow.

Anwyn was livid. "How dare you speak to me that way, you subhuman monster?

You ill-begotten freak of nature? Your presence soils this noble ground. As your ruler I command you, leave this Moot at once, and if you ever dare to even raise your cannibalistic face in my presence, I will smite you down into the mudfilth from which you and your people sprang." She shot him a look of hatred, the dragon-eye attack she had used on the Lirin spokesman earlier, that had reduced the man to a quivering mass on the floor of the Bowl.

Grunthor would have none of it. “ 'Ave at me, then, ya bitch!" he roared, his enraged cry echoing off the rockwalls of the Bowl and over the Teeth, where even the Bolg within the mountains heard it and trembled.

He scrambled down from the outcropping on which he stood and dashed toward the Speaker's Rise. The terrifying sight caused the assemblage to gasp. He was brute strength in motion, seven and a half feet of infuriated musculature single-mindedly intent on murder. He would have been at the foot of the Rise a moment later had Achmed not vaulted down in front of him and interposed his body between them. The path to the Seer was clear; the Lirin Cymrians who had been standing below Rhapsody on the Summoner's Ledge had moved back hastily when Grunthor's exchange with Anwyn had begun.

'Sergeant-Major, don't lower yourself,“ Achmed said in a stern voice. "She is not fit to wipe your boots; don't soil your hands by tearing out her throat, no matter how much she deserves it.“ He looked into the giant's face; Grunthor was panting with rage, every muscle straining to avoid throwing Achmed out of his path. "As your king I command it."

'Not fit?“ came the powerful trumpet-voice. Anwyn laughed, and the sound blasted the ears of the assemblage. "I, the Lady Cymrian, the victor in the Great War, am not fit? So speaks the evidence that prophecies are generally a disappointment."

Manwyn bristled at her words and clenched her fists. “My people, behold the Three, your purported saviors, the ones my sister said would rescue us all from the wrath of an invisible demon. Look at them in all their splendor. First, we have the giant freak, an animal that appears to have recently escaped from a traveling circus! Beside him his noble lord, the Purveyor of Death, the assassin who, like a whore, served whoever paid him, killing indiscriminately—"

'I believe she means me,“ Achmed said to the crowd, raising his hand. He turned his face to Anwyn, whose speech had been choked off with his interruption. A mocking smile crossed his face. "Oh, I'm sorry, Annie, that was presumptuous.

Were you referring to yourself? Certainly you earned the title far better than I ever did. The Purveyor of Death? My trophies pale in comparison to yours. I can't claim, as only you can, to have annihilated a quarter of my own people over a domestic squabble. If only Gwylliam had slapped you harder, maybe he would have broken your bony neck and none of us would be here to have to endure your rantings now. Pity he didn't.

'And whore? Well, yes, I suppose that applies to you again. Who else would sell out her kingdom and that of her allies, the Lirin, to the same demon who once almost destroyed an entire nation? Would give it the opportunity to do so again?

All to avenge herself on her fool of a husband? You are the consummate whore, Anwyn. Get off the Rise and out of my lands before I step away and let Grunthor remove your head from your shoulders and use your skull for a chamber pot."

The silence in the Bowl was absolute; even the sounds of nature had died away.

Anwyn's face had been frozen in amazement; over the span of her entire lifetime no one had ever dared to speak to her in that manner. Her eyes narrowed to slits for a moment as she formulated her response; when she had done so, she smiled cruelly.

'I thank you for granting me the title of Consummate Whore, but I'm afraid I can't accept it. That would belong to another in this assemblage.“ She turned toward Rhapsody. "Step forward, Your Majesty, and—“Enough!" Ashe's voice thundered over the Moot, ringing with the multi-toned echoes of the dragon in his blood. He knew what was coming, and would sooner die, or kill Anwyn where she stood, than allow it. He turned toward the Seer of the Present. “Rhonwyn, who is the Lady Cymrian?"