The Weaver's Lament (7 page)

At the base of the first hill, Newydd Dda, was the main hall where the royal living quarters and the ambassadorial suites were housed.

Rhapsody dismounted and handed the reins of the roan to one of the two Lirin soldiers accompanying her. She gave the horse a cube of sugar and a gentle scratch of the ears, then bade the soldiers goodbye and hurried to the main hall's great rotunda, the showpiece of Tyrian's architecture. She walked quickly across the vast central courtyard, where the singing fountains splashed in the sunlight, surrounded by a high stone wall and guard towers.

The courtyard led directly into the rotunda, which contained an enormous circular hearth at the center, where a perennial fire warmed the entire palace year-round. Many tall trees that had been built within the palace's structure had grown to towering heights, and were beginning to show indications that autumn was approaching, unlike the glorious plants and flowers that were kept in a constant growing season by the heat that circulated from the hearth, making it feel like a conservatory.

A screen of faceted crystal circled the hearth, casting prismatic patterns all around the rotunda, something that had delighted Rhapsody from the first time she had come to this place, and the dancing colors always gave her pause to stop and appreciate the beauty of the palace where she lived part of the year.

Sitting on a cushioned, semicircular bench were Cara and Evannii, holding hands in the glow of the fire.

“I'm so sorry to keep you waiting, my dears,” she said, kissing each of them as they stood and embraced her. “It took longer than I expected to see your uncles off.”

“Not to worry,” said Cara. “We really appreciate the time you've taken to research the lore for us, but—”

“Tarry a moment, Cara. I know it may sound overly formal, but I need to put on a Naming robe, and to maintain silence as we go up to Tomingorllo,” Rhapsody said. “In matters as important as the one we have been discussing, it's critical that we observe all the rites and rituals of Naming.”

The women exchanged a glance.

“Very well, Hamimen,” Cara said. “We will follow your lead.”

*   *   *

A quarter hour later, the three women were standing at the heavy oak doors of the room atop Tomingorllo, where the court and throne stood.

“This, unlike the main hall of Newydd Dda, is a more austere, less ornate hall,” Rhapsody said as she swung the pair of doors open. “I didn't realize it when I first beheld this place, but the austerity is designed to keep what is said and done within this chamber as clear and commonly understood as possible. It is here that the united Lirin kingdom, representatives from the Lirin of the plains, of the sea, of the forest, and from Manosse on the other side of the Prime Meridian gather to work in unison on the business and leadership of the kingdom.”

“Should that not be ‘queendom,' Hamimen?” Cara asked jokingly. “You have been the monarch for a thousand years.”

Rhapsody laughed. “Fair enough. I shall bring up that nomenclature at the next conclave, but secretly I am always hoping that another will come and take my place every time we meet. Perhaps next time it will be a king.”

“And is that why you leave your crown behind when you go to Highmeadow, Hamimen?” Evannii asked. She was from Manosse, and, having only recently moved with Cara to the continent, had never seen the diadem.

Rhapsody shook her head, smiling.

“No, my dear. It is always a great honor to wear the diadem. I try to remember that each time I place it back in its case. The next time the case is opened, it may choose another head to rest upon. The Crown of Stars is not my crown, beloved granddaughter. It is the crown of our people. Come, I'll show you.”

They entered the enormous room atop the tallest hill. On the other side of the oaken doors was a marble rotunda with an overarching dome held up by pillars that stood ten feet from the wall. The dome had a large opening in the middle, leaving the center of the room open to the sky.

Across from the doors stood the throne of the Lirin kingdom, carved of black marble with pillar-like arms and a low, straight back. A great stone fireplace stood, dark and cold, at each of the other two directional points of the circle.

Much like the iridescent lights that leapt from the fireplace screen in the main hall at Newydd Dda, glittering colors were dancing around this gigantic room as well. But rather than being generated by the flames of the fire shining through leaded glass, they were blazing with brilliant fragments of light from a small crystal crown resting beneath a clear, unornamented glass dome on an ornate silver stand at the room's center.

The diadem was constructed of countless tiny star-shaped diamonds, with eight similarly shaped larger stones forming the center ring of the crown. They glimmered in the sunlight that rained down in heavy sheets from the opening overhead. When Rhapsody approached it, the stones began to glow even more brightly and took on an iridescence that made them seem as if they were made of colored air.

“The fragments that make up the crown were once the Purity Diamond, a stone the size of a man's fist that shone with the light of the stars,” Rhapsody said softly, repeating words that had been spoken to her by her mentor in the sword, Oelendra Andaris, a thousand years before. “It was brought by the Lirin of the First Fleet on a ship that was part of the exodus from the Island of Serendair, prior to the Island's destruction in volcanic fire from the star that had fallen, many millennia before, into the sea. That star was known as the Sleeping Child.”

The young women, both aware of the history, nodded but listened in silence.

“The Purity Diamond was given as a sign of friendship to the Lirin tribe Gorllewinolo, the first indigenous people that the Cymrians had ever met in this land. ‘Tomingorllo' means ‘tower of the Gorllewin,' the people of the west. When Anwyn destroyed it as part of an agreement with a F'dor spirit to kill her hated husband Gwylliam during the Cymrian War, the diamond lost the light that it had once radiated. Queen Terrell, who had commanded that the diamond shards be carefully crafted into the crown, decreed that anyone who could restore the light of the stars to the crown would be recognized as the ruler of both the Cymrians and the Lirin, who would live as a united people. Until that time, however, they would remain separate, following their own monarch.”

“It was Hamimen that restored that light,” Cara said with quiet pride.

“No, it was Daystar Clarion,” Rhapsody corrected.

“In your hand,” noted Evannii.

“Aye. But soon there may be other hands to carry the sword, perhaps even those of your father, Cara,” Rhapsody said. “We shall see. Now, if you are ready, we can discuss what you have asked of me.”

Both women looked at each other and exhaled.

The Lady Cymrian and Lirin queen turned to the case and lifted the dome carefully.

The ethereal diamonds glowed even brighter and began to whirl; then, as if caught by the wind, they floated out of the case and came to rest in a circle above her head like a halo of stars.

“I've always loved watching that,” Cara whispered to her spouse.

Rhapsody closed the case and gestured to the two women to follow her to the throne.

They crossed the open metal grates in the floor that had been fashioned in the shape of eight-pointed stars, through which the air atop the hill could be felt, leaving the room fresh and clear. Rhapsody mounted the steps, turned around, and sat on the throne's hard seat.

“Tradition,” she grumbled jokingly. “If I had known at the time of my coronation that I would be sitting on this thing for a thousand years, I would have gotten a pillow for it.”

The women laughed.

“All right,” the Lirin queen said briskly, “let us invite the wisdom that you seek. At your request of a year ago, I have undertaken to study and master the ancient lore of the summoning of a child, something that is rare in history, and has produced very few progeny. I have, however, seen one such summoned child in my life, and she is a beautiful creation, deeply magical.

“There always should be caution in such an undertaking, because anything that deviates from the natural path always contains a risk,” she continued as Cara and Evannii looked at each other. “But the history records no negative outcomes from the summoning ritual in the times it was undertaken.

“The process is actually quite benign: if two entities that have individual souls are willing, free of coercion or duress, to share them, the one who will give ‘birth' to the child allows the one who will share that child with her to rest his or her hand on her heart. Both put themselves in a state of willingness, of creation, of the desire to bring forth a soul into the world, and a Namer's incantation is sung over them. It is one of the most beautiful rituals I have ever studied; the namesong is gorgeous. My understanding is that a light appears between the two parents. Then they name the child, and it forms.

“When dragons undertook to conjure children, it was because of a dilemma described in an even older legend. In the Before-Time, when the Firstborn races that came from the original five elements—the Seren, from ether, the F'dor, from fire, the Mythlin, from water, the Kith, from air, and the Wyrmril, or dragons, from Earth—were forming, it is said that the Creator—called the Architect of the World by the Gwenen, by the way, I just learned that—offered a model to four of the newborn races that were little more than the formless elements they were springing from. That model was said to be the form that three of those races chose to emulate, the human form with the erect skeleton, the head, arms, legs—that design. The F'dor were not shown the model at all by the Creator, who recognized as they were coming into existence that they were, as a race, destructive and cruel, so that withholding a corporeal form from them was necessary for the continued existence of the world. But the dragons were, in fact, offered to glimpse the model—and refused, not wishing to be told what to do.”

“Imagine that,” Cara said, rolling her eyes, eyes whose pupils were vertical.

Rhapsody laughed. “After some time, the dragons noted an error, or at least what they perceived to be an error, in their decision. Each of the three Firstborn races that had used the model had chosen to crossbreed with the others, resulting in the Elder races and beyond, but dragons had chosen a form that was not compatible with the other three—so they decided to try and use conjuring to expand their race.

“They sculpted the model that they had initially refused out of Living Stone, and underwent the ritual, which is odd, since it would seem that stone, even if it is alive, does not have a soul or the ability to commit to share one, and dragons believe they don't have souls, either. But apparently the concept of a soul is somewhat different than it is traditionally understood, which is what I have been studying in the last century.

“So, if you are still interested, I have learned and committed to memory all the rites and rituals, and I am ready to assist you if you are interested in expanding your family. Summoned children are comprised of vibration, not of flesh, and do not eat or drink the way a child born normally would, but in all other ways, they are very real, with a soul, a personality, and emotions. It seems to me that if you decide to do this, you are in the right family for it.”

Rhapsody took several deep breaths to replenish her lungs, which were spent from the length of the tale.

Cara and Evannii exchanged a smile, then looked back at their grandmother.

“Thank you, Hamimen,” Cara said, genuinely touched. “But we have been doing a good deal of study and thinking and discussing this during the last year. We have decided to wait on this, and adopt an existing child that needs a home instead of summoning one out of our own souls. We've actually already located a pair of children who were orphaned, and who have been waiting for parents for some time.”

Rhapsody blinked, then broke into a warm smile.

“How wonderful,” she said quietly but with a glint of excitement in her eyes, the stars in the crown whirling even faster around her like a spinning halo of lights. “I am very happy to hear that, for their sakes and yours. And I know Papa will be as well.”

“Thank you. We're sorry you went to so much trouble for nothing.”

Rhapsody rose from the throne and went to the pedestal. “Undertaking the study and the learning of lore is never for nothing,” she said, removing the diadem from her head. “If nothing else, it keeps the lore alive in one more mind than had it before. For me it was a joy to do this for you, my dears. I can't wait to meet my newest Greats when you are ready. Now, let's prepare to travel to the family summit at Highmeadow. Are you going with Meridion?”

“Yes, we're meeting up with him at the Tree,” Evannii said, following Rhapsody out of the throne room and down the walkway toward Newydd Dda.

“Funny—that is where he and I will be parting,” Rhapsody said, linking arms with her granddaughters. “Perhaps if you are there we can look at some of the new exhibits in the Repository that he has done such splendid work on. It's nice that we can be sharing the trip so that the journey itself is a reunion.”

When they reached the base of the forest again, they chased each other through the golden ribbons of dusty light raining in the advent of afternoon, laughing in the strange phenomena of longevity and life spans that bordered on immortality.

Not thinking too much about the disparities that might one day part Cara and Evannii before they would Rhapsody and Ashe.

Who were two generations older.

 

6

After Rhapsody had returned from Newydd Dda, she sought out her son, who had returned to travel north with her.

“Thank you for taking the time out of what I know is a very busy undertaking to visit with your uncles,” she said, kissing his cheek.

Meridion smiled. “The journey took a matter of moments. Thank you for naming me as you did. If you hadn't woven ‘Child of Time' into my name at birth, I would be hampered by the same delays and hours or days of travel that the rest of the world contends with. It would truly be an onerous thing, much too terrible to be borne.”