Once they left the wyrm's tunnel Achmed's strength returned rapidly. He was able to walk almost immediately and insisted on being allowed to do so, listening, as before, for the sound of the thudding pulse. It was unchanged.
They fell back into the business of finding an exit from the earth, traveling in their accustomed silence for the most part. Achmed had not spoken about the incident with the wyrm, and Rhapsody avoided mentioning it, hoping that one day they would be able to talk about it openly. She understood that there were many battles still to be fought and won in Achmed's memory before he would be able to do so.
For a while the root tunnel ran fairly straight. It didn't tend to twist much, though it often varied its elevation, winding up or down at will, undoubtedly following whatever water source had once allowed the Tree to grow roots this deep, probably the father of what was now the sea. The deeper within the Earth they seemed to burrow, the more often they seemed to encounter slightly wider tunnels, allowing them to walk upright for longer before crouching or crawling again.
Occasionally they would come to great open spaces, places where the ceiling of the tunnel arched high above them, giving them room to breathe freely. Grunthor had speculated that these tunnels were places where the Root had once taken on great quantities of water, swelling in response, then shrinking again as it grew longer. These places were often the most dangerous of all. Cave-ins were common, and it was here that the infestation of vermin was oftentimes the worst.
"They're coming." Achmed's voice roused Rhapsody from her fitful sleep. She swallowed dryly and drew Lucy. They had camped in a cavernous place and there was sufficient room to use the weapon.
Despite becoming accustomed to the endless task of destroying the vermin, she never really had been able to overcome the horror those words always struck in her soul. Her years in the streets had given her the fortitude to face many abhorrent tasks, however, so she brushed the hair off her forehead and looked up into the darkness above her.
Will this never end?she thought as the wriggling worms came into view. They had learned to fight them in the dark, since light made the vermin more excited, causing them to move more quickly and attack more ferociously. How many times have we done this now?
The dim light of the glowing lichen in the cavern allowed her to see them coming along the Root. Like a blanket of creeping decay, they swarmed forward, falling from the branches of the Root above them.
The three companions lined up on the Root surface, Grunthor with Lopper at the ready, Achmed drawing the thin silvery sword he hadn't deigned to give a name. The vermin began to drop from above, at first one by one, then in swarms like leaves in autumn.
As was always their unspoken custom, the three formed a circle, slashing at the vermin as they fell. Only Achmed could match the speed of the worms; Rhapsody and Grunthor instead had learned their patterns of movement. The giant Bolg and the Lirin Singer had become accustomed to predicting when they would strike, dodging their painful bites with a twisting motion which at once they turned into a cutting strike. It didn't always work—at times they would miss—but most of the time they would cleave the vermin and be ready for the next attack.
The crawling mass was coming closer; soon she and Grunthor would have to deal with the devouring carpet instead of the strays dropping from above. They left it to Achmed to guard them from the overhead assault while they began their rhythmic slaughter of the oncoming crawlers.
Rhapsody took the left, Grunthor the right, as they hacked wildly at the creatures, Achmed swinging above them to swipe the dropping parasites out of the air.
It often occurred to Rhapsody while they were engaged in this vile activity that this, more than any other action, demonstrated the trust that had grown between the three of them over time. Achmed's weapon whistled past their ears and scalps, diverting the painful attacks of needle-like teeth and insidious venom that caused an insatiable burning itch and occasional fevers.
He left himself completely open to the attack of the encroaching mass, relying on the efforts of the other two to fend off the majority of the creatures. Occasionally in the thick of the fight Rhapsody would find herself musing about how the unequal contributions of all three had grown into an impressive display of synchronized fighting, one in which she had eventually come to feel an equal partner.
The hideous popping of the creatures' flesh as they were severed with the sword, the repulsive smell that their fluids left on clothes for days afterward—it had all the qualities of a full-fledged nightmare each time the task was undertaken. Finally she would look up to see one or the other of the Bolg giving the all-clear signal, as Grunthor was doing now, and she collapsed in exhaustion after kicking a space on the ground clear of the worm bodies.
Now came the cleanup, the crucial act of checking every crevice of their bodies and clothing for the smallest creatures that would hide, attaching themselves to their skin. Generally the vermin were able to wait, without moving, until their host was asleep, before burying their purple heads in the skin like a tick and feasting on blood, leaving behind illness and stinging pain.
Rhapsody was grateful to Grunthor for showing her the old Bolg trick of keeping at least one thumbnail long so that it could be pressed down the seams of their clothes to kill the parasites. This was, she discovered, the real reason why Bolg kept their nails long enough to be claws: it allowed them the tool to cleanse themselves of nits and lice.
"I'm sorry," she had told him, "I thought it was to maul your opponent with."
"It works well enough for that, too, miss," he had replied with a smile.
Now she completed her check-over and looked up to see Achmed staring off into the distance.
"What's the matter?"
He turned to Grunthor. "Have you noticed an increase in their numbers of late?"
"Yep."
"Perhaps it's the heat."
"What heat?" Rhapsody asked, bewildered.
Achmed looked at her in mild surprise. "You can't feel it?"
She concentrated on the air around her. It did seem a little warmer. "I guess so," she said uncertainly.
"There's fire near 'ere; Oi can feel it, too," added Grunthor.
Fear darkened Rhapsody's eyes. "Why would there be fire on the Root? Could it be from mines, or a volcano?"
"Perhaps," said Achmed casually. "Or perhaps we're near the center. Legend has it there is fire at the core of the Earth."
A faint choking sound escaped Rhapsody's throat. She knew of the legend as well, and the thought made her heart sink. If they were only now nearing the center, they had come less than halfway. Additionally, the fire at the center of the Earth would surely be an obstacle they were unlikely to overcome, leaving them trapped deep within the world.
"Are you coming?" Achmed's voice broke her reverie. She rose slowly, stretching the cramped muscles of her legs and back, feeling the bitter sting of the bites that had pierced her defenses. "I suppose," she said. She slid Lucy back into its sheath over her shoulder and took up her place on the Root again.
Before long they knew they were in trouble. There was still no fire in sight, but they could feel the increase in heat, like an inferno or the flames of a forge, growing hotter in the distance ahead of them.
Rhapsody's hair, which had been wet and stringy for as long as she could remember, now dried into clumped patches the consistency of straw. The heat from whatever fire source lay ahead also dried out the fragmented remains of her clothes, which were now little more than tatters after all this time and distance. With the warmth came both pain and comfort. Her skin cracked in the heat, but her bones and joints welcomed it, as the constant aches abated a little.
In addition, there was a change in the song of the Earth here. One of the only pleasant parts of this experience had been the occasions when she could lie flat on her back or stomach and feel the deep, modulating vibration that she had heard early on, the sound of the Root singing with life, echoing with the vast collective wisdom of time. There was more life to the sound now, a faster change in the tonal melody.
"I wonder if the Root feels healthier in the absence of the vermin," she said.
"Wouldn't you?" Grunthor said, poking her.
"Our efforts have undoubtedly put a substantial dent in the pest population," Achmed said, looking at the basalt walls around him.
"Not substantial enough—you're both still here," Rhapsody joked. Achmed smiled; it was an expression she wasn't sure if she had ever seen before. Like the Root, their moods seemed healthier as well.
The fire took its time to come into sight. They had lost all tools to gauge time below the surface, so it was impossible to know how long they had sensed the heat without it coming into view, but Rhapsody had long been proficient in the Bolgish tongue, and Grunthor had mastered not only the written word but calligraphy and musical graphing as well.
How long has it been —a, year? More ? Rhapsody thought one night. Surely we have been feeling the heat for that long, still without finding the source. She began to doubt they would live to do so.
They became aware of it first as a distant glow, the rocks at the edge of the tunnel glimmering red in the dark. The heat increased; they had felt it for as long as they could recall. The memory of the cold, wet crawling had been almost forgotten, although there was a great deal of water still around them. The earth itself was dry, purged of its moisture by the climate of heat.
The newfound warmth made for easier traveling, but it held its share of perils as well. Occasionally clothing or other dry goods would burst into flames unexpectedly, metal weaponry would become too hot to touch. Finding drinking water became more difficult, and more a cause for concern.
Finally Achmed stopped, and the other two followed his lead as he peered off into the distance. "Fire," he said simply. Grunthor squinted, then shook his head. Rhapsody gave it a halfhearted try, but saw nothing. She had learned ages ago that her vision was no match for Achmed's, especially in the dark.
They walked on, growing ever closer, until even Rhapsody could make out the flickering flames that filled the tunnel ahead of them. The Root itself, the ground below them, cracked occasionally under the pressure of their steps. The cavern ceiling above them became enormously high. As they approached, even at their seemingly snail-like pace, it became evident that the entire passageway was engulfed in flames.
The fire at the Earth's core burned in myriad colors, more darkly than fires in the open air. Flames twisted and danced within the incandescent wall, blue and purple and white in harmony with the fiery shades that Rhapsody was accustomed to. There was no space around it; the inferno reached to all edges of the passageway, forcing its light and liquid heat over and through every opening and crevice. She stood, enraptured by the sight, her eyes stinging from the intensity of the furious light. She closed her eyes.
"Bloody krekin!" Grunthor swore behind her. "We're trapped. We might as well 'ave stayed in Easton." Achmed said nothing.
From behind her eyelids Rhapsody was listening, not to her dismayed companions, but to the fire's song. Unlike the low, slow tone of the Earth, the firesong roared and crackled with life, singing a melody more exquisite than any she ever remembered hearing.
The sound drew from her soul memories almost painful in their sweetness, nights before the hearth where her mother brushed her hair, harvest bonfires ripe with the sounds of dancing and celebration, her first kiss by the light of a campfire in autumn. The brilliance illuminated her face, shining off her tangled hair, making her glow with its radiance. There was a call in the sound of the flames, an invitation to the dance, and she longed to accept. Involuntarily she took a step forward.
Strong, bony hands seized her shoulders and spun her swiftly around. She opened her eyes in astonishment to the sound of Grunthor's shocked roar.
"What do you think you're doin'?"
Achmed, who still held her by the shoulders, studied her face. "Where are you going, Rhapsody?"
The word fell out of her mouth before she had a chance to stop it.
"Forward," she said.
"I'm going through," she said simply. Grunthor laughed aloud.
"If you wanted to commit suicide, Oi would o' been glad to 'elp you in a way that wouldn't damage the meat," he said. "Come on, miss, shake it off."
"Look," Rhapsody said, losing patience, "I'm not going back. I can't. None of us can. Remember those cave-ins? The path is blocked. We'll never get out that way. The only way to go is forward."
"Exactly how do you propose we do that?" Achmed asked. His tone was sincere, or at least as full of sincerity as he was capable.
Rhapsody took a deep breath, knowing that what she was about to say would sound inane, at best. "Do you remember what I said about names, and how they can make us what we once were?"
"Vaguely."
"Well, I've been thinking about it ever since this possibility arose. I think the only way to broach the fire is to wrap ourselves in the song of our names and hope that we are remade on the other side."
"You first, my dear," chuckled Grunthor.
"Of course," she said hastily. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
"You really are desperate to get out of this tunnel," said Achmed. His tone was the cross between sympathy and sarcasm that Rhapsody referred to as sympacastic.
"Have you got any better ideas?"
She sat down on the root and unslung her ragged satchel, removing her higen, a palm-sized stringed instrument resembling a tiny harp. "If I make it through, I'll come back for you if I can." She brushed the dirt from the fragments of her cloak and stood again. "If I don't come back, at least you'll know to try something else."
Grunthor shook his head, staring at the inferno before them. "Oi know that without you tossin' your life away."
"Let her go," said Achmed quietly.
Rhapsody smiled. "Thank you. At least if I don't make it you'll finally be rid of me."
Grunthor was growing visibly upset. "If Oi'd wanted to be rid o' ya, Oi'da done it ages ago. I could o' snapped your neck with one 'and and been done with you."
She put her arms around the trembling giant. "Well, maybe you could have back then. I've had some pretty good sword training since." She pulled him tighter, and he bent to embrace her. "Goodbye, Grunthor. Don't worry. I'll be back."
He pulled away and looked down at her, mustering a smile. "Oi thought you always had to tell the truth."
Rhapsody patted his cheek. "I am," she said softly. She turned to the robed man who had vexed her so much, had trapped her within the Earth in the first place.
"Goodbye, Achmed."
"Hurry up," he said. "We're not going to wait long for you."
Rhapsody laughed aloud. "Well, that's incentive." She shouldered her pack and walked away toward the inferno. The two Bolg watched as her tiny black shadow grew longer against the roaring flames, then disappeared in the wall of billowing heat and light.
When she got as close as she could endure, Rhapsody closed her eyes, resting her higen against her chest. The tiny strings were hot to the touch; her fingers burned as she plucked them, trying to discern the right song, a song of herself.
She knew the single note that reverberated in her soul, ela, the sixth and final note of the scale. Each person is attuned to a certain musical note, her instructor had said. Rhapsody had been highly amused upon discovering her own: She was the sixth and final child in her family. The note fit her easily; it made sense to her. She sang it now, feeling the familiar vibration. The melody that would capture her essence was more elusive. Her true name, set to music, was easy enough; she started with that.
From the simple melody line she built another refrain, a tune that resonated inside her and made her skin tingle. Note by note, measure by measure, she constructed the song, adding her voice to the composition she played on the higen. Then, gathering her courage, she walked into the fire.
As she reached the edges of the roaring inferno her eyes began to sting from the intensity of the light. Pain seared them shut. She kept walking, still singing, praying that if she was wrong she would be engulfed quickly, and not suffer too long.
There was a natural wind to the fire, and it blew her blond tresses around her, illuminating her hair like a torch. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe. Rhapsody opened her eyes to find herself within the fire's walls.
The innate song of the fire was louder now and she matched her own namesong to it, singing in harmony. Instantly her eyes ceased to sting; she found, upon opening them, a realm of glorious color, whipping around her like meadow grass in a high wind. A sense of peace and safety washed over her. The fire knew her. It would not harm her.
The gleaming hues, sapphire blues twisting through sheets of blazing red-orange and tongues of yellow, billowed around her. Rhapsody felt the pain in her joints and bones melt away. Vaguely she wondered if she was being immolated, consumed in the fire's maw. It was a sensation akin, in a way, to joy, a feeling of being surrounded by ultimate acceptance. She sang loudly, turning the melded tunes of the fire and herself into a song of celebration.
The way before her grew clearer, patches of darkness appearing for a moment, only to vanish without a trace. She steeled her nerve and kept walking; it took all her strength to leave the core. If she gave in to the sweetness of the place she knew she would stay forever, happily absorbing the song of the fire until it took her as part of itself.
Suddenly the delicious heat left her face; it was like being slapped with a cold ocean wave. Rhapsody opened her eyes and saw darkness before her, though the fire walls were still flickering at the periphery of her vision. Before her stretched a tunnel similar to the one she had just left, but with slightly different features. Though she was still within the fire's embrace, she felt a shiver run through her. She had made it to the other side of the core.
She spun around quickly and hurried back through the fire, singing all the way.
On the other side of the core Grunthor waited anxiously, staring into the blinding conflagration, sweating visibly through the pores of his gray-green hide. After what seemed an endless delay he squinted, then pointed into the flames.
"Oi see 'er, sir!"
Achmed was nodding. He had spied her shadow a moment before, tall as the cavern ceiling, flickering in between the waves of fire and disappearing again.
The woman who walked out of the blaze vaguely resembled Rhapsody, but was very different in appearance. Her hair was no longer the color of pale gold, but had been burnished in the fire to the shade of warm, clear honey. She waved to them from the fire's edge.
"Come on," she urged, her voice swallowed by the roar of the flames. "I don't know how long the pathway will stay open."
The two Firbolg ran to the edge of the core, shielding their eyes from the heat. Rhapsody held up her hand to stop them too late. The hood of Achmed's robe ignited, ripping into flame. She watched in horror as Grunthor threw him to the ground and smothered the fire, rolling him in the white-hot ash of the floor.
Achmed's name she knew; she had given it to him. She chanted it now, over and over. Grunthor helped the stunned man rise, and assisted him to the edge of the fire wall. Rhapsody held up her palm to the Sergeant, signaling him to wait, and took the Dhracian's hands in hers. His eyes were clearing as he heard the song of his name. It must be causing the same sense of well-being in him that she had experienced.
When she was sure he could stand erect, Rhapsody transferred the tune to the higen, playing as Achmed stood at the edge of the fire. She began weaving a song for him, based around the melody that was his name.
"Can you feel the song tingling on the surface of your skin?"
"No." The tatters of his hood crumbled and fell to the ground, exposing the terrible burn that now marred his forehead and eyes; Achmed was blind. Rhapsody's own eyes stung at the sight of it. The wound looked excruciating.
She thought quickly. "Tell me something about yourself I can add to make it reflect you better," she said. She added the musical notes to the melody that spelled out Firbolg and Dhracian. "Shall I rename you back to your old name, the Brother?"
Achmed shook his head violently, spattering droplets of sweat into the flames that dispersed into mist on impact. His face reflected the rippling light of the fire behind her.
"What child were you in the family?"
With great effort he spoke. "Firstborn."
Rhapsody nodded and wove the word into the melody. From the look on his face she could tell that he had felt some sort of additional sensation with its inclusion.
"Just one more trait, Achmed, anything that is part of your identity. What is your profession?"
Achmed began to shake as the shock of his injury overcame him. He bent as close to her as he could, trying to allow her to hear the word.
"Assassin," he whispered.
Rhapsody blinked. Of course, she thought. She began to sing the song again, adding the new dimension.
Achmed's scarred eyes opened wider, and he nodded sightlessly as he felt the song surround him, as she had. In the next instant a memory flickered behind Rhapsody's eyes. It was the image of Achmed at the twisting nexus where thousands of differing paths along the Root met, nonchalantly choosing their course through the belly of the world. He had been unconcerned, had seemed so sure of his choices that there had never been a breath of hesitation as to whether they were heading in the correct direction.
Once Grunthor had whispered in her ear that the Dhracian was following the beating heart of the Earth, feeling its pulse, being guided along its veins and humming pathways the way he had once sought his prey in the realm of the air, the world above.
Unerring tracker. The pathfinder, she sang. Achmed's body grew translucent and began, like his face a moment before, to reflect the light of the Great Fire. Rhapsody reached out and pulled him into the flames. She hurried him through to the other side, singing with all her ability as a Namer. She deposited him just outside the wall of the fire and ran back to get Grunthor.
The sight of the trembling giant standing in the reflected brilliance of the billowing fire's edge squeezed Rhapsody's heart. The amber eyes, transfixed in a look she recognized as stark terror, relaxed somewhat upon seeing her, but his face was still contorted with obvious worry.
"Where is 'e, darlin'? Is 'e all right?"
"Come on!" she shouted over the pounding roar of the flames, waving him on wildly.
Grunthor ran to her, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Is 'e all right?"
"Don't be afraid, we're going to make it—"
A snarling howl issued forth. It rumbled through the massive muscles down through the clawed hands that gripped her upper arms, choking off her assurances and turning her words into a gasp of pain. "Where is 'e?!"
Rhapsody clutched his hands and pulled free of them. "He's on the other side. He's blind, but he's alive." She saw relief temper the ferocious expression on his face, noticed his mighty jaw unclench ever-so-slightly, and she felt another twist of her heart. She knew the fear that held sway over him, and knew also that none of it had been for himself. With a hand that shook she reached up and patted his monstrous cheek.
"What is your Firbolg name?" The giant opened his mouth, and a serious of whistling snarls came out, followed by a clicking glottal stop. Rhapsody exhaled, then closed her eyes. "Tell me again," she said, righting the panic welling inside her.
Listening carefully to the sounds above the noise of the flames, she matched her voice as best she could to Grunthor's. After several tries she could feel a hum in return emanating from in front of her. When she opened her eyes again, Rhapsody could see a halo of light gleaming around the Sergeant.
"And you're Bengard as well?" Grunthor nodded. Child of sand and of the sky, son of the caves and lands of darkness, she sang. Bengard, Firbolg. The Sergeant Major. My trainer, my protector. The Lord of Deadly Weapons. The Ultimate Authority, to Be Obeyed at All Costs. The electric hum grew louder.
Grunthor broke into a toothy grin. "That's it, miss. Oi feel positively a-tingle. Now let's get to 'im, eh?"
Rhapsody smiled in return. "Grunthor, you're such a faithful friend, strong and reliable as the Earth itself. Here, hold my hands."
She led the towering Bolg through the flames, chanting his name and the characteristics she had ascribed to him, singing the namesong over and over, until the shadows that were dancing off the walls of fire swallowed them.
She blinked and looked around. They were on the other side, out of the flames, surrounded by darkness. Rhapsody buried her face in Grunthor's chest, trying to absorb the sudden, stinging absence of the fire's warmth without bursting into tears of loss.
The giant watched in the dark as Rhapsody began to remove the bandages. They were deep in the tunnel now, the light of the fire still reflecting off them from a distance. She had dressed Achmed's eyes with some of her healing herbs, over the Dhracian's sustained protests.
Achmed lay with his head in her lap, muttering impatiently as she unwound the linen strips.
"I told you this was unnecessary. I can see."
"Well, why didn't you say so before I wrapped you up?"
"I was unconscious," he said indignantly.
Rhapsody chuckled. "Oh, yes, that's it; I thought you seemed unnaturally cooperative." She pulled the second of the layers off. "Now, this was just a palliative treatment to ease the pain—"
"I'm not in pain," he interrupted angrily.
"—and we'll need to treat the wound once we get to a safe—" Rhapsody stopped her thought again, staring blankly at the Dhracian's face. Achmed's wound had vanished.
"Gods," she whispered.
Achmed ripped the remaining bandage off his head. "I told you I was healed."
Grunthor was staring at him as well. "Uh, sir, you're a lit'le more 'ealed than you think."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Grunthor drew his poleax forward, a long spearlike weapon with a hatchet head on one side that he called Salutations, or Sal for short. "Have a look. That wound you got in that knife fight in Kingston a few years back?"
"Yes?"
"Gone, sir. See for yourself."
Achmed seized the blade with both hands and stared into it deeply. A moment later he grasped the waist of his shirt and examined his abdomen.
"My scars are gone."
"Mine too," Grunthor added, looking over to Rhapsody, who was looking at her wrist. She met his gaze, then nodded.
"All our wounds are gone, and our scars have vanished. Why would that be?"
Rhapsody smiled. "Think about what I told you all that time ago."
Achmed sat up and thought back to their first fight with the vermin, the time when she sang her first healing song and mended the wound on his forearm.
Go ahead, scoff if you want to. But music of one form or another will probably be what gets us out of this place.
Only if you annoy me so much with your singing that I use your body as an auger and drill us out of here.
It's part of what a Namer can do; there is no thing, no concept, no law as strong as the power of a given thing's name. Our identities are bound to it. It is the essence of what we are, and sometimes it can even make us what we are again, no matter how much we have been altered.
"Are you saying that we have been remade?" Rhapsody shrugged. "I don't know, I think so. I was sure the first time I walked through the fire I could feel my body burn away, almost like I was being immolated. Because I sang each of our true names through it all, I think whatever damage life or circumstance inflicted on our bodies was not mirrored on our new ones. Are there any other manifestations that we might be able to check?"
Achmed slowly ran his hand around the base of his throat. The invisible chain that the demon had once controlled him with had snapped when she renamed him in the alleys of Easton, and had been gone for so long that it was impossible to tell. Bones that had once been broken felt as strong and healthy as if they never had sustained injury, but he was not certain they had shown any indication of it before the fire, either.
"I don't know; is your virginity restored?"
Rhapsody turned away as if stung. Normally she ignored jokes of that sort, but the cleansing, horrifying, ecstatic experience of passing through the fire had exhausted her ability to absorb the jest. Grunthor saw the look on her face and glared at Achmed angrily. The giant looked back over at her again, then found his mouth open in amazement.
"Darlin', turn around a minute 'ere."
"Leave me alone," Rhapsody answered. "I'm not in the mood for any more teasing."
"No, miss, please," Grunthor insisted. "Oi want to 'ave a look at your face."
Slowly Rhapsody turned back toward him, though her eyes remained averted.
"Criton," Grunthor murmured. Achmed looked up and felt his jaw go slack as well.
Rhapsody had been a beautiful woman before her walk through the fire, though time and soil had diminished her appearance somewhat in their endless trek along the Root. That had changed considerably; the walk through the core had burned away any imperfection, leaving a creature they hardly recognized in front of them.
The long golden hair was sparkling in the light of the distant fire, gleaming like liquid gold. Her complexion had been purged of any flaw, leaving skin the color and consistency of a rose petal, glistening in the darkness. When, a moment later, she turned to look at them in annoyance, her emerald eyes flashed, clearer than gemstones, and caught the rays of illumination in the tunnel around them. She had been comely; now she was more than magnificent. Even to Firbolg eyes the aura of unnatural beauty was evident.
"What?" she asked, irritation evident in her voice. It took Grunthor a moment to find his voice. "Gods, Yer Ladyship, you're beau'iful."
Rhapsody's newly gorgeous face softened, and the expression that crossed it caused both men to flush warm and experience a sudden swelling below the belt. "You're more than welcome, Grunthor! I was happy to help," she said gently. "It was the least I could do to pay you both back for the times you've helped me."
"That's not what Oi meant," Grunthor said. "You're different."
Rhapsody's brows drew together. "What do you mean?"
"He means," came Achmed's thin voice, "that if you were back in your old line of work you could ask any price and get it, just for the opportunity for a man to look at you."
Rhapsody shook her head in annoyance. "I wish you'd stop going on about my old profession," she said. "I don't torment you about your past sins. And believe me, no one pays just to look."
Achmed sighed. They would now. "Rhapsody, you look better than you did. You're stunning."
Rhapsody looked over at his face in the light of the distant fire of the Earth's core. Achmed had always made a point of remaining cloaked and hooded whenever possible, behaving in many subtle ways like a man who felt his appearance to be unpleasant to behold, even freakish. Now, seeing his countenance unguarded in the light, she couldn't understand why he had. He wasn't ugly, at least in her estimation. There was a strange beauty to his face, in fact; instead of a face that reflected atrocity, she saw a distracted god's unfinished work.
It was easy to imagine the rendering that had created him, the unfinished head of a sculpture placed on its body, all full of kneadings and excess clay, unrefined, with just a small crimp to approximate a nose, some uneven thumb marks where the eyes might one day be, another swipe of the thumb to make a half-smiling, half-grimacing, lipless mouth.
The mismatched eyes, the fine scoring of vessels beneath the surface of the skin, had come together to form a work of art, not attractive in the classical sense, but fascinating and rare. Perhaps he was seeing something much the same in her.
"You know, you're not so bad yourself," she said, smiling slightly.
Achmed looked at Grunthor, and they both shook their heads and looked away. She didn't understand. It was becoming obvious that was she wasn't going to.