Elizabeth Haydon - Symphony of Ages - Threshold.pdf - Elizabeth Haydon - margozap

T HE S YMPHONY OF A GES

ELIZABETH HAYDON

THE RHAPSODY TRILOGY:

R HAPSODY : C HILD OF B LOOD (1999)

P ROPHECY : C HILD OF E ARTH (2000)

D ESTINY : C HILD OF THE S KY (2001)

R EQUIEM FOR THE S UN (2002)

E LEGY FOR A L OST S TAR (2003)

The Symphony of Ages is written as a history in which the eras of time in the universe are recounted in

seven distinct ages. The debut trilogy, Rhapsody , Prophecy , and Destiny , and the subsequent sequels,

are set at the end of the Fifth Age, the age of Schism, and the beginning of the Sixth Age, the age of

Twilight.

A giant tree stands at each of the places, known as the birthplaces of Time, where the five primordial

elements—air, fire, water, earth, and ether—first appeared in the world. The oldest of these World Trees

is Sagia, which grows on the Island of Serendair, the birthplace of ether. It is through the interconnected

roots of Sagia that three people, all half-breeds, running from different pursuers, escape the cataclysm

that destroys the Island and find themselves on the other side of the world, sixteen centuries later.

The three companions are initially antagonistic. Rhapsody, a woman of mixed human and Lirin blood, is a

Namer, a student of lore and music who has learned the science of manipulating the vibrations that

constitute life. She is on the run from an old nemesis, and is grudgingly rescued from his henchmen by two

men. The Brother is an irritable and hideously ugly assassin with a bloodgift that makes him able to

identify and track the heartbeats of any victim. His only friend, Grunthor, is a giant Firbolg

Sergeant-Major with tusks, an impressive weapons collection, and a fondness for singing bawdy

marching cadences. The two men are fleeing the demon of elemental fire who has control of the Brother’s

true name. Rhapsody accidentally changes the Brother’s name to Achmed the Snake, breaking the

control the demon has over him, and making his escape possible. The three make the trek along the roots

of the World Trees through the belly of the Earth, passing through the fire at the center with the help of

Rhapsody’s ability to manipulate names. In the process, the distrustful adversaries become grudging

friends. When they emerge on the other side they find themselves transformed; time appears to have

stopped for them. In addition, they discover the story of their homeland’s destruction and that refugees

from Serendair, alerted to the impending cataclysm by a king’s vision, traveled across the world to the

place they have emerged, built a new civilization and destroyed it in war in the intervening centuries. Now

the people from their homeland, knows as Cymrians, are hiding or quiet about their ancestry. It becomes

clear to the three companions that a demon known as a F’dor accompanied the refugees away from the

Island, and is clinging to an unknown host, biding its time and sowing the seeds of destruction. Rhapsody

chronicles the journey of the Three as they cope with the loss of their world and build a new life in this

new land, and the rise of the Firbolg, the demi-human nomads whom they eventually come to make a life

with, and Achmed comes to rule, in the kingdom of Ylorc, the ruins of the Cymrian civilization carved

into forbidding mountains. In Prophecy , the discovery of a dragon’s claw in the ancient library of Ylorc

leads Rhapsody to travel overland with Ashe, a man who hides his face, to find the dragon Elynsynos and

return the claw before she destroys the Bolg in revenge. More of the F’dor’s plot is uncovered, though

its identity remains a mystery. Achmed discovers a child of living earth that slumbers endlessly in the ruins

of a colony of Dhracians, tended to by the Grandmother, the only survivor of the colony. He realizes that

the F’dor is seeking this Sleeping Child because her rib, made of Living Stone, would form a key like the

one with which he opened Sagia—but in the demon’s hand would be used to unlock the Vault of the

Underworld and loose the remaining fire demons, who only seek destruction and chaos. Destiny follows

the tale to its conclusion, the unmasking of the demon, the battle that ensues, and the re-formation of the

Cymrian alliance.

The sequels, Requiem and Elegy , pick up the story three years later, and show the factors that eventually

led to intercontinental war. With each new book, more of the history is laid bare, more of the secrets

revealed, and more of the tale told in the style of a musical rhapsody.

The novella in this anthology is set in the Third Age, and chronicles the destruction of Serendair, telling

the story of those who remained behind after the exodus.

THRESHOLD

ELIZABETH HAYDON

Two Ages ago, the doomed island of Serendair survived one cataclysm, when the burning star

that came to be known as the Sleeping Child fell from the sky into the sea, taking much of the

coastline, but sparing the middle lands. This time, as the Child that has slept beneath the waves

for centuries signals its awakening, the earth and sea prepare for it to rise, and Gwylliam, the

prescient king of the Island, foresees Serendair’s obliteration in a vision of a second cataclysm.

Nearly everyone has left, the Nain of the northern mountains, the Lirin of the central forests and

plains, and the humans, following their king in three great fleets to rebuild their civilization on

another continent. The unbelieving, the foolish, the stubborn, the resigned, and a few truly

abandoned souls remain, awaiting the end.

By the command of the king, a small detail of guards remains as well, to maintain order and

protect those that stayed behind, and to keep some shred of the king’s authority intact, just in

case there is no second cataclysm. Condemned as they are, there is no way they could foresee

what can happen when one pauses on the threshold between life and death.

This is their story, otherwise lost to history.

Hot vapor covered the sea, making it appear as calm and still as a misty morning.

There is more steam above the northern islands today, Hector thought, shielding his eyes from the

stinging glare of the midday sun that blazed in rippling waves off the water, blinding in its intensity. Most

definitely.

He glanced to his right, where Anais stood, staring into the impenetrable fog. The expression in his

friend’s silver eyes was calm, contemplative, as always; it had rarely varied since childhood. Hector

knew he had made note of the thickening as well.

He watched a moment longer as the plumes of mist ascended, then stood and wiped the sweat from his

forehead with the back of his sleeve, his gaze still affixed on the rising steam.

“Still unable to make out the increase, Sevirym?” he asked facetiously. He already knew the young

soldier’s answer.

“I see no difference from yesterday,” Sevirym replied rotely. “Or the day before.”

Jarmon, older than the other men by twice over, took his hand down from his eyes as well and exhaled in

annoyance.

“And so he will continue to insist, until the waves fill his mouth and the sea closes over his head,” he said.

“His eyes work perfectly, but he is blind as a mole nevertheless. Do not ask him any more, Hector. It

sorely tries what is left of my patience.”

Sevirym spat into the sea and rose to follow Hector, who had turned and now ambled away from the

abandoned dock.

“I am not under false illusions, despite what you believe, Jarmon,” he muttered. “I just see no need to

accept the inevitability of doom. Perhaps the king’s vision was wrong, or he misinterpreted it. Or perhaps

the Sleeping Child is destined to rise, but the sea won’t consume the entire island; that didn’t even happen

when the star fell to Earth in the first place. Certainly we will lose some coastline, but if we go to higher

ground, as we have been telling all the others to do—”

“I pray thee, cease,” Cantha said.

The raspy dryness of her voice sliced through the wind, causing Sevirym to fall immediately silent. Cantha

used words sparingly, as if doing so pained her. It was difficult not to obey whatever she said.

Hector stopped, turning to look carefully for the first time in as long as he could remember at his

companions, four completely different souls with one thing in common: they had each willingly sacrificed

whatever remaining time life would have given them to stay behind on the Island, assisting in his futile

mission.

He was surprised by how much they had changed physically since the exodus of the Fleets, but was even

more shocked by the fact that he had failed until now to notice. Jarmon’s beard, a famous shade of burnt

red all his life, had gone gray enough to blend into the fog in which he stood; Cantha’s body, always thin

and dark as a shadow, had withered to little more than a whisper on the wind. Her eyes stared

unflinchingly back at him from the haze; the strength of her will was such that it held the space her

physical presence had once taken in the air.

Sevirym was staring at the ground, the sting of Cantha’s words evident in his expression. Little more than

a boy when he had rashly thrown his lot in with Hector, he had aged a score of years in the last five

months, still maintaining an intermittent idealism that drove Jarmon to distraction. With each

disappointment, each rebuke from an elder, the life seemed to seep a little more out of him, leaving him

visibly older.

Hector inhaled slowly, then caught the look of understanding aimed at him by Anais as if it were a ball

tossed to him. His closest friend, a brother in all but blood, Anais had always understood his thoughts

without needing to hear them spoken aloud; perhaps it was their shared Lirin heritage that made their

minds one while granting them opposite physical traits. Anais had been born with the traditional features

of the Liringlas race, the silver eyes, the rosy skin, and smooth hair that reflected the sun; Hector had

favored his mother’s kin, dark of eye and hair, the crown of curls atop his head reaching only to Anais’s

brow. Now they looked remarkably similar—both had faded, their features dulled to gray colorlessness

by circumstance and exhaustion and the heat of the boiling sea.

He watched for a moment more, still in the thrall of the silence that Cantha had commanded, unable to

feel anything about the changes he had noticed. Then he signaled wordlessly for them to head out.

That silence held sway for the duration of the walk along the rocky shore until the group reached the spot

where the horses waited, oblivious to the changes in the morning wind. Then Anais cuffed Sevirym across

the back of the head.

“I discern the reasons for your reluctance now!” he joked. “You wish to get out of sandbag duty.”

Sevirym mustered a slight smile. “Can you blame me?”

“Certainly not,” Anais said agreeably. “I just might form an alliance with you, Sevirym; we can mutiny and

call for abandoning this mind-numbing task.”

Hector chuckled as he mounted his roan. “A waste of time, that would be. The destruction of the Island

may not be forgone, but sandbag duty remains as inevitable as death.”

“You are decorating the wind, Hector,” Jarmon said sourly. “But if it occupies your mind while we wait, I

suppose there is nothing to be said against it.”

Anais pulled himself into the saddle. “Speak for yourself. I’ll gainsay it. If I had known this is how you

were going to put us to use, I would not have stayed. It’s one thing to agree to face certain death with

one’s best friend. It is altogether another to have one’s carefully cleaned fingernails ruined playing in the

dirt in the never-ending pursuit of useless sandbag fortifications. It is too onerous to be borne. You owe

me a night of very expensive drinking, Hector.”

Hector chuckled again and spurred the roan to a canter.

They rode without speaking down the northwestern shoreline to the outskirts of the abandoned fishing

village and dismounted, to begin combing through what remained of the thatched huts and broken docks.

Little effort had been needed to evacuate this place; fishermen knew the sea, and had been among the

first to realize what was coming.

The five walked in silence through the packed-sand and crushed-shell streets, leading their mounts, the

only sound the whine of the coastal wind, the cracking of thatch or the groaning of wood, the skittering of

dock rats and the occasional snorting of the horses.

At the remains of each building one of the group peeled off from the others and poked through the

fragments; little was left, as fishermen were practical people and had harvested whatever was usable in

their village before packing their vessels and heading out in one of the earliest flotillas to the northern

continent, the nearest haven.

On two earlier occasions they had found squatters, wild-eyed men, women, and children who had come

from places inland, seeking passage off the Island after the Fleets had already gone. These lost souls had

taken shelter in the shells of the huts that remained, praying for miracles or wandering in aimless dementia.

Luck had it that places for them could be found on the few remaining rescue ships that came in the wake

of the exodus of the Fleets. Hector himself prayed that he would never again have to tell a living soul that

the time had passed when escape was possible; the wailing that resulted was too reminiscent of the

sobbing he had heard upon breaking other such news.

As always, his mind wandered to Talthea and the children. If he closed his eyes he could almost see her,

her belly great with child, her hand on the shoulder of his son—

“Body,” Cantha called from within the ruins of the old salting shed.

Jarmon and Anais made their way over the litter of tin lantern shells and rusted iron hinges in the sand and

opened the door. Cantha stood just over the threshold, her arms crossed, staring at the corpse, that of an

old man who had curled up beneath what at one time had been the skinning table, its longboard missing.

Flies swarmed in the heat.

“Wasn’t here the last time we passed through—that was less than a fortnight ago, was it not, Hector?”

Anais asked.

Hector only nodded, pulling forth his tinderbox as the others stepped out of the shed. He struck the flint

against the steel and set the spark to the fragment of brittle twigs that remained in the roofing bundles.

“Whoever you are, I commit your body to the wind and your soul to the care of God, the One, the All,”

he said blandly, a chant he had intoned many times in the last few weeks. It was a Namer’s benediction,

but without a name.

Cantha, Kith by birth and thus a child of the aforementioned wind, blew gently on the sparks as she

passed. They glowed brighter, then kindled, igniting a moment later into a thin flame.

When the remnants of the shed began to fill with smoke, and the flames had started to consume the roof,

the group turned away and continued their task. Finding no one else in the empty village, they mounted

again and rode south, not looking back at the billowing smoke and flames behind them.

The cobbled streets of Kingston, the great port city that lay south along the coast of the fishing village,

introduced the element of noise back into the journey as the horses’ hooves clattered loudly over the

stones, echoing off the empty alleyways leading to the town square.

The stoicism that had beset the faces of the travelers seemed to wane somewhat whenever they returned

to the capital city of the westlands, resolving into a quiet communal dismay. With each turn of the cycle,

the shining jewel of the western seacoast looked more shabby, more broken, a desolate haven for ghosts

and vermin that had once been a glistening city built by a visionary king centuries before.

Upon reaching the dry fountain in the square, the group dismounted. Sevirym’s feet landed on the

cobblestones first, followed by the muffled thuds from the others’ boots.

“Damnation,” he murmured, looking up at the place where the statue of that long-dead king riding a

hippogriff had once towered over the mosaic inlaid in the fountain’s bed. The figure had been battered

Elizabeth Haydon - Symphony of Ages - Threshold.pdf

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