Destiny Child of the Sky

1 YARIM PAAR, PROVINCE OF YARIM In winter the dry red earth that had given Yarim its name was akin to desert sand. Granular specks of it hung heavy in the air of the decaying province, sweeping it like a vengeful wind demon, stinging with cold. That blood-red clay-sand glistened in the first light of morning, sprinkled with a thin coating of crystalline frost. The frost painted the dilapidated stone buildings and neglected streets, dressing them for a moment in a shining finery that Yarim's capital had no doubt known long ago, an elegance that now existed only in memory, and for a few fleeting moments in the rosy haze of sunrise. Achmed reined his horse to a stop at the crest of a rolling hill that led down into the crumbling city below him. He stared down into the valley as Rhapsody came to a halt beside him, musing. Looking down at Yarim from above gave him the opposite sensation to looking up at Canrif from the steppes at the edge of the Krevensfield Plain. While the Bolg were reclaiming the mountain, reaching skyward along with the peaks, Yarim sat broken, fetid, all but forgotten, at the bottom of this hill like dried mud left behind where a pond had been. Where once there had been greatness now there was not only decay, but diffidence, as if even the Earth were oblivious of the state of ruin that was Yarim. It seemed a pity. Rhapsody dismounted first, walking to the edge of the hill's crest. "Pretty in the light of first sun," she said absently, staring off beyond the city's walls. "Like the beauty of youth; it's fleeting," Achmed said, descending himself. "The mist will burn off momentarily, and the sparkle will be gone, leaving nothing but a vast carcass rotting in the sun. Then we'll see her for the aged hag she really is." He would be glad to see the glistening vapor go; mist such as this hung wet in the air, masking vibration. It might hide the signature of the ancient blood that surged in the veins of the F'dor's spawn hidden somewhere amid all that standing rubble. An inexplicable shiver ran through him, and he turned to Rhapsody. "Did you feel that?" She shook her head. "Nothing unusual. What was it?" Achmed closed his eyes, waiting for the vibration to return. He felt nothing now but the calm, cold gusts of the wind. "A tingle on the surface of my skin," he said after a moment, when he could not reclaim the sensation. "Perhaps you're feeling Manwyn," Rhapsody suggested. "Sometimes when a dragon is examining something with its senses, there's a chill of sorts; a presence. It's almost like aa hum; it tickles." Achmed shielded his eyes. "I had wondered what you could have possibly seen in Ashe," he said sourly, gazing down into the morning shadows as they began to stretch west of the city. "Now I know. Manwyn knows we're here, then." He gritted his teÐ they had hoped to avoid the notice of the mad Seer, the unpredictable dragonchild who wielded her Seren father's ancient power of vision and her dragon mother's control over the elements. Rhapsody shook her head. "Manwyn knew we were coming before we got here. If someone asked her a week, or a day, or even a moment ago, she could have told him so. But now that we're here, it's the Present. Manwyn can see only the Future. I think the moment has passed. We're gone from her awareness." "Let's hope you're right." Achmed glanced around, looking for a high rise of ground or other summit on which to stand. He spied a jutting outcropping of rock to the east.Haydon, Elizabeth is the author of 'Destiny Child of the Sky' with ISBN 9780812570830 and ISBN 0812570839.