Rhapsody: Child of Blood

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Rhapsody: Child of Blood is the first book in The Symphony of Ages by Elizabeth Haydon. It was first published in 1999 by Tor Books.

[edit] Plot synopsis

The story starts off with a man named Meridion who is using a form of machine designed to change and edit the strings of time. Meridion dips an eye tearing solution onto the tiny string of film. the solution is dropped into a young man's eyes and he is magically teleported through time, to the ancient island of Serendair.

In the second chapter, Overture, the young man is revealed as Gwydion, Gwydion realizes that something is wrong, and that he is not at home anymore. he looks up at the stars, and does not recognize any. He hears someone approaching and ducks behind some bushes, after some time, he sees two farmers walking down the road, he overhears a snatch of the conversation, the two old farmers were speaking in ancient Cymrian, a language as old as the sunken island of Serendair.Gwydion decides that his best chance is to stop in the nearest town and get some answers, so he follows the farmers into the nearest village.

When Gwydion arrives at the village, everyone seem very excited, it turns out that on that very night, is a feastday for the villagers and they are planning a large gathering for games and dancing in the evening. Gwydion decides that he will attend the evening festivities and maybe question someone about where the village is located.

That evening, during the dances, Gwydion meets and exotic girl with whom he quickly falls in love with. His problem however is that he cannot explain his feelings, for fear of being turned down. When he asks the girl to dance however, she happily agrees. As the night wears on the, Gwydion feels more and more intriuged with the pretty girl, and when she asks him if he wants to see her special place, he becomes overjoyed. When they arrive at the secluded area under a tree, Gwydion lays out his coat under the girl. She tells him that her name is Emily, and insists on calling him Jack, the common name for young men who pass through a village. Gwydion becomes even more excited, when Emily asks him to lie down beside her, yet Gwydion is dreading about what might come next.

The two young adocelents fall in love with each other and share a night in each others arms, doing what people usually do when they are all alone in each others arms. At the end of their first taste of adulthood, Gwydion worries if he hurt Emily during their trysts but Emily assures him than she is unharmed. As Emily heads for home she begs Gwydion to return to her home tomorrow to meet her parents.

The next day, as Gwydion is heading towards Emily's home, the same fate of time that brought the Gwidion and Emily together, also tore them apart.

The main character, Rhapsody, is a woman, a talented Singer of Lirin blood. While running from a depraved former client known as Michael, the Wind of Death, she bumps into two half-breed characters - the huge Sergeant-Major Grunthor, and a mysterious veiled man known as the Brother. She speaks his true name and accidentally renames him Achmed the Snake, reforming his entire vibrational signature and thus his identity. The newly named brother had been fleeing his previous master, and upon receiving his new name the bonds tying him to the demon were released.

The two Bolg then force her to accompany them on their journey to escape the wrath of Tsoltan, a F'dor possessed demon priest. Their plan (of which Rhapsody is ignorant) is to escape their island home of Serendair by entering Sagia, one of the World Trees, and crawling along its Root. As a child of the Sky Rhapsody fears being shut away from the sky, but Achmed tricks her into joining them on their journey.

The excruciating journey seems endless for the three companions, punctuated by Rhapsody's prescient nightmares of destruction and death. At one point, Achmed takes Rhapsody aside and tells her of the sleeping wyrm that is imprisoned within the Earth by the F'dor, and which they are now very near. She creates a cacophonous song to prevent the F'dor from waking the wyrm, as it would be the world's destruction. As they crawl on the Axis Mundi, they reach a fire at the center of the earth. Rhapsody uses their Namesongs to walk them through the fire, which changes their physical and vibrational attributes. Scars have vanished, and Rhapsody is compellingly beautiful. Achmed receives a new ability as a pathfinder, Grunthor becomes linked with Earth, and Rhapsody to Fire. As their journey comes to an end, Rhapsody finds a flaming sword, Daystar Clarion, embedded in the earth.

The first person Rhapsody approaches is Khaddyr, a nature priest in the order of the Filids. He takes her to the home of Llauron the Invoker, which is located at the Great White Tree, a root twin to Sagia. Llauron welcomes her, and through the course of the evening it is revealed that Serendair was destroyed in a volcanic explosion that rose from beneath the sea, and over 1400 years have passed since she entered the Root. The destruction was foretold by a sovereign named Gwylliam, who sent an Ancient Seren seafarer to find a new homeland to settle in. Merithyn landed in the uninhabited realm of the wyrm Elynsynos, who took a fancy to him, and gave permission for the refugees of Serendair to make her land their home.

All of the refugees from Serendair became known as Cymrians due to what each group said upon meeting others in the new land:

Cyme we inne frið, fram the grip of deaþ to lif inne ðis smylte land.

As a result of their strange journey and the magic loosed at the end of the island where time itself began, the Cymrains are gifted, or cursed, with long life that seems to be immortality barring a violent death. The refugees sailed in three Waves, led respectively by Merithyn, MacQuieth, and Gwylliam. The First Wave landed near the realm of Elynsynos. The Second Wave was blown off course and landed on Gaematria, the Isle of the Sea Mages, and continued to the inhabited continent of Manosse, and the Third Wave landed in harsh terrain many miles from the First Wave. After fifty years, the two Waves meet and Gwylliam carves Canrif, a masterful civilization, out of a mountain range far to the east. The Cymrians usher in a civilization chracterized by intelligence and many accomplishements. However, when Gwylliam strikes his wife,Anwyn, the "Grievous Blow" starts a civil war that rages for centuries. At the end of the war most Cymrian descendents are ashamed of their heritage and attempt to hide it.

Rhapsody spends the next two months with the Filids, learning about herbalism from Lark and Ilyana, healing from Khaddyr, and animal care from Brother Aldo. She then meets with Achmed and Grunthor, who have seen much disturbing random violence on their travels to the seacoast. Llauron joins them one night by campfire and tells them more about the Cymrians.

They leave Gwynwood and head east, stopping at the keep of Lord Steven Navarne, who maintains a small museum of Cymrian artifacts. Lord Steven, a widower, introduces them to his children, Gwydion Navarne and Melisande. Much to their delight, Rhapsody immediately adopts them as her grandchildren. In the Cymrian museum, Rhapsody is drawn to a display of the artifacts of Gwydion of Manosse, who was killed by the F'dor twenty years prior. She experiences a strong mental image and feeling of a man in great pain while touching his ring.

The next stop for the three travellers is the House of Remembrance, within which they find a horrific scene of children being sacrificed for the benefit of something known as the Rakshas, which wears a grey cloak. They rescue the children and Rhapsody places a small harp playing a song of protection in the tree at the center. One teenage girl, Jo, becomes their companion.

Further east, in the city of Bethe Corbair, Jo and Rhapsody have an embarrassing encounter with a man who wears a misty cloak and calls himself Ashe. Much to Achmed's chagrin, Jo nervously stammers out their plans to live in Ylorc and invites Ashe to stop by.

Upon arrival in Ylorc, Achmed announces and enacts his plan to become King of the Bolg. They quickly discover Gwylliam's vault, where his corpse has been for 700 years, and use the tools and mechanisms inside to subdue the various Bolg clans and bring them under Achmed's rule. Rhapsody travels to Bethany, asking Lord Tristan Steward to stop the upcoming annual Spring Cleaning slaughter of a Bolg village. The Spring Cleaning is an annual ritual in which the Bolgs leave the weak and older Bolgs at a village, diverting the attention of the Roland army and preventing further attacks. He finds her request ludicrous but immediately becomes obsessed with her. Tristan sends troops out for Spring Cleaning only to have them immediately destroyed and corpses eaten by the Bolg army, now under the command of Grunthor. He reluctantly signs non-aggression and tariff-free trade agreements with Ylorc.

Ashe reappears in Ylorc just as some mysterious raids occur. Achmed is suspicious, especially when Ashe's considerable skill with a flashing blue sword becomes apparent. Ashe offers to lead Rhapsody on a mission to return a dragon claw dagger to Elynsynos, for fear that she would attack the Bolg.

The story is continued in Prophecy: Child of Earth