[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (32 page)

Marik

I woke to find one of my guards
hovering over me. “Where is she?” I muttered, cupping my jaw. It hurt
to speak.

“I have the Harvesters looking
everywhere, lord, but so far we haven’t found her. Sul ran after her, but she
had a headstart by way of he had to get me off him first.” The idiot hung
his head sheepishly and explained how Lanen had got past them, the lump on his
forehead silent witness to truth. “Fetch my Healer,” I commanded as I
rose, “and then fetch me Caderan.”

Maikel, my Healer, was working on me
when Sul returned. The expression on his face was quite beyond words.
“Well,” I demanded, “where is she?”

“Please not to speak just now,
lord, it is not good for the work,” Maikel admonished me gently. I
grunted.

“She is gone, master,” said
Sul, and I heard wonder in his voice, “I was a long way behind her and
lost the trail in the woods, so I ran back to camp and started up search
parties of whoever was around. I took two likely lads and started off along the
Boundary, just in case she’d run that way and been trapped. We must have gone a
good mile along when I heard noises and saw something up ahead, by where you
met the Dragons.” His voice dropped to a respectful whisper. “It was
one of them, on our side of the fence, and while I watched it picked her up in
its hands and flew away.”

I groaned. Damn it to all the Hells,
not only talked with them but befriended, not only befriended but rescued! I
had been so close. How had she resisted that amulet? It had been made by Berys
himself; she should have thrown herself at my feet. Unless—

Unless she had some innate
resistance.

Caderan appeared in the doorway, the
darkness kind to his lank hair and sharp face. His eyes were bright with
excitement. “The creature was on this side of the Boundary, you are certain?”
he asked Sul.

“Yes, lord. I saw it lean down and
pick her up,” said Sul.

“You are dismissed,” he
told the two, and they left to take up their stations outside. Maikel still
worked on my jaw so I could not speak, but Caderan’s face spoke even before he
did. “We have them, my lord. Did you not say that the treaty included them
staying on their side of the fence?”

I grunted assent.

An oily grin spread over his face.
“The Dragons are creatures of Order, my lord, they are bound by it
straitly. This is your bargaining point, one they cannot ignore. You may not
need to make your excursion at all.”

My Healer finally finished and I
shooed him away. “I will live now, Maikel, I thank you for your pains.
Master Caderan and I would be alone.”

He bowed without a word and left.

“Explain.”

“My—sources have informed me
that if you can find a point of their law that they have broken, they are bound
to make restitution.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “She
has done it for you, lord. By escaping to them, she has made them break their
own laws. Think of it! Dragon gold for the asking!” He broke into a
high-pitched laugh that sent shivers down my spine.

“Enough,” I snapped.
“You will accompany me to the place of Summoning at noon tomorrow. In the
meantime, I will need you to explain to me how the girl resisted my amulet.
”

“What?”

“Yes, master sorcerer. She was
well in my power, I could feel it, but the moment I spoke to her of what I
needed to know she drew away from me, and a moment later she struck me.”

Caderan did not entirely manage to
hide his smile. “Yes, very amusing I’m sure,” I said sourly.
“May she smite you one day. Fool! I care not for the blow. “How was
she able to resist the amulet?”

“I cannot imagine, my lord. No
woman should have been proof against it. Of course it means nothing to men when
a man wears it, and since it was made very specifically for you, should it be
stolen and used by a woman you would be immune, but—”

“Could it be that simple?”
I wondered aloud. “It was made for me, I am proof against it—how would it
affect one who was my own flesh and blood?”

Caderan’s eyes went wide, then
narrowed as a sickening smile crossed his face. “Yes, my lord. You have
it, no doubt. I think we do not need her blood now, though when she is in your
power again I would recommend the procedure for form’s sake. Unless she is in
fact a man—”

“Trust me, she’s a woman.”

“—or a Dragon, then the only
explanation must be that she is your daughter. Your first born child, my lord
Marik, and the price of your pain.”

His words swept through me like
healing fire. I threw back my head and laughed, despite the aches from the
blow, despite the pain I carried always with me. The price of my pain. Once
paid it would be gone forever. It was worth anything.

Now all I needed was the girl.

She couldn’t stay with them forever.
If she was not back in my hands by morning I would demand her return from the
creatures, along with gold as recompense for their breaking of the treaty. If
they would not agree, somehow I would use Caderan’s servants to fetch her back.

And in the meantime, once Caderan
left, I meant to don those articles prepared for me and go walking in the
dragonlands. It is, after all, always best to learn what you may, and I
suspected this lawbreaking by one of their own would not go unnoticed by the
creatures themselves.

The Lords of Hell were smiling on me
at last.

Akhor

The fire was but a few glowing embers
now. We see in the dark a little better than the Gedri, but not much. As the
darkness closed about us I began to ask Lanen about herself. She spoke haltingly
at first, but I prompted her when she fell silent and she had much to say in
the end. She told me of her old life at Hadronsstead, of her friends and her
travels since she left.

“I would like to meet your
Jamie. He has known you all your life, perhaps he would know whence your dreams
of knowing my people sprang.”

She laughed a small laugh. “It’s
a good thought, but he has no idea. He always said I must have been dropped on
my head sometime when he wasn’t looking. I don’t think he even believes you
exist.” Then she made a marvelous sound, very short notes rising then
falling in pitch.

“What was that?” I asked,
surprised. I had not thought to wonder if she could sing.

“What was what? Oh—I laughed,
that’s all.”

“Forgive me, littling, but that
was not a laugh. Is there no separate word for it?”

“Mmm—well, yes, I suppose it was
a giggle.”

I tried to say it. The sound of the
word was very like the thing itself and made her laugh again. “Usually
only children giggle; it’s the kind of noise little girls make when they are
together,” she told me.

“Our younglings sing, though not
very well at first. The sounds are similar,” I replied. “Do your
people sing?”

“Yes. At least, we all sing but
we don’t all do it well. Jamie always told me I had a voice like a frog with a
cold.”

I smiled in the darkness. “I
have never heard a frog with a cold sing. Would you sing something for
me?”

“What, now?” She was
surprised; and seemed pleased.

“Yes. I will join you, if I
may.”

“What if you don’t know the
song?”

“Littling,” I said gently,
“I learn very quickly.”

She sat up straight and cleared her
throat. “Just remember, you asked for this,” she said. “This is
a lullaby, such as mothers sing to their little ones to help them sleep.”

She sang a sweet song, soft and low.
Her voice was perfectly fine, though it was very young. I decided Jamie did
not necessarily know everything about her. When she began the tune again I
joined her in the second voice, keeping the harmony as simple as the melody.
She did not stop as I had feared, she even sang it through once more. I was
pleased with the way our voices blended.

She let the last notes die away and
said quietly, “If the bards could hear you they would fall at your feet
and die happy. I have never heard anything so beautiful, if you take my voice
out of it. Akor, please, would you sing for me?” she asked. Her voice was
very soft, as if she feared to ask such a thing.

There is nothing she could have asked
of me that would have touched me more deeply, nor that I would more readily
give. Perhaps it was chance.

Perhaps chance had nothing to do with what Lanen
and I did together.

I was full of her now, of small things and large,
I could hold nothing else. “Lanen, dear one, I am honoured. I shall sing
you a new song that my heart taught me this night past.” I closed my eyes.
I had not meant to sing that to her; but no matter. I believe that whatever I
had set out to sing would have come to that song in the end. I thought I was
still safe, for it is only a true bonding if both create the song, if their
voices can find a meeting place in the singing.

I drew in breath, lifted my head and sang the
song I had heard the night before as I dreamed of a Kantri-Lanen flying the
Flight of the Devoted with me.

Lanen

He began softly and sweetly to sing, a lilting
melody like a child’s voice that made me want to dance or laugh or both
together. Then the song changed, became more melancholy; it reminded me of the
dark days in Hadronsstead. I understood then a little of what he was doing. I
heard my journey through Ilsa, the music of the rivers and the stronger theme
of the sea.

Then he let his voice deepen, taking on the
beauty of the skies and of the winter’s night we had just flown through. I
could hear his rejoicing as he bore in hands made for destruction the fragile
body of the one he loved.

Me.

And then he made me grow.

He turned me in his song into a Dragon, with
wings of air and breath of fire, free and strong and brave. Together we flew on
the night winds, made music, became in truth all things to one another as we
would have done were the Winds or the Lady kinder. I wept, for joy, for wonder,
as I felt my song-self ride the wind, become one with this fellow creature who
held my name in his heart.

And I joined him.

I let go my fears; whatever it was that kept me
earthbound I left behind. I let my voice join his, let it go where he went,
then apart, then he would bring us back together. I had never imagined such
music, it thrilled in my blood and pulsed along my every vein. Any part of my heart
he did not have I gave him then. I felt my soul melt out of me and join with
his as we flew. I could feel the very air on my wings, smell the approach of
dawn and the nearness of my beloved; and we were one.

He sang us down. I sang no more, content to hear
him, to revel in the glory of his voice and of what we had made between us.

And then there was silence.

Akhor

I was loath to speak. When I came to myself again
Lanen was standing beside me, her hand on my side. I leaned down a little
farther and she reached up and put an arm around my neck as far as it would go
and leaned her head against mine.

It was the closest we could come to one another.

I would not have moved for worlds.

The night poured in upon us from high above, the
light of the stars shining in on two lost souls.

She broke the silence at last.

“Kordeshkistriakor,” she whispered.

None had ever spoken my true name aloud. The
power of it sparked through me, thrilling, terrifying, yet warm with the love
of her who spoke it.

“Lanen Kaelar,” I whispered back, and
felt her tremble.

“Akor, what have we done?” she asked
softly. “What was that?”

“Dearling, I wish I were certain,” I
said. “The closest I can come is the Flight of the Devoted.”

She shivered against me. “And what is
that?”

“It is the way of my people when—Lanen, dear
one, this may be as hard for you to hear as it is for me to say. It is the way
of my people when we choose a mate. The two Devoted ones take to the sky
and—”

“And sing together and make patterns with
their flight and their song, I know, we just did that. I don’t know how, but we
just did that.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “It was
wonderful to have wings, and to fly with you like that.”

I found myself ashamed, as though in my need I
had taken a youngling for mate before it was full grown. “Lanen, please
believe me, I did not mean for that to happen. I could not stop myself. I meant
only to sing you the song that came to me in the night, but when you joined me
I…”

“Akor, dear one, enough,” she said,
stopping me. “Do you think I am a fool or a child? No one could mistake
the meaning of that song we gave one another. I asked only because I wanted to
hear you say what my heart knew already.” She paused. “I would guess
your people take a mate only once, is that so?”