[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (36 page)

I cringed at the anguish in his voice as he
agreed.

I flew on the Wind’s wings to the Birthing Cove
and called to Lanen to tell her what I had requested.

Lanen

I wasn’t any more pleased to be Shikrar’s
passenger than he was to have me. He held me away from his body so only his
hands would have to touch me. I could appreciate the sentiment, but I got cold
very quickly. If his hands themselves were not so warm I’d have frozen.

It was a long flight, but at least this time I
could see what we flew over. The Birthing Cove, it seemed, was on the
northwestern side of the island, so that I saw a great deal of the island pass
below me. We went across the center, a longer way than straight so that Shikrar
could fly through a gap in the mountain range that split the north of the
Dragon Isle from the south. It was the only gap in that fearsome ridge that I
could see.

The northern half of the island was very
different from the south. Here the forests were much thinner; in some places
bare black rock was all that lay below us for many leagues. A spur of the
mountains shot away northward, and at its end another large mountain arose,
smoking sullenly in a hundred places. One whole side of the mountain was dark
with what looked like rock that had melted away. I could not imagine the kind
of force that could make stone run like mud.

It was at the edge of this desolation that we
came to ground, after what seemed hours. The sun was nearly down, but in the
afternoon’s grey gloom I saw a cliff of stone and a wide beach below,
rock-strewn and dark, with a large pool a little way inland.

There were four of the Kantri waiting for us. The
largest, only a little smaller than Shikrar, was like dark copper. The one
sitting in the pool shone like polished brass even on that cloudy day, the one
at the pool’s edge was close in colour to Shikrar’s dark bronze, and the last
gleamed purest silver (I breathed again), strange among them, the Silver King
come to help his people.

Shikrar dropped me just before he landed. To be
fair he was as delicate about it as he could manage, but I was so cold my
cramped limbs would not hold me up. I fell to the rocky ground with a cry.

Akor was at my side in an instant.
“What
ails thee, dearling?”
he asked, his voice in my mind warm and loving.

“I’m near frozen,” I told him through
chattering teeth.

Without a word he breathed on me. Gently,
steadily, a warm wind in a warmer fog. It was like taking a steam bath.

At first the warmth hurt as much as the cold had,
but after a little I began to melt. My face, my hands and feet still ached with
cold, but now I could at least move about enough to keep my blood from
freezing.

“Littling, the lady nearest you is the Lady
Idai,”
said Akor in truespeech, as he kept breathing warmth
into my bones.
“The younger one who gleams so bright is Mirazhe, she
who is having difficulty with the birth. The one beside her is her mate Kédra,
the son of Shikrar. I am glad you are here. I may need your help if all else
fails.”

“Anything I can do I will,” I replied
aloud. I thought of his words the night before. Kédra’s child was the first
youngling to be born in three hundred years, and it was in danger. I could all
but smell their distress—I think, despite their impassive faces, I would have
known something was wrong just looking at them.

Akhor

Shikrar and I went to Idai, who appeared to be
the calmest among them, but when she bespoke me her concern rang nearly as loud
as her anger.
“Lord Akhor, I have sent all the others back to their own
chambers. There were none who remembered more than I, not even Kerijan, or
could do anything more here than surround Mirazhe with their concern, which is
the last thing she needs. Akhor, I fear for her. She has been straining since
early last night. Even the more difficult births took perhaps the half of a
day. Those that took longer we lost.”

“Mother or child, Idai?”

“Both, my lord. Both.”
She glared at me, standing obviously in Anger now.
“And you would bring
your pet Gedri here to witness it! How could you so betray your people? Do you
care so little for Shikrar’s feelings, for Mirazhe and Kédra, that you would
bring the enemy of our people here, of all places? Shikrar has told me of your
meeting, and of your obsession. It is not right, Akhor. It must leave, or I
shall destroy it where it stands. Never in the history of the world has a Gedri
come to so sacred a place. It should not be!”

I found I was moving into Anger myself. For
Mirazhe’s sake I fought to keep my head, keep some measure of calm as Idai
threatened the life of my beloved.
“Lady Idai, how great a fool do you
think me?”
I said sternly in the Language of Truth.
“Or do you
believe me mad, or evil, or so heartiess I would throw Shikrar’s dislike of the
Gedri in his teeth? This child of the Gedri—Lanen—is here to witness not death
but birth, and she may be of service to us. She

stays.”

“No! Akhor, are you bespelled? This is ill
done, it is not the way of things, I will not permit!”

“I do not ask your permission, Idai. You
will not harm har, and she will stay.”

“NO!”
cried Idai
in a great voice, and ran towards Lanen.

Lanen

I had wandered over to the pool. I don’t know
why, but it seemed impolite just to stare. I bowed to the one in the pool and
to the other who waited on the far side. “I am called Lanen,” I said.
Mirazhe stared at me with unreadable eyes, but did not move or speak. Her mate
leaned down his head and looked at me closely. He said something out loud that
I didn’t understand, but in a moment what I guessed was his voice said in
truespeech,
“Lanen, may I bespeak you?

I am called Kédra.”

“You are welcome to. You are Shikrar’s
son?”

“Astounding! So Akhor spoke no more than
truth. A Gedri with truespeech! You are the friend of Akhor?”

“Yes,”
I replied.
“I
am sorry for your lady’s trouble. Is there anything to be done?”

He might have answered, but I was distracted by a
loud hiss, and suddenly there before me was the large one Akor had called Idai.
Then everything moved in a blur—the creatures moved so swiftly I could not tell
what was happening until it stopped. Mirazhe, the one in the pool, had thrust
her head between me and Idai and hissed. Apparently Idai was so shocked she
backed down, and around the edge of Mirazhe’s jaw I just caught sight of Idai
lowering her vast claw with its five swords. I’d have been deader than Perrin
and twice as surprised.

Akhor

Thank the Winds for Mirazhe; I was too slow to
read Idai’s intent. When the moment had passed I walked slowly over to the
pool.
”Idai.”

She stood frozen in amazement, and Mirazhe kept
her head between Idai and Lanen, who never moved.

“Idai! Come thou before thy King and
answer!”
I commanded in the formal speech of kingship. As
I had hoped, it shook her out of herself. She came to me, where I stood near
the sea, and bowed as fealty demanded.

“Idai, thou art birth sister to Mirazhe, and
in the stead of attending her wishes thou hast driven her, mute as she is, to
the edge of challenge. What say est thou in defence?”

“I say it is thine own actions have brought
me to it, Lord King, and thou shalt answer to the Council!”

“Very well. Then we both shall. But you will
swear to leave the Gedri in peace while we are here, or I shall banish you,
birth sister or no, from this place.”

“Very well,” she said aloud, albeit
through clenched teeth. “It shall live for all of me. But there are more
pressing concerns.”

“Agreed. First let us bring Mirazhe to
delivery of her youngling. You say you know this trouble. What is the
difficulty?”

She bowed her head, and I began to see that her
anger was half grown from frustration and helplessness. “Akhor, the
youngling is turned the wrong way. It cannot make its way into the world.”

It was the worst news possible. “Is there
nothing to be done?”

“On a few occasions in the past, a smaller
female could assist in the birth, reach into the birth passage and pull the
youngling out.” She lowered her voice. “Sometimes the newborn
survived, but our hands are not created for such things. These hands, these
claws the Winds gave us for defence, to kill our food and our foes, are not
gentle. Even in those few cases where the youngling survived, the mother
died.”

“Always?”

She stood in Sorrow, her head turned away from
me. “Always.”

I saw Shikrar and Kédra standing in Fear mixed
with Concern, both striving for Calm so as not to overly alarm Mirazhe. The
lady herself lay back now in the warm birthing pool with her eyes closed. Her
body, so lovely with the shape of new life, was straining to no use. Her
soulgem was dull. And to my surprise, there at the side of the pool knelt my
dearling, her face furrowed with sorrow. She could not understand the speech
between me and Idai, we spoke in our own tongue, but somehow she knew that all
was very ill.

Idai’s Sorrow was washed with Pain now, and my
fear and anguish answered hers.
“My lord, I can think of no other way.
I must try to save the littling lest both die.”

“Wait,” I said aloud. My vague thoughts
had finally crystallised. How I had envied the Gedrishakrim their hands, those
tiny, delicate hands.

The two peoples were meant to live in peace.
Together.

”Lanen, will you join us?” I said in her own
tongue. And to her alone,
“Come, dearling. I need you.”

“Anything I can do, Akor my heart. How can I
help this valiant lady?”

Lanen

I realised in a passing thought that I had
answered him in truespeech without trying to focus, and the others must surely
have heard. I forgot it in the next breath.

“Lanen, have you any knowledge of giving
birth?”

I smiled, even then. What a way to put it!
“Not of my own, but I have assisted many times, both with my own Kindred
and with horses.”

“Our history tells us of Healers among your
people who could do great things with only the power of their hands and minds.
Have you this skill?”

I hoped this was not his only idea. “No. I
was tested when I was a child, there wasn’t even a glimmer of the Healer’s aura
in me.”

Akor finally let his voice match his mood. It
became grim as Shikrar’s had been at the cave.
”Come, my friends,”
he said in wide-scattered truespeech, and led us all over to the birthing pool
where Mirazhe lay in her pain and fear.

”Dear ones all,”
said Akor in
the same fashion,
”I will not sit by and watch one of my people in pain
without doing all I may to help. Mirazhe, littling, can you look at me?”

She opened her eyes—they were bright blue,
beautiful— and gazed up at him as best she could.

“You have saved this lady from an unprovoked
attack, for which I owe you a great debt. I propose now that we ask Lanen to assist
you. Her hands have no claws like ours, she might he able gently to coax the
youngling out.”

“Akhor, no!”

“Idai, you will he silent in this. I ask
Mirazhe, her mate and his father. What say you, Shikrar? Kédra? Will you allow
her to attempt this?”

I think he expected a chorus of dismay when he
finally came to it, but obviously the others—bar Idai, who seemed to hate me on
sight—were willing to try anything, even this. I, on the other hand, was not
ready for this idea.

“Akor, no!”

“What is wrong, littling?”

“I—she’s—Akor, I have never…” Then I
realised that none of them had ever, either.
”Very well. If the lady will
allow it.”
I bowed to the kind eyes that had saved me.
”Lady, what say
you?”

“She cannot speak, Lanen,” said Akor.
“During birth our Kindred become silent, and in any case Mirazhe does not
speak your language.”

“Does she still have truespeech?”

“A little, though it is difficult.”

I looked at the lady and even I could tell she
was in pain.
”May I bespeak you ?”

She nodded, and Kédra said for her, “She is
called Mirazhe.”

I concentrated.
”I am Lanen. Lady Mirazhe, do
you permit me to assist you?”

Even truespeech seemed an effort, but she managed
it.
”I have not been told all the truth about you Gedri,” she said and her
mindvoice was gentle despite her pain. “If you have the Language of Truth,
who knows what might be possible. Yes, try what you can. Ahhh!”

I cringed at her pain in my mind. She was in a
bad way indeed. And she was obviously not moving from where she was. I barely
stopped to think. I took off boots and cloak, heavy tunic and shirt, and
stepped into the water in leggings and my shift—and found it warm, almost hot.