[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (44 page)

“You waste my time,” said Caderan
calmly. “Behold, dread lord, you are bound and
summoned. You have no choice.”

Its yells cut off instantly, as if they had never
been. “And what is so worth your life that you
summon me thus, puny mortal?” it
asked in the same flat tones it had used before.

“Behold, lord,” said Caderan, gesturing
at me. I went to the wall and unlocked the chains that
bound the girl. I put one of her arms
about my neck and lifted her, carrying her like a bride to
stand before
the demon. “This is Marik of Gundar’s blood and bone, a pact made and an
offering
sealed when this one was in the womb. We come to make payment for the Farseer,
that Marik’s
pain may cease.”

“Let her speak her dedication,” the
thing said.

“The offering resists. I would have you
dedicate her.”

”Wake her then, fool. She must have a will for
that will to be taken.”

I let her down, let her feet touch the floor and
whispered her name softly.

“Lanen. Lanen, wake up.”

I shame to admit such weakness, but in that
moment I hesitated. She was so near, so young
and strong—my daughter, my only
child, my blood and bone …

And then the pain the demons had cursed me with,
the pain that has followed me since her
birth, stabbed through me in a great
spasm, and I was myself again.

I felt her take her own weight and stand on her
own feet. She put her hands to her face and
rubbed her eyes. “Where am
I?” she said groggily. Then she looked up, and in that instant
knew all.

“NO!” she screamed with all her might,
and strove to throw me off.

Lanen

I might as well have wrestled with a Dragon.
Marik was proof now against my strength, and I
felt in his wiry frame strength the
equal of my own. I could do no more—

true speech,
I desire nothing but true speech

”AKOR! SAVE ME!” I screamed, in truespeech,
aloud, with every fibre of my being. My
voice was pitched so high it
frightened me.

There was an instant of silence, in which Caderan
laughed and the creature before me reached
out, but in the next moment all sound
was swallowed up in a vast roar.

It came from just outside the cabin.

Akhor

I was frantic. I could not find her. My people
can smell the Rakshasa if they are anywhere
near, and in truth the stench from
the camp had been heavy of late, but now it was gone. I
could not find the place Rella had
spoken of, I could not find my dearling, though the Fire
within me
knew well that she was in deadly peril. I flew in circles around and about the
camp,
lost,
maddened—

And her scream tore the night, rent my heart,
brought me arrowing down to a structure I had
passed fifty times. I roared once,
Fire preceding me as I came to land, for I found myself
surrounded by Rikti. I would have
laughed, were my Lanen’s terror not ringing still in my
brain. My Fire swept them
ef-fortlessly from the air, from the ground, cleansed the sigils I
could now see
dimly scratched into the very earth. But they were many, and all took time.

I had no time.

“Lanen,
I am here, I come.”
I cried, as I swept the Rikti
from my path.

Her answer was the merest whisper in my mind.
“Now, Akor, or it is too late.”

Lanen

Despite his arrival I was still before the altar,
and though I struggled with all my might, Marik
thrust me forward towards the demon
with a grip of iron. ”Take her, dread lord, take the
offering swiftly. A Lord of the
Kantri rages nearby and would keep her from you.”

“That shall not be,” said that dead
voice. “Come, offering,” it said, stretching out its redblack
arms for me.
Marik released me, and as I tried to run it grasped me by my shoulder.

I tried to scream. I tried to run. I had no will,
no voice, barely a flicker of my own self
remained. ”You are given as
sacrifice,” the thing said. “Now you—”

”Lanen, I am
here, I come!”

I summoned the last of my strength and shouted in
true-speech,
”Now, Akor, or it is too
late.”

It was barely a whisper.

“—belong to me,” it finished, and a red
veil fell before my eyes—

The splintering of wood behind me shook me even
from that cold, dead place. I still had no
volition, but I could tell from the
sound and the feel of air at my back that the wall behind me
was gone.

Caderan and Marik had turned to look.

Marik screamed and ran. Caderan was cooler—he
turned where he stood and spoke to the
demon, even as Akor was making the hole large enough
for him to enter.

“The offering will be made later. For the
price that was paid, I charge you now, destroy the
Kantri lord.” And before my
eyes, Caderan vanished.

The thing said something I could not hear, but in
that instant I was restored to myself. I ran
from the circle, past Akor and away
as he hunched into that cramped space, breathing fire and
swiping a
clawful of daggers at the demon. I knew that the only thing I could do in this
fight
was
to get out of the way.

I learned then what Akor meant when he called the
Rakshasa “life-enemies.”
The demon grew in stature until it rose high above
where the roof of the cabin had been. It

was now nearly of a size with Akor, though it was
still bound within the circles Caderan had
drawn. Akor did not even pause in his
attack. He flamed it, dragonfire searing the face and
body of the creature, and raked at it
with both front claws leaving great gashes behind. The
thing spat at him, its essence
scoring his silver armour, and, reaching out with its mangled and
flame-scorched
arms, took him by base of the throat and squeezed.

Akhor

Those hands were near to stopping my breath, but
even in that moment I blessed the Winds
for its stupidity. If it had grasped
my throat near the jaw, things might have gone ill, but our
long necks
are very flexible and I kept my head well out of range of its arms. As it was,
I
drew
my head back, pulled in what air I could and spat a great gout of Fire at its
face. It burst
into
flame, and while it was thus distracted I turned my own head sideways and
snapped at its
neck
once, twice. Again. Again. Its blood burned my tongue, and the taste nearly
made me
stop.
Nearly.

It took several bites, but these jaws the Winds
gave us are made for such battles as these. The
burning head dropped from the
shoulders; the thing gave a drawn-out scream and vanished.

The only traces of its presence were dark stains
on the ground where the head had rolled, and
in the cabin where it had been bound.

I flamed them clean with Fire, and burned what
was left of that building to ashes. I stood
watching the fire scorch all clean,
when I heard a soft voice behind me.

“Akor. You’re hurt.”

It was Lanen.

Lanen

I was afraid to speak to him. I was in awe. When
I finally got up the courage to say
something, I could only think of his wounds.

“They do not pain me, dearling. A moment,
though,” he said, and proceeded to cleanse each
of his gashes with Fire “There.
All is done.”

I had begun to shake with reaction, but somehow I
managed to look around me. I shouldn’t
have been surprised. They weren’t coming any too
close, but the noise and the flames had
drawn a crowd. One finally got up the
courage to speak— it sounded like one of Marik’s
guards.

“What happened?” He was addressing me.
I nearly laughed. Here was this wonder, this figure
of legend standing before them, and
this man was talking to me. Best they know the truth, I
thought. If Marik is still alive, at
the very least he isn’t going to have many friends.

“Marik and Caderan summoned a major demon, a
Lord of the Rakshasa, and he was going to
give me to it. The Dragons”—
“Forgive me, Akor, it is the word they
know”
— “do I not
tolerate demons on their island. The Guardian has destroyed
it.”

“Come,” he said to me, and turning to
the people said calmly, ”There is no need to fear. I
have delivered both you and my own
people from a great evil. I will not harm you.”
”Let us
leave them, dearling,”
he said in the Language of
Truth.
”It seems your people are no more
prepared for
our friendship than are mine. Will you come with me?”

“With
all my heart,”
I answered.
“Is there somewhere we can go to rest?”

”We shall go
to my chambers near the Great Hall. Come.”

He gathered me in his hands and leapt into the
night. I held tight for the very few moments of
flight until we came to land outside
his chambers. He brought wood and lit a fire, then curled
around it and
let me sit against him.

I thought I was doing well until I sat down
against his warmth. It was as though someone had
suddenly cut the strings that had
held me up, for I began to shake and to babble about nothing,
and finally
to weep in earnest. I sat huddled against his neck with his head beside me and
his
wings
soft about me. and I told him as I sobbed of the haunted dreams and tortured
wakings,
of
the demon and the dread sinking in my soul when it touched me, of the horror of
helplessness
in the face of so great an evil. He had the wisdom to say nothing, but when I
had
finished
talking and had only tears left, he kept repeating, “It is gone, Lanen,
back to its
dwelling
place. It is destroyed in this world, it cannot return until it has recovered
so far as to
enflesh
itself again, and that will not be in your lifetime.”

My lifetime. So short a time we had
together. As
long as a Weh sleep, no more—“Dear Goddess, no!” I cried.

Akhor

She seemed so fragile in that moment. I had not
been prepared for her storm of tears, though
when it came I understood. In times
of great stress my own people take to the air, and flame
and sing to
the sun or the stars until the madness has left them.

“
What
is it, dearling?”
I asked gently in truespeech.
“I am here, I will let no harm come nigh
you.”

“Not me, you,” she said, and I felt her
fear. “Akor, your wounds—” She dropped her voice.
“Blessed
Shia—will the Weh sleep come on you?”

I closed my eyes in relief and pulled her close
with my wing. ”No, dearling, they are not so
bad as all that. They will heal of
their own in time.”

She let out her breath in a great sigh, and her
fear was gone as swiftly as it had come. I
thought for a moment and was
surprised at the conclusion I came to.

“Lanen
Kaelar!”

“Still here,” she said aloud, smiling
gently now, wiping the tears from her face, reaching out
to touch me.

”You feared
that the Weh sleep would take me from you.”

“Yes.”

I had no words, no response, but unbidden my mind
rang with the first notes of the song we
had made between us, and I opened my
mind to my beloved. She joined me, just for a little
while, and in the Language of Truth
we sang again our
joy.
Soon, though, Shikrar bespoke me. He had gone to tell the Council of the
killing of the

Rakshasa, as I had asked, but it had not helped
matters. They wished to ask me particulars of
the battle, and if I knew which of
the creatures I had fought. I left Lanen safe in my chambers.

Kédra

I was greatly relieved when Akhor bespoke me and
said all was well with them. He asked that
I keep Rella company until the
Council could come to some decision. My father was in the
Great Hall
now, telling them news they would not wish to hear. For my part I was intrigued
the the Gedri
who sat before the fire I had made, and I understood Akhor’s wishing to speak
with them.
The Boundary was safe between us—I stood a little back in hiding and listened
on
all
levels for any trespass by others of her race—but I longed to hold converse
with her. Yet I
was
bound even as Akhor was bound; I could not speak first. She had gathered the
wood in
silence,
and when I had lit it for her she only looked at me. She would have to—