[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (47 page)

I had only ever heard a few words of the Old
Speech. It was the first tongue of all the peoples,
the language of Dragons, and though
it was in aeons past the basis of my own language there
were few words left of it in common speech.
The ancient name I took as my own, Kaelar, the
Wanderer, was from a ballad. Songs
and places alone kept even the memory of the Old
Speech among men, but for all the
time and distance the sounds were somehow familiar, and
hearing Shikrar speak I felt I had
stepped back in time. The words hovered just on the edge
of meaning. I
caught one or two, and felt that I was near as a breath to understanding all he
said.

When the
world was younger and the last of the Trelli but lately departed, our two
Kindreds lived in harmony.

Akor stood behind me, his massive bulk shielding
me from the view of most of the others.

Few, it seems, had seen me come in, for which
small mercy I was deeply thankful.

“What is he saying, Akor?” I whispered.

”He is
calling for attention, saying that another has come with words for the Council.
It is
brave
of him, dearling; by our laws you have no voice here. And we are a people of
law.”

Even in his mouth it sounded sour. “Are you
indeed?” I asked, a ghost of my mad bravery
lingering. “Well, now I’m here I
must do what I can. I’ve dealt with legal-minded Merchants
before.”

”Lanen, my
people are not Merchants!”
he said, sounding shocked.

I would have answered him, but Shikrar stepped
back and bowed to us. “Let you speak now
for your lives, my friends, and may
the Winds guide your words and your thoughts,” he said
in Common
Speech. He moved then to the back of the dais to sit beside the copper-coloured
one.

“It’s time, dear heart,” I said
quietly.

“Yes.
They are expecting me alone to stand and speak. Shall we go?”

“Age before beauty.” He stared at me.
“You first,” I said, smiling. “I’d hate to be fried on sight
by
accident.”

“I see.
You would rather it be done intentionally,”
he said as
he stepped gracefully up. It
wasn’t fair, really, I didn’t mean to be laughing when
I clambered up the tall step to stand
beside him on such a solemn occasion. But it did make
for a hell of an entrance.

I gathered later from Shikrar that they had
expected to find a demure, silent soul, obedient and
willing, waiting for their verdict
and generally thick as a plank. Lady knows why. Just
because I had been an idiot in love
didn’t mean I was stupid altogether.

“My lords and ladies!” I called out, in
my best horse-fair voice.

That got their attention. The sound nearly
deafened me. The Great Hall was wonderful, it
magnified my voice so well I could
speak almost in normal tones. That yell had been
something, for a human.

”I greet you all, in the name of my ancestors
and my people. I am called Lanen
Maransdatter of the Gedrishakrim, and I greet you as
my brothers and sisters in the name of
the Winds and of the Lady.”

Dead silence.

Well, even in my dreams it hadn’t been easy.

”Lanen, few
of my people understand your tongue. Shall I translate for you ?”

”Yes, Akor, please, but only if you promise to
say exactly what I do. Some of this is not
going to be pleasant, and you must
not soften it. We know the tones of voice are roughly the
same, I’m
sure they’ll get the general idea.”

”I’m sure
they will,”
he replied dryly.
”You would not care to reconsider, would you,
dearling?
Thus far we have merited only a swift death.”

”Perish the
thought,”
I said, responding in truespeech. The fey mood was
still upon me.
“I’d
hate to
disappoint them. They won’t have had this much fun in years. Now stop distracting
me and start
translating.”

The response was gratifying, but I must admit it
was my turn to be surprised. I had forgotten
that they could all hear my
truespeech, it now seemed so natural to use it with Akor.

“Why have
you waited so long to speak in the Language of Truth? Or had you nothing true
to
say?”
sneered a smaller, bronze-hued Dragon.

”So now you
can hear me. Why didn’t any of you answer when I called you from the
Boundary?”
I
shot back. Somehow rudeness from the Kantri snapped me back into that anger
and
exultation that had brought me storming in.
“Could
you not admit that I have the gift you
value so highly? That I am not
Silent, not Gedri in that sense, but a creature of standing equal
to your own?
Or did you think I could lie even in this language?”

”You have no
voice here …”
began one lady feebly, but I could
not bear to hear that again.
Instinctively I spoke aloud

“I should have a voice here! I am not a
beast, I am an ensouled creature as you are, and I
never heard that the Winds gave you
the power of the high justice over me and mine!’

“Would
it not be best to continue in the Language of Truth?”
asked Shikrar quietly.
“It is thus
that we may
best hear you.”

I thought about that for a moment.
“I believe you are right, Shikrar, and
I thank you. I spoke
in my own tongue in my anger, but were you to come among us we would
wish you to speak
our language. I shall continue as long as I may, though I cannot use the
silent speech for long
without some discomfort. It is natural to your people—and to me, it
seems—but I am newly
come to it. Still, I shall try.”

Akhor

Obviously there were many who had not believed,
even after hearing her distant calls on
several occasions, that she, a Gedri,
could be the source of truespeech. There could be no
doubt now. When she lapsed into her
own speech again, I translated for her.

I had meant to establish her right to speak. The
right was mine, and would have been hers if
she had been of the Kindred. I at
least was due an appeal. But I did not dare interrupt She
was inspired,
and I was glad enough to wait and watch. Our people are prone at times to
sudden
ill-conceived actions—it is the hazard of being creatures of Fire. I would make
certain she
was protected from any who threatened.

Otherwise, I merely sat and marvelled at her. She
was a wonder.

Lanen

“People
of the Greater Kindred, I stand before you as your sister in this world. True,
we are
made
differently, but we are far closer in spirit than you are to the Rakshasa, or
either of us to
the vanished Trelli. In the first days of our meeting, Akor and I
quickly came to understand
each other’s Attitudes and expressions. And even when words failed us,
we learned that rone
of voice was a near-infallible guide. As I understand Attitudes, I stand
somewhere between
Defiance
and Respect.”

One voice rang out.
”We read you well enough, Gedri. You are sentenced already.”

“No,
Dragon
,
I am not,” I cried, lapsing into my own tongue and putting as much venom
in
my
voice as I could. They all stirred at that; some who had been in what looked
like it might
be
Listening or some such now stood in Anger. As soon as I saw it I understood, I
knew what
I
must do.

“Yes,
Akor has told me how that name offends you. Very well! You are the Greater
Kindred,
I
will pay you that respect; but I have told you my own name. I am Lanen
Maransdatter. To
call me Gedri, a Silent One, is in any case not correct—but among my
people if you deny the
name, you deny the person, and I think you have done quite enough of
that already. ”

“Who are you to judge us?” called a
voice from behind me, dripping with hostility but
speaking in my language. I turned
back to face the bright copper Dragon I had merely glanced
at before.
”Rishkaan,”
whispered Akor in my mind.

“I have
told you. I am Lanen Maransdatter, beloved of Akor the Silver King, and
whatever
you
do you cannot unmake that which already is. You could crush me with a fraction
of a
thought,
with the lightest breath of fire, but you cannot destroy the change that I
bring.”

I turned back to the assembly.
“Don’t you understand? Have you not
heard? How can you
censure your King when he is caught in the web of the gods? Yours and
mine! How absurd,
for us to be so devoted after so short a time. Can you imagine we do not
know it? We are not
fools. When we came
to ourselves after the joining of our souls, we stood apart and called
on our gods for
understanding, each to each. And the Winds and the Lady spoke to us.

“I did
not come here to fall in love with one of the Kindred: Blessed Lady, what a
pointless
thing
to do! I suffer from the same ferrinshadik that is so deep a part of my
beloved; I longed
only to speak with another soul that felt as I did, once in my life to
hear the thoughts of the
only other race in this world that can speak and reason. Why should I
not? I had no idea. I
knew nothing of the ban until Akor told me of the Lost Ones. That tale
itself is long forgotten
by my people.

“I speak
with you now as I have a thousand times before in my heart. I left my home
gladly to
follow
the merest rumour of you, for I knew in my soul you were no legend. I gave up
my
home
to find you, to learn of the Greater Dragons who lived apart from my people.
You were
the
old ones, the wise ones, and I desired to learn from you.”

I spoke now aloud and let my voice rise, partly
from some memory of the tricks of the bards,
partly because I was now hard put to
it to keep stray thoughts out of my truespeech and I
wanted this clear.

“And thanks to your King, I have indeed
learned. I ask you now, do you not remember your
own history? Kantri and Gedri are
meant to be together, to live in harmony. Yes, you had
reason to be angry at the death of
Aidrishaan—
but he was only one
. By
that time the
Demonlord
had destroyed several villages full of my people. You are creatures of Fire, I
can
understand
that you would be driven to too great an anger, to too-hasty action—
but that is
what
it was
. And is.

“I believe you never accepted my people as
your equals, even in the days of the Peace.
Always we have been the Gedri. the
Silent Ones, our very name in your language a dismissal,
a cause for
contempt. We are smaller, weaker, we live a fraction of your lives, we cannot
fly—but you
have never admitted that we have a greatness that you do not possess.”

There was much muttering at that. More stood in
Anger. I had no plan, no idea of what to say,
but the words came for all that. I
still did not understand why I sought to anger the Kindred. I
trusted in
whatever was leading me and followed as best I could. But the hall had begun to
hum, low and
deep, with murmuring, and the beginning of the most unsettling melody I had
ever heard.

“What of
the Gedri is worthy the name of greatness, Maran’s daughter?”
growled
Rishkaan
from
behind me.
“They have brought only
darkness and blight on the world. My mother’s
granddam was changed by the Demonlord
in the iower of her youth, she was riven from her
daughter when
she could barely fly, along with all the rest of my family that ever was. I
shall
bear
the Gedri ill will always.”

“That is
your choice, Rishkaan of the Kantrishalcrim, but you do not speak for all the
Kindred.”
Akor’s truespeech rang clear and firm.
“Now
silence all, by our own laws, and let
her continue.”