[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (50 page)

“I tell you she is the end of our world! I
have seen it!” he cried.

“Calm yourself, old friend,” I said
gently. “I heard you both in Council. But I do not
understand how both could be true.
Akhor saw our people’s salvation arising from his joining
with Lanen,
he told us the Winds spoke with him and said as much. How should I believe
such
communion false?”

“Perhaps he did not tell the whole
truth,” growled Rishkaan. “You well know that our
Kindred are
not above stretching the truth if it suits their need.”

I bowed. ”True enough. Akhor concealed his twilight
meeting with Lanen from me, he has
admitted it. But Rishkaan, did his words in Council
not strike you as those of one who has
done with conceal? And why should he invent so clumsy
a lie? If he sought to justify his
actions, surely the voice of the Winds would be more
use to him ere ever he and Lanen were
joined. What good does that good word do him afterwards?
No, to me it has the ring of truth.
And—forgive me if I am blunt—how could there possibly
be a mingling of the blood of
Kantri and Gedri? I agree, it is a thought to sicken
the mind, but surely it is beyond
possibility. It is as if you asked us to beware the
offspring of a bull and a butterfly.”

“Fool!” cried Rishkaan. “I tell
you I have seen it! She had our form, Shikrar, she was one of
us! And her
children I saw in terrible guise, half-Gedri, half-Kantri, caught between in a
black
hour,
changing from one to the other. The sky was filled with hideous forms, the
world was
aflame
with Raksha-fire, and because of her there was no Akhor to stand between the
Lords
of
Hell and the last defenders of
Kolmar
.”
He bowed his head and did not speak for some
time. “Ah, Hadreshikrar, I grow
old before my time,” he said sadly.

“Rishkaan, my friend, I hear you,” I
replied, “and well I know the years bring sorrow with
wisdom. But I
cannot believe the world is doomed, not by love, though I hear the truth in
your voice
and know that you at least believe it. I beg you consider though, for the sake
of
Akhor,
that perhaps he and Lanen might also be right. It may be that you have seen
most but
not
all of what is to come. Might there not be a last verse, a final turn on the
wing or beat of
the
heart that has not been revealed to you? Or,” I said, quietly voicing a
thought that had
been
growing in my mind, “perhaps you have each seen only one side of a balance
that might
go
either way. Perhaps the Council’s decision to exile them will bring about its
destruction,
while
allowing them to stay together would be the saving of our Kindred, as Akhor has
foretold.”

Rishkaan was mustering a reply when we both heard
the sound of someone arriving outside
the cavern entrance, and the sudden silence that came
with it.

We did not wonder long. Kédra entered the cavern.
”I could find no trace of him, Father,” he
said, his voice in some strange place
between defeat and merriment.

“Are you certain the Gedri who spoke with
you told the truth?”

“And who might you be, to call me liar to my
face?” asked a high voice I had not heard
before. And in behind Kédra walked
the second child of the Gedri I had ever seen close to.

She stood bent over, and I saw that she could not
straighten. She was smaller and darker than
Lanen, but full of the same fire. I
was too surprised to be angry.

“I am the Keeper of Souls, lady,” I
answered sternly. ”Who are you, and know you a reason
why I should not slay you for
crossing the Boundary?”

She did not flinch, but Kédra answered me.
“I stand her advocate, my father. Lanen
commended her to me though this lady
knew it not. She sought protection where she might,
for Marik has learned that she aided
Lanen in her escape, and seeks her life. She told me—”

“I told him, Master Keeper of Souls, that
I’d rather die clean and fast than go the way Marik
would send me,” said the crooked
one. “I am called Rella. And I would still rather be sent to
my rest by
you than by his fools of guards.” She bowed to me. ”Do as you wish,
Master. I am
old
enough, and now I’ve set her free I’ve done my duty and shall sleep peacefully.”

I looked Kédra in the eye and saw there the
curious merriment I had heard in his voice. It
was clear he had come to like this
creature and her boldness. To my amazement, I found that I
agreed.

“If you stand friend to Lanen, how should I
do other than welcome you?” I said.

She bowed again. “Then I thank you for my
life.” She gazed straight at me. “Seems you are
true friends
to her, after all, though I must say sometimes you’ve an odd way of showing it.
Where is
she?”

“I heard Akhor ask her to wait outside the
Council chamber. My son, if you will keep the
watch with Rishkaan I will swiftly
escort this lady to Lanen, then go to the Chamber of Souls
as
guard.”

“As you wish, father. Go well.”

I leant close to the crooked one’s face.
“Come, mistress, let us walk together to the Council
chamber. I
would speak with you.”

She bared her teeth in what appeared, by her
voice, to be pleasure. “It will be an honour,
Master.”

Strange that so short a time could change so old
a feeling.

I looked forward to speaking with her.

The Wind of Change, indeed.

Marik

I walk through dry leaves and feel small twigs
snap under my feet, but no sound escapes to
my ears or any other’s. I am like a
small boy that has outwitted his parents; I suspect I am
grinning like
a death’s-head. My breath comes faster now as I approach the cave where I saw
the gems in
their golden cask. The time limit on my amulet beats in my mind as my heart
beats in my
chest. I know well that it has taken me little more than the half of an hour to
get to
this
place from the Boundary. There is plenty of time in hand.

And there, just before me, darker in the general
blackness, lies the entrance to the cave I seek.

Steel your nerves, Marik, stir up your courage to
enter and seize the treasure—

Hell’s teeth! What was that? Freeze, don’t
breathe, turn slowly—aah! What’s that brilliance
that burns my eyes?

Fire. Hell’s teeth, it’s a blossom of fire from
nothing, searing my eyes, near but not yet upon
me. Back away, remember there’s no
sound, duck so as not to move the branches, hide
beneath the shadow of the bare trees,
better than nothing. My mind knows they cannot see me,
but if they turn suddenly or run into
me by chance all is over with me. By damn, those things
are huge, and two of them draw near
to the cave mouth.

The largest—dark bronze, with a gem in his
forehead that winks deepest ruby in the
firelight—enters with the flaming
branch, while the other, bright copper with lackluster eyes,
sits without
not twenty paces from me. Breathe, Marik, breathe, if this one waits the other
surely will
not be long.

At last! I have waited an eternity here, and at
last it comes out again. The painful fire is
quenched in the leaf mould, the
bronze one joins its companion and they move away
northward. Breathe, Marik. It is
astounding. For all their size they move swiftly and silently
as cats,
leaving only the least trembling of the grass, the lightest whisper of
rustling leaves to
mark
their going.

Wait but a moment longer, beat steady my heart,
breathe deep and lose the fear that caught
me. The peril now is past. Before me
the cave mouth beckons with the promise of riches
untold, lying there now unguarded. I
see in my mind’s eye the open cask full of flickering
gems and enter the Dragons’ treasure
chamber.

The outer room is huge and lined with gold to a
depth of some inches. Its call would be
difficult to resist were it not for
the gems.

Even in this cave the dark is not absolute. My
eyes, now recovered, catch the glint of the
many vast gems thickset in great
slabs of gold on the back wall. Still I am not tempted, it
would take
far longer than I have to dig them out of their settings. I step closer—

And there, on its golden pedestal, sits the
object of all my cost, all my travail. A rough golden
cask, like a great bowl, filled
nearly to overflowing with the gems that flicker and change with
the patterns
of their inner fire. It is all I can do not to laugh aloud. Here at last, and
so simple
withal.
I put my hand out to touch, and pause.

They are so very beautiful. I, with my good head
for business and sharp eye to the value of a
thing rather than its artistry, stand
entranced by the wonder of what lies before me. Time
seems to pause, hovers in my hand, in
the eternal moment between thought and action.

How long have I stood here spellbound? Listen for
the beat of the amulet—still strong and
steady, I have not tarried too long.
These gems have blinded me, deafened me, immobilized
me, until at last some deep instinct
has warned me that I am bounded by time and must do
what I have come to do or leave. Or?

No, not or.

And.

The cask is heavier than I thought it would be,
surely this much gold alone is worth many
lives of men. In seconds it lies with
its contents in the pack I have brought, a dead weight, a
precious
burden on my shoulder beneath my cloak of borrowed darkness.

Now to leave swiftly, back into the night, back
towards the Boundary. I gather my strength
and start to run. Lords of Hell, this
thing is heavy! But the worst is that I have lost track of
time and
cannot tell how much longer my amulet will last.

What is that noise? A high keening sound that
grates on my nerves, speeds my heart even
faster, sets my teeth on edge.

Hell’s teeth.
It’s
coming from the gems.

Lanen

“Lanen, child, wake up. You’ll catch your
death out here.”

I swam reluctantly up from a deep well of sleep
to Rella’s touch on my shoulder and her voice
in my ear. I blinked in the
moonlight, slowly realising that many of the Kindred were standing
in the
clearing talking in very low voices. It took me a moment to work out exactly
where I
was—leaning
against rock, cold and stiff—a cave, no, the Council chamber—then I was wide
awake.

“Rella, how did you get here?” I asked,
stumbling grace-lessly to my feet.

When I heard the hiss of amusement, I turned to
find Shikrar on the other side of me. I nodded
to him, trying to hide my disappointment
at seeing bronze instead of silver.

“Is there any word from Akor?” I asked.
“Has anyone found Marik?”

“Lord Akhor bespoke me not long since,
Lady,” replied Shikrar. “He has overflown the Gedri
camp, and
says that Mistress Rella speaks truly—all is being removed and taken in
darkness
to
the southern shore. Of Marik there is nor sight nor smell.”

“Well, there wouldn’t be, would there?”
said Rella. “He’s been in once and out again and you
none the
wiser. Have you something he would want, some treasure perhaps? He’s here to
make his
fortune, sure and certain, and if the camp is all broke down he’ll take what
he’s after
and
straight to the ship with it.”

”By the treaty he must meet with us at dawn to
tell us he is leaving,” said Shikrar, obviously
distressed at this reminder of
Marik’s ability to come and go unnoticed. “If he does not, we are
within our
rights to attack him.”

I could swear Shikrar looked pleased at the idea.
I couldn’t blame him. So was I.

“Yes, well, he’s sure to stick to the treaty,
isn’t he?” said Rella wryly.

“Why not have all the Kindred go to their
own chambers and stay there?” I asked. “If there is
something he
seeks in one of these caves, I’d guess that finding it occupied would slow him
down, at the
very least.”