[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (54 page)

I clenched my teeth and made myself stop weeping.
I knew instinctively that I must be calm
for him lest my distress take his
mind from his own needs. Deep breath, Lanen. Now.

“Akor,
dearling?”

He did not answer.

”Akor,
beloved, it is Lanen who calls, Lanen Kaelar. Dear-ling, speak with me, I beg
you, for
one
moment only before the Weh sleep takes you. Akor?”

Nothing.
Forgive
me, dear one,
I thought to myself,
but
Kédra is here and I cannot make him
leave. This must be done.
Then I said aloud and in truespeech, in the best tones of command
I could
muster, “Kordeshkistriakor! Wake to me. It is Lanen Kaelar who
calls.”

Like one rising from deep waters he raised his
head.
“Hwat would you, ssweeting? I must
ssleeep….”

“Akor,
it is Kédra,”
said he in truespeech, loud enough
for me to hear.
“You are wounded,
what have you
need of?”

“Ssleeep
onlly, Khedthra,”
replied Akor as loudly.
“You haff sstopped the woundss with
khaadishhh?”

”Yes,
lord,”
replied Keira.
”Need
you meat or water, heat, iron—”

“Ssleeep
onlly, younglinng,”
he replied.
“But where iss Hlanen who called me?”

”I am here,
dear heart,”
I answered, clinging to calmness with all my
strength.
“How may I
help you, my
love?”

”Let me but
feel your hand, little one,”
he said, more clearly than he had
spoken yet. I stepped
up
and laid my hand on the soft skin under his jaw and saw him relax.
“Ahh, hyu arre
perilouss,
Hlanen Kaelar. Around you the world changess sso quickly I cannot learnn onne
thinng
beforre the nexst iss upon me. But you do make life interressting!”
He smiled.
“Ssleep
on the
Windss, Hlanen Kaelar. I will look fforr hyu hwen I wake….”
His mindvoice floated
into
nothingness and he slept.

I gazed at him. He had gone beyond his pain,
forgotten the Council, Marik, anything that
might ever have been a danger to
either of us; but he remembered that he loved me. And he
remembered my
name.

“Sleep on the Winds, beloved,” I said
quietly, lightly touching the dulled soulgem in his
forehead, and unbidden from my mouth
came softly the words of parting. “Go you safe, and
keep you
safe, and come safe home to me.”

Then I began to cry in earnest.

XVIII

THE WINDS AND THE LADY

Lanen

When Kédra and I left the chamber, Akor was
already deep in the Weh sleep. Kédra was
pleased that his breathing was
regular; it was a good sign, he said, and promised well for the
healing. He
had brought a large quantity of khaadish outside with him, and applied it to
the
gouge
in Shikrar’s shoulder. The process appeared to pain Shikrar, but after it was
done he
seemed
better able to bear the wound.

Shikrar and Idai had thoughtfully lit a fire for
me in the clearing, for the day though bright
was sharp with winter’s approach. I
thanked them and stood as near the flames as I could,
wondering why I was so weary. Dear
Goddess, was the Weh sleep affecting me? No, it
couldn’t, surely. Then why was I so
weak? I was even starting to tremble—

And the voice that lives always at the back of my
mind spoke up, its tone lightly mocking.
Well,
my girl, aside from nearly dying two days ago, having no more than an hour’s
sleep last
night, fighting for your life with
the Council and watching as the one you love best is
butchered before your eyes, you haven’t eaten since that stew in Marik’s
cabin a day and a half
ago.
Remember?

I swayed as I stood and said, “Please, is
there anything to eat here? Goddess, I don’t even
know what you eat. I’m starving.”

Shikrar brought his head down to my level and
spoke quietly. “We eat meat and fish, littling.
Can you eat of the beasts your people
brought with you?”

“Everything but bones, hide and hair,”
I answered. “But I don’t think I could catch one now,
or butcher it
either.”

Shikrar hissed softly. “Sit you down and
rest, lady. You have the soul of my people, and I can
almost forget that you have not the
body. How often do your people require food?”

“At least once a day—two or three times is
best,” I said, sinking down beside the fire, and
despite my hunger and fatigue had the
satisfaction of seeing a Dragon stand in what was
obviously Astonishment.

“Rest now,” Shikrar repeated,
recovering. “Kédra will keep watch over Akor, Idai shall watch
over you, and
I will bring food.” He bowed, that graceful sinuous Dragon bow, and took
off at
once.
I managed to watch Kédra going into the Weh chamber, and muttered a kind of
thanks
to
Idai (despite her obvious annoyance at being made my guardian) before sleep
took me.

I had hoped to find rest in sleep, but it was not
to be. From the instant my eyes closed I was
assailed by dreams. The first was
lovely, to begin with. I am almost sure that Shikrar’s words
caused it,
but I saw myself as a Dragon, with a hide of gleaming gold and a soulgem of
adamant. I
felt even more truly the wings I had been gifted with in spirit during the
Flight of
the
Devoted. I flexed them, I learned to fly, and in great joy lived out my days as
one of the
Greater
Kindred. Akor and I lived a long and wondrous life together, we had four
younglings
and
flourished with them—but for such a sweet dream it had a most dreary ending. It
showed
our
deaths as a gentle passing in sleep and the burning of the body from within, as
Akor had
described
it to me. But here, through the soft ashes where our two soulgems lay gleaming,
I

saw that which I had seen only for a few moments
on the battlefield: the endless flicker of the
soulgems of the Lost, unredeemed,
unrestored, as though Akor and I had never lived.

I woke then, crying out, but Idai was there and
her real (and grudging) presence consoled me.

I slipped again into sleep. I walked again in the
same dream, but this time it was the other side
of the coin—Akor appeared to me again
as the tall, silver-haired, green-eyed man of my
imagination. Our lives were hard,
full of wandering and adventure, danger and darkness set
against our
joy in each other and in our children—but when this dream ended and we were
laid to rest
I saw a great number of the Kindred flying above our graves, more than could
possibly be
born in so short a time as I would live, and I knew that somehow the Lost had
been
restored. I came slowly awake, knowing in the depths of my soul that I was
being given
a
choice—but I forgot about it as soon as I was fully conscious, for Kédra was
standing above
me
speaking my name softly, and there was a glorious smell on the breeze of
roasting meat
nearby.
It was late afternoon. Idai and Shikrar were speaking together in low voices by
the
pool.

As I ate, Kédra would tell me no more than that
Akor was now deep in the Weh sleep, and
that he himself was about to leave.
There was much to be done now, not least of which was
the restoration of the soulgems of
the Lost to their rightful place in the Chamber of Souls, and
he alone
would Shikrar trust with such a task.

“Should not Shikrar be going into the Weh
sleep himself? That wound looked terrible,” I said
as softly as I could.

“It will happen soon enough, but for now he
has chosen to remain. Neither he nor Idai seems
a
ffected by the Weh as
yet.”

“Oh, Kédra,” I said, longing to reach
out to him, wishing for an instant that he were human
enough to hug. “I wish you could
stay longer, though I would not interfere with your duty.”

He bowed. “I would if it were possible. My
heart is heavy with this sorrow, lady, and I ache
for your own.”

I bowed and held out my hands to him, futile and
senseless gesture though it was. “Kédra,
dear friend, I do not know the words
to thank you deeply enough for all you have done. I—without you—”

“I have but begun to return that which you
have given me. Farewell, Lady Lanen. Go with the
love of me and mine,” he said,
and slowly, gently, leaned down and brushed the end of his
snout against
my hands.

I could not speak. I held my hands palms
together, hallowed by his touch, and watched as he
climbed into the darkening sky.

When he was gone I went to the pool for water, to
drink and to wash. Idai and Shikrar,
standing at the water’s edge, fell silent as I drank.

“Very well,” I said, when I had drunk
my fill. I looked up at the two of them and sighed.

“Now, what exactly is it that you aren’t
telling me?”

Shikrar sighed and bowed to me. “Truly,
there is no good reason for our silence, save that we
would not burden you beyond your
strength. Lady, I fear—it is most likely that—” and I, who
thought
myself beyond astonishment, was amazed to hear Shikrar’s voice break on his
words.
I
did not know then that Shikrar had lost bis beloved soon after Kédra was bom,
that he knew
well
the pain that he spoke of.

Idai finished it for him.
“May I bespeak you, Lanen?”
Her mindvoice was harsh but
at least
for
the moment not angry.
“I know we
have spoken already in truespeech, but I would begin
again. I am
called Idai. I have not much of your language.”

“Do and
welcome. Please, Lady Idai, what is it that so grieves Shikrar that he cannot
speak?”
I
felt my throat tighten and was glad that we used the Language of Truth, for I
was suddenly
aware
of an endless river of tears waiting to break forth.
“Please, I beg you, lady. I would
know the truth.”

“It is
Akor. He has told you of the Weh sleep?”

”A little.
He said that when you are wounded it comes upon you.”
Just tell me, Idai, quickly
, I
thought to
myself, forgetting that she would hear.

”Very well,
Lanen. Akor may live or he may not. If he does not, death will claim him soon.
If
he
survives”—
and for an instant I heard her mindvoice break as
mine had
—“child, his
wounds will
take long and long to heal. Some half century, at the least. I do not know how
many years
you have nor how long you may expect to live, but I know that at the best you
will be in
your age when he awakes.”

So—my heart was numb—so either my beloved would
die soon, or he would live, but not
awaken whole and strong until I was in my seventies,
most of my life already spent.
Some
half century
at the least
. If I even lived that long.

”Forgive us, lady, that we pierce so brutally to
the heart of the matter, but you needed to
know, and we have little time,”
said Shikrar sadly. “The Weh has taken Akor, it will take us
all if we do
not leave swiftly.” He paused to lick at the edges of his own wound, which
had
begun
to bleed again around the patch of gold after his exertions in bringing me
meat. “It may
be
that I shall be taken by the Weh in any case, but not here.”

I was surprised at my own calmness. Too much
reality will do that. There is a strange state
beyond mourning in which life is as
it is, and we do what we must.

“Can you stay long enough for me to say
farewell?” I asked, my voice calm.

“Certes, lady,” replied Shikrar, bowing
formally. I was briefly surprised at his words, but
reminded myself that he was Eldest of
a people that lived twice a thousand years. The surprise
should rather
be that, speaking my language at all, he should most often use words known to
me instead of
those used by my distant ancestors.