The Lesser Kindred (ttolk-2) (4 page)

"Idai, may I bespeak you?"

"Of course, Shikrar," came the familiar voice of her thoughts. " What troubles you ? "

"I am at Terash Vor and I would that you might see what I have seen. Will you come to me here ? I shall await you at the Grandfather."

She replied simply, "I come. I shall be with you in the hour."

The Grandfather was the name of the mountain nearest the south, the first that rose dark above the quiet hills below. It was so called for that it had, in some lights, the seeming of a vast black dragon. There was a large ledge on the south side—what would have been part of a back, or a folded wing—where two could stand and speak together. It was often used as a meeting place. I used it on occasion but I never was comfortable there.

We of the Kantri are long-lived, as I have said, seeing as many as two thousand winters in the natural course of things. We are thus not inclined by our natures to take note of anything so short as an hour. However, time passes for us as it does for all creatures, and while I waited for Idai I decided to dare my wings again and take another quick look around the fire plain. By the time I returned to the Grandfather to await her I was deeply troubled.

I had often been to Terash Vor. It usually happened that some time in every kell—every hundred winters—the mountains took a deep shuddering breath and exhaled fire. Some of these episodes were more active and some less, but I had seen this level of fire only once before, when I was little more than a youngling myself. Thus this was the equal of the worst outbreak in living memory, for I am the Eldest of the Kantri. Not for sixteen kells had there been such unrest in the ground. I wondered what it might portend.

Idai bespoke me from a distance as she approached. "Shikrar, how fare you? I had thought you still kept the Weh sleep until I heard your call to the Summer Field on the morrow."

"The ground shook me awake, indeed, hut I am healed enough that the waking has been no hardship."

I heard her gasp of a sudden and felt the fear in her mind, and I knew she had seen the great plume of fire. "Name of the Winds, Shikrar! What has so blasted the very rock that it thus bums in anger?" She spoke aloud then as she landed beside me, her great wings almost fluttered as she came to earth. I had seldom seen her so agitated. "I have never seen such a thing."

"I have, but I was barely fledged the last time. Come aloft again with me, let us take as close a look as we may."

We leapt from the ledge, spreading wings wide, and took advantage of the fire-made updrafts to keep us high aloft. We investigated the patches of brightness on the other moun-lains and found little to comfort us. It was a great outbreak, and like drenching rain on hard-baked ground it had spread far and wide. The flows on the north of Terash Vor were a little unusual; the fact that three other peaks in the range were also gushing fire was cause for deep concern.

It seemed every bit as bad as the memory from my youth, and I well remembered that at the time there had been much debate about our future on the island. The necessity of having to leave had been seriously discussed. Only the dying of the mountains' fire had ended the debate. I could not, however, trust simply to memory for something so important.

As Idai and I turned away south again, towards our chambers and the Great Hall, I bespoke my son. "Kedra, are ye landed safe and well? "

His voice sounded strong and confident in my mind and below all ran a current of quiet delight like a strong river. "We are, Father, and Sherdk is already pleading to go aloft again! He seems to have quite a taste for it. What have you found?"

"Much, and none of it of comfort. I fear I must ask for your assistance. Is Mirazhe well enough to care for Sherok without you? I will require you for the Kin-Summoning at the next dark of the moon."

"She is, my father," he replied, instantly somber. "I will begin my preparations."

"You need not act quite so swiftly as that!" I replied, hissing my amusement even as I flew. "I must speak with as many as come to the Summer Field at noon, and we shall have more than a full moon before I am prepared for the Summoning. However, if you will meet with me in the Chamber of Souls at dusk of the coming day we can begin our preparations."

He agreed and bade me farewell. Idai and I flew in silence back to our several chambers, for we both had much to consider.

It is done! I have begun this record of my acts, on the eve of my flowering. For the price I have paid to the Rakshasa, the greater of the two races of the demons, my thoughts and actions will appear on these pages, for I wish to remember all but cannot spare the time to write at day's end when what I require is sleep. A minor making this, compared to others I have done and shall do, but well worth the time it will save. This book will be my secret and my truth, that when I am finally raised to my deserved eminence and all of Kolmar is at my feet for as long as I wish it, those I hold in thrall may read how they were defeated. Their despair will add greatly to my rejoicing.

Once the journal was accomplished, the time was come to summon back the demon I had sent to find Marik's daughter. A minor summoning with a binding woven in and it arrived, cords and all ready to my hand. I tightened my grip on the binding and the thing writhed.

"Speak and be freed," I said. "Where is she?"

"Followed the trace I have, foolish one, but find her I cannot," it hissed. "Release me and you sshall live."

"I have paid well for your services, little Rikti. Your threats are empty and your life or your service forfeit. Speak!"

"Shee isss hidden!" it cried.

I tugged hard on the binding and it screeched its pain, high and agonized. Good. "Do you tell me that you cannot lind her?" I spat. "Do you speak to me of your own death, worm?"

The Rikti hissed as I released the pressure to let it speak. "I bear no fault for that the one you sseek iss invisible. She hass been ssought throughout both worldss, but a veil iss about her and a fear liess on her name."

"A fear? What kind of fear can affect the Rikti?"

I knew the only possible answer even before it spoke, but I wanted to hear its version.

"Kantrissshakrim," it hissed. "She iss protected—there musst be one that iss ever at her sside. It would cosst my life to go nigh her," it said with a sneer, "and for that you have not paid."

"Your life is mine if you do not complete the pact," I

snarled. Its petty self-importance annoyed me and I tugged again at the binding charm. It screamed nicely until I released it again. "Now, filth, tell me where she is to be found. If there is a True Dragon in Kolmar it must burn in your sight like iron in the fire's heart. Where?"

"There are two, Masster, and I do not know which guardss the prey. Which would you hear of for your price?"

"Bom, creature, or you shall serve me a year for each drop of blood I have paid you."

It hissed and struggled to free itself, but it knew that I had the right to make the demand and the power to enforce it. Finally it stood on all of its legs and peered past my shoulder, several of its eyes staring intently at nothing. "The firsst liess in the high hills north of here, a sstrangeness in the high passess that reeks of drragon, that iss and isss not Kantris-shakrim. The ssecond is in the far north and west, between the great River and the Sea but ssouth of the wood and the hillss. Sssmaller than the firssst but sstronger, and iss and iss not Kantrisshakrim. More I cannot tell you, for more I do not know." A shiver passed along its body and I knew I would learn no more. "The pact iss concluded, all iss done, live in pain and die alone," it hissed as it disappeared, leaving only a stench of rotten eggs.

Not the information I wanted, but news indeed. I divested myself of my Summoning robes as I pondered it. Two Great Dragons in Kolmar! I had never imagined there could even be one without news of it spreading far and wide. And one protecting Marik's daughter, whom I desperately require.

It will not be a simple task to destroy one of the Great Dragons, though my apprentice Caderan managed it on the Dragon Isle itself before he was killed, and Marik may well have done as much using the Ring of Seven Circles, a powerful device I had prepared for him. I would have to make certain that this time I did not fail. If one was watching so closely over the girl—but it was nonsense! They are huge creatures, hardly to be kept hidden even in the depths of the great forest of the Trollingwood or amid the high stone teeth of the East Mountains! Still, the Rikti was bound and spoke truth as far as its limited understanding went. There was something that kept the Rikti from finding her. I must learn what it was.

The next morning Varien and I wandered to the kitchen to break our fast, delightful as it had been to linger in bed. We found Jamie warming himself before the cooking fire. "Good morning, you two," he said with a grin. "Or is it afternoon?"

"Nay, not yet, Master Jameth," said Varien, holding me close to his side. "Not while my dearling shines so bright in my eyes. Surely it is always morning where she is?"

Jamie snorted. "New-wedded idiot! Lady give me patience." He turned to me. "Or is he always like this?"

"I'll let you know," I replied, turning in Varien's arm until we faced one another. I could not get enough of the sight of him, or of the feel of him against me. "Are you always like this?"

He stroked my cheek with his palm, infinitely soft, and despite his human form I felt still the effect of immense strength under control. "As long as we live, my dearest Lanen Kaelar, I am thine and thou art the light of my days. But perhaps it is not fitting so to display our love before Jameth? For all his love of thee, he hath no mate to share his life."

My love for him burned fiercely then, growing even when I had thought it full-blown, and I kissed him lightly as I stepped away from him. "Quite right, my heart. Bless you for thinking of it. I am far too selfish." Aloud I said, "Hmm. Yes, Jamie, I suspect he is. We'll try to keep ourselves under control when we're in public."

"Just as well. There should be laws about such things," he said, shaking his head. Under his words his voice was rich with laughter. "I guessed you'd both be hungry, so I've had I ,ise come in from the village this morning to bring bread. She's been very kind about it since you left," he said, shooting me a wicked grin, "though her bread's nothing like yours."

I laughed. "Just as well! Honestly, Jamie, don't get Varien's hopes up, you know the bread I make can drive nails."

"True enoughs—though I tell you, Varien, I'd give a week's wages in silver for a goose roasted by the girl. It's the best thing she does. She's a good enough cook, even if she can't do something as simple as bake bread."

I looked around me, contented. Desperate as I had been to leave Hadronsstead the autumn before, it was home, and had been for all of my twenty-four years. In the winter morning a hundred memories came back to me, centred on the kitchen and on Jamie. "Are there any of me geese left that were destined for the pot this winter?"

Jamie smiled in earnest then. "A brace, on my word, none too young but not ancient either. Ah, Lanen, your kind heart has not deserted you! You'll make this old man happy yet."

I laughed at him, as he had intended. "You may hand over that week's wages in silver this evening when they're done," I declared, looking about me for an apron. "If I thought there were a chance of it, I'd get you to pluck them for me too."

A strong pair of arms took me prisoner from behind and turned me around. Varien looked deep into my eyes. "Dear-ling, before you begin this work that will occupy you until the evening, you must eat and so must I. Swiftly. Before I get a craving for man-flesh." His eyes flashed at me as he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it, then kissed my wrist, then drew back my sleeve and made as if to gnaw on my arm.

I batted him away. "Jamie, would you show this poor starveling creature where the bread and cheese are kept, or the oats if he wants porridge—oh, and is there anything left of that last batch of preserves I made?" I ducked into the little cold pantry off the kitchen. Plenty of onions, bunches of rosemary hanging from the rafters and sage still bravely silver-green in the garden, a little of the chopped pork from the pig butchered for the wedding feast—and for the moment I was content.

Make no mistake: had I thought that such a life was all that lay before me, I'd have left before dawn with Varien and been as many leagues hence as the fastest horse could carry me. I knew well, though, that this could be only a brief respite, and I even enjoyed washing the vegetables in the freezing well water. It was a familiar feeling, safe and cozy, and I knew it would not last long.

I had not forgotten the attempt on Rella's life, indeed I still didn't know if she was alive or dead, but from what Rella had told me while we were on the Dragon Isle together and what I had overheard of a conversation between Marik and his demon caller Caderan, I knew Marik had allied himself with a true demon master. I had heard the name, heard Caderan say it a few times, but I was thinking then of other things and couldn't remember it now. Caderan was dead, thank the Lady, but his unknown master lived and I did not wish to bring the wrath of demons down on Hadronsstead and those I loved. The last words Rella spoke before she collapsed in my arms charged me to find my mother, Maran Vena. I knew of only one place to look: the little town where she grew up, away north and east, a place near the Trollingwood called Beskin. On our way here, Varien and I had decided that as soon as we were rested we would go and seek her out.

Meanwhile, there was stuffing to be made and a brace of geese to be cooked. Looking back, I am delighted that I enjoyed it as I did at the time. Life runs by so quickly and it is so easy to be always looking to the morrow. The best times I have ever had in my life were when I was neither fearing the future nor fretting over the past, but simply enjoying where I was and what I was doing, be it as lowly a task as cooking food for those I loved. Life itself is change, and you never know when such pleasures will be taken from you without warning and without hope of recovery.