[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (34 page)

“As do I, Hadreshikrar, as do I,” he replied,
kissing her hair lightly. She slept.

“I believe there is much of good in most of
the Gedri, and much that may be done between our two races for the betterment
of both.” Another sigh escaped me. “Truth be told, Akhor-ishaan, I would prefer
not to die just now.”

“Surely you cannot believe that old nonsense?”
he scoffed.

“Perhaps not—but my thoughts have been much
concerned with death, of late.” I could not stop myself from shuddering. “You
did not see it, Akhor. Our home died in flames. That green gem of an island was
covered in fire and molten rock, there was no hint of green left—it was black
from side to side before it sank below the waves. There is a part of me that
died with it, I fear. I cannot tell you how that image has burned into my
heart.”

Varien bowed his head for a moment, in deep
thought, when I ,anen let out a snore. He grinned and gendy lowered her to the
ground, covering her with his cloak and resting her head on his pack. I was
faindy distracted by the shifting gleams of the firelight on his long silver
hair, so different from his scales yet so “similar, and on his brilliant
soulgem gleaming in the golden circlet I had made for it when he was new-made a
man—but when he looked up from tending to his wife he astounded me, for there
in Gedri eyes was shining the warrior soul of Akhor, my soulfriend of nearly a
thousand winters.

“Do not let them win, Shikrar,” he said,
rising, his voice deep and powerful, defiance in every line of him. “You know
what the Rakshasa use when force is not enough. Despair is their greatest
weapon and our final defeat. The world, our lives, are changed, not over!” He stood
and, moving away from Lanen, began to pace before the fire. ‘Tou are right, you
know. This is a good land, and surely with goodwill and a little assistance
from those Gedri who know us, we will make a new homeland for ourselves.” He
glanced over towards his beloved, fast asleep, and lowered his voice. “I am
already bound to this land by ties of marriage and blood, and I rejoice in it,
but what future awaits my childer if they have not Grandfather Shikrar to teach
them? And what of your own Sherok, our cherished youngest? Will you so easily
desert your grandson, so new-come to this world?”

“Of course not,” I snorted. ‘Tou know me of
old. I will fight with the last breath of my body and the last beat of my heart
to protect my family and our people. But sometimes courage is not enough, old
friend.” I shivered, snout to tail-tip, and not from the cold. “My word on it,
Akhor, that great black thing has shaken me to my core. My soul is more bleak
than I have ever known it, and I begin to think of Yrais more and more.”

Varien did not speak, but he walked around the
fire and stood next to me. I lowered my head to his level to see him better,
and for the only time in all our years of friendship, he leaned forward and
touched my soulgem with his. I was shocked, for it is a delicate intimacy, more
normal between a mother and child. I had not known such a contact, aside from
Kedra, since my beloved mate Yrais left this life to sleep on the Winds, but at
that moment, somehow, it was entirely appropriate. At the touch of his soulgem,
the torrential river of his loving concern came pouring over my parched soul.
True friendship, born of long knowledge, born of knowing all the faults and
accepting them as part of the whole—such a thing is rare and precious, and that
was the gift he gave me that night; the full knowledge of the depth of his love
for me, as mentor, as friend, as father to him since his own went to sleep on
the Winds.

For the most part, we are a reserved people,
as befits those who can speak from mind to mind. I was staggered, and honoured
beyond words.

He stepped back and stroked my faceplate with
his soft Gedri hand, just once. “And so, Hadreshikrar,” he said, smiling upon
me, and his smile like his eyes was a thousand years old. “Let the Black Dragon
shake that. I dare it.”

“What Black Dragon?’ I replied, my soul rising
on wings of joy. “Akhor—I—”

“It is well, my friend,” he said, smiling. “You
have always known it in any case.”

“Yes,” I said, blinking at him in the
firelight. “But sometimes it is well to be reminded. May the Winds bear you
wherever you—I mean—”

He started laughing. “If the Winds bear me
wherever I wish to fare, I hope you will be there to catch me when they let go!”

It was the fire of my laughter that guided the
others to us.

Aral didn’t so much sit down on the ground
beside me as plop. Then she threw herself full onto her back with a great sigh
and gazed up at the stars in a clear sky. I too looked up from our roaring fire
into the deeps of the night. The brighter stars shone like candles on a distant
hillside, beckoning weary travellers to warmth and rest. The fainter ones were
little children, peeping shyly into the night sky, as if making sure that all
was safe ere they came out to dance.

Astoundingly, Gyrentikh and Idai had found Shikrar
and the others and we were told that Alikirikh was near. We were camped beside
a good-sized river with a rocky shore and a little wood on the near side. Idai
had gone upstream to look for fish or whatever else might appear. Gyrentikh,
who had borne Jamie and me, had started a separate fire for us before
disappearing into the wood, declaring that he sought “something larger than
fish.” I hoped he would be willing to share whatever he found. I was ravenous.

However, both Aral and I needed sleep even more
than food and the others were likely to be awake for some time, so we stayed by
this smaller fire. I was still thinking, stupidly, of offering to help
Gyrentikh when I realised that he and Idai were already gone. To be honest,
despite being so hungry, I wasn’t exaggerating. I needed rest desperately. I
felt like I hadn’t stopped running for a fortnight. When I thought about it,
Aral and I really had done an insane amount of work in the last few days.
Healing Shikrar’s wing, then a mere few hours later treating that terrible
demon gash, and Goddess help us all, rescuing Rathen nearly killed me. Going
but a little further back, I realise that mere days before we first helped
Shikrar we had been up all night sealing the Lesser Kindred’s soulgems; a few
nights before that, I had done something that I still could not fully believe.
I had changed a woman’s blood, Lanen’s blood, to match that of the babes
beneath her heart. Half human, half dragon.

Goddess preserve us, I thought. In the mad
rush I had almost forgotten. What in all the wide world is going to come of
that?

And what kind of power dwells within me that I
could do such a thing?

I had been running from my own power most of
my life, for a very good reason. Since I first manifested as a Healer, very
early, I have had recurring dreams. In them I—I fight my way to the top of a
mountain and I can touch the sky. Really touch the sky, reach out and feel the
soft blueness of it. I am the ruler of the world.

After that, the dream can go one of two ways.
In some I become a kind of Sky God, or a Sun God, like the one ‘tis said is
worshipped by the tribes of the Far South. In these dreams I use my power to
its fullest extent, the land is blessed and I help make the world a glorious
place.

In the other dream I also use my full power,
but I become the Death of the World. I am fighting a demon, and when it stabs
me I do not die—instead I become a demon myself, a thousand times worse than
the one I fought. I destroy it with a flick of my power, for I am grown strong
as worlds, and then—I kill every living thing, joyfully, and at the last I
reach out and crush the sun in my hand, and the world ends.

And I laugh. Every time. Sky God or Death of
the World, I laugh. Because either way, it feels wonderful. The use of my full
power is the ultimate release, complete fulfillment and complete
self-indulgence—and it is my fate, inexorable as night following day. And I
have been running from that fate ever since I was come to manhood. The single
exception was that night when I saved Lanen. It was change her blood or let her
die, and Aral challenged me, and I—well, it was hard, yes, but once I had
started, I—I felt as if I had entered my dream. It was so obvious what had to
be done. I did not think about it, I simply did it. My memories of that night
are very strange and blurred, almost as if I were drunk at the time.

Or as if I had called at last on the power
that lies within me, churning, roiling like Hellsfire, that it takes all my
control to restrain. Every moment of every day.

I did manage to control it that one time I
used it, because Aral was there to keep me in line. I don’t know if I can
restrain it without her. She keeps urging me to accept my power, even though I
have told her the risk. She believes in me utterly. That is very … seductive.

I often feel guilty about Aral. She is dearer
to me than anyone, now that my family is gone, but I know she wants more. Damn
it.

She is in love with me. I’ve seen it in her
eyes. I’ve never done a thing to encourage that, but Hells, I don’t know much
about women, maybe she has just misunderstood. Of course I love her, if you
want to use the word that way. But I am not in love with her. I value her
friendship beyond words, beyond understanding, but it’s friendship rather than
anything else. I feel no unrequited longing, as I fear—as I know—she does.

Sometimes I think I should say something. In
fact, before all of this madness broke out, I was on the point of telling
her—but life has been moving at a dead run since we and Will barely escaped
from Verfaren with our lives, and I really don’t think she needs to hear this
now. And to be honest, I don’t think I want to deal with it right now either.

Mind you, there is a lot I don’t want to deal
with right now.

“Blessed Lady,” said Aral eventually, still
gazing at the night sky. “Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, think that you’d
fly like that?”

“In my dreams, I fly all the time,” I replied
truthfully. “But no,” I said, to her quiet ha! “No, I never imagined I would do
it in real life. It was—”

“It was bloody terrifying, that’s what it was,”
she interrupted, earnestly. “And horribly uncomfortable. And cold. And I’ve
never been so scared as I was in those first few minutes.”

“Right enough,” I said, smiling. “No argument
there. But the rest of it was more exhilarating than anything I have ever done,
waking or sleeping—and that, my girl, is saying something.” I held my hands
before the fire, rubbing them together, in the earnest hope that I would soon
be able to feel my fingers again. “I wish they had warned us how bloody
freezing it was going to be up there,” I added.

“Idai did warn us,” she said, surprised. “Didn’t
Gy—Gy-what’s-his-name tell you?”

“Gyrentikh, and no, I just told you he didn’t.”

“Mmm, sorry,” she said, not really paying
attention. “Anyway, it wouldn’t have made much difference. All we could do was
keep our hands under our cloaks. Idai was really nice about it, though, she
held us right up against her chest, when she thought of it. It was a lot warmer
that way.”

“Who were you with?” I asked. “It was all such
a scramble when we left, I didn’t even notice.”

“Lanen’s mother, Maran,” she replied.

“Did you get a chance to talk?”

“Not really. We tried yelling back and forth a
few times, but the wind was so loud it wasn’t worth it. We ended up pointing a
lot.” She gave a grunt and heaved herself with a great effort back into a
sitting position. “Besides,” she said rather more quiedy, “I’m not the one she
wanted to talk to.” She nodded in the direction of the riverbank, where two
dark figures, some distance away, stood together in the moonlight.

I glanced at Aral. “I’m surprised you’re not
trying to he’ar that,” I said quietly. “I know you’re working on learning more
about how people think and feel. I’d have thought that would be a master class,
one way and another.”

She gazed at me across her shoulder. The
firelight flashed in her eyes. “You forget, Vil. You’re the one with the good
shields.” She dropped her face into her hands for a moment, mumbling, “I don’t
need to hear what they’re saying. I can feel it from here, Shia save us all.”
She inched nearer the fire, pulled up her hood, and wrapped her cloak more
closely about her.

“Aral?” I asked. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, Vil,” she whispered, her voice catching
in her throat. “Oh, Goddess. I can’t bear it. Talk to me, please, now, about
anything. Quick.”

“You never could shield worth a tin ferthing,”
I sneered. “Honestly, all the time Magister Rikard spent with you, he might
just as well have been teaching the desk.”

“Ha, O Great Mage Vilkas,” she shot back,
rising to the challenge and desperately cheerful. “And you’re just the same in
the other direction.” She did a decent imitation of Magister Rikard’s slightly
nasal voice. “No, Vilkas, you must feel the power, not just use it. Let it
touch you as it passes through. That’s what makes us hyooo-mn\”

We both managed a bit of a laugh, though it
was fairly pathetic. “At least Rikard is still alive,” she said.

‘Thanks for reminding me,” I said, feigning a
snarl. “Have you any more gloom? I’ll have it as well, as long as you’re
passing it around.”