[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (6 page)

I breathed deep in the clear morning. It would
not be a hardship to fly over these lands seeking hidden chambers. Kolmar was
lush and inviting, what little I had yet seen of it. I would enjoy that
particular task.

Kedra bespoke us then—they had already found
Will’s friend, and had sent Will on ahead. Will, seemingly, had talked him out
of simply appearing at the farmer’s door. I snorted. Kedra was impulsive as
ever, and the flight across the sea had not improved his sense of humour.

Akhor, though—Varien—alas, he was changed yet
again. I gazed after him. The joy that had filled him when he left our old home
with his beloved was gone. That joy that had sustained me, knowing that he had
found his soulmate at last, though all my years of hopeless love fell like dead
leaves around my heart. He could barely speak for his anger and he was wild
with helplessness.

I could look at Varien no longer and wandered
about, trying to distract myself. Rella was rummaging in her pack for
something. Beside her stood two other humans, solemn and unmoving, but some
creature was joining them from the shelter of the trees. It stood beside
them—what—

“Shikrar!” I cried. “Whatever is that bright
creature that waits with the Gedri children? It—is it—by the first Wind that
ever blew, it looks like—”

“Come, Idai,” he said, amusement in his eyes. “Come,
I would introduce you to my friend, the Lady Salera.”

Shy as a bird the bright one stood as I came
near, raw courage holding her unmoving in the face of awe. I lowered my head
slowly to look closer—oh, she was of our Kindred, that was certain. She
appeared to be no more than the merest youngling. And gleaming in her shining
copper faceplate were eyes blue as a summer sky, and a soulgem the
same—colour—a soulgem. A soulgem.

“Hadreshikmr, I will beat you for keeping this
from me,” I swore in truespeech. “Name of all the Winds that ever were. A
soulgem. The creature has a soulgem. How has this come to be?”

I could not stop staring, but to my relief it
was mutual. Shikrar took refuge in speech.

“Idai, this is Salera, the first of the Lesser
Kindred to come into her own,” he said, and his own wry amusement was
transmuted now to a kind of awe. “She and her—Kindred—are younger than the
moon. They were brought into the light of reason but three days since.” His
voice danced with it. “New-come to the world, new-come to speech and reason. It
is a great wonder.”

I could barely speak myself. “How, Shikrar?” I
asked, never taking my eyes off the litding.

“I was not there, Idai,” he replied gendy. “Why
do you not ask Salera?”

I shook myself and bowed to her. “Your pardon,
Salera. I am the Lady Idai. Little one, you are a wonder and a mystery. Of your
kindness, will you tell me how you come to be here, as you now are?”

“It was the Silver King Varien and his Lady
Lanen who opened our minds,” said Salera calmly. “We all were called by some
deep song in our hearts, we met all together in the High Field, and—the Lord
and the Lady wakened us.” She bowed her head briefly, that we might see her
faceplate more clearly. It touched my heart, for it was the same gesture every
youngling of the Kantri makes for a time after their soulgem is finally
revealed. “Where before was darkness, now our soulgems gleam as bright as
yours. The Silver King opened our minds to speech that day, and the Lady Lanen
guarded the narrow way, that we might pass over in safety.”

Even Shikrar looked surprised. “I have not
heard this version, Idai,” he told me in truespeech. “What did she guard you
from, Salera? What threatened you?”

“Fear,” replied Salera. She gazed at the two
of us steadily. “We could barely understand what Lord Varien offered us, but we
knew deep within that it was change beyond measure, and that it could not be
undone once it was done. It was… frightening.” She fluttered her wings in
remembered agitation. “Frightening is too easy a word. Fear, and fear, and fear
beyond that. Even I resisted, and I knew that my father was on the other side
of that change. But Lanen—she showed us her heart, we saw that she too was
Changed and become more than she had been, and the great joy she had in her new
life. Her gift was to awaken our courage. It was a great gift indeed.”

She bowed slighdy then, as if it were a
strange movement to her, and said, “If you are answered, Lady, can you now tell
me where is my father gone?’

I blinked. “Your father, littling?” I asked,
confused, but Shikrar interrupted, “He is gone with my son Kedra to find food
for the Kantri. He will return swifdy, I have no doubt.”

She relaxed visibly—

“Name of the Winds, Shikrar, they use Attitudes
but a talon’s breadth removed from our ownl” I cried in truespeech.

—and continued, “It is well.” She saw that I
stood in Astonishment and laughed. “Lady, forgive, you cannot know—Will raised
me from a kitling, he is the only family I have ever known.” Her speech was a
little slow, a little stumbling, and she sometimes managed the more difficult
human sounds and sometimes did not. Without thinking I addressed her in
truespeech.

“Solera, might I bespeak you? Human speech is
difficult, and I know not if you have yet learned our own language.”

She sat bolt upright, in the absolute image of
Astonishment, and stared wide-eyed at me. Her speech instantly became all but
incomprehensible. “How iss thiss done? Hwat iss this hyou ssay? I hear hyourr
voice yet you haff not spoken!”

“Hadreshikrar, do you mean to say you have not
bespoken this child?” I said, turning to Shikrar in amazement. “You, who are
the first always to introduce younglings to truespeech!”

To my delight, he could not answer at first.
It is not easy to surprise Shikrar, the Eldest of our Kindred, and it always
pleased me when I was able to do so. “I—before she, before they were—oh, ldai,
I have not even tried to bespeak her since she and her people awakened!” He
turned to her, tenderly, and spoke quietly using the broadest kind of
truespeech. “Lady Solera, I beg your pardon. My friend Akhor—Varien—told me
that you could not hear him, but that was before you came into your own.”

“Hwat iss thiss bespppeakking?” she asked him,
her wings fluttering in her agitation.

“Calm yourself, little one,” I said, trying to
be as gentle as I could. “It is natural for our people. This is the Language of
Truth, the language of the mind. With it, we may speak to one another when we
are far apart, or when we are aloft and the wind will not carry sound between
us.”

“How isss it done?”

“It is done with thought, littling,” said
Shikrar calmly, and aloud. “Where most thought is scattered abroad, like clouds
in the sky, traespeech is more like to a single star—focussed.” He continued in
traespeech. “This kind of speech, which we start with, may be heard by all who
care to listen. It is the first kind we learn and the easiest to master. There
is another kind, whereby we may speak only to one particular soul at a time.”
He paused a moment. “That usually takes some years to master, but you are not
as young as you appear, I would guess. You might achieve that level of
concentration much faster than is usual.”

“How shall I do thiss?” she demanded.

“Let us begin slowly, and with a warning,”
said Shikrar, still speaking broadly. I managed not to laugh. I recognised the
very words. It was the same speech he had given to every youngling he had ever
taught. Teacher-Shikrar indeed!

“Thoughts are truth, and traespeech will
reveal your inner thoughts, whether you want it to or no, until you have become
accustomed to it. It is impossible to lie in this speech, for the lie will burn
like a beacon, and in any case your underthought will give you away.”

“Hwat iss to lie?” Salera asked, in all innocence.

Shikrar bowed. “It is to say that which is not
so, little one,” he said aloud. “Forgive me. I suspect it is not within you.”

She glanced at him shrewdly, for all her
youth. “I suspect it is within me if it is within you, Master Shikrar. Though
perhaps not yet.” She gazed back at me. “I hwill try this traespeech. I cannot
sshape my tongue around words sso weD ass you.” She bowed her head and closed
her eyes in concentration.

I heard nothing.

Shikrar, however, had taught younglings for
many, many years. “Littling, I cannot hear you.” He stood in Patience. “Will
you try again?”

“Can you not hear me call my father? He does
not answer. Said you not that distance is no bar to this speech?”

“Ah, littling, forgive me!” replied Shikrar. “I
never thought to tell you. The Gedri do not have truespeech, as a rule. Only
the Lady Lanen in all of history is so blessed. I fear you will not be able to
bespeak Willem.”

“The Silver One, Hfarian, he cannot speak so?”

“Varien is a separate case, littling,” said
Shikrar. “He is—different.”

“And so my father is different,” answered
Salera. “I have learned his tongue, can he not learn this one?”

“Alas, I fear he cannot,” said Shikrar, sadly.
“Lord Varien is of our own blood, and has the soulgem he has borne for a
thousand winters. The Lady Lanen has been blessed by the Winds and the Lady.
You must not hope for this, Salera. It will not come to be.”

Salera hissed her frustration, her tail
whipping round her. “That is—that is darkness in daylight! Why should this be?
It is not hwell!”

“Mas, you are right, littling, it is not well;
but in all the lives of our peoples we have found nothing that may be done to
change it.”

And she surprised us again. Still, perhaps I
was the more taken off guard; Shikrar at least maintained the appearance of
calm.

Clearly and angrily she bespoke us both, as
she gave a great leap into the clear morning sky. “What use then is this
speech, when I cannot use it with the one I love best? I go to find him.”

We both stood silent for some time, and
Shikrar sighed. “Idai, my friend, I grow old,” he said wearily. “What world is
this we have come to? That youngling just managed her first words of truespeech
most beautifully—”

“I heard her, Shikrar. I expect everyone else
did as well,” I said wryly. Younglings were not known for subtlety, and Salera’s
people were apparently no different.

I had managed to raise the shadow from off him
for an instant. “Truly,” said Shikrar, amused. “She is a delight, that one. And
yet, alongside the gift of truespeech that should be so great a joy, she knows
now a sorrow that did not afflict her but moments since.” He sighed again. “Idai,
my friend, what is this place, where Gedri and Kantri are so oddly joined, even
for the best of reasons, that the differences between us become a source of
pain rather than of delight?”

“Perhaps it has ever been so, Shikrar,” said
Varien, who had now drawn near with the other Gedri.

“And still, my friend,” answered Shikrar,
curiously sad, “it leaves me wondering what we have come to in this green land.”

“life, Shikrar,” said Varien quietly, his eyes
steady. “Life and change. It is well. Perhaps it will be our task to add
something unchanging to this mixture, but we ourselves arose in this place.
Surely, in ages past, Kantri and Gedri have formed friendships, and the Kantri
have grieved for the brief lives of those companions. Should we then seek to
avoid the company of our fellow creatures?”

“Her first use of truespeech, Varien. It is a
moment for great rejoicing, a step towards a deeper life, and it has brought
her only frustration.”

“Shikrar, Shikrar,” said Varien, managing a
fighter tone. “It has been too long since you have taught so young a kit! She
will come around to joy soon enough, I promise you. She is very, very young
yet.” He managed the turning up of the corners of his mouth that the Gedri name
a smile. It looked well on him. “But I see you are up to your old ways. Name of
the Winds, Hadreshikrar, could you not wait even an hour to instruct Salera?”

Shikrar glanced at me, and I was glad to see a
hint of his usual self returning. “This once I cannot claim the honour, Akhor.
Idai it was who first bespoke the youngling.”

Varien bowed to me. “It was well done, Lady. I
never thought to—I have been—”

“You have had your own troubles, my friend.
And Shikrar says you tried before and found no response.”

‘True enough. Salera and her people are a joy
and a wonder,” said Varien lightly enough, but I heard his voice fall back into
sorrow as he added, “but they are not the Lost, my friends. Still our duty to those
trapped souls lies unfulfilled. Salera’s people, the Lesser Kindred,
descendants through five thousand winters of the beasts left when the Demonlord
ravaged our people, were my great hope for restoring the Lost. I dreamed that
somehow we might reunite the creatures with the soulgems of the Lost—I never
thought that they would be developing on their own. They are a great blessing,
but all my hope for the Lost is now foundered.” He shook his head and muttered,
“As is so much else.”

“You never let up, do you?” said the Gedri
female beside him. “Life is short, Varien, or whatever your name is. I know
your heart aches, but can you not spare a moment to rejoice in the good when it
comes your way?” She bent in half before me. The Gedri bow so awkwardly. “Forgive
me, Lady—Idai, is it? I am Aral of Benin, a city far to the east of here.” She
smiled. “Varien would probably introduce us in a few weeks, but I don’t think
we have that long.”