Aral gasped and I heard her whispering "Goddess, no. Oh, Vil, no." Vilkas ignored her. "The woman started screaming, so I tried even harder. She stopped screaming almost instantly." His teeth came together with a click. Neither Aral nor I dared say a word. We hardly dared breathe. Vilkas's tale was like a blow with a club.
"Sandrish did what he could but she was stone dead. I had—ha! I, the great healer, the wise child who was so very strong!" He spat the words out. "I boiled the blood in her veins, Aral, and when I heard her screaming I seared her heart."
We said nothing, we just waited until Vilkas was breathing more normally. Until we were all breathing more normally. To my astonishment, Vilkas spoke again. "I used to have dreams after that—well, you'd expect it, wouldn't you, but the dreams had nothing to do with my killing that poor woman. There was one in particular that I kept having." His voice paused. "I keep having.
"I am standing on the top of a mountain—I know this sounds stupid, but it was a dream—I have fought my way to the top of this mountain and I can touch the sky. Really touch the sky. I just reach out a finger and I can feel the blue-ness of it, and the soft clouds. Then I am the ruler of the world. The whole world is at my feet." He shivered. "After that, though, the dream can go two different ways. In one I became some kind of sky god, like the stories you hear of the tribes in the Far South who worship the sun—I am all-powerful and beneficent and everything is wonderful, I use my power to its fullest extent and I make the world a glorious place."
After we had walked in silence a little way, Aral said the obvious, because someone had to. "And when it goes the other way?"
Vilkas spoke in the flat tone I had come to dread, for I was learning more of him in this one day than nearly two years had taught me. When he could not trust his emotions to stay in check he wrapped them in iron bands, hid them away in deep impenetrable caverns of darkness and spoke as if he were discussing the weather.
"When it goes the other way I am the Death of the World." He said the words as if they were a title. "It always happens the same way. I am fighting one of the Rakshasa, one of the Lords of the Hells, and it stabs me in the heart but I don't die. I instantly turn into a demon a thousand times worse than the one that has stabbed me. I kill it with a flick of my power, for by then I have power that has grown as vast as the world, and then I—then I kill every living thing, and to end it all I reach out and crush the sun in my hand."
He stopped for a moment, to control his voice again. Dear Lady, I thought, what does he do with all that passion? I had never seen a man run so desperately from himself.
"And I laugh. Every time. While I'm killing demons and people and breaking mountains, when I'm putting out the sun—I'm laughing the whole time," he said, striding forward again, and despite his best efforts his voice was thick with disgust.
I kept pace with him and demanded my answer. Without stopping to think, without any consideration for the depth of his feelings, I demanded an answer of him, "Why, Vilkas?"
"Why what?" he snarled.
"It's important. Why are you laughing?"
His voice shocked me when he answered, for he spat out the words with a deep self-loathing.
"Because it feels good. No, it feels bloody damned fantas-tic. There is no difference between being the sky god and being the Death of the World, Will. No difference! In the dream, the feelings are the same no matter which I choose: ultimate release and fulfillment, and self-indulgence, and—fate."
I dropped back to join Aral, who was in truth no more than a step behind. However, Vilkas had not yet ceased to astound me. Having had his say, having damned himself forever in his own eyes as being at once too weak, too strong and irredeemably evil, he made a stunning effort to seem reasonably normal. We all knew he was only bearing up by virtue of bis indomitable will, and neither Aral nor I would have pricked that particular soap bubble just then for worlds.
"There," he said pleasantly, "will that do you for your price?"
"Vilkas, I—"
"I'll take that as a yes. At least we're not thinking about how tired we are anymore." He snorted, then sighed. "Hells' teeth, this day is long as years! How far are we now from that inn of yours?"
"A little over another hour, I'm afraid," I said. The sun was long since down and the light had leached slowly from the sky as he spoke, leaving darkness to settle cold on all our shoulders. Exhausted as we were, at least the walking kept us warm. The Sulkith Hills away west stood outlined sharply again the last fading glow of twilight. The stars were beginning to make themselves known, even some of the shy ones, for the moon was very young and the night cloudless. The trees on either side of the road were reduced to dark shadows on the starfields, and away off to our left as we walked north, the hills grew very slowly closer and higher. The sight of them lifted my heart. I had forgotten how much I missed my home.
"Then, in Shia's name tell us your story," said Vilkas.
"And it had better be a damned fine one. I'm getting bloody cold."
I smiled to myself in the darkness. "Well, it's not as bad as stories go, and none the worse for being true." I took a deep breath. "Salera saw I first in fire—sorrow sealed her, lone child and lost...."
I had only just finished the tale of my life with Salera when we all saw a light ahead. There was nothing else for miles in any direction, it had to be the little village of Wolfenden and the Dragon's Head. I stood up straighter and ran my fingers through my hair, wishing I'd brought more silver with me. I hoped the bloodstains on my cloak weren't as obvious as the ones on Vilkas's tunic.
The smell of hot food wafted through the cold night air and gave us all heart. "It's as good as it smells, I swear," I said cheerfully.
"I don't care if it's braised liver of cat, I'm having some," said Aral. To my surprise she took my hand as we walked in the darkness and held it, briefly. "I hope you find Salera again, now you've left Verfaren," she said softly.
"I do too," I replied. Her hand in mine felt so right, so good—and then it was gone. I kept my foolish thoughts to myself and the three of us hurried into the warm, well-lit common room of the Dragon's Head.
Shikrar
Dhretan led me as swiftly as he could fly up the east coast of our island. We had passed Akhor's old Weh chambers and were beginning to approach the southern cliffs and the Grandfather when he began descending. It was difficult to keep behind him, and to be honest it was difficult to fly that low, but the poor soul was working so hard.
"There," he told me in truespeech, pointing with his snout. "That cavern there, with the tiny clearing before it."
"Lead on, Dhretan, but be warned, I am going to shout," I replied.
I began in truespeech.
"NIKIS! NIKIS, AWAKEN!" I cried, as loud as I could. I kept shouting her name, and when we had come to land and Dhretan showed me the entrance to her Weh chamber I hurried inside and began shouting aloud.
"Nikis, it is Hadreshikrar who speaks! You must waken, your life is at stake!" No response. "Nikis, our home is dying, we must leave this place." As if to echo my words, there was a deep ramble and a brief earthshake even as we stood there.
There was no response from Nikis.
"Go close and call her by her true name," I said to Dhretan. "I will go out. Shout it at her and fear not, I will be too far away to hear."
I walked into the forest to find the stream I had smelled, and drank while Dhretan was yelling. I tried very hard not to hear what he was saying.
"Eldest, she does not waken!" he cried. "She has not so much as twitched."
"Touch her hide gently," I said as I returned to the clearing. "See how tough it is, that we may have some idea of how much longer she will sleep."
I heard him cry out aloud before he bespoke me. "Alas! It is barely hardened at all. Her scales bend, lord!"
As if in sympathy with his dismay, another deep rumble rolled through and the earth shook, a little longer this time. My heart was beating fast and every muscle cried out to be gone from thi
s place, but having come this far I could not leave her there.
I sped into the cavern and noticed this time that my wings, folded tight, still brushed the sides of the entrance to her chamber. We would not be able to work together to lift her out.
Dhretan must have noticed as well, for as I ran to Nikis he nuked, "How are we to do this, lord?"
I got my first good look at Nikis—strange how you notice such detail when time is of desperate importance. She was a lovely young creature, her delicate new scales the colour of dark iron, her soulgem like a deep yellow topaz. She was only a few kells older than Dhretan, which was a blessing, but she was still larger than I could carry easily or for long. "Help me turn her over," I said. "Swiftly, swiftly!"
Together we managed to get Nikis on her back. "Fold her wings in carefully," I said, "take care that they lie to the side and not under her. Now let me get hold of—"
I was interrupted by a loud explosion. Too close! It was swiftly followed by another earthshake, which began as the slightest of movements and grew worse. And worse.
I could barely keep my feet, but I managed to grasp Nikis's shoulders under her wing-joints and cried out to Dhretan. "We must get out now, we are too close to the fire- fields! Look to her wings!"
I dragged Nikis backwards, scrambling as swiftly as I could, desperate to be out of there. I fell onto her twice, thrown off my feet by the movement of the ground. It was terrible and hideously slow; I knew her hide was being scored and her wings bruised and battered, but as long as I got her out of that cavern I did not care.
When I finally reached open air I could pull much faster, putting my back into it, and she was out in moments.
However, moments were all we had. The earth had stopped moving but the smell struck me as soon as I had emerged. When Dhretan followed Nikis out he too smelled it. "Eldest, what is that on the air?" he asked. "And the sound—it roars, Lord Shikrar!"
"It is fire, youngling," I said, trying desperately to remain calm. "Help me turn her on to her chest that I may lift her." As we struggled with the dead weight I added, "And whether it is earth or forest that burns, we have very little time before it reaches us." I shuddered, for the stench was growing thicker by the instant, and Dhretan seemed to be moving at a snail's pace. "Her back legs are tangled— quickly, Dhretan! We have no more time."
"But the smell," he said as together we rolled Nikis back onto her chest. "That is not wood."
"No. It is rock. Now get aloft, I am going to have to lilt her." What I would give for a cliff top to leap from, I thought longingly. It was hard enough to lift myself from the flat ground, and Nikis must weigh a third of my own weight. I sent a swift prayer to the Winds and wrapped my forearms about her chest. I could only just reach so far. However, I managed to interlock my talons in front of her.
A crash from far too close, the acrid smell of molten stone far too near, a gleam of yellow-red moving through the wood.
"The fire is upon us! Fly!" I cried. Inspired by terror I crouched, gave the greatest leap of my life with my back legs and flapped as hard and as fast as I could.
To my everlasting astonishment, I felt myself lifting from the ground. "Get underneath the instant you can, Dhretan, take some of this weight for me." I gasped out in truespeech, fighting for altitude. "Quickly, quickly!"
Dhretan maneuvered underneath Nikis as soon as I had lifted the two of us clear of the trees. He managed to take some of her weight, allowing me to fly a little more steadily. I glanced back to see where the molten stone was, and where it had come from.
We were barely two wingspans above the ground and still Happing madly when the fire-rock covered the clearing behind us, hissing violently and sending up a cloud of steam when it took the pond I had drunk from moments before. "Faster, Dhretan, 'ware the downdrafts!" I cried. For twelve hundred years I had taught every one of the Kantri how to fly: better than anyone I knew what would happen if we were too close to the ground, so desperately unstable, and were hit by the downdraft ahead of the swiftly approaching thernial created by the molten rock.
We managed to fight our way to a decent height and establish a kind of rhythm. Never before had I so blessed my wingspan, but that was all there was to be thankful for. I glanced behind me just for an instant, and in that glance I saw where the molten rock had come from.
The southern cliffs stood sentinel no longer. There was a stream of fire pouring over the edge at the lowest point, and the stream widened even as I watched—a red-gold firefall. A great pall of smoke was rising from the forests as they burned. It was like seeing the death wound of one I loved.
"My people, we have no more time. Fly! The southern cliffs are breached!" I cried, broadcasting truespeech to all who could hear. "The fire comes! Trizhe, what news?"
"Good news, Teacher Shikrar," replied an unexpected voice, and with a deep sigh of relief I realised it was Gyren-tikh. "My cousin has wakened me. It is as well he has the gentle voice of a rockfalt,for I slept sound."
"Welcome, Gyrentikh, praise the Winds you are with us. Idai?" I called.
"Peace, Shikrar, I am wide awake, I thank you," came Idai's wry comment. "l am aloft with nearly all of our folk. I can see the island—and I can see you. Name of the— Kretissh, swiftly, with me!" she called out.
"I would not have asked, Iderrisai," I said softly to her alone as she rode down the wind to where Dhretan and I struggled, "but I will be glad of your help."
"And should I have left you thus?" she asked. "Move, Dhretan, you have saved this old idiot, more honour to your courage, but Nikis is too great a burden for you. Join the others."
"As you wish, Lady. Brace, Lord Shikrar, I am diving," said Dhretan.
"My thanks for the warning," I replied with a grunt as he left and the full weight of Nikis hung from my locked forearms. Name of the Winds, but she was heavy!
"We have caught the thermal that rises from the eastern cliffs, Shikrar," said Idai, coming up under me and taking much of Nikis's weight on her back. "I thought you would be glad to hear it."
"If I had the breath I would laugh, Iderrisai," I replied. "Are we all here?"
"Tdklurik has not yet bespoken me, but it is a long flight to the northwest where Roccelis lived—Shikrar, between us two, have you any hope for them?"
"None, Idai, and I do not believe Toklurik does either, but the heart must follow its own path. Roccelis was kin to him. Perhaps he only hopes to recover their soulgems. Soulgems! I take it—"
"Enough, Hadreshikrar!" Idai said acerbically. "I appreciate your concern, but the rest of us really are quite capable of looking after ourselves. Yes, the soulgems of the Ancestors and of the Lost are safe. Even KMra's daft idea of bringing hlansif trees is being attempted." Her mind voice softened. "A few small artefacts, some seeds, and a small stone brought from the Summer Field: those will be all we have to show for five ceats in the Place of Exile."
I managed to hiss my amusement. "Those and the lives of every soul of the Kantri now living!"
"Well, if you put it that way," she said. The air of quiet amusement in her voice was a great relief to me. I looked back and down. It was hard to see past Idai's wings, but I could just glimpse the island where I was born. It was half covered in a pall of dark smoke, and in the northern half, even in bright sun, I could see patches of vivid red that must be vast firefountains to be seen from so far away.
Idai glanced up at me. "Shikrar, my friend, have done," she said sadly. "We know it is gone. There is no need to watch the last of the destruction. Remember it as it has been, not as it is. The deep truth of any living thing is in its life, not its death."
She was right, of course. I closed my eyes and turned away, concentrating on carrying Nikis, on gaining altitude, on heading east and a litde south.
But I kept looking back, as long as I could see even the clouds that covered it.
Lanen
I woke the next morning feeling reasonably well. Varien had moved only far enough apart to let me sleep, but the other beds we
re empty yet. I was just worried enough to get to breakfast early but Rella and Jamie were there first, drinking chelan and laughing quietly.
When Varien joined us, he drew me aside, and for a change there was joy in his eyes. "Lanen, it is a wonder," he said earnestly. "There is hope for you, and for the babe."
"What?" I said. He hesitated. "Look, it's too early in the morning to confuse me and it's no challenge at this time of day," I said sharply. "What are you talking about?"
"I have dreamt of our younglings, Lanen," he said.
I laughed despite myself. "One at a time, please!"
He smiled. "That is what I thought, and truly it is difficult to tell ages in dreams. They might have been years apart. But I saw us, all four of us, standing in a high place on a glorious summer's day." He cupped my face in his hands. "I cannot tell you what a comfort this is."
I took his hands away as kindly as I could, but it was hard. "I'm glad you are comforted, my dear, but dreams tell us only what we wish to hear. And just so you know, please don't do that." He looked startled. "Holding my face in your hands," I said angrily. "It might feel good to you but it makes me feel like either a child who's being yelled at or a horse that's being sold. I was waiting for you to look at my teeth."
He just looked at me.
"I mean it," I said angrily.
"Very well," he replied, gazing deeper into my eyes than I wanted him to. "And to your anger and your fear, kadreshi, I say that I hear you. However, you must know that I recognise true visions when they come, even if I do not require the Weh sleep any longer. This was the echo of a Weh dream I had not sixty winters past, Lanen."