It was not until he touched my rounded belly that I began to weep. Gently at first, a few soft tears, then to my own amazement I was taken with uncontrollable sobs from the gut, shaking my body violently as I hung on to him for very life. “Beloved, beloved,” he murmured, holding me in a grip of iron. It was just what I needed, feeling his strong arms about me, but still I sobbed without knowing why—when of a sudden I was minded of Jamie, as he spoke of the time my mother Maran bade farewell to her father.
“I tell you, Lanen, I hope never to see another such farewell in this world. Both she and her father wept bitter tears as they embraced. It was their last sight of each other. Somehow they both knew.”
I gave a cry and drew away from him, rising to my knees on the bed the better to gaze into his eyes as if I feared to see his death therein. My newfound vision was with me still, it seemed, for I saw far more than love and concern in his emerald-green eyes. Death did not haunt him, blessed be the Winds, but I was shaken from my own sorrow by the depth of grief that I sensed in him. In that unguarded moment I touched the dark, still lake of it, deep as my own, heavy and cold, taking unto itself all hope and light. I reached out gently to my beloved, tracing the line of his brow, his cheek, his throat.
“Varien, love, what sorrow is this that lies so deep and cold?” I whispered. He opened his mouth to speak—I saw him swallow the easy response as he remembered our oaths always to speak truth to one another. He said nothing, he did not bespeak me, only returned my gaze. I reached out and took his hands in mine. “Speak to me, love,” I begged, swallowing against a lump in my throat. “For my heart is shadowed and I cannot lift it. I know the day is bright and we are safe, and reason tells me to rejoice that I am with you again, but—oh, love, my fool heart mourns as if you were struck dead before my eyes.”
“The Winds take your words and make them false, Lanen!” he cried, rising all in a moment and holding me to him so tight I felt my bones creak. I did not care.
“Sweet Winds of morning forbid such a thing—oh, my Lanen—would that I might laugh at you, but my own heart sings that same song of unreason,” he whispered. We held one another without speaking, until I could feel his heart beating against my own. That very simple, very real thing steadied me. I managed to let him go a little. Enough to stop my muscles from cramping, at any rate.
“Do you know, kadreshi, I believe it is a just grief,” said Varien quietly.
“How should it be just? How reasonable?” I objected, moving back a little but still in the circle of his arms. I swear, sometimes that Kantri calm voice of reason made me furious. And anger was vastly more comfortable than the desperate grief.
“Beloved, when you were taken from me, I called to you with all my soul.” He shuddered. “Never will I forget that day, kneeling on the grass, dead to all else, pouring all that I am into truespeech as I strained to hear your lightest whisper upon the Winds. There was—nothing.” He shuddered. “I was—my heart, I have shed barely a single tear since you were taken. I could not hear you, in mind or heart, anywhere in all the world. I did not dare to weep lest I could never stop. I feared”—that glorious voice faltered, and his arms around me trembled—“I feared you were taken entirely from life, I feared I never would see you again or hold you in my arms, and with your life mine was come also to its end. Beloved.” He breathed roughly, drawing me to him once more, his strong body my rock in a swirling sea. “My heart is full of sorrow deep as time, that I did not dare to speak before, lest it destroy me and take away all my resolve while still there was something to be done. Now that you are with me—oh, beloved, now I am grown brave enough to weep.” And so he did, for I felt his tears raining upon my cheeks even as we kissed and clung to one another, and my tears fell upon his face, and mingling they washed away our sorrow for that time.
And suddenly to my own surprise my sobs began to turn to watery laughter. I had been struck by the foolishness of it all. The pair of us standing there crying bitterly because we were no longer parted! Varien gazed upon me, and like the sun emerging from a cloudbank, the great weight of weary sorrow fell away from us both and we grinned like idiots, even as the tears dried upon our cheeks.
I could not help being distracted; the late morning light picked out all the contours of his body, turned his eyes to living emerald, and set his long silver hair to gleaming like metal new-forged. That strange spicy scent that reminded me of the Kantri tickled my nose. My husband. Impossible, that so splendid a vision was my own heart’s other self.
I wondered if my sight had changed forever, or if this was the last shred of that strange gift from the Lady held over from the night before. Watching him, I saw the moment when he looked deeper into my heart. I had never noticed the difference before. There was so much I had never noticed before. There was around Varien a shimmering silver aura that I certainly had never seen. What it might mean I had no idea. It was full of movement, surely. I wondered for a moment if there might be a tree outside the window, casting moving shadows, but my eyes widened when I realised that the bright movement behind him came not from without. It was—sweet Goddess, I was looking at the moving shadows of the wings he had lost.
Varien
I stared and stared, hardly daring to believe what I saw, until she reached out and touched my face. “I didn’t know you still had wings, my dearest,” she said softly. “Even thus, even as shadows, they are glorious.”
“Lanen, what sight is upon you?” I cried, joy rising in me as I had not dared to dream it ever would again. “You see me—your eyes—” I stared hard at her, and it was unmistakable. “By my name, Lanen Kaelar, you have the eyes of the Kantrishakrim!”
Of course she could not let that pass. “Well, I’m not going to give them back,” she said, grinning at me. “What in the world do you mean, you daft dragon?”
For answer I leaned close into her and breathed deep. “By the Winds!” I cried, reeling as wonder took me. “Lanen!”
“Still here,” she said as one corner of her mouth lifted in half a smile. “What are you on about, love?”
“You are changed in truth!” I laughed. “I thought Vilkas changed your blood and nothing else, but all is connected—you cannot change the blood without changing all else as well—Lanen, my heart, you are become as much a child of the Kantri as I am!”
I could read her truly, more truly than ever before. I could see all the layers of thought and deep emotion, I could see the wonder that began to fill her heart, and glory to the Winds and the Lady, when I glanced down I could see our babes as they grew beneath her heart. They were as yet no more than a shining in the region of her womb, but already I could see two separate gleams. I took her by the arms and danced about the room like a fool, the pair of us stark naked and laughing.
We sealed our joy with loving then, passionate, joyous, urgent with our need to give and to receive. As we lay in each other’s arms afterward, Lanen said calmly, “We’d best enjoy this while we still can. It’s not going to be so easy when I’m out to here with twins.” She held her arms an improbable distance from her body and I laughed. “Aye, well, laugh while you can,” she said, contented, teasing me. “You’ve never seen a pregnant Gedri, have you? I’m not kidding. It looks completely silly and I’m told it is awkward in all kinds of ways. And you can’t see your feet.” I laughed as she continued. “And women near their time all say the same things. ‘I wish the babe would put its mind to the job and get it over with,’ and ‘I’m never doing this again,’ and ‘Goddess, but my feet hurt!’”
I was filled with a quiet delight to hear her so calm and so—so normal about her pregnancy. She had gone through seven Hells and nearly died with it; I had feared she might resent the babes, but no, not she, not my Lanen.
By good fortune we were up and dressing by the time Hygel knocked on the door. Why he bothered I don’t know for he opened it even as he pounded. “Come quick,” he said urgently. “There’s a riot about to start and that bloody great dragon is in the middle of it.
”
Marik
I had forgotten. I haven’t been here, my father’s home in the East Mountains, for twenty-five years. I’d forgotten the smell of the place in spring. When we arrived an hour past it washed over me. There’s always the tang of the evergreens, but this time of year there’s some shrub that grows low on the foothills that has thousands of little yellow flowers and smells like—like paradise. Better than lansip. I’d forgotten.
I always thought Berys was a little crazy, but now I know it. I saw the result of that madness last night, in Verfaren. Before my eyes, his legions of demons destroyed the most powerful men and women in the world, the Mages of Verfaren, in moments, and there was precious little they could do about it. Oh, some of them knew how to shield against the little demons, but when the big one arrived, that Berys called a Lord of Hell, they could do nothing. I don’t pretend that I felt much at their passing, those people have made my life difficult for years, but Berys enjoyed it. Not their deaths, I don’t think. Before. When they realised that they were going to die. He is even more depraved than I had thought.
Depraved but powerful. Don’t forget that, Marik my lad. And he’s only on your side as long as you’re of use to him. I wonder more and more how long that is likely to be.
I must say, though, I’m impressed at the way he keeps his head. We walked out of the Great Hall quite calmly, and later, when—when—when the dragon came I saw my death and could not move, but he had opened the portal and threw me into it. The next moment we’re here at my ancestral home, this fortified bastion in the mountains by the shores of Lake Gand. Across the width of Kolmar. It’s a thousand leagues if it’s a step. He calls it “travelling the demonlines” and says they take forever to set up and are only good for one trip. Damn shame. It beats horses hollow.
The pain is back again this morning, worse this time than it has been for many a moon, and with no hope of relief now that Lanen has escaped my grasp. I should have insisted that Berys sacrifice her the moment he captured her, curse him! He was the one who wanted to wait, he never has thought my constant pain worth bothering about. He is less and less amenable to reason these days, and I am half mad that say it.
Damn the girl for escaping. Damn Berys for letting her. Damn it all to the Hells and back again. I hate being in pain. These days I can’t even count on Berys to relieve it, as temporary as that always is. Of late he often claims that he is weary and needs to rest. Not now, surely, that he has activated the Healers.
Heh. I wonder what kind of havoc that is wreaking across the three Kingdoms this day? Only the three, of course. Gorlak has ever been a support to our plans, so we have not touched any of the Healers from his Kingdom of the East Mountains. I wonder if Berys has had word of how Gorlak is doing in his battles? Last I heard he had taken the North Kingdom and was within a breath of victory in Ilsa. That would suit us well. If there is yet an “us”—though Berys did save me from that monster just now, perhaps he still sees my worth in his schemes. Without me he has no legitimacy in this Kingdom, where my family is very near to the throne. Only Gorlak and his fool of a son, Ulrik, truly stand between me and my rightful place. If you look at the lineage a certain way.
It occurs to me to wonder, more and more, what will happen when all the Kantri are dead? Berys was going to wed what was left of my daughter, for his own devious reasons—I never really cared much why. At least, that was what he told me when he was his natural age. It would give me time to father a son where I would. But now—Hells take it, he looks younger than I am! Mind you, I can’t see him interested in a woman, or giving a damn about having a child to establish a dynasty. Giving a damn about anything other than himself, in fact.
I must watch him more closely. Never trust a demon-master, even when he is in your pay, for he has fewer scruples than a weasel and only stays bought as long as you are useful. However, I am secure enough here. True, Berys is more powerful than ever, but he is in my home now. I may have been gone for a few years, but I still know and am known by most of the folk here. They have worked for my family and been well paid for it for many years, first by my father and, for some time now, by me. Surely that is worth something.
I have seen Mistress Kiri already; she roused and came to meet me the instant word had time to spread. She is greyer, but otherwise much the same. She seemed pleased to see me despite the hour. My own mother died young; Mistress Kiri was mother to me most of my life. I think she may still have some affection for me, and at the least she and her family owe me their allegiance. My father, second only to King Gorlak, was more and more in the court from the moment my mother died, and he never saw me from one year’s end to another. His influence and the power of the House of Gundar grew and spread as he worked through the years, and I was proud of him, knowing that all he achieved would be mine one day. I was well content that my father should never seek me out, for it meant I could do as I pleased.
The sun rises earlier here than in Verfaren by some hours, but it can damn well rise without me today. I have pulled the heavy shutters closed. I will sleep late, I think. I shall tell Berys what I have discovered about Lanen’s pregnancy sometime soon, but tonight I am weary. It will keep.
Berys
I have accomplished the second great work of my rise to power. The first was the raising of the Demonlord; now the College of Mages is no more, and most of the Mages are dust and bone. I have sent one of the Rikti to discover what became of the Lord of the Fifth Hell. It did not survive. I had hoped it would be set free when the building was destroyed, to create havoc to its heart’s content. Alas, it was not to be. Sent down to the True Death in a senseless battle by the dragon that stole away my prize. However, Marik tells me that this is the one called Shikrar, whose full true name Marik taught me some time past. That knowledge gives me a great power over it. If I invoke its true name in its hearing, I will have absolute power over it. What a lovely thought.
I regret the passing of that particular demon: all that power, all that focussed will so well controlled, now lost to my hand. I will have to think of a suitable return for that death.
It is curious. I did not realise that I would be so weary. I was not this spent when last I summoned the Lord of the Fifth Hell—though I suppose, last time, it wasn’t killed either. Ah, well, such are the fortunes of war. And I have discovered that in all the activity, I have left my book of Marik’s thoughts in Verfaren. It is annoying, truly, but of no great consequence, as I have the book of my own thoughts with me. I trust him as he trusts me, that is, not at all, but he is shaky in his sanity and his imagination has ever been greater than his capacity for action. He does not seem to have noticed anything amiss. If I were he, I would have demanded the sacrifice of the girl the instant she was captured, but he accepted my plea of weariness and other more important tasks to hand.
I must remind myself from time to time that he is not a fool. It is too easy to discount Marik. At least now that he needs me to keep his pain at bay, he will not easily rise against me. He does not seem to have his old ambition since I returned him from madness. Perhaps he fears me? That would be pleasant.
The Demonlord has sent one bit of good news as well. It says it can smell land. It should reach the Kolmar coast in less than a day, likely by early afternoon, Verfaren time.
There is so much to do tomorrow. I cannot hope that the Demonlord will arrive here in the East by nightfall: it will almost certainly take it at least another full day to fly the distance, possibly more, and the power I have provided it will run out at midday tomorrow. I must cast the spell yet again, send it my own energy yet again. Golems are draining. It is as well that I have the power of our tame Healers at my bidding. However, I do not wish to squander it. I believe I shall have to take up my alternate arrangement. If I understand the ancient scrolls of Pers the Hermit correctly, there is a way to ensoul a golem, a soulless construct, which will give it continued power and movement without further investment of time or energy from me. The trick is that the Demonlord gave
up his soul many thousands of years since, so I will need another soul to enslave the golem that is the Black Dragon. Pers never thought of two minds in the one place, but extrapolating from his work, I think I will be able to arrange for the mind of the sacrifice to be superseded by that of the Demonlord. I suspect this all will make the sacrifice quite mad, but the man I have in mind is only a very short distance from madness at the best of times. No great loss. I have only ever promised to end his pain. There is little pain in madness, as a rule.
I will confess, I look forward to watching Marik’s face when he realises that I have brought him along as a victim. His daughter would have been most useful, it is true, but she is lost to us for the moment. Favoured of the Goddess, pah! But the Holy Bitch is wanton and seldom bestows her favours for long. Those who speak with the Voice are often left bereft very soon after. I will seek out the girl again soon, for she is my link to Marik of Gundar’s blood and bone, as well as holding the dominance of the Demonlord in her veins. Far too valuable to leave wandering the world. All I need do is let the Demonlord loose to work his will and destroy the Kantri, and she will have no more protectors.
As it happens, I have already thought of this. When I sent her into sleep against her will, I linked one end of a demonline to her boots. If I really need her before the Demonlord has got rid of them all, I will be able to reach her in the blink of an eye, no matter how many dragons cluster round her.
As to the more mundane side of things, King Gorlak of the East Mountains is consolidating the Four Kingdoms for me by conquest. He took the North Kingdom swiftly, and reports I received just before I left Verfaren would seem to indicate that Ilsa was about to fall. I’m only surprised it has taken him this long, everyone knows ancient King Tershet is childless and senile. Though perhaps he has good generals. Had good generals. Gorlak says Ilsa will be his in a matter of weeks, possibly days. He may not realise that the plague of Healer-demons I have unleashed will work in his favour. At the very least, it will distract his foes.