Vilkas’s and Aral’s brows were two black thunderclouds, and I was hugely relieved that it was Aral who spoke first.
“No, Lanen. Anyone can call them.” Her eyes were hard as stone. “All it takes is a blood oath in which you revile the Lady and reject Her utterly. I’d rather not, thanks. Are you volunteering?”
My mother stood, slowly, and opened her mouth.
Jamie, not seeing her, said, “Lanen, it is an entrancing idea, to burn him with his own fire, but there are some ways closed to us. Would you rid a kingdom of a despot by torturing his subjects into rebellion? We cannot so debase ourselves as to use demons. We would be no better than Berys.”
Maran turned and wandered off, as if to stretch her legs, but I knew perfectly well that she had meant to offer herself and risk her soul as a demon-caller. I wasn’t certain whether I was proud of her courage or worried that she had so low an opinion of her own worth.
A few more idiotic ideas were put forward and demolished, until finally Will spoke up. “The truth is,” he said practically, “that none of us wants to admit that we’re useless in this.” He stood and paced a little. “Believe me, I find this as maddening as you do, Master Jamie, but—I at least admit that I am completely out of my depth.”
Maran, composed again, returned to the circle of firelight. Will continued. “I’m a decent hand with a longstaff and not a bad shot with bow and arrow, but I don’t have either, and in any case a bit of wood isn’t going to bother a demon. And I shouldn’t think Berys would leave himself vulnerable to physical attack.”
“He has before,” said Jamie.
“When?” asked Vilkas, quick and sharp.
Jamie sighed and then grinned up at Will. “Twenty-five years ago, I suppose it was. You don’t reckon he’s learned anything in the meantime, do you?”
“Even if he hasn’t, we’d have to get to him first,” said Rella practically. “I suppose one of the Kantri could drop us fairly near the castle, if we had any idea of being useful, but I’d hate to give the bastard a chance of taking any of us prisoner again.” She sighed. “I’m afraid we’re just going to have to wait tomorrow. Wait and watch.” Jamie began to protest, but she silenced him. “I don’t like it any better than you do! But unless you can think of something we can be sure of accomplishing, we will best serve our cause by keeping out of the way. I shall keep my sword loose in its sheath and my wits sharp about me, but to throw ourselves into Berys’s path unprepared is surely the worst kind of folly.”
“I wish you were wrong,” said Maran heavily, “but I know better. Goddess, to come so far and be so helpless!”
“Do not despair, Lady Maran,” said Varien, smiling grimly. “The day lies before us, and nothing in this world is certain before it happens. It may be that we will all have something to do before the end.”
With that we all had to be content. The rest settled down to sleep for what was left of the night. Varien and I walked along to the little waterfall arm in arm, taking our time in the starlight, walking in silence. The water sang a merry tune as it fell, heedless alike of demons and dragons, and it comforted me. Varien walked beside me, silent still, but I swear I could feel something rising in his soul. I just couldn’t tell what it was.
“Varien, love, how fare you?” I asked him, finally. “Funny how I have grown so dependent on truespeech so quickly. I would bespeak you if I thought Marik wouldn’t hear, but—”
“To the Hells with Marik,” said Varien roughly, taking me in his arms. He kissed me passionately, desperately, and I could feel his mind singing in mine, a counterpoint to the whispered endearments so wild and intense that I grew giddy. “Lanen, kadreshi, beloved, beloved.” He all but sang the words. “Come, my dearling, come, hold me, let me feel your dear arms about me. Bear me up this night, beloved, of your gentle mercy, for my heart is weary unto death with care and thou art my only rest.”
We kissed and clung to one another and the world went away, just for those few moments. Alas that such distractions could not last.
Varien suddenly broke away and started walking, as if he would walk away from the dread in his soul. I kept pace with him, trying not to feel hurt that my love and care were not enough. “My heart tells me that this could be the last night that there are Kantri in the world, Lanen,” he said bitterly. “On the Isle of Exile I often worried that there were so few born to us. It seemed to me that in several generations, perhaps as long again as it has been since the last coming of the Demonlord, we might be no more, and that was a dark evil.” His voice was like a whip, but it was himself he was lashing. “And behold! I fall in love with you, I choose change rather than death, the world seems brighter than it ever has been—and now all my people face death on the morrow. All of us, even the Lost, Restored for a paltry few days and lost again forever because of me!”
I grabbed his arm and stopped him. He sought to tear himself loose but before he could I slapped his cheek. Not hard, just enough to shake him out of himself.
“Don’t be so damned full of yourself,” I snapped angrily. Bloody dragon. “If we had never met, if I languished still in Hadronsstead, do you think your island would somehow yet be above the waves? Nonsense. The Kantri would still be here in Kolmar, Berys would still have summoned that damned Black Dragon, and here you would be, all of you, just as we are now.” I let go his arm. “The only real differences would be that the Lost would still be lost, the Lesser Kindred would still be asleep on the borders of reason, and—I wouldn’t be carrying your children.”
“And you would not be here, in terrible danger, carrying our children,” he echoed, all contrition. He wrapped me again in his arms. “Oh, Lanen, how do you bear it?” he murmured into my ear.
“One breath at a time, my love,” I said, holding on to anger that I might not weep. “One breath at a time.”
We walked slowly back to the fire. The Kantri had begun to return by that time, and I felt safe enough to rest. We lay near the fire beside Idai. I had no idea what lay ahead, though I dreaded it—but for that moment I was content to sleep beside my husband, held close in each other’s arms.
One breath at a time.
Kédra
We did not even seek to rest until the moon began to sink, weary, towards the mountains. Our plans were laid, our preparations, such as they were, completed. We would fight fire with earth, air, and water. I think that none of us truly believed we could prevail, yet still we worked deep into the night, flying by moonlight, piling the largest boulders we could lift into a cairn on the flat top of a low hill beside Lake Gand. Idai and I found a small wood that would serve our purpose, and made certain that as many knew of its location as possible.
A few of the Dhrenagan yet kept pace with the Black Dragon, still several hundred leagues away and not likely to arrive before morning, but for the most part they joined us that night. Nearly.
Naikenna it was who thought to use smoke to our advantage. She was saddened by the deaths of her people, but the Dhrenagan as a whole had given themselves up to the single purpose of destroying the Demonlord.
I found it both frightening and deeply distressing. They would not be swayed by reason. I had never seen that in our people before. They would not keep close company with us that night either, because of the Gedri among us. I saw the hatred in some minds, the barely controlled longing to destroy any human merely for the crime of being of the same race as the Demonlord had been. It did not bode well for our future in this place. I spoke to Lanen, and we ensured that all of the Gedri slept within the protection of at least one of the Kantri, lest any of the Dhrenagan be moved to seek revenge in the night.
When at last all was done that could be done, I joined my father and Idai, Gyrentikh and Alikírikh. The four of them watched over the Gedri most dear to me—Varien and his Lady, Lanen Kaelar, who had saved my beloved and my son. The humans had talked long into the night, but now they all slept near the fire. There was Vilkas Fire-soul and Aral the Valiant, who together had saved my father; there
the Lady Rella and her dear one, Lanen’s Jamie; and there a little apart, Maran Irongrip and Will the Golden.
The night was growing old. The stars in their ordered dance wheeled steadily above us, to the music of the nearby waterfall. There was a bird that sang as well that night, all the night long. I had never heard a night bird or its lovely liquid song before, but it soothed my spirit as much as anything could. There was no more to be done but wait until the morning. Gyrentikh and Alikírikh were obviously using truespeech so as not to wake the Gedri.
My father, though, was restless. He could not settle after the work was done. I knew how he felt. The morrow held battle, something only the Dhrenagan had known. The prospect of severe injury, of death, of maiming, was very much in my mind no matter what I did to ignore it.
Finally he stood and left the circle of firelight. I followed him, a little way down the valley. The sky was still bright with moonlight, though she would set very soon.
“Will it ease your heart to speak, my father?” I asked quietly.
“Ah, Kédra,” he replied wearily. “This night is as long as years.” He stood in Sorrow, and his eyes were solemn. He did not say more but, to my astonishment, came near to me and gently twined his neck with mine.
It is a family gesture, parent to child. He had not touched me so since my mother Yrais went to sleep on the Winds. I was deeply moved. The gesture brought back a hundred memories, of the time when my mother still lived, of a time when my greatest concern was how soon he would teach me to fly. A hundred Midwinter fires blazed in my heart, when in the way of our people we sang together a song of home and family, of a love deeper than time that would never fail, love stronger than death.
It was at that moment I knew. He was saying good-bye.
“No, Father!” I cried, pulling away. “No, you can’t believe a legend! It’s foolishness.” I tried to keep my wings from rattling with my agitation. “Why should you not prevail with all of us, Kantri and Dhrenagan, to fight beside you?”
“Kédra,” he said softly, “this has nought to do with the legend.” His Attitude softened. “As it happens, I think it very likely that we may prevail tomorrow, if the Winds are blowing our way, and the Gedri may well prove the turning point. Akhor’s folly, that brought us Lanen and those around her, may prove our salvation.” He sighed. “Alas, my son, I have seen this place in my Weh dreams.”
“No,” I breathed, stricken.
“Time and again, Kédra. Four times, and each ends in much the same way. I know what awaits me.”
My heart dropped like a stone. I could only shake my head. No no no no no.
“I do not know all that will happen tomorrow, and by all the Winds I will fight with every drop of my strength, but”—he gazed then upon me with such naked love in his glance that I could hardly bear it—“it is in my heart, my dear son, you whom I love most in all the world, that I am going to die tomorrow. I would not leave without saying farewell.”
I could hardly breathe. I knew somehow, deep in my heart I knew that he spoke bitter truth. I tried to deny it, I longed to deny it, but the words would not come.
“You know that you have been the light of my soul since the day you were born, Kédra,” he said gently “That has never changed, nor the light ever dimmed. Know that, remember it, and know that no matter what happens to me, a father’s love never dies. I simply go before you to sleep on the Winds, and when after long years your time here is done I will be there to greet you in the Star Home, the Wind’s Home, the place of all Songs, with your mother at my side.”
“Father,” I choked out, through a throat painfully tight. “Must this be?”
“It will be,” he said gravely. “I know not precisely how it will come to pass, but—it is battle. I may not be able to speak with you when the time comes.”
And at last his calm resolve cracked, and he bowed his head, and I saw that he was weeping.
We are creatures of fire. Tears are agony to us. We only weep when our hearts are wrung beyond bearing.
In a moment he looked up again, gazing into my eyes, his voice barely a whisper. “I say farewell to you now, my dearest son. I pray you, give me your farewell in return, that I may know you have heard the truth I tell you.”
I could not, just then. My heart was too full. “Not yet,” I whispered. “Not yet, I beg you, while night covers us.”
He nodded. “Until dawn, then.”
While darkness lasted we lay close together, my father curled around me for comfort, as around a youngling. We spoke of so many things: of memories, of hopes, of sorrow and of delight. Of life and death. Time seemed to spin around us, unheeding, as my heart begged it to slow, to stop, just for one more moment.
At last, away to the east, light began to creep silently into the darkness. It spread like water, slowly washing away the night, until false dawn filled the sky. For the first and only time in my life, I cursed the dawn.
We both fell silent, and my father looked to me. Waiting.
I would have given my wings to deny the truth of what he had said. I longed for him to be mistaken, for him to live long years yet with me—but I knew that my father was the truest creature I had ever known. To deny his truth was to deny him, and that I could not do.
“Farewell, my father,” I whispered, barely able to speak. “May the Winds bear you up.”
He touched his soulgem to mine and we stood thus in communion for a long moment while day grew broad about us. Then he drew back, nodded to me, and turned to rejoin the others, who were rousing with the dawn.
That moment has remained with me all the days of my life. Even now, as I stand here removed by so many years, I can feel his soulgem against mine, a benison beyond words. These moments shape our lives.
I am glad I had the chance to say good-bye.
Aral
“Vil?”
“Mmm?”
“Vil, you can’t ignore it. Tomorrow.”
“Oh, yes I can,” he replied, both eyes still tight shut.
“What will you do, Vilkas?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral. “When the demons come?”
“I’ll be able to decide then, because I will have had some sleep,” he growled. “Not much, but some. Please, do shut up.”
I said no more and he feigned sleep for ages, until at last exhaustion claimed him.
I would not have had his dreams for all the world.
xii
The Wind of the Unknown
Berys
Marik arrived just after dawn, nicely annoyed.
“What the Hells do you think you’re doing, sending for me at this time of day!” he yelled as he strode through the door of my rooms. I smiled.
“Good morning, Marik. I thought you would like to join me for breakfast,” I said. “I thought we might venture to celebrate this morning.”
“This is my home, Berys. In future please assume that I will seek you out if I want to talk to you, and I bloody well won’t at this time of day.” He threw himself into a chair and helped himself to food. He made quite a good meal of it. Very appropriate, I thought, considering.
“Have the dragons said anything of interest?” I enquired.
“Not a damn thing they couldn’t have said aloud.” He grinned, wolfishly. “Though one of them at least is nicely miserable. Weary at heart, it seems, poor bastard that he is.” He took a savage bite of bread and butter. “So, what news of your flying friend?”
“The Demonlord is nearly upon us, I am delighted to say. He reported this morning that he neared the mountains. I expect him here within the hour.”
“Well, better late than not at all,” Marik said easily. “Tell me, is he going to start killing the Kantri right away, or do we have to feed him first?”
“He must be fed,” I said.
“What does a creature like that eat?” he asked, draining his cup of chélan.
“People, for preference,” I replied. “Specifically—you.”
Marik stared at me for a moment and then
laughed.
“Hells, Berys, I thought you bloody meant it!” he crowed. I smiled at him.
“Come on then, tell me,” he said, brushing the crumbs from his lap. “What does it really eat? If I need to send for a cow or six, it will take a little time.”
“No, Marik,” I said cheerfully. “I meant what I said. It’s going to eat you. Oh, perhaps not physically, that depends on what it feels like, but you are going to feed it.”
“What, yet more blood?” he asked, annoyed, and entirely incapable of believing what I said to him. It was delightful. “This grows old. I’m amazed you have anything at all in your veins.”
“Come into the courtyard,” I replied, rising, and calling over my shoulder as I left, “I will await you.”
Marik
I waited for Berys to go, waited a moment longer lest he be listening outside the door, and slipped out through the hidden door in his bedchamber.
I’m not a complete fool. I grew up here, I know every foot of this castle, and I’d had him put in these rooms for a very good reason. It’s one of only three that connect to the concealed passageways between the walls. You can go practically anywhere in the place, including out. I was soon scrambling out the little concealed door and up into the mountains. Hells’ teeth, he was going to feed me to that damn thing without another thought! Me! Bastard. He’d pay for that in time, but first I had to get a very long way away.
A voice rang in my head.
“It comes! Rise up, my people!”
I cursed and hurried on. Stop bloody posturing and get on with it, I thought wildly. Bloody dragons! If you’d just damn well kill the thing I may live to see another day.
“Bloody hellsfire! Marik?”
What the—somebody heard me?
Lanen
We rose just after dawn, not that anyone slept much, and broke our fast together. Shikrar and Idai took wing to see that all was prepared, and Maran announced that she was going over to the waterfall to have a quick word with the Lady and if anyone wanted to join her they’d be welcome. Vilkas and Aral wandered along, and after a moment so did I.