Gone, gone, knelled my ravaged heart. He is gone beyond any hope of returning. I will never hold him in my arms again, our children will be alien to him forever. He is lost to me forever. Unbound our vows, unbound our future, the pain I have borne, the children yet in my womb fatherless.
I am told that I screamed. I must believe it, for my throat was raw.
And as suddenly I found myself on my feet, and it wasn’t only my throat that was sore. My right cheek blazed pain at me. My eyes flew open, and there before me, her right fist closed about a thick fold of my tunic, her eyes locked on my face, her left arm drawing back to strike again, stood my mother Maran Vena.
I threw up my right arm to stop her hand. She loosed me instantly.
I shouted and threw a punch back at her. She avoided it neatly and caught my hand. Damn she was fast, and strong as iron. “What in all the Hells are you doing?” I screeched. “Leave me alone!”
“No, I think you’ve had long enough,” she said, letting go my hand as she calmly looked me over and obviously found me wanting. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before. If I let you indulge yourself it will only get worse.”
“Damn you!” I cried, furious. “My future just disappeared before my eyes!” I wrapped my arms around myself again, cold at the thought, and my anger left all in the instant. “He’s gone, Maran. He’s gone. Mother. He’s gone from me forever,” I said, my eyes stinging with yet more tears.
She took me by the shoulders and shook me. “How dare you?” she said, her eyes lighting with anger. “He is here, idiot child! He stands before you, whole and unhurt,” she said, gesturing towards Akor, who stood yet some way off, his face turned away from me. “Unhurt save for your words, that are like to kill him more surely than any demon ever spawned,” she added. She put her hands on either side of my face and forced me to meet her gaze.
“Lanen, since the moment you took your first breath I have known your warrior soul,” she said sternly. “You have been my shining daughter all these years, you have borne more than I could ever have done. Do not fail now, here at the bitter test.” Her eyes blazed. “Goddess knows, I have failed in every kind of love, but you are better than that.”
“I am weary of being better, Maran!” I cried, and in my extreme of passion I let slip the childish cry of my heart. “It’s not fair! I’ve been alone all my life, with none but Jamie to care if I lived or died, until I met Akor. I nearly died a dozen times on that island, and then he changed, and—I thought we would have our whole lives together!” I was weeping again. “It hasn’t been the half of a year! Is that all the happiness I am to know in life? One half of one year? Goddess, what have I done to deserve so little?”
“Life is not fair, Lanen,” she said quietly. “That is no argument for a woman grown. Did you expect life, or love, to be perfect? Or easy? In my experience it is seldom either. Only in bards’ tales does anyone live happily ever after. You have had a whole six moons of happiness. Some never even know that much.”
“Hells, even you and Jamie had three years!” I cried.
“That is enough, Lanen,” said Maran. She stood square before me, her anger plain. “Think you that you are the only one whose heart is riven by this? Listen to him!” she said, pointing to Akor. “Hells, girl, I don’t have truespeech and even I can hear his heart breaking.”
“So is mine, damn it!” I cried.
“You cannot give up now,” she said, implacable. “Broken or no, your heart must yet beat. You bear his children under your heart. They need you. You cannot fail them. You must not.”
And suddenly she stepped in and held me tight, her arms strong about me, her words softer than I expected in my ear. “Lanen, for all that you have done, you must yet do one more thing. One last thing, dear one, dear daughter, and all is done.” She held me again at arm’s length. “You must forgive him.”
I burst into sobs, my whole body shaking, out of my control. “I can’t! I can’t bear it, I can’t face him, I beg you, no …”
“You can and you will,” she said firmly, and dragged me bodily to the place where Akor lay upon the ground. He still faced away from me, his head held at its natural level, far, far above my own.
“Turn around, damn you!” shouted Maran, making a fist and striking as hard as she could at the nearest bit of him she could reach.
Akor ignored her and kept his face firmly turned from me.
“You Hells-be-damned coward, you will face the mother of your children or you’ll answer to me!” cried Maran, as loud as she could.
He turned then and looked down. He still did not speak, but his eyes, deep as the sea, old as time and wild with all regret, were locked on mine.
Maran left us to it.
His soulgem gleamed a little in the last rays of the dying sun, and his vast silver faceplate shone with tears.
Tears. From a creature of fire.
It was as if a human were to weep blood.
The sight shook me as nothing else could have. Greatly daring, I attempted truespeech.
“Akor?” I said, tentatively. No response. “Akor my heart?” I said. Nothing.
Aloud, then.
“Akor?” I said, my traitor voice cracking.
“I am here, little sister,” he answered, finally. His own voice shook me. It was much deeper than it had been when last he wore his natural shape, and with my new perception I heard far more than his words. By speaking at all he laid his heart naked before me, and I saw in it all that roiled in my own—hurt, anger, weary sorrow, longing. Despair. And over and around all, through the pain and behind it, love.
Little sister. So he had called me when first we met on the Dragon Isle.
“And still you leak seawater,” he said, bringing his great head down to my level. His soulgem was dark, now, and somehow that touched me more than almost anything. “I wished long ago that all your tears might be tears of joy. Alas, that I have been the means—” And the last of his control broke, and he bowed his head. “Lanen, kadreshi, my own heart, I am as confounded as you. I know not how this has happened. Some cruel trick of the Winds, some price perhaps required for the death of that terrible beast—Lanen, by my soul, it was never my wish that this might happen, but I know not how I might undo what has been done. I hear your anger, I share it, but I can do nothing—” And then, the true cry from his heart, “I beg you, Lanen, my wife, do not turn from me.” He lifted his great eyes again and I felt the touch of his soul, my husband, my lover, and felt his despair sweep through to meet mine. “My only soulfriend in all the world is gone to sleep on the Winds this day, my Lanen, and I am severed from your arms forever. Do not leave me alone here in this desert, lest I run mad, or die of sere loneliness and sorrow.”
Maran was wrong. Forgiveness was not enough.
I could not think how to answer him for a moment, when the words of our marriage vows rose up in my mind. I take you as my husband and my mate for as long as life endures. Well, life still endured in us both. He had not broken faith with me. He was changed, it is true—and, Lanen, what if he had been merely human, and returned from some terrible battle alive but unable to move without help? Would you leave him then? Abandon him to his fate because he could not hold your children?
Goddess, I cannot bear this! I cried silently. I looked away, closed my eyes to shut out the vision of him just for a moment, and at last paid attention to what else was happening around about me.
The earth trembled yet, resonating to the glory of the music of the Kantri. The great Mother Shia who bore us upon all Her broad back was shaken with wonder. Glancing below the lip of the hill, I saw the Laughing Girl of the Waters whispering up to us in a mist, rising from the lake into the twilight. I glanced behind me—and yes, there, just rising over the mountains, rode the Crone, the full moon in all her glory. The first rays of her loving light bathed us both in brilliance and struck gleams from Akor’s soulgem. The Goddess in all Her aspects breathed in me, I was filled with Her presence, and I heard again—in my mind?
in my soul? in my memory?—the words I had heard when Akor and I sought to understand why we had been so drawn to one another against all reason.
Daughter, have no fear. Let not this strangeness concern you. All will be well. All will be well. Follow your heart and all will be well.
No word of “he will be changed.” No word of “you will know his love for only six moons, then be parted forever.” No. All will be well.
All will be well.
Akor spoke again, his own eyes closed, his voice now soft with grief. “Lanen?”
I reached out to him, the same gesture I had used half a life and six moons ago, and touched his warm faceplate. His eyes flew open, wild with hope, and I swear I could hear his heart beating as though he had run a race. “The Winds and the Lady aid me, Akor. I am lost as you are lost,” I said. The words, too, were an echo, and to my astonishment a tiny smile touched my lips. “We might as well be lost together, eh, my love?”
I stroked the smooth bone below his soulgem. “Damn and blast them all, my love. We’re caught in this together. Shia forbid I should leave you now, when things are darkest.” I stretched up and embraced as much of his neck, at the thin point behind the faceplate, as I could manage.
With that touch he opened his mind to me, unleashed a great flood. I could hear his thoughts as though a multitude spoke, a thousand voices at once, a thousand thoughts but each of them barely audible, as though he were shouting through a stone wall.
Lansen, I never meant this / my heart is broken even as yours l I feel your heart in my own breast its beating is all that keeps me on live l beloved, those who sought our death are defeated beyond recall / the Black Dragon is dust and ashes and the Kantri still live / Shikrar, Shikrar, soulfriend, my life is changed forever with your passing, sleep on the Winds, O friend of my heart l beloved, for all that has passed we yet live, our babes yet live/ our future will not be what we expected but at least we are both here to have a future / was I not this shape when we first pledged ourselves to one another? / I will never hold our babes O ye Winds, have pity, have mercy l my heart breaks anew l Lanen Kaelar, Lanen, kadreshi, can you bear it? Can I bear it? By every Wind that ever blew, how in all the world are we to survive this parting? l for all that is, for all that will be, you are my love.
At that last, he drew back and fought for control of his voice. It took him a moment, for which I was deeply grateful, as I fought for speech as well.
“Lanen,” he said, his voice far deeper than it had ever been, “Lanen, how shall we bear it?”
“One day at a time, kadreshi,- I replied. Perhaps it was the Lady, perhaps I had touched again that strength of fire I had found when I believed I faced death in my cell in Verfaren.”If necessary, one breath at a time. It will not be easy, but—one breath at a time, I can do this thing.
He raised one great hand and wrapped it around my shoulders, as gently as he could manage. “One breath at a time, then. It is well.” And then the great idiot added, “At the least, you know that I am not changed towards you.”
Damned dragon. How could he say that with a straight face?
I felt one corner of my mouth turn up, then the other, then I snorted, and then I let loose with a great laugh, right from my toes. I felt his shock at my reaction, felt him hear the wild inanity of his own words, and watched as a column of flame shot into the darkening sky. A dragon’s belly laugh. Goddess help us all.
By the time I finally wiped my eyes and he had regained some measure of composure, the worst of our souls’ darkness had passed, at least for that time. I grinned at him. “Well, we did promise each other the spiky truth, didn’t we?” I said. “Damn it, Akor, I didn’t mean it literally!”
He hissed his gentle amusement, but was soon solemn again. He gazed into my eyes, far calmer now, thank the Lady. “I bless you for your loyalty, kadreshi. One breath at a time it is.” He sighed. “Name of the Winds, Lanen Kaelar. What have we done that we must ever be faced with such ungentle choices?”
“Shia alone knows, and she’s not telling,” I said, sighing. “True enough, we have neither of us chosen the easy path in this life.”
He cocked his head at an angle. “There is an easy path?” he asked.
“So I hear,” I replied dryly. “I hope for their sakes our childer are blessed with better fortune. Or possibly better sense.”
He hissed a little. “Hear us, ye Winds, and protect our babes from our ill fortune!”
“I hope they’re listening,” I said, my voice trembling. I was starting to shiver, for now the sun was down it was growing cold. Away on the far side of the hill a small fire began to gleam. “I’m getting bloody cold, Akor,” I added. “And I’m tired and hungry and I could drink that lake dry, I think.”
He hissed. “Some things have not changed. It is well. Shall we go to join the others? I believe many of our companions have moved down to the shore.”
“Not all of us,” said a voice, and my mother Maran came to join us in the moonlight. “There’s a fire closer than that.”
“Have you been here the whole time?” I asked, suddenly angry, afraid that she had overheard all we said.
“Not near enough to hear anything, Daughter,” she said, “so you can save your anger for those who need it. Though I’m glad you’re up to anger,” she said wryly “It’s an improvement.”
She turned to Akor, as if to learn how he fared. He raised up his head enough to look down at her.
“Lady Maran, I seem to recall—did you threaten me just now?” he asked.
I didn’t think Maran would hear the slight teasing note under his scold, but she did.
“Don’t be absurd,” she said, her smile gleaming in the moonlight. “I may be daft, but I’m not stupid enough to threaten anyone whose head is larger than I am.”
“Of course not. How foolish of me,” he replied.
“And if I ever do it again, you’d best listen,” she muttered, shrugging her pack from her back.
“Listen to what?” asked Akor innocently.
“Good lad,” she said, pulling out a familiar cloth-covered shape. “I do have one request to make of you, if you have a moment.”
“Of course, Lady,” he replied with a little bow.
I couldn’t resist. “Goddess, you’re stuffy now you’re back in that shape,” I said out of the corner of my mouth, pleased and surprised to find that I had yet some remnant of humour within me.
“Silence, Gedri. You will show the proper respect for the Lord of the Kantri,” he teased, mock-solemn, until Maran unwrapped the Farseer. “What would you of me, Lady?” he asked cautiously. “I wish to have as little to do with that globe as possible.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said, holding it out. “It’s a kindness, really. I thought I’d give you the honour of doing what I’ve longed to do for years.” She smiled. “Destroy this for me, will you, my son?”
Akor took the Farseer, which looked absurdly small in his great claws, and tried to crush it. I thought it would instantly be powder, but it was too small.
He looked about at the green sward on which we stood and handed the globe back to her. “Come,” he said, and flowed over to a large outcropping of rock. He moved astoundingly fast for something so huge.
We followed. Maran handed the Farseer to him once again and we stood back. He drew himself to his proper height, lifted his arm high, and brought the demon-haunted thing down with all his strength against the native stone of the mountains. It shattered with a splintering crash.
Maran gave a great sigh, as of one who has toiled long and hard come at last to rest, and fell senseless to the ground.
xv
The Healing of Wounds
Will
I’d seen it coming for more than a year now, but that didn’t make it any easier when it came. Aral clung to me like a drowning man clings to anything that will keep him alive without noticing what it is. I held her close, I breathed in the sheer perfume of her like a guilty pleasure, and let my shirt and
then my skin grow damp from her tears as she sobbed.
I was growing angrier by the minute. Good thing Vilkas had made himself scarce. I’d have felled him for a tin ferthing and let you keep the fee, no matter what he did to me after.
Rella waited until Aral had settled down to plain crying, then she brought over a waterskin and some bandages and ointment and sat down with Aral and managed to get her to take a drink. I wandered about and found just about enough sticks to get a fire going, though my hands shook a little with the flint and tinder. The little fire wouldn’t last long, but it was better than nothing. I took the waterskin off of Rella and drank deep. That water was purest nectar.
With a sigh, I sat down with Rella’s little pot of ointment and a few bandages. I’d barely begun when Aral croaked, “Here, Will, let me help.” The poor soul, her eyes swollen with crying, her nose bright red, still managed to call up her power and clean the worst of the cuts for me and speed their healing. She soon realised that Rella was in worse case than I and insisted on treating her as well. When Rella was patched up, Aral went along to Jamie and did the same. Then she looked around.
“Where’s Maran?” she asked.
Jamie and Rella looked around as though they expected her to appear from the darkness.
As it happens, she did. After a fashion. Akor joined us, Lanen at his side, Maran draped gently across his neck, unconscious. He lowered his head and I helped Lanen lower her mother carefully to the ground in front of the fire.
Aral
“What’s wrong with her?” asked Lanen. I was strangely glad to hear normal concern in her voice. Goddess knew they had a long way to go, these two, but at least they’d made some kind of start. With all she had been through, Lanen still found it in her heart to be worried about this mother she barely knew. She is a great soul, Lanen.