“Let the Council begin!” I cried, and loosed Fire with my words towards the distant cavern roof. The breath of Fire is sacred to my people, used outside of battle only at those times when we commune with the Winds or consecrate some deed. Let them know that this was consecrate.
“I am Akhor, called the Silver King. I greet ye all, in the name of my ancestors. Ye are well come, my people!”
“All hail, King of the Greater Kindred,” they answered as with one voice. It echoed in that place and sounded like the voices of a thousand. My heart wept at the sound, with pride at their strength and sorrow at the knowledge that I might never hear those words again.
“Answer me, Akhor,” said Rishkaan impatiently, breaking the formality. “Who was that? Was it the same Gedri who spoke two days past?”
“My people, I have called you here that you might know what I have done, and what has been done by that child of the Gedri whose voice you have just heard cry out in pain, and who called out a warning two nights gone.” I stood in Authority. “Know that our lives all are changed henceforth, my people, because of my actions and hers. The Winds blow cold across our times, but truly is it said that back of the winter is the Wind of spring.”
There was a great deal of murmuring.
I ignored it.
“My first news is of the clan of Shikrar. Mirazhe has brought forth her youngling, a fine son. Both are at the Birthing Cove and both are well. The Lady Idai stands birth sister to Mirazhe, and Kédra is with them now to dote on his family.”
This was news indeed, most unexpected good news. Some laughed as they remembered Shikrar’s ostentatious pride in Kédra. Most had known of Mirazhe’s distress, one way or another, and many stood in delighted Surprise.
”Is Shikrar not with them?” someone called.
“He stands Guardian at the Boundary,” I replied. “I know his feelings on at least part of the matter I wish to put before you, and I cannot say that of another of our Kindred beside myself and two of those at the Birthing Cove. But I begin at the end of my story.”
And in a style I have used a thousand times since, I lifted my head and spoke to the Greater Kindred. I did not know it at the time, but I have been told that my voice changed as I spoke.
It grew deeper and clearer, no louder than before but ringing so as to fill the Great Hall itself.
“Harken well, O my Kindred. I have a tale to tell you of dreams and waking life beyond all imagining, of danger and sacrifice and love beyond all reason.
“Harken, O my people. This is the tale of Lanen and Akhor.”
I told them everything.
Everything. From my Weh dreams to our first meeting, her words with Shikrar at our second meeting and his warning. (Much was made of this, that she had truespeech. It was undeniable and still seemed little less than miraculous.) I told of our third meeting, that I had arranged it without the knowledge of any other but that it had saved her life.
With a deep breath and a prayer to the Winds, I spoke then of our reactions to one another, how we had been drawn to each other beyond all reason and beyond all denying. I told of our flight to my Weh chamber, of much that was said, and was about to begin the story of our souls’ Flight when some kind Wind blew my thoughts ahead to what their reaction would be at this stage of the tale. Better to save that particular blast of fire for the end, when they knew
her better.
All I gave them of that time was the knowledge that there was more to hear.
Next I told of the Discipline of Clear Thought, and the answer both of the Winds we revere and the Lady of the Gedrishakrim. There was a louder murmuring at that. The Winds had spoken before to our people, but not for many lifetimes. I heard the word ”omen” muttered around the room. I knew some still saw me as a living omen, with my silver hide.
The events that took me to the Birthing Cove were already known to many. Shikrar had indeed sought me everywhere, and of course Idai had sent the elder females away when she realised they knew no more than she (Idai was eldest after Shikrar and could so command the
others). I was grateful that Idai’s voice was not there at that moment, but the duties of birth sister may not be neglected and are most needed just after the birth. She would have her say about me later.
When I told the Council what my Lanen had done for Mirazhe, for Kédra, for the youngling, all murmuring stopped. At first they could not believe that such devotion by one of another race could exist. I felt the first stirrings of doubt, even of disbelief. I had thought of that.
“My people, I call upon Shikrar, Eldest and Keeper of Souls, as witness to this thing beyond belief. Will you take his word as truth?”
They would. All knew that Shikrar was beyond reproach.
He was waiting.
He spoke with us all from the Boundary, using wide-scattered speech that all might hear. He spoke simply and with great reverence for Lanen and took them to the end of the tale, that she lay now so terribly burned and sick and in the hands of her people, hence her cry of pain. He gave then an account of our arrival at the place of Summoning, and seemed almost proud of his part in the proceedings.
I was wondering how to fill in the final verse, the tale’s heart that I feared would turn my people from me, when Rishkaan saved me the trouble.
“And what is the last refrain, Akhor?” he asked sourly “Your song is not complete, you have left out a verse in the center. Why should this Gedri child do such a thing? She is no Healer by her own admission. Did you threaten her? Or beg? I cannot believe either. All she had to say was no, and no shame to her.” His voice grew harder. “And why did she speak so to you, before the Council was begun. ‘Dear one’ she called you. Why, Akhor? What have you not yet
told us?”
Trust Rishkaan, I thought. He knows me well, and his disdain of the Gedri verges on hatred.
It was time.
“Because, Rishkaan, my people: she loves me. She would do anything for me, and I for her.”
My soul to all the Winds, preserve my dearling and me, bring us home to that joy you spoke of, for at this moment it seems a thousand leagues and ten thousand years away.
“There is one last thing I have to tell you, my people, and try though I might there is no way to ease the telling.
“I flew the Flight of the Devoted with this child of the Gedri as we sat in my Weh chamber two nights past. We flew on the wings of our souls and made a new song together.
“We know it is foolish, it is impossible, we know there can be no joining save mind to mind; but I swear to you she is my heart’s beloved, and my mate for now and ever. As I am hers.”
There was a brief moment as a hundred and fifty of the Greater Kindred were stunned into silence, some for the first time in centuries, some for the first time in their lives.
Then the Great Hall was awash with sound as they found their voices and, as one, protested.
My own reaction was not what I had expected. I knew a chastened pride in myself for speaking openly about Lanen, but apart from that I was excited, and in the main I rejoiced.
For the first time since I could remember not only were the Kindred united—albeit against me—they were awake.
My people have slept too long, this is snow on their faces. It is good for them, however it may turn for Lanen and me.
Indeed, I began almost to be amused as the most outraged stormed up to face me on the dais.
They stood in Admonition or Disgust or Anger, as it took them, and I could not possibly hear more than a few words from each.
“You cannot, it is unholy….”
“What spell has this Gedri witch … ?”
“It has always been death for the Gedri to pass …”
“Akhor, how could…”
“You fool, you were our hope for the future, touched by the Winds….”
”What omen now, Akhor? Will the Silver King lead us into the arms of the Gedrishakrim?”
This last was Rishkaan. He stood where I could see him, his body twisted i
n the extreme of Fury, his wings half-raised and rattling, and spat the word “Gedrishakrim” at me like a curse.
I stood in Sorrow. I could think of no words for him, nothing to say to ease his pain and anger, and I would not dignify this fury with a direct response.
Turning to the others, I stood and called in the loudest voice I possessed, pitching it again to make the cavern ring. “Silence! Silence, O my people! Is this the Council of the Kindred? Silence I say!”
The habit of obedience is strong, as is our pride. Those on the dais stepped off, save Rishkaan, who had the right of age and claimed it now. He had controlled his anger and now took the place of the Eldest, which was due him as the eldest of those present. All kept silence (out of curiosity as much as anything else, I strongly suspected: there had not been this much excitement at a Council meeting for centuries).
“Who has laid a spell on you to draw you from your true nature?” cried Erianss. She was about the age of Mirazhe, mated to a good soul, but she had never quickened from their nights. “Our people diminish and you, the King, give your heart to one who is but a flicker in our lives! Even should she live past this sickness, she will be dead in half a hundred years. Is such a creature worthy of the love of our King?”
There was a general murmur of agreement.
“Erianss, you know that no spell could be hidden from you all. How could the Rakshasa be involved and leave no trace for our kind? We know such a thing cannot be done. And as for my—as for Lanen’s life being short, you are right, and my mind knows that you are right. But I cannot deny love, no matter what form it takes. Was Yrais less worthy of Hadreshikrar because she lived but thirty years after their joining? I have not taken a mate from our Kindred because there has never been a lady who could understand the ferrinshadik that has haunted my heart all my life. One lady even told me the kingship had made me too solemn, that I should try to think less.” I had to smile; it had, of course, been Erianss. “I suspect that lady is now less than happy with the outcome of her advice.
”My people, I am your King by your own gift. When that office was bestowed upon me I changed, as a king must. In many ways I have lived not the life I wanted, but the life I was required to lead. I have not shunned that duty. I have held what I believed to be best for us all in the front of my heart for nearly eight hundred years. In that time, I have come to know that I must think of you at all times, and of our Kindred as a whole, our future and our past.
“It is no secret but a great tragedy that we are fewer than ever before in our history. In the last eight hundred years there have been but three births, including Kédra’s youngling. We are declining, my people, even from the few we were before, and I have wondered what was to be done for many long, long years. Now I believe that it is time to attempt a reconciliation with the Gedri. They were great Healers of our people at one time. Perhaps if we can communicate
with them they might be able to discover what it is that has so changed us of late.”
“It has always been death for the Gedrishakrim to pass the Boundary,” said a voice behind me. Rishkaan had mastered his fury and stood now in Anger and Rebuke. “I do not recall there being anything in the treaty or in our laws which allowed for any other fate, no matter how they happened to come there. Why should there be any other consideration? She deserves death.”
My heart fell when I heard a murmur of assent; at least, that was my first reaction. Then I began to grow angry.
“Is your respect so lightly given, my people?” I demanded, fighting my instincts to take on Anger myself. Calm, Akhor, calm, that alone will sway them. “Not a breath ago I heard your praise for this child of the Gedri who put herself in peril of her own life that two of us—strangers to her—might live; this child of the Silent People who has the truespeech, as none of her Kindred had even in those times when our two peoples lived in harmony and the Peace was in flower. And I charge you to remember, it was I who crossed over to her, and that to save her life.”
My words met only silence. Still mistrust, still anger, still vengeance. When would it end? I felt my words falling as on stone. I was suddenly weary. I gave them my last words.
“Consider well, O my people. I did not invite this, and neither did my dearling. When Lanen and I met, it was with the simple hope that our peoples might speak with one another, not that we two would join in a hopeless union. For we both have doomed ourselves to barrenness, to loneliness, to a life apart from all those we hold dear.
”When our several gods spoke to us at the same time outside my Weh chamber, we realised there was more to this than wecan know. I hope you also will realise that there is more to this than madness, and will see in this joining the will of the Winds and of the Lady.
“Let any other speak who will; I have done,” I said. “I am heartsick with my beloved’s pain, and weary with this day. I shall be in my chambers hard by if any should require speech of me. I will rejoin you at midday.”
I stepped off the platform and found a way made for me.
I could not tell if it was an honour or if they simply did not want to touch me, nor did I care. I was hungry and thirsty and I needed to know how Lanen fared, and to talk with Shikrar.
Lanen
I woke in a bed, warm and comfortable. The last thing I remembered was searing pain as the Healer took my hands in his. I could feel my hands and arms now only as swollen lumps lying outside the bedclothes, and blessed the Healer for it. I opened my eyes slowly and saw that I was alone save for Rella, who snored in a chair against the wall near the fireplace. There was a bright blaze, and I was warmer than I had been for days.
Fireplace?
Wall? In the camp?
“Rella? Where am I?” I creaked.
Rella opened a red-rimmed eye and said, “In Marik’s second cabin, where his guards slept until now. Thanks to you I got to spend the night in a chair and my back is killing me. How are you feeling?”
“Terrible,” I murmured. “But better than I was. My arms and my hands don’t hurt at all.” I could see them now, wrapped carefully in bandages. I lifted my left arm and tried moving a finger. It didn’t go very far, but it didn’t hurt either. From the shoulder down I was, for the most part, blessedly numb. ”What hour of the day or night is it?”
“It lacks but a scant hour of dawn, and you’ll oblige me by putting your hands back down and keeping still,” said Rella. ”The Healer said leave them be for the rest of the day, you’re not to move ‘em or touch anything. They still glowed bright blue when he bandaged ‘em, my girl, I’d do as he says.”
I gingerly tried to bend my right arm a little at the elbow. There was no pain. “That must be some Healer Marik’s got,” I said in awe. Our village Healer had been nothing special, able to speed healing a little, cure small aches and pains. This man had healed my arms and hands almost completely—I shuddered again at the memory of great lumps of skin in sea-water—and I knew that, beyond even the burns, he had saved my life.
I had little memory of the night before until Rella told me of our arrival in camp, but I vaguely remembered when the Healer was just beginning to work (when Akor bespoke me), and the fact that even when he had taken the pain from my bums, I could not stop shaking. I was roasting and freezing by turns, I could barely breathe, and I had started coughing horribly.
Now, only a few hours later, I felt as though I had the remains of a cold, and that on the mend.
“Aye, ‘twas his own personal Healer. Third rank he is, and aiming for fourth already, but there’s no airs about him. He’s a good lad, gentle-spoken as you could wish, though he’s so powerful so young.”
I summoned the strength to smile at her. “How do you know he was third rank?”
“Asked him, didn’t I? For now, though, my girl, Marik’s left me in charge of you. He said I was to call him when you woke, but first—” She went to the table and brought over a small bowl. “—you’ve to eat this.”
Even in my weakened state, I had enough strength to doubt.
It was too strange seeing Rella here in what must be my prison. “You first,” I muttered, trying to make it seem a jest.
Rella grinned. “Well, better late than never,” she said. “Dear Lady knows I could use this after last night.” She speared a piece of the orange flesh with her knife and ate it with obvious relish. ”And so I become the first of my family ever to dine on lan fruit,” she said, and shivered. “Blessed Shia, that’s wonderful! But I reckon you could use it more than me.”
I have never tasted anything in my life so glorious. Imagine the sweetest peach, the tartest pear, the lushest berry you have ever tasted, and combine with them a rush of strength to a wounded body. I could feel the virtue of the fruit as it flowed down my arms, healing, renewing. She fed me a quarter of the fruit—she told me I had had the first quarter the night before, I mourned not tasting it—then, looking at the rest as it lay in the bowl, said quite calmly, “Hmm. Seems to be going brown at the edges. You’d better finish it before it spoils. I’ll help you if it’s too much.”
She barely had two more tiny pieces for herself. And where a quarter, for all its vigor, had restored some of my lost strength and started the blood moving around my slowly healing injuries, the added half Rella stole for me danced wildly through my arms to my very fingers’ ends. I could feel the knitting of skin and muscle beneath the bandages even as I ate.
For all that, it did not really satisfy hunger. I found, as health and strength flowed back into my body, that I was ravenous. I counted back and discovered I hadn’t eaten in two days. Rella had prepared a stew with roots and dried meat, assuming I’d need food, bless her, but even she was surprised by the amount I put away. She would not let me feed myself, but insisted that I leave on the bandages and let her feed me.
Between the first and second bowls of stew I took the chance to ask her something that had been nagging at me.
“Rella, why are you being so kind to me? You’re the only soul I’ve seen here who cares whether another human being lives or dies. Please don’t think me ungrateful, but why?”