She started walking as quickly as she could. “Kédra, it’s Lanen,” she called out as she strode through the night. ”Akor will not stop me, but as Guardian you should know that I’m on my way to the Council. I mean and will do no harm to any, I swear on my soul to the Lady. But if your duty lies in stopping me, I will understand, and I forgive you. But you will have to kill me to do it.”
Kédra replied in the same kind of speech Lanen was using, scattered and heard by all, and his truespeech was bright with a strange joy. ”Success and long life to you, Maran’s daughter and Akhor’s Lady!”
I had followed her perforce, walking slowly at her side. I was dazed still by this madness that gripped her, but I found my blood answering hers, felt the Fire building within me. “Come, dear one, it is a long way. Will you not allow me to bear you?”
“How?” she asked, still striding as fast as she could. She managed to be in Anger even as she walked; there are some advantages to having such mobile faces.
“Here,” I answered, putting my head nearly on the ground in front of her. ”I have been considering this. Sit just behind my face plate, where my neck is thinnest. I do not know if they will be within your reach, but you might try to take hold of my horns to steady yourself.”
She stopped then and grinned. Her anger abated a little, tinged now with delight. She leapt up the little distance. I could feel her pull herself onto my neck, where she seemed to fit nicely. “Your horns are well within reach, my dear, they might have been put here just for that purpose,” she said.
And she laughed.
Lanen
I was still angry, but as he lifted his head to its normal position I felt like a child on the shoulders of its parents. It was wonderful. There was none of the terror of flying, and he was so big I could see over the trees. He was right, he did move a lot faster than I could; and I felt much safer as well. I had decided that if I was going to be hanged, as the saying goes, it might as well be for horse stealing as for chicken feed. At least this way I might make it into the Council chamber and live long enough to get in a word or two.
I was counting on shock to do a lot for me. I had begun to realise that, aside from my dear Akor, these creatures who lived so impossibly long found it hard to adjust to change. With any luck the sheer surprise would buy me some time.
Besides, I had stopped waiting for someone else to make my life’s choices when I left Hadronsstead. I had been faced with far worse than death already, and if I was condemned to die for doing nothing truly wrong, and in despite of all we had done mat was right, I was damn well going to let someone know about it before I went.
Of course I was crazy. I do not deny it. But it was a glorious madness, marching with Akor to beard the Council of the Kindred in their hall! Like the heros in all the ballads, fighting against impossible odds. And I realised then that I would rather die fighting for myself and for one I loved than live to old age in the quiet safety of a lie.
I remember.
XV
WIND OF THE UNKNOWN
Akhor
I did not even slow down. There was none but Kédra to stop me in any case, and his voice sang with ours as I strode to the Great Hall. I even heard a snatch of the song of his clan, Shikrar’s own melody with elements of Kédra and a lilting theme that could only be Lanen.
That more than anything Sifted my heart high, that the son of my namefast friend sang us to victory. Lanen also was singing, a martial air without words.
At the entrance to the Great Hall we were met by Shikrar standing solemn in the entryway.
“As Eldest I beg you, Akhor, do not do this.”
Lanen’s voice came from behind my head. “Your pardon, Eldest, but he is not the one to talk to. I am.” Her voice rang with excitement.
Shikrar stood in Concern. ”My friend, hear me in this. You must not let her in. She has no voice here, Akhor, you know that. She is of the Gedrishakrim!”
“You mean I’m human. That’s what we call ourselves, Shikrar, human. If I can call you the Kindred, instead of Dragons, you might at least return the favor.”
Lanen
“Be silent!” he yelled at me. I was glad to finally get a direct response, but a yelling dragon is impressive. And loud. “You put yourselves in peril even by standing here.”
“Then let’s not stand here. Can we get in, Akor? Is it physically possible?”
“A moment, Lanen. Shikrar, why such fear? Has the Council reached a decision?”
He bowed his head in a very human gesture. “They have. I dissented, and I am glad to say mine was not the only voice. I reminded them at every turrn of what you both have done— but Rishkaan’s faction was strong. There is much hatred yet for her people among us.” Still gazing at the ground, he said quietly, “You are to be exiled, Akor. Relieved of the kingship and sent to live out your life away from your people on some rock in the ocean.”
“And Lanen?”
“She may go with you, to survive as best she can. Or …”
My voice was calm, even reasonable. “Or they’ll kill me and save me the trouble of having to survive.”
He bowed to me, a sinuous, graceful Dragon bow, then did me the courtesy of looking me in the eye. “Yes, lady. That is correct.”
I laughed. What more did I have to lose? “To the Hells with that. Come, Akor, let’s go in. Or let me down and I’ll go in myself.”
He lowered his head to the ground and I slid off. “Go before, dearling,” he said, turning to me with a smile in his voice and his soulgem gleaming like emerald fire. “I shall come behind and keep all harm from you. Let us tell the Council ourselves what others have not managed to say.”
I paused and gingerly took out my boot knife. It was the only weapon I had about me.
“Shikrar, you who have so gallantly fought for us, will you do me another kindness? Will you take this? I would not enter the Council chamber armed.”
He held out his great clawed hand and I put my tiny knife in it. Again he bowed. “I shall keep it with the treasures of my people,” he said, strangely moved. “So valiant a lady and so courteous, I do not wonder Akor feels kinship with you. And despite my anger just now, I do not forget that I owe to you the lives of my dear ones. In the teeth of the Council I stand with you.”
Despite the reminder of teeth I grinned at him. “Well, that’s two,” I said gaily, and started down the corridor. Nothing could stay me, not the weakness of my so-recent brush with death (which yet affected me), not my new-healed hands that still smarted though the bandages had been removed, not the Council’s sentence of death, not even walking down a dimly lit underground corridor towards the hostile unknown. A kind of wild exultation had gripped me.
I trusted in Akor and in Shikrar’s goodwill, and in whatever force had brought me to this place at this time. The Winds and the Lady were behind me and fear, I thought, was far away.
The corridor seemed endless, twisting and doubling on itself, but there was always at least a little light ahead, and after some time I heard the low hum of deep voices in a large chamber.
The entrance came suddenly, a blazing opening in the darkness, filled with firelight and Dragons. I stood at gaze, staring at an assembly I had seen so many times in my dreams but never hoped to see in real life. For a moment I wondered at the firelight and the torches that lined the walls, for Akor had told me that his people saw well enough in darkness not to need much light; then I realised that in this formal setting they must be able to see the Attitudes assumed by all who spoke, and that fire was sacred.
Akor had said their numbers were dwindling, but it was hard to believe that in the face of a sea of Dragons. The fear I had hoped to avoid rose up in me then, when I saw them all assembled. How dared I hope to stand and defy them? The lightest breath from the least of them and I would be a memory. Throughout that vast hall they stood and sat and lay, conversing, arguing, a great patchwork of all sizes and all colours of metal, from steel blue and leaden gray through bronze and brass, co
pper and dull gold. But none like Akor, none silver.
I remembered his words. My birth was seen as an omen, though what it portends none can say.
This seemed as likely as any. Akor’s voice whispered in my head, ”Courage, dear heart. Now we are here, let us do what we have come to do.”
It was kind of him not to speak of my fear.
At the far end of the chamber there was a half-round dais. as it were in the bottom of half of a large bowl, and on it sat a Dragon with a skin of copper bright as a new-minted coin. I gritted my teeth and aimed straight for the front of the dais, but I was overtaken by Shikrar, who hurried ahead of me and started to speak.
I had only ever heard a few words of the Old Speech. It was the first tongue of all the peoples, the language of Dragons, and though it was in aeons past the basis of my own language there were few words left of it in common speech. The ancient name I took as my own, Kaelar, the Wanderer, was from a ballad. Songs and places alone kept even the memory of the Old Speech among men, but for all the time and distance the sounds were somehow familiar, and hearing Shikrar speak I felt I had stepped back in time. The words hovered just on the edge of meaning. I caught one or two, and felt that I was near as a breath to understanding all he said.
When the world was younger and the last of the Trelli but lately departed, our two Kindreds lived in harmony.
Akor stood behind me, his massive bulk shielding me from the view of most of the others.
Few, it seems, had seen me come in, for which small mercy I was deeply thankful.
“What is he saying, Akor?” I whispered.
”He is calling for attention, saying that another has come with words for the Council. It is brave of him, dearling; by our laws you have no voice here. And we are a people of law.”
Even in his mouth it sounded sour. “Are you indeed?” I asked, a ghost of my mad bravery lingering. “Well, now I’m here I must do what I can. I’ve dealt with legal-minded Merchants before.”
”Lanen, my people are not Merchants!” he said, sounding shocked.
I would have answered him, but Shikrar stepped back and bowed to us. “Let you speak now for your lives, my friends, and may the Winds guide your words and your thoughts,” he said in Common Speech. He moved then to the back of the dais to sit beside the copper-coloured one.
“It’s time, dear heart,” I said quietly.
“Yes. They are expecting me alone to stand and speak. Shall we go?”
“Age before beauty.” He stared at me. “You first,” I said, smiling. “I’d hate to be fried on sight by accident.”
“I see. You would rather it be done intentionally,” he said as he stepped gracefully up. It wasn’t fair, really, I didn’t mean to be laughing when I clambered up the tall step to stand beside him on such a solemn occasion. But it did make for a hell of an entrance.
I gathered later from Shikrar that they had expected to find a demure, silent soul, obedient and willing, waiting for their verdict and generally thick as a plank. Lady knows why. Just because I had been an idiot in love didn’t mean I was stupid altogether.
“My lords and ladies!” I called out, in my best horse-fair voice.
That got their attention. The sound nearly deafened me. The Great Hall was wonderful, it magnified my voice so well I could speak almost in normal tones. That yell had been something, for a human.
”I greet you all, in the name of my ancestors and my people. I am called Lanen Maransdatter of the Gedrishakrim, and I greet you as my brothers and sisters in the name of the Winds and of the Lady.”
Dead silence.
Well, even in my dreams it hadn’t been easy.
”Lanen, few of my people understand your tongue. Shall I translate for you ?”
”Yes, Akor, please, but only if you promise to say exactly what I do. Some of this is not going to be pleasant, and you must not soften it. We know the tones of voice are roughly the same, I’m sure they’ll get the general idea.”
”I’m sure they will,” he replied dryly. ”You would not care to reconsider, would you, dearling? Thus far we have merited only a swift death.”
”Perish the thought,” I said, responding in truespeech. The fey mood was still upon me. “I’d hate to disappoint them. They won’t have had this much fun in years. Now stop distracting me and start translating.”
The response was gratifying, but I must admit it was my turn to be surprised. I had forgotten that they could all hear my truespeech, it now seemed so natural to use it with Akor.
“Why have you waited so long to speak in the Language of Truth? Or had you nothing true to say?” sneered a smaller, bronze-hued Dragon.
”So now you can hear me. Why didn’t any of you answer when I called you from the Boundary?” I shot back. Somehow rudeness from the Kantri snapped me back into that anger and exultation that had brought me storming in. “Could you not admit that I have the gift you value so highly? That I am not Silent, not Gedri in that sense, but a creature of standing equal to your own? Or did you think I could lie even in this language?”
”You have no voice here …” began one lady feebly, but I could not bear to hear that again. Instinctively I spoke aloud
“I should have a voice here! I am not a beast, I am an ensouled creature as you are, and I never heard that the Winds gave you the power of the high justice over me and mine!’
“Would it not be best to continue in the Language of Truth?” asked Shikrar quietly. “It is thus that we may best hear you.”
I thought about that for a moment. “I believe you are right, Shikrar, and I thank you. I spoke in my own tongue in my anger, but were you to come among us we would wish you to speak our language. I shall continue as long as I may, though I cannot use the silent speech for long without some discomfort. It is natural to your people—and to me, it seems—but I am newly come to it. Still, I shall try.”
Akhor
Obviously there were many who had not believed, even after hearing her distant calls on several occasions, that she, a Gedri, could be the source of truespeech. There could be no doubt now. When she lapsed into her own speech again, I translated for her.
I had meant to establish her right to speak. The right was mine, and would have been hers if she had been of the Kindred. I at least was due an appeal. But I did not dare interrupt She was inspired, and I was glad enough to wait and watch. Our people are prone at times to sudden ill-conceived actions—it is the hazard of being creatures of Fire. I would make certain she was protected from any who threatened.
Otherwise, I merely sat and marvelled at her. She was a wonder.
Lanen
“People of the Greater Kindred, I stand before you as your sister in this world. True, we are made differently, but we are far closer in spirit than you are to the Rakshasa, or either of us to the vanished Trelli. In the first days of our meeting, Akor and I quickly came to understand each other’s Attitudes and expressions. And even when words failed us, we learned that rone of voice was a near-infallible guide. As I understand Attitudes, I stand somewhere between Defiance and Respect.”
One voice rang out. ”We read you well enough, Gedri. You are sentenced already.”
“No, Dragon, I am not,” I cried, lapsing into my own tongue and putting as much venom in my voice as I could. They all stirred at that; some who had been in what looked like it might be Listening or some such now stood in Anger. As soon as I saw it I understood, I knew what I must do.
“Yes, Akor has told me how that name offends you. Very well! You are the Greater Kindred, I will pay you that respect; but I have told you my own name. I am Lanen Maransdatter. To call me Gedri, a Silent One, is in any case not correct—but among my people if you deny the name, you deny the person, and I think you have done quite enough of that already. ”
“Who are you to judge us?” called a voice from behind me, dripping with hostility but speaking in my language. I turned back to face the bright copper Dragon I had merely glanced at before. ”Rishkaan,” whi
spered Akor in my mind.
“I have told you. I am Lanen Maransdatter, beloved of Akor the Silver King, and whatever you do you cannot unmake that which already is. You could crush me with a fraction of a thought, with the lightest breath of fire, but you cannot destroy the change that I bring.”
I turned back to the assembly. “Don’t you understand? Have you not heard? How can you censure your King when he is caught in the web of the gods? Yours and mine! How absurd, for us to be so devoted after so short a time. Can you imagine we do not know it? We are not fools. When we came to ourselves after the joining of our souls, we stood apart and called on our gods for understanding, each to each. And the Winds and the Lady spoke to us.
“I did not come here to fall in love with one of the Kindred: Blessed Lady, what a pointless thing to do! I suffer from the same ferrinshadik that is so deep a part of my beloved; I longed only to speak with another soul that felt as I did, once in my life to hear the thoughts of the only other race in this world that can speak and reason. Why should I not? I had no idea. I knew nothing of the ban until Akor told me of the Lost Ones. That tale itself is long forgotten by my people.
“I speak with you now as I have a thousand times before in my heart. I left my home gladly to follow the merest rumour of you, for I knew in my soul you were no legend. I gave up my home to find you, to learn of the Greater Dragons who lived apart from my people. You were the old ones, the wise ones, and I desired to learn from you.”
I spoke now aloud and let my voice rise, partly from some memory of the tricks of the bards, partly because I was now hard put to it to keep stray thoughts out of my truespeech and I wanted this clear.
“And thanks to your King, I have indeed learned. I ask you now, do you not remember your own history? Kantri and Gedri are meant to be together, to live in harmony. Yes, you had reason to be angry at the death of Aidrishaan—but he was only one. By that time the Demonlord had destroyed several villages full of my people. You are creatures of Fire, I can understand that you would be driven to too great an anger, to too-hasty action—but that is what it was. And is.