“Ah,” he said sadly. “So that is the fear in your voice—and something else, I think. Why did he seek your death?”
The noise of pursuit grew louder. “Akor, there is no time. They will find me soon. Dear friend, forgive me, I never meant to bring you into this coil, but if we are to go somewhere, we must leave now.”
“Very well, little sister,” he replied, the sadness still soft in his voice.
“Is it far to walk?” I asked, hoping it wouldn’t be. My legs still trembled.
“Dear one, it would take days to walk there. No, we must fly.”
To say I was taken by surprise is like saying the Kai is a river—it’s true, but it misses the scale of the thing. All I could think of was one of the dragon ballads, in which the villain of the piece “fell from the earth to the sky in the clutch of the vast-winged beast.” It had always struck me as a particularly terrible thing, but time was short and I wasn’t going to ask questions.
“Lanen, will you come with me?” he asked, and in his voice lay all my future.
“Yes, Akor. With all my heart,” I said. “But how shall we…?”
He looked up. The first stars were out, twilight but a brighter memory in the west. “Wait there but a moment,” he said, and was gone in a muted clap of thunder.
Flying. In my wildest dreams I had imagined such a thing, but I never really thought—
“Come, Lanen,” said Akor from behind me.
There he stood, gleaming silver even in near-darkness. And there was no Boundary.
“Swiftly now, your pursuers approach. Climb up on my shoulders, there is a place above my wings where I believe you might sit.”
I saw the place he meant. It was half again the girth of the roundest-bellied horse ever made. Bareback and with no reins, I thought. And a damn sight farther to fall. Still, I climbed up—or rather, he lay down as flat as he could on the ground and I clambered up the last few feet.
I fell off as soon as he stood up.
“This isn’t going to work,” I told him, rubbing my backside and brushing off the leaves. “I haven’t fallen off anything with four feet since I was a child.” I grinned up at him. “Shame you don’t have a mane to hang on to.”
“Lanen, we must hurry,” whispered Akor urgently. “Will you try again?”
“Believe me, it won’t work, your neck is too wide there for me to get my legs around.” Again the words of the ballad flashed through my mind. Couldn’t hurt to mention it. “Could you carry me in your…your hands?”
Suddenly, for a moment, he was again a stranger, a creature out of my ken, a Dragon. Did he call them hands? Claws? Forelegs? He had been gentle enough, certainly, but while he was flying? The slightest mistake could crush me, rend me, before he even noticed.
“I shall try.” And the moment was gone, as I heard in his voice the tenderness that was almost more than I could bear. His very words were song, they poured over me in a wash of melody that stirred my blood and caressed me all at once, soothed away all my fears. “Come, dear one. Come with me, let me carry you to the star-home, the Wind-home, the Place of All Songs.”
I walked to him as in a trance. I would have walked off a cliff, I think, knowing he would fly swift as thought and be there to catch me.
He picked me up, made a seat for me with his hands, so I sat in one and the other held me gently and gave me something to hang on to. His warm, armour-plated chest was at my back.
I felt him crouch, heard as he lifted his great wings. I braced myself as best I could.
There was a sudden jerk as he sprang into the sky, a sound like a far-off storm as his wings beat down again and again, working to get us above the trees.
And we were flying.
xi
The Wind of Change
Lanen
How shall I describe flying to you, who will never know it?
I was terrified at first. The wind rushed past me with the speed of a summer storm and a loud roar filled my ears. Akor was carrying me close against his chest—perhaps he was trying to keep me out of the wind—at any rate, it meant that I was being carried facedown and I could see how fast we were going. And with every downbeat of his wings we rose a little, and as they rose we fell. It was quite sickening at first.
When at last I dared to open my eyes, it was like looking down at the trees from the highest cliff in the world after you have jumped off. There was nothing between me and the longest drop you can imagine save the clawed hands of a Dragon and the strong, rhythmic beat of his wings. The twilight lingered longer up here, and I could see what passed below brushed and blurred with shadow and with speed.
I was terrified.
I gripped his hands with all my strength. They felt solid as stone, which reassured me a little. Also they were warm with a Dragon’s inner fire, and I began to remember that it was Akor who held me. That helped a little more. I began to loosen my grip slightly, my muscles aching from being so tightly clenched. His hands held me safe and strong, and ever above and behind me I heard the beat of those great wings. After a time, even the rising and falling gave me comfort.
I would not have believed it possible, but eventually wonder overcame fear and I began to look about me. Just then, Akor’s voice sang in my mind, “These are the lands of my people, dear one. You are greatly honoured. No member of your race has ever seen these hills and valleys, these deep forests, that are home and safety to us. Look well, Lanen Kaelar,” and I could hear the smile in his truespeech. “This is the abode of Dragons.”
I looked as well as I could and desperately wished it were daylight. But even in the last light of the sun (which as I say lingered a little on high) I could see the hills and forests over which we passed. There were open fields here and there, some scattered with dark dots that might have been cattle. It was too dark to see anything much beyond the general lay of the land, but I saw what I could only have guessed from the ground—that the island was cut in half by a range of mountains that ran from east to west. I could see no details, but they loomed ahead of us as Akor flew north.
I was growing distinctly cold, despite Akor’s warm chest plates behind my back, and it was getting harder to breathe. I think I would have been near frozen were it not for being held close to that living source of fire.
After what seemed like forever (though later I realised was little more than the half of an hour) I felt something change, a shift in his body. By now it was full dark and not worth keeping my eyes open against the wind. I was cold and miserable and fighting for air, but I wanted to know what was happening. I tried to ask him, but my voice disappeared even as I spoke.
It was then that I understood with a shock why all the race of the Kindred had the Language of Truth, while to my people it was the rarest of gifts. How else could they speak to one another, here where the air was thinner than on the tallest mountain, the wind roaring past them and they separated by at least two wings’ distance? Surely the Lady—no, they called on the Winds, of course—surely the Winds had gifted them so they might speak with each other in this world they shared only with the birds. And the Dragons sang, too, I could hear it in their speaking. The music they would make must surpass belief.
I wanted to bespeak Akor, ask how long we had yet to go, but I remembered he had said that I could easily be heard by others. I kept my peace and concentrated on breathing. I longed for moonlight. From my position, in those moments when I managed to open my eyes, I could only see the stars nearest the horizon.
Akor’s thoughts rose soft in mine. “Forgive me, little one, I had forgot you did not know. Our journey is nearly done. In a moment I shall glide down the Wind. Do not be afraid when the ground comes up to meet us.” I could hear the gentle merriment in his thoughts. “I know all is new to you, but I have been flying for a very, very long time. You need have no fear.”
When we started to spiral down everything changed. It was the best part of the flight for me. Akor’s great wings were outstretched and still as he glided down; the wi
nd still rushed past, but it was not so cold nor so turbulent as when he was beating the air. My eyes seemed to recover a little as my breathing eased; I saw dimly below us, in the center of the spiral, a large wooded hill with a clearing at its foot, and as we came closer I saw a darkness that might have been a pool at the edge of the clearing.
We were very close to the ground now but still moving quickly. I am afraid I yelped a bit when he started beating the air backwards. I don’t know what I expected, I had seen birds land before, but this was a bit different.
He landed on his back legs, those vast wings flapping as he fought to stay upright. It seemed very awkward to me, but he neither dropped me nor fell over, so I supposed it was good enough.
He put me down gently. “Are you well, little sister?” he asked. He seemed out of breath, which cheered me. It was the first sign of physical effort I had seen in him, and it made him seem a little more human, or at least a little less distant in kind.
Before my mind’s eye flashed the image of that slim silver-haired man with Akor’s eyes. I must not think of that.
“I’m frozen solid, but aside from that, yes, I’m fine. Was it very difficult to fly carrying me?”
His laughter made steam clouds in the cold, clear night. “You are lighter by far than cattle. Were it not for having to land upright, I would hardly have noticed I bore you.”
“How do you usually land?” I asked. I did not wonder whether I might ask or not. All fear of Marik, all fear of the others of his Kindred had left me, and deep in my soul I knew that now we were here, there need be no long thought before a question was either asked or answered. We were a little like two children finding themselves together without a guardian, delighting in the privacy and whispering secrets together in the dark.
“We are made to land on four feet. It is fortunate that it was I who carried you. I know of no other of my people who has practiced such a landing.”
“You’ve practiced this?”
It was amazing to see a creature so noble and so naturally frightening actually manage to look sheepish. “I have. Ah, Lanen, you have found me out! But come, you are cold. My chambers are at hand—if you will bring wood I shall make a fire for you and tell you how I came to do such a thing.” He looked around and spied a huge log. “That will do to start,” he muttered, and effortlessly picked it up in his mouth. It wasn’t until he tried to say something around it that I started laughing. He gave me an unreadable look and moved towards a darker opening in the dark side of the hill.
I gathered a few smaller logs, still laughing. Not that the young tree trunk he carried wouldn’t burn all night, but I needed to feel useful. Besides, I was trying to make sense of my feelings. I watched the creature I had such love for walking on four feet, lifting and stretching wide silver wings stiff from the flight, long tail trailing after.
For an instant I saw a giant lizard with wings and was disgusted.
Then he spoke to my thoughts with that voice that chimed in my heart. “The entrance is here beneath the trees; I shall await you.
I breathed a sigh of relief. For he was again Kordeshkistriakor, a creature ancient and wondrous, and I did not care what shape he had, for I loved most the soul inside the form.
I followed him towards the hillside, away from the clearing in which we had landed. There was only starlight to see by, but the night was so clear it was enough. The pool I had seen from above lay open to the sky, and showed the vain stars their glorious reflections.
Akor had gone towards two of the tallest trees. They grew side by side and seemed in the starlight to be guardians, old friends who had watched together over this place for many years. He stopped before them, lowered his head and slipped between. I was amazed, there had not seemed that much of a gap. When I came close enough to see, I found there was easily fifteen feet between the two, though their ancient roots effectively blocked the passage between. It would surely be difficult for one of the Kindred to enter who did not know those roots well. It was bad enough for me, clambering over them in the starlit darkness.
Just past the trees there was a low passageway in the rock no wider than the gap between the trees, but tall enough for me to walk upright with headroom to spare. I am astounded to this day that Akor could get in and out of that passageway, but he did so with no trouble.
I took a deep breath before entering. I have never liked caves—in fact, I am afraid of them—and here I was, facing a walk in complete darkness down a passageway to I did not know where. Did the passage narrow ahead? Perhaps it came to a sudden end and Akor had forgotten that I couldn’t fly. I gripped the wood, rough in my arms, and forced myself to ignore such idiocy.
I managed to get perhaps five or six steps inside before I stopped.
I am ashamed to admit it, but the cave, the thought of a mountain of stone above me, would not be ignored, and with that senseless fear came the memory of every stupid childish tale I had ever heard about Dragons. In my terror I imagined the floor of the passage littered with human bones and worse things and I stopped moving altogether.
“Akor?” I called out weakly. I tried to force my voice to a semblance of courage but I failed completely. “Akor, where are you? I can’t see. Are you there?”
I heard something moving not far away. I jumped, my heart began to race, I dropped the wood I was carrying and put my back against the wall. I was groping for my dagger when his voice came back, loud in the darkness. “Lanen, I am here. Wait only a moment while I set Fire to this wood.”
That was the longest moment in the history of the world. I could not go back, I could not go on, I held back a scream by the merest thread. I, Lanen Kaelar, who only moments ago had been high in the air above the world and had managed to look about and forget fear, whimpered in the stony darkness.
Suddenly I heard a loud crack and a swift breath, and light blossomed like the first dawn of the world, golden, warm and comforting.
I looked about me. On the ground was only the earthen floor of the passage. The walls were smooth, the passage short before and behind me. I began to breathe again, to feel much less afraid. How powerful mere darkness was! When I stopped shaking I gathered up the wood I had dropped and walked forward into the light.
At first all I could see was Akor, the fire, and the fact that he was in a large space. I breathed easier. A large space would not be so hard to bear. I laid my wood in a pile by the entrance, for he had broken that whole huge log in two pieces and set it alight.
Then I began to look about me.
Whatever you have heard about a dragon’s hoard is both less and more than the truth. I saw no artifacts, no crowns of fallen kings, nor cups, nor stores of coin.
But there was more gold in that place than I had ever imagined existed in the world. The walls of the cave were covered with it to the depth of some inches (I could tell from the deep engraving that covered much of it), and the gold was set all over with precious gems and with nacre. Even a good quarter of the floor in one corner seemed made of solid gold, and extending towards the passage opening was a path of the same stuff, as though it were alive and growing towards the daylight.
I must have stood in the entryway for a full minute, my jaw hanging open.
Akor bowed. “Welcome, Lanen, to my chambers. Come in and warm yourself. I hope your fright is past? I did not know you feared close spaces. It is not unknown even among my people, though it is unusual. Does it help to know that in this corner of the cavern there is an opening above? It runs straight up through the hill and opens on clear air, on starlight and night breezes. When the moon rises you will be able to see it from here.”
I shook myself. The news was welcome, but I had to ask. “Akor, what is this place? And why is it—why is there so much—where did it—why do you—oh!” I gave up. I was so astounded I could not make sense of my words or my thoughts.
“Lanen? Come, bring your wood close here where the fire is laid.”
Akhor
I was disconcerted and a little
sad. I had hoped for a different reaction from the first Gedri ever to see the chambers of the Kantri. She seemed shocked. I had hoped that the firelight reflecting from the khaadish would make her feel welcome.
She could not take her eyes away from it.
I was growing impatient with her. To be distracted by such a thing, when even a youngling knew—
Akhor, Akhor, I chided myself. She is not a youngling. Perhaps she has never seen khaadish before.
“Lanen, is your fear still upon you? It is nothing to be concerned with, it is only khaadish, it is a metal like any other. More beautiful, perhaps, and certainly softer.” I gouged a trench with my foreclaw as she watched.
She finally heard the disapproval in my voice. “Akor, my friend, forgive me. I did not mean to greet you so in your home.” She bowed, her eyes on me now, as I had come to know her. My impatience melted like spring snow. “But you did not warn me. I defy any human to step in here and retain the power of speech! Akor, this is more gold than I have ever heard of. Where does it come from?”
“Gold?” I replied, surprised. It was her turn to amaze me. “Khaadish is gold? Oh, Lanen, you make me wise beyond all bearing!”
“What have I said? Akor?”
Lanen
He had turned his head away from me in the most human gesture I had seen him make. I didn’t need to ask its meaning.
“My friend, forgive me, I never meant to hurt you. What have I said?”
He answered me with his face still turned away. “In the days when our peoples lived together, there was much concern among the Gedri for ‘gold.’ It is said they killed one another for it.” His voice grew even heavier. “In those days, one of the Gedri held hostage a youngling, and would have killed it for the sake of ‘gold.’ I never knew what it was when I heard the tale, and none could tell me. I could not imagine what precious, life-giving thing it could be, which they so desired and the Kantri possessed. At one time I wondered if that was their word for our soulgems. I understand now why one of the laws between our peoples in those days was that we must meet in the open, never in the chambers of the Kantri. Ah, Lanen, your knowledge wounds me. For so base a thing!”