I left the bandages on for the moment, to give the illusion that I was still injured enough to need them.
The guard, unfortunately, was true to his word. The first fingers of sunlight were just reaching into the clearing when he returned with his master. Despite my efforts I shivered when I saw Marik. Dear Lady, that this vile creature might be my father—it was all I could do not to retch.
I watched him from my sickbed, for after the effort of dressing I had found I needed to lie down again. I was desperately weary, despite the lan fruit and the healing. Healers use their own power, but the body of the one being healed must supply the materials and bear the changes enforced on it by another’s will. I felt I could sleep for a week.
“Go,” Marik told the guard. When he saw that Rella lingered, he snapped, “You, too.”
She sneered behind his back. “You’re welcome. I’ll expect those three bags’ credit.”
“Go!” She closed the door behind her.
Marik turned to me and bowed, his lovely voice warm and his eyes unreadable. “Lady Lanen.” He seated himself in the chair by the bed.
“Marik.”
“How are you feeling?”
“My hands don’t hurt anymore,” I said, truthfully.
“I am delighted to hear it, lady. I do not wish to shock you, but have you any idea how close to death you were last night?”
“No. I remember I couldn’t stop shaking.” I hoped he wouldn’t notice that I still hadn’t.
“Maikel drained himself saving you, lady. He will be no good for anything for two full days, and without the lan fruit you might have died anyway. That is his calling, of course, and he is well paid for it—but we feared you would not see the morning. Aside from the fever, your hands”—he let that glorious voice falter—“your hands and your arms had but shreds of skin left on them.” He moved closer to me, concern writ large on his face. “What happened, Lanen?” he asked in husky tones. “What did those creatures do to you?”
“It was—my choice,” I said at last. “There was a way I could help them. They didn’t know it would burn me.” I think I managed to sound pitiful enough, and wished that more of my weakness were an act.
“What happened? You must tell me, lady.” He smiled gently, his whole demeanour intent on kindliness, the amulet around his neck brilliant in the bright dawn light. “Come, Lanen, I have saved your life, surely you owe me so much.”
I could feel the glamour through my weariness, but never again could I be fooled in that way. “Forgive me, Marik. It is true I have learned much about them: but they have enjoined me to silence, and surely you see that I will not, I cannot betray that trust. I hope for a day when our two peoples will be able to speak freely one with another, but until that time I—”
“Spare me your fool’s dreams!” he spat angrily. Despite all I knew of him, I was shocked. That voice, so musical it reminded me of the Kindred, turned to cracked bells in an instant when he was angry. He rose and flung himself around the room, pacing, half wild with impatience. “I want to know why the Dragons, who have instantly killed everyone else who has ever crossed their border, did not kill you. Not only do they not destroy you, the Guardian himself crosses the border to take you away, and a day later brings you half-dead into the camp and demands that I break their precious treaty and weary my own Healer near to death—for what? For you. I want to know why, girl. Why? What are you to them?”
I was becoming befuddled with fright and weariness, and his intensity cowed me in my weakened state. Swiftly, Rella, I begged her silently. I looked up at Marik. “I don’t know what to tell you,” I answered. “I did not cross the Boundary like poor Perrin. He was after gold or some other gain, no matter who he had to kill for it. I was not. Please, I cannot tell you more. So far as I know I am nothing to them. Let me sleep.” I bowed my head.
He was back beside the bed in an instant: he snatched a handful of my hair right next to the scalp and yanked it back as hard as he could. I screamed, of course. (Jamie always said I should never cheat anyone in earshot of the chance to help.) “You have slept enough at my expense, witch,” he snarled into my face. “Talk, or I will make you. What pact have you made with the creatures? Tell me, damn you!”
In the brief silence I thought I heard voices outside, and in through the window came just the slightest hint of the smell of smoke.
“I have made no pact!” I cried out.
“Have you not?” he said grimly, and a dagger appeared from nowhere in his hand as he gripped me by the hair. My bandaged arms were worse than useless. He held the blade against my throat, I could feel the cold steel press against my flesh. “Yet I know a way to find out the truth of the matter. Why will you not speak of the Dragons to me? What do you owe them, against the life you owe me? You were willing to tell them about me fast enough,” he growled between clenched teeth. “What kind of creature are you, with Farspeech that you use against your own kind?”
I was almost too shocked to be frightened. “What? How did you…?”
“I know,” he spat. “Leave it at that. Repay your debt, daughter. Use this Farspeech to tell them I am a man of honour, that you were wrong about me.”
“I cannot!” I cried. Even if it were possible to lie in truespeech, the vision of Marik at large among the Kindred, hidden by who knew what agency, bearing the Lady only knew what sort of weapons to use against them—never.
And below thought, down deep where I thrust it until I could bear to think of it, I heard him call me daughter, and knew it was the truth.
“So. You cannot.” His face was mere inches from mine, his eyes blazing with hatred and a kind of triumph. “Then I shall take what I want without your assistance. For I have ways and ways, Lanen. You are not the only one to have set foot across the Boundary and lived!”
I gasped, which made him laugh. The smell of smoke was stronger now, and the voices outside louder. I could not make out what they said.
“Yes, I thought that would catch you. And I did not crawl to the beasts that live there, as you did.” He smiled at me, a mad smile, but the most chilling thing about his whole demeanour was that it seemed so little different from his usual manner. Aside from an indefinable something in his eyes, his smile was still the charming smile I had first seen in Illara. I was terrified. “And now that you are healed, there is no more cause for delay. You are no more use to me, daughter,” he said, making the word a curse. “I shall turn you over to my demon master as payment.”
“The Guardian—” Hurry, Rella, damn it, it can’t be that hard….
“If you had called him, he would be here already.” The knife blade pressed hard against my throat.
I could make out what the voices were shouting now. Fire. I heard the running footsteps of what I desperately hoped were the two guards. Marik ignored it, possibly did not even hear it.
“I have not called upon them,” I managed to say past the blade. “I have no wish to destroy you, Marik.” I managed to choke out the word. “Father.”
At that instant, thank the Lady, the door burst open and Rella rushed in. “What are you doing to her?” she screamed. Marik was caught off guard, she ran straight to him and dragged him away from me.
Now it was my turn. I rose swiftly and snatched up the chair that stood near the bedside, raised it high and brought it crashing down with all my strength. Marik dropped with a groan.
Rella stood and faced me. “Come on, in the eye like we agreed,” she said impatiently. “Quickly!”
“Come with me!” I whispered urgently.
“I told you, if this doesn’t work you’ll need me here to help. Hit me, damn it!”
There was no time to argue. I drew back, muttered “Sorry about this” and hit her.
She fell back. I had held back my strength, but she had said it should be realistic. I ran to the window farthest from the door and threw open the shutters.
In just a few moments, Rella sat up and screamed. “Help, guards! Help!”
I ran.
Both Marik’s grunts came rushing back in, the idiots—if I’d done the same as last time they’d go down again the same way. Stupid.
“She’s gone!” yelled Rella, pointing at the open shutters. One went straight through the opening, the other ran round the cabin on the outside.
I rose from behind the bed, winked at Rella and flew out the door. The woods beckoned in the dawn light, and, all my weariness forgotten, I took off like a deer for their shelter.
I had gone no more than a few steps when I was seized by a sudden horrible weariness in every limb. My movements were drugged and stretched out as in a nightmare, when every step takes all your strength and no matter how you struggle, you never get anywhere. I used the last of my will to look up at the strange noise before me, and managed to catch sight of Caderan gesturing in the air and grinning wildly before darkness took me once again.
Akhor
When I next bespoke Shikrar, as noon approached, it was to find the Council still divided on my fate and Lanen’s. Our union they all (save Shikrar) discounted as madness and agreed it would have to be severed. As for our fates—there was still much debate on whether Lanen should be allowed to live. If so, it seemed most felt she should be kept here and not allowed ever to rejoin her people. A few, led by Shikrar, kept her deeds before the others’ eyes and argued for her freedom, combined with her sworn word that she would not return on pain of death. As for me, some argued that I be forced to give up the kingship and another appointed; some felt I had been gripped by a passing fancy or subtle spell and that I would be fine once Lanen had gone, one way or another; still others that I must simply be kept away from the Gedri for the rest of my life, never again to be the Harvest Guardian, and that in all other ways I was still fit for the kingship.
Shikrar’s arrival had caused quite a stir, it seemed. Rishkaan, disgruntled, had no choice but to give way to him as Eldest. At the beginning of the latest debate on Lanen’s fate one of the younger males, a distant cousin of Idai’s, called out, “Let us ask the Eldest. He is Keeper of Souls, it is his family that is most deeply involved. Let us hear the words of Hadreshikrar!”
Shikrar waited for complete silence before speaking (and got it—our people revere the wisdom that comes with age). He raised up to address the Council and stood in Righteous Anger, taking quite a few by surprise.
“My friends and my Kindred, what is this that I have heard? Much discussion of whether we should do to death the beloved of our King, or let her live alone in exile in a foreign land? I cannot believe I hear such things from the children of the Winds. Is it our place, is it our law, to deny love? Akhor has been faithful to the kingship, faithful to us all, his life long. Are we now to turn on that faithfulness, tell him he is bespelled, deny him the love he has found at last?”
“But it is the love of a base creature. A Gedri!” one voice called out.
“You, Rinshir, should know better than to flaunt your ignorance,” Shikrar shot back. “The Gedrishakrim are intelligent creatures, they can speak and reason. They are by nature no more base than we. They can become so, surely, by their own actions. If they choose to deal with the Rakshasa, then truly they are debased; but in and of themselves they are not an evil people.”
“This is a new song, Hadreshikrar,” said Rishkaan bluntly. “The debate on the nature of the Gedrishakrim is as old as our people, as old as the Choice. Always before you have spoken against the Gedri. Why are you now so changed?”
Shikrar let the appreciative murmur die down before he replied. His Attitude had not changed, but it was overlaid with Teaching, the most natural in the world to him. “Tell me, Rishkaan, was there not a time in your earliest youth when someone described flight to you before your wings were strong enough to bear you?”
“Yes, of course. What of it?”
“And was their description a good one?”
“It was good enough,” replied Rishkaan. He stood now in Defence, not liking this nor able to guess where it was going.
“And do you remember your first flight?”
“Who does not? It was the beginning of true life for me, as it is for us all.”
“Yet tell me, Rishkaan, had that good description captured the essence of flight?’
“Not for me,” he replied instantly. “There was no way the teller could describe the joys of flying to one who was earthbound. It would be like telling a fish about singing.” There was some scattered laughter. I laughed myself, in the brightness of my chambers. Shikrar had made his point well.
“Then, my old friend, how should I not change my view of the Gedri once I had met and spoken with one of them, especially this one?” He turned to the others, and his voice began to deepen. He stood in Anger and Teaching still, but with Authority now behind all. “All of you, my Kindred, have spoken of the impossibility of this joining between Akhor and the Gedri female Lanen, that they must dissolve a bond of love, a Flight of the Devoted even if only flown in the mind. But of you, who has ever spoken to a child of the Gedri? Speak now, let me know your names.”
The silence spoke loudly indeed.
“Yet you are so quick to condemn. Why? What harm does their love do to you? They have no illusions of joining, they have both condemned themselves to a life of barrenness, for the sake of this bond they did not ask for but cannot deny.”
“How can they have flown the Flight of the Devoted in mind only!” cried Erianss. “It is impossible. Flight is part of our being, we are made for it, it is life and rejoicing to us. Can Akhor deny it? The Gedri is earthbound, the two of them can never meet in the skies. Why then should such an imaginary ‘Flight’ be honoured?”
Shikrar altered his Attitude, and Rebuke was clearly reflected in his stance. “Erianss, hear now the words of the Eldest. We respect age for many reasons, among them the fact that age has seen much that youth has not, and does not have to rediscover fire. Youngling, in my own youth I knew both a lady with a misshapen wing and an Elder who had found his mate late in life. Neither could fly when they took their mates, yet both flew the Flight of the Devoted and lived out their lives together with their chosen ones, none the worse for it. I spoke to the lady once about it and she told me they had flown together in a vision, just as Akhor described his Flight to me.”
“With respect, Eldest,” said Rishkaan with a hiss, “you are not impartial in this. I believe you would defend a Raksha who had saved the lives of your loved ones. You do not see the Gedri with clear eyes.”
Shikrar did not respond immediately, but drew in his breath and began the Discipline of Calm. When it was completed, he answered.
“I have a question for you, Rishkaan. If a Raksha had saved your life, would you not question its very existence as a Raksha, a creature of chaos and darkness? For in saving your life it would have gone against its very nature. Thus it would be an unnatural demon, which might be a very good thing indeed for it as a soul, but very bad for it as a demon.
“My Kindred, Akhor did not exaggerate when he said this little one might well die from her efforts on behalf of Mirazhe. We all heard her cry of pain; I saw with my own eyes the wounds she had from too close contact with Mirazhe’s inner fire. Before you condemn my impartiality, before you deny my wisdom in your own outrage and ignorance, think well on this and speak who dares; who among you would undergo such torture for an unknown child of the Gedrishakrim?”
There was silence in the Great Hall, but my heart rejoiced at his words. “Bless you Shikrar, the Winds bless you, you have saved us. I have never heard you speak so. I thank you from my soul in the name of the Winds of our Kindred and the Lady of the Gedrishakrim.”
“Thank me when all is over, Akhorishaan. There is much yet to do.”
Marik
This time the Messenger appeared from Berys. Just as well; Maikel would not be able to heal my arm again for some time yet.
“Yes, Magister? What would you?”
“How go your preparations for the dedication?” he asked.
&
nbsp; “Well enough. Caderan seems in no difficulty,” I replied.
“I would speak with him. Is he nearby?”
“Near enough.” I sent for Caderan to attend me. “The girl is fully healed.”
“How?” Berys sounded faintly surprised. “From what you told me of her injuries I thought it would be days at least.”
“So did I. The idiot old woman I have attending the girl fed her the whole lan fruit instead of half. It means I have had none, but I know now that legend, if anything, is less than the truth. Even with all the effort of my Healer, he was not certain that she would live through the night.” I rubbed my head absently, cursing when my fingers found the lump at the back. “The bitch is well enough to have knocked me out with a chair when she tried to escape. Caderan has her in a sorcerous sleep; she will not be allowed to wake again until the ritual is prepared.”
“Good.” The demon Messenger had a slimy smile on its grotesque face, and I got the impression that Berys was laughing at me.
“Magister?” said Caderan’s voice from the door. “What do you want of me?”
“I would go over the ritual with you,” he said. “Marik, do you leave us. This is not for you to hear.”
I left cheerfully. The minutiae of demon summoning has always bored me. It is best left in the hands of those who find interest in such details. I went out to supervise the salvage of what was left of the storage shed. Luckily very few bags of leaves were actually destroyed, as I have them conveyed to the ship on a regular basis, but it was a nuisance and had distracted my guards long enough to allow the woman Rella to disturb me.
I had her brought to me for a fitting rebuke for that disturbance and for giving the girl the whole of the lan fruit, though I moderated it as she was the one who had discovered the fire in time to save most of the contents of the shed. Still, she looked unbalanced with one eye swollen and black. The second, which I gave her, was a great improvement.